Charlotte police caught no one on that call. West and Brazil were in a bad mood as they rode and the radio chattered. She could have gotten shot. Thank God her officers hadn’t seen what this idiot reporter had done. She couldn’t wait to give Hammer a piece of her mind, and was halfway tempted to call her boss at home. West needed something to give her a boost and pulled into the Starvin Marvin on South Tryon Street. Before she had shifted the car into park, Brazil was pulling up his door handle.
“You ever heard of looking before you leap?” she asked, like a severe schoolteacher.
Brazil gave her an indignant, disgusted look as he undid his seatbelt.
“I can’t wait to write about you,” he threatened.
“Look.” West nodded at the store, at the plate glass in front, at customers prowling inside and making purchases.
“Pretend you’re a cop. That should be easy for you. So you get out of your cop car?
Don’t check? Walk in on a robbery in progress? And guess what? ” She climbed out and stared inside at him.
“You’re dead.” She slammed the door shut.
Brazil watched Deputy Chief West walk into the convenience store. He started to make notes, gave up, and leaned back in the seat. He did not understand what was happening. It bothered him a lot that she did not want him around, even though he was convinced he didn’t give a rat’s ass. No wonder she wasn’t married. Who would want to live with somebody like that? Brazil already knew that if he were ever successful, he wouldn’t be mean to people new at life. It was heartless and said everything about West’s true character.
She made him pay for his own coffee. It cost a dollar and fifteen cents, and she hadn’t bothered to ask him how he drank it, which wasn’t with Irish cream and twenty packs of sugar. Brazil could barely swallow it, but did the best he could as they resumed patrolling. She was smoking again. They began to cruise a downtown street, where prostitutes clutching washcloths strolled languidly along the sidewalk, following them with luminous, empty eyes.
“What are the washcloths for?” Brazil asked.
“What do you expect? Finger bowls? It’s a messy profession West remarked.
He shot her another look.
“No matter what kind of car I drive, they know I’m here,” she went on, flicking an ash out the window.
“Really?” he asked.
“I guess the same ones have been out here, what, fifteen years, then? And they remember you. Imagine that.”
“You know, this isn’t how you make points,” West warned.
He was looking out and thoughtful when he said, “Don’t you miss it?”
West watched the ladies of the night and didn’t want to answer him.
“Can you tell which are men?”
“That one, maybe.”
Brazil stared at a big, ugly hooker in a vinyl miniskirt, her tight black top stretched over opera breasts. Her come-hither walk was slow and bulging as she stared hate into the cop car.
“Nope. She’s real,” West let Brazil know, and not adding that the hooker was also an undercover cop, wired, armed, and married with a kid.
“The men have good legs,” she went on.
“Anatomically correct perfect fake breasts. No hips. You get close, which I don’t recommend, they shave.”
Brazil was quiet.
“Guess you didn’t learn all this working for the TV magazine,” she added.
He could feel her glancing at him, as if she had something else on her mind.
“So, you drive that Cadillac with shark fins?” she finally got around to it.
He continued looking out at the trade show along the street, trying to tell women from men.
“In your driveway,” West went on.
“Doesn’t look like something you’d drive.”
“It isn’t,” Brazil said.
“Gotcha.” West sucked on the cigarette, and flicked another ash into the wind.
“You don’t live alone.”
He continued staring out his window.
“I have an old BMW 2002. It was my dad’s. He got it used and fixed it up, could fix anything.”
They passed a silver rental Lincoln. West noticed it because the man inside had the interior light on and looked lost. He was talking on his portable phone, and casting about in this bad part of town. He turned off on Mint Street. Brazil was still looking out at dangerous people looking back at them when West got interested in the Toyota directly ahead, it’s side window knocked out, the license plate hanging by a coat hanger. There were two young males inside. The driver was watching her in the rearview mirror.