Blinds were drawn, the television turned low and playing an old Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn movie. The pervert was breathless as she whispered on the phone, drawing it out, enunciating slowly.

“Saw you driving. Shifting gears. Up and down in high gear . . .”

Her power over him was the most exciting thing she’d ever known in her nothing life. She could not contain it as she thought of his humiliation. She controlled him as completely as a fish in a tank, or a dog, or a car. Her heart was on a drum roll as she heard his confused silence over the line, and Hepburn walked into the bedroom, dressed in a satin robe. What incredible bones. The pervert hated her and would have switched channels, but she did not have a free hand.

“Screw yourself,” Brazil’s voice rewarded her with its presence. “You have my permission.”

The pervert didn’t need permission.

Packer scrolled through Brazil’s latest and most masterful article.

“This is great stuff!” Packer was ecstatic about every word. “One hell of a job! Wild, Wild West. Love it!”

Packer got up from a chair pulled close. He tucked in his white shirt, his hand jumping around as if his pants were a puppet. His tie was red and black striped and not the least bit elegant.

“Ship it out. This runs one-A,” Packer said.

“When?” Brazil was thrilled, because he had never been on the front page.

“Tomorrow,” Packer let him know.

That night, Brazil worked his first traffic accident. He was in uniform, with clipboard in hand, the appropriate forms clamped in. This was a lot more complicated than the average person may have supposed, even if the damage was nonreportable, or less than five hundred dollars. It appeared that a woman in a Toyota Camry was traveling on Queens Road, while a man in a Honda Prelude was also traveling on Queens Road, in this unfortunate section of the city where two roads of the same name intersected with each other.

The pervert was nearby in her Aerovan, stalking and listening to the police scanner and Brazil’s voice on it. She was working her own accident about to happen as this young police boy pointed and gestured, all in dark blue and shiny steel. She watched her prey as she rolled past flares sparking orange on pavement in the dark of night, crossing Queens as she traveled west on Queens.

Streets having the same name could be attributed to rapid hormonal growth, and was similar to naming a child after oneself no matter the gender or practicality, or whether the first three were christened the same, as in George Foreman and his own. Queens and Queens, Providence and Providence, Sardis and Sardis, the list went on, and Myra Purvis had never gotten it straight. She knew that if she turned off Queens Road West onto Queens Road East and then followed Queens Road to the Orthopedic Hospital, she could visit her brother.