“How do we know they aren’t gypsies?” burglary detective Linton Bean asked.

“Can gypsies be Russian?”

“Seems to me they can be anything as long as they drift around and con people.”

“Yeah, but the ones we’ve had coming through here are mostly Romanian, Irish, English and Scotch. The Travelers. Well, that’s what they call themselves. They get real pissed if we call them gypsies.”

“How ’bout if we just call them tramps and thieves?”

“I’ve never heard of Russian gypsies.”

“My sister went over to Italy last year and said they have gypsies over there.”

“I know for a fact they got Hispanic ones in Florida.”

“See, that’s the whole thing,” said Detective Bean. “There’s no such country as ‘Gypsy.’ You can be from anywhere and be a gypsy, including Russia . . .”

“What are we doing about this problem?” Hammer interrupted.

“Stepping up patrols in neighborhoods like Windsor Farms, where you have mostly older people with money,” said Bean. “Maybe forming a task force.”

“Do it,” Hammer said, glancing at her watch and conscious of the time. “Lieutenant Noble is commander for a day in second precinct. What do you have to report?”

“This week we arrested a domestic violence recidivist,” said Noble, who spoke the proper police language and was resented by all.

“Very good,” Hammer said.

“We’re also doing warrant sweeps but so far haven’t surfaced the suspect in the stairwell rapes,” Noble added. “And if it’s all right, Chief Hammer, I have a comment to make.”

“Please,” Hammer said.

“I’m not so sure it was a good idea to piss off all the citizens with this gang crap Brazil wrote about for the Sunday paper.”

“It wasn’t crap,” Brazil said.

“Name one gang,” Noble challenged him.

“It’s all a matter of semantics,” Brazil answered. “It depends on how you label gangs.”

Hammer agreed. “Juveniles are committing the worst crimes. They mentor each other, influence each other, form packs, gangs. We have them here and need to identify them.”

“Most of the kids that go in schools and blow everybody away aren’t in gangs. They’re loners,” Noble argued.

“Let’s look at Jonesboro,” West countered. “A fourteen-year-old recruits an eleven-year-old to pull the fire alarm, right? So what would happen if you had four, five, six kids involved? Maybe twenty kids and teachers would have died.”

“She’s got a point.”

“Got to admit, it makes you think.”

“You’d have to call in the damn National Guard.”

“Kids are scary. They don’t have any boundaries. They think killing’s a game,” West added.

“It’s true. There’s no concept of consequences.”

“What happens if you get some charismatic gang leader and he really organizes? Imagine,” Brazil said.

Insights and arguments were volleyed back and forth as Hammer deliberated over how to broach the next subject.

“Recent intelligence,” she began, “indicates that two white males may be planning a hate crime, the robbery and murder of a black woman possibly named Loraine. The males may go by the names or aliases of Bubba and Smudge.”