Hornet's Nest (26 page)

Punkin Head was reading the paper and eating its third take-out bacon and egg sandwich with hot sauce and butter, brought by the attendant. Punkin Head saw the white boy walking around, snooping, a notepad in hand. Word on the street was the dude’s name was Blondie, and Punkin Head knew exactly who Blondie was trying to snitch on, and Punkin Head wasn’t appreciative. It watched, thinking, as it finished its breakfast and popped open a Michelob Dry, taking another look at the front page story in this morning’s
Observer
.

Some South American reporter named Brazil was getting far too personal about Punkin Head, and it was not pleased. In the first place, it was incensed that when the masses thought about Punkin Head, they envisioned a spider, and that all believed the orange symbol Punkin Head painted on each body was an hourglass. Punkin Head painted what it did because it liked orange. It also intended to whack and rob eight businessmen and no more, before it moved on. To linger longer in the same area would be pressing its luck, and the figure eight was simply a reminder, a note to itself, that soon it would be time for Punkin Head and Poison to head out in the van, maybe up to the D.C. area.

In an article this morning, the reporter named Brazil had quoted an FBI profiler as saying that the Black Widow was a failure in interpersonal relationships, had never married or held a job long, was inadequate sexually and in every other
way, and suffered from a sexual identity crisis, according to Special Agent Bird. Punkin Head, who of course was not referred to by name, but simply as “the killer,” had read and viewed considerable violent pornography throughout its life, had come from a dysfunctional home, and had never finished college, if it had ever gone at all. It owned a vehicle, probably old and American, and still lived with its father, which it hated, or had for much of its adult life. Punkin Head was slovenly, possibly fat, and a substance abuser.

S.A. Bird, the article went on to say, predicted that Punkin Head would soon begin to decompensate. Punkin Head would make mistakes, overstep itself, become disorganized, and lose control. All psychopaths eventually did. Punkin Head threw the newspaper into the back of the van in disgust. Someone was snitching, leaking personal details about Punkin Head to the press, and it glared out at Blondie pausing at the Cadillac Grill, where the sh’im’s sandwiches had been carefully prepared. Blondie decided to go inside.

The clientele at the Cadillac Grill wasn’t happy to see Blondie walk in. They knew he was a reporter and wanted nothing to do with him or his questions. What did he think? They were crazy? They’re suppose to risk getting Punkin Head pissed off, turn it meaner than usual and end up with Silvertips in their heads? That sh’im was the nastiest, most hateful of all time, and the truth was that the business community of Five Points wanted it to move on or get whacked. But as was often true in fascist regimes, no one had the guts or the time to rise up against Punkin Head. Energy and lucid thought were low among soldiers who stayed up late drinking Night Train, smoking dope, and shooting pool.

The head cook at the Cadillac was Remus Wheelon, a heavyset Irishman with tattoos. He had heard all about Blondie and didn’t want the snitch in his establishment. Remus was well aware that he had just fixed Punkin Head three deluxe Rise and Shine sandwiches, and the cold-blooded killing piece of shit was probably sitting out there in its van, watching and waiting for Remus to so much as serve Blondie a cup of coffee. Remus waited on the counter. He took his
time scraping the grill. He made more coffee, fried another batch of baloney, and read the
Observer
.

Brazil had helped himself to a booth and picked up a greasy plastic-laminated menu, handwritten, prices reasonable. He was aware of people staring at him in a manner that was about as unfriendly as he had ever seen. He smiled back, as if this were Aunt Sarah’s Pancake House, giving them an attitude that made all think twice. Brazil refused to be deterred from his mission. His pager went off for all to hear, and he grabbed it as if it had bitten him. He recognized the number and was surprised. Brazil looked around, deciding that the venue probably wasn’t the best for whipping out his reporter’s portable phone and calling the mayor’s office.

He was getting up to leave and changed his mind when the door opened, the bell over it ringing. The young hooker walked in, and Brazil’s pulse picked up. He wasn’t sure why he was so fascinated, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her and felt compassion that was equaled by fear. She wore jeans cut off high, sandals with tire tread soles, and a Grateful Dead tee shirt with sleeves torn off. Her naked breasts moved in rhythm as she walked. She took the next booth over, facing him, eyes bold on his as she flipped dirty blond hair out of the way.

Remus brought her coffee before she could even pick up the menu. She studied plastic-covered writing with difficulty, the words tangling like fishing line on the shore of Lake Algae, as the rich folks in Davidson called the pond at Griffith and Main Streets, where her daddy had taken her fishing a few times. This was before she got older and Mom was working in housekeeping at the Best Western. Daddy was a truck driver for Southeastern and kept erratic hours. Mom wasn’t always home when her husband rolled in from a long trip.

