Panesa frantically ran through downtown traffic like a Green Bay Packer, cutting in and out, the hell with you, honk all you want, get out of my way. He was going to be late again. It never failed. His date tonight was Judy Hammer, who apparently was married to a slob.
Hammer avoided taking her husband out in public when she could, and Panesa did not blame her, if the rumor was true. Tonight was Nation Bank Public Service Awards banquet, and both Panesa and Hammer were being honored, as was District Attorney Gorelick, who had been in the news a lot lately, scorching the NC General Assembly for not coughing up enough money to hire seventeen more assistant DAs, when it was clear that what the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region really needed was another medical examiner or two. The banquet was held at the Carillon, with its wonderful paintings and mobiles. Panesa was driving.
t| Hammer's personal car was a Mercedes, but not new and with only one airbag, on the driver's side. Panesa would not ride in anything that did not have a passenger's side airbag, and this had been made clear up front. Hammer, too, was rushing home early from the office.
Seth was working in the garden, weeding and fertilizing. He had made cookies, and Hammer smelled the baked butter and sugar. She noted the telltale traces of flour on the counter. Seth waved a handful of wild onions at her as she peered out the kitchen window at him. He was civil enough.
She was in a hurry as she headed to her bedroom. God, the image staring back at her in the mirror was frightening. She washed her face, squirted non alcohol styling gel into her hands and riffled through her hair. She started all over again with makeup. Black-tie affairs were always a problem. Men owned one tux and wore it to everything, or they rented. What were women supposed to do? She hadn't given any thought to what she might put on until she was walking into a house that smelled like a bakery. She pulled out a black satin skirt, a gold and black beaded short-wasted jacket, and a black silk blouse with spaghetti straps.
The truth was. Hammer had gained four pounds since she had worn this ensemble last, at a Jaycee's fundraiser in Pineville, about a year ago, if memory served her well. She managed to button her skirt, but was not happy about it. Her bosom was more out front than usual, and she did not like drawing attention to what she normally kept to herself. She irritably yanked her beaded jacket around her, muttering, wondering if dry-cleaning might have shrunk anything and the fault, therefore, not hers. Changing earrings to simple diamond posts with screw-backs was always troublesome when she was rushed and out of sorts.
"Darn," she said, closing the drain just in time before a gold back sailed down the sink.
vy Panesa did not need a personal shopper, had no weight concerns, and could wear whatever he wished whenever he wished. He was an officer in the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain, and preferred black-label Giorgio Armani that he did not get in Charlotte. Hornets fans had priorities other than draping their spouses in two-thousand-dollar foreign suits, it seemed, and shopping remained a difficulty in the Queen City.
Panesa was, as it turned out, dazzling in a tuxedo with satin lapels, and trousers with stripes. His was black silk, and he wore a matte-finished gold watch, and black lizard shoes.
"So tell me," Panesa said when Hammer climbed into the Volvo.
"What's your secret?"
"What secret?" Hammer had no idea what this was about as she fastened her shoulder harness.
"You look stunning."
"Of course I don't," Hammer said.
Panesabacked out of the driveway, checking his mirrors, noticing the fat man working on geraniums. The fat man was watching them leave, and Panesa pretended not to notice as he adjusted the air conditioning.
"Do you shop around here?" Panesa asked.
"Lord, I need to." Hammer sighed, for when did she have time?
"Let me guess. Montaldo's."
"Never," Hammer told him.
"Have you noticed how they treat you in places like that? They want to sell me something because I can afford it, and then treat me like an inferior. If I'm so inferior, I ask myself, then why are they the ones selling hose and lingerie?"
"That is absolutely the truth," said Panesa, who had never shopped in a store that did not have clothes for men.
"Same thing in some restaurants I won't go to anymore."
"Morton's," Hammer supposed, although she had never eaten there.
"Not if you're on their V.I.P list. They give you a little card, and you can always get a table and good service." Panesa switched lanes.
"Police officials have to be careful of things like that," Hammer reminded the publisher, whose paper would have been the first to print a story about Hammer's V. I. P status or any other special favors possibly resulting in one establishment getting more police protection than another.
"Truth is, I don't eat much red meat anymore," Panesa added.
They were passing the Traveler's Hotel, upstairs from the Presto Grill, which Hammer and West had made rather famous of late. Panesa smiled as he drove, reminded of Brazil's Batman and Robin story. The hotel was a horrific dive. Hammer thought as she looked out her window. Appropriately, it was across Trade Street from the city's unemployment office, and next door to the Dirty Laundry Cleaner amp; Laundry. No eating or drinking was allowed in the lobby of the Traveler's. They'd had an axe murder there several years earlier. Or was that the Uptown Motel?
Hammer couldn't remember.
"How do you stay in shape," Panesa continued the small talk.
"I walk whenever I can. I don't eat fat," Hammer replied, digging in her purse for lipstick.
"That's not fair. I know women who walk on the treadmill an hour every day, and their legs don't look like yours," Panesa observed.
"I want to know precisely what the difference is."
"Seth eats everything in my house," Hammer was out with it.
