"This is the craziest thing I've ever heard," Goode was saying as she poked at tarragon chicken salad.

"He shouldn't be out with us to begin with. Did you get a load of the headline this morning? Implying we caused the accident, that Johnson was pursuing the Mercedes?

Unbelievable. Not to mention, skid marks indicate it wasn't us who ran the red light. "

"Andy Brazil didn't write the headline," West said, turning to Hammer, her boss, who was working on cottage cheese and fresh fruit.

"All I'm asking is to ride routine patrol with him for maybe a week."

"You want to respond to calls?" Hammer reached for her iced tea.

"Absolutely," West said as Goode looked on with judgment.

Hammer put down her fork and studied West.

"Why can't he ride with regular patrol? Or for that matter, we've got fifty other volunteers.

He can't ride with them? "

West hesitated, motioning to a waiter for more coffee. She asked for extra mayonnaise and ketchup for her club sandwich and fries, and returned her attention to Hammer as if Goode was not at the table.

"No one wants to ride with him," West said.

"Because he's a reporter.

You know how the cops feel about the Observer. That won't go away overnight. And there's a lot of jealousy. " She looked pointedly at Goode.

"Not to mention, he's an arrogant smartass with an entitlement attitude," Goode chimed in.

"Entitlement?" West let the word linger like a vapor trail in the rarified air of Carpe Diem, where high feminine powers met regularly.

"So tell me, Jeannie, when was the last time you directed traffic?"

W It was an odious job. Citizens did not take traffic cops seriously.

Carbon monoxide levels got dangerously high, and the cardinal rule that one must never turn his back to traffic was irrelevant in four-way intersections. How could anyone face four directions simultaneously? Brazil had questioned this since the academy. Of course, it made no sense, and added to the mix was a basic disrespect problem. Already, he'd had half a dozen teenagers, women, and businessmen make fun or him or offer gestures that he was not allowed to reciprocate. What was it about America? Citizens were all too aware of law enforcement officers, such as himself, who wore no gun and seemed new at the job. They noticed. They commented.

"Hey Star Trek," a middle-aged woman yelled out her window.

"Get a phaser," she said as she gunned onto Enfield Road.

"Shooting blanks, are we, fairy queen?" screamed a dude in an Army-green Jeep with a basher bumper, sports rack, and safari doors.

Brazil directed the Jeep through with a hard stare and set jaw, halfway wishing the shithead would stop and demand a fight. Brazil was getting an itch. He wanted to deck someone, and sensed it was only a matter of time before he busted another nose.

Sometimes, Hammer got so sick of her diet. But she remembered turning thirty-nine and getting a partial hysterectomy because her uterus had pretty much quit doing anything useful. She had gained fifteen pounds in three months, moving up from a size four to an eight, and doctors told her this was because she ate too much.

Well, bullshit. Hormones were always to blame, and for good reason.

They were the weather of female life. Hormones moved over the face of the female planet and decided whether it was balmy or frigid or time for the storm cellar. Hormones made things wet or dried them. They made one want to walk hand-in-hand in balmy moonlight, or be alone.

"What does directing traffic have to do with anything?" Goode wanted to know.

"Point is, this guy works harder than most of your cops," West replied to Goode.

"And he's just a volunteer. Doesn't have to. Could have a real attitude problem, but doesn't."

Hammer wondered if salt would hurt her much. Lord, how nice it would be to taste something and not end up looking like her husband.

"I'm in charge of patrol. That's where he is right now," Goode said, turning over lettuce leaves with her fork to see if anything good was left. Maybe a crouton or a walnut.

W Brazil was sweating in his uniform and bright orange traffic vest.

His feet were on fire as he blocked off a side street. He was turning cars around left and right, routing them the other way, blowing his whistle, and making crisp traffic motions. Horns were honking, and another driver began yelling rudely out the window for directions.

Brazil trotted over to help, and was not appreciated or thanked. This was a terrible job, and he loved it for reasons he did not understand.

to?

"So he relieves at least one sworn officer from traffic duty," West was saying as Hammer chose to ignore both of her deputy chiefs.

Frankly, Hammer could take but so much of the bickering between the brass. It never ended. Hammer glanced at her watch and imagined Cahoon at the top of his crown. The fool. He would turn this city into the prick of America, peopled by yahoos with guns and US Air Gold cards and box seats for the Panthers and Hornets if someone did not stop him.

