Hornet's Nest

  He had seen, heard, and read the news. Seth knew the terrible thing he had done to himself. Most of all, he knew what he had done to her and his family. Honestly, he had never meant any of it. When he was in his right mind, he'd rather die than hurt anyone. He loved his wife and could not live without her. If he ruined her career in this city, then what? She could go anywhere, and it would be ever so much easier for her to leave him behind, as she had already threatened, if she had to move anyway.

  "How are things with you?" Seth mumbled as Leeza argued with a gender-reassigned plumber who had cleavage.

  "Don't you worry about me," Hammer firmly said, patting him again.

  "All that matters right now is that you get better. Think positively, honey. The mind affects everything. No negativity."

  This was like telling the dark side of the moon to lighten up a bit.

  Seth stared at her. He couldn't remember the last time she'd called him honey. Maybe never.

  "I don't know what to say," he told her.

  She knew precisely what he meant. He was poisoned by remorse and guilt and shame. He had set out to ruin her life and the lives of his children, and was getting good at it. He ought to feel like shit, if the truth was told.

  "You don't have to say anything," Hammer gently reassured him.

  "What's done is done. Now we move on. When you leave here, we're going to get you some help. That's all that matters now."

  He shut his eyes and tears swam behind the lids. He saw a young man in baggy white trousers, and bow tie and snappy hat, grinning and happy on a sunny morning as he skipped down the granite steps of the Arkansas state capitol. Seth had been charming and sure of himself once. He had known how to have fun, and party with the rest of them, and tell funny tales. Psychiatrists had tried Prozac, Zoloft, Nortriptylene, and lithium. Seth had been on diets. He had stopped drinking once. He had been hypnotized and had gone to three meetings of Overeater's Anonymous. Then he had quit all of it.

  "There's no hope," he sobbed to his wife.

  "Nothing left but to die."

  "Don't you dare say that," she said, her voice wavering.

  "You hear me, Seth? Don't you dare say that!"

  "Why isn't my love enough for you!" he cried.

  "What love?" She stood, anger peeking around her curtain of self-control.

  "Your idea of love is waiting for me to make you happy while you do nothing for yourself. I am not your caretaker. I am not your zookeeper. I am not your innkeeper. I am not your keeper, period." She was pacing furiously in his small private room.

  "I am supposed to be your partner, Seth, your friend, your lover. But you know what? If this were tennis, I'd be playing goddamn singles in a goddamn doubles match on both sides of the net while you sat in the shade hogging all the balls and keeping your own private score!"

  tw Brazil had spent the better part of the morning wondering if he should call West to see if she wanted to play some tennis. That would be innocent enough, wouldn't it? The last thing he wanted was to give her the satisfaction of thinking he cared a hoot that he hadn't heard from her in three and a half days. He parked at the All Right lot on West Trade, near Presto's, and went inside the grill for coffee, starved, but saving himself for something healthy. Later, he'd drop by the Just Fresh, the eat well feels good fast food restaurant in the atrium of First Union. That and Wendy's grilled chicken filet sandwiches with no cheese or mayonnaise were about all he lived on these days, and he was losing weight. He secretly wondered if he were getting anorexic.

  He sat at the counter, stirring black SD coffee, waiting for Spike to stop cracking eggs with one hand over a bowl. Brazil wanted to chat.

  The Michelob Dry clock on the wall over Spike's head read ten-forty-five. There was so much to do, and Brazil had to get it done by four p. m. " when his beat for the newspaper formally began. As much as Packer loved Brazil's scoops, the regular news of burglaries, robberies, rapes, suicides, fistfights in sports bars, white-collar bank crimes, drug busts, domestic problems, dog bites, and other human interest stories needed to be covered. Most of those reports Webb stole long before anyone else could see them. In fact, the situation was so acute, that the rest of the media now referred to the Charlotte Police Department's press basket as The Webb Site.

  W> West, having recalled Brazil's early complaint about this, had finally done her bit by calling Channel 3 and complaining to the general manager. This had solved nothing. Nor was Goode receptive when West had brought it up to her, not realizing that Goode, in fact, regularly logged into The Webb Site. These days she and Brent Webb parked all over the city in her Miata. This was not due to a problem with their going to her apartment, where she lived alone. The risk of exposure was a huge turn-on to the couple. It was not unusual for them to park within blocks of his house, where his wife waited dinner for him, and picked up his dirty clothes, and sorted his socks.

  The task force West had assembled to investigate drug deals going down at the Presto Grill also had much dirt to find, sort through, and hopefully match with other crime trends in the city. Mungo was an undercover detective, and he was eating grilled chicken tips and gravy in the grill, while Brazil, whom Mungo did not know, sipped black coffee. Mungo had gotten his street name for obvious reasons. He was a mountain in jeans and Panthers T-shirt, his wallet chained to his belt, long bushy hair tied back, and a bandana around a sloping forehead. He wore an earring. Mungo was smoking, one eye squinting as he watched the blond guy quiz Spike at the grill.

