'Oh really? And did that supposedly mean what?'

Tm working on something here, and was saying wow about it.'

'Oh, I see. Here I am taken my costly time to call your phone, and you're working on something else in addition to our conversing while I'm talking to you?'

'Yes, ma'am. But I'm listening.' Brazil tried not to laugh as he looked at Hammer, who was never amused by Ehrhart.

West walked in.

'What…?' she started to say.

Hammer motioned for her to be silent. Brazil clamped his pencil between his teeth and crossed his eyes.

'The upshoot, Officer Brazil, is I simple will not allow to permit you a commission quote for whatever your next column might be about in terms of so-called gangs. You're banging out by a thread on a limb all alone on this one!'

Brazil snatched the pencil out of his mouth and wrote down the quote. West scowled. Hammer shook her head in disgust.

'We members on the Blue Ribbon Crime Commission are children pro-advocates, not bounty hunting,' she preached on. 'Even if children do formulate little groups, what by the when is perfect and normal, certainly all of us had our little cliches where we were in school and to start labels them as gangs is like all this millions of misspoken facts about well-meaning mens who play Santa Claus at Christmas all being children molesters, or that clowns are, or that the Internet becomes that. And this is how there things all get their inception. Because of the power of suggesting that the media has. Don't you view how you've opened a flooded gate? So I'm asking you reasonable to square a peg in that round hole right now.'

Brazil was biting his hand. He cleared his throat several times.

'I understand what you're…' His voice went up an octave and cracked.

He cleared his throat again, tears in his eyes, face bright red as he held back laughter that was fast becoming hysterical. Hammer looked like she wanted to break Lelia Ehrhart's neck, as usual. West's expression pretty much mirrored her boss's.

'Then am I to happily assumption that we won't hear no more about this gang paraphernalia?' said Ehrhart, who was famous for her creativity with self-expression.

Brazil simply could not speak.

'Are you where?'

Brazil mashed several buttons on the phone at the same time to give the impression there was trouble on the line. He quietly depressed the hang-up button and returned the receiver to its cradle.

'Gang paraphernalia!' He was weak with laughter.

'Oh great,' West said. 'Now she'll call us. Way to go, Andy. Every time you get with her on the fucking phone, this happens. Then she calls the chief or me. Thanks a hell of a lot.'

'We have things to discuss,' Hammer announced, coming inside the office. 'We'll leave Lelia for later. She takes up far too much of our time as is.'

'Why can't you say something to Governor Feuer?' Brazil said as he took a deep breath and wiped his eyes.

'I will if he asks me,' Hammer replied. 'We need a very simple user's manual for COMSTAT. We've got to get this computer business straight. We're what? Three months into this? A fourth of our year is up. And they still can't use the computer? Both of you see how bad that is?'

'Yes.' Brazil got serious. 'I do. If we don't leave that much with them, I guess we've failed.'

'I'm sorry to heap more on you.' Hammer began pacing. 'But we need the manual ASAP.'

'How soon is as soon as possible?' West asked suspiciously.

Two weeks from today, at the outside.'

'Jeez.' West sat down on the small couch. 'I'm already working days and riding with patrol, detectives, inspectors, you name it.'

'Me, too,' Brazil said. 'Plus I've got this website stuff.'

'I know, I know.' Hammer stopped to look out the window at the downtown skyline. 'I have my computer at home. I'll add my thoughts, too. We're all in this together. I think the thing to do is give each of us our own responsibility. Andy, you're more into programming, commands and all that. You can handle the how-to technical part of it, and Virginia, you can help put it in very basic, black-and-white terms, nuts and bolts, that the cops will be able to follow.'

West wasn't sure if she'd been insulted or not.

'I'll try to add the concepts, philosophies, put it all in context,' Hammer said. 'Then - Andy, you're the writer - you can compile the whole thing.'

'I agree this has to be done,' West said, 'but if you ask me, the only thing that's going to really turn the guys on to COMSTAT is if they see it works.'

'They aren't going to see if it works if they can't work it,' Hammer replied logically.

Hammer walked out of the office. Brazil and West looked at each other.

'Shit,' West said. 'Look what you've gotten us into.'

'Me!' Brazil exclaimed.

'Yes, you.'

'She suggested the user's manual, not me.'

'She wouldn't have suggested one if you weren't a writer.' West saw the holes in her logic but would not back down.

'Oh, I see. So now everything's my fault just because I know how to do something in general that I've been told to do specifically and that you've been asked to help with, sort of West had to unravel this for a moment.

'What do you mean, sort of?' she asked. 'It sounds to me like my involvement is more than a sort of Brazil's phone rang.

'Brazil. Oh, hi.' His voice softened and he paused as the other person talked. 'You're so thoughtful,' Brazil said, listening again. 'The usual place is fine,' he said as the voice chattered on. 'I'll look forward to it,' Brazil said. 'I've got to go.

'Sorry,' he said to West.

'Do you have any idea how much I'm going to hate writing computer instructions?' she asked in an uneven, strained voice as she imagined Brazil's wealthy, beautiful landlady. 'And you're not supposed to make personal calls at work!'

'I didn't make it. She called me. And you're not the one who has to do the writing. I am,' Brazil replied.

'Well, writing, after all is said and done, is the easy part.'

Brazil's anger mounted.

'You don't have any right to say it's easy,' he said.

'I can say anything I want,' she replied.

'No you can't.'

'Yes I can,' she asserted.

'Then you write it.'

Tuck no,' she answered. 'I've got enough to do.'

'Excuse me,' a voice behind them spoke up.

Fling was holding his schedule book, standing outside the door, afraid to walk in. West and Brazil stopped their bickering and stared at him.

'I'm out of here.' West left.

'Officer Brazil,' Fling said, 'I just wanted to remind you of your 1:56 appointment at Godwin High School. I believe you're speaking in the auditorium to all the students?'

'Dammit,' Brazil muttered as he checked the time. 'Do you know how to get there from here?'

'No,' Fling said. 'I didn't go there.'

'Huh?' Brazil's mind was racing.

'I went to Hermitage,' Fling said.

'Wait.' Brazil popped up from his desk. 'Virginia, come back here!'

'On Hungary Springs Road.' Fling was warmed by the memories. 'You know, Godwin isn't the only good school around.'

West walked back into the office, defiant in a khaki suit that complemented the darkness of her eyes and deep red of her hair. Her body was far finer than she deserved for as little as she did to help it along.

'What?' she asked impatiently.

'You ought to go out to Hermitage, too. Talk with the students there, you know,' Fling was going on and on. 'That's the thing about doing one school. What about the others?'

'In case you've forgotten,' Brazil said to West as he tightened the laces of his Rocky boots, 'you're supposed to go with me to Godwin.'

'Shit,' she said.