Patricia Cornwell - Hornet's Nest

"BE in progress, four hundred block East Trade Street."

West floored it and flipped on lights. She whelped the siren, gunning past other cars.

"That's us," she said, snapping up the mike.

Brazil got interested.

"Unit 700," West said over the air.

The dispatcher wasn't expecting a deputy chief to respond, and sounded somewhat startled and confused.

"What unit?" the dispatcher inquired.

'700," replied West.

"In the nine hundred block. I'll take the BE in progress."

Ten-four, 700! "

The radio broadcast the call. Other cars responded as West cut in and out of traffic. Brazil was staring at her with new interest. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

"Since when do deputy chiefs answer calls?" he said to her.

"Since I got stuck with you."

The projects on East Trade were cement barracks subsidized by the government and exploited by criminals who did deals in the dark and got their women to lie when the cops showed up. Breaking and entering around here, it had been West's experience, usually meant someone was pissed off. Most of the time, this was a girlfriend calling in a complaint on an apartment where her man was hiding and had enough outstanding warrants to be locked up twenty times.

"You stay in the car," West ordered her ride-along as she parked behind two cruisers.

"No way." Brazil grabbed the door handle.

"I didn't go to all this trouble to sit in the car everywhere we go. Besides, it isn't safe to be out here alone."

West didn't comment as she scanned buildings with windows lighted and dark. She studied parking lots filled with drug dealer cars, and didn't see a soul.

"Then stay behind me, keep your mouth shut, and do what you're told," she told him as she got out.

The plan was pretty simple. Two officers would take the front of the apartment, on the first floor, and West and Brazil would go around back to make sure no one tried to flee through that door. Brazil's heart was pounding and he was sweating beneath his leather jacket as they walked in the thick darkness beneath sagging clotheslines in one of the city's war zones. West scanned windows and unsnapped her holster as she quietly got on the radio.

"No lights on," she said over the air.

"Closing in."

She drew her pistol. Brazil was inches behind her and wished he were in front, as furtive officers they could not see closed in on a unit scarred by graffiti. Trash was everywhere, caught on rusting fences and in the trees, and the cops drew their guns as they reached the door.

One of them spoke into his radio, giving West, their leader, an update, "We got the front."

"Police!" his partner threatened.

Brazil was concerned about the uneven terrain, and clotheslines hanging low enough to choke someone, and broken glass everywhere in the tar-black night. He was afraid West might hurt herself and turned on his Mag- Lite, illuminating her in a huge circle of light. Her sneaking silhouette with drawn pistol was bigger than God.

"Turn that fucking thing off!" she whipped around and hissed at him.

Charlotte police caught no one on that call. West and Brazil were in a bad mood as they rode and the radio chattered. She could have gotten shot. Thank God her officers hadn't seen what this idiot reporter had done. She couldn't wait to give Hammer a piece of her mind, and was halfway tempted to call her boss at home. West needed something to give her a boost and pulled into the Starvin Marvin on South Tryon Street. Before she had shifted the car into park, Brazil was pulling up his door handle.

"You ever heard of looking before you leap?" she asked, like a severe schoolteacher.

Brazil gave her an indignant, disgusted look as he undid his seatbelt.

"I can't wait to write about you," he threatened.

"Look." West nodded at the store, at the plate glass in front, at customers prowling inside and making purchases.

"Pretend you're a cop. That should be easy for you. So you get out of your cop car?

Don't check? Walk in on a robbery in progress? And guess what? " She climbed out and stared inside at him.

"You're dead." She slammed the door shut.

Brazil watched Deputy Chief West walk into the convenience store. He started to make notes, gave up, and leaned back in the seat. He did not understand what was happening. It bothered him a lot that she did not want him around, even though he was convinced he didn't give a rat's ass. No wonder she wasn't married. Who would want to live with somebody like that? Brazil already knew that if he were ever successful, he wouldn't be mean to people new at life. It was heartless and said everything about West's true character.

She made him pay for his own coffee. It cost a dollar and fifteen cents, and she hadn't bothered to ask him how he drank it, which wasn't with Irish cream and twenty packs of sugar. Brazil could barely swallow it, but did the best he could as they resumed patrolling. She was smoking again. They began to cruise a downtown street, where prostitutes clutching washcloths strolled languidly along the sidewalk, following them with luminous, empty eyes.

"What are the washcloths for?" Brazil asked.

"What do you expect? Finger bowls? It's a messy profession West remarked.

He shot her another look.

"No matter what kind of car I drive, they know I'm here," she went on, flicking an ash out the window.

"Really?" he asked.

"I guess the same ones have been out here, what, fifteen years, then? And they remember you. Imagine that."

"You know, this isn't how you make points," West warned.

He was looking out and thoughtful when he said, "Don't you miss it?"

West watched the ladies of the night and didn't want to answer him.

"Can you tell which are men?"

"That one, maybe."

Brazil stared at a big, ugly hooker in a vinyl miniskirt, her tight black top stretched over opera breasts. Her come-hither walk was slow and bulging as she stared hate into the cop car.

"Nope. She's real," West let Brazil know, and not adding that the hooker was also an undercover cop, wired, armed, and married with a kid.

"The men have good legs," she went on.

"Anatomically correct perfect fake breasts. No hips. You get close, which I don't recommend, they shave."

Brazil was quiet.

"Guess you didn't learn all this working for the TV magazine," she added.

He could feel her glancing at him, as if she had something else on her mind.

"So, you drive that Cadillac with shark fins?" she finally got around to it.

He continued looking out at the trade show along the street, trying to tell women from men.

"In your driveway," West went on.

"Doesn't look like something you'd drive."

"It isn't," Brazil said.

"Gotcha." West sucked on the cigarette, and flicked another ash into the wind.

"You don't live alone."

He continued staring out his window.

"I have an old BMW 2002. It was my dad's. He got it used and fixed it up, could fix anything."

They passed a silver rental Lincoln. West noticed it because the man inside had the interior light on and looked lost. He was talking on his portable phone, and casting about in this bad part of town. He turned off on Mint Street. Brazil was still looking out at dangerous people looking back at them when West got interested in the Toyota directly ahead, it's side window knocked out, the license plate hanging by a coat hanger. There were two young males inside. The driver was watching her in the rearview mirror.

"What you wanna bet we got a stolen car ahead," West announced.

She typed the plate number into the MDT. It began to beep as if she'd just won at slot machines. She read the display and flipped on flashing blue and red lights. The Toyota blasted ahead of them.

"Shit!" West exclaimed.