Brazil was beginning to panic.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. Bledsoe had a goatee and liked gloss gel. He was the minister of the Baptist church on Jeremiah Avenue. Strobing police lights flashed in his glasses as he stared at Brazil and mopped his neck with a handkerchief.
“Let me just tell you one thing,” he went on, getting unctuous.
“The city of Charlotte doesn’t need people coming out here and being insensitive to humanity and poverty and crime. Even this man here is not to be ridiculed or laughed at.”
Swan was being led away, dazed. He had been minding his own business in the nip joint one minute and was sucked up by aliens the next.
Bledsoe swept a hand over the lighted skyline in the distance, rising and sparkling like a kingdom.
“Why don’t you write about that?” the councilman said it as if he wanted Brazil to start taking notes, so he did.
“Look at all the good, the accomplishments. Look at how we’ve grown. Voted the most attractive city to live in nationwide, third largest banking center in the country, with an appreciation of the arts. People are in line to move here. But no. Oh no.” He tapped Brazil’s shoulder.
“I’ll wake up in the morning to another depressing story. An ambulance hijacked by a man with a knife. News intended to strike fear in the hearts of citizens.”
West started pulling out and Brazil broke into a run, as if he were about to miss the school bus. Bledsoe looked surprised and annoyed for he hadn’t finished talking, and West knew it was no accident that the councilman just happened to be out tonight while Andy Brazil, the experiment in community policing, was riding. Bledsoe would find his way into a story and impress his constituents this reelection year with how diligent and caring he was. CITY COUNCILMAN TAKES TIME TO RIDE WITH POLICE. She could see the headline now. Opening the glove box, she rummaged for a roll of Turns.
She stopped the car so Brazil could climb in. He wasn’t even breathing hard and had just sprinted a good fifty yards. Reminders like that made West want to smoke.
“I told you not to talk to anyone,” she said, lighting up.
“What was I supposed to do?” He was indignant.
“You walked off without me and he got in my face.”
They passed more impoverished houses, most of them boarded up and not lived in anymore. Brazil was staring at West, thinking about Bledsoe calling her Superwoman.
“They made a mistake promoting you,” Brazil said.
“That was really something, what you did back there.”
West had been good at this once. Taking the sergeant’s exam had been the first step toward paperwork and political correctness. If Hammer hadn’t come to town, West was fairly certain she would have looked for some thing else.
“So tell me,” Brazil was saying.
“Tell you what?” West asked, blowing out a stream of smoke.
“What did you say to him?” Brazil wanted to know.
“Say to who?”
“You know, the guy in the ambulance.”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Come on. You said something that really pissed him off,” Brazil insisted.
“Nope.” West flicked an ash out the window.
“Oh, come on. What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes you did.”
“I called him a pussy,” she finally confessed.
“And you can’t print that.”
“You’re right,” Brazil told her.
Chapter Four.
The downtown skyline was huge around a terrible crime scene, minutes past ten p. m. Police were tense and sweating, their flashlights probing a parking lot behind an abandoned building, and an area overgrown with weeds where the black rental Lincoln had been abandoned. The driver’s door was open, headlights burning, interior bell dinging a feeble warning that was too late. Detective Brewster had been called in from home and was standing near the Lincoln, talking on his portable phone. He was dressed in jeans and an old Izod shirt, his badge and a Smith & Wesson. 40 caliber pistol and extra magazines clipped to his belt.
“Looks like we got another one,” he said to his in-transit boss.
“Can you give me a ten-thirteen?” West’s voice sounded over the phone.