As for Brazil’s physical description, Mungothe-Woolly- Mammoth had missed that by about forty pounds and six inches, although West had to admit she’d never seen Brazil in clothes that tight. She didn’t know what to make of it. Those black jeans were so tight she could see the muscles in the back of his thighs flex as he walked, the red polo shirt fitting like paint, muscles lean and well-defined, and he’ had veins. Maybe he was trying to blend out there. That would make sense.
“Tell me what she did,” Raines choked, wiping his eyes.
West motioned to the waitress for another round.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh come on, Virginia. Tell me, tell me. You got to.” He straightened up a bit.
“Tell me what Hammer did when she saw the tape.”
“No,” West said.
Hammer hadn’t done much, in truth. She’d sat in her usual spot at the head of the table, staring without comment at the twenty-four-inch Mitsubishi. She’d watched the entire tape, all forty-two minutes of it, every bit of Brazil’s long promenade and indistinct conversations with the city’s unsavory downtown folks. West and Hammer had watched Brazil point, shrug, jot, scan, and squat to tie shoelaces twice, before finally returning to the All Right to retrieve his BMW. After a pregnant silence, Chief Hammer had taken off her glasses and voiced her opinion.
“What was this?” she had said to her deputy chief in charge of investigations.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” West had said, feeling dark hate for Mungo.
“And this all began the day we had lunch at the Presto and you saw a man with a banana in his pocket.” Hammer had wanted to make sure she was clear on the facts of the case.
“I really don’t think it’s fair to link the two.”
Hammer had gotten up, but West knew not to move.
“Of course it’s fair,” Hammer had said, hands in her pockets again.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming you, Virginia.” She’d begun pacing.
“How could Mungo not recognize Andy Brazil? He’s out there morning, noon and night, either for the Observer or us.”
“Mungo is deep cover,” West had explained.
“He generally avoids any place police or the press might be. I don’t think he reads much, either.”
Hammer had nodded. She could understand this, actually, and she was raw. Hammer was not ready or willing to react violently to the embarrassments and honest mis takes of others, whether it was Horgess, Mungo, or even West, who really had made no error, except perhaps in her choice of Mungo to do anything in life.
“Do you want me to destroy it?” West had asked as Hammer popped the tape out of the VCR.
“I mean, I’d prefer not to. Some of that footage includes known prostitutes. Sugar, Double Fries, Butterfinger, Shooter, Lickety Split, Lemon Drop, Poison.”
“All of them were in there?” Hammer was perplexed as she had opened the conference room door.
“They blend in. You have to know where to look.”
“We’ll hang on to it,” Hammer had decided. Raines was laughing so hard. West was furious with herself for telling him the rest of the story. He had his head on the table, hands covering his face. She wiped her forehead with a napkin, perspiring and flushed, as if she were in the tropics. The band would be cranking up soon, and Jack Straw’s was getting crowded.
She noticed Tommy Axel walk in, recognizing him from his picture in the paper. He had another guy with him, both dressed a lot like Raines, showing off. Why was it most of the gay guys were so good-looking? West didn’t think it was fair. Not only were they guys in a guy’s world, with all the benefits, but their DNA had somehow managed to appropriate the good stuff women had, too, like gracefulness and beauty.
Of course, gay guys got some of the bad stuff, too. Sneakiness, game playing, compulsive grooming, vanity, and shopping. Maybe it had nothing to do with gender, after all. West considered. Maybe there was no such thing as gender. Maybe biologically people were just vehicles, like cars. She’d heard that overseas the steering wheels were on one side, while here they were on the other. Different genders? Maybe not. Maybe just different cars, the behavior of all determined by the spirit in the driver’s seat.