"W Cahoon had been stopped three times on his way to lunch on the sixtieth floor, in the corporate dining room. Awaiting him amid linen and Limoges were a president,

four vice-presidents, a chairman and a vice-chairman, and a top executive with the Dominion Tobacco Company, which over the next two years would be borrowing more than four hundred million dollars from US Bank for a cancer research project. Computer printouts had been stacked high by Gaboon's plate. There were fresh flowers on the table, and waiters in tuxedos hovered.

"Good afternoon." The CEO nodded around the table, his eyes lingering on the tobacco executive.

Cahoon didn't like the woman and wasn't sure why, beyond his rabid hatred of smoking, which had begun seven years ago, after he had quit.

Cahoon had serious misgivings about granting such a huge loan for a project so scientific and secretive that no one could tell him precisely what it was about, beyond the fact that US Bank would be instrumental in the development of the world's first truly healthy cigarette. He had reviewed endless charts and diagrams of a long and robust cylinder with a gold crown around the filter. The amazing product was called US Choice It could be smoked by all, would harm none, and contained various minerals, vitamins, and calming agents that would be inhaled and absorbed directly into the bloodstream.

Cahoon was reminded of what his bank's contribution would mean to humanity, as he reached for his bubbly water, and felt happy.

tw The people along Eastway Drive were also happy as they waited for the Freedom Parade. It was always full of hope and bounce, Shriners zigzagging on their scooters, waving at the crowd, reminding all of burn units and good deeds. Brazil was slightly concerned that other cops at other intersections seemed bored and restless. There were no floats. He scanned the horizon and saw nothing but a patrol car in a hurry heading his way. A horn blared and another driver yelled, this time an angry old woman in a Chevrolet. No matter how much Brazil tried to help, she was determined to be unpleasant and unreasonable.

"Ma'am," he politely said, 'you have to turn around and take Shamrock Drive. "

She flipped him a bird and roared off, as the frantic, irritated cop in the patrol car rolled up on Brazil's intersection.

"The parade and a funeral somehow got routed through here at the same time," the cop hastily explained.

"What?" Brazil asked, baffled.

"How…?"

But the patrol car sped off.

"Doesn't matter who he relieves from traffic," Goode was saying as she gave up on food in hopes it would give up on her.

"I don't want him. He's a spy, CIA, KGB, whatever you want to call him."

"Now how stupid is that?" West pushed her plate away.

"For Chrissake."

Hammer said nothing as she looked around the restaurant to see who else she recognized. The book columnist for the Observer and an editorial writer were eating lunch, but not together. Hammer trusted none of them. She had spent no time with Andy Brazil, but thought maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea. He sounded interesting.

When the hearses slowly appeared, they were gleaming black, with headlights burning. Brazil watched their formidable approach as he struggled to keep his side street blocked, and continued to direct cars to turn away.

The endless funeral procession crept past with precision and dignity, and hundreds of people waiting for Ij Shriners and scooters drank sodas, and watched and waved. This wasn't exactly what they had expected when they'd headed out into the morning for a little free excitement, but they were here and would take whatever they could get.

W Inside a black Lincoln Continental stretch limousine with white leather interior and a television and VCR, the bereft brother and the widow were dressed for Sunday and staring out tinted glass. They were impressed by all the spectators lining the street to pay last respects. A lot of them had brought snacks, drinks, kids, and small American flags. They were waving and cheering, which was the way it ought to be, a celebration, as one crosses over to the other side, into the loving arms of Jesus.

T had no idea Tyvola had so many friends," the brother marveled, waving back.

wy "And all these police came out." The widow shyly waved, too.

Brazil blew his whistle and almost got run over by an old man in a Dodge Dart who didn't seem to understand that a policeman holding out both palms was a hint that the driver might want to stop. The unbroken caravan of stretch limousines, town cars, hearses, all black with lights on, didn't seem to send any direct message to Howie Song in his Dart. By now. Song was halfway out into the intersection with a line of cars bumper to bumper behind him. It was not possible he could back up unless everyone else did.

"Don't you move!" Brazil warned the impatient old man, who had his radio turned up as high as it would go, playing a country western tune.

Brazil set three traffic cones in front of the Dart. They scattered like bowling pins the instant Brazil stepped back to direct other cars to back up. Song in his Dart helped himself to the Boulevard, certain the lumbering funeral cars would let him through so he could get to the hardware store.

Vy That's what you think, thought Chad Tiny, director of the Tiny Family Mortuary, which was famous for its air conditioned building, plush slumber parlors, and quality caskets. His big ad on page 537 of the Yellow Pages was unfortunately positioned directly next to Fungus and Mold Control. Tiny's secretary was forever telling people who called that although they had similar concerns in the funeral business, they could not help with basement moisture problems or sump pumps, for example.