impressed and dying to touch it, but Jazzbone didn’t know him well enough for that.
“You think it’s the same one whacking all these white men from out of town?” Brazil
repeated.
“I didn’t say they was white,” Jazzbone corrected him.
“The last one, the senator dude, wasn’t. But yeah, same motherfucker’s doing ’em.”
“Got any idea who?” Brazil did his best to keep the excitement out of his voice.
Jazzbone knew exactly who, and didn’t want trouble like this in his neighborhood
anymore than those rich men wanted it in their rental cars. Not to mention, Jazzbone was
a big supporter of free enterprise, and collected change from more than pool sharking and
beverages. He had an interest in a few girls out there. They earned a few extra dollars
and kept him company. The Black Widow was hurting business bad. These days,
Jazzbone had a feeling men came to town after watching CNN and reading the paper, and
they rented adult movies, stayed in. Jazzbone didn’t blame them.
“There’s this one punkin head I seen out there running girls,” Jazzbone told Brazil, who was taking notes.
“I’d be looking at him.”
“What’s a punkin head?”
Jazzbone flashed his gold grin at this naive reporter boy.
“A do.” Jazzbone pointed to his own head.
“Orange like a punkin, rows of braids close to his head. One mean motherfucker.”
“You know his name?” Brazil wrote.
“Don’t want to,” Jazzbone said.
“W West, in charge of investigations for the city, had never heard of a punkin head in
connection with the Black Widow killings. When Brazil called her from a pay phone,
because he did not trust a cellular phone for such sensitive information, he was manic, as
if he had just been in a shoot-out. She wrote down what he said, but not a word of it
sparked hope. Her Phantom Force had been undercover out on the streets for weeks.
Brazil had spent fifteen minutes at Jazzbone’s, and had cracked the case. She didn’t think
so. Nor was she feeling the least bit friendly toward Brazil’s two-timing, user-friendly
ass.
“How’s the chief?” he asked her.
“Why don’t you tell me,” she said.
“What?”
“Look, I don’t have time to chit-chat,” she rudely added.
Brazil was on a sidewalk in front of the Federal Courthouse, hateful people looking at
him. He didn’t care.
“What did I do?” he fired back.
“Tell me when’s the last time I’ve heard from you? I haven’t noticed you picking up the
phone, asking me to do anything or even to see how I am.”
This had not occurred to West. She never called Raines. For that matter, she did not call
guys, and never had, and never would, with the occasional exception of Brazil. Now why
the hell was that, and why had she suddenly gotten weird about dialing his number?
“I figured you’d get in touch with me when you had something on your mind,” she
replied.
“It’s been hectic.
Niles is driving me crazy. I may turn him over to the juvenile courts.
I don’t know why I haven’t gotten around to calling you, okay? But a lot of good it’s
going to do for you to punish me for it. ”
“You want to play tennis?” he quickly asked.
West still had a wooden Billie Jean King racquet, clamped tight in a press. Neither were
manufactured anymore. She had an ancient box of Tretorn balls that never went dead but
broke like eggs. Her last pair of tennis shoes were low-cut plain white canvas Converse,
also no longer made. She had no idea where anything was, and owned no tennis clothes,
and didn’t especially enjoy watching the sport on TV, but preferred baseball at this stage
in her personal evolution. There were many reasons she gave the answer she did.
“Forget it,” she said.
She hung up the phone and went straight to Hammer’s office. Horgess was not his usual
informative, friendly self. West felt sorry for him.
No matter how many times Hammer had told him to let it go, he never would. He had
picked up the radio instead of the phone. Horgess, the sycophantic duty captain, had
made sure all the world knew about the embarrassing shooting at the chief’s house.