Hornet's Nest

by Patricia Cornwell

  The woman gave him her attention, and he didn't like what he saw in her eyes. This one didn't know fear. Clearly, she didn't have sense enough to appreciate what she was looking at, and Bubba went over to her lane and helped himself to her Smith & Wesson.

  "Pretty big piece for a little gal like you." Bubba grinned in his cruel way, dribbling more snuff in his jar.

  "Please put it down," West calmly told him.

  Brazil was intrigued and appropriately nervous about where this was going. The big-bellied pig dressed like Ruby Ridge or Oklahoma City looked like he had hurt people in the past and was proud of it. He did not put West's gun down, but was now dropping out the magazine, checking the slide, and ejecting the cartridge from the chamber. It occurred to Brazil that West was disarmed, and he could not help her, because the . 380 was out of ammunition, too.

  "Put it down. Now." West was most unfriendly.

  "It's city property, and I am a city police officer."

  "How 'bout that?" Bubba was beginning to enjoy himself immensely.

  "Little woman here's a cop. Well, golly gee."

  West knew better than to announce her rank, which would make matters only that much worse. She stepped so close to him, the toes of their shoes were about to touch. Her chest would have pressed against his belly had she not decided against it.

  "This is the last time I ask you to put my gun right back where you found it," she said, staring up into his homely, whisky-flushed face.

  Bubba fixed his sights on Brazil, deciding this pretty boy might be in for a life lesson. Bubba strode over to West's lane, set down her gun, walked up to Brazil, tried to grab the . 380 for inspection. Brazil slugged Bubba and broke his nose. Bubba bled over camouflage, and dripped on assault weaponry as he hastily packed his duffel bag.

  It was Bubba's Last Stand when he cried out from the steps that the lady and her boyfriend had not heard the last from Bubba.

  "Sorry," Brazil said right off when he and West were alone again.

  "Jesus Christ. You can't just hit people like that." She was mostly embarrassed that she hadn't resolved the conflict herself.

  He was loading magazines, and realizing he had never struck anybody in his life. He wasn't sure what he felt about it as he lovingly studied West's . 380 pistol.

  "What does one of these cost?" he asked with the reverence of the poor.

  "You can't afford it," she said.

  "What if I sold your story to Parade magazine. My editor thinks they'd go for it. I could make some money. Maybe enough ..."

  This was just what West wanted, another story.

  "How about I make a deal with you," she said.

  "No Parade magazine.

  Borrow the Sig until you can afford one of your own. I'll work with you a little more, maybe on an outdoor range. We'll set up some combat situations. The way you piss people off, it's a good idea. Rule of etiquette. Pick up your brass. "

  Hundreds of shiny cartridge cases were scattered in their area. Brazil got down and began plucking them up, clinking them into a metal can while West gathered her belongings. She had an unpleasant thought, and looked at him.

  "What about your mother?" she asked.

  He kept working, glancing up, a shadow passing behind his eyes.

  "What about her?"

  "I'm just wondering about a gun being in the house."

  "I got good at hiding things a long time ago." He loudly clanged brass into the can, making his point.

  j^j W Bubba was waiting in the parking lot, inconspicuous inside his spotless chrome and black King Cab pickup truck with gun rack. Confederate flag mud flaps, roll bar, KC fog lights, Oilie North bumper sticker, PVC pipes for holding fishing poles on the front grille, and neon lights around the license plate. He held a wadded-up undershirt to his bleeding nose, watching as the lady cop and her asshole boyfriend emerged from the firing range, walking through the gathering dusk. Bubba waited long enough to see her get out keys and head for an impeccable white Ford Explorer in a corner of the unpaved lot. Her personal wheels, Bubba supposed, and this was even better. He climbed down from his cab, a tire jack in a meaty fist, ready for a little payback.

  West was expecting him. She was practiced in the modus operandi of Bubbas, for whom revenge was a reflex, like getting up for a beer during commercials. She had already dipped into her tote bag for what looked like a black golf club handle.

  "Get in the car," she quietly ordered Brazil.

  "No way," he said, standing his ground as Bubba strode toward them, a menacing sneer on his gory face.

  Bubba didn't get within six feet of her car before West was walking to meet him. He was surprised, not expecting kick-ass aggression from this little lady cop. He tapped the tire iron against a meaty thigh as a warning, then raised it, eyeing the Ford's spotless front windshield.

  "Hey!" Weasel, the manager, yelled from the range's entrance.

  "Bubba, what d'ya think you're doing, man!"

  The retractable steel baton snapped out like a whip,

  suddenly three feet long with a hard knobby tip that West pointed at Bubba. She drew slow circles in the air, like a fencer.

  "Put it down and leave," she commanded Bubba in her police tone.

  "Fuck you!" Bubba was really losing his temper now because he was losing his nerve. He had seen weapons like hers at gun shows and knew they could be mean.

  "Bubba! You quit right now!" screamed Weasel, who ran a clean business.

