Hornet's Nest (36 page)

“Thanks, Sol,” she whispered, and her voice shook as she wiped her eyes and took another swallow of bourbon.

“Get drunk if you want,” he suggested. “We have plenty of guest rooms, and you can just stay right here so you don’t have to drive.”

She patted Cahoon’s hand, and crossed her arms and drew a deep breath. “Let’s talk about you,” she said.

Dejected, he got up and returned to his chair. Cahoon looked at her and braced himself.

“Please don’t tell me it’s Michael or Jeremy,” he said in a barely audible voice. “I know Rachael is all right. She’s in her room asleep. I know my wife is fine, sound asleep, too.” He paused to compose himself. “My sons are still a bit on the wild side, both working for me and rebellious about it. I know they play hard, too hard, frankly.”

Hammer thought of her own sons and was suddenly dismayed that she might have caused this father a moment’s concern. “Sol, no, no, no,” she quickly reassured him. “This is not about your sons, or about anyone in your family.”

“Thank God.” He took another swallow of his drink. “Thank you, thank you, God.”

He would tithe more than usual to the synagogue next Friday. Maybe he would build another child-care center somewhere, start another scholarship, give to the retirement center and the community school for troubled kids, or an orphanage. Damn it all. Cahoon was sick and tired of unhappiness and people suffering, and he hated crime as if all of it were directed at him.

“What do you want me to do?” he said, leaning forward and ready to mobilize.

“Do?” Hammer was puzzled. “About what?”

“I’ve had it,” he said.

Now she was very confused. Was it possible he already knew what she had come here to tell him? He got up and began to pace in his Gucci leather slippers.

“Enough is enough,” he went on with feeling. “I agree with you, see it your way. People being killed, robbed, and raped out there. Houses burglarized, cars stolen, children molested. In this city. Same is true all over the world, except in this country, everybody’s got a gun. A gun in every pot. People hurting others and themselves, sometimes not even
meaning to. Impulse.” He turned around, pacing the other way. “Impaired by drugs and alcohol. Suicides that might not have happened were there not a gun right there. Acci . . .” He caught himself, remembering what had happened to Hammer’s husband. “What do you want me—want us at the bank—to do?” He stopped and fixed impassioned eyes on her.

This wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d rung his doorbell, but Hammer knew when to seize the day. “You certainly could be a crusader, Sol,” she thoughtfully replied.

Crusader. Cahoon liked that and thought it time she see he had some substance, too. He sat back down and remembered his bourbon.

“You want to help?” she went on. “Then no more shellacking what really goes on around here. No more bullshit like this one hundred and five percent clearance rate. People need to know the truth. They need someone like you to inspire them to come out swinging.”

He nodded, deeply moved. “Well, you know that clearance rate crap wasn’t my idea. It was the mayor’s.”

“Of course.” She didn’t care.

“By the way,” he said, curious now, “what is it really?”

“Not bad.” The drink was working. “Around seventy-five percent, which is nowhere near what it ought to be, but substantially higher than in a lot of cities. Now, if you want to count ten-year-old cases that are finally cleared or jot down names from the cemetery or decide that a drug dealer shot dead was the guy responsible for three uncleared cases . . .”

He held up his hand to stop her. “I get it, Judy,” he said. “This won’t happen again. Honestly, I didn’t know the details. Mayor Search is an idiot. Maybe we should get someone else.” He started drumming his fingers on the armrest, plotting.

“Sol.” She waited until his eyes focused on her again. “I’m afraid I do have unpleasant news, and I wanted you to know in person from me before the media gets on it.”

He tensed again. He got up and refreshed their drinks as Hammer told him about Blair Mauney III and what had
happened this night. She told him about the paperwork in Mauney’s rental car. Cahoon listened, shocked, the blood draining from his face. He could not believe that Mauney was dead, murdered, his body spray-painted and dumped amid trash and brambles. It wasn’t that Cahoon had ever particularly liked the man. Mauney, in Cahoon’s experienced opinion, was a weak weasel with an entitlement attitude and the suggestion of dishonesty did not surprise Cahoon in the least, the more it sank in. He was chagrined about
USChoice
cigarettes with their alchemy and little crowns. How could he have trusted any of it?

“Now it’s my turn to ask,” Hammer finally said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Jesus,” he said, his tireless brain racing through possibilities, liabilities, capabilities, impossibilities, and sensibilities. “I’m not entirely sure. But I know I need time.”

“How much?” She swirled her drink.

“Three or four days,” he replied. “My guess is most of the money is still in Grand Cayman in numerous accounts with numbers that aren’t linked. If this hits the news, I can guarantee that we’ll never recover the cash, and no matter what anybody says, a loss like that hurts everybody, every kid with a savings account, every couple needing a loan, every retired citizen with a nest egg.”