"He eats so much, I lose my appetite on a regular basis. You know what it does to you to walk in at eight o'clock, after a hellish day, and see your husband parked in front of the TV, watching " Ellen," eating his third bowl of Hormel chili with beef and beans?"
Then the rumors were true, and Panesa suddenly felt sorry for Hammer.
The publisher of the Charlotte Observer went home to no one but a housekeeper who prepared chicken breasts and spinach salads. How awful for Hammer. Panesa looked over at his peer in satin and beads. Panesa took the risk of reaching out and patting Hammer's hand.
"That sounds absolutely awful," the publisher sympathized.
"I actually need to lose a few pounds," Hammer confessed.
"But I tend to put it on around my middle, not my legs."
Panesa searched for parking around the Carillon, where Morton's Of Chicago steak house was doing quite a business without them.
"Watch your door there. Sorry," Panesa said.
"I'm a little close to the meter. I don't guess I need to put anything in it?"
"Not after six," said Hammer, who knew.
She thought how nice it would be to have a friend like Panesa. Panesa thought how nice it would be to go sailing with Hammer, or jet skiing, or do lunch or Christmas shopping together, or just talk in front of the fire. Getting drunk was also a thought when, normally, it was a big problem for the publisher of a nationally acclaimed newspaper or the chief of a formidable police department. Hammer had overdone it with Seth now and then, but it was pointless. He ate. She passed out.
Panesa had gotten drunk alone, which was worse, especially if he had forgotten to let the dog back in.
Being drunk was a rarified form of beaming-out-of- here, and it was all about timing. It was not something that Hammer ever discussed with anyone. Panesa did not, either. Neither of them had a therapist at this time. This was why it was rather much a miracle that the two of them, after three glasses of wine, got on the subject while someone from US Bank was pontificating about economic incentives and development and company relocations and the nonexistent crime rate in Charlotte. Panesa and Hammer hardly touched the salmon with dill sauce. They swit
ched to Wild Turkey. Neither of them fully recalled receiving their awards, but all who witnessed it thought Hammer and Panesa were animated, witty, gracious, and articulate.
On the way home, Panesa got the daring idea of tucking his car near Latta Park in Dilworth, and playing tunes, and talking, with headlights out. Hammer was not in the mood to go home. Panesa knew that going home was soon followed by getting up in the morning and going to work. His career was not as interesting as it used to be, but he had yet to admit this even to himself. His children were busy with involved lives. Panesa was dating a lawyer who liked watching tapes of Court TV and talking about what she would have done differently. Panesa wanted out.
"I guess we should go," Hammer volunteered, about an hour into their sitting inside the dark Volvo and talking.
"You're right," said Panesa, who had a trophy in the back seat and an emptiness in his heart.
"Judy, I have to say something."
"Please," said Hammer.
"Do you have a friend or two you just have fun with?"
"No."
"I don't either," Panesa confessed.
"Don't you think that's rather incredible?"
Hammer took a moment to analyze.
"No," she decided.
"I never had a friend or two. Not in grammar school when I was better than everyone in kick ball Not in high school, when I was good in math and the president of the student body. Not in college. Not in the police academy, now that I think about it."
"I was good in English," Panesa thought back.
"And dodge ball I guess.
A president of the Bible Club one year, but don't hold that against me. Another year on the varsity basketball team, but horrible, fouled out the one game I played in when we were forty points behind. "
"What are you getting at, Richard?" asked Hammer, whose nature it was to walk fast and rush to the point.
Panesa was silent for a moment.
"I think people like us need friends," he decided.
Vs9 West needed friends, too, but she would never admit this to Brazil, who was determined to solve every crime in the city that night. West was smoking. Brazil was eating a Snickers bar when the scanner let them know that any unit in the area of Dundeen and Redbud might want to look for a dead body in a field. Flashlights cut across darkness, the sound of feet moving through weeds and grass, as Brazil and West searched the dark. He was obsessed and managed to get ahead of West, his flashlight sweeping. She grabbed him by the back of his shirt, yanking him behind her, like a bad puppy.
"You mind if I go first?" West asked him.
Panesa stopped in Fourth Ward, in front of Hammer's house, at twenty minutes past one a. m.
"Well, congratulations on your award," Panesa said again.
"And to you," Hammer said, gripping the door handle.
"Okay, Judy. Let's do this again one of these days."
"Absolutely. Award or not." Hammer could see the TV flickering through curtains. Seth was up, and probably eating a Tombstone pizza.
"I really appreciate your allowing Brazil to be out with your folks.
It's been good for us," Panesa said.
"For us, too."
"So be it. Anything innovative, I'm all for it," said Panesa.
"Doesn't happen often."
"Rare as hen's teeth," Hammer agreed.
"Isn't that the truth."
"Absolutely."
Panesa controlled his impulse to touch her.
"I need to go," he said.
"It's late," she completely agreed.
Hammer finally lifted the door handle, letting herself out. Panesa drove off in the direction of his empty house and felt blue. Hammer walked into her space, where Seth lived and ate, and was lonely.
