'So the COMSTAT telecommunications system is down?' Roop got to the raw nerve of the matter.

Hammer hesitated, then said, 'At the moment.'

'Everywhere?'

'I have nothing more to say,' Hammer replied flatly.

Roop was certain the fish problem was big. But he also had other fish to fry. Executive Protection Unit state police officers were coming out of La Petite France, the governor not far behind. Camera lights and flash guns fired from all sides, the governor gracious and unflappable, as was his wife, because they were used to this shit. Roop listened to governor this and governor that and was pleased that Feuer had no comment. Roop casually strolled over to Jed, the governor's EPU driver.

'I don't want to bother him,' Roop said. 'I feel sort of sorry for him being bothered like this all the time. Can't even eat dinner without everyone stalking him.'

'I wish everybody else felt like that,' Jed said.

'How the hell do you park that thing?' said Roop as he looked over every curve and inch of the gleaming black stretch Lincoln limousine.

Jed laughed as if it were nothing.

'I mean, really,' Roop went on as the governor and his wife were briskly escorted to the car. 'I couldn't be a driver to begin with. I get lost everywhere. You know how hard it is to roll up on a crime scene when you don't know where the hell you are?'

Roop had gathered intelligence on Jed, who was known by all, except the governor, to be directionally compromised and deceitful about it.

'You're kidding?' said Jed as he opened the back door for the first family and they climbed inside.

'Good evening, Governor and Mrs. Feuer,' Roop bent over to say politely.

'And to you,' replied the governor, who was a very gracious man if you could get to him.

'I saw you on Meet the Press,' Roop said.

'Oh, did you?'

'Yes, governor. You were great. Thank God someone's sticking up for the tobacco industry,' Roop gushed.

'It's common sense,' said Feuer. 'Personally, I don't smoke. But I believe it's a choice. Nobody forces it on anybody, and unemployment and black market cigarettes are not a happy prospect.'

'Next it will be alcohol,' Roop said with righteous indignation.

'Not if I have a say about it.'

'There'll be smokes instead of stills, governor,' Roop pitched the line that he believed would win him a Pulitzer Prize.

'I like that,' Feuer said.

'So do I,' said the first lady.

'Smokes.' Governor Feuer smiled wryly. 'As if ATF doesn't have enough to do. By the way,' he said to Roop, 'I don't believe we've met.'

The small house around the corner from Henrico Doctors' Hospital was brick with freshly painted blue shutters, and a well-cared-for yard. The driveway was gravel. There was no car. Brazil pulled in, small white rocks pinging under the BMW. He deliberated over what to do.

'When does your mom come home?' he asked Weed.

'She's home.' Weed was a little more alert.

'She doesn't own a car?'

'Yes she does.'

'It's not here,' Brazil said. 'It doesn't look to me like she's home.'

'Oh.' Weed sat up straighter and stared out the windshield, his fingers on the door handle. 'I want to go to bed. I'm tired. Just let me out now, okay?'

'Weed, where does your mother work?' Brazil persisted.

He was eager to go home and call it a day, too, but he felt very uneasy about leaving this evasive little kid alone.

'She works at the hospital,' Weed said, opening the door. 'She does stuff in the operating room.'

'She a nurse?'

'I don't think so. But she could be here about midnight.'

'Could?'

'Sometimes she's gone longer. She works real hard 'cause what she makes is all we got, and my daddy gambles a lot and got us bad in debt. I wanna go to bed. Thanks for the ride. I never been in a car this nice.'

Officer Brazil drove off the minute Weed locked the front door. He looked around the empty living room, wishing his mother was home and glad she wasn't. There was leftover meat loaf and cold cuts, and Weed wasn't sure if eating would make things better or worse. He gave it a try, grilling a ham and cheese sandwich, which helped calm down his stomach.

He went down the hall, pausing to open the door to Twister's bedroom. Weed stared at all the basketball trophies and posters, the bed unmade, throw rug rumpled, University of Richmond tee shirt on the floor, the computer on the desk with its Bad Dog screen saver. Everything was exactly the way Twister had left it the last time he had been in his room, August 23, a Sunday, the last time Weed had ever seen him alive.

Weed wandered inside and imagined he could smell Twister's Obsession cologne and hear his laughter and teasing talk. He envisioned Twister sitting in the middle of the floor, long muscular legs folded up as he put on his shoes and called Weed his 'little minute.'

'See, it takes sixty of those to make an hour,' he would say. 'Now I know you can't add worth shit, but trust me on this one. Soon you'll be an hour, then a day, then a week, then a month. And you'll be big like me.'

'No I won't,' said Weed. 'You was twice as big as me when you was my age.'

Then Twister would unfold himself and start dribbling an invisible basketball. He would take on Weed, faking left and right, keeping the ball tight against him, elbows going this way and that.

'Time's running out on the clock and I got just one little minute!' Twister would laugh as he snatched up Weed and dunked him on the bed, bouncing him up and down until Weed was dizzy with delight.

Weed walked over to the desk and sat down. He turned on the computer, the only thing he ever touched inside his brother's room, because Twister had taught Weed how to use the computer and Weed knew Twister would want him to keep using it. Weed logged onto AOL. He sent e-mail to Twister's mailbox and checked to see if anybody else had.

Other than the notes Twister got daily from Weed, there was nothing else.

Hi Twister You reading my letters? They ain't been opened, but I bet you don't have to open them the way other people do. I ain't changed nothing in your room.

Mama don't come in it. She always keeps the door shut.

Weed waited for an instant message. He somehow believed that one of these days Twister was going to contact Weed through the computer. He was going to say, What's ticking, little minute? I sure am glad you're writing me. I see everything you're doing so you better be keeping your ass straight.

Weed waited and waited. He logged off and turned out the light. He stood in the doorway for a while, too depressed to move. He wandered into his bedroom and set the alarm clock for 2:45 A.M.

'Why you not here?' he said to Twister.

The dark had no answer.

'Why you not here, Twister! I don't know what to do no more, Twister. Mama quit coming home, works so much it's like she got hit on the head or something. Just sleeps and gets up and goes. She hardly talks no more ever since you went on. Daddy gives her a real hard time and now I got Smoke. He might kill me, Twister. He wouldn't if you was here.'

Weed went to sleep talking to Twister. Weed slept hard, his head full of cruel dreams. He was being chased by a garbage truck that made horrible scraping sounds as it rumbled down a dark road looking for him. It was on his tail no matter which way he went. He was sweating, his heart hammering when the alarm clock buzzed. He snatched it from the bedside table and turned it off. He listened, hardly breathing, hoping his mother was still asleep.

He turned on the light and dressed quickly. He went over to the small card table beneath the window and sat down to think about what he would need to paint the metal statue, and wishing he could have come right out and told Officer Brazil what was going on and why he had the tattoo. But Weed knew Smoke would get him. Somehow he would.