“Of course it does,” said Hammer, who also was a faithful client of Cahoon’s bank. “My eternal point, Sol. Everybody gets hurt. A crime victimizes all of us. Not to mention what it will do to your bank’s image.”

Cahoon looked pained. “That’s always the biggest loss. Reputation and whatever charges and fines the federal regulators will decide.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Dominion Tobacco and its secret Nobel-potential research always bothered me. I guess I just wanted to believe it was true,” he reflected. “But banks have a responsibility not to let something like this happen.”

“Then how did it?” she asked.

“You have a senior vice president with access to all commercial loan activities, and trust him. So you don’t always
follow your own policies and procedures. You make exceptions, circumvent. And then you have trouble.” He was getting more depressed. “I should have watched the son of a bitch more closely, damn it.”

“Could he have gotten away with it, had he lived?” Hammer asked.

“Sure,” Cahoon said. “All he had to do was make sure the loan was repaid. Of course, that would have been from drug money, unbeknownst to us. Meanwhile, he would have been getting maybe ten percent of all money laundered through the hotels, through the bank. And my guess is we would have become more and more of a major cash interstate for whoever these bad people are. Eventually, the truth would have come out. USBank would have been ruined.”

Hammer watched him thoughtfully, a new respect forming for this man who, prior to this early morning, she had not understood, and in truth had unfairly judged.

“Just tell me what I can do to help,” she said again.

“If you could withhold his identification and everything about this situation so we salvage what we can and get up to speed on exactly what happened,” he repeated. “After that, we’ll file a Suspicious Activity Report, and the public will know.”

Hammer glanced at her watch. It was almost three
A
.
M
. “We’ll get the FBI on it immediately. It will be in their best interest to buy a little time, too. As for Mauney, as far as I’m concerned, we can’t effect a positive identification just yet, and I’m sure Dr. Odom will want to withhold information until he can get hold of dental records, fingerprints, whatever, and you know how overworked he is.” She paused, and promised, “It will take a while.”

Cahoon thought of Mrs. Mauney III, whom he had met only superficially at parties. “Someone’s got to call Polly,” he said. “Mauney’s wife. I’d like to do that, if you have no objections.”

Hammer got up and smiled at him. “You know something, Sol? You’re nowhere near as rotten as I thought.”

“That works both ways, Judy.” He got up.

“It certainly does.”

“You hungry?”

“Starved.”

“What’s open at this hour,” he wondered.

“You ever been to the Presto Grill?”

“Is that a club?”

“Yes,” she told him. “And guess what, Sol? It’s about time you became a member.”

F
or the most part, only people up to no good were out at this hour, and as West drove seedy streets looking for Brazil’s car, her mood became more grim. In part she was worried. She was also so irritated that she wanted to slug him. What was he, crazy? Where did these irrational, angry fits come from? Were he a woman, she’d wonder about PMS and suggest he go back to the gynecologist. She grabbed the portable phone and dialed again.

“Newsroom,” an unfamiliar voice answered.

“Andy Brazil,” West said.

“He’s not in.”

“Has he been in at all the last few hours?” West asked, frustration in her tone. “Have you heard from him?”

“Not that I know of.”

West hit the end button and tossed the phone on the seat. She pounded the steering wheel. “Damn you, damn you, Andy!” she exclaimed.

As she cruised, her phone rang, startling her. It was Brazil. She was sure of it as she answered. She was wrong.

“It’s Hammer,” her chief said. “What in the world are you doing still out?”

“I can’t find him.”

“You certain he’s not home or at the paper?”

“Positive. He’s out here courting trouble,” West said rather frantically.

“Oh dear,” Hammer said. “Cahoon and I are about to have breakfast, Virginia. Here’s what I want you to do. No information about this case, and no identification until I tell you otherwise. For now, the case is pending. We need to buy some time here because of this other situation.”

“I think that’s wise,” West said, checking her mirrors, looking everywhere.

She had missed Brazil by no more than two minutes, and in fact, unwittingly had done so a number of times during the past few hours. She would turn onto one street just before he drove past where she had been. Now he was cruising by the Cadillac Grill on West Trade Street and staring out at boarded-up slums haunted by the rulers of the night. He saw the young hooker ahead, leaning inside a Thunderbird, talking to a man looking for a good investment. Brazil wasn’t in a shy mood, and he pulled up closer, watching. The car sped off and the hooker turned hostile, glazed eyes on Brazil, not at all happy with the intrusion. Brazil rolled down his window.

“Hey!” he called out.

