“You should have thought about that before you broke the law.” She was not nice about it.
A half hour later, Brazil was talking on the two-way radio, and leaving the fire scene,
where an abandoned building was still fully involved. Flames danced from the roof, as
fire fighters on cranes blasted water through broken windows. News helicopters hovered
nearby.
Brazil was telling a metro editor what he’d found.
“Unoccupied, an old warehouse. No injuries,” he said into the mike.
In the rearview mirror, a patrol car was following him. He couldn’t believe it. Another
cop was staring right at him.
“Just do a couple graphs,” the editor told him over the air.
He would get to it. Right now, Brazil had more important concerns.
This was not an imagined threat, and he could afford no more tickets or points on his
record. He started driving the way he played tennis, serving up this and that, slicing,
sending a ball top spinning over his opponent’s head. Asshole, he thought as the same car
bird-dogged him.
Like anybody else, Brazil could and would take but so much.
“That’s it,” he snapped.
The patrol car was behind him in the right lane. Brazil continued at a steady speed, and
took a left on Runnymede Lane. The cop stayed on Brazil’s bumper, and they slowed to a
stop at a red light. Brazil did not look over or acknowledge in any way that he was aware
of the problem. He was cool in his saddle-leather seat, preoccupied with adjusting the
radio, which had been silent for years. At the last second, he swerved into the left lane,
and the officer pulled up beside him, with an icy smile that Brazil returned. The ruse was
up.
They were squared off. This was war. There was no turning back. Brazil thought fast.
Officer Martin, with his . 40 caliber pistol, shotgun, and 350 V8, didn’t need to think.
The light turned green and Brazil threw his old car into neutral, gunning it like he was
going to blast off after the space shuttle.
Officer Martin gunned his car, too, only the big horsepower Ford was in drive. It was
already through the intersection by the time Brazil had finished his U-turn, flying the
other way on Barclay Downs. He caromed off on Morrison, and cut a tangled path that
ended in a dark alleyway in the heart of Southpark Mall, next to a Dumpster.
His heart was hammering as he turned off headlights and sat, his thoughts frantic and
frightened. He was trying to figure out what might happen if the cop found him again.
Would the officer arrest Brazil for trying to elude, for resisting arrest? Would the cop
show up with other goons and beat the shit out of Brazil in a place like this, remote and
dark, with no chance of discovery by a citizen with a video camera? Brazil gasped as a
burglar alarm suddenly sounded like a clanging jackhammer, shattering the absolute
quiet. At first, he thought it was a siren that was somehow related to his fugitive status,
then aback door swung open and slammed against brick. Two young males hurried out,
loaded down with electronics they had just stolen from Radio Shack.
‘911! ” Brazil yelled into the mike connecting him into the newsroom.
Disgusted, he yelled at himself this time, “Oh now that was helpful.”
“What was that?” the newsroom crackled back.
Brazil squealed off in pursuit, flipping headlights on. The thieves were having a hard
time moving fast and holding on to their hard-earned rewards. Smaller boxes dropped
first, primarily Walkmans, portable CD players, and computer modems. Brazil could tell
that these two would hang on to boom boxes and miniature televisions until the bitter
end. He raised the newsroom on the radio, and this time instructed an editor to call 911
and put the phone near the base station so a dispatcher could hear what Brazil was saying.
“Burglary in progress.” He was talking like a machine gun, weaving after his quarry.
“Southpark Mall. Two white males running east on Fairview Road. I’m in pursuit. You
might want a unit at the rear of Radio Shack to collect what they’ve dropped before