"You don't have to say anything," Hammer gently reassured him.
"What's done is done. Now we move on. When you leave here, we're going to get you some help. That's all that matters now."
He shut his eyes and tears swam behind the lids. He saw a young man in baggy white trousers, and bow tie and snappy hat, grinning and happy on a sunny morning as he skipped down the granite steps of the Arkansas state capitol. Seth had been charming and sure of himself once. He had known how to have fun, and party with the rest of them, and tell funny tales. Psychiatrists had tried Prozac, Zoloft, Nortriptylene, and lithium. Seth had been on diets. He had stopped drinking once. He had been hypnotized and had gone to three meetings of Overeater's Anonymous. Then he had quit all of it.
"There's no hope," he sobbed to his wife.
"Nothing left but to die."
"Don't you dare say that," she said, her voice wavering.
"You hear me, Seth? Don't you dare say that!"
"Why isn't my love enough for you!" he cried.
"What love?" She stood, anger peeking around her curtain of self-control.
"Your idea of love is waiting for me to make you happy while you do nothing for yourself. I am not your caretaker. I am not your zookeeper. I am not your innkeeper. I am not your keeper, period." She was pacing furiously in his small private room.
"I am supposed to be your partner, Seth, your friend, your lover. But you know what? If this were tennis, I'd be playing goddamn singles in a goddamn doubles match on both sides of the net while you sat in the shade hogging all the balls and keeping your own private score!"
tw Brazil had spent the better part of the morning wondering if he should call West to see if she wanted to play some tennis. That would be innocent enough, wouldn't it? The last thing he wanted was to give her the satisfaction of thinking he cared a hoot that he hadn't heard from her in three and a half days. He parked at the All Right lot on West Trade, near Presto's, and went inside the grill for coffee, starved, but saving himself for something healthy. Later, he'd drop by the Just Fresh, the eat well feels good fast food restaurant in the atrium of First Union. That and Wendy's grilled chicken filet sandwiches with no cheese or mayonnaise were about all he lived on these days, and he was losing weight. He secretly wondered if he were getting anorexic.
He sat at the counter, stirring black SD coffee, waiting for Spike to stop cracking eggs with one hand over a bowl. Brazil wanted to chat.
The Michelob Dry clock on the wall over Spike's head read ten-forty-five. There was so much to do, and Brazil had to get it done by four p. m. " when his beat for the newspaper formally began. As much as Packer loved Brazil's scoops, the regular news of burglaries, robberies, rapes, suicides, fistfights in sports bars, white-collar bank crimes, drug busts, domestic problems, dog bites, and other human interest stories needed to be covered. Most of those reports Webb stole long before anyone else could see them. In fact, the situation was so acute, that the rest of the media now referred to the Charlotte Police Department's press basket as The Webb Site.
West, having recalled Brazil's early complaint about this, had finally done her bit by calling Channel 3 and complaining to the general manager. This had solved nothing. Nor was Goode receptive when West had brought it up to her, not realizing that Goode, in fact, regularly logged into The Webb Site. These days she and Brent Webb parked all over the city in her Miata. This was not due to a problem with their going to her apartment, where she lived alone. The risk of exposure was a huge turn-on to the couple. It was not unusual for them to park within blocks of his house, where his wife waited dinner for him, and picked up his dirty clothes, and sorted his socks.
The task force West had assembled to investigate drug deals going down at the Presto Grill also had much dirt to find, sort through, and hopefully match with other crime trends in the city. Mungo was an undercover detective, and he was eating grilled chicken tips and gravy in the grill, while Brazil, whom Mungo did not know, sipped black coffee. Mungo had gotten his street name for obvious reasons. He was a mountain in jeans and Panthers T-shirt, his wallet chained to his belt, long bushy hair tied back, and a bandana around a sloping forehead. He wore an earring. Mungo was smoking, one eye squinting as he watched the blond guy quiz Spike at the grill.
"No, man." Spike was flipping a burger and chopping hash browns.
"See, none's from around here, know what I mean?" He spoke with a heavy Portuguese accent.
"Where they come from doesn't matter," Brazil said.
"It's what happens once they get here. Look, the source of the bad shit going down is right where we are." He was talking the language, drumming his index finger on the counter.
"Local. I'm sure of it. What do you think?"
Spike wasn't going to explore this further, and Muneo's radar was locked in. That blond pretty-boy looked familiar. It seemed Mungo had seen him somewhere, and that made him only more convinced that he was going to develop Blondie as a suspect. But first things first. Mungo needed to sit here a little longer, see what else was going down, and he hadn't finished his breakfast.
"I need more toast," he said to Spike as Blondie left.
"Who's he?"
Mungo jerked his head in the direction of the shutting front door.
Spike shrugged, having learned long ago not to answer questions, and Mungo was a cop. Everybody knew it. Spike started filling a toothpick holder while Brazil made his next stop. Adjoining the Presto was the Traveler's Hotel, where one could get a room for as little as fifty dollars per week, depending on how well one negotiated with Bink Lydle at the desk. Brazil asked his questions to Lydle and got the same information he'd been handed next door.
Lydle was not especially hospitable, his arms folded across his narrow chest as he sat behind the scarred reception desk, with its bell and one-line telephone. He informed this white boy that Lydle knew nothing about these businessmen being whacked around here, and couldn't imagine that the 'source of this bad shit going down' was local.
Lydle, personally, had never seen anyone who made him auspicious, certainly not in his hotel, which was a city landmark, and the place to go back in the days of the Old Southern Train Station.
Brazil walked several blocks to Fifth Street and found Jazzbone's Pool Hall. Brazil decided that somebody was going to talk to him, even if he had to take a risk. At this early hour, Jazzbone's wasn't doing much business, just a few guys sitting around drinking Colt 45, smoking, telling favorite stories about binges, and women, and winning at numbers. Pool tables with shabby green felt were deserted, balls in their triangles, waiting for tonight when the place would be crowded and dangerous until the boozy early morning. If anyone knew what was going on in the neighborhood, Jazzbone was the man.
"I'm looking for Jazzbone," Brazil said to the drinking buddies.
One of them pointed to the bar, where Jazzbone, in plain view, was opening a case of Schlitz, and aware of the golden-hair dude dressed like college.
"Yeah!" Jazzbone called out.
"What you need."
Brazil walked across cigarette-burned, whisky-smelling carpet. A cockroach scuttled across his path, and salt and cigarette ashes were scattered over every table Brazil passed. The closer he got to Jazzbone, the more he noticed details. Jazzbone wore gold rings, fashioned of diamond clusters and coins, on every finger. The gold crowns on his front teeth had heart and clover cut-outs. He wore a semiautomatic pistol on his right hip. Jazzbone was neatly replacing bottles of beer in the cooler.
"All we got cold right now is Pabst Blue Ribbon," Jazzbone said.
Last night had been busy and had wiped Jazzbone out. He had a feeling this boy wanted something other than beer, but he wasn't undercover, like Mungo. Jazzbone could smell police and the Feds the minute they hit the block. He couldn't remember the last time he was fooled.