Selma, the 911 operator who got the call, wasn’t certain what this was about. But she gave it a priority one because her instinct prodded her in a tragedy-about-to-occur direction. Radar, meanwhile, had not finished with West this night. He passed the emergency along to her.

“Goddamn it,” West said as she drove past Piedmont Open Middle School. She was trying to avoid other problems and did not wish to hear her unit number one more time, ever.

Brazil couldn’t grab the mike fast enough. “700,” he said.

“Unknown trouble, four thousand block of Central Avenue,” Radar said with a smile.

West floored it, flying down Tenth Street, cutting over to the one thousand block of Central, flying past the Veterans Park and Saigon Square. Other units backed her up, for by now it had occurred to every cop on the street that their deputy chief was handling a lot of dangerous calls unassisted by anyone. When she rolled into the Payless, six cars with lights flashing were behind her. This was uncommon, but West didn’t question it and was grateful. She and Brazil got out. Wyona lowered the gun, now that help was here.

“They tried to rob me,” she said to Brazil.

“Who did?” West asked.

“The piece of white shit under my foot,” she said to Brazil.

West noted the fade haircut, the bad skin, the Hornets cap and shirt. The boy’s pants were knotted around his basketball shoes, and he had on yellow boxer shorts. Next to him was a big bag of chicken and side orders.

“He come in, ordered twelve piece all white meat, then pulled out this thing.” Wyona handed the gun to Brazil because he was the man and Wyona had never dealt with women police and wasn’t about to start now. “I chased him out here to where these sons of bitches are.” She gestured furiously at Slim, Fright, and Tote as they cowered inside the Tracker.

West took the gun from Brazil. She looked back at the six other officers standing nearby and observing.

“Let’s lock ’em up,” she said to the troops. To Wyona, she added, “Thanks.”

The boys were rounded up and cuffed. Now that they were official felons again and not about to be killed, their bravery returned. They stared hatefully at the police and spat. In the car West gave Brazil a pointed look. He typed on the MDT, clearing them from the scene.

“Why do they hate us so much?” he said.

“People tend to treat others the way they’ve been treated,” she answered. “Take cops. A lot of them are the same way.”

They rode in silence for a while, passing other poor landscapes, the aspiring sparkling city around them.

“What about you?” Brazil asked. “How come you don’t hate?”

“I had a good childhood.”

This made him angry. “Well, I didn’t, and I don’t hate everyone,” he said. “So don’t ask me to feel sorry for them.”

“What can I tell you?” She got out a cigarette. “It goes back to Eden, the Civil War, the Cold War, Bosnia. The six days it took God to make all this.”