Poison, the prostitute, stared at the one known on the street as Blondie, mockery in her eyes. She started strolling again. This pretty-boy snitch followed her everywhere, had a thing about her and was still working up his nerve, maybe thought he was going to get something more to leak to the police and the newspaper. She thought it was funny. Brazil unfastened his seatbelt. He reached to roll down the passenger’s window. She wasn’t going to get away from him this time. No sir, and he tucked the .380 out of sight beneath his seat, as he crept forward, calling out to her.

“Excuse me! Excuse me, ma’am!” he said again and again. “I need to talk to you!”

• • •

Hammer was rolling past at this very moment, Cahoon following in his Mercedes 600S V-12 sedan, black with parchment leather interior. He wasn’t entirely within his comfort zone in this part of the city, and he checked his locks again as Hammer got on her police radio and told the dispatcher to ten-five Unit 700. Immediately, she and West were on the air.

“The subject you’re looking for is at West Trade and Cedar,” Hammer said on the radio to West. “You might want to head this way in a hurry.”

“Ten-four!”

Officers in the area were perplexed, even a little lost, as they overheard this transmission between their highest leaders. They were still mindful of their chief’s feelings about being followed and harassed. Maybe it was wise to sit this one out for a minute or two until they had a better idea about what exactly was going down. West gunned the engine, racing back toward West Trade.

Poison stopped and slowly turned around, seduction smoldering in her eyes as she entertained notions this snitch in the BMW couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Hammer wasn’t so sure this was the right time to introduce Cahoon to the Presto Grill. Trouble seemed to rise from the street like heat, and she had not gotten where she was in life by ignoring her instincts. Only in her personal life had she looked the other way, turned the volume down low, and denied. She swung off into the All Right parking lot across from the grill and motioned out her window for Cahoon to follow. He stopped by her unmarked car and his window hummed down.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Park and get in,” she said.

“What?”

She furtively scanned their surroundings. Something bad was out there. She could feel its foulness, detect the scent of the beast. There was no time to waste.

“I can’t leave my car here,” Cahoon reasonably pointed out, because the Mercedes would be the only car in the lot and possibly the only vehicle within fifty miles that cost roughly one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

Hammer got the dispatcher on the air. “Send a unit to the All Right parking lot, five hundred block West Trade, to watch a late-model black Mercedes until I give further notice.”

Radar, the dispatcher, was none too fond of Hammer, for she, too, was female. But she was the chief, and he, at least, had the good sense to be afraid of the bitch. Radar had no idea what she was doing out on the street, especially at this hour. He sent two units while Poison smiled knowingly and took her time reaching the passenger’s window of Brazil’s car. She leaned inside like she did all the time and took an inventory of the groomed leather interior. She noted the briefcase, pens,
Charlotte Observer
notepads, old black leather bomber jacket, and most of all, the police scanner and two-way radio.

“You police?” she drawled, a little confused about just who the hell Blondie was.

“A reporter. With the
Observer
,” Brazil said, because he was not police anymore. West had made that clear.

Poison appraised him with dangerous flirtation. A reporter’s money was as good as any, and now she knew the truth. Blondie wasn’t a snitch. He was the one writing those stories that had Punkin Head so cranky and out of control.

“What you trading, little boy?” she asked.

“Information.” Brazil’s heart was thudding hard. “I’ll pay for it.”

Poison’s eyes gleamed, her lips parting in an amused, gap-toothed smile. She slinked around to his side of the car and leaned in his window. Her fragrance was cloying, like incense.

“What kind you want, little boy?” she asked.

Brazil was wary but intrigued. He’d never dealt with anything like this, and he imagined experienced, worldly men
and their secret pleasures. He wondered if they were scared when they let someone like this in their car. Did they ever ask her name or want to know anything about her?

“What’s been going on around here,” he nervously went on. “The murders. I’ve seen you around, in the area, I mean. For a while. Maybe you know something.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t,” she said, trailing a finger down his shoulder.

West was driving fast, passing the same bad places Brazil had moments earlier. Hammer wasn’t too far behind her, Cahoon riding shotgun, wide-eyed as he surveyed a reality far removed from his own.

“Will cost you fifty, little boy,” Poison said to Brazil.

He didn’t have that much in the bank and wasn’t about to let her know. “Twenty-five,” he negotiated, as if he did it all the time.

Poison backed up, appraising him and thinking about Punkin Head in its van, watching. It had yelled at her and slapped her around this morning. It had hurt her in places no one could see, because of what Blondie had put in the paper. Poison started feeling hateful about it and made a decision that perhaps wasn’t very wise, considering she and Punkin Head had already whacked one rich dude tonight, meeting their quota for the week, and cops were all around.

She seemed amused by something Brazil didn’t know, and she pointed. “See that corner there, little boy?” she said. “That old apartment building? Nobody in it no more. Meet you back there, ’cause we can’t be talking here.”

