Hornet's Nest

  "When?"

  "Immediately."

  "And we can put that in the paper," Panesa said.

  Hammer had to laugh. She liked this man.

  "Tell you what," Hammer said.

  "You put that in the paper, but do me a favor. Leave out the part about why Brazil was hiding in an alleyway."

  Panesa had to think about this for a moment. Generally, cops abusing their power, harassing a citizen, was a much better story than something positive, such as a citizen helping, or making a difference by doing the right thing, and demonstrating community responsibility and being appreciated for it.

  "Now listen," Hammer spoke again.

  "It happens again, then run it one-A, Richard, okay? I wouldn't blame you. But don't punish the entire police department because of one asshole."

  "Which asshole?" Now Panesa was really interested, and maybe pulling Hammer's chain just a little.

  "It's been taken care of." Hammer had nothing more to say about it.

  "What's Brazil's phone number? I'm going to call him."

  This impressed Panesa even more. The publisher could see Brazil beyond glass. As usual, Brazil was in early, working on something no one had asked him to do. Panesa scanned a phone sheet and gave Hammer Brazil's extension. Panesa thoroughly enjoyed watching Brazil's stunned expression when he snatched up his phone a moment later and it was the chief of police.

  "Judy Hammer," the familiar voice was strong over the line.

  "Yes, ma'am." Brazil sat up straighter, knocked over his coffee, shoved back his chair and grabbed notepads out of the way of a tepid flood.

  "Look, I know all about last night," the chief went straight to the point.

  "I just want you to hear from me that this sort of behavior is absolutely not condoned by the Charlotte Police Department. It is not condoned by me and will not be repeated.

  Please accept my apology, Andy. "

  Hearing her say his name made him warm all over. His ears turned red.

  "Yes, ma'am," was all he seemed capable of uttering, repeatedly.

  He used words for a living, and were there any available when he needed them? He was devastated when she hung up. She had to think he was lobotomized, a wimp, a dolt. He could have at least thanked her, for God's sake! Brazil wiped up coffee. He stared blankly into his computer screen. She wouldn't get on the phone if he called her back, he supposed. She would be off on other important things by now. No way she'd waste any more time on him. Brazil was oblivious to the story he was writing about First Union Bank's minimal losses in a fraud case.

  Tommy Axel, not so far away, typically, did not exist.

  'w Axel had been looking at Brazil all morning, and was certain Brazil's feelings were stirring. The guy was blushing even as Axel stared. That definitely was a good sign. Axel could hardly concentrate on his Wynona Judd review, which was unfortunate for her. What might have been a splashy story about her latest fabulous album was destined for mindless jargon that no doubt would cost her millions in sales.

  Axel had that power. He sighed, working up the courage to ask Brazil yet one more time to do dinner, a concert, or a club with male strippers. Maybe he could get Brazil drunk, get him to smoke a little dope, jazz him up and show him what life was about.

  ^^ tw Brazil was in despair as he glanced again at the phone. Oh, what the hell. What happened to having guts? He grabbed the receiver, flipped through his Rolodex, and dialed.

  "Chief Hammer's office," a man answered.

  Brazil cleared his throat.

  "Andy Brazil with the Observer," he said in a remarkably steady voice.

  "I wonder if I might have a word with her."

  "And this is in regard to what?"

  Brazil was not about to be scared off the case. It was too late. There was no place to run, really.

  "I'm returning her phone call," he bravely said, as if it were perfectly normal for the chief to call him and for him to get back to her.

  Captain Horgess was thrown off. What did Hammer do? Dial this reporter's number herself? Horgess hated it when she did that instead of placing all calls through him. Damn it. He couldn't keep track of that woman. She was out of control. Horgess punched the hold button without bothering to tell Brazil. Two seconds later. Hammer's voice was on the line, shocking Brazil.

  "I'm sorry to bother you," he quickly said to her.

  "That's quite all right. What can I help you with?" she replied.

  "Oh, not a thing. I mean this isn't about a story. I just wanted to thank you for what you did."

  Hammer was quiet. Since when did reporters thank her for anything?

  Brazil interpreted the silence wrongly. Oh God, now she really thought he was stupid.

  "Well, I won't take up your time." He was talking faster and faster, thoroughly decompensating.

  "Uh, I, well. It's just that it was a big thing to do. I thought so. When you didn't have to.

  Someone in your position, I mean. Most wouldn't. "

  Hammer smiled, drumming her nails on a stack of paperwork. She needed a manicure.

  "I'll see you around the department," she told him, and her heart was pricked as she hung up.

