“Where are we going?” Brazil asked as they turned off on Boyer toward Wilkinson Boulevard again.

This was definitely the sinful strip, but West did not stay on it long. She sped past Greenbriar Industrial Park and turned left on Alleghany Street, heading into Westerly Hills, a nothing neighborhood near Harding High School. Brazil’s mood got worse. He suspected West was up to her old tricks, and it not only reminded him that she really did not want to be out here with him but hinted rather strongly that he had no business on police calls and would not be on many, if she had her way about it.

“Any unit in the area of the twenty-five hundred block of Westerly Hills Drive.” The scanner shattered West’s peace of mind. “Suspicious subjects in the church parking lot.”

“Shit,” West said, speeding up.

What lousy luck. They were in Westerly Hills on Westerly Hills Drive, The Jesus Christ Is Lord Glorious United Church of the Living God right in front of them. The small white frame church was Pentecostal, and deserted this night, not one car in the parking lot when West turned in. But there definitely were subjects loitering, half a dozen young males with their mother, who was full of herself and feisty in a wheelchair. All stared hatefully at the cop car. Not sure what to make of the situation, West ordered Brazil to stay put, as both their doors opened and both climbed out.

“We got a call of . . .” West started to say to Mama.

“Just passing through,” her oldest son, Rudof, volunteered.

Mama gave Rudof a killing look, holding his eyes. “You don’t got to answer to no one!” she snapped at him. “You hear me? Not to no one!”

Rudof looked down, his pants about to fall off and red boxer shorts showing. He was tired of being dissed by his mama and hassled by the police. What had he done? Nothing. Just walking home from the E-Z mart because she needed cigarettes, all of them going with her, taking a nice walk and cutting through the church parking lot. What was so wrong with that?

“We didn’t do nothing,” Rudof folded his arms and said to the cops.

Brazil knew a fight was coming, just like he could smell a storm before the front moved in. His body tensed. He scanned the small, violent crowd standing restlessly in the dark. Mama wheeled closer to West. Mama had something on her mind she’d been wanting to deliver for a long time, and now was as good an opportunity as any. All her children would hear, and these two police didn’t look like they would hurt anybody unnecessarily.

“We just got here,” Mama said to West. “We were just coming home, walking like anybody else. I’m tired of you people prosecuting us.”

“Nobody is . . .” West tried again.

“Oh yes. Oh yes, uh huh, you are.” Mama got louder and angrier. “This is a free country! We was white, you think anybody would’ve called the police?”