“It doesn’t work, Cloud.”

“Forget it.”

Cloud was crushed. “Never mind,” he said.

Hammer had been silent through all this because she wanted to give her troops a chance to be heard. But she could take no more.

“It’s something for all of us to think about,” she abruptly said. “I’m always open for something new. Thank you, Captain Cloud.”

“Actually, I had a thought on the subject,” Andy Brazil said.

No one spoke. Cops started shuffling through notes and shifting in chairs. They got up for more coffee. Cloud opened a little bag of Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges, paper tearing loudly. Fling rebooted the computer and it beeped and honked as it tried to come back.

Hammer felt sorry for Brazil. She was indignant that he was discriminated against for reasons beyond his control. It wasn’t his fault that women and gay men of all ages could not take their eyes off him. He couldn’t help that he was only twenty-five and talented and sensitive. Nor was there a thing he had done or intimated that gave credence to the vicious rumor that she had brought him with her to Richmond for sexual pleasure and then he had run off with his landlady.

“Go ahead, Officer Brazil.” Hammer tended to be brusque with him. “But we need to move along.”

“I really think we’d be better off without a motto,” Brazil said.

Silence.

“CPR makes it sound like we need to be resuscitated,” he added.

No one would look at him. Papers shuffled. Duty belts creaked.

“That we’re in extremis,” he said.

Silence.

Then Cloud spoke up, “I’ve always thought that. It’s about time somebody said it before it got painted on all the cars.”

“It’s just one more thing for people to make fun of,” Brazil pointed out. “Especially since the core of COMSTAT is accountability. And what happens if somewhere down the road someone decides to add accountability to our motto?”

More silence as everyone puzzled. Some wrote words and letters on paper, rearranging acronyms, like Jumble. Hammer knew instantly where Brazil was going with this.

“CARP,” Fling read from his notepad.

“PARC?” Captain Cloud volunteered.

“You get CRAP,” Brazil told them.

“Interesting,” Hammer said loudly, restoring order. “All of you have made me see this in a different light. Maybe we shouldn’t have a motto. Those in favor, raise your hand.”

All did except Cloud. He sipped his coffee, eyes cast down at his half-eaten glazed doughnut, a sour expression on his face.

“So I guess I can delete the motto from the computer,” Fling said, tapping keys again.

“I don’t want you deleting anything,” Hammer told him.

3

PUFF DADDY & the Family were rapping on the CD player and air was blowing through a stuck back window of Smoke’s Escort. He had changed clothes in the car and Divinity was gone, the scent of her cloying perfume lingering as Smoke and fourteen-year-old Weed Gardener headed west to Mills E. Godwin High School.

Smoke had money in his pocket. Tucked under the seat was the Glock nine-millimeter pistol he had traded twenty rocks of crack cocaine for on the street. He was high as he replayed the robbery again and again, a favorite scene in the movie that was his life. He was getting better. He was getting bolder.