  "No, man." Spike was flipping a burger and chopping hash browns.

  "See, none's from around here, know what I mean?" He spoke with a heavy Portuguese accent.

  "Where they come from doesn't matter," Brazil said.

  "It's what happens once they get here. Look, the source of the bad shit going down is right where we are." He was talking the language, drumming his index finger on the counter.

  "Local. I'm sure of it. What do you think?"

  Spike wasn't going to explore this further, and Muneo's radar was locked in. That blond pretty-boy looked familiar. It seemed Mungo had seen him somewhere, and that made him only more convinced that he was going to develop Blondie as a suspect. But first things first. Mungo needed to sit here a little longer, see what else was going down, and he hadn't finished his breakfast.

  "I need more toast," he said to Spike as Blondie left.

  "Who's he?"

  Mungo jerked his head in the direction of the shutting front door.

  Spike shrugged, having learned long ago not to answer questions, and Mungo was a cop. Everybody knew it. Spike started filling a toothpick holder while Brazil made his next stop. Adjoining the Presto was the Traveler's Hotel, where one could get a room for as little as fifty dollars per week, depending on how well one negotiated with Bink Lydle at the desk. Brazil asked his questions to Lydle and got the same information he'd been handed next door.

  Lydle was not especially hospitable, his arms folded across his narrow chest as he sat behind the scarred reception desk, with its bell and one-line telephone. He informed this white boy that Lydle knew nothing about these businessmen being whacked around here, and couldn't imagine that the 'source of this bad shit going down' was local.

  Lydle, personally, had never seen anyone who made him auspicious, certainly not in his hotel, which was a city landmark, and the place to go back in the days of the Old Southern Train Station.

  Brazil walked several blocks to Fifth Street and found Jazzbone's Pool Hall. Brazil decided that somebody was going to talk to him, even if he had to take a risk. At this early hour, Jazzbone's wasn't doing much business, just a few guys sitting around drinking Colt 45, smoking,

  telling favorite stories about binges, and women, and winning at numbers. Pool tables with shabby green felt were deserted, balls in their triangles, waiting for tonight when the place would be crowded and dangerous until the boozy early morning. If anyone knew what was going on in the neighborhood, Jazzbone was the man.

  "I'm l
ooking for Jazzbone," Brazil said to the drinking buddies.

  One of them pointed to the bar, where Jazzbone, in plain view, was opening a case of Schlitz, and aware of the golden-hair dude dressed like college.

  "Yeah!" Jazzbone called out.

  "What you need."

  Brazil walked across cigarette-burned, whisky-smelling carpet. A cockroach scuttled across his path, and salt and cigarette ashes were scattered over every table Brazil passed. The closer he got to Jazzbone, the more he noticed details. Jazzbone wore gold rings, fashioned of diamond clusters and coins, on every finger. The gold crowns on his front teeth had heart and clover cut-outs. He wore a semiautomatic pistol on his right hip. Jazzbone was neatly replacing bottles of beer in the cooler.

  "All we got cold right now is Pabst Blue Ribbon," Jazzbone said.

  Last night had been busy and had wiped Jazzbone out. He had a feeling this boy wanted something other than beer, but he wasn't undercover, like Mungo. Jazzbone could smell police and the Feds the minute they hit the block. He couldn't remember the last time he was fooled.

  Jazzbone only got spanked by the other dudes out there, people coming into his establishment looking just like him, guns and all.

  "I'm with the Charlotte Observer," said Brazil, who knew when it was better to be a volunteer cop, and when not.

  "I'd like your help, sir."

  "Oh yeah?" Jazzbone stopped putting away beer, and had always known he'd make a good story.

  "What kind of help? This for the paper?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Polite, too, giving the man respect. Jazzbone scrutinized him, and started chewing on a stirrer, cocking one eyebrow.

  "So, what you want to know?" Jazzbone went around to the other side of the bar and pulled out a stool.

  "Well, you know about these killings around here," Brazil said.

  Jazzbone was momentarily confused.

  "Huh," he said.

  "You might want to specify."

  "The out-of-towners. The Black Widow." Brazil lowered his voice, almost to a whisper.

  "Oh, yeah. Them," Jazzbone said, and didn't care who heard.

  "Same person doing all of 'em."

  "It can't be helping your business worth a damn." Brazil got tough, acting like he was wearing a gun, too.

  "Some creep out there ruining it for everyone."

  "Now that's so, brother. Tell me about it. I run a clean business here. Don't want trouble or cause none either." He lit a Salem.

  "It's others who do. Why I wear this." He patted his pistol.

  Brazil stared enviously at it.

  "Shit, man," he said.

  "What the hell you packing?"

  One thing was true, Jazzbone was proud of his piece. He had got it off a drug dealer playing pool, some dude from New York who didn't know that Jazzbone owned a pool hall for a reason. In Jazzbone's mind, when he was good at something, whether it was a woman, a car, or playing pool, he may as well own it, and he was definitely one hell of a pool player. He slipped the pistol out of its holster so Brazil could look without getting too close.

