“Shoot,” Axel said when he burst through glass doors leading into the parking deck, as Brazil was driving his old BMW out of it.
Publisher Panesa had a black-tie dinner this night and was going home unusually early. The publisher was starting his silver Volvo, with its unrivaled safety record and two airbags, and was witness to Axel’s shameless behavior.
“Christ,” Panesa muttered, shaking his head as he pulled out of his reserved space in the center of the best wall, no more than twenty steps from the front glass doors. He rolled down a window, stopping Axel cold.
“Come here,” Panesa told him.
Axel gave his boss a crooked, sexy Matt Dillon smile, and strolled over. Who could resist?
“What’s going on?” Axel said, moving in a way that showed muscle to its best advantage.
“Axel, leave him alone,” Panesa said.
“Excuse me?” Axel touched his chest in pure hurt innocence.
“You know exactly what I mean.” Panesa roared off, fastening his shoulder harness, locking doors, checking mirrors, and snapping up the mike of his private frequency two-way radio to let the housekeeper know he was en route.
The longer Panesa had worked in the newspaper business, the more paranoid he had become. Like Brazil, Panesa had started out as a police reporter, and by the time he was twenty-three, knew every filthy, nasty, cruel, and painful thing people did to one another. He had done stories on murdered children, on hit and runs, and husbands in black gloves and knit caps stabbing estranged wives and friends before cutting their throats and flying to Chicago. Panesa had interviewed women who lovingly seasoned home cooking with arsenic, and he had covered car wrecks, plane crashes, train derailments, skydiving gone bad, scuba diving gone worse, bungee jumping by drunks who forgot the cord, and fires, and drownings. Not to mention other horrors that did not end in death. His marriage, for example.
Panesa frantically ran through downtown traffic like a Green Bay Packer, cutting in and out, the hell with you, honk all you want, get out of my way. He was going to be late again. It never failed. His date tonight was Judy Hammer, who apparently was married to a slob.
Hammer avoided taking her husband out in public when she could, and Panesa did not blame her, if the rumor was true. Tonight was Nation Bank Public Service Awards banquet, and both Panesa and Hammer were being honored, as was District Attorney Gorelick, who had been in the news a lot lately, scorching the NC General Assembly for not coughing up enough money to hire seventeen more assistant DAs, when it was clear that what the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region really needed was another medical examiner or two. The banquet was held at the Carillon, with its wonderful paintings and mobiles. Panesa was driving.
t| Hammer’s personal car was a Mercedes, but not new and with only one airbag, on the driver’s side. Panesa would not ride in anything that did not have a passenger’s side airbag, and this had been made clear up front. Hammer, too, was rushing home early from the office.
Seth was working in the garden, weeding and fertilizing. He had made cookies, and Hammer smelled the baked butter and sugar. She noted the telltale traces of flour on the counter. Seth waved a handful of wild onions at her as she peered out the kitchen window at him. He was civil enough.
She was in a hurry as she headed to her bedroom. God, the image staring back at her in the mirror was frightening. She washed her face, squirted non alcohol styling gel into her hands and riffled through her hair. She started all over again with makeup. Black-tie affairs were always a problem. Men owned one tux and wore it to everything, or they rented. What were women supposed to do? She hadn’t given any thought to what she might put on until she was walking into a house that smelled like a bakery. She pulled out a black satin skirt, a gold and black beaded short-wasted jacket, and a black silk blouse with spaghetti straps.
The truth was. Hammer had gained four pounds since she had worn this ensemble last, at a Jaycee’s fundraiser in Pineville, about a year ago, if memory served her well. She managed to button her skirt, but was not happy about it. Her bosom was more out front than usual, and she did not like drawing attention to what she normally kept to herself. She irritably yanked her beaded jacket around her, muttering, wondering if dry-cleaning might have shrunk anything and the fault, therefore, not hers. Changing earrings to simple diamond posts with screw-backs was always troublesome when she was rushed and out of sorts.