Brazil was in despair as he glanced again at the phone. Oh, what the hell. What happened to having guts? He grabbed the receiver, flipped through his Rolodex, and dialed.
"Chief Hammer's office," a man answered.
Brazil cleared his throat.
"Andy Brazil with the Observer," he said in a remarkably steady voice.
"I wonder if I might have a word with her."
"And this is in regard to what?"
Brazil was not about to be scared off the case. It was too late. There was no place to run, really.
"I'm returning her phone call," he bravely said, as if it were perfectly normal for the chief to call him and for him to get back to her.
Captain Horgess was thrown off. What did Hammer do? Dial this reporter's number herself? Horgess hated it when she did that instead of placing all calls through him. Damn it. He couldn't keep track of that woman. She was out of control. Horgess punched the hold button without bothering to tell Brazil. Two seconds later. Hammer's voice was on the line, shocking Brazil.
"I'm sorry to bother you," he quickly said to her.
"That's quite all right. What can I help you with?" she replied.
"Oh, not a thing. I mean this isn't about a story. I just wanted to thank you for what you did."
Hammer was quiet. Since when did reporters thank her for anything?
Brazil interpreted the silence wrongly. Oh God, now she really thought he was stupid.
"Well, I won't take up your time." He was talking faster and faster, thoroughly decompensating.
"Uh, I, well. It's just that it was a big thing to do. I thought so. When you didn't have to.
Someone in your position, I mean. Most wouldn't. "
Hammer smiled, drumming her nails on a stack of paperwork. She needed a manicure.
"I'll see you around the department," she told him, and her heart was pricked as she hung up.
She had two sons and they hurt her on a regular basis. This did not prevent her from calling them every Sunday night, or setting up a college trust for the grand babies and offering to send plane tickets whenever a visit was possible. Hammer's sons did not have her drive, and she secretly blamed this on the bad genetic wiring of their father, who was all egg white and no yolk, in truth. No bloody wonder it had always required so many tries for Hammer to get pregnant. As it turned out, Seth's sperm count could be done on one hand. Randy and Jude were single, with families. They were still finding themselves in Venice Beach and Greenwich Village. Randy wanted to be an actor. Jude played drums in a band. Both of them were waiters. Hammer adored them.
Seth did not, and this was directly related to how seldom they came to town and why their mother ached in private.
The chief was suddenly depressed. She felt as if she might be coming down with something. She buzzed Captain Horgess.
"What do I have scheduled for lunch?" she asked.
"Councilman Snider," came the reply.
"Cancel him and get West on the phone," she said.
"Tell her to meet me in my office at noon."
The Presto Grill was an acronym for Peppy Rapid Efficient Service Tops Overall, and was r not in a good part of town. Every cop in the greater Charlotte-Mecklenburg area knew that Hammer and West ate breakfast at the Presto every Friday morning This was monitored far more closely than the cops supposed either woman knew, for there wasn't an officer interested in survival who would take even the slimmest chance that something bad might happen to the chief or deputy chief on his beat.
The small grill looked as it had in the forties, when it was built. It was on West Trade Street and surrounded by eroded parking lots, just down from the Mount Moriah Primitive Baptist Church. Hammer preferred walking from headquarters when the weather was nice, as it was this day. West never walked when she could ride, but it was not her call.
"Nice suit," Hammer said to West, who had opted to give her uniform a day off and was dressed in a red blouse, and a bright blue pants suit.
"Why do you never wear skirts?" Hammer asked her.
It was not a criticism, just curiosity. West had a very nice figure and slender legs.
"I hate skirts," West said, breathing hard, for Hammer did not walk at a normal pace.
"I think hose and high heels are a male conspiracy.
Like binding feet. To cripple us. Slow us down. " She breathed.
"Interesting," Hammer considered.
"W David One Officer Troy Saunders spotted them first and was instantly palsied by indecision as he quickly turned off on Cedar Street, out of sight. Did he alert his buddies out here? He was reliving the nightmare of Hammer's surprise appearance at roll call, and her severe warning about cops following people and harassing, spying, tailing, no matter the motive. Wouldn't it be harassment, in the chiefs eyes, if he, Saunders, instigated her and West being spied upon, or tailed, during lunch? Christ. Saunders came to a dead halt in an All Right parking lot, his heart out of control.
He checked his mirrors, and scanned parked cars, deliberating. It wasn't worth the risk, he decided. Especially since he had been right there, and had heard every word Hammer had said to Goode. The chief sure as hell could check roll call, and know for a fact that Saunders had been sitting three chairs away from her. She'd be all over his ass for insubordination, for disobeying a direct order. He was certain that her eyes had burned through him when she'd said. Next time, it will cost you. Saunders raised no one on his radio. He parked in the farthest corner of the pay lot and smoked.
"s9 By twenty minutes past noon, the regulars had found their favorite stools lining the Formica counter inside the grill. Gin Rummy was the last to sit, the usual banana in his back pocket that he planned to save for later on in the day when he got hungry again while driving his red and white Ole Dixie taxicab.
"You can fix me a hamburger?" Gin Rummy asked Spike at the grill.
"Yeah, we can fix you a hamburger," Spike said, pushing the bacon press.
"Know it's early."
"Man, it's not early." Spike scraped clean an area of the grill, and slapped down a frozen hamburger patty.
"When's the last time you looked at a clock, Rummy?"
His friends called him that for short. Rummy smiled, shaking his head sheepishly. He usually came in for breakfast but was running a little late today. Seems like those two white ladies usually came in for breakfast, too. Maybe that was the problem. Everything was confusing.
He shook his head again, grinned, and adjusted his banana so he didn't bruise any part of it.
"Why you carry your banana like that?" asked his neighbor, Jefferson Davis, who operated a yellow Caterpillar and still bragged that he had helped build US Bank
"Put it in your shirt pocket." He tapped the pocket on Rummy's red-checked shirt.
"Then you don't sit on it."
Other men at the counter, and there were eight of them, got into a deep discussion about Rummy's banana and Davis's suggestion. Some were eating beef tips and gravy, others sticking with the fried liver mush collard greens, and cheese grits.
"I put it in my shirt pocket and I see it the whole time I'm driving," Rummy was trying to explain his philosophy.
"Then I eat it sooner.
See? It never makes it till three or four o'clock. "
"Then stick it in the glove box."
"No room in there."
"What about the passenger's seat up front? All your fares ride in back, right?" Spike set down the burger, all the way, thousand island instead of mayo, double American cheese, and fried onions on the side.
"Won't work. Sometimes bags go up front." Rummy neatly cut his lunch in half.
"Or I pick up four fares at the bus station, and one of 'em gotta go up there. They see a banana on the seat, think I eat on the job."
"Well, you do, man."
"That's so."
"The truth."
"Tell it, brother."