“There’s no hope,” he sobbed to his wife.
“Nothing left but to die.”
“Don’t you dare say that,” she said, her voice wavering.
“You hear me, Seth? Don’t you dare say that!”
“Why isn’t my love enough for you!” he cried.
“What love?” She stood, anger peeking around her curtain of self-control.
“Your idea of love is waiting for me to make you happy while you do nothing for yourself. I am not your caretaker. I am not your zookeeper. I am not your innkeeper. I am not your keeper, period.” She was pacing furiously in his small private room.
“I am supposed to be your partner, Seth, your friend, your lover. But you know what? If this were tennis, I’d be playing goddamn singles in a goddamn doubles match on both sides of the net while you sat in the shade hogging all the balls and keeping your own private score!”
tw Brazil had spent the better part of the morning wondering if he should call West to see if she wanted to play some tennis. That would be innocent enough, wouldn’t it? The last thing he wanted was to give her the satisfaction of thinking he cared a hoot that he hadn’t heard from her in three and a half days. He parked at the All Right lot on West Trade, near Presto’s, and went inside the grill for coffee, starved, but saving himself for something healthy. Later, he’d drop by the Just Fresh, the eat well feels good fast food restaurant in the atrium of First Union. That and Wendy’s grilled chicken filet sandwiches with no cheese or mayonnaise were about all he lived on these days, and he was losing weight. He secretly wondered if he were getting anorexic.
He sat at the counter, stirring black SD coffee, waiting for Spike to stop cracking eggs with one hand over a bowl. Brazil wanted to chat.
The Michelob Dry clock on the wall over Spike’s head read ten-forty-five. There was so much to do, and Brazil had to get it done by four p. m. ” when his beat for the newspaper formally began. As much as Packer loved Brazil’s scoops, the regular news of burglaries, robberies, rapes, suicides, fistfights in sports bars, white-collar bank crimes, drug busts, domestic problems, dog bites, and other human interest stories needed to be covered. Most of those reports Webb stole long before anyone else could see them. In fact, the situation was so acute, that the rest of the media now referred to the Charlotte Police Department’s press basket as The Webb Site.
West, having recalled Brazil’s early complaint about this, had finally done her bit by calling Channel 3 and complaining to the general manager. This had solved nothing. Nor was Goode receptive when West had brought it up to her, not realizing that Goode, in fact, regularly logged into The Webb Site. These days she and Brent Webb parked all over the city in her Miata. This was not due to a problem with their going to her apartment, where she lived alone. The risk of exposure was a huge turn-on to the couple. It was not unusual for them to park within blocks of his house, where his wife waited dinner for him, and picked up his dirty clothes, and sorted his socks.
The task force West had assembled to investigate drug deals going down at the Presto Grill also had much dirt to find, sort through, and hopefully match with other crime trends in the city. Mungo was an undercover detective, and he was eating grilled chicken tips and gravy in the grill, while Brazil, whom Mungo did not know, sipped black coffee. Mungo had gotten his street name for obvious reasons. He was a mountain in jeans and Panthers T-shirt, his wallet chained to his belt, long bushy hair tied back, and a bandana around a sloping forehead. He wore an earring. Mungo was smoking, one eye squinting as he watched the blond guy quiz Spike at the grill.
“No, man.” Spike was flipping a burger and chopping hash browns.
“See, none’s from around here, know what I mean?” He spoke with a heavy Portuguese accent.