Hornet's Nest

by Patricia Cornwell

  "Way to go," West said to her partner, as Tangine wailed and shrieked.

  Brazil missed a step and landed on his ass.

  "I'd put a light on if I had one," Luellen said from the doorway.

  The next two hours were spent in the records room. West continued to fill out forms, having no idea that there were so many of them these days. It was astonishing, and she was unfamiliar with anyone back here tonight, and all were rude and not inclined to respect West's rank.

  Were she paranoid, she might have suspected a conspiracy, as if someone had instructed the clerks to give the deputy chief a bad dose, to stick her but good. Mostly, West got their backs as they typed, and sipped their Frescas and Diet Cokes. West could have asserted herself, but didn't. She entered the missing person information in NCIC herself.

  She and Brazil rode around for a while in the Midland area, hoping they might spot the small adopted son with bad skin and Hornets cap.

  They drove slowly past kids hanging out on corners, and beneath street lights, hateful eyes following. Wheatie remained at large, and as the evening wore on, Brazil had developed a relationship with him. Brazil imagined Wheatie's wretched life, his loneliness and anger. What chance did anyone like that have? Nothing but bad examples, and cops out there like cowboys waiting to lasso and round him up.

  Brazil's early years weren't perfect, either, but there was no comparison. He had tennis courts and nice neighbors. Davidson security treated him like family, and he was always welcome to visit their small brick precinct, and listen to their stories and gossip and exaggerations. They made him feel special when he came in. The same was true at the laundry with its rooftop of tangled rusting metal, from students picking up laundry and tossing the wire hangers up there, where they stayed for years. Doris, Bette, and Sue always had time for Brazil. The same could be said in the snack bar, the M&M soda shop, the bookstore, anywhere he went, really.

  tw Wheatie had never experienced any of this, and quite likely never would. At the very moment West was reprimanding a driver for not wearing a seatbelt, Wheatie was jailing with his heroes in the slums off Beatties Ford Road. There were four friends, all years older than Wheatie. His pals had big pants, big shoes, big guns,

  and big rolls of cash in their pockets. They were high- fiving, laughing, soaring on wings of smoke. Yes sir, the night had been good, and for one sweet minute, that hollow, hurtful spot in Wheatie's heart was full and feeling fine.

  "Give me a gun, I'll go work for you," he said to Slim.

  "Little piece like you?" Slim laughed.

  "Uh uh." He shook his head.

  "I

  give you a job, you get spanked and I end up with nothing. "

  "Bullshit," Wheatie said in his biggest, boasting tone.

  "Nobody fuck with me."

  "Yeah, you bad," said Tote.

  "Yeah, you bad," Fright imitated Tote, while popping Wheatie on the head.

  "Man, I gotta go get me some food," said Slim, who could eat tires after getting high.

  "How 'bout we hit Hardee's."

  He meant this literally. Slim and company were under the influence and armed, and robbing Hardee's was as good an idea as any they had come up with this night. All of them piled into his red Geo Tracker. They headed out with the radio so loud the bass could be felt five cars away. Wheatie plotted as they drove, thinking about Jerald and how proud he would be of Wheatie right now. Jerald would be impressed with Wheatie's buddies. Wheatie wished Slim, Tote, and Fright could meet Jerald. Shit, wouldn't they step back and give Wheatie a little more respect? Fuck yeah, they would. He watched telephone poles and cars go by, his heart picking up speed. He knew what he had to do.

  "Give me a gun, I'll do it," he said loud enough to be heard over heavy metal.

  Slim was driving, and laughed again, eyeing him in the rearview mirror.

  "You will? You ever hit anything before?"

  "I hit my mother."

  They all laughed.

  "He hit his mother! Woooo-weeee! Bad ass!"

  They were choking, guffawing, weaving in and out of traffic. Fright slipped out his high-gloss stainless steel Ruger . 357 Blackhawk revolver with its six-and a-half- inch barrel and walnut grips and adjustable sights. It was loaded with six Hydra-Shoks. He handed his piece to Wheatie, who acted as if he knew all there was to know about guns, and owned plenty of them. They pulled up to Hardee's. The friends landed glazed eyes on Wheatie.

  "All right motherfucker," Slim said to him.

  "You go in and get a twelve-piece dinner, all white meat." He snapped out a twenty-dollar bill.

  "You pay and wait. Don't do nothing 'til you got the food, you know? Then you tuck it under your arm, pull out the gun, clean out the registers, and run like hell."

  Wheatie nodded, heart drilling out of his chest.

  "We ain't gonna be sitting right here." Fright made that point, jerking his head at the Payless gas station next store.

  "Back there by the Dumpster. You take long, motherfucker, we leave your ass."

  Wheatie understood.

  "Get the fuck outa my face," he said, tough and invincible as he tucked the revolver in the front of his pants and pulled his T-shirt over it.