  Brazil noticed that the manager was most upset but did not get one step closer to the trouble. Brazil was casting about, wanting to help.

  He knew better than to get in her way. If only the . 380 was loaded. He could shoot out this goon's tires or something, perhaps cause a diversion. West caused her own. Bubba raised the tire iron again, this time completely dedicated to connecting it with her car, because he had committed himself. It no longer mattered what he felt. He had to do it, especially now that Weasel and a gathering crowd were watching.

  If Bubba didn't carry out his threat and avenge his injured nose, everyone in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region would know.

  West smacked the bony part of Bubba's wrist with the baton, and he howled in pain as the tire iron clanked to the parking lot. That was the end of it.

  W "Why didn't you arrest him?" Brazil wanted to know a little later, as they drove past Latta Park in Dilworth, close to where she lived.

  "Wasn't worth it," she replied, smoking.

  "He didn't damage my car or me."

  "What if he takes out warrants on us, for assault?" The thought was weirdly appealing to Brazil.

  She laughed as if her ride-along hadn't lived much.

  "Don't think so."

  She turned into her driveway.

  "Last thing he wants is the world knowing he got beat up by a woman and a kid."

  "I'm not a kid," he said.

  Her house was as he remembered it, and the fence was no further along.

  Brazil asked no questions, but followed her through the backyard to her small workshop, where there was a table saw and a vast collection of tools neatly organized on pegboards. West built bird houses, cabinets, even furniture, it appeared to him. He had done enough odd jobs around his house during his life to have a healthy respect for her obvious ability. He found it a strain to even assemble K-Mart bookcases.

  "Wow," he said, looking around.

  "Wow what?" She shut the door behind them and turned on a radio.

  "What made you decide to do all this?"

  "Survival," she said, squatting to open a small refrigerator. Bottles rattled as she brought out two long-neck Southpaw Lights.

  Brazil did not like beer, in truth, even though he drank it from time to time. It tasted rotten and made him silly and sleepy. He would die before he let her find this out.

  "Thanks," he said, screwing off the cap, and tossing it in the trash.

  "When I was getting started, I couldn't afford to hire people to help me out around here. So I learned on my ow
n." She opened hard cases and got out guns.

  "Plus, as you know, I grew up on a farm. I learned whatever I could from my dad, and the hired hands."

  "What about from your mom?"

  West was disassembling the pistols as if she could do it in her sleep.

  "Like what?" She glanced across the table at him.

  "You know, domestic stuff. Cooking, cleaning, raising kids."

  She smiled, opening a tackle box stocked with gun- cleaning paraphernalia.

  "Do I cook and clean for myself? You see a wife anywhere?" She handed him a cleaning rod and a stack of patches.

  He took a big swig of beer and swallowed it as fast as he could, trying not to taste it, as usual. He was feeling braver, and trying not to notice how good she looked in her gray T-shirt and jeans.

  "I've done shit like that all my life, and I'm not a wife," he said.

  "What do you know?" she asked as she dipped her rod into a small brown bottle of solvent.

  "Nothing." He said this as a sulking challenge.

  "Don't give me your moods, okay?" West replied, refusing to play games, because, frankly, she was too old for them.

  Brazil threaded a patch through his rod, and dipped it in Hoppes. He loved the smell, and had no intention of confessing anything else to her. But the beer had a tongue of its own.

  "Let's talk about this wife-shit again," she pushed him.

  "What do you want me to say?" Brazil, the man, replied.

  "You tell me what it means." She really wanted to know.

  "In theory," - he began to clean the barrel of the . 380 - "I'm not entirely sure. Maybe something to do with roles, a caste system, a pecking order, a hierarchy, the ecosystem."

  "The ecosystem?" She frowned, blasting her barrel and other parts with Gunk Off.

  "Point is," he explained, 'that being a wife has nothing to do with what you do, but with what someone thinks you are. Just like I'm doing something you want me to do right now, but that doesn't make me a slave. "

  "Don't you have the roles a little reversed here? Who was giving who firearms instruction?" She scrubbed the inside of the barrel with a toothbrush.

  "You're doing what you want to do. I'm doing what you want me to do. For nothing, for the record. And who's the slave?" She sprayed again and handed him the can.

  He reached for his beer. It was his limited experience that the warmer beer got, the worse it got.

  "So let's say you grow up and get married someday," she went on.

  "What are you going to expect of your wife?"

  "A partner." He tossed his bottle into the trash.

  "I don't want a wife. I don't need anybody to take care of me, clean for me, cook for me." He got out two more beers, popped them open and set one within her reach.

  "Saying I'm too busy to do all that shit for myself someday? I'll hire a housekeeper. But I'm not going to marry one," he said as if this were the most ridiculous notion society had ever devised.

  "Uh huh."

  She reached for the barrel of the . 380, checking his work. Man talk, she thought. The difference was, this one could put words together better than most. She didn't believe a thing he said.

  "It should look like a mirror inside." She slid the barrel in front of him.

  "Scrub hard. You can't hurt it."

  He picked up the barrel, then his beer.