  She had two sons and they hurt her on a regular basis. This did not prevent her from calling them every Sunday night, or setting up a college trust for the grand babies and offering to send plane tickets whenever a visit was possible. Hammer's sons did not have her drive, and she secretly blamed this on the bad genetic wiring of their father, who was all egg white and no yolk, in truth. No bloody wonder it had always required so many tries for Hammer to get pregnant. As it turned out, Seth's sperm count could be done on one hand. Randy and Jude were single, with families. They were still finding themselves in Venice Beach and Greenwich Village. Randy wanted to be an actor. Jude played drums in a band. Both of them were waiters. Hammer adored them.

  Seth did not, and this was directly related to how seldom they came to town and why their mother ached in private.

  The chief was suddenly depressed. She felt as if she might be coming down with something. She buzzed Captain Horgess.

  "What do I have scheduled for lunch?" she asked.

  "Councilman Snider," came the reply.

  "Cancel him and get West on the phone," she said.

  "Tell her to meet me in my office at noon."

  y The Presto Grill was an acronym for Peppy ^ Rapid Efficient Service Tops Overall, and was r not in a good part of town. Every cop in the greater Charlotte-Mecklenburg area knew that Hammer and West ate breakfast at the Presto every Friday morning This was monitored far more closely than the cops supposed either woman knew, for there wasn't an officer interested in survival who would take even the slimmest chance that something bad might happen to the chief or deputy chief on his beat.

  The small grill looked as it had in the forties, when it was built. It was on West Trade Street and surrounded by eroded parking lots, just down from the Mount Moriah Primitive Baptist Church. Hammer preferred walking from headquarters when the weather was nice, as it was this day. West never walked when she could ride, but it was not her call.

  "Nice suit," Hammer said to West, who had opted to give her uniform a day off and was dressed in a red blouse, and a bright blue pants suit.

  "Why do you never wear skirts?" Hammer asked her.

  It was not a criticism, just curiosity. West had a very nice figure and slender legs.

  "I hate skirts," West said, breathing hard, for Hammer did not walk at a normal pace.

  "I think hose and high heels are a male conspiracy.

  Like binding feet. To cripple us. Slow us down. " She breathed.

  "Interesting," Hammer considered.

  "W David One Officer Troy Saunders spotted them first and was instantly palsied by indecision as he quickly turned off on Cedar Street, out of sight. Did he alert his buddies out here? He was reliving the nightmare of Hammer's surprise appearance at roll call, and her severe warning about cops following people and harassing, spying, tailing
, no matter the motive. Wouldn't it be harassment, in the chiefs eyes, if he, Saunders, instigated her and West being spied upon, or tailed, during lunch? Christ. Saunders came to a dead halt in an All Right parking lot, his heart out of control.

  He checked his mirrors, and scanned parked cars, deliberating. It wasn't worth the risk, he decided. Especially since he had been right there, and had heard every word Hammer had said to Goode. The chief sure as hell could check roll call, and know for a fact that Saunders had been sitting three chairs away from her. She'd be all over his ass for insubordination, for disobeying a direct order. He was certain that her eyes had burned through him when she'd said. Next time, it will cost you. Saunders raised no one on his radio. He parked in the farthest corner of the pay lot and smoked.

  "s9 By twenty minutes past noon, the regulars had found their favorite stools lining the Formica counter inside the grill. Gin Rummy was the last to sit, the usual banana in his back pocket that he planned to save for later on in the day when he got hungry again while driving his red and white Ole Dixie taxicab.

  "You can fix me a hamburger?" Gin Rummy asked Spike at the grill.

  "Yeah, we can fix you a hamburger," Spike said, pushing the bacon press.

  "Know it's early."

  "Man, it's not early." Spike scraped clean an area of the grill, and slapped down a frozen hamburger patty.

  "When's the last time you looked at a clock, Rummy?"

  His friends called him that for short. Rummy smiled, shaking his head sheepishly. He usually came in for breakfast but was running a little late today. Seems like those two white ladies usually came in for breakfast, too. Maybe that was the problem. Everything was confusing.

  He shook his head again, grinned, and adjusted his banana so he didn't bruise any part of it.

  "Why you carry your banana like that?" asked his neighbor, Jefferson Davis, who operated a yellow Caterpillar and still bragged that he had helped build US Bank

  "Put it in your shirt pocket." He tapped the pocket on Rummy's red-checked shirt.

  "Then you don't sit on it."

  Other men at the counter, and there were eight of them, got into a deep discussion about Rummy's banana and Davis's suggestion. Some were eating beef tips and gravy, others sticking with the fried liver mush collard greens, and cheese grits.

  "I put it in my shirt pocket and I see it the whole time I'm driving," Rummy was trying to explain his philosophy.

  "Then I eat it sooner.

  See? It never makes it till three or four o'clock. "

  "Then stick it in the glove box."

  "No room in there."

  "What about the passenger's seat up front? All your fares ride in back, right?" Spike set down the burger, all the way, thousand island instead of mayo, double American cheese, and fried onions on the side.

