'Hold out your right hand,' he commanded.

'I don't need no number.' Weed tried not to sound like he was begging, but knew he did.

'You don't hold it out now, I'm gonna chop it off.'

Divinity poured another cup of vodka and handed it to Weed.

'Here, honey, this will help. I know it don't feel good, but we all had it done, you know?" she said, holding out her delicate finger with its homemade 2 tattoo.

Weed drank the vodka and caught on fire. His mind went somewhere and when he put out his hand, he was surprised that he could tolerate the sticks and deep scratches of the red-hot needle. He didn't cry. He threw a switch that turned off pain. He didn't look as Divinity dripped ink into the wounds and rubbed it in good. Weed swayed and Smoke had to tell him twice to sit still.

'Your slave number's five, little shit,' Smoke was saying. 'Pretty good, huh. That makes you in the top ten - hell, it makes you in the top five, right? That makes you a first-string Pike. And a fucking lot is expected of a first-string Pike, right, everybody?'

'Sure as fuck is."

Tucking got it fucking straight.'

'Honey, don't you fret. You're gonna be just great,' Divinity reassured Weed.

'We're going to initiate you, retard,' Smoke said as again he stuck the needle in Weed's right index finger, above the first knuckle. 'You're gonna do a little paint job for us.'

Weed almost fell over and Divinity had to hold him up. She was laughing and rubbing his back.

'We're gonna show this city who we are once and for all,' Smoke went on, full of liquor and himself. 'You got paints, don't you, little art fag?'

Smoke's words whirled inside Weed's head like the Milky Way.

'He's gone, man,' Beeper said. 'Whatta we do with him?'

'Nothing right now,' Smoke said. 'I got an errand to run.'

It was almost eight P.M., and Virginia West was glad. Working long hours meant she didn't have the energy to get emotional about the dishes in the sink, the dirty clothes on the floor, the clean ones draped over chairs and falling off hangers.

She didn't have to wait for Brazil to ring her up and suggest a pizza or just a walk like he used to back in Charlotte. She knew from her InLog of calls that he never tried, but why should he? She made sure he knew she was never home. If it even crossed his mind to call, he wouldn't because it was pointless. She was busy, out, not thinking of him, not interested.

In fact, eight P.M. was earlier than usual. West preferred to roll in around ten or eleven, when it was too late to even call her family on the farm, where she rarely visited anymore because she now lived so far away. Time had become West's enemy. A pause in it echoed with an unbearable emptiness and loneliness that sent her fleeing from the nineteenth-century town house she rented on Park Avenue, once known as Scuffletown Road, in Richmond's Fan District.

Although the name 'Fan' meant nothing to outsiders or even the majority of Richmond residents who were not interested in the history of their city, a quick look at a map brought much clarity to the matter. The neighborhood fanned out several miles west of downtown, spreading fingers of quaint streets with names like Strawberry, Plum and Grove. Homes and town houses of distinctive designs were brick and stone with slate and shingle roofs, stained glass transoms, elaborate porches and parapets, finials and even medallions and domes. Styles ranged from Queen Anne to Neo-Georgian and Italian Villa.

West's town house was three stories with a gray and brown granite front on the first floor and red brick on the two above. There were stained glass bands around the sashes on the second-floor windows and a white frame sitting porch in front. Although Park Avenue had once been one of the most prominent addresses in the city, much of the area had become more affordable as Virginia Commonwealth University continued to expand. Quite frankly, West was growing to hate the Fan, finding its unrelenting noises were causing her mood swings, which in turn seemed to be causing the same in Niles, her Abyssinian cat.

The problem was that West had unwittingly picked a location several houses down from Governor Jim Gilmore's birthplace, which had become increasingly overrun by tourists. She was across the street from the crowded Robin Inn, a popular hangout for students and cops who liked big servings of lasagne and spaghetti and baskets full of garlic bread. As for finding parking on the street, it was a chronic lottery with chances always slim to none, and West had grown to despise students and cars. She even hated their bicycles.

She dropped her briefcase in the foyer, and Niles slinked out of the office and regarded his owner with crossed blue eyes. West threw her suit jacket on the living-room couch and stepped out of her shoes.

'What were you doing in my office?' West asked Niles. 'You know not to go in there. How did you anyway? I know I locked the door, you little fleabag.'

Niles was not insulted. He knew as well as his owner did that he didn't have fleas.

'My office is the worst room in the house,' his owner said as she walked into the kitchen and Niles followed. 'What is it about going in there, huh?'

She opened the refrigerator, grabbed a Miller Genuine Draft and screwed off the cap. Niles jumped on the windowsill and stared at her. His owner was always in such a hurry that she just thought she closed doors, cabinets, windows and drawers, and put away things Niles might enjoy in her absence, such as loose nails and screws, balls of string, half-and-half or part of an egg and sausage sandwich left in the sink.

His owner took a big swallow of beer and stared at her Personal Information Center, an expensive gray phone with a video screen, two lines, caller ID and as many stored telephone numbers as Niles's owner decided to program into memory. She checked for messages, but there were none. She scrolled through the Caller ID InLog to see if anyone had called and not left a message. No one had. She took a big swallow of beer and sighed.

Niles stayed on the windowsill and stared down at his empty food bowl.

'I get the hint,' his owner said, taking another swig of beer.

She walked into the pantry and carried out the bag of lams Less Active.

Tm gonna tell you this right now,' his owner said as she filled Niles's handmade ceramic food bowl, 'if you walked on my keyboard again or screwed around under my desk and unplugged anything, you've had it.'

Niles jumped down silently and crunched on his boring, fat-free, meatless food.

West left the kitchen for her office, dreading what she might find. Abyssinians were unusually intelligent cats, and Niles certainly went beyond the norm, which was a problem since he was curious by nature and didn't have enough to do.

'Goddammit,' West exclaimed. 'How the fuck did you do that?'

Glowing on her computer screen was a crime map of the city. That simply could not be possible. She was certain the computer had been turned off when she left the house that morning.

'Holy shit,' she muttered as she seated herself in front of the terminal. 'Niles! Get your butt in here right now!'

Nor did she remember the map's colors being orange, blue, green and purple. What happened to the pale yellow and white spaces? What were all these small, bright blue fish icons clustered in second precinct's beat 219? West looked at the icons one could click on at the bottom of the screen. Homicides were plus signs, robberies were dots, aggravated assaults were stars, burglaries were triangles, vehicle thefts were little cars. But there were no fish, blue or otherwise.

In fact, there was no such thing as a fish icon in COMSTAT's computer network, absolutely not, and she could think of no explanation whatsoever for why beat 219 was filled with fish, or why the beat was outlined in flashing blood red. West reached for the phone.