TASTE LOUNGE: THE VIEW FROM A PATROL CAR

Cape Girardeau Police Sergeant Roger Fields rolls east on Good Hope Street in his patrol car, a notable display of law enforcement presence to the customers leaving The Taste Lounge at closing time.

The customers walk in groups and in pairs, on the sidewalk, crisscrossing the street, gathering in cars to hang out the windows, and, although it's 1:30 a.m., a car blares its stereo so loud the chassis vibrates. The crowd is more than 70 people.

A girl staggers onto the asphalt in front of the sergeant's headlights. Fields brakes.

"I don't need you or you or you!" the girl screams at the crowd drunkenly, and, suddenly recognizing the patrol car beside her, "And I don't need you! F--- you!"

For a half-second, Fields' eyes fill with the rage of receiving an unprovoked attack. In that moment, the illogic of the scene sinks in -- a skinny, unarmed girl screaming a provocation at Fields, a big man, his uniform, semiautomatic pistol, nightstick, and the handset radio that can bring allies.

Just as instantaneously, his eyes return to stoic professionalism.

The fluid crowd snickers, calls the girl on to further antics, but gives her and the patrol car a wide berth.

"When you're outnumbered 20 to one, you have to pick your fights," Fields says softly with an it-happens-all-the-time grin. He rolls on.

The sergeant pulls to the curb on the east side of the bar, joining two other parked patrol cars.

Before Fields can exit his vehicle, Officer David McDermott, standing on the sidewalk, watching the scene, is approached by a stumbling woman. Caroline's eyes are barely open. She is unkempt, semi-homeless.

"What's your problem?" she snaps at McDermott, slurring the words, moving past him.

Three hours before, Caroline, her boyfriend, and infant child visited the lobby of police headquarters on Sprigg Street. Caroline had said she did not have enough money for a place to sleep that night. Fields shook the infant's hand, gauging its strength, judged it passable, and then handed Caroline a free pass for a night at the Relax Inn.

McDermott sighs.

Scanning faces

The crowd leaving The Taste in the wee hours Friday is a fraction of what Cape Girardeau police expected. Informants reported some of the parties involved in the Jesus Sides shooting Oct. 19 had remained in town since the funeral and were looking for payback. Officers had scanned dossiers on these men, pages with Xeroxed mugshots. But the suspects are not in this crowd.

Yoyo, a customer exiting The Taste, explains people are staying away from the lounge for the night, mourning for the dead 19-year-old.

"That one guy, Sus, just passed away. That one guy who died. A lot of his girlfriends and friends weren't in the club because they're remembering him," she says.

This crowd is not the Armani-suited gangsters of rap videos. This crowd is not the rigorously perfumed-skinned college students in downtown bars. In and around The Taste, this crowd parties with the intensity of an uncertain tomorrow, watched carefully by police.

"There is nothing an officer can do to prevent somebody from wanting to commit a crime," says Fields, a 13-year police veteran. "The only thing we can do is diminish his opportunity to do it."