the tarmac, far away from eighteen-wheelers and their bright-painted shiny cabs with all
their chrome. He cut the engine and leaned back, shutting his eyes, as punishment
approached. West wouldn’t cut him any slack. She, in her uniform and gun,
was above all else a cop, and a hard, unkind one at that. It mattered not that they were
partners and went shooting together and talked about things.
“Andy.” She loudly rapped a knuckle on his window.
“Get out,” she commanded this common lawbreaker.
He felt tired as he climbed out of a car that his father, Drew, had loved. Brazil took off
his father’s jacket and tossed it in the back seat. It was almost eighty degrees out, gnats
and moths swarming in sodium vapor lights. Brazil was soaked with sweat. He tucked
the keys in a pocket of the tight jeans that Mungo believed pointed to Brazil’s criminal
leanings. West shone her flashlight through the back window, illuminating aluminum
tallboy beer cans on the mat in back. She counted eleven.
“Did you drink all these tonight?” she demanded to know as he shut his door.
“No.”
“How many have you had tonight?”
“I didn’t count.” His eyes were hard and defiant on hers.
“Do you always elude police lights and sirens?” she said, furious.
“Or is tonight special for some reason?”
He opened the back door of his BMW, and angrily grabbed out a T-shirt.
He had no comment as he peeled off his wet polo shirt, and yanked on the dry one. West
had never seen him half naked.
“I ought to lock you up,” she said with not quite as much authority.
“Go ahead,” he said.
W Randy and Jude Hammer had flown into the Charlotte- Douglas International Airport
within forty-five minutes of each other, and their mother had met them downstairs
in baggage. The three were somber and distracted as Hammer returned to Carolinas Medical Center without delay. She was so happy to see her boys, and old memories were
reopened and exposed to air and light.
Randy and Jude had been born with their mother’s handsome bones and straight white
teeth. They had been blessed with her piercing eyes and frightening intelligence.
From Seth, they had received their four-cylinder engines that moved them slowly along,
and with little direction or passing power or drive. Randy and Jude were happy enough
simply to exist and go nowhere in a hurry. They drew gratification and joy from their
dreams, and from regular customers in whatever restaurant employed them from one year
to the next. They were happy with the understanding women who loved them anyway.
Randy was proud of his bit parts in movies no one saw. Jude was thrilled to be in any
jazz bar he and the guys got gigs in, and he played the drums with passion, whether the
audience was ten people or eighty.
Oddly, it had never been their rocket-charged mother who could not live with the sons’
something less than stellar accomplishments in life. It was Seth who was disgusted and
ashamed. Their father had proved so totally lacking in understanding and patience, that
the sons had moved far away. Of course. Hammer understood the psychological
dynamics. Seth’s hatred for his sons was his hatred for himself. It didn’t take great
acumen to deduce that much. But knowing the reason had changed nothing. It had
required tragedy, a grave illness, to reunite this family.
“Mom, you holding up?” Jude was in back of Hammer’s personal car. He was rubbing
her shoulders as she drove.
“I’m trying.”
She swallowed hard as Randy looked at her with “Well, I don’t want to see him,” said Randy, cradling flowers he had bought for his father in the airport.
“That’s understandable,” Hammer said, switching lanes, eyes in the mirrors. It had begun to rain.
“How are my babies?”
“Great,” Jude said.
“Benji’s learning to play sax.”
“I can’t wait to hear it. What about Owen?”
“Not quite old enough for instruments, but she’s my boogie baby. Every time she hears
music, she dances with Spring,” Jude went on, referring to the child’s mother.
“God, Mom, you’ll die when you see it. It’s hilarious!”
Spring was the artist Jude had lived with in Greenwich Village for eight years. Neither of