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belt and commented, “Nice suit you got on. You look like a fucking ghetto Santa Claus in it.”
    Richard pivoted, looked over his shoulder at Mandelstam. “Say who?”
    Mandelstam continued the pat down, running his fingers over Richard’s pants. He came up with a deck of pornographic playing cards, two half-smoked cigarette butts, a nail clipper, and a book of matches. He searched Richard’s legs, pulling down his socks, and copped a bottle of Vicodin. The policeman had a horselaugh at his discovery. He read the label and said, “Fucking opiates. I love them. This stuff gets you so blitzed and constipated, I took it for my legs once and I didn’t have a bowel movement for six days. I didn’t know if I was in heaven or hell.”
    The carrot-faced cop was convinced the black man was a junkie. The evidence was the red suit. Richard Rood had to be an addict with that kind of taste in clothes. The only people who wore loud colors in the Tenderloin were dope fiends and whores. “What you taking the Vicodin for?” he asked.
    “Doctor’s orders.”
    “Yeah, right. And the Pope smokes dope. Let’s see your arms.”
    Richard rolled back the sleeves of his jacket with dignity. The cop studied his shiny black skin with the zealotry of a rocket scientist and was visibly angered when he didn’t find any telltale tracks. For Richard the worst part of the ordeal wasn’t having his money taken. It wasn’t having his nuts fondled by Mandelstam. It wasn’t having his Vicodin stolen. And it wasn’t having his suit ridiculed. It was the cloying scent of Mandelstam’s deodorant. The smell had managed to get in his jheri curls. He was standing so close to the white dude, he could see every pore on his cauliflower nose, even the blackheads that ringed his nostrils.
    “You’re on drugs.” Mandelstam held the Vicodin bottle up to the sun to prove his thesis. “What do you know about the Brinks money?”
    Richard deflected the interrogative. He didn’t know what the cop was talking about. “What money?”
    Mandelstam’s riot helmet refracted the sun’s etiolated rays. “Don’t give me that crap, you asshole,” he said. “You’re out here all day long. You know what I’m talking about.”
    An asshole was uncool. An asshole was dishonest. An asshole was a perjurer and a back-stabber. An asshole hedged his bets. It was the cruelest of insults. Gnashing his teeth, Richard Rood resisted the urge to sass the policeman. Much as he wanted to start a fight, he saw the wisdom in keeping his trap shut. There was no sense in causing aggravation or a fracas. He didn’t want to get on the receiving end of the nightstick. He didn’t want to go to the hoosegow. He didn’t want to sit in a felony tank cell with nothing to do, and so he was deliberate with his answer. “I don’t know a thing about no goddamn money.”
    Richard was telling the truth. He didn’t know squat about the Brinks paper. But it was plain to see by the scornful look on Mandelstam’s mug that honesty would get him nowhere. The realization was bitter and deepened his belief that lying was the only way to get through life.
    Mandelstam trained the nightstick on him. “My ass, you don’t. You’re probably the dick who ran off with it. Where else would you get the cash to buy that shitty vinyl suit you got on?”
    Rood was taken aback. Bile rose in his throat. Pink lights danced behind his eyes. The punk was saying his suit was made from plastic? He would allow no man or beast to disrespect his vines. He’d paid four hundred dollars for them at Kaplan’s army-navy surplus store. The cop had crossed his Rubicon—he just didn’t know it yet. Richard cursed him softly, “Fuck you, man. If I had that Brinks money, you think I’d be out here dealing with your shit? Hell, no. I’d be in a penthouse, kicking back in style.”
    His opinion hung uncomfortably in the air. It hadn’t been a smart thing to say. The sentiment guaranteed him a trip into a wilderness