Hornet's Nest

  "Thank you for finding the time to see me," Brazil said as he sat in a chair across from Search.

  "Understand you've got a rather interesting situation here in our city," Search said.

  "Yes, sir. And I appreciate it."

  This wasn't the typical smartass reporter Search dealt with morning, noon, and night. The kid was Billy Budd, Billy Graham, wide-eyed innocence, polite, respectful, and committed. Search knew the extreme danger of sincere people like this. They died for causes, would do anything for Jesus, served a higher calling, were no respecter of persons, believed in burning bushes, and were not led into sin by Potiphar's wife. This wasn't going to be as easy as Search had supposed.

  "Now let me tell you something, son," Search began in his earnest, overbearing way to this lad who was lucky to get the mayor's time.

  "No one loves our police department more than I do. But you do realize, I hope, there are two sides to every story?"

  "Usually more sides than that, sir, it's been my experience," said Brazil.

  tw Hammer was in her outer office, having a word with Horgess, while she waited for West and a videotape that she prayed might reveal what Mungo seemed to think it did. Maybe her luck would turn for the better for once.

  "Fred, enough," Hammer said, standing at the corner of his desk, hands in the pockets of her tobacco brown pants.

  "It's just I feel so bad. Chief Hammer. Can't believe I did something like that. Here you trusted me, and I'm supposed to make your life better, be a faithful retainer. And look what I did when things got a little stressful," Horgess said in his same sad, hate-me tone.

  This was sounding all too much like Seth, and the last thing Hammer needed at present was an office husband as pitiful as the one in room 333 at Carolinas Medical Center.

  "Fred, what do we say about mistakes? As part of our vision statement?" she quizzed him.

  "I know." He could not look at her.

  "First, we allow a mistake if you were trying to do the right thing when you made it, and second, if you tell someone that you made the mistake. And third, if you are willing to talk about your mistake to others so they won't do the same thing."

  "I haven't done two and three," he said.

  "No, you haven't," Hammer had to agree as West walked in.

  "Two isn't necessary because in this instance, everybody already knows. No later than seventeen hundred hours, I want a commentary by you for the Informer, telling everyone about your mistake. On my desk." She looked at him over the top of her glasses.

  Tw/9 Mayor Search did not know the first thing about a community policing vision statement or any other vision statement, for that matter, that did not slaughter people for making mistakes, especially of the egregious nature that caused Hammer such embarrassment. This was not about to happen to him because the mayor knew how to handle people, including the media.

  "It absolutely is untrue that the city is unsafe," he stated to Brazil, and the office seemed to have gotten airless and hot, and maybe smaller.

  "But five businessmen from out of town have been murdered in the last five weeks," Brazil said.

  "I don't know how you can ..."

  "Random. Isolated. Incidents." Sweat rolled down his sides. Search felt his face getting red.

  "Downtown hotels and restaurants claim business has dropped more than twenty percent." Brazil wasn't trying to argue. He just wanted to get to the bottom of this.

  "And people like you are only going to make that worse." Search mopped his forehead, wishing Cahoon had never passed this goddamn assignment along to him.

  "All I want is to tell the truth, Mayor Search," Billy Budd, Billy Graham, said.

  "Hiding it won't help resolve this terrible situation."

  The mayor resorted to sarcasm, laughing at this simple boy's simple logic. He felt that bitter juice seep through his veins, the bile rising, as his face reddened dangerously, his rage a solar flare on the surface of his reason. Mayor Search lost control.

  "I can't believe it," he laughed derisively at this reporter who was nothing in life.

  "You're giving me a lecture. Look. I'm not going to sit here and tell you business isn't suffering. I wouldn't drive downtown at night right now." He laughed harder, unstoppable, and drunk with his power.

  ^ By six p. m. " at happy hour, West and Raines were on their way to being drunk at Jack Straw's A Tavern of Taste, next to La-dee-da's and Two Sisters, on East Seventh Street. West had changed out of her uniform, and was casual in jeans, a loose denim shirt, and sandals.

  She was drinking Sierra Nevada Stout, the beer of the month, and still in a state of disbelief over the videotape she had watched with Hammer.

  "Do you have any idea how this makes me and my investigative division look?" she said for the fourth time.

  "Christ. Please tell me this is a nightmare. Please, please. I'm going to wake up, right?"

  Raines was drinking Field Stone chardonnay, the wine of the month. In gym shorts, Adidas with no socks, and a tank top, he was turning all heads except for the one across the table from him. What was it with her? All she ever talked about was work and that twit from the paper she rode around with. And Niles, oh yes, let's not forget that fucking, God-save-the-queen, cat. How many times had that cat ruined a building moment? Niles seemed to know exactly when to cause a distraction. A jump on Raines's back or head, a bite of a sock-covered toe. How about the time Niles sat on the remote control until the volume of Kenny G sounded like an air raid?

  "It's not your fault," Raines said again, working on the spinach dip.

