There was no answer at Brazil's house when Hammer called from her car phone. She tried West next and was relieved that he and West were there.
'I've got something important to say to both of you,' Hammer said over the line.
Parking in the Fan wasn't as much of a problem at this early hour, and she managed to squeeze into a space on the curb right across the street from West's town house. Hammer was numb. She did not feel present, nor did she want to be when Brazil opened the front door.
Thank you for seeing me,' Hammer said to Brazil as they walked into the living room.
'Thank you,' he replied. 'It's kind of messy.'
Hammer didn't care. She didn't even notice her surroundings, messy or not. She sat in a straight-back chair while West and Brazil sat across from her on the couch.
'Virginia, Andy,' she began, 'I'm going to resign.'
'Oh God,' West said, shocked.
'You can't,' Brazil said, sick.
'Basically,' Hammer went on, 'I've pretty much screwed up everything here. I used to be a good police officer, a good chief. Everybody hates us.'
'Not everybody,' Brazil said.
'Most of them,' said West. 'I mean, let's be honest about it.'
'Well, I guess the Charlotte connection doesn't help,' Brazil supposed.
'Or our locking up the COMSTAT network pretty much around the globe,' Hammer said.
'Or our failure to crack the ATM cases before they progressed to a horrible murder. Or a communications officer getting in a fight with a traffic cop, both of whom had just received commendations several days before.' West helped her out with the list.
Hammer folded her hands in her lap and kept them still. She did not interrupt. She did not get up and pace.
'Judy,' West said. 'Where are you going to go? Back to Charlotte?'
Hammer shook her head.
'Nowhere,' she answered. 'If I can't handle Richmond, I'm not going to be able to handle someplace else. When the horse dies, get off. I'm retiring from police work. I don't know where I'll live. It doesn't matter.'
'That reminds me,' West said. 'We need to talk about the Azalea Parade.'
'How did what she just said remind you of that?' Brazil asked.
'The horse comment. We've got mounted cops in the parade,' West said. 'And' - she looked at Hammer -'Andy and I are supposed to ride in your convertible.'
'What kind of convertible is it?' Hammer looked distracted.
'Dark blue Sebring,' Brazil said. 'Modest, not showy, although one of the big guys at Philip Morris wanted to drive you in his red Mercedes VI2 convertible.'
'Not a good idea,' Hammer muttered.
'I don't think you should be in the parade at all,' West said with conviction. 'The parade could be a possible target for Smoke. And I hate for you to be riding slow in a convertible anyway. There're a lot of kooks out there.'
Hammer got up. She really didn't care what happened to her.
'It's important,' she said dully. 'Every little thing we do to reach the community is helpful. I won't back out of a promise." 'Well, we're going to have fifty off-duty cops there in addition to the regular shifts,' West told her. 'To the public, it will appear we're there mainly for traffic control. And we're mobilizing about twenty plainclothes guys to mingle, just in case Smoke shows up or someone else decides to cause a problem.'
Bubba was thinking the same thing. He believed Chief Hammer should not be riding in an open car in the Azalea Parade, and worse, it had been in the newspaper so everybody knew it. It was possible this was where all roads met. Bubba had been called to save her from a terrible danger. Bubba also figured the Pikes somehow factored in.
At eight o'clock this morning, he was already parking in front of Green Top Sporting Goods on U.S. Route 1, some twenty minutes outside of Richmond. There was no place Bubba would rather be. The minute he walked through the door and was greeted by thousands of fishing rods and all that went with them, his pulse quickened. When he turned to the right and saw hundreds of rifles, shotguns, pistols and revolvers, he got flushed. He felt lust in a way he had never experienced with Honey.
'Hey, what'cha know.' He was enthusiastically greeted by Fig Winnick, the assistant manager.
By Virginia law, a citizen could buy one handgun every thirty days and no more. This had given rise to the tongue-in-cheek Gun-of-the-Month Club. It was a small but clever group of one hundred and eighty-nine men and sixty-two women who sent each other reminders when their thirty days, loosely interpreted as a month, were up. It was April 2.
'If only I'd come in two days ago, I could have bought a gun then and another one today,' Bubba misinterpreted, as usual.
'Wishful thinking,' Winnick told him again. 'Doesn't work that way, Bubba. And it sure as hell is too damn bad.'
'So you're saying it's not once a month,' Bubba challenged what he refused to believe.
'Not literally. But sort of. If you start with the first day of each month.'
'You know, someone stole all my guns.' Bubba browsed.
'The guys were talking about it,' Winnick sympathized.
'So all I got left's the Anaconda and I need something I can pack easier,' Bubba spoke the language.
'I got just the thing.'
Winnick lovingly opened a showcase and gently pulled out a Browning 40 S amp;W Hi-Power Mark III pistol. He handed the beauty to Bubba.
'Oh God,' Bubba muttered as he fondled the silver chrome pistol. 'Oh, oh, oh.'
'Molded polyamide grips with thumb rest,' Winnick said. 'Weighs thirty-five ounces, four and three-quarters barrel. Feels great to the hand, huh?'
'Boy. No kidding.'
Bubba pulled back the slide and snapped it forward. There was just no better sound than that.
'Low profile front sight blade, drift-adjustable rear sight,' Winnick went on. 'Ambidextrous safety, ten-round magazine.'
'Imported from Belgium.' Bubba wasn't going to be fooled. 'The genuine thing.'
'Nothing but.'
'What about a matte blue finish?' Bubba inquired. 'It doesn't show up as much.'
'Sorry,' Winnick apologized. 'Damn. If only you had come in yesterday. We had about eleven left.'
'Well, I guess this one will have to do,' Bubba said.
Patty Passman also was thinking ahead. She hadn't missed an Azalea Parade in twelve years and she didn't intend to miss this one. Although Rhoad had unfairly charged her with many things, it was only assault on a police officer that had stuck. She wished bail bondsman Willy 'Lucky' Loving would show up to get her the hell out of here.
Lockup was just a holding area and inmates wore their own clothes, giving up only their belts to make it trickier to commit suicide. Passman was sticky, her panty hose so torn up she'd had no choice but to take them off right in front of her cellmate, Tinky Meaney, a truck driver for Dixie Motorfreight, who had gotten picked up for getting into a scuffle in the parking lot of the Power Clean Grill on Hull Street. Passman didn't know the details, but of one thing she was certain, Tinky Meaney wasn't on the list of those Passman might have invited to a slumber party.
'I sure wish he'd hurry up,' Passman said from her narrow steel pull-down bed.
She said this often to make certain Meaney didn't think that Passman enjoyed Meaney's company and was in no hurry to leave it. Meaney was a big woman. She was the sort who always said they weren't fat, just big-boned and solid. This was nonsense.
Meaney's thighs were thicker than the biggest Smithfield hams Passman had ever seen, and every time Meaney stalked about the tiny cell, her jeans swished as her upper legs rubbed together. Her hands were thick with stubby fingers and big knuckles that were scraped and bruised from the fistfight that had landed her here. She had no neck. As she sat on the edge of her bed staring at Passman, Meaney's breasts sagged over her empty belt loops. Unshaved pale legs showed between the hem of her jeans and the top of her hand-tooled black and red cowboy boots.