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 switched 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.