“Can everybody hear?” she asked.

“Yes,” voices returned.

“All the way in the back?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your gun?”

Laughter started rolling through the rows.

“We’ll start with that,” West said, her voice booming. “What’s all this crap about guns? Yeah, sure, I’ve got one on.”

“What kind?”

“The kind I don’t like,” she answered. “Because I don’t like any gun. I don’t even like being a cop, and you know why? Because I wish we didn’t need guns or cops.”

She and Brazil talked for about twenty minutes. Afterward the principal, Mrs. Lilly, made her way up to the front of the auditorium as the applause continued. Brazil bent down and handed Mrs. Lilly the microphone. She squinted in the glaring lights and announced there was time to take a few questions.

Smoke had returned to school after a quick stop at Sears, where he had shoplifted ten garage remote controls. He stood up from an aisle seat on the tenth row.

“I was wondering,” he spoke loudly and sincerely, “if you think some kids are born bad.”

“I think some are,” the lady cop bluntly answered.

“I’d like to believe that’s not true,” Mrs. Lilly piped up.

“We’d all like to believe it’s not true,” the blond uniformed cop said. “But I think what’s important is that at the end of the day, people make choices. Nobody makes you cheat on that test or steal that car or beat somebody up.”

Smoke continued to stand in the darkness, listening attentively, his expression innocent and thoughtful. He wasn’t finished yet.

“But what do you do if someone’s really bad and nothing’s going to change him?” he asked in a loud, sure voice.

“Lock him up.” The lady cop meant it.

Laughter.

“About all you can do is protect society from people like that,” the blond cop added.

“Isn’t it true though that genetically bad people are usually smarter and harder to catch?” Smoke asked.

“Depends on who’s trying to catch them.” The blond cop was a little cocky.

Laughter swelled as the bell rang. Smoke slipped out of the auditorium first, through a side door, heading straight for the parking lot. A cold smile played on his lips as he envisioned the blond cop and his sidekick with the big tits and imagined himself in direct combat with them. The thought aroused him.

Power lifted him and pumped through his blood as he trotted to his Escort and unlocked it. He sat behind the wheel, working himself into intense excitement as he stared at the circle of yellow school buses and the hundreds of kids suddenly streaming out of doorways, cheerful, playful and in a hurry.

Smoke started the car and drove to the appointed spot in the parking lot, forcing other students to go around him or turn and head out the other way. He wasn’t going to move for anyone. Traffic and voices were loud as he sat watching for Weed, who was about to hurt like hell and make Smoke famous.