“Three, 10-10. At the moment.”

“Three, what’s your exact 10-20?”

“I’m exactly at the statue,” West tersely answered.

“Hey! Who’s the chick with the radio?” some man yelled.

“We got undercover cops here!”

“FBI.”

“CIA.”

“Yay!”

“You want my fingerprints, baby?”

The smell of alcohol was strong as bodies pressed closer and jeering people got in West’s face. Her body space wasn’t there. People were jostling her, touching her, laughing. She got back on the radio and suddenly noticed the small blue fish painted on the statue’s base, just below Jefferson Davis’s left Nike. A kid came up behind her and pretended to go for her gun. She lifted him off the ground by his belt and tossed him like a small bag of garbage. He laughed, running off.

“Three, 10-18!” West exclaimed over the air as she stared at the fish, her thoughts crashing into each other.

“Any unit in the area of Hollywood Cemetery, an officer needs assistance,” Passman calmly broadcast.

“Step back!” West shouted to the crowd. “Step back now!”

She was against the crime-scene tape, the crowd getting frenzied and moving in.

West whipped out her red pepper spray and pointed it. People paused to reflect.

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” West yelled. “Step back now!”

The crowd inched back a little, faces twitching with indecision, fists balled, sweat rolling, the air throbbing with the heat of violence about to erupt.

“Someone want to tell me what this is all about!” West yelled again.

A youth wearing a Tommy Hilfiger shirt and stocking cap, one relaxed pants leg rolled up, one down, spoke for the group.

“Nobody wants us in here,” he explained. “Maybe it gets to you, you know? And then one day something happens and you snap.”

“Well, there’ll be no snapping here,” West sternly told all. “What’s your name?”

“Jerome.”

“Seems like these people listen to you, Jerome.”

“I don’t know any of them, but I guess so.”

“I want you to help me keep them calm,” West said.

“Okay.”

Jerome turned around and faced the mob.

“CHILL!” he shouted. “EVERYBODY FUCKING BACK OFF AND GIVE THIS LADY SOME FUCKING SPACE!”

Everybody did.

“Now listen up.” Jerome stepped into his new role and had no problem with it. “The deal is you people don’t know what it’s like,” he told West.

“Tell it!” a woman yelled.

“You think anybody wants us in here?” he whipped up the crowd.

“Fuck no!” they screamed.

“You think anybody wants us dropping by?”

“Fuck no!” the crowd chanted.

“You-think-you-go-Hollywood-who’s-gonna-let-you-they’re-gonna-get-you-throw-your-ass-in-the-grass-cemetery-in-the-hood?” Jerome started rapping.

“Never!”

“The-mon-u-ment-like-the-mom-u-meant-is-cold-I’m-told-how-many-times-I-gotta-tell-it.” Jerome was strutting before the crowd. “What’s-it-take-to-taste-and-smell-it-when-you-got-no-chance-to-sell-it-’cause-everything’s-for-sale-except-for-me-and-you-no-matter-what-we-do-we’re-the-boys-in-the-hood-ain’t-no-fuck-in-Holly-wood.”

“AND-THE-GIRLS-IN-THE-HOOD!”

“Boys-and-girls -in-the-hood-ain’t-no-fuck-in-Hollywood,” Jerome politically corrected himself.

“AIN’T-NO-FUCK-IN-HOLLYWOOD!” the crowd rapped back.

“Thanks, Jerome,” West said.

“AIN’T-NO-FUCK-IN-HOLLYWOOD!” The crowd was out of control.

“Jerome, that’s enough!”

“Say it again, brothers!” Jerome was spinning and kick-boxing. “AIN’T-NO-FUCK-IN-HOLLY-WOOD!”

“AIN’T-NO-FUCK-IN-HOLLY-WOOD!”

Sirens sounded in the distance.

20

THE ROBINS CENTER, where the Spiders played basketball before great crowds, was between the private lot where Ehrhart had tucked her Mercedes, and the X lot where commoners parked, no more than two rows of parking spaces or approximately fifty yards from the track, where this moment Brazil was running hard for the second time this day.