uick."

"Roadblock?" Malone said. "What for?"

The cabbie shrugged eloquently. "Who knows?" he said. "You ask
questions, you might get answers you don't like. I don't ask
questions, I live longer."

"But--"

The cops, meanwhile, had advanced toward the car. One of them looked
in. "Who's the passenger?" he said.

The cabbie swore again. "You want me to take loyalty oaths from
people?" he said. "You want to ruin my business? I got a passenger,
how do I know who he is? Maybe he's the Lone Ranger."

"Don't get funny," the cop said. His partner had gone around to the
back of the car.

"What's this, the trunk again?" the cabbie said. "You think maybe I'm
smuggling in showgirls from the edge of town?"

"Ha, ha," the cop said distinctly. "One more joke and it's thirty
days, buster. Just keep cool and nothing will happen."

"Nothing, he calls it," the cabbie said dismally. But he stayed silent
until the second cop came back to rejoin his partner.

"Clean," he said.

"Here, too, I guess," the first cop said, and looked in again. "You,"
he said to Malone. "You a tourist?"

"That's right," Malone said. "Kenneth J. Malone, at the Great
Universal. Arrived this afternoon. What's happening here, officer?"

"I'm asking questions," the cop said. "You're answering them. Outside
of that, you don't have to know a thing." He looked very tough and
official. Malone didn't say anything else.

After a few more seconds they went back to their positions and the
cabbie started the car again. Ten yards past the roadblock he turned
around and looked at Malone. "It's the sheriff's office every time,"
he said. "Now, you take a State cop, he's O.K. because what does he
care? He's got other things to worry about, he don't have to bear down
on hard-working cabbies."

"Sure," Malone said helpfully.

"And the city police--they're right here in the city, they're O.K. I
know them, they know me, nothing goes wrong. Get what I mean?"

"The sheriff's office is the worst, though?" Malone said.

"The worst is nothing compared to those boys," the cabbie said.
"Believe me, every time they can make life tough for a cabbie, they do
it. It's hatred, that's what it is. They hate cabbies. That's the
sheriff's office for you."

"Tough," Malone said. "But the roadblock--what _was_ it for, anyhow?"

The cabbie looked back at the road, avoided an oncoming car with a
casual sweep of the wheel, and sighed gustily. "Mister," he said, "you
don't ask qu