"Wow," he said, looking around.

"Wow what?" She shut the door behind them and turned on a radio.

"What made you decide to do all this?"

"Survival," she said, squatting to open a small refrigerator. Bottles rattled as she brought out two long-neck Southpaw Lights.

Brazil did not like beer, in truth, even though he drank it from time to time. It tasted rotten and made him silly and sleepy. He would die before he let her find this out.

"Thanks," he said, screwing off the cap, and tossing it in the trash.

"When I was getting started, I couldn't afford to hire people to help me out around here. So I learned on my own." She opened hard cases and got out guns.

"Plus, as you know, I grew up on a farm. I learned whatever I could from my dad, and the hired hands."

"What about from your mom?"

West was disassembling the pistols as if she could do it in her sleep.

"Like what?" She glanced across the table at him.

"You know, domestic stuff. Cooking, cleaning, raising kids."

She smiled, opening a tackle box stocked with gun- cleaning paraphernalia.

"Do I cook and clean for myself? You see a wife anywhere?" She handed him a cleaning rod and a stack of patches.

He took a big swig of beer and swallowed it as fast as he could, trying not to taste it, as usual. He was feeling braver, and trying not to notice how good she looked in her gray T-shirt and jeans.

"I've done shit like that all my life, and I'm not a wife," he said.

"What do you know?" she asked as she dipped her rod into a small brown bottle of solvent.

"Nothing." He said this as a sulking challenge.

"Don't give me your moods, okay?" West replied, refusing to play games, because, frankly, she was too old for them.

Brazil threaded a patch through his rod, and dipped it in Hoppes. He loved the smell, and had no intention of confessing anything else to her. But the beer had a tongue of its own.

"Let's talk about this wife-shit again," she pushed him.

"What do you want me to say?" Brazil, the man, replied.

"You tell me what it means." She really wanted to know.

"In theory," - he began to clean the barrel of the. 380 - "I'm not entirely sure. Maybe something to do with roles, a caste system, a pecking order, a hierarchy, the ecosystem."

"The ecosystem?" She frowned, blasting her barrel and other parts with Gunk Off.

"Point is," he explained, 'that being a wife has nothing to do with what you do, but with what someone thinks you are. Just like I'm doing something you want me to do right now, but that doesn't make me a slave. "

"Don't you have the roles a little reversed here? Who was giving who firearms instruction?" She scrubbed the inside of the barrel with a toothbrush.

"You're doing what you want to do. I'm doing what you want me to do. For nothing, for the record. And who's the slave?" She sprayed again and handed him the can.

He reached for his beer. It was his limited experience that the warmer beer got, the worse it got.

"So let's say you grow up and get married someday," she went on.

"What are you going to expect of your wife?"

"A partner." He tossed his bottle into the trash.

"I don't want a wife. I don't need anybody to take care of me, clean for me, cook for me." He got out two more beers, popped them open and set one within her reach.

"Saying I'm too busy to do all that shit for myself someday? I'll hire a housekeeper. But I'm not going to marry one," he said as if this were the most ridiculous notion society had ever devised.

"Uh huh."

She reached for the barrel of the. 380, checking his work. Man talk, she thought. The difference was, this one could put words together better than most. She didn't believe a thing he said.

"It should look like a mirror inside." She slid the barrel in front of him.

"Scrub hard. You can't hurt it."

He picked up the barrel, then his beer.

"See, people should get married, live together, whatever, and do things just like this," he went on as he dipped a brush in solvent and resumed scrubbing. There shouldn't be roles. There should be practicalities, people helping out each other like friends. One weak where the other's strong, people using their gifts, cooking together, playing tennis, fishing. Walking on the beach. Staying up late talking. Being unselfish and caring. "

"Sounds like you've thought about this a lot," she said.

"A good script."

He looked puzzled.

"What script?"

She drank.

"Heard it all before. Seen that rerun."

% So had Bubba's wife, Mrs. Rickman, whose first name had ceased to be important when she had gotten married twenty-six years ago in the Tabernacle Baptist Church. This had been down the road in Mount Mourne where she worked every day at the B amp;B, known for the best breakfast in town. The B amp;B's hot dogs and burgers were popular, too, especially with Davidson students, and, of course, with other Bubbas on their way for a day of fishing at Lake Norman.

When gun cleaning was completed, and Brazil suggested to West that they stop for a bite to eat, neither of them had a way to know that the overweight, tired woman waiting on them was Bubba's wretched wife.

"Hi, Mrs. Rickman," Brazil said to the waitress.

He gave her his bright, irresistible smile and felt sorry for her, as he always did when he came to the B amp;B. Brazil knew how hard food service was, and it depressed him to think of what it had been like for his mother all those years when she could still get out and go anywhere. Mrs. Rickman was happy to see him. He was always so sweet.

"How's my baby?" she chirped, setting plastic laminated menus in front of them. She eyed West.

"Who's your pretty lady friend?"

"Deputy Chief Virginia West with the Charlotte police," Brazil made the mistake of saying.

So it was that Bubba would learn the identities of his attackers.

tw "My, my." Mrs. Rickman was mighty impressed as she got an eyeful of this important woman sitting in a B amp;B booth.

"A deputy chief. Didn't know they had women that high up. What'll be? The pork barbecue's extra good tonight. I'd get it minced."

"Cheeseburger all the way, fries. Miller in the bottle," West said.

"Extra mayonnaise and ketchup. Can you put a little butter on the bun and throw it on the grill?"

"Sure can, honey." Mrs. Rickman nodded. She didn't write down anything as she beamed at Brazil.

"The usual." He winked at her.

She walked off, her hip killing her worse than yesterday.

"What's the usual?" West wanted to know.

"Tuna on wheat, lettuce, tomato, no mayo. Slaw, limeade. I want to ride patrol with you. In uniform," he said.

"In the first place, I don't ride patrol. In the second place, in case you haven't noticed, I have a real job, nothing important. Just the entire investigative division. Homicide. Burglary. Rape. Arson. Fraud.

Auto theft. Check theft," she said.

"White collar, computer, organized crime, vice. Juvenile. Cold case squad. Of course, there's a serial killer on the loose, and it's my detectives on the case, getting all the heat."

She lit a cigarette, and intercepted her beer before Mrs. Rickman could set it down.

"I would prefer not to work twenty-four hours a day, if it's all the same to you. You know how my cat gets?

Won't touch me, won't sleep with me? Not to mention, I haven't gone out to a movie, to dinner, in weeks. " She drank.

"I haven't finished my fence. When was the last time I cleaned my house?"

"Is that a no?"

Brazil said.