The city line ran right up against the Armstrong—or, as some preferred, Strongarm—Houses. One of the main jobs of the Gannon PD was to keep an eye on the high-rises, see if any Gannon junkies were scoring dope over there and attempting to hop the fence back into town. That and eyeing the Armstrong youngbloods, watching for four kids on two bikes riding into Gannon and returning a half hour later, four kids on four bikes. The Armstrong teenagers were scared of getting popped over there too, because the Gannon PD liked to make a lasting impression: “Keep our city clean.”

“I was on Hurley Street, right? And I had heard that—where the street ends? That you could just keep going, you know, drive right through that park—what’s that…”

“Martyrs Park?”

“Right, Martyrs.”

Some park—a half acre of garbage, trees, and benches dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers, the Gannon-Dempsy border running right through the middle. Gannon maintained a twenty-four-hour post, informally known as the Watch, a permanent patrol-car presence on their side of the line, directly across from Martyrs, in the parking lot of a bankrupt mini-mall.

“Martyrs Park,” she went on. “See, I had heard…I had heard that you could drive right through and come out on Jessup in Gannon, right?”

“Yeah, you can,” Lorenzo said, not writing yet, holding a notepad in one hand, a radio in the other. He took in her lank hair, her thin, sloped shoulders, that T-shirt and its public-service announcement.

He found himself growing somewhat cool to her. Armstrong was always taking shit, but half the customers were from Gannon. Keep our city clean…

“So I got halfway into the park and, like, where’s the… There’s no road. It’s like a forest, just trees. So, I was starting to back out of the park? Go the regular way? And this guy appears in my headlights. It’s like he just came out from behind a tree or something, and I couldn’t, I didn’t want to deal with him, but I couldn’t see that well where I was going in reverse, right? And before I know it he comes up to the window, says to me, ‘You trying to cut through? You off the path. Path’s over there.’” She was using a black inflection, but lightly.

“And he’s pointing to, like, between the trees, and I can’t see where, and he says, ‘Just through there,’ and he’s laughing, but not—I mean, he’s friendly, like, trying to help out, and he says, ‘Just…’ and he opens my car door, says, ‘Look where I’m pointing,’ like I should get out of the car, stand up, and… I knew better, but I wasn’t thinking or something. Next thing I know the guy, like, yanked me out, and I went…” She held up her hands, palms out. “He, like, shoved me down so hard I hit the ground like I fell off a building or something.”

Lorenzo nodded, glancing at her knees to see if there were dirt stains consistent with the throw down she was describing. There were.

But she still wasn’t making eye contact.

“And I, I got up and he was climbing into the car and I yelled, like, ‘Hey!’ and I went to—I grabbed his arm. He came out and this time he tossed me, I landed, like, ‘Whoof.’ I couldn’t get my wind, but I tried. I got up, I tried to, but I couldn’t get the words out.” She was hyper now, Lorenzo just taking it in. “I mean, he was just flying out of there, and I… You don’t know, I just…” Faltering, she shrugged, a small gesture of retreat. Lorenzo was only half listening. He was thinking about a Gannon woman’s getting beat up in Armstrong, in Strongarm, in Darktown Park, hoping he wouldn’t have to deal too much with any of their people—then drifting off even further, dividing their PD into the hotheads and the steady hands, the negotiators and the hard-asses.

Brenda raised her bandaged hands to her eyes. The sudden movement pulled him back into the room.

“You OK?”

She didn’t answer.

“Brenda?”

“What.”

“He took your car and reversed all the way out of the park?”

“Right.”

“And then drove away on Hurley?”

“Right.”

“You possibly see which way he was headed?” Lorenzo thinking, Toward Newark, where else, stolen-car capital of the free world. “Brenda? You see which way he turned off Hurley?”

Before she could answer, he cut her off. “Excuse me.” Then, into the radio, “South Investigator 15 to base.”

“Base. Go.”

“Yeah, on that carjack in the South? Make sure Newark PD is notified. And please reach out to Bump Rosen, have him start a canvass for witnesses in Armstrong.” Lorenzo hated to have to do that. He checked the time: ten-forty-five. Law and Order was still on, Bump’s kid probably only halfway through the courtroom part of the show. He hoped that Bump would dally out the door, wait until his kid was sentenced, at least.

He turned down his radio. “I’m sorry,” he said to Brenda.

“You don’t know,” she said, glaring at the far wall, her head jerking.