West and Brazil were working hard and unmindful of the time. They had just pulled up to the federally subsidized housing project of Earle Village and entered apartment 121, where there were suspicious signs of money. A computer was on the coffee table, along with a lot of cash, a calculator, and a pager. An elderly woman was composed on the couch, her raging old drunk boyfriend dancing in front of her, his finger parried at her. Police were in the room, assessing the problem.
"She pulled a.22 revolver on me!" the boyfriend was saying.
"Ma'am," West said.
"Do you have a gun?"
"He was threatening me," the woman told Brazil.
Her name was Rosa Tinsley, and she was neither drunk nor excited. In fact, she didn't get this much attention except once a week, when the police came. She was having a fine time. Billy could just hop around, threaten away, like he always did when he went to the nip joint and lost money in poker.
"Come in here doing all his drug deals," Rosa went on to Brazil.
"Gets drunk and says he's gonna cut my throat."
"Are there drugs here?" West asked.
Rosa nodded at Brazil, and gestured toward the back of the house.
"The shoe box in my closet," she announced.
Chapter Fourteen
There were many shoe boxes in Rosa's closet, and West and Brazil went through all of them. They found no drugs, the boyfriend was evicted, and Rosa was rewarded with instant gratification. West and Brazil headed back to their car. Brazil felt they had accomplished a good thing. That rotten, stinking, besotted old man was out of there. The poor woman would have some peace. She was safe.
"I guess we got rid of him," Brazil commented with pride.
"She was just scaring him, like she does once a week," West replied.
"They'll be back together by the time we drive off."
She started the engine, watching the old boyfriend in her rearview mirror. He was standing on the sidewalk, carrying his things, staring at the dark blue Crown Victoria, waiting for it to disappear.
"One of these days he'll probably kill her," West added.
She hated domestic cases. Those and dog bite reports were the most unpredictable and dangerous to the police. Citizens called the cops, and then resented the intervention. It was all very irrational. But perhaps the worst feature of people like Rosa and their boyfriends was the co dependency the inability to do without the other, no matter how many times partners brandished knives and guns, slapped, stole, and threatened. West had a difficult time dealing with people who wallowed in dysfunction, and went from one abusive relationship to the next, never gaining insight, and hurting life. It was her opinion that Brazil should not live with his mother.
"Why don't you get an apartment, and be on your own for once?" West said to him.
"Can't afford it." Brazil typed on the MDT.
"Sure you can."
"No, I can't." He typed some more.
"A one-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood is about five hundred a month."
"So?" West looked over at him.
"And your car is paid for, right? You owe any money to Davidson?"
It wasn't any of her business.
"You could afford it," West preached on.
"What you got is a sick relationship. You don't get away from her, you'll grow old together."
"Oh really?" Brazil looked up at West, not appreciating her remarks in the least.
"You know all about it, do you?"
"I'm afraid so," West said.
"In case you haven't figured it out yet, Andy, you aren't the first person in the world to have a co dependent enabling relationship with a parent or spouse. Your mother's crippling, self-destructive disease is her choice. And it serves one important function. It controls her son. She doesn't want you to leave, and guess what? So far you haven't."
This was also Hammer's problem, although she had yet to face it fully. Seth, too, was a cripple. When his powerful, handsome wife breezed in with her trophy in the early morning hours, he was surfing hundreds of cable channels made possible by his eighteen-inch satellite dish on the back porch. Seth liked country western music, and was looking for just the right band. It was not true that he was eating a Tombstone pizza. That had be
en earlier, when it had gotten to be midnight and his wife still was not home. Now he was working on popcorn drenched with real butter he had melted in the microwave.
Seth Bridges had never been much to look at. Physical beauty was not what had attracted Judy Hammer to him long ago in Little Rock. She had loved his intelligence and gentle patience. They had started out as friends, the way everyone would, were the world filled with good sense. The problem lay in Seth's capacity. He grew as his wife did for the first ten years. Then he maxed out, and simply could stretch no further as a spiritual, enlightened, big-thinking entity. There was no other way to broaden himself unless he did so in the flesh. Eating, frankly, was what he now did best.
Hammer locked the front door and reset the burglar alarm, making sure the motion sensors were on stay. The house smelled like a movie theater, and she detected a hint of pepperoni beneath a buttery layer of chilled air. Her husband was stretched out on the couch, crunching, fingers shiny with grease as he stuffed popcorn inside a mouth that never completely rested. She walked through the living room without comment as stations changed as fast as Seth could point and shoot. In her bedroom, she angrily set the trophy on the floor, in a closet, with others she never remembered.
She was overwhelmed with fury, and slammed the door, tore her clothes off, and threw them in a chair. She put on her favorite nightshirt, and grabbed her pistol out of her pocketbook, and walked back out into the living room. She'd had it. No more. Enough.
Every mortal had limits. Seth froze mid-shovel when his wife marched in, armed.
"Why drag it out?" she said, towering over him in blue and white striped cotton.
"Why not just kill yourself and get it over with? Go ahead."
She racked the pistol and offered it to him, butt first. Seth stared at it. He had never seen her like this, and he propped himself up on his elbows.
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