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my fucking business. And then the chorus starts.”
    Howard didn’t need to describe events in greater detail. I’d seen enough crowds feeding on each other, buoying up leaders, egging them on to do stupid macho things. By eleven thirty, it was a safe guess that the crackheads would be high or crazy, or both, the winos way up or way down.
    “So everybody’s mouthing off. I’m trying to keep order and get things calmed down before guys are coming out of the shrubbery and up off the Avenue. Before we’re the top of the bill. But the crackheads get the pack of them wired. Guys who would have been slinking off are shoving and yelling ‘Who the hell do you think you are, telling us what to do? This is our turf.’ They’re closing in around me. And her.”
    “And no way to call backup.” He’d have been counting on Castillo to get to a phone.
    “And then she starts in on them, yelling at them to keep their fucking hands off her. Riling them up. That’s the last thing I need. The crackheads’re already straining at the leash. The whole situation’s ready to blow. I’m yelling at the bunch of them to knock it off, but things are so far out of control that I’m just adding to the noise.” He waited till I nodded. “So I did the only thing possible.”
    “Which was?”
    “I removed the provocation.”
    Textbook crowd management. Defuse the crowd first.
    “I told her to get in the car. She balked. I said to her, ‘Lady, you see these guys? Do I have to spell things out?’” Howard shook his head. “It was like she grew up on another planet. She planted her Day-Glo legs and said she goddamn well wasn’t going anywhere. She has just as much right to be in this park as anyone else. By this time, I can see shadows moving toward us. I say, ‘Lady, get in the patrol car now!’ She digs in her heels. I don’t have time to argue. I grab her arm and yank her across the grass. The pack follows. I get the door open. She braces against the side of the car. I shove her in. I’ve still got the mob to deal with. It’s a full minute or so before another car pulls up. Took Castillo that long to get to a phone.”
    “So the whole sting’s blown, and Castillo’s cover too?” I said woodenly.
    “Oh, yeah. Castillo’s shot to hell. He might as well be the dealer’s poster boy. But that’s not the end of it, Jill. As soon as patrol gets there, I get back in the car. And what do I get—thanks for saving her ass? Not hardly. Fucking bitch is still screaming at me. Why have I arrested her ? Why not the men? By then, they weren’t the problem. She was.” He turned and glared at me. “What kind of idiot woman gets out in the middle of the night in feel-me-up clothes, leaves her house where she’s safe, to run through—”
    “She should be able to run when she pleases,” I said, my voice cracking with anger.
    Howard stared. “Jees, Jill, you of all people—”
    “If a guy parks his Maserati on the street overnight, we don’t throw him in the cage because it gets stolen.”
    “And when he gets tired of worrying about being ripped off, he can get a Ford. You tell that to a woman who gets raped and ends up with AIDS. She can’t trade in her body.”
    “So what—she should stay inside every night and be safe? Be a prisoner!” I was yelling.
    “Common sense—”
    “Common sense is the status quo. Common sense says the world stays as it is—”
    “Well, you can’t—”
    I jumped up and glared down at Howard. “Common sense says men go where they please and women huddle inside and hope none of those men decide to break into their supposedly safe houses.”
    He let a beat pass before saying, “I can’t go wherever I please.”
    “When was the last time you couldn’t walk across campus alone at night because women might be aroused? When did you change out of your cutoffs because your legs looked too good? When did you not stop in a bar by yourself?”
    “I don’t go to the Oakland housing