  "Won't work. Sometimes bags go up front." Rummy neatly cut his lunch in half.

  "Or I pick up four fares at the bus station, and one of 'em gotta go up there. They see a banana on the seat, think I eat on the job."

  "Well, you do, man."

  "That's so."

  "The truth."

  "Tell it, brother."

  "Not with no one in with me, I don't." Rummy shook his head, chewing, the banana remaining in his back pocket, where it belonged.

  Hammer did not recall the Presto being this loud. She eyed the men at the counter, halfway expecting them to get into a fight any minute.

  Seems one told another to stick something somewhere, and others were agreeing. She hadn't been in a good fight in a while, if she didn't count arguments with Seth. Of course, she was no fool. She knew there were at least twenty patrol cars cruising the area, watching every bit of Cobb salad she speared with her fork. It was annoying, but she didn't blame her troops, and in fact appreciated their attention and care. She found it touching, even though she knew the motive was their butts and not her wellbeing, really.

  "I probably should have confronted her in private," Hammer was saying.

  West wished Hammer had reprimanded Goode in front of the entire police department, all sixteen hundred of them, or at a televised city council meeting.

  "You're being too hard on yourself," West diplomatically said, as she finished her Reuben and fries.

  "I swear, the food here really is the best," said Hammer.

  "Look at those hash browns. Everything from scratch."

  West watched Spike cooking, flinging, slamming away, as men on their stools continued arguing about where to hide stolen goods, or maybe drugs. The glove box. Under the seat. On their persons. West couldn't believe how brazen criminals were these days. While it was true that she and her chief were both in plain clothes, everyone knew who they were, and West's portable radio was upright on the table, chattering away. Did these dudes care, were they even remotely intimidated by the law?

  "Tell you what," one of them railed on, jabbing a finger at the one with the red-checked shirt.

  "You want to know what to do with it? I'm here to tell you. Eat it. Quick before anybody sees. Then what's anybody gonna say 'bout it? Huh?"

  "Can't say nothing."

  "Not one thing."

  "You got that right."

  "Sitting on it ain't the answer, Rummy," Spike spoke his mind.

  "Besides, it's not like you can't get the same thing here. High quality, imported, good price. Fresh every morning." He folded a ham and cheese omelet.

  "But oh no. Every stinking day you come in with the same damn thing stuffed in your pocket. Like what? Maybe you think you're impressing the women or something? Make 'em think you're happy to see 'em?"

  Everyone laughed, except West, head of investigations for the city.

  She was going to get some of her guys on this right away, and bust this ring wide open, trace it back to Colombia, get the DEA in on it, if need be.

  "Drugs," she mouthed to her boss.

  Hammer was preoccupied, and still so angry at Goode that Hammer's blood felt hot as it raced around her body. How dare that lamebrain over promoted bitch jeopardize the reputation of the entire police department and of women everywhere. Hammer could not remember the last time she was this furious. West was enraged, too, Hammer could tell, and found this somewhat soothing. Not many people understood what it was like to have Hammer's responsibility and stress, and West had integrity, damn it. She knew how wrong it was to abuse power.

  "Can you believe it?" West asked her, angrily crumpling her napkin as she glared at the drug dealer in his red- checked shirt, with a banana in his back pocket.

  "Can you believe people?"

  Hammer shook her head, about to boil over.

  "No," she said.

  "I never ceased to be amazed ..."

  Both of them got quiet as the call came over the radio.

  "Any unit in the area, six hundred block West Trade. Robbery in progress, armed white male on a bus, robbing passengers ..."

  Hammer and West were on their feet and running out the door to the Greyhound bus terminal next door. David One units were responding, but it seemed not one car was within blocks. This baffled Hammer as she ran with some difficulty in high-heeled Ferragamos. West was slightly behind her. They ran around the station to a lane on the side where a forty-seven-passenger bus filled to capacity was idling, with doors open wide.

  "We'll get on pretending to be passengers," West whispered as they slowed their pace.

  Hammer nodded, knowing exactly how this would go down.

  "I'll go first," she said.

  This was not quite what West had in mind, but the last thing she intended to do now or ever was imply that

  Hammer had forgotten how to be a cop. Hammer's black pumps were loud on metal steps as she smiled, climbing aboard, oblivious and on her way somewhere. People were terrorized in their seats as the sinister young white male made his way down the aisle, collecting wallets, cash, jewelry, and dropping them in a plastic trash bag.

  "Excuse me," Hammer politely said to anyone listening.

>   Magic the Man whipped around, and fixed on the fine lady in her fine black suit as she spotted his gun. Her smile faded and she froze, as did another lady right behind her. This was getting better. These bitches looked rich.

  "Is this the bus for Kannapolis?" the older bitch in black stammered.

  "This is the bus for you giving me your money." Magic jabbed the . 22 pistol her way.