In the morning briefing at the station, the watch commander had emphasized how dangerous was the combination of the heat, the holiday weekend, binge drinking, and domestic firearms. As a usual precaution, public service ads on TV and radio – as well as billboards all over the city in two languages – warned against firing weapons into the air in celebration. People somehow forgot that what goes up must come down. Those bullets don’t go into orbit – they can kill a child miles away, where there isn’t even a drive-by perpetrator to blame for the family’s lifelong grief.
“That open window makes me nervous,” Oates complained. Their cruiser didn’t have air conditioning.
“I gotta have some air,” Torres said.
“Procedure says leave it up,” Oates shot back. “You wanna take a brick in the head?”
