Southern Cross

Chapter Eighteen

Despite Bubba's incredible efforts, no matter his eight.straight hours of relentless work in Bay 8, his productivity had fallen short by 3,901 cigarettes. He was devastated. It was the last night of the competition of the month, and the second month in a row that Bay 5 had claimed victory.

'Don't take it so hard,' Smudge said.

'I can't help it,' Bubba replied despondently.

They stopped outside the cafeteria and Bubba inserted his ID card into the cigarette machine, selecting the free pack all workers got daily. Bubba chose his usual Merit Ultima. Smudge did, too, and sold his pack to Bubba at the slightly discounted price of eight dollars and twenty-five cents. Smudge smoked Winstons, which were not made by Philip Morris. For the first time it bothered Bubba that Smudge didn't offer his daily allotted pack to Bubba for nothing, since it cost Smudge nothing. It bothered Bubba that it just so happened that Smudge and Gig Dan played golf together.

'I guess Gig had a long day,' Bubba commented as he and Smudge headed out of the building.

'He looked pretty tired when he left,' Smudge agreed. 'Too bad you were so late.'

'Wouldn't've been if that asshole Tiller wasn't supposedly sick again.'

Smudge made no comment.

Funny how he always gets sick on the night the competition ends,' Bubba made another casual remark.

'Maybe losing is something he can't face,' Smudge suggested.

'Also funny how nothing in my module works worth a shit the last night of the competition. Know how many times the tipping paper broke? Or how many glue bubbles I got? Had a dull knife, too. So I clean up right before shift change, and find dust in the machine and glue balled up on the glue roller,' Bubba said.

Smudge stopped at his gleaming red Suburban. He got out his keys.

'See, I think someone gets to Kennedy on first shift and sucks him into the conspiracy. So Kennedy works the first half of second shift because Tiller's called in sick, because he's been told to. Then Kennedy fucks up everything he can so when I'm supposed to come in and work one and a half shifts, I've got all this dust, glue balls and shit waiting for me.'

'Sounds rather elaborate, like a spy thriller. Don't be paranoid, Bubba.' Smudge patted Bubba's shoulder.

But it wasn't just paranoia. Bubba wasn't stupid. He knew Gig Dan was involved in the plot as well or he would have said something to somebody about how dirty the machine was. He had to have known, since he inadvertently had to fill in for Bubba because Bubba was late being early and then ended up late for being on time because Fred held him to a conversation. Bubba kept his conviction to himself as he began to see just what Smudge was really made of. Whatever it was, it was beginning to stink.

'You owe me and everyone else in Bay 5 two cases of beer, good buddy,' Smudge said as he cranked the Suburban.

'Yeah, I know,' Bubba said. 'What will it be?'

'Hmmmm. Let me think,' Smudge jerked Bubba around. 'I guess Corona.' He added insult to injury.

Corona was not a Philip Morris product, and Smudge knew Bubba would rather eat poison than spend a nickel on anything not Philip Morris.

'Okay, but you gotta give me a chance to get you back,' Bubba said.

Smudge laughed. 'Lay it on me.'

'Tomorrow night. Highest score. Let's raise the stakes higher, more than two hundred dollars," Bubba said.

Smudge's face lit up as he lit up a Winston.

'You're on. Rain or shine,' Smudge said.

Bubba thought of the leak in his Jeep and everything else Muskrat had to say about it. Bubba tested Smudge one more time this morning.

'You want me to drive?' Bubba said.

'We'll be better off in my hunting truck.' Smudge said exactly what Bubba anticipated. 'I'll drive, you can pay for gas. Meet me at my house.'

Brazil was watching out the window for West's unmarked Caprice, and every other minute, he ran back to the bathroom and wet his fingers and ran them through his slightly gelled hair, giving it that wet look, making sure one strand fell down the middle of his forehead. He had brushed his teeth four times and couldn't stand still.

When West parked in front of his house, he took his time. He waited for her to come to the door. He waited until she had knocked five times.

'Andy? Are you in there?' she said loudly.

He ran to the door and opened it, tucking in his uniform shirt, adjusting his duty belt as if he was busy with many things and running behind.

'Gosh, I'm sorry,' he said politely. 'I was on the phone.'

It wasn't quite a lie because Brazil had been on the phone. He just didn't say when he'd been on it.

'I don't have much time,' West smacked the volley back. 'We'd better go. This was probably a bad idea,' she continued as she went down the steps. 'I've got the day from hell. I'm not even hungry.'

