"The only person who can control Panesa is you," the mayor said to Cahoon.

"I've tried. He won't listen to me. It's like trying to talk sense to Hammer. Forget it."

Both the publisher and the police chief were unreasonable. They had agendas, and had to be stopped. Andy Brazil was becoming a problem, as well. Cahoon had been around the block enough times to know exactly where he would attack.

"Talk to the boy," Cahoon said to the mayor.

"He's probably been trying to get quotes from you anyway, right?"

"They all do."

"So let him come see you, Chuck. Pull him over to our side, where he belongs," Cahoon said with a smile as he gazed out at the hazy summer sky.

W Brazil had turned his attention to the Black Widow killings, which he was certain would not stop. He had become obsessed with them, determined that somehow he would uncover that one detail, that important insight or clue that might lead police to the psychopath responsible.

He had gotten FBI profiler Bird on the phone, and had written a chillingly accurate but manipulative story. Last night, Brazil had returned to the train tracks on West Trade Street, to explore the razed brick building, his flashlight shining on crime-scene tape stirred by the wind. He had stood still, looking around that forsaken, frightening place, trying to read the emotion of it. He tried to imagine how the senator had stumbled upon the place.

It was possible the senator had plans to meet someone, back in the dark overgrowth where no one would see. Brazil wondered if the autopsy had revealed drugs. Did the senator have a secret vice that had cost him his life? Brazil had cruised South College Street, looking out at the hookers, still not sure which were men or vice cops. The young one he had seen many times before, and it was obvious that she now recognized him in his BMW as she languidly strolled and boldly stared.

Brazil was tired this morning. He could barely finish four miles at the track and didn't bother with tennis. He hadn't seen much of his mother, and she punished him by not speaking on those rare occasions when she was awake and up. She left him notes of chores she needed done, and was more slovenly than usual. She coughed and sighed, doing all she could to make him miserable and stung with guilt. Brazil continued to think of West's lecture to him about dysfunctional relationships. He heard her words constantly in his head. They pounded with each step he ran, and blinked in the night as he tried to sleep.

He had not seen or talked to West in days and wondered how she was, and why she never called to go shooting or to ride or just to say hi.

He felt out of sorts, moody and introverted, and had given up trying to figure out what had gotten into him. He did not understand why Hammer hadn't contacted him to say thanks for his profile. Maybe something in it had pissed her off. Maybe he had gotten a fact wrong.

He had really put his heart into that story, and had worked himself almost sick. Panesa seemed to be ignoring him, also, now that Brazil was making a list. Brazil told himself that if he were as important as any one of these powerful people, he would be more sensitive. He would try to think of the little person's feelings, and make that person's day by picking up the phone, or sending a note, or maybe even flowers.

V9 The only flowers West had in her life this moment were the ones Niles had shredded all over the dining-room table. This was after he had scattered litter in the bathroom while his owner was in the shower, her wet bare feet about to step on grit and unpleasant things coated in it. West's mood was volatile, anyway. She was incensed over the storm of controversy surrounding her beloved boss, and fearful of where it all might end. The day Goode became acting chief was the day West moved back to the farm. West knew all about Brazil following Hammer into very private rooms that not even West had entered.

It was all so typical, she thought as she cussed Niles, rinsed her feet and cleaned up the bathroom floor. Brazil used West to gain a foothold with the chief. Brazil had acted like a friend, then the moment he got a chance to ingratiate himself with a higher power. West didn't hear a word from him ever again. Wasn't that the way things went? The son of a bitch. He hadn't called to go shooting, to ride, or even to make sure she was still alive. West discovered what was left of the blood lilies from her garden as Niles darted under the couch.

The resurrection lilies Hammer carried into Seth's hospital room at ten a. m. were magenta and appropriately named. Hammer set them on a table and pulled a chair close. The bed was raised, allowing her husband to eat, read, visit, and watch TV on his side. His eyes were dull with the strep infection that had invaded from unknown colonies.

Fluids and antibiotics ready for combat marched nonstop through narrow tubes and into needles taped to each arm. Hammer was getting frightened. Seth had been in the hospital three nights now.

"How are you feeling, honey?" she asked, rubbing his shoulder.

"Shitty," he said, eyes wandering back to Leeza on TV.

He had seen, heard, and read the news. Seth knew the terrible thing he had done to himself. Most of all, he knew what he had done to her and his family. Honestly, he had never meant any of it. When he was in his right mind, he'd rather die than hurt anyone. He loved his wife and could not live without her. If he ruined her career in this city, then what? She could go anywhere, and it would be ever so much easier for her to leave him behind, as she had already threatened, if she had to move anyway.

