“Shit!” He pounded the steering wheel, accidentally blaring the horn.
Cops in the distance turned around, staring.
tw Chief Hammer was causing her own commotion not too far away inside the Carpe Diem restaurant on South Tryon, across the street from the Knight-Ridder building. Two of her deputy chiefs. West and Jeannie Goode, sat at a quiet corner table, eating lunch and discussing problems. Goode was West’s age and jealous of any female who did anything in life, especially if she looked good.
“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Goode was saying as she poked at tarragon chicken salad.
“He shouldn’t be out with us to begin with. Did you get a load of the headline this morning? Implying we caused the accident, that Johnson was pursuing the Mercedes?
Unbelievable. Not to mention, skid marks indicate it wasn’t us who ran the red light. ”
“Andy Brazil didn’t write the headline,” West said, turning to Hammer, her boss, who was working on cottage cheese and fresh fruit.
“All I’m asking is to ride routine patrol with him for maybe a week.”
“You want to respond to calls?” Hammer reached for her iced tea.
“Absolutely,” West said as Goode looked on with judgment.
Hammer put down her fork and studied West.
“Why can’t he ride with regular patrol? Or for that matter, we’ve got fifty other volunteers.
He can’t ride with them? ”
West hesitated, motioning to a waiter for more coffee. She asked for extra mayonnaise and ketchup for her club sandwich and fries, and returned her attention to Hammer as if Goode was not at the table.
“No one wants to ride with him,” West said.
“Because he’s a reporter.
You know how the cops feel about the Observer. That won’t go away overnight. And there’s a lot of jealousy. ” She looked pointedly at Goode.
“Not to mention, he’s an arrogant smartass with an entitlement attitude,” Goode chimed in.
“Entitlement?” West let the word linger like a vapor trail in the rarified air of Carpe Diem, where high feminine powers met regularly.
“So tell me, Jeannie, when was the last time you directed traffic?”
W It was an odious job. Citizens did not take traffic cops seriously.
Carbon monoxide levels got dangerously high, and the cardinal rule that one must never turn his back to traffic was irrelevant in four-way intersections. How could anyone face four directions simultaneously? Brazil had questioned this since the academy. Of course, it made no sense, and added to the mix was a basic disrespect problem. Already, he’d had half a dozen teenagers, women, and businessmen make fun or him or offer gestures that he was not allowed to reciprocate. What was it about America? Citizens were all too aware of law enforcement officers, such as himself, who wore no gun and seemed new at the job. They noticed. They commented.
“Hey Star Trek,” a middle-aged woman yelled out her window.
“Get a phaser,” she said as she gunned onto Enfield Road.
“Shooting blanks, are we, fairy queen?” screamed a dude in an Army-green Jeep with a basher bumper, sports rack, and safari doors.
Brazil directed the Jeep through with a hard stare and set jaw, halfway wishing the shithead would stop and demand a fight. Brazil was getting an itch. He wanted to deck someone, and sensed it was only a matter of time before he busted another nose.
Sometimes, Hammer got so sick of her diet. But she remembered turning thirty-nine and getting a partial hysterectomy because her uterus had pretty much quit doing anything useful. She had gained fifteen pounds in three months, moving up from a size four to an eight, and doctors told her this was because she ate too much.
Well, bullshit. Hormones were always to blame, and for good reason.
They were the weather of female life. Hormones moved over the face of the female planet and decided whether it was balmy or frigid or time for the storm cellar. Hormones made things wet or dried them. They made one want to walk hand-in-hand in balmy moonlight, or be alone.
“What does directing traffic have to do with anything?” Goode wanted to know.
“Point is, this guy works harder than most of your cops,” West replied to Goode.