Brazil locked the door and followed her to the car, his feelings stung again.

'It doesn't matter to me,' he said. 'If you need to get to HQ, you can go on. You don't even have to give me a ride. It's not a problem.'

'I'm already here,' she retorted.

'I'm not that hungry either,' Brazil announced.

West put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.

'You should fasten your seatbelt,' Brazil told her.

'Forget it.'

'Look, I want to be able to get out of the car fast, too, if something goes down. But I don't want to be thrown out, like through the windshield. Besides, how long does it take you to unbuckle a seatbelt, if you're really honest?'

'You work the streets as long as I have, you don't have to be really honest.' She reminded him of his inexperience and her high rank.

'Have you ever been to The Forest?' Brazil asked.

'What forest?'

The neighborhood hangout on Forest Hill.'

'That's the other side of the river.'

There's more parking there than downtown where the River City Diner is.'

'Since when are we eating breakfast again? I thought we'd decided that issue,' West said.

She turned on the radio, tuning in to WRVA. Adrenaline was shorting out Brazil's central nervous system as he groped for just the right words. He had a right to know why she treated him the way she did. He had a right to know about Jim.

'I guess I'm realizing if I don't eat something now, I don't know when I will,' Brazil said, making sure she understood how busy he was, too.

'River City is closer to HQ.'

Try parking on Main Street during rush hour.'

West decided to head Southside.

'How did you find out about The Forest?' she asked as the radio broke the news of Fishsteria.

'I've been there a couple times.' Brazil's thoughts were tangled like fishing line.

'… believed to be a new strain of computer virus that cannot be detected by the standard antivirus software most of us have,' Johnny, of the popular Johnny in the Morning Show, went on.

'I pretty much stick to the Fan,' West said. There are so many good restaurants, bars, like Strawberry Street Vineyard. Why go anywhere else?'

'Strawberry Street Vineyard is a wine shop,' Brazil corrected her.

'I didn't say it wasn't,' she fired back.

'Best wine in the city. They can get anything. I picked up a Ken Wright Cellars Pinot Noir the other week. Outstanding.' Brazil had to rub it in.

'… hibernates in bottom sediments,' explained Johnny in the Mornings special guest, Dr. Edith Sandal-Viverette, a biologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. 'And releases toxins that are stunning and killing all these fish. Crabs are falling victim, as well. What's curious, Johnny, is the microbes like the temperature of the water to be eightyish. It's a little early for that.'

'But Fishsteria isn't related to Pfiesteria, right?' Johnny worried.

'I'm not sure we can say that at this moment.'

Brazil felt stubborn again. He didn't care enough to ask West anything. She didn't matter.

'I've really gotten into French burgundies, too,' Brazil rubbed it in some more.

'I get tired of red wine,' West said.

'Then you ought to try a white burgundy.' 'What makes you think I haven't?' West fired back. 'Well, it's really scary,' Johnny said as Brazil and West continued not to listen.

Bubba knew what had happened when he was half a block away from his house. The garage door was wide open. His heart was seized by fear. He pulled into the driveway and jumped out of his car, screaming his wife's name.

'Honey!' he yelled as he ran up the front steps. 'Honey! Oh my God! Honey! Are you all right!'

Bubba dropped his keys three times before he managed to unlock the front door. He burst into the living room as Honey's slippers swished along the hallway. He ran to her and hugged her hard.

'Why, what on earth is the matter?' Honey said, rubbing his back.

Bubba started sobbing.

'I was so scared something happened to you,' he cried into her permed, honey-blond hair.

'Of course nothing's happened to me, sweetie,' she said. 'I just this minute got up.'

Bubba stepped back from her, his mood suddenly skipping discs. He was enraged.

'How the hell could you sleep through someone breaking into the workshop?' he yelled.

'What?' Honey was dazed. 'The workshop?'

'The garage door's wide open! You leave it open for some reason, like the awful Jell-O and room temperature Tang? Is this the final blow to hurt me? Is that how they got in?'

'I don't go near that door,' said Honey, who knew better than to ever set foot inside his workshop. 'Would rather take the Lord's name in vain and be a Mormon or a queer or a feminist than dare to get near your shop!' exclaimed Honey, who was Southern Baptist and knew the party line by heart. 'I don't want to go near your tools, much less touch them. I never ask anything about them even if I can see them plain as day when you're working on some project that never turns out quite right.'

