Brazil had no idea where they were going, except it was not where the action was, and it was apparent West had no intention of taking him someplace where he could clean up. He was riveted to the scanner, and things were popping in Charlie Two on Central Avenue. So why were they heading in the opposite direction on this parkway? He remembered his mother watching Billy Graham on TV all the time, no matter what else was on or what Brazil might want to see. He wondered how hard it might be to get a quote from the famous evangelist, maybe inquire about the Reverend Graham's views on crime, one of these days.

"Where are we going?" Brazil asked as they turned off on Boyer toward Wilkinson Boulevard again.

This was definitely the sinful strip, but West did not stay on it long. She sped past Greenbriar Industrial Park and turned left on Alleghany Street, heading into Westerly Hills, a nothing neighborhood near Harding High School. Brazil's mood got worse. He suspected West was up to her old tricks, and it not only reminded him that she really did not want to be out here with him, but hinted rather strongly that he had no business on police calls and would not be on many, if she had her way about it.

"Any unit in the area of the twenty-five hundred block of Westerly Hills Drive," the scanner shattered West's peace of mind.

"Suspicious subjects in the church parking lot."

"Shit," West said, speeding up.

What lousy luck. They were in Westerly Hills on Westerly Hills Drive, The Jesus Christ Is Lord Glorious United Church of the Living God right in front of them. The small white frame church was Pentecostal, and deserted this night, not one car in the parking lot when West turned in. But there definitely were subjects loitering, half a dozen young males with their mother, who was full of herself and feisty in a wheelchair. All stared hatefully at the cop car. Not real sure what to make of the situation, West ordered Brazil to stay put, as both their doors opened and both climbed out.

"We got a call of…" West started to say to Mama.

"Just passing through," her oldest son, Rudof, volunteered.

Mama gave Rudof a killing look, holding his eyes.

"You don't got to answer to no one!" she snapped at him.

"You hear me? Not to no one!"

Rudof looked down, his pants about to fall off, and red boxer shorts showing. He was tired of being dissed by his mama and hassled by the police. What had he done? Nothing. Just walking home from the E-Z mart because she needed cigarettes, all of them going with her, taking a nice walk and cutting through the church parking lot. What was so wrong with that?

"We didn't do nothing," Rudof folded his arms and said to the cops.

Brazil knew a fight was coming, just like he could smell a storm before the front moved in. His body tensed as he scanned the small, violent crowd standing restlessly in the dark. Mama wheeled closer to West. Mama had something on her mind she'd been wanting to deliver for a long time, and now was as good an opportunity as any. All her children would hear, and these two police didn't look like they would hurt anybody unnecessarily.

"We just got here," Mama said to West.

"We were just coming home, walking like anybody else. I'm tired of you people prosecuting us."

"Nobody is…" West tried again.

"Oh yes. Oh yes, uh huh, you are." Mama got louder and angrier.

"This is a free country! We was white, you think anybody would've called the police?"

"You have a good point," West reasonably replied.

Mama was amazed. Her children were baffled. For a white lady cop to admit such a thing was unheard of and miraculous.

"So you're agreeing that you were called because we're black," Mama wanted to make sure.

"That would be my guess, and it absolutely isn't fair. But I didn't know you were black when the call came over the radio," West went on in the same calm but sure tone.

"We didn't respond because we thought you were black, white, Asian, or anything. We responded because it's our job, and we wanted to make sure everything was all right."

Mama tried to be hateful as she wheeled on her way, her brood in her wake. But she was wavering. She felt like she might cry and didn't know why. The police got back in their shiny new car and drove away.

"Rudof, pull up your pants, son," Mama complained.

"You gonna trip and break your neck. Same with you, Joshua. I swear." She wheeled ahead in the night, in the direction of their poor apartment.

Brazil and West were quiet as they got back on Wilkinson Boulevard. He was thinking about what she'd said to that family. West had said we several times, when most people would have said /, as if Brazil wasn't there. It felt really good when she included him, and he was touched by her gentleness with that wounded, hateful family. Brazil wanted to say something to West, to let her know, to somehow show his appreciation. But he was oddly tongue-tied again, just as he had been with Hammer.

West headed back into the city, thinking, and wondering why her ride-along was so quiet. Maybe he was angry with her for avoiding calls, or trying to avoid them, at any rate. She felt bad. How would she like it were the roles reversed? It wasn't very kind, and he had every right to resent her for it. West was totally ashamed of herself.

She turned up the scanner, and picked up the mike.

'700," she said.

