‘Hey! Who’s the chick with the radio?’ some man yelled.
‘We got undercover cops here!’
‘FBI.’
‘CIA.’
‘Yay!’
‘You want my fingerprints, baby?’
The smell of alcohol was strong as bodies pressed closer and jeering people got in West’s face. Her body space wasn’t there. People were jostling her, touching her, laughing. She got back on the radio and suddenly noticed the small blue fish painted on the statue’s base, just below Jefferson Davis’s left Nike. A kid came up behind her and pretended to go for her gun. She lifted him off the ground by his belt and tossed him like a small bag of garbage. He laughed, running off.
‘Three, 10-18!’ West exclaimed over the air as she stared at the fish, her thoughts crashing into each other.
‘Any unit in the area of Hollywood Cemetery, an officer needs assistance,’ Passman broadcast calmly.
‘Step back!’ West shouted to the crowd. ‘Step back now!’
She was against the crime-scene tape, the crowd getting frenzied and moving in.
West whipped out her red pepper spray and pointed it. People paused to reflect.
‘What the hell’s gotten into you?’ West yelled. ‘Step back now!’
The crowd inched back a little, faces twitching with indecision, fists balled, sweat rolling, the air throbbing with the heat of violence about to erupt.
‘Someone want to tell me what this is all about!’ West yelled again.
A youth wearing a Tommy Hilfiger shirt and stocking cap, one relaxed-pants leg rolled up, one down, spoke for the group.
‘Nobody wants us in here,’ he explained. ‘Maybe it gets to you, you know? And then one day something happens and you snap.’
‘Well, there’ll be no snapping here,’ West told all sternly. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Jerome.’
‘Seems like these people listen to you, Jerome.’
‘I don’t know any of them, but I guess so.’
‘I want you to help me keep them calm,’ West said.
‘Okay.’
Jerome turned around and faced the mob.
‘CHILL!’ he shouted. ‘EVERYBODY FUCKING BACK OFF AND GIVE THIS LADY SOME FUCKING SPACE!’
Everybody did.
‘Now listen up.’ Jerome stepped into his new role and had no problem with it. ‘The deal is you people don’t know what it’s like,’ he told West.
‘Tell it!’ a woman yelled.
‘You think anybody wants us in here?’ he whipped up the crowd.
‘Fuck no!’ they screamed.
‘You think anybody wants us dropping by?’
‘Fuck no!’ the crowd chanted.
‘You-think-you-go-Hollywood-who’s-gonna-let-you-they’re-gonna-get-you-throw-your-ass-in-the-grass-cemetery-in-the-hood? “Jerome started rapping.
‘Never!’
‘The-mon-u-ment-like-the-mom-u-meant-is-cold-rm-told-how-many-times-I-gotta-tell-it.’ Jerome was strutting before the crowd. ‘What’s-it-take-to-taste-and-smell-it-when-you-got-no-chance-to-sell-it-’cause-everything’s-for-sale-except-for-me-and-you-no-matter-what-we-do-we’re-the-boys-in-the-hood-ain’t-no-fuck-in-Holly-wood.’
‘AND-THE-GIRLS-IN-THE-HOOD!’
‘Boys-and-girls-in-the-hood-ain’t-no-fuck-in-Holly-wood,’ Jerome politically corrected himself.
‘AIN’T-NO-FUCK-IN-HOLLY-WOOD!’ the crowd rapped back.
‘Thanks, Jerome,’ West said.
‘AIN’T-NO-FUCK-IN-HOLLY-WOOD!’ The crowd was out of control.
‘Jerome, that’s enough!’
‘Say it again, brothers!’ Jerome was spinning and kick-boxing. ‘AIN’T-NO-FUCK-IN-HOLLY-WOOD!’
‘AIN’T-NO-FUCK-IN-HOLLY-WOOD!’
Sirens sounded in the distance.
CHAPTER twenty
The Robins Center, where the Spiders played basketball before great crowds, was between the private lot where Ehrhart had tucked her Mercedes, and the X lot where commoners parked, no more than two rows of parking spaces or approximately fifty yards from the track, where this moment Brazil was running hard for the second time this day.
It was late afternoon. He had spent hours working on the COMSTAT computer crisis while the media continued to kick around mean-spirited stories about Fishsteria and the vandalism of Jefferson Davis’s statue. Comments of low intelligence and terribly poor taste streaked through e-mail and were passed word-of-mouth through offices, restaurants, bars and health clubs before at last finding their way to the ears of the police.
Cops finally catch something, no longer let crooks off the hook.
Knock knock. Who’s there? Police. Police who? Police get rid of the fish.
Jeff Davis coloredized.
What’s black and white and red all over? (Jeff Davis.)
Brazil had been desperate for a break. He needed to clear his head and work off stress. What he did not need was to see Lelia Ehrhart walking out of the Robins Center, heading toward her black Mercedes parked in the Spiders Club lot. He knew instantly what she was up to and was furious.
Brazil sprinted off the track and through the gate. He got to her as she was backing up. He tapped on her window as the car continued to move. She braked, made sure her doors were locked and the window down an inch.