When West parked in front of his house, he took his time. He waited for her to come to the door. He waited until she had knocked five times.
'Andy? Are you in there?' she said loudly.
He ran to the door and opened it, tucking in his uniform shirt, adjusting his duty belt as if he was busy with many things and running behind.
'Gosh, I'm sorry,' he said politely. 'I was on the phone.'
It wasn't quite a lie because Brazil had been on the phone. He just didn't say when he'd been on it.
'I don't have much time,' West smacked the volley back. 'We'd better go. This was probably a bad idea,' she continued as she went down the steps. 'I've got the day from hell. I'm not even hungry.'
Brazil locked the door and followed her to the car, his feelings stung again.
'It doesn't matter to me,' he said. 'If you need to get to HQ, you can go on. You don't even have to give me a ride. It's not a problem.'
'I'm already here,' she retorted.
'I'm not that hungry either,' Brazil announced.
West put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.
'You should fasten your seatbelt,' Brazil told her.
'Forget it.'
'Look, I want to be able to get out of the car fast, too, if something goes down. But I don't want to be thrown out, like through the windshield. Besides, how long does it take you to unbuckle a seatbelt, if you're really honest?'
'You work the streets as long as I have, you don't have to be really honest.' She reminded him of his inexperience and her high rank.
'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.'