“There’s this one punkin head I seen out there running girls,” Jazzbone told Brazil, who was taking notes. “I’d be looking at him.”

“What’s a punkin head?”

Jazzbone flashed his gold grin at this naive reporter boy.

“A do.” Jazzbone pointed to his own head. “Orange like a punkin, rows of braids close to his head. One mean motherfucker.”

“You know his name?” Brazil wrote.

“Don’t want to,” Jazzbone said.

West, in charge of investigations for the city, had never heard of a punkin head in connection with the Black Widow killings. When Brazil called her from a pay phone, because he did not trust a cellular phone for such sensitive information, he was manic, as if he had just been in a shoot-out. She wrote down what he said, but not a word of it sparked hope. Her Phantom Force had been undercover out on the streets for weeks. Brazil had spent fifteen minutes at Jazzbone’s and had cracked the case? She didn’t think so. Nor was she feeling the least bit friendly toward Brazil’s two-timing, user-friendly ass.

“How’s the chief?” he asked her.

“Why don’t you tell me,” she said.

“What?”

“Look, I don’t have time to chitchat,” she rudely added.

Brazil was on a sidewalk in front of the Federal Courthouse, hateful people looking at him. He didn’t care.

“What did I do?” he fired back. “Tell me when’s the last time I’ve heard from you? I haven’t noticed you picking up the phone, asking me to do anything or even to see how I am.”

This had not occurred to West. She never called Raines. For that matter, she did not call guys and never had and never would, with the occasional exception of Brazil. Now why the hell was that, and why had she suddenly gotten weird about dialing his number?

“I figured you’d get in touch with me when you had something on your mind,” she replied. “It’s been hectic. Niles is driving me crazy. I may turn him over to the juvenile courts. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten around to calling you, okay? But a lot of good it’s going to do for you to punish me for it.”

“You want to play tennis?” he quickly asked.

West still had a wooden Billie Jean King racquet, clamped tight in a press. Neither were manufactured anymore. She had an ancient box of Tretorn balls that never went dead but broke like eggs. Her last pair of tennis shoes were low-cut plain white canvas Converse, also no longer made. She had no idea where anything was and owned no tennis clothes, and didn’t especially enjoy watching the sport on TV but preferred baseball at this stage in her personal evolution. There were many reasons she gave the answer she did.

“Forget it,” she said.

She hung up the phone and went straight to Hammer’s office. Horgess was not his usual informative, friendly self. West felt sorry for him. No matter how many times Hammer had told him to let it go, he never would. He had picked up the radio instead of the phone. Horgess, the sycophantic duty captain, had made sure all the world knew about the embarrassing shooting at the chief’s house. That’s all anybody talked and speculated about. The expected jokes were ones West would never want her boss to hear. Horgess was pale and depressed. He barely nodded at West.