slums haunted by the rulers of the night. He saw the young hooker ahead, leaning inside a Thunderbird, talking to a man looking for a good investment. Brazil wasn’t in a shy
mood, and he pulled up closer, watching. The car sped off, and the hooker turned hostile,
glazed eyes on Brazil, not at all happy with the intrusion. Brazil rolled down his window.
“Hey!” he called out.
Poison, the prostitute, stared at the one known on the street as Blondie, mockery in her
eyes. She started strolling again. This pretty-boy snitch followed her everywhere, had a
thing about her, and was still working up his nerve, maybe thought he was going to get
something more to leak to the police and the newspaper. She thought it
was funny. Brazil unfastened his seatbelt. He reached to roll down the passenger’s window. She wasn’t going to get away from him this time.
No sir, and he tucked the . 380 out of sight beneath his seat, as he crept forward, calling
out to her.
“Excuse me! Excuse me, ma’am!” he said again and again.
“I need to talk to you!”
^Sy Hammer was rolling past at this very moment, Cahoon following in his Mercedes
600S V-12 sedan, black with parchment leather interior.
He wasn’t entirely within his comfort zone in this part of the city, and he checked his
locks again as Hammer got on her police radio and told the dispatcher to ten-five Unit
700. Immediately, she and West were on the air.
“The subject you’re looking for is at West Trade and Cedar,” Hammer said on the air to West.
“You might want to head this way in a hurry.”
“Ten-four!”
Officers in the area were perplexed, even a little lost, as they overheard this transmission
between their highest leaders. They were still mindful of their chief’s feelings about
being followed and harassed. Maybe it was wise to sit this one out for a minute or two,
until they had a better idea about what exactly was going down. West gunned the engine,
racing back toward West Trade.
v9 Poison stopped and slowly turned around, seduction smoldering in her eyes as she
entertained notions this snitch in the BMW couldn’t even begin to imagine.
‘% Hammer wasn’t so sure this was the right time to introduce Cahoon to the Presto Grill.
Trouble seemed to rise from the street like heat, and she had not gotten where she was in
life by ignoring her instincts. Only in her personal life had she looked the other way,
turned the volume down low, and denied. She swung off into the All Right parking lot
across from the grill, and motioned out her window for Cahoon to follow. He stopped by
her unmarked car and his window hummed down.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Park and get in,” she said.
“What?”
She furtively scanned their surroundings. Something bad was out there.
She could feel its foulness, detect the scent of the beast. There was no time to waste.
“I can’t leave my car here,” Cahoon reasonably pointed out, because the Mercedes would be the only car in the lot, and possibly the only vehicle within fifty miles, that cost
roughly one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
Hammer got the dispatcher on the air.
“Send a unit to the All Right parking lot, five hundred block West Trade, to watch a late-
model black Mercedes until I give further notice.”
W Radar, the dispatcher, was none too fond of Hammer, for she, too, was female. But
she was the chief, and he, at least, had the good sense to be afraid of the bitch. Radar had
no idea what she was doing out on the street, especially at this hour. He sent two units
while Poison smiled knowingly and took her time reaching the passenger’s window of
Brazil’s car. She leaned inside like she did all the time, and took an inventory of the
groomed leather interior. She noted the briefcase, pens, Charlotte
Observer notepads, old black leather bomber jacket, and, most of all, the police scanner and two-way radio.
“You police?” she drawled, a little confused about just who the hell Blondie was.
“A reporter. With the Observer,” Brazil said, because he was not police anymore. West had made that clear.