“I probably should have confronted her in private,” Hammer was saying.

West wished Hammer had reprimanded Goode in front of the entire police department, all sixteen hundred of them, or at a televised city council meeting.

“You’re being too hard on yourself,” West diplomatically said, as she finished her Reuben and fries.

“I swear, the food here really is the best,” said Hammer. “Look at those hash browns. Everything from scratch.”

West watched Spike cooking, flinging, slamming away, as men on their stools continued arguing about where to hide stolen goods, or maybe drugs. The glove box. Under the seat. On their persons. West couldn’t believe how brazen criminals were these days. While it was true that she and her chief were both in plain clothes, everyone knew who they were, and West’s portable radio was upright on the table, chattering away. Did these dudes care; were they even remotely intimidated by the law?

“Tell you what,” one of them railed on, jabbing a finger at the man in the red-checked shirt. “You want to know what to do with it? I’m here to tell you. Eat it. Quick before anybody sees. Then what’s anybody gonna say ’bout it? Huh?”

“Can’t say nothing.”

“Not one thing.”

“You got that right.”

“Sitting on it ain’t the answer, Rummy,” Spike spoke his mind. “Besides, it’s not like you can’t get the same thing here. High quality, imported, good price. Fresh every morning.” He folded a ham and cheese omelet. “But oh no. Every stinking day you come in with the same damn thing stuffed in your pocket. Like what? Maybe you think you’re impressing the women or something? Make ’em think you’re happy to see ’em?”

Everyone laughed, except West, head of investigations for the city. She was going to get some of her guys on this right away and bust this ring wide open, trace it back to Colombia, get the DEA or ATF in on it, if need be.

“Drugs,” she mouthed to her boss.

Hammer was preoccupied and still so angry at Goode that Hammer’s blood felt hot as it raced around her body. How dare that lamebrain overpromoted bitch jeopardize the reputation of the entire police department and of women everywhere. Hammer could not remember the last time she was this furious. West was enraged, too, Hammer could tell, and found this somewhat soothing. Not many people understood what it was like to have the chief’s responsibility and stress, and West had integrity, damn it. She knew how wrong it was to abuse power.

“Can you believe it?” West asked her, angrily crumpling her napkin as she glared at the drug dealer in his red-checked shirt, with a banana in his back pocket. “Can you believe people?”

Hammer shook her head, about to boil over. “No,” she said. “I never cease to be amazed. . . .”

Both of them got quiet as the call came over the radio.

“Any unit in the area, six hundred block West Trade. Robbery in progress, armed white male on a bus, robbing passengers . . .”