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want the trouble it could bring either."
    For a minute Ryan couldn't look his partner in the eye. "You make me feel like a three-dollar bill, Ben. If you want to, we can shake him down. I was just thinking, though, if a kickback comes out of this shit, we'll have some tall explaining to do. The fuckin' captain will say, `Why are you guys hustling a white man? Everybody in the city knows it was black gunmen who made the hit, so where's the connection with this white merchant?"'
    He didn't have to illustrate too much for Benson to know that his partner was right. "I mean, Ben," Ryan added, "it won't go as hard for me as it could go for you. All I'd have to say was that it was your idea and I just went along with it, even though you know I wouldn't shift the blame on you. But I'm just trying to show you where we'd be. The first thing we'd have to answer is why. Why in the fuck did we bother him? Don't we have enough troublemakers down here to cope with without going out of our way to disturb workin' people?"

    The very air in the car seemed to become oppressive to Benson, but what his partner said was true. They would never be able to make their superiors understand. Even as Benson thought about it, it seemed foolish. What would a well-dressed white man want with someone like Kenyatta, except to sell him something that would be junk a month later? They lived in two different worlds; the world of men like Kenyatta was a black world, devoid of whites. Even as Benson thought about it, he remembered that the little he was able to dig up on Kenyatta showed him to be militant, preaching against associating with whites. As he went over the possibilities in his mind, Benson quickly came to the conclusion that the fat white man was probably just the landlord coming to collect his rent.
    He put his thoughts into words. "You know, Ryan, I'm grabbing at straws, really. That guy's probably the landlord trying to collect his rent." Benson laughed dryly, then added, "And that's more than likely one hell of a job right there, trying to get his rent out of a bunch of hustlers like them punks hanging out there. Yeah, he's got one hell of a job on his hands, if I know anything about young brothers."
    Ryan wasn't fooled by his partner's words. It had hurt Benson to make that small confession. Benson really wanted to shake down the white man. "Now, Ben, don't go against your hunches. If you want to, just give the word, man, and we'll have that fat load of lard jacked up before God gets the news."
    "You're a good man, Ryan," Benson said slowly. "Yeah, you're a damn good one to work with. But now that I think about it, I believe I was wrong. I can't picture no reason for there to be any connection between them, other than legal business. Kenyatta hates whites, so they couldn't have much other than business between them. Let's let it pass this time. We can still check out the license number with headquarters."

     

6

    THE BLACK MEN SHUFFLED reluctantly out of Kenyatta's private office. None of them wanted to leave until they found out what the fat white man wanted. It was the first time any of them had ever seen Kenyatta treat a white man with any kind of respect. When this one entered, Kenyatta had gotten up and walked across the carpeted floor to throw his arm around the fat man's shoulders as if they were old war buddies. After making the man as comfortable as possible, Kenyatta had started ushering the rest of the people out of the office until there wasn't anyone left but him and the white man.
    "Well, Angelo," Kenyatta began, "I hope you brought what I wanted."

    Angelo rubbed his hand across his huge stomach. He had been nervous at the sight of so many young, wild-looking black men. He knew they were followers of Kenyatta, and that Kenyatta preached death to the white man. So far, though, all he'd received was the red-carpet treatment.
    Before answering the question Kenyatta had put to him, he asked one of his own. "What about the paper? You