“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 telephone 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.

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 Interstate 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 sh’im 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.