“What keys?”

“Office keys. Sylvia still has office keys.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“She shoulda told you.”

“So I can’t get the boxes now is what you’re saying.”

“Exactly.”

He couldn’t hold it anymore. “You’re such a stupid fucking bitch,” he muttered.

She heard him. “Sir, do not call me outta my name. I’m not having it.”

He took a deep breath and began to walk away. Fuck, man, he thought, why’d you have to do that? He was about to turn around and apologize when he was startled by three words: “Fucking Puerto Rican.”

“Listen you fucking nigger bitch,” he said as he charged toward her, “I’ll break your fucking face.”

She screamed for help over the intercom as he slammed his palms against her desk and scattered her papers on the floor. She hit him in the head with a pencil sharpener as he stormed toward the elevator. Out of nowhere, it seemed, anxious employees were filling the reception area.

“They want the fucking keys. They want the fucking keys.” This was all he could manage to say when he got back to the van.

“What keys?” Sylvia asked.

“The office keys.”

She threw up her hands in disbelief. “Virgil said I didn’t have to worry about keys because they were going to change the locks. They’re getting on my fucking nerves now!” She kicked the side of the van.

“And that big fat pig of a receptionist called me a ‘fucking Puerto Rican’! Does she know who I fucking am? But you know what? She doesn’t need to respect me, because I’m Hispanic. Niggers talk all this unity shit and then they fuck you over!”

“I apologize,” Sylvia said as she marched toward the building. “But I’ve had enough of their shit for one day.”

They stepped out of the elevator together, anger raking their brows, to find the reception area jammed with employees. They loaded the hand truck methodically, trying to keep their anger under control by focusing on their task. They could feel the eyes on them. But they didn’t look. They just wanted to get out of there. There’d been a clamor of voices when they entered. Now there was a hush. The silence of an office. The silence of ringing phones and cooling systems and humming computer printers. Then there was a new quality to the silence. At first they couldn’t place it. Then they realized they were at the center of one of those collective hushes that descend on black people whenever the police appear.

“What’s the problem? We have a report of an assault and trespassing and disturbing the peace.”

There were two them. One was undoing his holster clip. You couldn’t take a chance with so many niggers.

Sylvia explained the situation as calmly as she could while the colored people faded through the walls, it seemed, to the safety of their cubicles.

“Who was assaulted?” the other officer asked. The receptionist said she was—by Diego, who began to cry. This wasn’t right. How could Staten Island trash make him feel this way? Him, an award-winning filmmaker. This wasn’t right, man. It wasn’t right at all. And with her hero broken, Sylvia began to cry as well.