“I haven’t done two and three,” he said.

“No, you haven’t,” Hammer had to agree as West walked in. “Two isn’t necessary because in this instance, everybody already knows. No later than seventeen hundred hours, I want a commentary by you for the Informer, telling everyone about your mistake. On my desk.” She looked at him over the top of her glasses.

Mayor Search did not know the first thing about a community policing vision statement or any other vision statement that did not slaughter people for making mistakes, especially of the egregious nature that caused Hammer such embarrassment. This was not about to happen to him because the mayor knew how to handle people, including the media.

“It absolutely is untrue that the city is unsafe,” he stated to Brazil, and the office seemed to have gotten airless and hot and maybe smaller.

“But five businessmen from out of town have been murdered in the last few weeks,” Brazil said. “I don’t know how you can . . .”

“Random. Isolated. Incidents.” Sweat rolled down his sides. Search felt his face getting red.

“Downtown hotels and restaurants claim business has dropped more than twenty percent.” Brazil wasn’t trying to argue. He just wanted to get to the bottom of this.

“And people like you are only going to make that worse.” Search mopped his forehead, wishing Cahoon had never passed this goddamn assignment along to him.

“All I want is to tell the truth, Mayor Search,” Billy Budd, Billy Graham, said. “Hiding it won’t help resolve this terrible situation.”

The mayor resorted to sarcasm, laughing at this simple boy’s simple logic. He felt that bitter juice seep through his veins, the bile rising as his face reddened dangerously, his rage a solar flare on the surface of his reason. Mayor Search lost control.

“I can’t believe it.” He laughed derisively at this reporter who was nothing in life. “You’re giving me a lecture. Look. I’m not going to sit here and tell you business isn’t suffering. I wouldn’t drive downtown at night right now.” He laughed harder, unstoppable, and drunk with his power.

By six P.M., at happy hour, West and Raines were on their way to being drunk at Jack Straw’s A Tavern of Taste, next to La-dee-da’s and Two Sisters, on East Seventh Street. West had changed out of her uniform and was casual in jeans, a loose denim shirt, and sandals. She was drinking Sierra Nevada Stout, the beer of the month, and still in a state of disbelief over the videotape she had watched with Hammer.

“Do you have any idea how this makes me and my investigative division look?” she said for the fourth time. “Christ. Please tell me this is a nightmare. Please, please. I’m going to wake up, right?”

Raines was drinking Field Stone chardonnay, the wine of the month. In gym shorts, Nikes with no socks, and a tank top, he was turning all heads except for the one across the table from him. What was it with her? All she ever talked about was work and that twit from the paper she rode around with. And Niles, oh yes, let’s not forget that fucking, God-save-the-queen, cat. How many times had that cat ruined a building moment? Niles seemed to know exactly when to cause a distraction. A jump on Raines’s back or head, a bite of a sock-covered toe. How about the time Niles sat on the remote control until the volume of Kenny G sounded like an air raid?