"I don't need you," he cruelly said.
Brazil wheeled around and ran. He ran as fast as he could, back to his BMW.
"Oh for God's sake," West exclaimed as Hammer suddenly was at her side.
"Problem?" Hammer stared after Brazil, her hands in her pockets.
"More of the same." West wanted to kill him.
"He's going to do something."
"Good deduction." Hammer's eyes were sad and tired, but she was full of courage and support for the living.
"I'd better go after him." West started walking.
Hammer stood where she was, strobing lights washing over her face as she watched West duck reporters and trot off to her car. Hammer thought about new love, about people crazy about each other and not knowing it as they fought and ran off and chased. The ambulance beeped as it backed up, carrying away what was left of a person who Hammer, in truth, did not feel especially sorry for at this point. She would never have wished such horrendous violence upon him, but what a piece of shit he was, stealing, hurting, and more than likely perpetuating the drug trade. Hammer was going to take this investigation into her own hands, and, if need be, make an example of Blair Mauney III, who had planned to screw the bank and a hooker during the same trip.
"People die the way they lived," she commented to Detective Brewster, patting his back.
"Chief Hammer." He was loading new film in his camera.
"I'm sorry about your husband."
"So am I. In more ways than you'll ever know." She ducked under the tape.
to Brazil must have been speeding again, or perhaps he was hiding in another alleyway. West cruised West Trade street, looking for his old BMW. She checked her mirrors, seeing no sign of him, the scanner a staccato of more problems in the city. She picked up the portable phone and dialed the number for Brazil's desk at the Observer. After three rings, it rolled over to another desk, and West hung up. She fumbled for a cigarette, and turned onto Fifth Street, checking cars driven by men checking the late night market. West whelped her siren and flashed her lights, messing with those up to no good. She watched hookers and shims scatter as potential clients sped away.
"Stupid bastards," West muttered, flicking an ash out the window.
"Is it worth dying for?" she yelled at them.
vv Cahoon lived in Myers Park on Cherokee Place, and his splendid brick mansion was only partly lit up because its owner and his wife and youngest daughter had gone to bed. This did not deter Hammer in the least. She was about to do a decent thing for the CEO and great benefactor of the city. Hammer rang the doorbell, her fabric worn in places she had not known she had. She felt an emptiness, a loneliness, that was frightening in its intensity. She could not bear to go home and walk past places Seth had sat, lain, walked, or rummaged through.
She did not want to see remnants of a life no more. His favorite coffee mug. The Ben amp;: Jerry's Chocolate Chip
Cookie Dough ice cream he'd never had a chance to eat. The antique sterling-silver letter opener he had given her the Christmas of 1972, still on the desk in her study.
Cahoon heard the bell from his master suite upstairs, where his view above sculpted boxwoods and old magnolia trees included his building encrusted with jewels and topped by a crown. He threw back fine monogrammed sheets, wondering who on earth would dare to drop by his home at this obscene hour. Cahoon went to the Aiphone on the wall, and picked up the receiver. He was startled to see Chief Hammer on the video monitor.
"Judy?" he said.
"I know it's late, Sol." She looked into the camera and spoke over the intercom.
"But I need to talk to you."
"Is everything all right?" Alarmed, he thought of his children. He knew Rachael was in bed. But his two older sons could be anywhere.
"I'm afraid not," Hammer told him.
Cahoon grabbed his robe from the bedpost, and flung it around himself.
His slippers patted along the endless antique Persian runner covering stairs. His index finger danced over the burglar alarm keypad, turning off glass breakers, motion sensors, contacts in all windows and doors, and bypassing his vault and priceless art collection, which were in separate wings and on separate systems. He let Hammer in. Cahoon squinted in the glare of bright lights that blazed on whenever anything more than a foot tall moved within a six-foot radius of his house. Hammer did not look good. Cahoon could not imagine why the chief was out so early in the morning, so soon after her husband's sudden death.
"Please come in," he said, wide awake now and more gentle than usual.
"Can I get you a drink?"
She followed him into the great room, where he repaired to the bar. Hammer had been inside Cahoon's mansion but once, at a splendid party complete with a string quartet and huge silver bowls filled with jumbo shrimp on ice. The CEO liked English antiques and collected old books with beautiful leather covers and marbled pages.
"Bourbon," Hammer decided.
That sounded good to Cahoon, who was on a regimen of no fat, no alcohol, and no fun. He might have a double, straight up, no ice. He pulled the cork out of a bottle of Blanton's Kentucky single barrel, and didn't bother with the monogrammed cocktail napkins his wife liked so much. He knew he needed to be medicated because Hammer wasn't here to hand him good news. Dear Lord, don't let anything bad have happened to either of the boys. Did a day go by when their father didn't worry about their partying, and flying through life in their sports cars or Kawasaki one-hundred horsepower Jet Skis?
Please let them be okay and I promise I'll be a better person, Cahoon silently prayed.
"I heard on the news about your…" he started to say.
Thank you. He had so much amputated, Sol. " Hammer cleared her throat.
She sipped bourbon and was soothed by its heat.
"He wouldn't have had a quality of life, had they been able to clear up the disease. I'm just grateful he didn't suffer any more than he did." She typically looked on the bright side as her heart trembled like something wounded and afraid.
Hammer had not and could not yet accept that when the sun rose this morning and each one after the next, there would be silence in her house. There would be no night sounds of someone rattling in cupboards and turning on the TV. She would have no one to answer to, report to, or call when she was late or not going to make it home for dinner, as usual. She had not been a good wife. She had not even been a particularly good friend. Cahoon was struck speechless by the sight of this mighty woman in tears. She was trying hard to muster up that steely control of hers, but her spirit simply could not take it. He got up from his leather wing chair and dimmed the sconces on dark mahogany that he had salvaged from a sixteenth-century Tudor manor in England. He went to her and sat on the ottoman, taking one of her hands.
"It's all right, Judy," he kindly said, and he felt like crying, too.
"You have every right to feel this way, and you go right on. It's just us, you and me, two human beings in this room right now. Who we are doesn't matter."
"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 Gaboon'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, n
o, 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 saw 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 Gaboon'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 US Choice 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 said.
"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 Gaboon'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. US Bank 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 some thing, Sol? You're nowhere near as rotten as I thought."
"That works both way, 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?" He grabbed his car keys.
"Yes," she said.
"And guess what, Sol? It's about time you became a member."
Chapter Twenty-six
For the most part, only people up to no good were out this hour, and as West drove seedy "Newsroom," an unfamiliar voice answered.
&nbs
p; "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.
tw 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.
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