Adam-12 attends to a call at a gas station that has just been held up in an armed robbery. The gas station owner, Mr. Williams, seems solely focused on the fact that he was held up by a black man to provide much more useful information to Malloy and Reed. His racial overtones are also implied in an interview he gives to a television news crew, which ends up having unintended consequences for Mr. Williams and a motorcycle officer. Next, they are pulled over by a man, Paul Soren, who, not wanting to issue a formal complaint but only provide information, tells them of just being extorted out of $20 by a late teen, female hitchhiker he had picked up. She threatened to yell rape unless he handed over the money. Although Soren provides an accurate description of the girl, Malloy and Reed don't tell him that barring any unforeseen luck, the likelihood of catching her is remote at best seeing as to the "he said/she said" nature of such an encounter. Then on patrol, they notice one of their regular drunks, Willie, inebriated as usual staggering on the side of the road. Beyond the unusual libation he has in his possession - imported champagne - Malloy and Reed are surprised by his unrealistic story on how he came upon the bottles, the story which seems to be coming from somewhere deeper than just a drunken state.
—Huggo