“Give him your money, Franklin,” Marion whispered, and he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and held it forward.

The man with the gun smiled, showing a silver incisor. He snatched the wallet and turned to Marion. “Now you, puta,” he said. His partner grabbed at her purse, and she instinctively held tightly to it, so there was a brief tug-of-war between them. Franklin gestured in feeble protest, and the man with the gun lifted the weapon and pointed it at his forehead.

“Shoot him,” the short man said, and Franklin, staring at the handgun from a foot away, recognized it as a Smith and Wesson .38, and he knew from his reading that its bullet would travel at one thousand feet per second and would enter and leave his skull before he heard the report. His bladder opened and hot urine soaked his crotch.

In the end the men took the wallet and purse and fled. Franklin stood for a moment watching them go and then turned toward the lights and the crowded sidewalk. Incredibly he saw a Chicago policeman standing astride a bicycle, and he ran toward the man and began jabbering wildly.

“I’ve been robbed!” he shouted. He whirled to stare in the direction the thieves had taken and thought he could still see the White Sox cap bobbing in the throng. The policeman frowned at him and held his palms up. “Quick, quick,” Franklin shouted again, “they’re getting away!” He grabbed the man’s shoulder and tried to turn him, and the policeman took Franklin’s fingers in his fist and bent them backward, forcing him to his knees.

From his place on the pavement Franklin looked again for the robbers, but the night had absorbed them utterly, as a dark sky soaks up a distant flock of starlings.

He wrote outraged letters to the chief of police, the alderman, the mayor, and the congressman representing the district. He had been robbed and the policeman hired to protect him had ignored his pleas and had, in fact, injured his hand. He described the assailants in scrupulous detail. The ball cap and