At Cloverleaf Mall, misfortune, or perhaps bad karma, began to swarm in. It started with a tattooed woman on a Harley-Davidson. She thundered around Bubba, flying between two lanes, dyed blond hair streaming out from her bright red helmet.

'Hey!' Bubba yelled as if anyone could hear. 'What the fuck you think you're doing?'

The woman rode on. Bubba sped up. He wove through traffic and floor-boarded it after her, squealing off on Oak Glen after she did and backtracking to Carnation and Hioaks, past the Virginia Department of Corrections Headquarters, and down Wyck Street and over to Everglades Drive.

Bubba was too exhausted, his mood too foul, to realize the woman was having a good time with him. When she shot back onto Midlothian Turnpike, Bubba took the turn too wide and didn't bother checking for cars. Horns blared. People cursed. An old woman in a Toyota Corolla pointed her finger at him like a gun and fired.

A city police cruiser darted in behind Bubba, blue-and-red lights flashing in Bubba's rearview mirror. This time Officer Budget yelped his siren as he pulled Bubba into the same Kmart where they had met before.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Communications Officer Patty Passman was overweight, with prematurely gray hair and bad skin. She was single, antisocial, and suffered from hypoglycemia, but she was no fool. She, too, knew that her parking meter on 10th Street was about to expire.

If she didn't get to her car before Otis Rhoad, he would anchor yet one more ticket beneath her wiper blade. What was it now? An average of two a week at sixteen dollars each? Of course she would be better off parking-in the nice new safe parking deck one street over, but there were no spaces left today. Whenever this happened she was forced out on the street, where Rhoad was always chalking tires and stalking expired meters.

Officer Budget recognized the red Jeep Cherokee immediately and couldn't believe he was pulling it again in the same damn parking lot. What was wrong with this guy? Was he doing it on purpose? Did he have some kind of dysfunction like those people who were always getting sick so they could go to the doctor?

The Jeep pulled into the Kmart parking lot, in front of First Union Bank, same as last time. Budget got out and approached the driver's door. Bubba was wearing camouflage. He was glassy-eyed and filthy. A dog was in a pen in the back. Budget rapped on the glass with his portable radio. Bubba rolled down his window.

'Step out of the car,' Budget said.

'If you don't mind, I'll just give you my license and registration like last time, Officer Budget. I've been up all night lost in the woods coon hunting.'

The racial slur was astonishing.

'Not a good time to say something like that, Mr. Fluck,' Budget said in an icy voice. 'How many you catch, huh? You hang 'em from trees or shoot 'em?'

'We get 'em in trees if we can,' Bubba said. 'It's not legal to shoot 'em right now.'

Budget jerked open the door and looked down at Bubba. He wanted to beat him up. It occurred to him that he might be able to get away with it since this was Rodney King in reverse. But they weren't in California.

'Once we get 'em up in the trees,' Bubba was talking too much because his nerves were frayed, 'we shine a light in their eyes. Course, it's the dogs that get them first, really. The dogs track 'em down.'

Budget looked back at Half Shell. The dog seemed docile enough.

'And just what kind of dog? Pit bulls? Dobermans?' Budget said hatefully.

'No, no. Coon dogs.'

'That's a coon dog in the back?'

'One of the best.'

Budget continued to stare at Half Shell. She stared back. She started barking and tried to break out of her pen.

'You sit right here and don't you move.' Budget backed away from the Jeep. 'And that dog gets out, you're in a lot of trouble.'

Passman was about to dash out to her car when 218 sounded in her headphones. 'Unit 218. Traffic stop,' Budget let her know. 'Go ahead, Unit 218.' Passman was stressed as she looked up at the clock.

'Sixty-eight hundred block Midlothian Turnpike with Boy-Union-Boy-hyphen-Adam-Henry.'

'Ten-4, 218 at 0748 hours,' Passman said, getting desperate.

Bubba punched in the cigarette lighter and noticed the tip of his.44 Magnum Colt Anaconda protruding from underneath his seat. Fear seized him. He broke into a cold sweat. He had a concealed weapon and no permit for such.

He kicked at the revolver, trying to shove it out of sight. It resisted his efforts, stainless steel glinting in plain view. Bubba slowly sneaked his right hand down to the floor, but his arm wasn't long enough to reach the gun unless he bent over or got on the floor. He knew it would not be a. good idea to give the impression he was hiding something or had hidden something under his seat.

Bubba shoved some more and realized that his monster revolver was hung up on something. He envisioned the release lever or a bolt or maybe an exposed spring pushing against the trigger. He imagined rotted fabric caught in the hammer. With the slightest motion the gun would go off.

Brazil had gotten off to a miserable start. He was hot. Gnats had begun to pay attention to him. His urge to use the bathroom overrode decorum and he'd finally relieved himself behind azalea bushes near a plot of realistic tree-shaped markers that had something to do with the Woodmen of the World.

Brazil was tired of waiting for Weed to show up. Brazil couldn't bear to admit that West had been right. Worse, he had to tell the radio room he needed a ride. The thought was awful.

All cops on the air and people with scanners would know Brazil was alone on foot in Hollywood Cemetery. He could hear the jokes. He could imagine the sniggers. The pretty boy's been reassigned to the dead beat.

'Unit 11,' Brazil got on the air.

'Go ahead, 11,' Patty Passman quickly came back.

'At Hollywood Cemetery. Need a unit to 10-25 me here.'

'Ten-4, 11, 0749 hours. 562.'

'Unit 562,' Rhoad came back.

Brazil recognized Talk in a Box's unit number and cringed. Oh please don't ask him to pick me up.

'Five-six-two. Need you to 10-25 a party at Hollywood Cemetery ASAP.' Passman's voice was strained as it came back.

Passman had fabricated calls in the past to divert Rhoad from her illegally parked car, and he wasn't about to fall for it this time.

'What's your 10-20?' Passman asked Rhoad over the air.

'Unit 562. Broad and Fourteenth,' he answered.

'Ten-4, 562, 0750 hours.'

'Unit 562,' he got back to her.

'Five-six-two.'

'Unit 562,' he said. 'Got to make one stop first. Can 10-30 11 with an estimated 10-26 of 0830 hours.'

'Eleven,' Brazil shoved his way on the air. 'Radio, can you send another unit? Need to get out of here long before then.'

Passman was in a panic as she glanced up at the clock. She frantically stuffed the other half of a chocolate eclair into her mouth.

'Eleven, that's 10-10,' she informed Brazil. 'All other units are 10-6.'

'Can you 10-9 that?' 'All other units are 10-6,' she repeated. It was a lie. Everyone on the air knew radio traffic had been light so far, with no indication whatsoever that all other units, or even half of them, were tied up.

'Ten-12.' She told Brazil to stand by.

'Eleven.' Brazil's voice was getting irritated. Ten-5 562 and ask his 10-20.'

'Five-six-two.' Rhoad didn't wait for the message to be relayed, since he clearly heard what unit 11 asked and was capable of being direct. 'Ten-20's Broad and 9th.'

'Well, can you 10-25 me now or not?'

'Ten-10. Got to make a stop first." 'Radio, can you please get me another ride?' Brazil asked again.

'Ten-10, 11. Five-six-two's en route.'

'Five-six-two. No I'm not. I got to make a stop first.'