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the steps.
    "Have some chili, Chug," said Cosmo, setting a steaming bowl on the bar. "It's good shit."
    Little Jim and Chug froze in place as all eyes turned to Cosmo behind the bar. He waved a hoary hand. "Let him go, ya dumb lug."
    Little Jim did as he was told. Chug stood up slowly, twisting his torso back into place, flexing his neck, shaking his hand, reclaiming his dignity. Cosmo beckoned with a gray talon. "C'mon."
    Chug mounted a stool. He ate the chili as if nothing had happened. "'s good," he said between spoonfuls.
    The bikers returned to the pit. Bell nodded his thanks to Little Jim.
    "Have some chili, kid," said Cosmo, setting another bowl on the bar. Cosmo polished a spoon with a drink napkin, then used the napkin to wipe his nose. Chug was bent to his bowl like a stewbum at the Rescue Mission.
    "That was nice work," said Wes. "In school we'd call that creative problem solving."
    Cosmo handed Wes the polished spoon. "The thing of it is, fuckin' drunks, when they get drunk, the best way to handle 'em is to feed 'em. You get some food down there, the blood rushes to their stomach, they pass out."
    Wes examined the bowl in front of him. He had eaten chili before of course but, unlike his mother's soupy mixture of canned tomatoes and hamburger, this chili was thick as sand. He dredged up a spoonful and placed it in his mouth. Cosmo passed him a glass of ice water as the jalapenos kicked in. With big eyes perched on a small,triangular face he reminded Wes of an arboreal lemur staring at the camera in the pages of
National Geographic
.
    "So you want to help people? Is that it?"
    Wes grinned. "That's it."
    Cosmo shook his head. "A nice, good-lookin' kid like you."
    Wes lowered his spoon and leaned forward. "It's just that…our society has become so striated," he said. Cosmo crooked an eyebrow. "Segmented,
Balkanized
. Everybody separating out into their own groups. Their own tribes. I think it's really sad." Wes tossed back the remnants of his martini. Cosmo corralled the empty glass and reached down for the freezer door. "I mean, everybody's a part of everybody else."
    Cosmo looked cross. "Oh yeah. Like that commercial. Where the guy is shaving his face and turns into an Chinaman."
    "Right. And then he morphs into a black guy and then a Native American and …."
    "I didn't think they shaved. Indians."
    "What? No. Whatever. The point is the cop on the beat can be a bridge between all strata of society. The power structure, the working class, the, uh,
disenfranchised
." Wes stood up to keep his calves from cramping. "He doesn't have to be an asshole. He doesn't have to be the hammer of Thor…"
    "
You're
thor?" said Bell. "I haven't been able to pith for a week!"
    The other cops laughed loudly. Chug's head rested on the bar, cradled in his folded arms. The cops had decorated his hair with swizzle sticks and drink straws.
    Cosmo placed a fresh martini in front of Lyedecker and collected two dollars from his pile of cash. Wes pushed a buck tip into the gutter where the ashtrays sat. The Budweiser clock said 12:18.
    Bell stood and addressed the troops. "You think the rookie's ready for the joke del muerte?"
    Jake Hansey said, "Ooooooo."
    Renaldo assayed Lyedecker with a cool eye. "I don't know if he's ready for it."
    Bell crinkled mustache hair into his nostrils. "What the fuck," he said. "He survived Biker Bob, I think he can handle it."
    Wes shifted on his stool to face whatever new humiliation was in store for him. The Academy was rife with tales of grotesque hazing rituals for rookies. At least they weren't going to handcuff him to a corpse.
    Bell stepped closer. Renaldo, Hansey and Little Jim clustered behind him. "This is the greatest joke of all time," explained Bell. "The 'joke del muerte'. Dozens …hundreds…
thousands
of people have expired from extreme hyperventilation while uncontrollably laughing at this joke."
    Wes eyed the other cops. Their jaws were clenched with suppressed laughter.
    "Yo,