  What Wheatie did not understand was that this particular Hardee's had been robbed before, and Slim, Fright, and Tote were aware of it. They were laughing and lighting up another joint even as he walked in and they drove off. Wheatie's little butt was going to get locked up tonight. He'd learn about jailing honestly, his pants falling off because they took his belt, then dropping the rest of the way when some motherfucker got the urge for his sweet little ass.

  "Twelve piece, white meat." Wheatie's voice didn't sound quite so tough now that he was at the counter. He was shaking all over and terrified that the fat black lady in a hairnet knew all about his plan.

  "What sides you want?" she asked.

  Shit. Slim didn't tell him that part. Oh shit. He got it wrong and they'd kill him. His furtive, hard eyes cast about, not seeing the Tracker anywhere.

  "Baked beans. Slaw. Biscuits," he did the best he could.

  She rang it up, and took his twenty. He left the change on the counter, fearful that tucking it in his pocket might draw attention to the gun. When the big bag of chicken and side orders were gripped under a frail arm, Wheatie drew the gun, not real smoothly, but he got it out and pointed it at the fat lady's startled face.

  "Give me all your money, motherfucker!" he commanded in his crudest voice as

  the gun shook in his small hands.

  Wyona managed this Hardee's and was working the counter because two of her people were out sick tonight. She'd been robbed three times in her life and this little piece of motherfucking white meat wasn't going to make it four. She put her hands on her hips, glaring at him.

  "What you gonna do, cockadoodledo? Shoot me?" she sang.

  Wheatie had not anticipated this. He clicked back the hammer, hands shaking harder. He wet his lips, eyes jumping. It was decision time.

  No way he could let this fat chicken lady dis him. Shit man. He walked out of here without the money and that was the end of his career. He wasn't even sure he'd gotten the sides right. Oh shit, he was in trouble. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The explosion was incredible and the revolver jumped in his hands. The bullet smashed through large fries $1. 99 on the lit-up sign over Wyona's head. She grabbed the big . 357 magnum away from him, and he ran like hell.

  V9 Wyona was a firm believer in community intervention. She chased Wheatie out the door. She thundered after him through the parking lot, across the way to the Payless, and behind it where a red Tracker was parked, filled with teenagers smoking weed. They locked the doors.

  Wheatie tugged a handle to no avail, yelling, as the huge woman grabbed the back of his pants, yanking them down to his leather Adidas. He fell to the pavement in a tangle of red denim as she pointed the revolver through glass, at the driver's head.

  wy Slim knew a determined look when he sa
w it. This bitch was going to shoot him if he so much as blinked. He slowly lifted his hands from the steering wheel, and held them up.

  "Don't shoot," he begged.

  "Oh please don't shoot."

  "Get on your car phone and call 911 right now," Wyona screamed.

  He did.

  "Tell them where you are and what you done and that if they don't get here in exactly two minutes, I'm blowing your motherfucking head off!"

  she screamed, her foot firmly planted on Wheatie, who was supine and shaking on the pavement, face down, hands covering his head.

  "We just robbed Hardee's and are behind the Payless on Central Avenue!" Slim yelled into the phone.

  "Please get here quick!"

  vy Selma, the 911 operator who got the call, wasn't certain what this was about. But she gave it a priority one because her instinct prodded her in a tragedy-about-to- occur direction. Radar, meanwhile, had not finished with West this night. He passed the emergency along to her.

  W> "Goddamit," West said as she drove past Piedmont Open Middle School. She was trying to avoid other problems, and did not wish to hear her unit number one more time, ever.

  Brazil couldn't grab the mike fast enough. '700," he said.

  "Unknown trouble, four thousand block of Central Avenue," Radar said with a smile.

  West floored it, flying down Tenth Street, cutting over to the one thousand block of Central, flying past the Veterans Park and Saigon Square. Other units backed her up, for by now it had occurred to every cop on the street that their deputy chief was handling a lot of dangerous calls unassisted by anyone. When she rolled into the Payless, six cars with lights flashing were behind her. This was uncommon, but West didn't question it and was grateful. She and Brazil got out. Wyona lowered the gun, now that help was here.

  "They tried to rob me," she said to Brazil.

  "Who did?" West asked.

  "The piece of white shit under my foot," she said to Brazil.

  West noted the fade haircut, the bad skin, the Hornets cap and shirt.

  The boy's pants were knotted around his basketball shoes, and he had on yellow boxer shorts. Next to him was a big bag of chicken and side orders.

  "He come in, ordered twelve piece all white meat, then pulled out this thing." Wyona handed the gun to Brazil because he was the man and Wyona had never dealt with woman police and wasn't about to start now.

  "I chased him out here to where these sons of bitches are." She gestured furiously at Slim, Fright, and Tote as they cowered inside the Tracker.

  West took the gun from Brazil. She looked back at the six other officers standing nearby and observing.

