'Something is, or you wouldn't be running,' Brazil called back. 'Stop so I can talk to you!'

'Can't.'

'Yes, you can.'

'Uh-uh.'

Brazil pulled off the road ahead of him and jumped out. The kid was exhausted and intoxicated. He was wearing a Bulls jersey and looked vaguely familiar, even in the dark.

'Leave me alone!' he screamed as Brazil grabbed him by the back of his jersey. 'I didn't do nothing!'

'Whoa,' Brazil said. 'Calm down. Wait a minute. I've met you before. You're that kid at Godwin, the artist. A different sort of name. What was it…? Week? Wheeze?'

'I'm not telling you nothing!' The kid was heaving, sweat shining on his face and dripping off his chin.

Brazil looked around, wondering, listening. He didn't see anyone else. There was no burglar alarm hammering anywhere, the road dark, the night silent.

'Weed,' he suddenly remembered. 'Yeah, that's it.'

'No it ain't,' Weed said.

'Yeah, it is. I'm sure of it. I'm Andy Brazil.'

'You're that cop who came to school,' Weed accused him.

'Something wrong with that?' Brazil asked.

'So how come you're out here in a BMW?' Weed demanded to know.

'A better question is how come you're drunk and running like a maniac?'

Weed looked up to where the moon would be, were it not covered in clouds.

'I'm taking you home,' Brazil said.

'You can't make me,' Weed defied him, his words slurring and knocking one another down.

'Sure I can.' Brazil laughed. 'You're drunk in public. You're a juvenile. You can either come downtown or I'm taking you to your house, and if I were you, I'd choose the latter and take some aspirin and go to bed.'

Weed was thinking. A U-Haul truck rumbled past, then a station wagon. Weed was still thinking, wiping his face on his sleeve. A VW Rabbit buzzed by, then a Jeep that reminded Brazil of CABBAGES. Brazil shrugged and walked over to his car. He opened his door.

'Ill call a unit to come take you downtown,' he said. 'I'm not hauling prisoners in my personal car.'

'You said you'd drive me home in it,' Weed countered. 'Now you saying you ain't.'

'I said I'm not hauling your butt downtown.'

Brazil shut his door.

Weed yanked open the passenger's door and slid onto the leather seat. He fastened his shoulder harness and didn't say a word. Brazil pulled back onto West Gary.

'What's your real name?' Brazil asked him.

'Weed.'

'How'd you end up with a name like that, huh?'

'I dunno.' Weed stared down at his untied hightops.

'Sure you do.'

'My daddy works for the city.'

'And?' Brazil encouraged him.

'Cuttin' grass and stuff. Pullin' weeds. Called me Weed 'cause he said I'd grow like one.'

Instantly he was humiliated and alarmed. It was obvious he had never grown like a weed, and he had told the cop way too much. He watched the cop write down Weed on a little notepad. Shit! If the cop figured out Weed was a Pike, Weed would die. Smoke would see to that.

'What's your last name?' Brazil then asked.

'Jones,' Weed lied.

Brazil wrote this down, too.

'What's the five for?'

'Huh?'

'The five tattooed on your finger.'

Fear turned to panic. Weed's mind went blank.

'I don't got no tattoo,' he said stupidly.

'Yeah? Then what am I looking at?'

Weed examined one hand, then the other as if he had never taken a good look at himself before this moment. He stared at the 5 and rubbed it with his thumb.

'It don't mean nothing,' he said. 'I just did it, you know?'

'But why the number five?' Brazil persisted. 'You picked it for a reason.'

Weed was beginning to shake. If the cop figured out that 5 was Weed's slave number, one thing might lead to another.

'It's my lucky number,' Weed said as sweat trickled from his armpits, down his sides, beneath his Bulls colors.

Brazil fiddled with the CD player, jumping around from Mike amp; The Mechanics to Elton John before deciding on Enya.

'Man, how you listen to that?' Weed said finally.

'What about it?'

'It ain't got nothing to it. No good drums or cymbals or words that mean something.'

'Maybe the words mean something to me,' Brazil answered him. 'Maybe I don't care about drums or cymbals.'

'Oh yeah?' Weed got mad. 'You're just saying that because I play cymbals and pretty soon gonna learn drums.'

'You mind telling me where we're going?' Brazil said. 'Or is it a secret?'

'I bet you don't know nothing about cymbals.' Weed's logic was fading in and out, the dark smooth ride sedating him further. 'We're in the Azalea Parade, too.'

'I know you have to live somewhere near Godwin or you couldn't go to school there.' Brazil was getting increasingly frustrated.

Weed was falling asleep. He smelled bad and Brazil still didn't know why the kid had been out on the street drunk and running as if Jack the Ripper were after him. Brazil reached over and gently shook him. Weed practically jumped through the roof.

'No!' he screamed.

Brazil turned on the light above the visor and took a long hard look at Weed. Brazil noticed that the number 5 on his right index finger was crude and puffy.

'Tell me where you live,' Brazil said firmly. 'Wake up, Weed, and tell me.'

'Henrico Doctor.'

'The hospital?'

'Uh huh.'

'You live near Henrico Doctors' Hospital?'

'Uh huh. My head hurts so bad.'

'That's not in Godwin's district.'

'My daddy live in the district. My mama don't.'

'Well, who are you going home to, Weed? Your mother or your dad?'

'I don't hardly ever go near him. Just now and then, maybe a weekend every two months so he can go out and leave me alone, which is all right by me.'

'What street does your mother live on?'

'Forest and Skipwith. I can show you." Weed's tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth.

Brazil plucked Weed's right hand out of his lap.

'What'd you go and get a tattoo for?' he said again. 'Somebody talk you into that?'

'A lotta people get 'em.' Weed pulled his hand away.

'Looks to me like you just got it,' Brazil said. 'Maybe even today.'

Apparently Governor Feuer and his party had gone on to other courses and conversations. They had yet to emerge from La Petite France, and Roop was tired of waiting. He decided he might as well gather a little intelligence on the fish problem and dialed Hammer's home number, thanks to Fling, who had stupidly given it to Roop.

'Hammer,' she answered.

'Artis Roop here.'

'How are you doing, Artis?'

'I guess you're wondering how I got your home number 'It's in the phone book,' Hammer said.

'Right. Listen, Chief Hammer, I'm looking into this fish spill business…" 'Fish spill?' She sounded alarmed. 'Who told you about a fish spill?'

'I can't reveal my sources. But if there's a fish spill, I do think the public needs to know for its own protection, or if for no other reason, so they can choose alternate routes for work in the morning.'

'There is no fish spill that I know of,' Hammer answered firmly.

'Then what are people talking about?'

'This is simply a housekeeping matter you're referring to, Artis.'

'I don't understand.'

Roop was getting anxious as the door to the restaurant remained closed with no sign of activity. It suddenly occurred to him that the governor might try escaping through the service entrance. Maybe he had already gone. Roop unplugged the phone from the cigarette lighter and scrambled out of the car, still talking.

'How can fish or a fish spill be an internal matter?' he persisted.

'A computer glitch,' she replied.

'Oh,' he said, baffled. 'I still don't get it. Is fish some sort of virus?'

'We hope not,' said Hammer, who was always straightforward unless she refused to comment.