Bubba ran back out the door. Honey held her robe together and followed. Bubba walked into the garage. He held his breath, hands clenched as he took in what had to be the biggest disaster of his life. Tools were scattered everywhere, and all of his handguns were gone. Someone had pissed all over Bubba's electronic caliper and it would convert inches into metric dimensions no more. The dual sander and air hammer had been cruelly dropped into the ten-gallon drum of dirty oil that Bubba saved for Muskrat's heater.

Bubba staggered back out into the sunlight. Honey grabbed his arm to steady him.

'Maybe I should call the police,' she said.

West and Brazil were close to The Forest when several things happened at once. Brazil's flip phone trilled. The police radio broadcast a possible B amp;E on Clarence Street, and WRVA played an ad for Hollywood Cemetery's new Chapel Mausoleum, located in one of the oldest sections of the cemetery, adjacent to a convenient roadway and with no additional expenses for a vault or monument, one price covering everything including the inscription.

'Hello?' Brazil said into his phone.

'… Any unit in the area,' the police radio was repeating, '… possible B and E at 10946 Clarence Street.'

'… the Hollywood Cemetery Chapel Mausoleum reflects a combination of both beauty and dignity…" the ad continued, jazz playing in the background.

'Andy? It's Hammer,' Chief Hammer said over the phone.

'Three,' West answered the radio.

'Our computer problem's hit the national news. I guess you saw this morning's paper,' Hammer said to Brazil.

'Go ahead, 3,' said Communications Officer Patty Passman, who was surprised that the head of investigations was answering the call.

'Actually, I didn't know,' Brazil replied honestly to Hammer.

'Front page,' Hammer said. 'They're making fun of us, fun of COMSTAT, saying we've crashed around the world because of a virus called Fishsteria.'

'Fish versus Pfiesh?' Brazil asked.

'Figure it out, Andy.'

'… designed to reflect the classic elements found with Hollywood's hills…' said the ad.

'We're just a couple blocks from there,' West told Communications Officer Passman. 'We'll take the call.'

'And a vandal or vandals hit Hollywood Cemetery last night,' Hammer went on.

'Ten-4, 3. Complainant's a Mr. Butner Fluck.'

'Appears a Spiders basketball uniform was painted on the statue of Jefferson Davis,' Hammer explained.

Brazil was stunned. He started laughing and could not stop.

'And I'm afraid his race was altered,' she went on.

'You mean, he got Michael Jordanized?' Brazil choked.

'This isn't funny, Andy.'

'I think I'm gonna be sick.' Brazil was doubled over, hardly able to talk.

West made a U turn on Forest Hill and accelerated.

'Lelia Ehrhart's called an emergency meeting of city leaders tomorrow morning at eight,' Hammer told Brazil.

'I hope she's not going to speak!' Brazil's voice went up an octave. He couldn't help himself.

'What's wrong with you?' West glanced over at him as she drove fast out of habit, taking every shortcut she could to get to the scene.

'Look into it,' Hammer said to Brazil.

'Fishsteria or MagicJeff'?' Brazil's stomach hurt, his eyes watering.

'All of it,' she said to him.

The house on Clarence Street was very peculiar, but not for obvious reasons at a glance. Rather it was the sort of phenomenon that caused an unsettled, odd feeling of disharmony and something just not quite right that was discarded, like a lost file, the instant the person drove or walked past or delivered the newspaper and moved on.

But to someone with a trained eye who took a hard look, the problem was clear.

'Good God," West said, stopping the car in the middle of the road as she stared in wonder.

'Wow,' Brazil chimed in. 'I think he home-improved when he was drunk.'

Dark green shutters were askew, the paint not quite as white to the left of the red front door as it was to the right. The white picket fence was the worst West had ever seen. Clearly the soil was unstable and the builder had not driven the 4x4 posts far enough into the ground or set them in cement, nor had he bothered with a plumb line, it didn't appear, or chamfered the tops of the posts, meaning rainwater did not run off and the wood was beginning to rot. The rails sloped uphill on one side of the ill-fitting gate and downhill on the other. The pickets were unevenly spaced like bad teeth.

Apparently this same well-intentioned but misguided builder had expanded his garage by adding on a homemade shed that leaned north, suggesting the pressure-treated posts had not been sunk below the frost line and the new addition had shifted during the winter. Nothing was right. Shingles were not aligned, window boxes were different sizes, the stone garden fountain in front was dry, the herringbone pattern of the outdoor bench near the slumping brick barbecue was chaos. A long dog pen of torqued and drooping chain link was near the woods, and a blanket-back coon hound was perched on top of a barrel, bawling.

