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She stared at his legs.

'You are quite the athletic,' she flirted. 'I have a trainer. If ever you want to work in together, the both of us, wouldn't that be nice?'

'It's generous of you to offer.' Brazil was courteous, professional and respectful.

'Which gym do you work in out of?' She rolled the window down the rest of the way, caressing every part of him with eyes that had huge purchasing power.

'I've gotta go,' Brazil said as she stared at his crotch.

'How often do you hang yourself out here?' she inquired, continuing her physical examination of him. 'You are very sweating. It's running all down you in little rivets and you look very hots. You should take your shirts off and drinks some Gatorades.' She patted the passenger's seat. 'Come sits, Andy. Out of the heats. I have a swimmer pool at my house. We could go and jump on it. Think how good that would feeling when you are so hots.'

'Thank you, Mrs. Ehrhart.' Brazil couldn't get away fast enough. 'But I've got to head out.'

He ran off. Her window hummed up. Her tires sounded angry when she sped away.

Brazil took two steps at a time and ran inside the Robins Center, dashing into the gym, where Bobby Feeley was working on defense and fouling imaginary Cavaliers.

'Mr. Feeley?' Brazil said from the sidelines.

Feeley dribbled the ball over to him. He started laughing.

'What is this? The inquisition? Or are you just looking for the track, man?'

'I'm with the Richmond Police Department, investigating the vandalism that occurred in Hollywood Cemetery last night,' Brazil explained.

'You always go to work dressed like that?' Feeley tried another jump shot and the ball didn't even come close.

'I just happened to be out running when I saw Lelia Ehrhart drive off,' Brazil said.

'Now that's a piece of work.' Feeley retrieved the ball. 'How long's she been on this planet?'

'Look, Mr. Feeley 'It's Bobby.'

'Bobby, do you have any idea why someone would paint a statue to look like you?' Brazil said. 'Assuming you didn't do it.'

'I didn't do it.' Feeley faked passes. 'And although it's very flattering to think there's a statue of me in a historic white cemetery, I don't think so.' He missed a layup. 'I'm a pretty sorry basketball player and not likely to be anybody's hero.'

'How'd you get on the team?' Brazil had to ask as he watched Feeley miss another layup.

'I used to be better than this,' Feeley said. 'I pretty much ripped up the court in high school, got recruited a million places and decided on Richmond. So I get here and something goes haywire. I'm telling you, man, I started worrying that maybe I had lupus, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's.'

Feeley sat on the basketball, resting his chin in his hand, depressed.

'Doesn't help that I'm wearing Twister Gardener's jersey,' Feeley said despondently. 'I've wondered if that's part of it. Getting psyched out, you know, because everybody looks at my number twelve and remembers him.'

'I'm not from here.' Brazil sat beside him. 'More into tennis than basketball.'

'Well, let me tell you,' Feeley said, 'Twister was the best player this school's ever seen. I got no doubt he'd be playing for the Bulls right now if he hadn't got killed." 'What happened?' Brazil asked as something started stirring deep in his mind.

'Car wreck. Some fucking drunk driver on the fucking wrong side of the road. Last August, right before his sophomore year.'

The story pained Brazil. It enraged him that an extraordinary talent could be completely annihilated in a second by someone who had decided to throw back a few more beers at the bar.

'I'm just glad I got to see him play. I guess you could say he was my hero.' Feeley got up and stretched his limber seven-foot frame.

'Pretty tough to wear your hero's jersey,' Brazil commented as he got up, too.

Feeley shrugged. 'It's part of running with the big dogs.'

'Maybe you should get your number changed,' Brazil suggested.

Feeley was startled. His face got hard, eyes flashing.

'What did you say?' he asked.

'Maybe you should retire the number, let someone else have it,' Brazil explained.

Feeley's eyes snapped. His jaw muscles bunched.

'Fuck no.'

'Just a suggestion,' Brazil said. 'But I don't understand why you'd want to keep it if you get psyched. Give it up, Bobby.'

'No fucking way!'

'Just do it.'

'Fuck you!'

'It really makes sense,' Brazil went on reasonably.

'Motherfucking never!'

'Why not?'

'Because nobody would fucking care about it as much as I do!'

'How do you know?'

Feeley threw the basketball as hard as he could and it swished in without touching the rim.

'Because nobody would respect Twister, treat him right, spread the word about him like I would!'

Feeley ran full speed for the ball, dribbled with his right hand and left and slam-dunked.

'And I'll tell you what, too, you'll never see that jersey dirty or tossed in a corner somewhere!' He dunked the ball over the back of his head, the rim vibrating. 'Some little spoiled piece of shit coming in here and wearing Twister's number!'

He hooked it in, rebounded, slam-dunked, snapped it up, thundered to the top of the key and banked it in, wrestled it away from grabbing hands and jumped a good two feet off the floor, sinking it.

'Does Twister have family around here?' Brazil asked.

'I remember going to the home games and seeing him with some little kid. Twister would sit the little guy right behind the bench,' Feeley said, hitting free throws and talking at the same time. 'I got the impression it might be his little brother.'

At James River Monuments, Ruby Sink was doing a little investigating on her own. The noise of air hammers and pneumatic tools was awful, and someone was bouncing a four-point bumper on Southern Georgia granite. The sandblaster was going and an overhead crane was lifting a thirteen-hundred-pound monument that was chipped and stained green along the top from moss.

White Vermont marble was very difficult and not used anymore and Floyd Rumble had a chore on his hands. He was a bit overwhelmed, anyway. It had been one of those days. His back hurt and his son was stuck at the desk inside the office because the secretary was on vacation.

Then Colonel Bailey, who had Alzheimer's, had come in for the fourth time in a week to say that he was to be buried in uniform and wanted something very patriotic engraved on his Saint Cloud Gray marble monument. Each time, Rumble made out a new order because the last thing he'd ever do was humiliate anyone.

Rumble picked up a knife and resumed cutting a leaf on Nero Black marble, thinking how bad he'd felt when stockbroker Ben Neaton had suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack and the wife had to come in here, too distraught to think, much less pick out something.

So Rumble had suggested the elegant black stone because Mr. Neaton had always driven shiny black Lincolns and worn dark suits. The inscription, Not Gone, Just Reinvested, had been stenciled into a sheet of rubber which was placed over the face of the stone. The sandblaster had etched the letters in a matter of minutes, but Rumble always cut the detail work, such as ivy or flowers, by hand.

It was common for bereft, shocked people to ask Rumble to make all decisions and unfold the story of their lost loved one's life, and what the person had last said or eaten or worn, or had intended to do the next day. Always there was that one little thing that gave the person a bad feeling.

Rumble would hear endless renditions of how the husband didn't go out and get the paper like he always did while his wife was fixing breakfast and school lunches and getting the kids up and ready for school and making sure they didn't miss the bus before she fixed his eggs the way he liked them and asked what he might like for supper and what time he'd be home.

Ruby Sink had worn out Rumble's patience. She had been planning her monument ever since her sister died eleven years ago, and it wasn't uncommon for Miss Sink to wander in once a month just to see what sorts of things Rumble was working on. First she wanted an angel, then a tree, then a plain African granite headstone with raised lilies, then she got into marbles and went through them like a woman rifling through her closet trying to figure out what color dress to wear. She had to have Lake Superior Green, then Rainbow, then Wausau, then Carnelian, then Mountain Red, and so on.