The Hornet’s Nest. Patricia Cornwell

“How come?” he asked.

“How come what?”

“You don’t want people thinking it?” he said.

“I don’t want people thinking about me, period.”

“How come you don’t ever wear high heels. Or skirts?” He wasn’t going to let her duck him.

“Not any of your goddamn business.” She tossed the cigarette butt out her window.

The police radio took charge, broadcasting an address on Wilkinson Boulevard that

anyone who knew anything would recognize as the Paper Doll Lounge. The striptease

joint had been in Charlotte longer than sex, staffed by women with nothing on but a g-

string, and tormenting men with jeans full of dollar bills. This night, derelicts were

swigging from quart bottles of beer brilliantly disguised by brown paper bags. Not far

away, a damaged young man joyfully rooted around inside a Dumpster.

“She wasn’t much older than me,” Brazil was telling West about the young hooker he’d

noticed the other night.

“Most of her front teeth gone, long dirty hair, tattoos. But I bet she was pretty once. I wish I could talk to her, and find out what happened to turn her into something like that.”

“People repeat their histories, find other people to abuse them,” West said, strangely impatient with his interest in a hooker who might have been pretty once.

They got out of the car. West approached a drunk in a Chick-Fil-A cap.

He was swaying, clutching his bottle of Colt . 45.

“We’re having a lot of fun tonight,” West said to him.

The man was staggering, but jolly.

“Cap’n,” he slurred.

“You’re lookin’ mighty fine. Who dat wid ya?”

“You can pour it out or go to jail,” West said.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s an easy ‘cision! No questi’n ’bout it!”

He emptied beer on the parking lot, almost falling headlong into it, and splashing Brazil’s

uniform trousers and impeccable boots. Brazil was a good sport. He jumped back a little

late, wondering where the nearest men’s room was and certain West would take him there

straight away. She scattered the drunks, emptying their lives on pavement while they

watched and counted their change in their minds, calculating how quickly they could get

back to Ray’s Cash & Carry, the Texaco Food Mart, or Snookies’.

Brazil followed West back to their car. They climbed in and fastened their seatbelts.

Brazil was embarrassed by the sour smell seeping up from his lower legs. This part of

the job he could do without. Drunks disturbed him in a deep way, and he felt anger as he

watched the men through his window. They were staggering off and would be drinking

something else before West and Brazil were even a mile down the road. That was the

way people like that were, addicted, wasted, no good on this earth and hurting everyone.

“How can anybody sink that low?” he muttered, staring out and ready to leave.

“Any of us could,” West said.

“That’s what’s scary. One beer at a time. Any one of us.”

There had been times in her life when she had found herself on that same road, night after night, drinking herself to sleep, not remembering the last thing she thought or read, and

sometimes waking up with lights still on. The impaired young man was joyfully ambling

over to their car, and West wondered what trick in reality placed some people where she

was sitting, and consigned others to parking lots and Dumpsters. It wasn’t always a

choice. It hadn’t been for this one, who was known by the police, and was a permanent

resident of the street.

“His mother tried to abort him and didn’t quite pull it off,” West quietly told Brazil.

“Or that’s the story.” She hummed open Brazil’s window.

“He’s been out here forever.” She leaned across the front seat, and called out, “How goes it?”

He couldn’t speak any language that Brazil might recognize. He was gesturing wildly,

making strange sounds that shot fear through Brazil.

Brazil wished West would drive off quickly and get them out of here before this creature

breathed or drooled on him. God, the guy smelled like dirty beer bottles and garbage,

and Brazil pulled back from the window, leaning against West’s shoulder.