  West ate another pickle fried in beer batter as Jump Little Children began setting up all their equipment and instruments. This small place with blue plastic table cloths and funky art in screaming colors by someone named Tryke was going to rock tonight, jam, trot out primitive Ids and libidos. Raines hoped he could make West stay at least until the second set. Actually, Raines thought what had happened to her all in a day's work was hilarious. It was all he could do to look tender and concerned.

  He imagined Mungo-Jumbo swinging into the Presto to chow down. He spots a dude with a banana in his pocket who's the head of the Geezer Grill Cartel. A task force is formed, ending with a videotape of Blondie, the King of Vice and top suspect in the Black Widow serial murders, as he cruises Five Points in his tight black jeans and reporter's notepad. What wouldn't Raines have paid to see a videotape of Hammer sitting in her important conference room watching this shit!

  Christ! He fought a smile again, and was losing. His face was aching and his stomach hurt.

  "What's wrong with you?" West gave him a look.

  "There's nothing fucking funny about this."

  "There certainly isn't," he said weakly as he dissolved into laugher, doubled over in his chair, howling as tears streamed down his face.

  This went on as Jump Little Children set up amplifiers, and checked Fender electric guitars. Pearl drums with Zildjian medium crash cymbals, and Yamaha keyboards. They gave each other sly looks, flipping long hair out of the way, earrings glinting in the dim light. This guy was fried. Man, look at him go. Cool. The girlfriend wasn't digging it, either. Him taking a trip she's not on.

  Kind of weird he's drinking chardonfucking-nay.

  West was so angry she wanted to flip over the table, cowboy style. She wanted to jump on top of Raines, flex-cuff his ankles and feet and just leave his sorry ass in the middle of Jack Straw's on a hot Thursday night. She halfway believed the only person Mungo was undercover for was Goode. Maybe Goode had gotten to him, and promised him favors if he would set up West, and destroy her credibility, her good relationship with Hammer. Oh God. When they had been sitting at that polished table and the video had flickered on, at first West was certain some mistake had been made. Brazil, big as life, was walking along to the sound of traffic, making notes, for Chrissake! How many serial killers or drug kingpins walk around in the middle of the day making notes?

  As for Brazil's physical description, Mungothe-Woolly- Mammot
h had missed that by about forty pounds and six inches, although West had to admit she'd never seen Brazil in clothes that tight. She didn't know what to make of it. Those black jeans were so tight she could see the muscles in the back of his thighs flex as he walked, the red polo shirt fitting like paint, muscles lean and well-defined, and he' had veins. Maybe he was trying to blend out there. That would make sense.

  "Tell me what she did," Raines choked, wiping his eyes.

  West motioned to the waitress for another round.

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  "Oh come on, Virginia. Tell me, tell me. You got to." He straightened up a bit.

  "Tell me what Hammer did when she saw the tape."

  "No," West said.

  Hammer hadn't done much, in truth. She'd sat in her usual spot at the head of the table, staring without comment at the twenty-four-inch Mitsubishi. She'd watched the entire tape, all forty-two minutes of it, every bit of Brazil's long promenade and indistinct conversations with the city's unsavory downtown folks. West and Hammer had watched Brazil point, shrug, jot, scan, and squat to tie shoelaces twice, before finally returning to the All Right to retrieve his BMW. After a pregnant silence, Chief Hammer had taken off her glasses and voiced her opinion.

  "What was this?" she had said to her deputy chief in charge of investigations.

  "I don't know what to tell you," West had said, feeling dark hate for Mungo.

  "And this all began the day we had lunch at the Presto and you saw a man with a banana in his pocket." Hammer had wanted to make sure she was clear on the facts of the case.

  "I really don't think it's fair to link the two."

  Hammer had gotten up, but West knew not to move.

  "Of course it's fair," Hammer had said, hands in her pockets again.

  "Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming you, Virginia." She'd begun pacing.

  "How could Mungo not recognize Andy Brazil? He's out there morning, noon and night, either for the Observer or us."

  "Mungo is deep cover," West had explained.

  "He generally avoids any place police or the press might be. I don't think he reads much, either."

  Hammer had nodded. She could understand this, actually, and she was raw. Hammer was not ready or willing to react violently to the embarrassments and honest mis takes of others, whether it was Horgess, Mungo, or even West, who really had made no error, except perhaps in her choice of Mungo to do anything in life.

  "Do you want me to destroy it?" West had asked as Hammer popped the tape out of the VCR.

  "I mean, I'd prefer not to. Some of that footage includes known prostitutes. Sugar, Double Fries, Butterfinger, Shooter, Lickety Split, Lemon Drop, Poison."

  "All of them were in there?" Hammer was perplexed as she had opened the conference room door.

  "They blend in. You have to know where to look."

  "We'll hang on to it," Hammer had decided. Raines was laughing so hard. West was furious with herself for telling him the rest of the story. He had his head on the table, hands covering his face. She wiped her forehead with a napkin, perspiring and flushed, as if she were in the tropics. The band would be cranking up soon, and Jack Straw's was getting crowded.

