"Fuck you, Brandy. This whole thing was your idea. If my mom found out, I'd never get the Beamer."
"You'd go to fucking jail," she muttered under her breath, skirting a bunch of people who had stopped to gab in the middle of the blocked-off street.
"What for?" he whined.
"What fucking for? I'm only fifteen," she reminded him.
"Hey! I'm not supposed to get upset. My ulcer will start bleeding, and I'll have to go to the hospital again. I don't want to get mad at you, okay?" His face was red and his hand was bunched into a fist. He looked a little scary.
"Okay, okay, don't be upset," Brandy placated him.
"You do this to me. This is your fault. You wiggle around, and I can't help myself."
"I don't wiggle." She shut out his whining, then cheered up as they headed north. "Look at this. The whole world is watching that asshole dog running around the park. He's got to be one shit tracker. Isn't this great?" she said excitedly.
"Yeah, it's pretty good," David had to admit.
"We should do this again. Really." Near the park, entrance, they merged with the crowd of bystanders and media gathered outside the park wall. One video team was set up and doing an interview with a woman in a leather jacket. Brandy thought she recognized the interviewer and admired the cut of the jacket.
"My mom would look great in that," she remarked.
"Yeah, right. Your mom."
Brandy walked around the video camera to get a better look. She was distracted by a man talking into a tape recorder. He pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket, extracted a cigarette, and lit up with a Zippo. Brandy knew from the Zippo, the rich smoke, and distinctive blue wrapper that the man was French and the cigarette was an unfiltered Gauloise. She considered asking him for one in his native language and blowing him away with her French.
"You're too cocky. You're going to get us in trouble." David took her arm roughly and trapped it against his side. Once again she dodged him, pulling hard to get away.
"Don't be such a dick."
"Hey, kids! What-are you blind or something? That's a police line." A big cop swung around suddenly, waving his night stick at Brandy as she casually stepped between two police barriers with a pair of cops at each end.
"What's the problem?" She stopped immediately, cocked her head to one side, and flashed him one of her bright innocent smiles that always brought male attention down to her chest level.
"What's the matter with you? Don't you know when you see one of those you don't go there?" The cop sounded angry. He was big and heavy but looked pretty young. Brandy pegged him right away as someone who hated kids. She also noticed that his blue eyes slid down to her chest before turning to David.
"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.
Brandy piped up. "What's happening? I live up there." She pointed toward her dad's pink building down in the next block. "We saw all the activity and wondered what was going on. Is that a crime?" she smiled some more, clicking her tongue pierce against her teeth. The cop's interest excited her.
He looked at David and asked the question again. "Where do you think you're going?"
David shifted his feet, moving closer to Brandy. "If you're looking for someone maybe we can help you," he offered timidly. If she could be daring, he could be daring. He smiled at her to show he had balls.
"You want to help us?" The tall cop poked the short cop next to him with the nightstick. The two had been talking, watched the crowd. Now they had something to focus on. They grinned.
"Yeah, maybe we could, like, help out," Brandy said.
"That's very nice of you. Do you guys hang around here a lot?" The short cop joined the conversation. He seemed nicer than the first one.
Brandy jutted a hip in his direction. "Uh-huh."
"No kidding." He smiled in a friendly sort of way.
"I bet we know everything that goes on here," Brandy bragged, basking in the cop's smile.
"No kidding." The tall cop aped the short cop.
"Well, we do." Brandy thought he was mocking her and plunged into motor-mouth mode. "I see a lot from that window. David and I both do. Just like in that old movie, the one my dad likes because the wife gets offed-you know which one I mean. Hitchcock, very noir. The guy sees a murder from the window, and it turns out…"
"Hitchcock?"
"He was a filmmaker," Brandy explained. "He really revolutionized the whole suspense thing in moviemaking, but you're from that time so I bet you already know that."
"Oh yeah, you think I'm that old?" The cop looked over at the pink brick building she indicated, then at the trees in the park, very leafy and green. "Did you see something from your window you'd like to tell us about?"
David chose this moment to intervene. "We sss-ssaw a tracking dog, and we're good at finding things."
"Yeah, what are you looking for?" Brandy asked.
"Nice sweater," the second cop said. He was short, had a crew cut. "What color would you say that sweater is?"
"Pink," Brandy piped up quickly, pleased that he'd noticed.
"Pink. It's really nice."
"Thanks. Pink is really in this season."
"Why don't you come along with me? There are some people you can talk to-how about that?"
"Why can't I talk to you right here?" Brandy gave him a big smile. David gave her a little punch. Maybe they were getting too daring.
"Because, I'm not in charge of the investigation." The big cop was serious now. He wasn't looking at her right. Brandy didn't like that.
"Whatever," she muttered. "Do I get to see the dog?"
"Maybe when it's done working."
Brandy bounced on the soles of her expensive Nike Airs. "Cool," she said. She felt up now, way up, and starved to death from the pot. She didn't care that David was getting anxious, and she had no idea that her eyes gave her away.
Nineteen
After the Special Case detectives took off and Slocum left with the dog, April went in search of Woody, who had been busy asking questions and photographing people on the scene with disposable cameras all afternoon. The cameras were a surprising new initiative on his part. She walked north and found him under a tree near Eightieth Street talking to a boy and a girl. The girl, she realized with a jolt, was wearing a pink sweater.
Right away April pegged the two of them as private school kids. She saw their rank in the way they stood. Even from way off down the path she could tell the girl was holding court, aware of the power of her little body. Her voice carried a long distance.
"I love dogs. I bet you don't know anything about dogs. I know everything about dogs." She was excited, was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "You should see me work with that dog," she said.
"Sure." Woody caught April's eye. Relief was evident in his face as she strolled over.
"Hey, Sergeant, I've got a present for you. A real find. A tracking expert with a sense of style. Nice sweater, huh." He rolled his eyes at April as the girl turned to her.
"Yes, I'm an expert." The girl bounced some more, the boy couldn't take his eyes off her.
Woody raked at his crew cut with one hand and introduced the kids with the other. "This is Sergeant Woo." He turned to April. "What we have here is Brandy Fabman. She lives right over there." Woody pointed out the pink brick building, then checked his notes for the exact address. April spoke before he could recite it.
"Hi, Brandy." She gave the girl a warm smile.