She did, and leaned against the desk, helping herself to her opponent's domain, breathing all the air she wished, picking up a crystal paperweight of US Bank and fiddling with it. Hammer was very comfortable and in charge. She spoke rationally, softly, and sincerely.

"The press, of course, has been calling me about yesterday's incident," Hammer confessed, and her fooling with the paperweight was clearly bothering Gorelick.

"National press. The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, CBS This Morning, Jay Leno, New York Times, Don Imus, Howard Stern." She began to pace, tapping the US Bank in her palm, as if it were a slapjack.

"They'll want to cover the trial, I'm sure. It's a big story, I guess." She paced and tapped.

"I suppose when you stop to think about it, when has something like this ever happened? That reminds me." She laughed.

"Some studio and a couple producers from Hollywood called, too. Can you imagine?"

Gorelick wasn't feeling well.

"It is an unusual situation," she had to agree.

"An amazing example of community policing, Nancy. People doing the right thing." Hammer paced and gestured with the little crystal building wearing a crown.

"Your treating a chief and deputy chief just like anyone else, making no special considerations." She nodded.

"I think all those reporters are going to like that. Don't you? "

Gorelick would be ruined, would look like the dickhead she was.

Someone would run against her next fall. She'd have to go work in a law firm as a lowly junior attorney to a bunch of overbearing partners who wouldn't want her to join their exclusive ranks.

"I'm going to tell them all about it." Hammer smiled at her.

"Right now. I guess the best thing would be a press conference."

The court date was moved ahead a week, and landed on a day convenient for all, except Johnny Martino, aka Magic the Man, who was sitting in his jail cell, dejected in a blaze orange jumpsuit with DEPT OF CORR stenciled in on the back. Everybody in the Corr wore one, and now and then, when he gave much thought to the matter, he wondered what the hell the Corr was. As in Marine Corps, Peace Corps, CeyO RailRoad maybe? His old man worked for Amtrak, cleaning up cars after all those passengers got off.

No way young Martino was ever doing shit work like that. No fucking way. He couldn't believe how bad his leg hurt from where that bitch kicked him. The guns people carried these days, women especially. Both of them pointing forty-fucking-caliber semiautomatics at his head. Now where the hell did that come from? Fucking Mars?

These ladies beam down, or something? He was still stunned, and had sat up on his narrow bunk this morning thinking yesterday on the bus didn't happen.

Then he focused on the steel toilet bowl that he had not bothered to flush last night. His shin was throbbing so bad, and had a lump on it the size of an orange, the skin broken in the middle, like a navel, where that pointy metal toe had connected. Now that he explored the situation a little further, he should have been suspicious of two rich ladies like that getting on the Greyhound. No way people like them take the bus. Some of the guys were talking and laughing up and down the cells, going on and on about him getting his ass kicked by some old woman with a big pocketbook, everybody making fun of Martino. He got out a cigarette, and thought about suing. He thought about getting another tattoo, might as well while he was here.

Brazil's day was not going especially well, either. He and Packer were editing another self-initiated, rather large piece Brazil was doing on mothers alone in a world without men. Brazil continued to come across typos, spaces, blank lines that he knew he had not caused.

Someone had been breaking into his computer basket and going through his files. He was explaining this to his metro editor, Packer, as they rolled through paragraphs, inspecting the violation.

"See," Brazil was hotly saying, and he was in uniform,

ready for yet another night on the street.

"It's weird. The last couple days I keep finding stuff like this."

"You sure you're not doing it? You do tend to go through your stories a lot," Packer said.

What the editor had observed about Brazil's remarkable productivity had now reached the level of not humanly possible. This kid dressed like a cop frightened Packer. Packer didn't even much want to sit next to Brazil anymore. Brazil wasn't normal. He was getting commendations from the police, and averaging three bylines every morning, even on days when he supposedly was off. Not to mention, his work Was unbelievably good for someone so inexperienced who had never been to journalism school. Packer suspected that Brazil would win a Pulitzer by the time he was thirty, possibly sooner. For that reason, Packer intended to remain Brazil's editor, even if the job was exhausting, intense, and unnerving, and caused Packer to hate life more with each passing day.

This morning was a typical example. The alarm had buzzed at six, and Packer did not want to get up. But he did. Mildred, his wife, was her typical cheery self, cooking oatmeal in the kitchen, while Dufus, her purebred Boston Terrier puppy, skittered around sideways and walleyed and looking for something else to chew, or pee or poop on. Packer was tucking in his shirt all the way around as he entered this domestic scene, trying to wake up, and wondering if his wife was losing what marbles she had left.

