“Screw yourself,” Brazil’s voice rewarded her with its presence.
“You have my permission.”
The pervert didn’t need permission.
W Packer scrolled through Brazil’s latest and most masterful article.
“This is great stuff!” Packer was ecstatic about every word.
“One hell of a job! Wild, Wild West. Love it!”
Packer got up from a chair pulled close. He tucked in his white shirt, his hand jumping around as if his pants were a puppet. His tie was red and black striped and not the least bit elegant.
“Ship it out. This runs one-A,” Packer said.
“When?” Brazil was thrilled, because he had never been on the front page.
“Tomorrow,” Packer let him know.
X? That night, Brazil worked his first traffic accident. He was in uniform, with clipboard in hand, the appropriate forms clamped in.
This was a lot more complicated than the average person may have supposed, even if the damage was non reportable or less than five hundred dollars. It appeared that a woman in a Toyota Camry was traveling on Queens Road, while a man in a Honda Prelude was also traveling on Queens Road, in this unfortunate section of the city where two roads of the same name intersected with each other.
The pervert was nearby in her Aerovan, stalking and listening to the police scanner and Brazil’s voice on it. She was working her own accident about to happen as this young police boy pointed and gestured, all in dark blue and shiny steel. She watched her prey as she rolled past flares sparking orange on pavement in the dark of night, crossing Queens as she traveled west on Queens.
X Streets having the same name could be attributed to rapid hormonal growth, and was similar to naming a child after oneself no matter the gender or practicality, or whether the first three were christened the same, as in George Foreman and his own. Queens and Queens, Providence and Providence, Sardis and Sardis, the list went on, and Myra Purvis had never gotten it straight. She knew that if she turned off Queens Road West onto Queens Road East and then followed Queens Road to the Orthopedic Hospital, she could visit her brother.
She was doing this in her Camry when she got to that stretch she hated so much, somewhere near Edgehill Park, where it was dark, because the day was no longer helpful. Mrs. Purvis was the manager of the La Pez Mexican restaurant on Fenton Place. She had just gotten off work this busy Saturday night and was tired. None of it was her fault when Queens ran into Queens and the gray, hard-to-see Prelude ran into her.
“Ma’am, did you see the stop sign there?” The boy cop pointed.
Myra Purvis had reached her limit. She had turned seventy last February and didn’t have to take this sort of shit anymore.
Ts it in Braille? ” she smartly asked this whippersnapper in blue with a white tornado on his arms, reminding her of something she once used to mop her kitchen floor. What was the name of that? Genie in a Bottle? No. Lord, this happened a lot.
“I want to go to the hospital,” that man in the Honda was complaining.
“My neck hurts.”
“Lying like a rug,” Mrs. Purvis told the cop, wondering why he wasn’t wearing any hardware beyond a whistle. What if he got in a shootout?
W Deputy Chief West didn’t often get out to cruise so she could check on her troops. But this night she had been in the mood. She floated along rough, dark streets in David One, listening to Brazil’s voice on the scanner in her car.
“One subject requesting transport to Carolinas Medical Center,” Brazil was saying.
West saw him in the distance, from the vantage of her midnight-blue car, but he was too busy to notice as he filled out a report. She circled the intersection as he worked hard, talking to subjects in barely damaged cars. Flares languished along the roadside, his grille lights silently strobing. His face was eerie in blue and red pulses, and he was smiling, and seemed to be helping an old biddy in a Camry.
Brazil lifted his radio, talking into it.