In the mind of Cravon Jones, his three daughters belonged to him, and how he chose to express affection was his business and his right. There was no question he was partial to
Addie, who was named after his wife’s mother, whom he hated. Addie was blond and pretty from the day she was born, a special child who loved to cuddle with her daddy and with whom her mother did not bond or get along. Mrs. Jones was tired of coming home to a drunk, disgusting, stinking man, who slapped her around, shoved, and on one occasion broke her nose and jaw. The daughters, understandably, were drawn to him out of fear.

Addie reached her eleventh year, and Daddy crawled in bed with her one night. He smelled like sour sweat and booze as he pressed his hard thing against her and then drove it in while blood-soaked sheets and her silent tears flowed. Addie’s sisters were in the same room and heard all of it. No one spoke of the event or acknowledged that it was real, and Mrs. Jones remained selectively ignorant. But she knew damn well, and Addie could tell by her mother’s eyes, increased drinking, and growing indifference toward Addie. This went on until Addie turned fourteen and ran away one night while Mrs. Jones was working and Daddy was on the road somewhere. Addie got as far as Winston-Salem, where she met the first man who ever took care of her.

There had been many since, giving her cain and crack, cigarettes, fried chicken, whatever she wanted. She was twenty-three when she stumbled off the Greyhound in Charlotte some months back. Addie didn’t remember it much, seemed like last she recalled she was in Atlanta getting high with some rich dude who drove a Lexus and paid an extra twenty dollars to urinate in her face. She could take anything as long as she wasn’t present, and the only turnstile to that painless place was drugs. Sea, her last and final man, beat her with a coat hanger because she had cramps and couldn’t make any money one night. She ran off for the countless time in her life, headed to Charlotte because she knew where it was and it was all she could afford after grabbing some old lady’s purse.

Addie Jones, who had not been called by her Christian name in too many highs to remember, had an Atlanta Braves duffel bag she’d stolen from one of her tricks. In it she had a few things, and both hands had been gripping hard as she
had walked along West Trade, nearing the Presto Grill, across from the All Right parking lot where Punkin Head was waiting in its van, fishing. Most of its best catches had come off buses, all those fuck-ups washing ashore like biological hazards, their stories the same. Punkin Head knew this for a fact, having crawled off one of those buses itself some time back.

Fifteen minutes later, Addie had been inside that dark blue van, and Punkin Head knew it had a find this time. Not only did it want this girl for itself, but the johns out there were going to fall hard for her perky body and sultry eyes and swollen mouth. Punkin Head christened its new creature Poison, and the two of them began their unfriendly takeover. Other pimps were flip at first. Then the killings began, and cops were everywhere. There were stories of bad hollowpoints and something painted orange and something else about a spider. All got scared.

“What’ll be?” Remus asked Poison as she smoked a cigarette and stared out at the street.

“Some bacon,” she said in an accent that no longer sounded white or even American.

It had been Remus’s observation throughout his career that hookers took on the accents and mannerisms of their owners. Black hookers sounded white and white hookers sounded black, white gigolos walked with an NBA spring, black gigolos strutted like John Wayne. By now Remus was used to it. He just did his cooking and ran his joint, live and let be. He didn’t want trouble, and Poison troubled him like an ice pick too close to his eye. She had a mocking smile, as if she knew the joke was on him. Remus sensed that a cold-blooded killing, including his own, would amuse her.

Brazil sat in his booth for quite some time, watching the clientele thin. He was tapping his menu, his table bare since no one seemed inclined to wait on him. He watched the young hooker finish breakfast. She dropped money on the table and got up. Brazil’s eyes followed as she left. He was dying to talk to her, but scared. The bell on the door got
quiet in her mysterious wake, and he got up, too. Brazil forgot he had never ordered, and left a tip. He emerged from the grill, notepad out, looking up and down the sidewalk, walking around the block, scanning the parking lot across Fifth Street, not seeing her anywhere. Disappointed, he continued wandering.

A black van with dark tinted glass drove slowly past, but Brazil gave it not a second thought as his mind tried to unlock something he was certain he knew the combination to but could not yet access.

Mungo stared out the van’s windshield at Blondie, realizing that this case was getting only bigger. Mungo watched the slow, languid way the guy moved, stopping every now and then to search traffic and stare. Mungo’s excitement mounted when Blondie approached Shena, one of the oldest sluts in the area.

