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her, “but it happens that within the limits of Meadowbrook Grove, the speed limit is forty-five miles per hour. It’s clearly posted on the roads, ma’am. So you were not just over the limit, you were well over.”
    “Christ,” she said. “Meadowbrook Grove. What the hell is that?”
    “It’s this municipality, Lisa. You’re about half a mile into it, and it runs about another mile and a half east.”
    “It’s a speed trap,” she said. It came out in a jolt of understanding, and she made no effort to hide her contempt. “Your trailer park is a speed trap.”
    Doe shook his head. “It’s sad when people who are looking to keep folks safe are called all sorts of names. You want to get into an accident? Is that it? Take a couple of other people with you?”
    The woman sighed. “Fine. Whatever. Just give me the ticket.”
    Doe leaned forward, elbows on her rolled-down windows. “What did you say?”
    “I said to just go ahead and give me the ticket.”
    “You oughtn’t to tell an officer of the law what to do.”
    Something crossed her face, some sort of recognition, like when you’re poking a stick at a king snake, teasing it and jabbing at it, and you suddenly realize it’s not a king, but a coral, that it could kill you anytime it damn well wants. Lisa saw what she should have seen earlier. “Officer, I didn’t mean anything disrespectful. I just wanted to—”
    Had she been flirting? Probably, the whore. She put out her hand and gently, really with just the nails, scraped along the skin of his forearm, barely even disturbing the tightly coiled black hairs.
    It was all the excuse Doe needed. Technically, he didn’t need any excuse at all, but he liked to have one. Let them think it was something they did. Let them think later on, If only I hadn’t touched him. Better they should blame themselves.
    The touch was all he was looking for. Doe took a step back and pulled his gun from his holster and pointed it at the woman, not two feet from her head. He knew what it must look like to her—this big, dark, hot, throbbing thing shoved right in her face. “Never touch a police officer!” he shouted. “You are committing assault, a felony. Put your hands on the wheel.”
    She shrieked. They did that sometimes.
    “Hands on the wheel!” He sounded very much like a man who believed his own life to be in danger, like he needed her to do this to keep from shooting her. “Hands on the wheel! Now! Eyes straight ahead! Do it, or I will shoot!”
    She continued to shriek. Her little eyes became wide as tiny saucers, and her curly blond hair went fright wig. Somehow despite her screaming she managed to move her hands halfway up her body, where they did a little spaz shake, and then she got them up to the wheel.
    “All right, now. Lisa, you do what I say and no one needs to get hurt, right? You’re under arrest for assault on a police officer.” He grabbed the door handle, pulled it open, and took a quick step back, as though he expected molten rock to come pouring out.
    It was better to play it like it was real. If you did the cocky cop thing, they might despair or they might get full of righteous anger, and then you could really have a problem on your hands. If, on the other hand, you acted like you were afraid of them, it gave them a strange sort of hope, like the whole misunderstanding could still get straightened out.
    With the gun still extended, he reached out and pulled one hand behind her back, then the other. Holding them firmly in place, he put the gun back in the holster and placed the cuffs on her wrists. Too tight, he knew. They would hurt like hell.
    Her ugly face got uglier as he shoved her toward his cruiser. Cars slowed down along the road—practically a highway at this stretch, with more than five miles between lights—to watch, figuring her for a drug dealer or who knows what. But they weren’t thinking that all she’d done was speed and then whine about it. They saw her in cuffs and