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know what I mean, that green stuff." Angelo leaned across the desk on his elbows and tried to stare Kenyatta in the eye but quickly changed his mind. Instead he tried to cover up his error by playing the big shot.
    "I don't generally come this far out of my way for no fuckin' body, Kenny," he stated, glaring across the desk, "but you've been bugging me for this information for the past six months at least, so I come up with it for you, but I've got to have my bread."
    Kenyatta stared coldly at the nervous white man. Suddenly he stood up from behind his desk. "Listen, sucker," he began loudly, "you come down here and I try and treat you like a man, but that ain't good enough for you. You want us to kiss your fuckin' ass to show how much we appreciate your coming down here, as you say. But we ain't doing nothing of the kind. Honky, you came down here because you can't sell that information you got nowhere else in this world. Ain't nobody willin' to pay the price I was goin' pay for it."
    Angelo drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly, hoping the tightness he felt would disappear with it. He hadn't missed the past tense Kenyatta had used. The words seemed to stifle the very air in the room. He pulled at his collar, and his face became red as a beet. The glare coming from the ceiling lights seemed to move the walls inward, sealing him in. He could picture the army of people he was in debt to, marching arm in arm toward him, each one carrying a different kind of weapon.

    "Now wait a minute, boy," he began, and realized at once that he had blundered before he even began. That was the problem of trying to deal with these fuckin' spades. You couldn't open your mouth without steppin' on their tender egos some kind of way.
    Kenyatta's voice was smooth and softly triumphant. "Things have just changed a little, that's all, Angelo. We don't have to pay that wild price you were asking now because we already know half of the names ourselves. But," Kenyatta waved to the man to remain silent, "since you did go through so much trouble, we've decided to offer you five thousand dollars for your snitching. I mean, if you really look at it like you should, that's good money for an informer, whether he's white or black."
    Being called an informer didn't set too well with Angelo either, but what hurt worse than that was the thought that he couldn't collect the whole ten thousand dollars he had come to think of as his own. Yet five grand was better than nothing. As far as he was concerned, the information he was passing on to these black guys was less than useless. He couldn't see what they could possibly do with it. Even if they turned it over to the police, it would be nothing new. The big wheels in the police department already knew who was responsible for the steady flow of dope into the city, yet they couldn't, or wouldn't, do anything about it. So what could some black hoods living in a ghetto do?

    Angrily he reached in his pocket and snatched out the envelope. "Here," he snarled as he tossed it across the desk, all the time hoping that the black man wouldn't change his mind again. He needed the five grand to live. Without it, he was a walking dead man. His mind was already working on how he could pay certain people half their money. When they saw him come up with some cash, they would know that he was trying, that he wasn't just attempting to shine them on. Yes, the five grand would be enough to hold back the strong-arm boys.
    Kenyatta stared at the envelope as if it was a snake. He hadn't appreciated the white man tossing it down on his desk instead of handing it to him like a man. For a second, he visualized himself choking the fat man to death. It was a picture that he enjoyed. How desperately the fat man would struggle. The image of the man's red face turning blue brought a smile to his lips.
    Angelo sat impatiently waiting for Kenyatta to make up his mind. Nervously he lit up a fat cigar. "I mean, what the hell gives around here,