She was perched on the front wooden steps of a dilapidated wooden house, sipping Coke, trying to get over the night before and readying herself for the one coming up. Blondie walked up like they knew each other. He started talking to her. She shrugged, gestured, then got pissed and waved him off like he was a pigeon in her way. Uh huh, Mungo thought. This boy-bait was becoming a territorial problem out here, moving in on the other hookers’ lemonade stands. Blondie was probably luring men, maybe some women, selling them dope, committing crimes against nature and getting rich from it.

Mungo was convinced that if he dug further he would find out that Blondie was way up there on the drug-dealing chain, probably directly connected to New York. There could be a connection to the Black Widow killings. Mungo got out the video camera and captured what was possibly the best-looking, most clean-cut male prostitute he’d ever seen, except in the movies. Mungo quickly drove back to headquarters.

• • •

West had been up all night. She had done her best to make Niles shut up his yowling and kneading. She had thrown him off the bed until her shoulder got tired. She had talked in an adult fashion with him, trying to make him understand her fatigue and need of sleep. She had yelled, threatened, and locked him out of her room. He had been well rested and happily snoozing on his favorite windowsill when West hurried out the door this morning, late for work. She had no patience left. When Mungo walked into the conference room in the midst of her meeting with the Phantom Force, she was not welcoming.

“We’re having a meeting,” she said to Mungo.

“And I got something you’re going to want to hear about.” He proudly held up the videotape. “Definitely a player, maybe even more, maybe even our killer or at least involved.” Mungo was breathless and looked like a biker.

Hammer had been on the phone ever since West had seen her last, and West got on the radio and told her boss to give her a call.

“I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” West told her. “But it sounds pretty promising.”

“Describe him,” Hammer said.

“White male, five-foot-seven, one-thirty pounds, blond, tight black jeans, tight polo-type shirt, Nikes. Strolling the area of Fifth and Trade, looking at cars, talking to hookers. Apparently he was in the Presto talking about the quality of drugs in the area and local sources, words to that effect. Also,” West went on, “and this bothers me considerably, chief, you’re aware of Poison, a.k.a. Addie Jones?”

“Right.” Hammer had no idea.

“They were in the Cadillac Grill together for quite a long time. She left, and he went out right after her. At that point they split, seemingly off to do whatever they were up to.”

“Where’s this videotape?” Hammer wanted to know.

“I’ve got it.”

“You looked at it yet?”

“We use these handheld JVC Grax 900 camcorders for covert operations. Mungo has gone to get the VHS adapter and should have it for me in a minute.”

“Bring it by,” Hammer said to her. “Let’s take a look.”

I
n the mayor’s office, Brazil was impatiently perched on a couch, making a note of his surroundings and watching the secretary, Ruth Lafone, answer another call. She felt a little sorry for Andy Brazil, well aware that he was being set up as others before him. Her phone rang again. Ruth answered and smiled. She was pleasant and respectful to the man elected by an overwhelming majority to serve the people of the city. She hung up as she rose from her chair, and looked at Brazil.

“The mayor will see you now,” she said.

Brazil was slightly bewildered. He had no idea how many times he had tried to get comments, interviews, and opinions from Mayor Search. Now the mayor was calling Brazil, finally following up on a request? Which request? Brazil wished he had dressed a little better this day, something besides black jeans that were too small. He had stopped in the men’s room, at least, and had tucked in his faded red Head shirt, which also was a bit too small. Since Brazil had lost a few pounds, his normal clothes were falling off as if he were jailing, so he had dipped into another drawer of jeans and shirts he’d had since high school.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said to the secretary as he got off the couch, “is there some purpose to this
interview other than my requests to talk to the mayor that go back to the beginning of my career?”

“I’m afraid he can’t always get to everything right away,” she apologized as she had learned to so well over the years.

Brazil looked at her for a moment, hesitating, detecting something in the way she averted her gaze from him. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”

“You’re so welcome.” She led him to the slaughter because she needed her job.

Mayor Search was a distinguished, neat man in a European-cut summer weight gray suit. He wore a white shirt, his tie charcoal and blue paisley with matching suspenders. He did not get up from his huge block of walnut, the skyline of the city filling many windows. USBank Corporate Center was cut off about belt level, directly behind him, and the mayor could not see the crown unless he got on the floor and strained to look up.

“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.

• • •

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.

Mayor Search did not know the first thing about a community policing vision statement or any other vision statement 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 few 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, Nikes 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 tablecloths 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 laughter, 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 chardon-fucking-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, Mungo-the-Woolly-Mammoth 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 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 mistakes 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.