When Brazil was in midnight blue and black leather, he had no idea what effect it had on others. If he had paused to analyze the matter, he might have discovered that uniforms were about power, and power was an aphrodisiac. Axel knew this for a fact. He got up and trotted out of the newsroom, in pursuit. Brazil was notorious for his sprints down the escalator and into the parking deck. Axel worked out in the Powerhouse Gym every early morning and was rather spectacularly sculpted.

Axel drank Met-Rx twice a day and was very much admired when he was gleaming with sweat and in a tank top and a weight belt, pumping, veins standing out, in his skimpy shorts. Other fit people stopped what they were doing just to watch. He had been stalked several times by residents of his apartment complex. In truth, Tommy Axel could have anybody and probably had at any given time. But he was not into aerobic exercise because it was not a spectator sport. He got winded easily.

“Shoot,” Axel said when he burst through glass doors leading into the parking deck, as Brazil was driving his old BMW out of it.

Publisher Panesa had a black-tie dinner this night and was going home unusually early. The publisher was starting his silver Volvo, with its unrivaled safety record and two airbags, and was witness to Axel’s shameless behavior.

“Christ,” Panesa muttered, shaking his head as he pulled out of his reserved space in the center of the best wall, no more than twenty steps from the front glass doors. He rolled down a window, stopping Axel cold.

“Come here,” Panesa told him.

Axel gave his boss a crooked, sexy Matt Dillon smile and strolled over. Who could resist? “What’s going on?” Axel said, moving in a way that showed muscle to its best advantage.

“Axel, leave him alone,” Panesa said.

“Excuse me?” Axel touched his chest in pure hurt innocence.

“You know exactly what I mean.” Panesa roared off, fastening his shoulder harness, locking doors, checking mirrors, and snapping up the mike of his private frequency two-way radio to let the housekeeper know he was en route.

The longer Panesa had worked in the newspaper business, the more paranoid he had become. Like Brazil, Panesa had started out as a police reporter, and by the time he was twenty-three, knew every filthy, nasty, cruel, and painful thing people did to one another. He had done stories on murdered children, on hit and runs, and husbands in black gloves and knit caps stabbing estranged wives and friends before cutting their throats and flying to Chicago. Panesa had interviewed women who lovingly seasoned home cooking with arsenic, and he had covered car wrecks, plane crashes, train derailments, skydiving gone bad, scuba diving gone worse, bungee jumping by drunks who forgot the cord, and fires and drownings. Not to mention other horrors that did not end in death. His marriage, for example.

Panesa frantically ran through downtown traffic like a Green Bay Packer, cutting in and out, the hell with you, honk all you want, get out of my way. He was going to be late again. It never failed. His date tonight was Judy Hammer, who apparently was married to a slob. Hammer avoided taking her husband out in public when she could, and Panesa did not blame her, if the rumor was true. Tonight was USBank’s Public Service Awards banquet, and both Panesa and Hammer were being honored, as was District Attorney Gorelick, who had been in the news a lot lately, scorching the N.C. General Assembly for not coughing up enough money to hire seventeen more assistant D.A.s, when it was clear that what the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region really needed was another medical examiner or two. The banquet was held at the Carillon, with its wonderful paintings and mobiles. Panesa was driving.