I'm not worried about that .38-well, I'm worried, who the hell wants to get shot but I'm not really worried about it so long as that soup is out of the way. I don't want to have a scuffle anywhere near that explosive. I've faced guns before, but intro is another kiling one uun want them blotting me off the wall.
I wonder if she smokes.
"How have you been, Virginia?" Byrnes asked.
"You can cut it right now, Lieutenant."
"Cut what?"
"The sweet talk. I didn't come here to listen to any of your crap. I heard enough of that last time I was here."
"That was a long time ago, Virginia."
"Five years, three months, and seventeen days. That's how long ago it was."
"We don't make the laws, Virginia," Byrnes said gently.
"We only enforce them.
And when a person breaks ..
"I don't want a lecture. My husband is dead. Steve Carella sent him up. That's good enough for me."
"Steve only arrested him. A jury tried him, and a judge sentenced him."
"But Carella..
"Virginia, you're forgetting something, aren't you?"
"What?"
"Your husband blinded a man."
"That was an accident."
"Your husband fired a gun at a man during a holdup and deprived that man of his eyesight. And he didn't fire the gun by accident."
"He fired because the man began yelling cop. What would you have done?"
"I wouldn't have been holding up a gas station to begin with."
"No, huh? Big simon-pure Lieutenant Byrnes. I heard all about your junltie son, Lieutenant. The big shot cop with the drug addict son."
"That was a long time ago, too, Virginia.
My son is all right now."
He could never think back to that time in his life without some pain. Oh, not as much as in the beginning, no, there would never again be that much pain for him, the pain of discovering that his only son was a tried and-true drug addict, hooked through the bag and back again. A drug addict possibly involved in a homicide. Those had been days of black pain for Peter Byrnes, days when he had withheld information from the men of his own squad, until finally he had told everything to Steve Carella. Carella had almost lost his life working on that case. It had been touch and go after he'd been shot, and no man ever had prayed the way Byrnes did for any other man's recovery.
But it was all over now, except for the slight twinge of pain whenever he thought of it. The habit had been kicked, the household was in order. And now, Steve Carella, a man Byrnes almost considered as another son, had a rendezvous with a woman in black. And the woman in black spelled death.
"I'm glad your son is all right now," Virginia said sarcastically.
"My husband isn't. My husband is dead. And the way I read it, Carella killed him. Now let's cut the crap, shall we?"
"I'd rather talk awhile."
"Then talk to yourself. I'm not interested."
Byrnes sat on the corner of the desk. Virginia shifted the purse in her lap, the revolver pointing into the opening.
"Don't come any closer, Lieutenant. I'm warning you."
"What are your plans, exactly, Virginia?"
"I've already told you. When Carella gets here, I'm going to kill him. And then I'm going to leave. And if anyone tries to stop me, I drop the bag with the nitro."
"Suppose I try to get that gun away from you right this minute?"
"I wouldn't if I were you."
"Suppose I tried?"
"I'm banking on something, Lieutenant."
"What's that?"
"The fact that no man is really a hero. Whose life is more important to you-yours or Carella's? You make a try for the gun, and there's a chance the nitro will go off in your face.
Your face, not his. All right, you'll have saved Carella. But you'll have-destroyed yourself."
"Carella may mean a lot to me, Virginia. I might be willing to die for him."
"Yeah? And how much does he mean to the other men in this room? Would they be willing to die for him, too? Or for the crumby salary they're getting from the city? Why don't you take a vote, Lieutenant, and find out how many of your men are ready to lay down their lives rig at now? Go ahead. Take a vote."
He did not want to take a vote. He was not that familiar with courage or heroics.
He knew that each of the men in the room had acted heroically and courageously on many an occasion. But bravery in action was a thing dictated by the demands of the moment. Faced with certain death, would these men be willing to take an impossible gamble? He was not sure. But he felt fairly certain that given the choice "Your life or Carella's?" they would most probably choose to let Carella die. Selfish?
Perhaps.
Inhuman? Perhaps. But life was not something you could walk into a dime store to buy again if you happened to use one up or wear it out. Life was a thing you clung to and cherished. And even knowing Carella as he did, even (and the word was hard coming for a man like Byrnes) loving Carella, he dared not ask himself the question "Your life or Carella's?" He was too afraid of the answer he might give.
"How old are you, Virginia?"
"What difference does it make?"
"I'd like to know."
"Thirty-two."
Byrnes nodded.
"I look older, don't I?"
"A little."
