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any kind of wire on him. It's as if he came from another world. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to talk about him or his people."
    As the two detectives sat watching the front of the club, a small black Ford pulled up. The car was tilted over towards the driver's seat, and when the driver got out, it was easy to see why. A huge, fat, white man got out from the driver's side and waddled around the car, carrying a brown briefcase in his left hand. He glanced down at a piece of paper in his right hand, reading an address as he reached the sidewalk.

    The three black men loitering in front of the building stared at him coldly as he pushed past them. He was breathing hard as though he had just run ten miles.
    "I wonder who the hell he could be," Benson said quietly.
    Ryan lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "He could be the neighborhood's friendly insurance man, you know." Even while he was talking, Ryan was writing down the license number of the late-model car.
    As Benson watched his partner write down the number, he couldn't help but think how it would be if the fat white man had been black. His partner probably would have suggested that they pull him over when he came out and shake him down.
    For spite, Benson started to make the suggestion himself. Why not, he thought coldly. What's good for a black man should be good for a white one, too. But he knew better. If the white man turned out to be a working businessman going about his business of robbing the black neighborhood and they shook him down, all he'd have to do would be to call downtown and make a complaint about being illegally stopped and searched. Then there would be hell to pay. They would have to come up with some kind of an excuse for why they had detained the man and put him through so much trouble.
    Benson had to laugh sardonically as he thought about it: all those black men who were stopped daily, even with their wives along, and searched out on the streets for no other reason than that they were black. The officers who stopped them believed all black men did something wrong, so they had a right to stop and frisk any black man they saw. But it was so different when it came to a white man. Oh God, so much different, he moaned.

    "What's wrong?" Ryan inquired slowly, studying his partner closely. "You got an idea or something?"
    For just a minute Benson debated with himself on whether or not to let his partner in on his private little joke.
    Defiantly he stated, "Oh man, do you really want to know?" He then continued before Ryan could answer, "I was thinking, Ryan, why go through the trouble of writing his number down, then havin' to check it downtown, when more than fuckin' likely it's a rented car in a phony name? To beat all that shit, why don't we just act like he's a black dude when he comes out and lean on him a little. You know what I mean, Ryan? We lean on enough niggers daily for it to be quite easy."
    Benson watched his partner's face. It went red, then Ryan rubbed at his chin nervously, trying to make up his mind on how to answer Benson.
    "Man, you're really in a hell of a mood today, huh?" Ryan began as he thought over the ticklish question Benson had dropped in his lap. He cursed silently at himself, wishing he had left well enough alone. Now, since he'd asked for it, Benson had really put it in his lap. All of the problems of what could happen flashed through his mind. The last thing he wanted was another meeting with the captain-not anytime soon anyway. If the fat salesman was to do any complaining, that's just what it would add up to. Another fuckin' meeting with the captain. There was something like a tacit agreement among the policemen about white businessmen. You didn't harass them while they were down in the black neighborhoods. A white junkie was something else. He was nothing. But a taxpayer, that was a horse of another color-white color at that.

    Benson could read it all in his face. "Don't worry, Ryan, I was just foolin' with you, man. I don't