Hornet's Nest (19 page)

“Who are you?” she asked, and the indirect light was an artist lovingly painting her face as she studied him.

“Nobody special,” Brazil said.

Oh yes he was. She thought of her own horrible life, of the husband in there, where she lived. This one on the bench next to her understood. He appreciated her for who and what she was. He respected her power and wanted her as a woman at the same time. He was deeply interested in her thoughts, her ideas, her memories of childhood. Brazil traced her neck deep down into her plush white terry cloth robe, slowing down, taking his time. He kissed her, tentatively until he was sure she was kissing him back, then he worked on her lower lip until their tongues became acquainted and were friends.

When he woke up inside his locked bedroom, he wasn’t finished yet and in agony. It was awful. Please Lord, why couldn’t it be true? But it decidedly was not. It was a fact that he had sat in the tiny park staring at Hammer’s house and she had come out to drift on her swing. It was not a fact that any of the rest of it had occurred, except in fractured dreams. She did not know that he was there in the dark, hearing her North Carolina flag snap in the wind, over her porch. She did not care. He had never touched his lips to hers, he had never caressed soft skin and never would. He was terribly ashamed. He was frustrated and confused. She was probably thirty years older than Brazil. This was sick. Something must be terribly wrong with him.

He had played the messages on his answering machine when he had come home at quarter of three in the morning. There had been four, all of them hang-ups. This had only worsened his mood. He could not help but think that the pervert was after him because he, too, was some sort of deviant. There had to be a reason a sick person would be drawn to him. Brazil was angry as he yanked on running clothes at dawn. He grabbed a tennis racquet, the hopper of balls, and trotted out the door.

The morning was wet with dew, the sun already making its potent presence known. Magnolias were dense and heavy with waxy white blossoms that smelled like lemon as he passed beneath them. He cut through the Davidson campus, sprinting along the small road winding behind Jackson Court, heading to the track. He ran six fast miles, and furiously served tennis balls. He worked out with weights in the gym, sprinted several laps, and did push-ups and sit-ups until his body’s natural opiates kicked in.

Hammer was preoccupied with her ruined morning. This was what she got for altering her routine and having lunch with West, who clearly could not keep out of trouble. Hammer had worn her uniform this day, which in itself was exceedingly unusual. She had not found it necessary to argue court dates with the district attorney in fifteen years and wanted no problem here. She believed in the power of personal confrontations and determined that the D.A. was about to have one. By nine
A
.
M
. Hammer was inside the big granite Criminal Court Building, waiting in the reception area of the city’s top prosecutor.

Nancy Gorelick had been reelected so many times she ran unopposed, and most of the population would not have bothered to go to the polls were there not other officials to vote for or against. She and Hammer were not personal friends. The D.A. certainly knew very well who the chief was and in fact had read about Hammer’s heroics in the morning paper. Batman and Robin. Oh please. Gorelick was a ruthless Republican who believed in hanging first and sorting out later. She was tired of people who thought special excuses should be made for them, and there was no doubt in her mind about the reason for Hammer’s impromptu visit.

Gorelick made Hammer wait long enough. By the time the D.A. buzzed her secretary to say that the chief could be shown in, Hammer was pacing the reception area, looking at her watch and getting more irritated by the second. The secretary opened a dark wooden door and Hammer strode past her.

“Good morning, Nancy,” the chief said.

“Thank you.” The D.A. nodded with a smile, hands folded on top of her neat desk. “What can I do for you, Judy?”

“You know about the incident at the Greyhound bus station yesterday.”

“The whole world knows,” said Gorelick.

Hammer pulled a chair around to the side of the desk, refusing to sit directly across from Gorelick with a big block of wood between them. There was little more valuable than office psychology, and Hammer was a master at it. Right now, the D.A.’s setup was blatantly overpowering and unwelcoming. Gorelick was leaning forward with hands on the blotter, assuming a posture of superiority and dominance. She was visibly bothered that Hammer had rearranged the order and was now facing the D.A., with nothing between them but crossed legs.

