“I’m going to tell them all about it.” Hammer smiled at her.
“Right now. I guess the best thing would be a press conference.”
The court date was moved ahead a week, and landed on a day convenient for all, except Johnny Martino, aka Magic the Man, who was sitting in his jail cell, dejected in a blaze orange jumpsuit with DEPT OF CORR stenciled in on the back. Everybody in the Corr wore one, and now and then, when he gave much thought to the matter, he wondered what the hell the Corr was. As in Marine Corps, Peace Corps, CeyO RailRoad maybe? His old man worked for Amtrak, cleaning up cars after all those passengers got off.
No way young Martino was ever doing shit work like that. No fucking way. He couldn’t believe how bad his leg hurt from where that bitch kicked him. The guns people carried these days, women especially. Both of them pointing forty-fucking-caliber semiautomatics at his head. Now where the hell did that come from? Fucking Mars?
These ladies beam down, or something? He was still stunned, and had sat up on his narrow bunk this morning thinking yesterday on the bus didn’t happen.
Then he focused on the steel toilet bowl that he had not bothered to flush last night. His shin was throbbing so bad, and had a lump on it the size of an orange, the skin broken in the middle, like a navel, where that pointy metal toe had connected. Now that he explored the situation a little further, he should have been suspicious of two rich ladies like that getting on the Greyhound. No way people like them take the bus. Some of the guys were talking and laughing up and down the cells, going on and on about him getting his ass kicked by some old woman with a big pocketbook, everybody making fun of Martino. He got out a cigarette, and thought about suing. He thought about getting another tattoo, might as well while he was here.
Brazil’s day was not going especially well, either. He and Packer were editing another self-initiated, rather large piece Brazil was doing on mothers alone in a world without men. Brazil continued to come across typos, spaces, blank lines that he knew he had not caused.
Someone had been breaking into his computer basket and going through his files. He was explaining this to his metro editor, Packer, as they rolled through paragraphs, inspecting the violation.
“See,” Brazil was hotly saying, and he was in uniform,
ready for yet another night on the street.
“It’s weird. The last couple days I keep finding stuff like this.”
“You sure you’re not doing it? You do tend to go through your stories a lot,” Packer said.
What the editor had observed about Brazil’s remarkable productivity had now reached the level of not humanly possible. This kid dressed like a cop frightened Packer. Packer didn’t even much want to sit next to Brazil anymore. Brazil wasn’t normal. He was getting commendations from the police, and averaging three bylines every morning, even on days when he supposedly was off. Not to mention, his work Was unbelievably good for someone so inexperienced who had never been to journalism school. Packer suspected that Brazil would win a Pulitzer by the time he was thirty, possibly sooner. For that reason, Packer intended to remain Brazil’s editor, even if the job was exhausting, intense, and unnerving, and caused Packer to hate life more with each passing day.
This morning was a typical example. The alarm had buzzed at six, and Packer did not want to get up. But he did. Mildred, his wife, was her typical cheery self, cooking oatmeal in the kitchen, while Dufus, her purebred Boston Terrier puppy, skittered around sideways and walleyed and looking for something else to chew, or pee or poop on. Packer was tucking in his shirt all the way around as he entered this domestic scene, trying to wake up, and wondering if his wife was losing what marbles she had left.
“Mildred,” he said.
“It’s summer. Oatmeal is not a good hot-weather food.”
“Of course it is.” She happily stirred.
“Good for your high blood pressure.”