West turned into the driveway and a gas-station bell announced Mr. Fluck had company. A curtain in a window moved, and immediately a man emerged from the house. He was fat and didn't have much hair, his round head and small eyes bringing to mind a smiley face that wasn't. Mr. Fluck looked depressed and bereft, as if his wife had just walked out or come back, depending on how he felt about her.

'Uh oh,' Brazil said, unfastening his seat belt.

'No kidding,' said West.

Bubba followed his uneven brick walk to the driveway, where the unmarked white Chevrolet Caprice had pulled in. His mind was dark with ruined dreams, cruel predestination and bad karma.

His father, Reverend Fluck, had always disapproved of Bubba's fondness for guns, and Bubba was suspicious that his father had prayed for such a thing to happen. It was just too coincidental that, for the most part, only guns had been stolen. His expensive tools had been left. The burglar had not tried to break into Bubba's house or Honey's station wagon.

A tall, well-built blond man in uniform climbed out of the Caprice. The driver was a woman in plain clothes, a detective, Bubba assumed. They walked up to him, radios chattering.

'Are you Mr. Fluck?' the woman asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'Thank God you came. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.'

'I'm Deputy Chief Virginia West, and this is Officer Andy Brazil,' West said.

Bubba felt better. He sighed. The police had sent a deputy chief. This had to be Chief Hammer's doing. She was looking after Bubba. Somehow she had been touched as had he, their destinies entwined. Chief Hammer knew that a terrible injustice had been perpetrated against Bubba.

'I sure appreciate Chief Hammer contacting you,' Bubba said.

Both cops looked mystified.

'She did, didn't she?' Bubba's faith wavered. 'Just now, when I called nine-one-one?'

'Actually,' Brazil faltered. 'Well, yes. How did you know she just called me?'

Bubba looked heavenward and smiled, despite his pain.

West started walking toward the workshop. Brazil followed. Both of them stood on the driveway, looking at the mess. Brazil recorded the month, day, year and victim's name and address on the offense report attached to his clipboard.

'What a disaster,' Brazil said.

'It's unspeakable,' Bubba said.

'Do you have any idea when the B and E occurred?' West asked.

'Sometime between eight o'clock last night and seven-thirty this morning.'

'I need your home and business phone numbers.' Brazil was writing.

Bubba gave them to him.

'I got home from work and found this,' Bubba said, almost in tears. 'Exactly like this. I didn't touch anything. I didn't move anything, so I'm not a hundred percent sure what's missing.'

West's expert eye skimmed over stand-alone tools such as a drill press, a drum sander, bench grinder, jointer, thickness planer, shaper, and all the expected chisels, Forstner bits, wire-brush wheels, brad-point bits, plug cutter, countersink set. There was protective gear of every description, and more hand tools than Bob Vila probably had in his workshop.

'It's interesting that you have so many expensive tools, yet the burglar or burglars didn't take them,' West observed.

'He was after guns,' Bubba said. 'I know they're missing.'

He pointed to the cabinet and its severed padlock on the floor.

'You got bolt cutters?' West asked.

"Toolsmith, eighteen-inchers.'

'Still have them?' Brazil said.

'I can see them from here,' answered Bubba.

'What kind of lock was on the gun cabinet?' West asked.

'Just a plain Master lock.'

'Case hard?'

Bubba looked ashamed.

'I was meaning to get around to it,' he said.

'So it wasn't case hard,' Brazil wanted to make sure as he took the report.

Bubba shook his head.

'That's too bad,' West said with feeling. 'I've never seen a pair of bolt cutters that can go through a case hard Master lock. And considering what you had in your cabinet, you should have had the best.'

'I know, I know,' Bubba said as his shame deepened. 'I know how foolish I was.'

West walked in to inspect more closely, noting that Bubba had painted his initials in white on all tools and equipment. She stepped over dozens of step-by-step books on plumbing, deck and patio upgrades, painting and wallpapering, pruning, and home repair problem solving.

She picked her way around a Stanley thirty-foot heavy-duty tape measure and its Nicholas leather holder, a Makita tool holster, a McGuire-Nicholas wide saddle-leather belt, a top-grade cowhide Longhorn hammer holder, red Nicholas heavy-duty suspenders, and a foam rubber knee pad with double straps that had become separated from its mate.

West recognized top quality. She knew all the brands and how much they cost. She was curious. She was envious.

