Prices in the District had skyrocketed in the past few years as the federal government became one of the few growth industries in America, and for this reason Mayberry’s property taxes had shot through the roof. Even though his street was one of the edgiest in Columbia Heights, which was one of the lower-end neighborhoods in the heart of the District, Arthur and his sixty-eight-year-old wife Bernice could barely afford their mortgage, so they’d taken to renting out a tiny and not exactly up-to-code basement bedroom for two hundred fifty a month. They’d recently lost their last tenant when he was arrested on a possession charge, so when the knock came at their front door first thing after church on Sunday morning, Arthur found himself hoping it was someone who’d seen the For Rent sign stuck in the tiny front yard.

This street was seventy percent African American, and twenty-two percent Hispanic. There were as many Asians as there were whites, and the vast majority of the whites who lived around here were elderly, so Arthur’s hopes that he’d get a new tenant today were effectively dashed when he looked through the peephole and saw a clean-shaven white man in a blazer standing alone on his stoop.

Bernice came up beside him in the entryway. She was still wearing her hat from church. “Who is it?”

“Some man.”

“He’s here about the room,” she said confidently.

“I doubt it.”

“Why do you say—”

Arthur opened the wooden door, but left the storm door and its iron grating alone.

“Oh,” his wife said, seeing the youngish Caucasian face on the other side of the storm door.

“Yeah?”

The white man spoke through the bolted door. “Good morning.”

“Yeah?” Arthur repeated, the suspicion obvious in his voice.

“I saw your For Rent sign. Can I take a look at the room?”

What the hell? Arthur had no intention of renting to a white man. It wasn’t that he was racist, but he was a realist, and no young white man in this area with a job would want to live in a tiny basement on this street.

“Sir?” the man said after waiting ten seconds for a response.

“You from around here?”

“No, sir. Just in from Michigan. My uncle had a place in Petworth, but he passed away. I’m in town for a couple of months getting the house ready to sell.”

Arthur softened just a little. “Sure sorry to hear about that.”

“Thanks. What are you asking for the room?”

A pause. “Three hundred.”

“Really? I saw the notice you put on the board at the Giant up the street. It says two fifty.”

Arthur stiffened right back up now. “Then why’d you ask?”

A little smile from the white man. “I guess just to see if you’d rip me off.”