“I bet you never exercise.” Brazil did not know when to quit.

West gave him a look as she wiped her flushed face with a tissue. Brazil had just sprinted a hundred yards and wasn’t even breathing. She felt old and crabby, and sick and tired of this kid and his naive, self-righteous opinions. Life was entirely more complicated than he thought, and he would begin to see it for himself after he’d been out here a year or two with nothing but fried chicken places on every corner. Bojangles, Church’s, Popeye’s, Chic N Grill, Chick-Fil-A, Price’s Chicken Coop. Plus, cops didn’t make much money, certainly not in their early years, so even off-duty options for dining were limited to the pizza, burgers, and bar food that were plentiful in Charlotte, where citizens loved their Hornets and Panthers and NASCAR race-car drivers.

“When was the last time you played tennis?” Brazil asked as their prisoner plotted in the backseat.

“I don’t remember,” she said.

“Why don’t we go out and hit some.”

“You need your head examined,” she said.

“Oh come on. You used to be good. I bet you used to be in shape, too,” he said.

The massive concrete jail was in the heart of downtown. It had been built at the same time as the big new police department, in this city that enjoyed a crime clearance rate that exceeded the actual number of cases, according to some. There were many levels of security to go through at the jail, starting with lockers where police were to deposit their guns on the way in. At a desk, deputies checked all who entered, and Brazil looked around, taking in yet another new, scary place. A Pakistani woman in dark clothing and a veil was being processed for shoplifting. Drunks, thieves, and the usual drug dealers were being herded by cops, while the sheriff’s department supervised.

In the Central Warrant Repository, West searched her prisoner, emptying his pockets of Chap Stick, one dollar and thirteen cents, and a pack of Kools. She shuffled through his paperwork. He was happy now, laughing, full of himself, checking to see who was watching Nate the Man.

“You able to read?” West asked him.

“My bond on there?” Her prisoner was jailing, wearing three pairs of boxer shorts, two pairs of shorts, the outer ones green, falling off, no belt, looking around and unable to stand still.

“’Fraid not,” West said.

Inside blue metal solitary holding cells, another young boy beyond redemption stared out with forlorn, killing eyes. Brazil stared back at him. Brazil looked at the Holding Area, where a cage was packed with men waiting to be transported to the jail on Spector Drive until the Department of Corrections transferred them to Camp Green or Central Prison. The men were quiet, peering out, gripping bars like animals in the zoo, nothing else to do in their jail house orange.

“I ain’t been in here in a while,” West’s prisoner let her know.