"Germs," Macovich said as he smoked, waiting for the next car as he stood outside Hooter's booth and talked to her through the sliding window. "Everything's 'bout germs. Wooo. I 'member learning CPR on those life-size rubber dolls, and you was lucky if they wiped the rubber mouth off before you pinched the rubber nose shut and smacked your lips right over its rubber lips, blowing away. Now, you roll up on a scene and see someone unresponsive and bleeding bad, you got to double glove and drape the face with a sheet of plastic that's round with a hole in the middle, sort of like those 'sposable toilet seat covers you see in public restrooms. You just hope the person don't sneeze on you or puke or start moving around, and you pray they ain't got AIDS."

"Bet you could get AIDS off of money," Hooter said, nodding at her own convictions. "How you know some homosensual don't meet up with another homosensual and have sex in a park and then before washing his hands, he buys a sandwich and pay for it with a five-dollar bill. That same five-dollar bill is shut up inside a little cash drawer with hundreds of other unsanitarian bills, and then goes to the bank and is picked up when some other man dying of AIDS cashes a check. Next thing, that five-dollar bill is smacked down on a filthy bar and the waiter puts it in his unwashed pocket and decides to drive downtown and corner to my window."

"That will be next," Macovich thought out loud, and the conversation was making him uneasy and causing him to wonder if he would ever touch money again. "We'll have to wear gloves morning, noon, and night if we're gonna pay for things. Thank God we don't got to take money direct when we write tickets."

"Yeah, you mighty lucky in that department," Hooter said.

Macovich stepped out into the lane and held up his flashlight at the approaching Pontiac Grand Prix. It was an older model with dents, and his pulse quickened when he recognized New York plates and an expired inspection sticker. He walked over to the driver's door, his hand conveniently touching the snap release of his holster.

"License and registration," he said as the window cranked down, and he shone the flashlight on the frightened face of a Mexican boy who didn't look old enough to drive and was obviously an illegal alien. "You speak English, sir?"

"Si." The Mexican made no move to deliver either his driver's license or the registration.

"Why don't you ask him if he understands English," Hooter loudly suggested from her booth, which had nothing inside it except a stool, a fire extinguisher, and her Pleather pocketbook.

Macovich repeated Hooter's question while the Mexican averted his eyes from the blinding scrutiny of the flashlight.

"No," the Mexican said, getting more frightened by the second.

"No?" Macovich frowned. "Yeah? Well, if you don't understand English, how did you understand it enough to know I was asking if you understood it?"

"Creo que no."

"What he say?" Macovich turned around and looked at Hooter, who was hanging out of her booth now.

"Guess I may as well come on out since the lane's all blocked with you and that big Pontiac," she said to Macovich as she opened the door and stepped outside.

"He said that?" Macovich was baffled. "He said he's getting out of his car? 'Cause it don't look to me like he has any intention of getting out or cooperating in any way."

Hooter caught only fragments of what Macovich was saying as she buttoned her overcoat and slipped a lipstick out of a pocket. She pecked her way over the asphalt in six-inch high-heeled red Pleather boots. One thing about being a toll collector was that it involved a constant exposure to the public. Hooter was fastidious about fashion and fresh make-up and making sure every dreadlock was in place and interwoven with bright, colorful beads.

"It ain't good to not cooperate, honey," Hooter peered through the Mexican's open window. "Now you cooperate with this big trooper. Nobody wants no trouble, 'cause they be looking for a suspect right this very minute who could very well be you. So you best cooperate and not make things worse for yourself…"

"Hooter, don't tell him so much," Macovich whispered loudly in her ear, her perfume rushing up his nostrils and enveloping his brain. "What that you got on?"

"Poison." She was pleased he'd noticed. "I got it at Target."

"How'd you know we was looking for a suspect?" he whispered into her perfume again.

"Why else you be blocking off all the lanes except the Exact Change line, huh?" she replied. "You think I was born yesterday? Well, I been around, let me tell you, and I'm the senior operator at this toll plaza."

"Wooo, I wasn't putting you down or nothing, Senior Operator." Macovich teased her a little.

"Don't you be smart mouthin' me!"

"Wooo, I ain't smart mouthin' no one, least of all a pretty lady like yourself. How 'bout you and me having us a drink after our shifts?" He thought happily of the crisp hundred-dollar bill Cat had handed over after their quick helicopter lesson.

The Mexican was rigid in his seat, his eyes wide and shielded by a hand. He was shaking and gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were blanched.

"Por favor." He glanced up at both Macovich and Hooter. "No buena armonia."

Cruz Morales had a vague understanding of English and was accustomed to tossing out the simplest Spanish phrases that most New Yorkers caught immediately. But there was a sea of incomprehension between him and the cop and the tollbooth lady, and Cruz could not afford further investigation. He was twelve years old with a false ID and had driven to Richmond to pick up a package for his older brothers. Although he hadn't looked at whatever was inside the tightly wrapped bundle hidden in the tire well, he could tell by the weight of it that he was probably transporting handguns again.

"I think the child say he's poor and needs a favor," Hooter translated for Macovich. "He look too little and young to hurt nobody." Her maternal instincts wafted out on a cloud of perfume. "Maybe he need a soda or coffee. All them Mexicans start drinking coffee when they're little babies."

The tollbooth lady's gold front tooth seemed the only bright spot in Cruz Morales's existence this moment. He made eye contact with her and smiled a little, his teeth chattering.

"See," Hooter nudged Macovich with her elbow, bumping his pistol. "He's relating now. We getting through to him."

She glanced up at miles of parked cars in her lane. Why, it was an endless stream of impatient headlights, and it puffed her up to think they were all here to see her. She felt like a movie star for an instant, and was overwhelmed by sympathy for the little Mexican boy, who clearly was far from home and frightened. He was probably cold, tired, and hungry, too.

Hooter reached into her coat pocket, dug through tubes of lipstick, and produced a napkin that some nice-looking white trooper had given her last year when that man with the paper sack over his head had tried to rob the tollbooth and had run into it instead. Hooter fished out a pen, clicked it open, and wrote down her home phone number on the napkin, which she handed to the Mexican boy.

"Honey, you call me any time you need something," she magnanimously said. "I know 'zactly what it feels like to be a minority and have folks always thinking the worst when you ain't done nothing but collect their un-sanitarian money or drive somewhere and probably not knowing your 'spection ticket's espired."

"Get out of the car!" Macovich ordered the illegal alien. "Get out slowly and let me see your hands!"

Cruz Morales smashed the accelerator to the floor and squealed rubber, flying through the toll lane as lights flashed and alarms screamed because he didn't have time to toss three quarters into the bin.

"Shit!" Macovich exclaimed, patting around his duty belt, looking for his keys as he ran to his unmarked car and jumped in.