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would rail on aboutFortune 500 yahoos who didn’t live anywhere near here and determined whether the police needed a bicycle squad or laptops or different pistols. Rich men had decided to change the uniforms years ago and to merge the city police with the Mecklenburg County Police. Every decision was unimaginative and based on economics, according to Hammer.
    West believed every bit of it as she and Brazil cruised past the huge, new stadium where David Copperfield was making magic and parking decks were jammed with thousands of cars. Brazil was oddly subdued, and not writing down a word. West looked curiously at him as the police scanner rudely announced this modern city’s primitive crimes, and the radio softly played Elton John.
    “Any unit in the area,” a dispatcher said. “B&E in progress, four hundred block East Trade Street.”
    West floored it and flipped on lights. She whelped the siren, gunning past other cars. “That’s us,” she said, snapping up the mike.
    Brazil got interested.
    “Unit 700,” West said over the air.
    The dispatcher wasn’t expecting a deputy chief to respond and sounded somewhat startled and confused.
    “What unit?” the dispatcher inquired.
    “700,” replied West. “In the nine hundred block. I’ll take the B&E in progress.”
    “Ten-four, 700!”
    The radio broadcast the call. Other cars responded as West cut in and out of traffic. Brazil was staring at her with new interest. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
    “Since when do deputy chiefs answer calls?” he said to her.
    “Since I got stuck with you.”
    The projects on East Trade were cement barracks subsidized by the government and exploited by criminals who did deals in the dark and got their women to lie when the cops showed up. Breaking and entering around here, it had been West’s experience, usually meant someone was pissed off. Most of the time, this was a girlfriend calling in a complaint on an apartment where her man was hiding and had enoughoutstanding warrants to be locked up twenty times.
    “You stay in the car,” West ordered her ride-along as she parked behind two cruisers.
    “No way.” Brazil grabbed the door handle. “I didn’t go to all this trouble to sit in the car everywhere we go. Besides, it isn’t safe to be out here alone.”
    West didn’t comment as she scanned buildings with windows lighted and dark. She studied parking lots filled with drug dealer cars and didn’t see a soul.
    “Then stay behind me, keep your mouth shut, and do what you’re told,” she told him as she got out.
    The plan was pretty simple. Two officers would take the front of the apartment, on the first floor, and West and Brazil would go around back to make sure no one tried to flee through that door. Brazil’s heart was pounding and he was sweating beneath his leather jacket as they walked in the thick darkness beneath sagging clotheslines in one of the city’s war zones. West scanned windows and unsnapped her holster as she quietly got on the radio.
    “No lights on,” she said over the air. “Closing in.”
    She drew her pistol. Brazil was inches behind her and wished he were in front, as furtive officers they could not see closed in on a unit scarred by graffiti. Trash was everywhere, caught on rusting fences and in the trees, and the cops drew their guns as they reached the door.
    One of them spoke into his radio, giving West, their leader, an update. “We got the front.”
    “Police!” his partner threatened.
    Brazil was concerned about the uneven terrain, and clotheslines hanging low enough to choke someone, and broken glass everywhere in the tar-black night. He was afraid West might hurt herself and turned on his Mag-Lite, illuminating her in a huge circle of light. Her sneaking silhouette with drawn pistol was bigger than God.
    “Turn that fucking thing off!” she whipped around and hissed at him.
    Charlotte police caught no one on that call. West and Brazil were in a bad mood as