"How are things with you?" Seth mumbled as Leeza argued with a gender-reassigned plumber who had cleavage.

"Don't you worry about me," Hammer firmly said, patting him again.

"All that matters right now is that you get better. Think positively, honey. The mind affects everything. No negativity."

This was like telling the dark side of the moon to lighten up a bit.

Seth stared at her. He couldn't remember the last time she'd called him honey. Maybe never.

"I don't know what to say," he told her.

She knew precisely what he meant. He was poisoned by remorse and guilt and shame. He had set out to ruin her life and the lives of his children, and was getting good at it. He ought to feel like shit, if the truth was told.

"You don't have to say anything," Hammer gently reassured him.

"What's done is done. Now we move on. When you leave here, we're going to get you some help. That's all that matters now."

He shut his eyes and tears swam behind the lids. He saw a young man in baggy white trousers, and bow tie and snappy hat, grinning and happy on a sunny morning as he skipped down the granite steps of the Arkansas state capitol. Seth had been charming and sure of himself once. He had known how to have fun, and party with the rest of them, and tell funny tales. Psychiatrists had tried Prozac, Zoloft, Nortriptylene, and lithium. Seth had been on diets. He had stopped drinking once. He had been hypnotized and had gone to three meetings of Overeater's Anonymous. Then he had quit all of it.

"There's no hope," he sobbed to his wife.

"Nothing left but to die."

"Don't you dare say that," she said, her voice wavering.

"You hear me, Seth? Don't you dare say that!"

"Why isn't my love enough for you!" he cried.

"What love?" She stood, anger peeking around her curtain of self-control.

"Your idea of love is waiting for me to make you happy while you do nothing for yourself. I am not your caretaker. I am not your zookeeper. I am not your innkeeper. I am not your keeper, period." She was pacing furiously in his small private room.

"I am supposed to be your partner, Seth, your friend, your lover. But you know what? If this were tennis, I'd be playing goddamn singles in a goddamn doubles match on both sides of the net while you sat in the shade hogging all the balls and keeping your own private score!"

tw Brazil had spent the better part of the morning wondering if he should call West to see if she wanted to play some tennis. That would be innocent enough, wouldn't it? The last thing he wanted was to give her the satisfaction of thinking he cared a hoot that he hadn't heard from her in three and a half days. He parked at the All Right lot on West Trade, near Presto's, and went inside the grill for coffee, starved, but saving himself for something healthy. Later, he'd drop by the Just Fresh, the eat well feels good fast food restaurant in the atrium of First Union. That and Wendy's grilled chicken filet sandwiches with no cheese or mayonnaise were about all he lived on these days, and he was losing weight. He secretly wondered if he were getting anorexic.

He sat at the counter, stirring black SD coffee, waiting for Spike to stop cracking eggs with one hand over a bowl. Brazil wanted to chat.

The Michelob Dry clock on the wall over Spike's head read ten-forty-five. There was so much to do, and Brazil had to get it done by four p. m. " when his beat for the newspaper formally began. As much as Packer loved Brazil's scoops, the regular news of burglaries, robberies, rapes, suicides, fistfights in sports bars, white-collar bank crimes, drug busts, domestic problems, dog bites, and other human interest stories needed to be covered. Most of those reports Webb stole long before anyone else could see them. In fact, the situation was so acute, that the rest of the media now referred to the Charlotte Police Department's press basket as The Webb Site.

West, having recalled Brazil's early complaint about this, had finally done her bit by calling Channel 3 and complaining to the general manager. This had solved nothing. Nor was Goode receptive when West had brought it up to her, not realizing that Goode, in fact, regularly logged into The Webb Site. These days she and Brent Webb parked all over the city in her Miata. This was not due to a problem with their going to her apartment, where she lived alone. The risk of exposure was a huge turn-on to the couple. It was not unusual for them to park within blocks of his house, where his wife waited dinner for him, and picked up his dirty clothes, and sorted his socks.

The task force West had assembled to investigate drug deals going down at the Presto Grill also had much dirt to find, sort through, and hopefully match with other crime trends in the city. Mungo was an undercover detective, and he was eating grilled chicken tips and gravy in the grill, while Brazil, whom Mungo did not know, sipped black coffee. Mungo had gotten his street name for obvious reasons. He was a mountain in jeans and Panthers T-shirt, his wallet chained to his belt, long bushy hair tied back, and a bandana around a sloping forehead. He wore an earring. Mungo was smoking, one eye squinting as he watched the blond guy quiz Spike at the grill.