Hornet's Nest - Cornwell Patricia. Страница 23

Bubba's Christian name was Joshua Rickman, and he was a forklift operator at Ingersoll 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.

Maybe what was called for was the trick where certain scents available at the hunt shop would draw every rodent, neighborhood pet, bug, reptile, and other critter into the yard, that all might ruin it during the night. Bubba slammed the forklift in reverse, thoughts buzzing.

Or he could feed beer-laced urine through a tube inserted under the police lady's front door. He could mail hair to her, anonymously.

Eventually, would she move? Hell yes. She'd want to, oh yeah. Or maybe Sea Breeze in the jock strap of that blond kid she was jerking off with, unless both of them were queer, and, frankly, Bubba had his opinion. Honestly, there was no way a man could look that good or a woman could be that powerful unless they were suspect. Bubba could see it now. The pretty boy getting what he deserved, from the rear, from a manly man like Bubba, whose favorite movie was Deliverance. Bubba would teach the little asshole, oh yes he would. Bubba hated fags so intensely that he was on the lookout for them in every sports bar and truck stop, and in all vehicles he passed on life's highways, and in politics and the entertainment industry.

West and Brazil could not know of their personal peril. They were not thinking of themselves this Tuesday night as emergency lights flashed on broken glass and the torn, crumpled remains of a patrol car that had crashed in the affluent residential neighborhood of Myers Park. Raines and other paramedics were using hydraulic tools to get bodies out of a Mercedes 300E that was wrapped around a tree. Everyone was tense and upset as a siren screamed, and police had set up a barricade, blocking off the street. Brazil parked his BMW as close as anyone would let him. He ran towards red and blue lights and rumbling engines.

West arrived, and cops moved saw horses to let her through. She spotted Brazil taking notes. He was dazed by horror as Raines and other paramedics lifted another bloody dead body out of the Mercedes and zipped it inside a pouch. Rescuers lowered a victim next to three others on pavement stained with spilled oil and blood. West stared at the totaled Charlotte cruiser with its hornet's nest emblem on the doors. She turned her attention to another cruiser not far away, where Officer Michelle Johnson was collapsed in the back seat, holding a bloodstained handkerchief to her devastated face as she trembled and shook. West swiftly walked that way. She opened the cruiser's back door and climbed in next to the distraught officer.

"It's going to be okay," West said, putting an arm around a young woman who could not comprehend what had just happened to her.

"We need to get you to the hospital," West told her.

"No! No!" Johnson screamed, covering her head with her hands, as if her plane were going down.

"I didn't see him until he was through the light. Mine was green! I was responding to the ten-thirty-three, but my light was green. I swear. Oh God! No, no. Please. No. Please, please, please."

Brazil was inching closer to the cruiser and heard what Johnson said. He stepped up to the door, and stared through the window, watching West comfort a cop who had just smashed into another car and killed all its occupants. For an instant. West looked out. Her eyes met his and held. His pen was poised and filled with quotes he now knew he would never put in any story. He lowered the pen and notepad.

Slowly, he walked away, not the same reporter or person he had been.

Brazil returned to the newspaper. He walked in no hurry and not happy to be here as he headed for his desk. He took his chair, typed in his password, and went into his computer basket. Betty Cutler, the night editor, was an old crow with an under bite She had been pacing and waiting for Brazil, and swooped in on him. She began her annoying habit of sniffing as she spoke. It had occurred to Brazil that she might have a cocaine problem.

"We got to ship this in forty-five minutes," she said to him.

"What did the cop say?"

Brazil began typing the lead, and looking at his notes.

"What cop?" he asked, even though he knew precisely who she meant.

"The cop who just wiped out an entire family of five, for Chrissake."

Cutler sniffed, her lower teeth bared.

"I didn't interview her."

Cutler, the night editor, didn't believe this. She refused to believe it. Her eyes glittered as she gave him a penetrating stare.

"What the hell do you mean, you didn't interview her, Brazil!"

She lifted her voice that all might hear.

"You were at the scene!"

"They had her in a patrol car," he said, flipping pages.

"So you knock on the window," Cutler loudly berated him.

"You open her door, do whatever you have to!"

Brazil stopped typing and looked up at a woman who truly depressed him. He didn't care if she knew it.

"Maybe that's what you would do," he said.

When the paper thudded on his front porch at six o'clock the next morning, Brazil was already up. He had already run five miles at the track. He had showered and put on his police uniform. He opened the door, snatched the paper off the stoop, and rolled off the rubber band, eager to see his work. His angry steps carried him through the sad living room and into the cramped dingy kitchen where his mother sat at a plastic-covered table, drinking coffee held in trembling hands. She was smoking and momentarily present. Brazil tossed the paper down on the table. The front page, above the fold headline, screamed POLICE CRASH KILLS FAMILY OF FIVE. There were large color photographs of broken glass, twisted metal, and Officer Michelle Johnson weeping in the cruiser.

"I can't believe it!" Brazil exclaimed.

"Look! The damn headline makes it sound like it was the cop's fault when we don't even know who caused the wreck!"

His mother wasn't interested. She got up, moving slowly toward the screen door that led out to the side porch. Her son watched with dread as she swayed, and snatched keys from a hook on the wall.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"The store." She dug inside her big, old pocketbook.

"I just went yesterday," he said.

"I need cigarettes." She opened her billfold and scowled.

"I bought you a carton. Mom." Brazil stared at her.

He knew where his mother was really going and felt the same old defeat. He sighed angrily as his mother clutched her pocketbook and counted dollar bills.

"You got a ten-spot?" she asked him.

"I'm not buying your booze," he stated.

She paused at the door, regarding an only child she had never known how to love.

"Where are you going?" she said with a cruel expression that made her face ugly and unfamiliar.

"A costume party?"

"A parade," Brazil answered.

"I'm directing traffic."

"Parade charade." She sneered.

"You're not police, never will be. Why do you want to be going out there to get killed?" She got sad just as quickly as she had turned mean.

"So I can end up all alone?" She yanked the door open.

The morning got no better. Brazil drove fifteen minutes through the police department deck, and finally left his BMW in a press space, even though he really wasn't on official press business. The day was lovely, but he took the tunnel from the deck to the first level of police headquarters because he was feeling especially antisocial.

Whenever he had encounters with his mother, he got very quiet inside.

He wanted to be alone. He did not want to talk to anyone.

At the Property Control window, he checked out a radio and was handed keys for the unmarked vehicle he would be driving in the Charlie Two response area between Tryon and Independence Boulevard for the annual Freedom Parade. It was a modest celebration sponsored by local Shriners in their tasseled hats and on their scooters, and Brazil could not have been assigned a worse car. The Ford Crown Victoria was dull, scratched black, and had been driven hard for a hundred and sixteen thousand miles. The transmission was going to drop out any moment, providing the damn thing started, which it didn't seem inclined to do.

Brazil flipped the key in the ignition again, pumping the accelerator as the old engine tried to turn over. The battery supplied enough juice to wake up the scanner and radio, but forget about going anywhere, as the car whined, and Brazil's frustration soared.

"Shit!" He pounded the steering wheel, accidentally blaring the horn.

Cops in the distance turned around, staring.

tw Chief Hammer was causing her own commotion not too far away inside the Carpe Diem restaurant on South Tryon, across the street from the Knight-Ridder building. Two of her deputy chiefs. West and Jeannie Goode, sat at a quiet corner table, eating lunch and discussing problems. Goode was West's age and jealous of any female who did anything in life, especially if she looked good.