'And you have no alarm system,' Brazil said.

The "No Trespassing" sign and the bell in the driveway. I can hear anybody drive in.'

'I didn't know they used those anymore,' Brazil said.

'Muskrat's Auto Rescue has a bunch of them,' Bubba said.

'What about your dog?' West asked.

'Half Shell bawls all day and night. Nobody listens to her anymore.'

'So Half Shell and the gas-station bell were your only alarm system?' West gave him a skeptical look.

Bubba could tell she wasn't impressed with him. He was suddenly conscious of how pretty she was. Bubba felt fat, dirty, unattractive and inferior. He felt the way he had most of his life. Deputy Chief West saw through his guns and tools and home repairs. She saw Bubba as a persecuted little boy with an awful name and a world that ridiculed him. Bubba could see it in her eyes. It suddenly occurred to him that she might have gone to school with him.

'Are you from around here?' he asked her.

'No,' she said.

'You sure?'

'What do you mean, am I sure?'

He was paranoid and obsessed. He had to be convinced.

'So you're not from Richmond,' he said.

'No.' She was getting curt with him.

'It's just that you look like someone I went to school with whose name was Virginia,' Bubba lied.

'We didn't go to school together,' West told him.

'Did the burglar or burglars urinate in here?' Brazil asked.

'Yes.' Bubba pointed. 'Does that mean something?'

'Oftentimes burglars urinate or defecate in the place they've broken into,' West explained. 'It's part of an MO, and may or may not matter.'

Brazil made a note of it.

The sort of thing your police computer might have picked up on if it didn't have the fish virus,' Bubba said. 'I heard about it on the news when I was driving home. So you won't be able to check for a pattern.'

'Don't you even worry about it.' Brazil avoided the subject. 'You got a list of the guns and their serial numbers?'

'I got them all at Green Top,' Bubba said. 'Never buy guns anywhere else.'

'That helps,' Brazil said. 'But I want to list on the report what's missing so the detective can follow up.'

'I guess you won't be able to use the computer to see if someone else got broken into like this,' Bubba said, disappointed. 'Because of the fish problem.'

'Don't worry about how we do our jobs,' Brazil told him. 'Now, about the list.'

'One Browning Buck Mark Bullseye.22,' Bubba recalled, 'a Taurus eight-shot M608.357, Smith and Wesson Model 457 alloy frame.45 ACP and its Bianchi Avenger holster, a Pachmayr pocket cleaning kit, a mini-Clock G26 nine-millimeter with night sights, Sig P226 nine by nineteen millimeter, same thing used by Navy SEALs. Let's see. What else?'

'Jesus,' West said.

Brazil was writing at top speed.

'A Daisy Model 91 Match pistol, air gun, in other words. Ruger Blackhawk.357 revolver, and a couple Ruger competition handguns.'

'Are you a competition shooter?' West asked.

'Haven't had time,' Bubba said.

'Is that it?' Brazil asked.

'I just got a M9 Special Edition nine mil, fifteen-round clips, still in the box. It makes me sick. I never even got to try it out. And I had a bunch of speed loaders and about twenty boxes of cartridges. Most of them Winchester Silvertips.'

'What about anything else?' West asked.

'It's hard to tell,' Bubba said. 'But the only other thing I'm not seeing anywhere is my Stanley tool belt. It's really nice. Black nylon with a padded yellow belt, lightweight and not as hot as leather. Can fit everything but the kitchen sink.'

'I've always wanted one of those,' West confessed. They cost about sixty bucks.'

'That's if you get a discount,' Bubba said.

'What about suspects?' Brazil had gotten to that part of the report. 'Anybody you think might have done this?'

'It had to be somebody who knew what I had inside my shop,' Bubba said. 'And the door wasn't forced, so the person had a remote, too.'

'That's interesting,' Brazil commented.

'You can buy them at Sears,' West said, looking up at the retracted Sears garage door. 'Mr. Fluck, I'm going to see to it that a detective comes by before the day's out to look for any possible evidence, prints, tool marks, whatever.'

'My prints will be in here,' Bubba worried.

'We'll have to print you, now that you mention it, to know what's yours and what's not,' West said.

They walked out of the workshop, careful where they stepped. Half Shell was bawling and jumping in circles.

'Thank Chief Hammer again for me,' Bubba said, following West and Brazil to their car.

'Again?' Brazil looked baffled. 'Have you spoken to her?'

'Not directly,' Bubba said.