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robbery dick claimed had the most amazing ramen in Los Angeles, Latin-Japanese fusion, flavors you couldn’t get anywhere else, cilantro-tripe, abalone-chili, a jalapeño-duck to die for.
    Scott was trying to figure out how he had screwed up the directions when he suddenly heard it.
    “Listen.”
    “What?”
    “Shh, listen. Turn off the engine.”
    “You have no idea where this place is, do you?”
    “You have to hear this. Listen.”
    Uniformed LAPD officer Stephanie Anders, a P-III with eleven years on the job, shifted into Park, turned off their Adam car, and stared at him. She had a fine, tanned face with lines at the corners of her eyes, and short, sandy hair.
    Scott James, a thirty-two-year-old P-II with seven years on the job, grinned as he touched his ear, telling her to listen. Stephanie seemed lost for a moment, then blossomed with a wide smile.
    “It’s quiet.”
    “Crazy, huh? No radio calls. No chatter. I can’t even hear the freeway.”
    It was a beautiful spring night: temp in the mid-sixties, clear; the kind of windows-down, short-sleeve weather Scott enjoyed. Their call log that night showed less than a third their usual number of calls, which made for an easy shift, but left Scott bored. Hence, their search for the unfindable noodle house, which Scott had begun to believe might not exist.
    Stephanie reached to start the car, but Scott stopped her.
    “Let’s sit for a minute. How many times you hear silence like this?”
    “Never. This is so cool, it’s creeping me out.”
    “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
    Stephanie laughed, and Scott loved how the streetlights gleamed in her eyes. He wanted to touch her hand, but didn’t. They had been partners for ten months, but now Scott was leaving, and there were things he wanted to say.
    “You’ve been a good partner.”
    “Are you going to get all gooey on me?”
    “Yeah. Kinda.”
    “Okay, well, I’m going to miss you.”
    “I’m going to miss you more.”
    Their little joke. Everything a competition, even to who would miss the other the most. Again he wanted to touch her hand, but then she reached out and took his hand in hers, and gave him a squeeze.
    “No, you’re not. You’re going to kick ass, take names, and have a blast. It’s what you want, man, and I couldn’t be happier. You’re a stud.”
    Scott laughed. He had played football for two years at the University of Redlands before blowing his knee, and joined LAPD a couple of years later. He took night classes for the next four years to finish his degree. Scott James had goals. He was young, determined, and competitive, and wanted to run with the big dogs. He had been accepted into LAPD’s Metro Division, the elite uniformed division that backed up area-based officers throughout the city. Metro was a highly trained reserve force that rolled out on crime suppression details, barricade situations, and high-conflict security operations. They were the best, and also a necessary assignment for officers who hoped to join LAPD’s most elite uniformed assignment—SWAT. The best of the best. Scott’s transfer to Metro would come at the end of the week.
    Stephanie was still holding his hand, and Scott was wondering what she meant by it, when an enormous Bentley sedan appeared at the end of the street, as out of place in this neighborhood as a flying carpet, windows up, smoked glass, not a speck of dust on its gleaming skin.
    Stephanie said, “Check out the Batmobile.”
    The Bentley oozed past their nose, barely making twenty miles per hour. Its glass was so dark the driver was invisible.
    “Want to light him up?”
    “For what, being rich? He’s probably lost like us.”
    “We can’t be lost. We’re the police.”
    “Maybe he’s looking for the same stupid ramen place.”
    “You win. Let’s forget the ramen and grab some eggs.”
    Stephanie reached to start their car as the slow-motion Bentley approached the next T-intersection thirty yards past them. At the moment it