'Have you ever been to The Forest?' Brazil asked.
'What forest?'
The neighborhood hangout on Forest Hill.'
'That's the other side of the river.'
There's more parking there than downtown where the River City Diner is.'
'Since when are we eating breakfast again? I thought we'd decided that issue,' West said.
She turned on the radio, tuning in to WRVA. Adrenaline was shorting out Brazil's central nervous system as he groped for just the right words. He had a right to know why she treated him the way she did. He had a right to know about Jim.
'I guess I'm realizing if I don't eat something now, I don't know when I will,' Brazil said, making sure she understood how busy he was, too.
'River City is closer to HQ.'
Try parking on Main Street during rush hour.'
West decided to head Southside.
'How did you find out about The Forest?' she asked as the radio broke the news of Fishsteria.
'I've been there a couple times.' Brazil's thoughts were tangled like fishing line.
'… believed to be a new strain of computer virus that cannot be detected by the standard antivirus software most of us have,' Johnny, of the popular Johnny in the Morning Show, went on.
'I pretty much stick to the Fan,' West said. There are so many good restaurants, bars, like Strawberry Street Vineyard. Why go anywhere else?'
'Strawberry Street Vineyard is a wine shop,' Brazil corrected her.
'I didn't say it wasn't,' she fired back.
'Best wine in the city. They can get anything. I picked up a Ken Wright Cellars Pinot Noir the other week. Outstanding.' Brazil had to rub it in.
'… hibernates in bottom sediments,' explained Johnny in the Mornings special guest, Dr. Edith Sandal-Viverette, a biologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. 'And releases toxins that are stunning and killing all these fish. Crabs are falling victim, as well. What's curious, Johnny, is the microbes like the temperature of the water to be eightyish. It's a little early for that.'
'But Fishsteria isn't related to Pfiesteria, right?' Johnny worried.
'I'm not sure we can say that at this moment.'
Brazil felt stubborn again. He didn't care enough to ask West anything. She didn't matter.
'I've really gotten into French burgundies, too,' Brazil rubbed it in some more.
'I get tired of red wine,' West said.
'Then you ought to try a white burgundy.' 'What makes you think I haven't?' West fired back. 'Well, it's really scary,' Johnny said as Brazil and West continued not to listen.
Bubba knew what had happened when he was half a block away from his house. The garage door was wide open. His heart was seized by fear. He pulled into the driveway and jumped out of his car, screaming his wife's name.
'Honey!' he yelled as he ran up the front steps. 'Honey! Oh my God! Honey! Are you all right!'
Bubba dropped his keys three times before he managed to unlock the front door. He burst into the living room as Honey's slippers swished along the hallway. He ran to her and hugged her hard.
'Why, what on earth is the matter?' Honey said, rubbing his back.
Bubba started sobbing.
'I was so scared something happened to you,' he cried into her permed, honey-blond hair.
'Of course nothing's happened to me, sweetie,' she said. 'I just this minute got up.'
Bubba stepped back from her, his mood suddenly skipping discs. He was enraged.
'How the hell could you sleep through someone breaking into the workshop?' he yelled.
'What?' Honey was dazed. 'The workshop?'
'The garage door's wide open! You leave it open for some reason, like the awful Jell-O and room temperature Tang? Is this the final blow to hurt me? Is that how they got in?'
'I don't go near that door,' said Honey, who knew better than to ever set foot inside his workshop. 'Would rather take the Lord's name in vain and be a Mormon or a queer or a feminist than dare to get near your shop!' exclaimed Honey, who was Southern Baptist and knew the party line by heart. 'I don't want to go near your tools, much less touch them. I never ask anything about them even if I can see them plain as day when you're working on some project that never turns out quite right.'
Bubba ran back out the door. Honey held her robe together and followed. Bubba walked into the garage. He held his breath, hands clenched as he took in what had to be the biggest disaster of his life. Tools were scattered everywhere, and all of his handguns were gone. Someone had pissed all over Bubba's electronic caliper and it would convert inches into metric dimensions no more. The dual sander and air hammer had been cruelly dropped into the ten-gallon drum of dirty oil that Bubba saved for Muskrat's heater.
Bubba staggered back out into the sunlight. Honey grabbed his arm to steady him.
'Maybe I should call the police,' she said.
West and Brazil were close to The Forest when several things happened at once. Brazil's flip phone trilled. The police radio broadcast a possible B amp;E on Clarence Street, and WRVA played an ad for Hollywood Cemetery's new Chapel Mausoleum, located in one of the oldest sections of the cemetery, adjacent to a convenient roadway and with no additional expenses for a vault or monument, one price covering everything including the inscription.
'Hello?' Brazil said into his phone.
'… Any unit in the area,' the police radio was repeating, '… possible B and E at 10946 Clarence Street.'
'… the Hollywood Cemetery Chapel Mausoleum reflects a combination of both beauty and dignity…" the ad continued, jazz playing in the background.
'Andy? It's Hammer,' Chief Hammer said over the phone.
'Three,' West answered the radio.
'Our computer problem's hit the national news. I guess you saw this morning's paper,' Hammer said to Brazil.
'Go ahead, 3,' said Communications Officer Patty Passman, who was surprised that the head of investigations was answering the call.
'Actually, I didn't know,' Brazil replied honestly to Hammer.
'Front page,' Hammer said. 'They're making fun of us, fun of COMSTAT, saying we've crashed around the world because of a virus called Fishsteria.'
'Fish versus Pfiesh?' Brazil asked.
'Figure it out, Andy.'
'… designed to reflect the classic elements found with Hollywood's hills…' said the ad.
'We're just a couple blocks from there,' West told Communications Officer Passman. 'We'll take the call.'
'And a vandal or vandals hit Hollywood Cemetery last night,' Hammer went on.
'Ten-4, 3. Complainant's a Mr. Butner Fluck.'
'Appears a Spiders basketball uniform was painted on the statue of Jefferson Davis,' Hammer explained.
Brazil was stunned. He started laughing and could not stop.
'And I'm afraid his race was altered,' she went on.
'You mean, he got Michael Jordanized?' Brazil choked.
'This isn't funny, Andy.'
'I think I'm gonna be sick.' Brazil was doubled over, hardly able to talk.
West made a U turn on Forest Hill and accelerated.
'Lelia Ehrhart's called an emergency meeting of city leaders tomorrow morning at eight,' Hammer told Brazil.
'I hope she's not going to speak!' Brazil's voice went up an octave. He couldn't help himself.
'What's wrong with you?' West glanced over at him as she drove fast out of habit, taking every shortcut she could to get to the scene.
'Look into it,' Hammer said to Brazil.
'Fishsteria or MagicJeff'?' Brazil's stomach hurt, his eyes watering.
'All of it,' she said to him.
The house on Clarence Street was very peculiar, but not for obvious reasons at a glance. Rather it was the sort of phenomenon that caused an unsettled, odd feeling of disharmony and something just not quite right that was discarded, like a lost file, the instant the person drove or walked past or delivered the newspaper and moved on.
But to someone with a trained eye who took a hard look, the problem was clear.
'Good God," West said, stopping the car in the middle of the road as she stared in wonder.