  "Colt Double Eagle .45 with a five-inch barrel," Jazzbone let him know.

  Brazil had seen it before in Guns Illustrated. Stain less steel matte finish, adjustable sights with high-profile three-dot system, wide steel trigger, and combat-style hammer. Jazzbone's pistol went for about seven hundred dollars, new, and he could tell the kid was impressed and dying to touch it, but Jazzbone didn't know him well enough for that.

  "You think it's the same one whacking all these white men from out of town?" Brazil repeated.

  "I didn't say they was white," Jazzbone corrected him.

  "The last one, the senator dude, wasn't. But yeah, same motherfucker's doing 'em."

  "Got any idea who?" Brazil did his best to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  Jazzbone knew exactly who, and didn't want trouble like this in his neighborhood anymore than those rich men wanted it in their rental cars. Not to mention, Jazzbone was a big supporter of free enterprise, and collected change from more than pool sharking and beverages. He had an interest in a few girls out there. They earned a few extra dollars and kept him company. The Black Widow was hurting business bad. These days, Jazzbone had a feeling men came to town after watching CNN and reading the paper, and they rented adult movies, stayed in. Jazzbone didn't blame them.

  "There's this one punkin head I seen out there running girls," Jazzbone told Brazil, who was taking notes.

  "I'd be looking at him."

  "What's a punkin head?"

  Jazzbone flashed his gold grin at this naive reporter boy.

  "A do." Jazzbone pointed to his own head.

  "Orange like a punkin, rows of braids close to his head. One mean motherfucker."

  "You know his name?" Brazil wrote.

  "Don't want to," Jazzbone said.

  "W West, in charge of investigations for the city, had never heard of a punkin head in connection with the Black Widow killings. When Brazil called her from a pay phone, because he did not trust a cellular phone for such sensitive information, he was manic, as if he had just been in a shoot-out. She wrote down what he said, but not a word of it sparked hope. Her Phantom Force had been undercover out on the streets for weeks. Brazil had spent fifteen minutes at Jazzbone's, and had cracked the case. She didn't think so. Nor was she feeling the least bit friendly toward Brazil's two-timing, user-friendly ass.

  "How's the chief?" he asked her.

  "Why don't you tell me," she said.

  "What?"

  "Look, I don't have time to chit-chat," she rudely added.

  Brazil was on a sidewalk in front of the Federal Courthouse, hateful people looking at him. He didn't care.

  "What did I do?" he fired back.

  "Tell me when's the last time I've heard from you? I haven't noticed you picking up the phone, asking me to do anything or even to see how I am."

  This had not occurred to West. She never called Raines. For that matter, she did not call guys, and never had, and never would, with the occasional exception of Brazil. Now why the hell was that, and why had she suddenly gotten weird about dialing his number?

  "I figured you'd get in touch with me when you had something on your mind," she replied.

  "It's been hectic.

  Niles is driving me crazy. I may turn him over to the juvenile courts.

  I don't know why I haven't gotten around to calling you, okay? But a lot of good it's going to do for you to punish me for it. "

  "You want to play tennis?" he quickly asked.

  West still had a wooden Billie Jean King racquet, clamped tight in a press. Neither were manufactured anymore. She had an ancient box of Tretorn balls that never went dead but broke like eggs. Her last pair of tennis shoes were low-cut plain white canvas Converse, also no longer made. She had no idea where anything was, and owned no tennis clothes, and didn't especially enjoy watching the sport on TV, but preferred baseball at this stage in her personal evolution. There were many reasons she gave the answer she did.

  "Forget it," she said.

  She hung up the phone and went straight to Hammer's office. Horgess was not his usual informative, friendly self. West felt sorry for him.

  No matter how many times Hammer had told him to let it go, he never would. He had picked up the radio instead of the phone. Horgess, the sycophantic duty captain, had made sure all the world knew about the embarrassing shooting at the chief's house. That's all anybody talked and speculated about. The expected jokes were ones West would never want her boss to hear. Horgess was pale and depressed. He barely nodded at West.

  "She in?" West asked.

  "I guess," he said, dejected.

  West knocked and walked in at the same time. Hammer was on the phone, tapping a pen on a stack of pink tele phone messages. She looked amazingly put together and in charge in a tobacco-brown suit and yellow and white striped blouse. West was surprised and rather pleased to note that her boss was wearing slacks and fla
ts again. West pulled up a chair, waiting for Hammer to slip off the headset.

  "Don't mean to interrupt," West said.

  "Quite all right, quite all right," Hammer told her.

  She gave West her complete attention, hands quietly folded on top of the neatly organized desk of someone who had far too much to do but refused to be overwhelmed by it. Hammer had never been caught up, and never would be. She didn't even want to get to all of it. The older she got, the more she marveled over matters she once had considered important. These days, her perspective had shifted massively, like a glacier forming new continents to consider and cracking old worlds.