“The Johnny Martino case,” Gorelick said.

“Yes,” Hammer said. “Also known as Magic the Man.”

“Thirty-three class D felony charges of robbery with a dangerous weapon,” Gorelick went on. “He’ll plea bargain. We’ll sock him with maybe ten, get him to agree to consolidate sentencing under five counts. Since he’s a prior record level two, he’s going to be out of circulation for so long he’ll turn into a skeleton.”

“When do you anticipate setting the court date, Nancy?” Hammer wasn’t impressed and, frankly, believed not a word. This guy would get the minimum. They all did.

“I’ve already set it.” The D.A. picked up her big black date book and flipped pages. “Set for superior court, July twenty-second.”

Hammer wanted to kill her. “I’m on vacation that entire week. In Paris. It’s been set for a year. I’m taking my sons and their families, and I’ve already bought the tickets, Nancy. That’s why I came by this morning. Both of us are busy professionals with crushing schedules and responsibilities. You know perfectly well, Nancy, that police chiefs normally do not make arrests and end up in court. When was the last
time that you heard of such a thing? I’m asking you to work with me on this.”

Gorelick didn’t care who anybody was, especially not this chief of police with her personal wealth and fame. All in Gorelick’s courtroom had jobs waiting for them, busy schedules, and demands on their time, except the defendants, of course, who generally had nothing in their Day Timers but empty spaces to fill with trouble. Gorelick had never been especially fond of Judy Hammer. The chief was arrogant, competitive, power drunk, noncollaborative, and vain. She spent considerable money on designer suits and pearls and accessories, and, in a word, did not suffer from the same problems, such as body fat, adult acne, estrogen volatilities, and rejection, as others.

“I was not elected to work with you or anyone,” Gorelick stated. “It is my job to set trial dates that please the court, and that is what I have done. Vacation plans are not the business of the court, and you will have to make whatever adjustments are necessary. As will everyone else involved.”

Hammer noted that Gorelick was overbuffed as usual. She had a penchant for short skirts, bright colors, and open necklines that were an invitation whenever she bent over to look at documents, dockets, or cases. She wore too much makeup, especially mascara. There were rumors about her many affairs, but Hammer had chosen to view these as unfounded until this moment. This was the woman the cops called the D.A.
Whorelick
. She was lower than dirt and a slut. Office psychology dictated that Hammer should get up from her chair.

She did, and leaned against the desk, helping herself to her opponent’s domain, breathing all the air she wished, picking up a crystal paperweight of USBank and fiddling with it. Hammer was very comfortable and in charge. She spoke rationally, softly, and sincerely.

“The press, of course, has been calling me about yesterday’s incident,” Hammer confessed, and her fooling with the paperweight was clearly bothering Gorelick. “National press. The
Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, CBS This Morning
, Jay Leno,
New York Times,
Don Imus, Howard Stern.” She
began to pace, tapping the USBank in her palm, as if it were a slapjack. “They’ll want to cover the trial, I’m sure. It’s a big story, I guess.” She paced and tapped. “I suppose when you stop to think about it, when has something like this ever happened? That reminds me.” She laughed. “Some studio and a couple producers from Hollywood called, too. Can you imagine?”

Gorelick wasn’t feeling well. “It is an unusual situation,” she had to agree.

“An amazing example of community policing, Nancy. People doing the right thing.” Hammer paced and gestured with the little crystal building wearing a crown. “Your treating a chief and deputy chief just like anyone else, making no special considerations.” She nodded. “I think all those reporters are going to like that. Don’t you?”

Gorelick would be ruined, would look like the dickhead she was. Someone would run against her next fall. She’d have to go work in a law firm as a lowly junior attorney to a bunch of overbearing partners who wouldn’t want her to join their exclusive ranks.

“I’m going to tell them all about it.” Hammer smiled at her. “Right now. I guess the best thing would be a press conference.”

