"That's because you've managed to zip your underwear in it," Hammer said. "How'd the little slide get all dented up?"

"I been trying to shit it off!"

"Now settle down," Hammer ordered. "Let me see what I can do."

She touched Trader's zipper slide, careful not to touch anything else. Within seconds, she had unsnagged Trader's underwear and the zipper smiled open. Trader darted behind the Dumpster and began to pee like a horse.

"Jesus Christ," Andy said in disgust.

He inspected the package and shook his head as he counted five high-powered pistols and several boxes of ammunition.

"Looks like he's got all kinds of little businesses on the side," Andy said.

"Huh," Hammer remarked angrily. "What a disgrace."

"Hey!" Andy called out to the woman hanging back in the shadows, unable to make out anything except a silhouette of dreadlocks and high heels. "Come here!"

Hooter wobbled through the dirt, a little nervous that she might be in trouble, too, but not sure for what.

"Oh, I recognize you two," Hooter said in surprise. "You that woman police chief, only you ain't the chief no more 'cause you took over the troopers. And you the nice trooper who tried to help me when that man with the bag on his head tried to stick me up at the tollbooth last year," she declared to Andy.

"What do you know about this?" Andy nodded in the direction of Trader, who was still relieving himself.

"I just know I come out the bar and he was hopping around in the alleyway and then sat hisself on a package. Oh my Lord, look at all them guns! Why he was out here sitting on guns by a Dumpster, I'll never know. I told him it was dangerous, but he wouldn't get off the package and was holding hisself. So I don't know nothing more than that 'cept all a sudden he started shooting all over the place and I ran for cover and yelled for help."

"What were you doing out here in the alleyway?" Andy asked.

"Getting a little air."

"If you were getting a little air, then you must have been inside some place that didn't have much air. So where were you before you walked out here?" Andy inquired.

"Having me a little drink." She nodded at Freckles. "It was mighty smoky in there, 'specially 'cause that big trooper never puts one out without lighting up another one."

Andy immediately thought of Macovich. So did Hammer.

"Check to see if he's still in there," Hammer said to Andy.

He trotted around to the front of the small old neighborhood bar, and scores of bleary eyes turned on him as he walked through the door. Macovich was sitting in a booth by himself, drunk and sucking on another cigarette. Andy slid into the seat across from him.

"We just picked up Major Trader in the alleyway," he said. "Didn't you hear all those gunshots?"

"Thought they was car backfires," Macovich slurred through a cloud of smoke. "And I'm off duty," he sullenly added. "I know Trader was in the area, though. 'Cause he was sitting up there at the bar for a long time, drinking beers all by himself. Now, I didn't speak to him or draw no attention to myself."

"Did you notice him interacting with anyone or talking on the cell phone? Anything that might give you reason to believe he was here to meet someone and maybe buy a package of guns?"

"Wooo! Ain't nothing but trouble these days," Macovich said, turning a beer bottle in little circles on the table. "Much as I don't like that man, I can't say I saw him up to nothing."

"Then we can't prove he had anything to do with those guns," Andy said, disappointed. "At least not at the moment. And it's really not our jurisdiction to charge him with promiscuous shooting. The city police will have to do that, if they are so inclined. Were you in here with Hooter?"

"Wooo, that was a mistake. She don't hold her beer worth a damn and got nasty. That's what I get for picking up a toll lady."

Macovich tried to act as if he didn't care at all for Hooter. She was beneath him-a lowly tollbooth operator. So what if she got ugly and stormed out? He could find women every minute of the day, and he sure didn't need a tollbooth operator, senior or not.

"Guess I'd better give her a ride home," Macovich said. "She don't have a car."

"I think a better solution is for me to call both of you a cab," Andy replied. "But she may have some explaining to do to the police."

Hammer was asking Hooter about the police even as Andy said this.

"Are you the one who called them?" Hammer inquired. "Because somebody must have."

"I yelled up at all them helichoppers." Hooter looked up at a Black Hawk thundering overhead. "So I reckon one of them radioed for help."

"It's not possible that people in a helicopter heard you yelling down here," Hammer pointed out as Trader continued to splash the alleyway behind the Dumpster.

"Well, all I know is I was yelling up at them and waving my arms, so it had to be the helichoppers who called the police 'cause I didn't call nobody. I never heard nobody pee that long before, either." She stared off in the direction of the noise. "That one strange man. I think you better check him out. Bet he done other things that ain't right, you ask me. Maybe he's a homosensual, too, 'cause he was trying to shoot his privates off like he hate his manhood. So that probably mean he got AIDS and lots of dirty money in his pockets. I wouldn't touch him without gloves, you want my advice. I got a pair in my purse, you want to borrow 'em," she offered Hammer. "I figure you gonna have to lock him up," she added as Andy emerged from the back of Freckles.

"Trader was inside drinking," Andy told Hammer. "Macovich saw him. Did you?" he asked Hooter.

"I didn't notice him, if he was in there," Hooter replied. "There was too much smoke hanging over the table."

"I'll call the city police and see what they want to do," Andy said to Hammer. "But I don't think this is our case at the moment. And we need to get you a taxi," he added to Hooter.

"Now you listen," she said indignantly. "I ain't drunk."

"I didn't say you were. But you don't have a car."

"He got a car and is the reason I got here." She jutted her chin in the direction of Freckles, obviously referring to Macovich.

"He's in no condition to drive," Andy said. "He's had way too many beers and is in a bad mood. I think his feelings are hurt."

"Huh," Hooter said as interest lit up her eyes. "He too insens'tive to get his feelings hurt."

"That's simply not true," Andy replied. "Sometimes the biggest, toughest men are overly sensitive and keep everything inside. Maybe you can drive him home in his car?"

"Then what do I do?" she exclaimed. "I ain't staying with no man who still live with his mama!"

Cruz Morales would have given anything for his mother as he sped around half the night. At 3:00 A.M., he glanced around furtively as he shut a pay phone booth door and pulled out the dingy paper napkin the tollbooth lady had given him. She seemed like a nice enough person, and Cruz needed help. He was never going to make it out of the city in his Pontiac with its New York plates-not with cops and helicopters everywhere. Now he at least understood what all of the commotion was about.

While speeding away from the bar where that wild man was hopping around the Dumpster, Cruz heard on the radio that someone had been burned up down by the river and everyone was looking for a Hispanic suspect from New York who might be the serial killer that had been committing hate crimes that could be traced all the way back to a shooting at Jamestown, which was unsolved because some lady police person wasn't doing a good job, according to the governor. Cruz had no idea what all of this was about, but he was Hispanic, and he was at a loss as to how he had suddenly become a fugitive for crimes he knew nothing about. So he pulled into a 7-Eleven to make an urgent phone call. Cruz squinted at the napkin and noticed there were two phone numbers written down-one on one side, one on the other. He could have sworn the tollbooth lady had written down only one number, so what was the other one and which one was the right one? Cruz dropped a quarter in the pay phone and dialed the first number. After three rings, it was picked up.