Poison stared into a dark alleyway across the street, where Punkin Head watched from inside its windowless van in dark shadows. It knew what she was up to and was aroused by it and in a mood to murder since it was taking less and less time for it to cool down and get the tension again. Punkin Head felt an insatiable rage toward Blondie that was more exciting than sex. It couldn’t wait to watch that fucking
snitch soil his fancy jeans and beg on his knees before the almighty Punkin Head. It had never wanted to ruin anything more in its despicable, low, nasty, hate-filled life and its excitement mounted unbearably.

West spotted Brazil’s car up ahead. She saw the hooker walking off as Brazil drove to the corner and took a right. She saw the old windowless van slide out of the dark alleyway, like an eel.

“Christ!” West panicked. “Andy, no!”

She grabbed the radio and slammed down the accelerator, flipping on strobing lights. “700 requesting backups!” she screamed on the air. “Two hundred block West Trade. Now!”

Hammer heard the broadcast, too, and sped up. “Shit,” she said.

“What the hell’s going on?” Cahoon was on red alert, in military mode, ready to take out the enemy.

“Don’t know but it’s not good.” She threw on her lights, whelping her siren as she passed people.

“You got an extra gun handy?” Cahoon asked.

He was in the Marines again, launching grenades at North Koreans, crawling through the blood of his buddies. Nobody went through that and came out the same. Nobody messed with Cahoon, because he knew something they didn’t. There were worse things than dying, the fear of it being one of them. He unfastened his seatbelt.

“Put that back on,” Hammer told him as they flew.

West was trying to find a place to do a U-turn and finally gave up. She bumped and slammed over the concrete median, rubber squealing as she headed the other way. She had lost sight of Brazil, the hooker, and the van. West was as frantic and frightened as she had ever been.

“Please God, help!” she fervently said. “Oh please God!”

Brazil turned behind haunted ruins of graying old wood and broken windows gaping ragged and black, where there was no sign of life. He stopped and sat in silence. He looked around, increasingly jumpy. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He dug in a pocket of his jeans and was taking an inventory of crumpled bills when suddenly the young hooker filled his window, smoking a cigarette, holding a washcloth, and smiling in a way that increased Brazil’s misgivings. It was the first time he’d noticed how crazed her eyes were, or maybe something was different now.

“Get out,” she said, motioning to him. “I see the money first.”

Brazil opened his door and stepped out as an engine roared in from the rear. A dark, old van with no windows bumped toward them at a high rate of speed. Brazil was shocked. He scrambled back inside his BMW, throwing it into reverse. But it was too late. The van blocked him, and there was nothing ahead but a thicket and a deep gully. Trapped, Brazil watched the driver’s door open. He took in the big, ugly sh’im with pumpkin-colored hair woven in cornrows close to its skull. It jumped out, its smile serpentine as it walked toward Brazil, a large-caliber pistol in one hand, the other rattling a can of spray paint.

“We got us a sweet one,” Punkin Head said to Poison. “Might have some fun. Teach him what we do with snitches.”

“I’m not a snitch,” Brazil let Punkin Head know.

“He’s a reporter,” Poison said.

“A reporter,”
it mocked, its anger raging out of control as memories of Black Widow stories unfurled and flashed and infuriated all over again.

Brazil’s stories were the furthest thing from his mind as he thought fast. Poison laughed. She zipped open a switchblade.

“Get out of the car and give me the keys.” Punkin Head moved closer to its prey, a .45 caliber pistol pointed between Blondie’s eyes.

“All right. All right. Please don’t shoot.” Brazil knew when to cooperate.

“We got us a beggar.” Punkin Head made a harsh, horrid sound that was supposed to be a laugh.
“Please don’t shoot,”
it mimicked.

“Let’s cut him first.” Poison waited outside the BMW’s door, knife ready to carve this reporter boy where it hurt.

Brazil turned off the engine. He fumbled with the keys, dropping them to the floor. He groped for them as West squealed around the corner, turning behind the abandoned apartments. Gunshots exploded. BAM-BAM, and BAM-BAM. Her siren screamed and screamed as a gun fired four more times. Hammer turned in four seconds after West, hearing the gunshots, too, flipping on her siren, while backups closed in from all directions of the Queen City, the night a red-and-blue flashing war zone.

West had her gun drawn as she bolted out of her car. Hammer, her partner, was right behind West, pistol racked back and ready. The two women scanned the parked van with running engine. They took in the two bloody bodies not breathing near an open switchblade and a can of spray paint. They locked on Brazil clenching the borrowed .380, as if his victims might hurt him, the gun jumping in his locked hands. Cahoon walked closer to the crime scene, staring at the dead and then all around at the lit-up skyline where his building towered.