She and Brazil started making out in her Saab and her dorm room.
Sophie was experienced, rich, and premed She was more than willing to patiently explain anatomical realities, and he was open to research he really did not need.
At one p. m. ” Brazil had just logged onto his computer and gone into his basket to retrieve his police academy story, when his editor sat next to him. Ed Packer was at least sixty, with fly-away white hair and distant gray eyes. He wore bad ties haphazardly knotted, sleeves shoved up. At one point he must have been fat. His pants were huge, and he was always jamming a hand inside his waistband, tucking in his shirttail all around, as he was doing right now. Brazil gave him his attention.
“Looks like tonight’s the night,” Packer said as he tucked.
Brazil knew exactly what his editor meant and punched the air in triumph, as if he’d just won the US Open.
“Yes!” he exclaimed.
Packer couldn’t help but look at what was on the computer screen. It grabbed his interest, and he slipped glasses out of his shirt pocket.
“Sort of a first-person account of my going through the academy,” Brazil said, new and nervous about pleasing.
“I know it wasn’t assigned, but…”
Packer really liked what he was reading and tapped the screen with a knuckle.
“This graph’s your lead. I’d move it up.”
“Right. Right.” Brazil was excited as he cut the paragraph and pasted it higher.
Packer rolled his chair closer, nudging him out of the way to read more. He started scrolling through what was a very long story. It would have to be a Sunday feature, and he wondered when the hell Brazil wrote it. For the past two months, Brazil had worked days and gone to the police academy at night. Did the kid ever sleep? Packer had never seen anything like it. In a way, Brazil unnerved him, made him feel inadequate and old. Packer remembered how exciting journalism was when he was Brazil’s age and the world filled him with wonder.
“I just got off the phone with Deputy Chief Virginia West,” he said to his protege as he read.
“Head of investigations…”
“So who am I riding with?” Brazil interrupted, so eager to ride with the police, he couldn’t contain himself.
“You’re to meet West at four this afternoon, in her office, will ride with her until midnight.”
Brazil had just been screwed and couldn’t believe it. He stared at his editor, who had just failed the only thing Brazil had ever expected of him.
“No way I’m being baby sat censored by the brass!” Brazil exclaimed and didn’t care who heard.
“I didn’t go to their damn academy to.. ”
Packer didn’t care who heard for a different reason. He had been a complaint department for the past thirty years, here and at home, and his attention span tended to flicker in and out as he mentally drove through different cells, picking up garbled snippets of different conversations. He suddenly recalled what his wife had said at breakfast about stopping for dog food on the way home. He remembered he had to take his wife’s puppy to the veterinarian at three for some sort of shot, then Packer had a doctor’s appointment after that.
“Don’t you understand?” Brazil went on.
“They’re just handling me.
They’re just trying to use me for PR! ”
Packer got up. He towered wearily over Brazil like a weathered tree gathering more shadow the older it grows.
“What can I say?” Packer said, and his shirt was untucked again.
“We’ve never done this before. It’s what the cops, the city, are offering. You’ll have to sign a waiver. Take notes. No pictures. No videotapes. Do what you’re told. I don’t want you getting shot out there.”
“Well, I’ve got to go back home to change into my uniform,” Brazil decided.
Packer walked off, hitching up his pants, heading to the men’s room.
Brazil slumped back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling as if the only stock he owned had just crashed. Panesa watched him through glass, interested in how he was going to turn this around, and convinced he would. Systems analyst Brenda Bond blatantly glared at him from a nearby computer she was fixing. Brazil never paid her any mind. She was repulsive to him, thin and pale, with coarse black hair. She was hateful and jealous, and certain she was smarter than Brazil and all because computer experts and scientists were like that. He imagined Brenda Bond spending her life on the Internet inside chat rooms, because who would have her?