Throughout it all, she was here, damn it, and she wasn’t going to let them down. When a
sergeant saw Goode sneaking out to her car with her office crammed in bags and boxes,
there was rejoicing throughout Adam,
Baker, Charlie, and David response areas, and investigations and support. Cops high-fived and low-tenned in the parking deck and the roll call room. The duty captain lit a
rum crook cigar in his nonsmoking office.
w Brazil got the good word by pager as he was out in the parking lot changing the oil in
his car. He went inside and dialed West’s home number.
“Bond won’t be bothering you anymore.” West tried to be cool, but she was intensely
proud of herself.
“Goode won’t be getting your stories from the little shit and leaking them to Webb.”
Brazil was shocked and ecstatic.
“No way!”
“Oh yeah. It’s done. Hammer’s fired Goode and Bond is in a state of paralysis.”
“Bond was making those calls?” To Brazil, this seemed incongruous.
“Yup.”
He was oddly disappointed that it wasn’t someone more dynamic and attractive thinking
such thoughts about him.
West sensed this and told him, “You aren’t looking at this the right way.”
“Looking at what?” He played dumb.
“Andy, I see this kind of thing all the time, doesn’t matter whether it’s a man or woman
doing it, except that women aren’t likely to expose themselves to you, so at least you can
be grateful for that,” she explained.
“This sort of thing is not about sex or being attracted to someone in the normal sense of
things. It’s all about control and power, about degrading. A form of violence, really.”
“I know that,” he said.
He still wished his verbal assailant had been someone halfway pretty, and he couldn’t
help but wonder what it was about him that prompted people like the creep at the car
wash, and now Brenda Bond, to select him. Why? Did he send out signals that made
them think they could take advantage of him? He bet that no one dared do such a thing to
West or Hammer.
“Gotta go,” West said, leaving Brazil disappointed and irritable.
He got back to changing his oil, in a hurry to finish now. He had an idea.
tv West had one, too. She called Raines, and this definitely was unexpected and
abnormal. West never called him or anyone, except Brazil, as all around her knew and
accepted as fact. Raines had the night off and was looking forward to watching a just-
released sports bloopers video he had acquired over the weekend. West was thinking
about pizza. They decided they probably could collaborate on this quite nicely, and he
headed over to her house in his rebuilt, fully loaded, black on black ’73 Corvette Stingray,
with headers, tinted glass top, and window sticker. West usually could hear him coming.
“W Brazil thought he should come up with a way of showing his appreciation to West for
resolving his life’s crisis. He also imagined the two of them celebrating, and why not?
This was a big day for both of them. She had rid him of Bond and Webb, and she and the
entire police department were free of Goode. Brazil sped to the nearest Hop-In and
picked up the nicest bottle of wine he could find in the glass cooler, a Dry Creek
Vineyard 1992 Fume Blanc, for nine dollars and forty-nine cents.
She would be surprised and pleased, and maybe he could pet Niles for a while. Maybe
Brazil could spend a little more time inside West’s house and learn something more about
her. Maybe she would invite him to watch TV with her, or listen to music, the two of
them sipping wine in her living room, talking, and telling stories about their early years
and their dreams.
Brazil drove toward Dilworth, overflowing with happiness that his problems had cleared
up, and he had a friend like her. He thought about his mother, wondering how she was
doing, and was pleased that she didn’t seem to get him down so much anymore. He didn’t
seem to feel that her choices were because of what he did or did not do for her.