  "See, people should get married, live together, whatever, and do things just like this," he went on as he dipped a brush in solvent and resumed scrubbing. There shouldn't be roles. There should be practicalities, people helping out each other like friends. One weak where the other's strong, people using their gifts, cooking together, playing tennis, fishing. Walking on the beach. Staying up late talking. Being unselfish and caring. "

  "Sounds like you've thought about this a lot," she said.

  "A good script."

  He looked puzzled.

  "What script?"

  She drank.

  "Heard it all before. Seen that rerun."

  % So had Bubba's wife, Mrs. Rickman, whose first name had ceased to be important when she had gotten married twenty-six years ago in the Tabernacle Baptist Church. This had been down the road in Mount Mourne where she worked every day at the B&B, known for the best breakfast in town. The B&B's hot dogs and burgers were popular, too, especially with Davidson students, and, of course, with other Bubbas on their way for a day of fishing at Lake Norman.

  When gun cleaning was completed, and Brazil suggested to West that they stop for a bite to eat, neither of them had a way to know that the overweight, tired woman waiting on them was Bubba's wretched wife.

  "Hi, Mrs. Rickman," Brazil said to the waitress.

  He gave her his bright, irresistible smile and felt sorry for her, as he always did when he came to the B&B. Brazil knew how hard food service was, and it depressed him to think of what it had been like for his mother all those years when she could still get out and go anywhere. Mrs. Rickman was happy to see him. He was always so sweet.

  "How's my baby?" she chirped, setting plastic laminated menus in front of them. She eyed West.

  "Who's your pretty lady friend?"

  "Deputy Chief Virginia West with the Charlotte police," Brazil made the mistake of saying.

  So it was that Bubba would learn the identities of his attackers.

  tw "My, my." Mrs. Rickman was mighty impressed as she got an eyeful of this important woman sitting in a B&B booth.

  "A deputy chief. Didn't know they had women that high up. What'll be? The pork barbecue's extra good tonight. I'd get it minced."

  "Cheeseburger all the way, fries. Miller in the bottle," West said.

  "Extra mayonnaise and ketchup. Can you put a little butter on the bun and throw it on the grill?"

  "Sure can, honey." Mrs. Rickman nodded. She didn't write down anything as she beamed at Brazil.

  "The usual." He winked at her.

  She walked off, her hip killing her worse than yesterday.

  "What's the usual?" West wanted to know.

  "Tuna on wheat, lettuce, tomato, no mayo. Slaw, limeade. I want to ride patrol with you. In uniform," he said.

  "In the first place, I don't ride patrol. In the second place, in case you haven't noticed, I have a real job, nothing important. Just the entire investigative division. Homicide. Burglary. Rape. Arson. Fraud.

  Auto theft. Check theft," she said.

  "White collar, computer, organized crime, vice. Juvenile. Cold case squad. Of course, there's a serial killer on the loose, and it's my detectives on the case, getting all the heat."

  She lit a cigarette, and intercepted her beer before Mrs. Rickman could set it down.

  "I would prefer not to work twenty-four hours a day, if it's all the same to you. You know how my cat gets?

  Won't touch me, won't sleep with me? Not to mention, I haven't gone out to a movie, to dinner, in weeks. " She drank.

  "I haven't finished my fence. When was the last time I cleaned my house?"

  "Is that a no?"

  Brazil said.

  Chapter Eight.

  ^^'/ Bubba's Christian name was Joshua Rickman, ^ifSl. Q and he was a forklift operator at Ingersoll(}{^V Rand in Cornelius. Perhaps the manufacturer's greatest claim to fame came and went in the early eighties when it manufactured a snow machine that was used in the winter Olympics somewhere. Bubba wasn't clear on the details, and didn't care. Air compressors were what one saw on life's highways. They were in demand all over the world. His was an international career. This early Monday morning he was deep in thought as he skillfully deposited crates on a loading dock.

  His wife happened to have mentioned the Davidson kid who was dating some big-shot police woman. Yo. Bubba didn't have to strain himself to add two and two. His nose hurt like shit, but no way he was going to a doctor. For what? It was his philosophy that there was nothing to be done about a busted nose or ripped ears, knocked-out teeth and other non-life-threatening head injuries, unless one had some queer bait interest
in plastic surgery, which Bubba clearly did not. His nose was a blimp and always had been, so the setback in this case was pain and pain alone. Every time he blew his nose, blood gushed and tears filled his eyes, all because of that little son of a bitch. Bubba wasn't about to forget.

  He had books for life's problems, and referred to them as needed. Make "Em Pay and Get Even 1 and 2 were especially insightful. These were the ultimate revenge technique manuals penned by a master trickster and privately published out of Colorado. Bubba had discovered them at gun shows here and yon. Bombs were an idea. What about a television tube that would explode, or a Ping-Pong ball loaded with potassium chlorate and black powder? Maybe not. Bubba wanted some real damage here, but wasn't interested in the FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) fast roping in or staking out his property. He didn't want prison time.