  "Let's lock 'em up," she said to the troops. To Wyona, she added.

  Thanks. "

  The boys were rounded up and cuffed. Now that they were official felons again and not about to be killed, their bravery returned. They stared hatefully at the police and spat. In the car. West gave Brazil a pointed look. He typed on the MDT, clearing them from the scene.

  "Why do they hate us so much?" he said.

  "People tend to treat others the way they've been treated," she answered.

  "Take cops. A lot of them are the same way."

  They rode in silence for a while, passing other poor landscapes, the aspiring sparkling city around them.

  "What about you?" Brazil asked.

  "How come you don't hate?"

  T had a good childhood. "

  This made him angry.

  "Well I didn't, and I don't hate everyone," he said.

  "So don't ask me to feel sorry for them."

  "What can I tell you?" She got out a cigarette.

  "It goes back to Eden, the Civil War, the Cold War, Bosnia. The six days it took God to make all this."

  "You got to quit smoking," he said, and he remembered her fingers touching him as she fixed his shirt.

  Chapter Thirteen.

  Brazil had a lot to think about. He wrote his stories fast and shipped them out within seconds of various deadlines for various editions. He was strangely unsettled and not remotely tired. He did not want to go home, and had fallen into a funk the instant West had let him out at his car in the parking deck. He left the newsroom at quarter past midnight, and took the escalator down to the second floor.

  The press room was going full tilt, yellow Ferag conveyors flying by seventy thousand papers per hour. Brazil opened the door, his ears overwhelmed by the roar inside. People wearing hearing protectors and ink-stained aprons nodded at him, yet to understand his odd peregrinations through their violent, dirty world. He walked in and stared at miles of speeding newsprint, at folding machines rat-a-tat-a-tatting, and belt ribbon conveyors streaking papers through the counting machines. The hardworking people in this seldom-thought-of place had never known a reporter to care a hoot about how his clever words and bigshot bylines ended up in the hands of citizens every day.

  Brazil was inexplicably drawn to the power of these huge, frightening machines. He was awed to see his front page racing by in a blur, thousands and thousands of times. It was humbling and hard to believe that so many people out there were interested in how he saw the world and what he had to say. The big headline of the night was, of course, Batman and Robin saving the hijacked bus. But there was a pretty decent piece on WHY A BOY RAN AWAY, on the metro section front page, and a few paragraphs on the altercation at Fat Man's Lounge.

  In truth, Brazil could have written stories forever about all he saw while riding with West. He wandered up a spiral metal staircase to the mail room, and thought of her calling him partner. He replayed her voice over and over. He liked the way she sounded, deep but resonate and womanly. It made him think of old wood and smoke, of field stone patched with moss, and of lady's slippers in old forests scattered with sun.

  Brazil did not want to go home. He wandered out to his car, in a mood to roam and think. He felt blue and did not know the source of it.

  Life was good. His job couldn't be better. The cops didn't seem to despise him quite as intensely or as universally. He contemplated the possibility that his problem was physical, because he wasn't working out as much as usual, and wasn't producing enough endorphin, or pushing himself to the point of exhaustion. He cruised down West Trade, looking at the people of the night trolling, offering their bodies for cash. Sh'ims followed him with sick, glowing eyes, and the young hooker was out again, at the corner of Cedar.

  She walked seductively along the sidewalk and stared brazenly at him as he slowly drove past. She had on tight cut-off jeans that barely covered firm buttocks, her T-shirt cut off, too, just below her chest.

  Typically, she wasn't wearing a bra, and her flesh moved as she walked and stared at the blond boy in his black BMW with its loud, rumbling engine. She wondered what he had beneath his hood, and smiled. All those Myers Park boys in their expensive cars, sneaking out here to taste the fruit.

  Brazil roared ahead, daring a yellow light to be red. He turned off on Pine and entered Fourth Ward, the lovely restored area where important people like Chief Hammer lived, within walking distance of the heart of the city she was sworn to serve. Brazil had been here many times, mostly to look at huge Victorian homes painted fun colors like violet and robin's egg blue, and at graceful manors with elaborate dentil work trimming slate roofs. There were walls and big azaleas, and trees that could clarify history, for they had been here since horses, shading genteel streets traveled by the rich and well known.

  He parked on that special corner on Pine where the white house and its gracious wraparound porch were lit up, as if expecting him. Hammer had liriope grass, periwinkles, pansies, yucca, ligustrum hedges, and pachysandra. Wind chimes stirred in the dark, sending friendly tones of truth, like a tuning fork, welcoming him, her protege. Brazil would not trespass, would not even think of it. But there were numerous tiny public parks in Fourth Ward, sitting areas with fountains and a bench or two. One such cozy spot was tucked next door to Hammer's house, and Brazil had known about this secret garden fo
r a while. Now and then he sat in the dark there, when he could not sleep, or did not want to go home. There was no harm done or imagined.