  She noticed Tommy Axel walk in, recognizing him from his picture in the paper. He had another guy with him, both dressed a lot like Raines, showing off. Why was it most of the gay guys were so good-looking? West didn't think it was fair. Not only were they guys in a guy's world, with all the benefits, but their DNA had somehow managed to appropriate the good stuff women had, too, like gracefulness and beauty.

  Of course, gay guys got some of the bad stuff, too. Sneakiness, game playing, compulsive grooming, vanity, and shopping. Maybe it had nothing to do with gender, after all. West considered. Maybe there was no such thing as gender. Maybe biologically people were just vehicles, like cars. She'd heard that overseas the steering wheels were on one side, while here they were on the other. Different genders? Maybe not. Maybe just different cars, the behavior of all determined by the spirit in the driver's seat.

  "I've had enough," West hissed at Raines.

  She drained her Sierra Nevada and started on another one. She might just tie one on tonight. Raines was driving.

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He took another deep breath and was spent.

  "You look like you don't feel too good," he said with one of his concerned expressions.

  "It is a little hot in here."

  West mopped her face again, her clothes getting damp, but not in the way Raines might have hoped. She was feeling the heaviness in her lower nature, the goddess of fertility reminding West with more volatility every month that time was running out. West's gynecologist had warned her gravely and repeatedly that troubles would begin about her age. She, Dr. Alice Bourgeois, spoke of punishment when there were no children and none on the way. Never underestimate biology, Dr. Bourgeois always said.

  West and Raines placed an order for cheeseburgers, fries, and another round of drinks. She wiped her face again and was getting cold. She wasn't sure she could eat anything else, not another fried pickle. She watched the band setting up, her attention wandering to people at other tables. She was quiet for a long time, overhearing a couple not so far away speaking a foreign language, maybe German. West was getting maudlin.

  "You seem preoccupied," said Raines the intuitive.

  "Remember when those German tourists got whacked in Miami? What it did to the tourist industry?" she said.

  Raines, as a man, took this personally. He had seen the bodies in the Black Widow slayings, or at least several of them. It was unthinkable to have a gun shoved against your head, your brains blown out. There was no telling what indignities those guys had been subjected to before the fact, and how did anyone really know that their pants hadn't been pulled down first, that maybe they hadn't been raped and then spray-painted? If the killer had been wearing a condom, who was going to know? West had said just the right thing to put Raines in a mood. Now he was totally pissed, too.

  "So this is about the tourist industry," he said, leaning across the table and gesturing.

  "Forget guys being jerked out of their cars, brains blown all over, balls spray-painted with graffiti!"

  West wiped her face again and dug Advil out of her butt pack.

  "It's not graffiti. It's a symbol."

  Raines crossed his legs, feeling endangered. The waitress set down their dinner. He grabbed the ketchup bottle as he folded a french fry between his lips.

  "It makes me sick," he said.

  "It should make everybody sick." West could not look at food.

  "Who do you think's doing it?" He dipped a bouquet of french fries into a red puddle.

  "Maybe a shim." She was soaked in cold sweat. Her hair was wet around her face and neck, as if she'd just been in a foot pursuit.

  "Huh?" Raines glanced up at her, biting into his dripping burger.

  "She-him. Woman one night, man the next, depending on the mood," she said.

  "Oh. Like you." He reached for the dish of mayonnaise.

  "Goddamn it." West shoved her plate away.

  "I must be about to start."

  Raines stopped chewing, rolling his eyes. He knew what that meant. The first twangs on electric guitars shattered the din, and sticks beat-beat and beat-beat-beat. Cymbals crashed and crashed as Axel snaked his foot around Jon's ankle and thought about Brazil for the millionth time this day.

  W Packer was thinking about Brazil, too, as the editor earned Dufus out the back door, like a small, squirming football, headed for the same Japanese maple. Dufus had to go in the same place, get used to it, and be able to find his smells. It didn't matter that the tree was in the hinterlands and that it had started to rain. Packer dropped his wife's wall-eyed dog in the same bald spot next to the same gnarled root. Packer was out of breath, watching Dufus curtsey to the Queen.

  "Why don't you lift your leg like a man," Packer muttered as bulging eyes watched him, speckled pink nose twitching.
r />   "Sissy," Packer said.

  The worn-out editor's pager had vibrated earlier this evening while he was mowing the grass on his vacation- day. It had been Panesa, calling to tell him that the mayor had admitted that even he wouldn't drive downtown at night right now! Jesus living God, this was unbelievable.

  Surely the paper was well on its way to winning a Pulitzer for a series that made a difference in society, one that changed history.

  Why the hell did this wait to happen when Packer was out of the newsroom? He'd been there thirty-two years. The moment he decided to put life in perspective, ward off that heart attack perched outside the window of his existence, Andy Brazil showed up.