The Big Bang

I said, "Except those punks didn't know that."

"Apparently not," Harrin said.

Then he patted Billy's hand, straightened, and smiled. "Well, son, don't fret about any of this. I appreciate your attitude and I'm glad you took the stand you did. In the future, you come to me, if anything like this ever comes up ... understood?"

Billy's face brightened. "Understood, Dr. Harrin. And ... look, I'm really sorry."

"I'm sorry, too—that you got bashed up. Now you stay put until Dr. Sprague releases you. I'll only be gone for a week, and you can get back to work when I return."

"Then you are going?"

Harrin nodded, smiling. "Finally decided somebody might know more on a subject or two than I do, and that I'd better catch up." He glanced at me and explained, "Medical convention in Paris. Haven't been there since the war."

Billy, his voice lighter now, said, "See if you can snag me Bardot's autograph, would you, Doc?"

Harrin chuckled and patted the kid's arm. His affection for the boy was nice to see.

Outside the building the doctor put a hand on my shoulder. "Anything I can pick up for you in Paris, my friend?"

"When you're getting Bardot's autograph," I said, "tell Bebe her Mike misses her, okay?"

We exchanged grins, and I flagged down a cab to get me back to midtown. I gave the driver the address of the Blue Ribbon on West Forty-fourth Street and fired up the last butt from my pack of Luckies.

The city unwound past the window, the sidewalks sparse with people, the work force on trains heading home by now, the city enjoying its temporary lull before darkness settled in and the night people took over. Everything seemed peaceful enough.

But so does dynamite until somebody touches a flame to the fuse.

Pat finished his knockwurst, washed it down with a beer, and belched. "Damn, that was good."

"Sounds like it."

He smirked at me. "And I suppose you never belch, Mike?"

"Naw. I got too much class to belch in public."

"Yeah?"

"I fart instead."

Pat's face twisted sourly. "Man, you are one nasty piece of work."

"Which is why the dolls dig me. They go for Neanderthal types."

"That's the best explanation of your appeal I ever heard."

Two after-dinner coffees arrived, and Pat said, "Tell me you've been behaving yourself since last we met."

"What do you think?"

He took on that same old troubled look and he shook his head. "I thought I told you to lay off...."

"Hell, I was curious, Pat. I poked around a little bit. Can you blame me?"

"That's how it all starts with you, buddy. You get curious, then somebody gets suddenly dead. I don't know how it goes down, but it does go down, and then everything turns to shit. You make things work out so that you only get dirty around the edges, not enough to need a bath or anything, and me? I wind up having to go around holding hands and pacifying the damn politicos who are screaming for your head."

I just shrugged and said, "So what are friends for?"

"Balls," he scowled.

I changed the subject to improve his digestion, but somehow we got back again to those charmers who took Billy down. The one in the hospital still couldn't be interrogated, the docs said, and his condition hadn't changed any.

I asked, "Anybody going to look into the drug scene in that neck of the woods?"

"Mike, the narco squad is busy all over town. We haven't got enough manpower to bust every little pissin' pusher. Hell, you know how these courts are today—the kids say they're sorry and get their wrists slapped and are dropped right back onto the streets. The only way we'll ever control this beast is if we can figure a way to stop the flow of stuff into the country."

I shrugged. "If our government ever puts a financial squeeze on the countries growing the junk, we might just manage that."

"How, in God's name?" Pat tried his coffee and put it down when it was too hot. "Look at opium. They grow it legally, supposedly for medical purposes. They sell only so much straight, because they have to, and hold back the rest for the black market, where they triple their take. Hell, man, the growers are only poor farmers who don't know any better since they only handle the raw product. It's the ones processing the stuff into heroin and shipping it out who need to be nailed. But right now, old buddy? They have the large loot to make payoffs, and the political power to keep the lid on the racket."

I said, "It has to end sometime."

"Yeah. When the world does." He shifted in his seat. "Right now there's an alert out for a massive heroin shipment being held for delivery someplace on the European coast. The syndicate operation here, your old pals the Evello Family, seem to have a cute little operation for getting the stuff in that nobody's been able to figure. For the past six months, the stuff's been delivered in small lots until they're sure their new procedure is foolproof. Now they're ready to go for the big bang."

"Oh? How big?"

"About fifty million dollars big, when it's cut and hits the street."

I let out a low whistle. "Pretty big at that, chum. Adds up to a whole lot of needle marks."

"Shit," Pat spat out. "Whole lot of robberies, muggings, and murders, you mean. Whole lot of kids dead, not to mention your occasional decadent celebrity. You got a damn good look at it the other day."

"Nothing I haven't seen before."

"And don't give me your crap about stopping the traffic in drugs. There's too much money to be made. It can't be stopped." He searched my face and scowled again. "What's so funny about that?"

"Just something I read today. A slogan."

"Yeah?"

I repeated, "'The man who says it can't be done is interrupted by the man who just did it.'"

Pat looked up at the ceiling in total disgust. "Oh great, just great. Hit 'em with a slogan. That'll do it. That'll show the big boys."

"Maybe it will," I said.

His eyes came down slowly, watched me, got mad for a second, then he grunted through a sarcastic smile. "You're just talking, right?"

"You been doing most of the talking."

"You're not getting into this..." He was frowning so hard he was inventing new lines in his face. "You're not tilting at this windmill, are you, Mike?"

"What windmill?"

"Drugs. Narcotics. Junk. Shit."

"No," I said.

"No?"

"No. I talked to Billy Blue, he's resting up, healing up, the bad guys are dead or maybe dying. My work here is done."

Pat was studying me now, the way you do a junkyard dog that's just sitting there wagging its tail at you. "I wish I could believe you, Mike."

I wasn't kidding, but I knew there was no convincing him, so I let it go.

I had sat too long in one position and the wound on my side was feeling like leather drying in the sun, pulling everything in with it.

Pat offered to drive me back to my apartment, but I opted to walk, told him so long, and took off east on Forty-fourth Street at an easy lope.

At Sixth Avenue a pair of hookers in miniskirts and blouses that were all chest almost gave me a pitch, but turned it off after a second glance. Sometimes vice cops can even look like vice cops, and I grinned at them for giving me the benefit of the doubt.

"Business must be off," I said, waiting for the light, "if a couple dolls like you don't have any takers."