Brazil paused as he processed the familiar voice and fit it with the face.
‘Oh,’ was all Brazil said.
‘I seen your picture all over the place!’ exclaimed Weed.
‘Looks like you two have been through it,’ the governor said. ‘What did you do to your chin?’ he asked Weed.
‘Cut myself shaving.’
The governor seemed to accept this.
‘How on earth did you end up out here? Are you hurt? No backup? Doesn’t your radio work?’ Governor Feuer asked Brazil.
‘It works, sir.’
Brazil’s words were sticky, as if he had communion wafers in his mouth. His tongue got caught on every syllable. He sounded a little drunk and wondered if he was delirious. Maybe none of this was happening.
‘Let’s get both of you some water and out of the sun,’ the governor was saying.
Brazil was too exhausted and dehydrated to have much of an emotional reaction.
‘You should know I’ve got a prisoner,’ Brazil mumbled to the governor.
‘I’m not worried unless you are,’ Governor Feuer said. ‘My driver’s state police.’
Jed smiled as he stood attentively by the limousine. He opened a back door and the governor got in. Jed nodded at Brazil and Weed to do the same.
Jed, you’ve got water, don’t you?’ Governor Feuer said.
‘Oh yes sir. Chilled or unchilled?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Brazil said.
‘Chilled would be good,’ Weed answered.
Brazil was overwhelmed by air conditioning and an expanse of clean, soft gray leather. He sat on the carpeted floor and nodded for Weed to do the same. The governor gave them an odd look.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked Brazil.
‘We’re pretty sweaty,’ Brazil apologized. ‘Wouldn’t want to mess up your upholstery.’
‘Nonsense. Have a seat.’
Air conditioning blasted their drenched clothes. Jed slid open the glass partition and handed back a six-pack of chilled Evian. Brazil drained two bottles, barely breathing between swallows. A stabbing sensation ran up his sinuses to the top of his head. He bent over in agony and rubbed his forehead.
‘What is it?’ the governor asked, alarmed.
‘Ice cream headache. I’ll be fine.’
‘Those are miserable. Nothing worse.’
‘Uhhh.’
‘I get ’em when I drink Pepsi too fast,’ Weed commiserated.
Jed’s voice came over the intercom. ‘Where to, sir?’
‘Where can we take you?’ the governor asked Brazil. ‘Home? Back to headquarters? The jail?’
Brazil rubbed his forehead. He poured water on a napkin and gently cleaned Weed’s cut and wiped dried blood off his neck.
‘What will it be?’ the governor asked.
‘Honestly, Governor, you don’t have to do that. I can’t let you go to the trouble,’ Brazil said.
Governor Feuer smiled. ‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Andy Brazil.’
‘As in the NIJ fellow who wrote the op-ed on juvenile crime?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
The governor was favorably impressed.
‘And you?’ he asked Weed.
‘Weed.’
‘That’s your real name, son?’
‘How come everybody always asks me that?’ Weed was tired of it.
‘I guess headquarters would be good, sir,’ Brazil said.
‘Swing by headquarters,’ the governor told Jed. ‘I guess you’d better call my scheduler and tell him I won’t make it to whatever.’
Time had stopped for Patty Passman as she sat in the urine-sticky dark on the cold metal floor of the wagon, arms wrenched behind her, ankles immobilized. Her hands and feet were numb. She was chilled to the core. She envisioned gangrene and amputations and lawsuits.
The scales of her unfortunate chemistry were back in balance. Although weak and somewhat banged up, she was thinking with clarity and premeditation. She knew exactly what Rhoad was doing. The wagon could not carry her to lockup for processing until he filled out at least one arrest sheet. The son of a bitch was trumping up every charge imaginable, filling out the paperwork on every single one because the longer he took, the longer she sat, trussed up like a turkey inside an icebox.
Passman wriggled backward across unforgiving metal, finally finding a side of the van to lean against. She shifted positions every few seconds to relieve the bite of the handcuffs and the ache in her shoulders.
‘Oh please hurry,’ she begged in the dark as the tears came. ‘I’m so cold. Oh God, I hurt! Please! You’re so mean to me!’ She burst into sobs that no one heard or would have been moved by were she standing in the middle of a packed coliseum.