The court date was moved ahead a week and landed on a day convenient for all, except Johnny Martino, a.k.a. Magic the Man, who was sitting in his jail cell, dejected in a blaze orange jumpsuit with DEPT OF CORR stenciled in on the back. Everybody in the Corr wore one, and now and then, when he gave much thought to the matter, he wondered what the hell the
Corr
was. As in Marine Corps, Peace Corps,
C&O R
ail
R
oad maybe? His old man worked for Amtrak, cleaning up cars after all those passengers got off.

No way young Martino was ever doing shitwork like that. No fucking way. He couldn’t believe how bad his leg hurt from where that bitch kicked him. The guns people carried these days, women especially. Both of them pointing
forty-fucking-caliber semiautomatics
at his head. Now where the hell did that come from? Fucking Mars? These ladies beam down, or something? He was still stunned and had sat up on
his narrow bunk this morning thinking yesterday on the bus didn’t happen.

Then he focused on the steel toilet bowl that he had not bothered to flush last night. His shin was throbbing so bad and had a lump on it the size of an orange, the skin broken in the middle, like a navel, where that pointy metal toe had connected. Now that he explored the situation a little further, he should have been suspicious of two rich ladies like that getting on the Greyhound. No way people like them take the bus. Some of the guys were talking and laughing up and down the cells, going on and on about him getting his ass kicked by some old woman with a big pocketbook, everybody making fun of Martino. He got out a cigarette and thought about suing. He thought about getting another tattoo, might as well while he was here.

Brazil’s day was not going especially well, either. He and Packer were editing another self-initiated, rather large piece Brazil was doing on mothers alone in a world without men. Brazil continued to come across typos, spaces, blank lines that he knew he had not caused. Someone had been breaking into his computer basket and going through his files. He was explaining this to his metro editor, Packer, as they rolled through paragraphs, inspecting the violation.

“See,” Brazil was hotly saying, and he was in uniform, ready for yet another night on the street. “It’s weird. The last couple days I keep finding stuff like this.”

“You sure you’re not doing it? You do tend to go through your stories a lot,” Packer said.

What the editor had observed about Brazil’s remarkable productivity had now reached the level of
not humanly possible
. This kid dressed like a cop frightened Packer. Packer didn’t even much want to sit next to Brazil anymore. Brazil wasn’t normal. He was getting commendations from the po-lice and averaging three bylines every morning, even on days when he supposedly was off. Not to mention, his work was unbelievably good for someone so inexperienced who had never been to journalism school. Packer suspected that Brazil
would win a Pulitzer by the time he was thirty, possibly sooner. For that reason, Packer intended to remain Brazil’s editor, even if the job was exhausting, intense, and unnerving, and caused Packer to hate life more with each passing day.

This morning was a typical example. The alarm had buzzed at six, and Packer did not want to get up. But he did. Mildred, his wife, was her cheery self, cooking oatmeal in the kitchen, while Dufus, her purebred Boston terrier puppy, skittered around sideways and wall-eyed and looking for something else to chew, or pee or poop on. Packer was tucking in his shirt all the way around as he entered this domestic scene, trying to wake up, and wondering if his wife was losing what marbles she had left.

“Mildred,” he said. “It’s summer. Oatmeal is not a good hot-weather food.”

“Of course it is.” She happily stirred. “Good for your high blood pressure.”

Dufus jumped and fussed at Packer, dancing around his feet, trying to climb him, grabbing cuffs in snaggly teeth. Packer never touched his wife’s puppy if he could help it and had refused any input into its development beyond naming it, over objections from Mildred, who had made it a condition of their marriage that she would never be without one of these ugly little dogs from her childhood. Dufus did not see very well. From his perspective, Packer was a very big and unfriendly tree, a utility pole, some other edifice, maybe a fence. Whenever Packer came within scent, Dufus was airborne and in grass and squatting and relieving other basic functions that meant nothing to Dufus. He untied both of Packer’s shoelaces.

Packer made his way across the newsroom as if he saw no color in the world, only gray. He was tucking in his shirt, heading to the men’s room, feeling like he had to go and knowing nothing would happen again and reminded that next Wednesday at two
P
.
M
., he had an appointment with his urologist.