That’s all anybody talked and speculated about. The expected jokes were ones West
would never want her boss to hear. Horgess was pale and depressed. He barely nodded at
West.
“She in?” West asked.
“I guess,” he said, dejected.
West knocked and walked in at the same time. Hammer was on the phone, tapping a pen
on a stack of pink tele phone messages. She looked amazingly put together and in charge
in a tobacco-brown suit and yellow and white striped blouse. West was surprised and
rather pleased to
note that her boss was wearing slacks and flats again. West pulled up a chair, waiting for Hammer to slip off the headset.
“Don’t mean to interrupt,” West said.
“Quite all right, quite all right,” Hammer told her.
She gave West her complete attention, hands quietly folded on top of the neatly
organized desk of someone who had far too much to do but refused to be overwhelmed
by it. Hammer had never been caught up, and never would be. She didn’t even want to
get to all of it. The older she got, the more she marveled over matters she once had
considered important. These days, her perspective had shifted massively, like a glacier
forming new continents to consider and cracking old worlds.
“We’ve not really had a chance to talk,” West proceeded delicately.
“How are you holding up?”
Hammer gave her a slight smile, sadness in her eyes before she could run it off.
“The best I can, Virginia. Thank you for asking.”
“The editorials, cartoons and everything in the paper have been really terrific,” West went on.
“And Brazil’s story was great.” She hesitated at this point, the subject of Andy Brazil still disturbing, although she didn’t understand it, entirely.
Hammer understood it perfectly.
“Listen, Virginia,” she said with another smile, this one kind and slightly amused.
“He’s pretty sensational, I have to admit. But you have nothing to worry about where I’m
concerned.”
“Excuse me?” West frowned.
X? Brazil was out in bright sunshine, walking along the sidewalk in an area of the city
where he should not have
been without armed guards. This was a very special juncture known as Five Points, where the major veins of State, Trade, and Fifth Streets, and Beatties Ford and Rozzelles
Ferry Roads, branched out from the major artery of Inter state 77, carrying all traveling
on them into the heart of the Queen City. This included the thousands of businessmen
coming from Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, and those bad dudes waiting,
including the serial killer, Punkin Head.
Punkin Head was believed to be a shi’m by those who had laid eyes on the pimp, which
were few. It held its own council, as a rule, in an ’84 Ford cargo van, dark blue, 351 V8,
which it was especially fond of because the van had windows only in front. Whatever
business Punkin Head chose to run out of the back remained private, as it should have,
and this included sleeping. This fine morning, Punkin Head was parked in its usual spot
on Fifth Street, in the Preferred Parking lot, where the attendant knew to leave well
enough alone, and was now and then rewarded with services Punkin Head’s business
could provide.
Punkin Head was reading the paper, and eating its third take-out bacon and egg sandwich
with hot sauce and butter, brought to him by the attendant. Punkin Head saw the white
boy walking around, snooping, a notepad in hand. Word on the street was the dude’s
name was Blondie, and Punkin Head knew exactly who Blondie was trying to snitch on,
and Punkin Head wasn’t appreciative. It watched, thinking, as it finished its breakfast and
popped open a Michelob Dry, taking another look at the front page story in this morning’s
Observer.
Some South American reporter named Brazil was get ting far too personal about Punkin
Head, and it was not pleased. In the first place, it was incensed that when the masses
thought about Punkin Head, they envisioned a spider, and that all believed the orange
symbol Punkin Head painted on each body was an hourglass. Punkin Head painted what
it did because it liked orange. It also intended to whack and rob eight businessmen, and