'700," the dispatcher came back.

"I'm ten-eight."

Brazil couldn't believe it. West had just told the radio that she was in service, meaning she wanted to take calls like everyone else on the street. The two of them would actually be assigned situations. They were available for trouble. This wasn't long in coming. Their first call was to Our Lady of Consolation Catholic Church.

"Check for loud music coming from the club in the shopping center across the street," came the instruction over the air.

The dispatcher's nickname was Radar, and there were reasons for this. First, Radar had started his career with the North Carolina Highway Patrol, where he was famous for clocking cars, abutments, buildings, trucks, signs, pedestrians, low-flying planes, helium balloons, and trees, and nailing all for exceeding the speed limit. He simply loved the radar gun. He deeply loved being a Smoky out on life's highways and pulling the unaware outlaws as they hurried to important places or away from them. Radar retired. He bought a RV and began a new career as a dispatcher to pay for it. It was believed by the 911 operators that Radar could sense trouble before it hit. This call at the church, for example, he had a feeling about, a real bad one.

Thus he had assigned it to Deputy Chief West, because it was Radar's personal conviction that no woman should be in a uniform unless she was naked beneath it and on the cover of those detective magazines he also loved. In addition to an intuition that bordered on the psychic, Radar knew that the respondent in this case. Fat Man's Lounge, was run by a bunch of thugs who held his same beliefs about a woman's place.

Colt, the bouncer, who Radar personally knew, would not respond well when West with all her brass, ass, and big tits rolled up.

West knew none of this as she lit a cigarette and made a U-turn on Statesville Avenue. She nodded at the MDT.

"It took me forty minutes to learn how to use this thing," she said to Brazil.

"You got ten."

Our Lady of Consolation Catholic Church was having a special night of music, and the parking lot was packed with cars. Listings for Catholic places of worship were brief in the Charlotte Yellow Pages. Choices were far more abundant for churches that were Baptist, Advent Christian, Presbyterian, Apostolic, Assembly of God, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Non-Pentecostal, Gospel, Full Gospel, Foursquare Gospel, to name but a few. These outnumbered the Catholics about twenty-eight to one.

Indeed, Catholic places of worship were sandwiched between the one Buddhist church in the city and the charismatics who spoke in tongues. So it was, that Catholics did not take their church for granted, never knowing when it might be burned by men in disguises, or criticized in editorials.

The congregation of Our Lady of Consolation was rocking the block this night, its stained glass windows glowing in the dark, Jesus bright and colorful in many poses, and sheep.

"You sure it isn't the bar complaining about the church?" Brazil wondered out loud.

West was finding the situation rather odd, too. How the hell could anyone inside that church hear a thing beyond their own choir, which was belting out some hymn, and accompanied by guitars, the organ, drums, and possibly a violin or two. She turned into the shopping center directly across the street and cut through the parking lot. Fat Man's Lounge wasn't doing nearly the business the church was. A couple of shifty-looking dudes were hanging out in front, drinking beer, smoking, and glaring.

Brazil did not hear any noise, not one sound drifting out of the Lounge. He suspected someone in the church had complained just to hassle Fat Man's, which clearly was a den of iniquity. Members of Our Lady would, without a doubt, have preferred another establishment across the street from them, something wholesome and family-oriented, like a Shoney's, a Blockbuster Video store, or maybe another sports bar. The dudes out front followed the cop car with hostile eyes as West parked. She and Brazil 'got out, and approached their welcoming committee.

"Where's all the noise?" West asked.

"We got a com plaint."

"Only noise is that over there," a dude said, jutting his chin at the church. He boldly took a swig of beer, drunk and mean.

"Word's the noise is coming from here." West held her ground.

She started walking toward the lounge, Brazil with her, the dudes moving out of their way. Fat Man's was a depressing, dark den, smoke hanging in the air, and music playing, but not too loudly. Men were drinking at wooden tables, watching a woman on stage, in g-string and tassels, as she twirled heavy, sagging breasts. Brazil didn't want to stare too hard, but he was pretty sure that the left one was tattooed with the planet Saturn, bright yellow, with rings orbiting fast. In big circles. These were, without a doubt, the biggest breasts he had ever seen in person.

The stripper, whose stage name was Minx, needed another Valium. She was thirsty, had to have a cigarette, and damn it all, the fucking cops were here. What this time? She started twirling the other way, then did two different directions at once. This usually got the men going, but tonight's stingy crowd was about as excitable as a cemetery. Minx smiled. The boy cop couldn't take his eyes off her.