Brazil’s heart battered his ribs as he drove his cosmos V6 BMW Z3. The leather still smelled new, the paint was without a flaw, yet he didn’t love the car the way he did the vintage BMW 2002 that had belonged to his father. When Brazil had covered it and left it at his childhood home in Davidson, he had thought it was the thing to do. It was time to start over. It was time to leave his past. Maybe it was time to finally get away from his alcoholic mother.

He passed through the endless intersections and one-way streets of the Fan, avoiding bicycles and pedestrians and the crowds trying to get in and out of Helen’s, Joe’s Inn, Soble’s, Konsta’s, Commercial Tap House, Southern Culture and various markets and Laundromats. Brazil was terrified of telling Hammer the truth about COMSTAT, and worse, parking wasn’t possible in West’s part of town. Brazil had no luck, and groaned when he saw Hammer turning up and down narrow streets, impatient and picking up speed, for whenever she could not get somewhere, she did it in a hurry.

Brazil parked in front of a fire hydrant as a Mercedes V12 roared away from a curb and a Jeep Cherokee tried to bulldoze its way into the space. Brazil jumped out of his car, trotted over to the Jeep and held up his hand to halt. Shari Moody was at the wheel. She scowled as she rolled down her window.

“Look, I was here first,” she said.

“That’s not the issue,” Brazil told her.

“It sure as hell is.”

“I’m Richmond Police.”

“The whole department?” she scoffed.

“An officer.”

“An officer? Just one?” she said sarcastically.

“There’s no point in being rude, ma’am.”

“Police officers don’t drive BMWs and you’re in jeans,” she retorted. “I’m so sick and tired of people trying to cheat me out of parking just because I’m a woman.”

Brazil got out his creds and displayed them as he noted Hammer racing by again.

“We drive all kinds of cars and aren’t always in uniform,” Brazil explained to Shari Moody, whose parking place he was going to appropriate. “Depends on what we’re doing, ma’am, and gender has nothing to do with it.”

“Bullshit,” she said, popping gum as she argued. “If I was a guy, you wouldn’t be standing here.”

“Yes, I would.”

“What are you going to do, anyway? Give me a ticket for something I didn’t do, as usual. You know how many tickets I get just because I’m a woman in a four-by-four?”

Brazil had no idea.

“Lots,” she said. “If I had a Suburban or, God forbid, a Ford F-350 Crew Cab with a four-hundred-and-sixty-cubic-inch engine, a brush guard and tow package, I’d probably be on fucking death row.”

“I’m not giving you a ticket,” Brazil told her. “But I’m afraid you’re in a U.Z. and I’m going to have to ask you to leave for your own protection.”

“An Uzi?” She was suddenly frightened and locked her doors. “You mean drug dealers with machine guns are in this neighborhood, too?”