"Mildred," he said.

"It's summer. Oatmeal is not a good hot-weather food."

"Of course it is." She happily stirred.

"Good for your high blood pressure."

Dufus jumped and fussed at Packer, dancing around his feet, trying to climb him, grabbing cuffs in snaggly teeth. Packer never touched his wife's puppy if he could help it, and had refused any input into its development beyond naming it, over objections from Mildred, who had made it a condition of their marriage that she would never be without one of these ugly little dogs from her childhood. Dufus did not see very well. From his perspective, Packer was a very big and unfriendly tree, a utility pole, some other edifice, maybe a fence. Whenever Packer came within scent, Dufus was airborne and in grass and squatting and relieving other basic functions that meant nothing to Dufus. He untied both of Packer's shoelaces.

Packer made his way across the newsroom as if he saw no color in the world, only gray. He was tucking in his shirt, heading to the men's room, feeling like he had to go and knowing nothing would happen again, and reminded that next Wednesday at two p. m. " he had an appointment with his urologist.

Vft Brazil was running down the escalator, deciding to take matters into his own hands. He pushed through several sets of doors, finally entering the rarified, air- conditioned space where Brenda Bond ruled the world from an ergonomically-correct green fabric chair with rollers. Her feet were on an adjustable footrest, her valuable hands poised over a contoured keyboard designed to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.

Bond was surrounded by IBM and Hewlett Packard mainframes, multiplexor, modems, cabinets containing huge tape reels, decoders, and a satellite feed from the Associated Press. It was her cockpit, and he had come. She could not believe that Brazil was standing before her, had sought her out, and wanted to be with her and no one but her this very second in time and space. Her face got hot as she looked him up and down. God almighty, was he built, and he knew it, and was already showing his contempt for her.

"I think someone's getting into my basket and going through my files," Brazil announced.

"Impossible," Bond, the genius, arrogantly told him.

"Unless you've given out your password."

"I want it changed," he demanded.

She was studying his uniform trousers and the way they fit him, particularly in the area of his zipper, appropriating, and full of her superiority. Brazil made a big point of looking where she was looking, as if there must be something on his pants.

"What? I spill something?" he said, walking off.

twIt was not that his trousers were too tight, nor were they provocative in any way. Brazil never wore anything for the purpose of drawing attention to himself or impressing others. For one thing, shopping had never been an option. The entirety of his wardrobe could be accommodated by two dresser drawers and about twenty coat hangers.

Mostly, he had uniforms, and tennis clothes supplied by the tennis team, and by Wilson, which had put him on a free list when he was in high school and consistently ranked in the top five juniors in the state. Brazil's uniform trousers were, in truth, baggy, if anything.

Yet people like Brenda Bond still stared. So did Axel.

When Brazil was in midnight blue and black leather, he had no idea what effect it had on others. If he had paused to analyze the matter, he might have discovered that uniforms were about power, and power was an aphrodisiac. Axel knew this for a fact. He got up and trotted out of the newsroom, in pursuit. Brazil was notorious for his sprints down the escalator, and into the parking deck. Axel worked out in the Powerhouse Gym every early morning, and was rather spectacularly sculpted.

Axel drank Met-Rx twice a day, and was very much admired when he was gleaming with sweat, and in a tank top and a weight belt, pumping, veins standing out, in his skimpy shorts. Other fit people stopped what they were doing, just to watch. He had been stalked several times by residents of his apartment complex. In truth. Tommy Axel could have anybody, and probably had at any given time. But he was not into aerobic exercise, because it was not a spectator sport. He got winded easily.

"Shoot," Axel said when he burst through glass doors leading into the parking deck, as Brazil was driving his old BMW out of it.

Publisher Panesa had a black-tie dinner this night and was going home unusually early. The publisher was starting his silver Volvo, with its unrivaled safety record and two airbags, and was witness to Axel's shameless behavior.

"Christ," Panesa muttered, shaking his head as he pulled out of his reserved space in the center of the best wall, no more than twenty steps from the front glass doors. He rolled down a window, stopping Axel cold.

"Come here," Panesa told him.

Axel gave his boss a crooked, sexy Matt Dillon smile, and strolled over. Who could resist?

"What's going on?" Axel said, moving in a way that showed muscle to its best advantage.