Wheels

Chapter 25

The initial involvement of Rollie Knight in organized plant crime had begun in February. It started the same week that he saw the foreman Frank Parkland - whom Rollie had come close to admiring - take a bribe, prompting Rollie's later observation to May Lou, "There ain't nuthin' in this whole wide world but bullshit."

At first, to Rollie, his participation seemed slight enough. He began by taking and recording numbers bets each day in the area of Assembly where he worked. The money and yellow betting slips were passed by Rollie to the stockroom delivery man, Daddy-o Lester, who got them farther along their route toward a betting house downtown. From overheard remarks Rollie guessed the delivery system tied in with truck deliveries in and out of the plant.

Frank Parkland, still Rollie's foreman, gave him no trouble about occasional absences from his work station which the number running entailed. As long as the absences were brief and not too many, Parkland moved a relief man in without comment; otherwise, he cautioned Rollie mildly. Obviously the foreman was continuing to be paid off.

That was in February. By May, Rollie was working for the loan sharks and check cashers: two illegal plant enterprises which interlocked.

A reason for the new activity was that he had borrowed money himself and was having difficulty paying off. Also, the money Rollie was earning from his job, which at first had seemed a fortune, suddenly was no longer enough to keep pace with his own and May Lou's spending. So, now Rollie persuaded others to accept loans and helped with their collection.

Such loans were made, and taken, casually at extortionate rates of interest. A plant worker might borrow twenty dollars early in one week and owe twenty-five dollars by payday of the same week. Incredibly, the demand - including requests for larger sums - was brisk.

On payday, the loan sharks - company employees like everyone else - would become in-plant unofficial check cashers, cashing the paychecks of all who wished, but seeking out those who owed them money.

A check casher's fee was the odd cents on any-check. If a check was made out for $100.99, the check casher took the $0.99, though his minimum fee was $0.25. Because of volume, and the fact that the check casher picked up his loans, plus interest, the operation involved big money and it was not unusual for a check casher - loan man to carry twenty thousand dollars in cash. When he did, he hired other workers as bodyguards.

Once a loan was made, it was wise for the borrower not to default. Anyone who did would find himself with a broken arm or leg, or worse and would still owe the money, with more punishment to follow if it remained unpaid.

A lucky few, like Rollie, were allowed to work off, in service, part of the interest owed. The principal sum - even for these - had to be repaid.

Thus, Rollie Knight, on all work days and especially paydays, became an intermediary for the flow of loan and check money back and forth. Despite this, he continued to be short of money himself.

In June, he began peddling drugs.

Rollie hadn't wanted to. Increasingly, as he became involved with plant rackets, he had a sense of being sucked in against his will, incurring the danger of exposure, arrest and - a dread which haunted him - a return to prison with a long sentence. Others who had no criminal records, though their activities were illegal, ran a lesser risk than himself. If caught and charged, they would be treated as first offenders. Rollie wouldn't.

It had been a growing anxiety on that score which made him morose and worried the night of the Auto City filming - also in June - in Rollie's and May Lou's apartment. Leonard Wingate, the company Personnel man, had sensed Rollie's deep-seated worry, but they had not discussed it.

Rollie also discovered, around that time, that it was easier to begin involvement with the rackets than to opt out. Big Rufe made that plain when Rollie demurred after being told he would be a part of the chain which brought marijuana and LSD into plants and distributed the drugs.

Months earlier, when the two had been side by side at a plant urinal, it was Big Rufe who approached Rollie with a hint about recruitment into plant crime. And now that the hint had become fact, it was clear that Big Rufe had a part in most of the illegal action going on.

"Don't cut no slice o' that pie for me," Rollie had insisted, when the subject of drug traffic came up. "You get some other dude, hear?"

They were on work break, talking behind a row of storage bins near the assembly line, and shielded from the view of others. Big Rufe had scowled. "You stink scared."

"Maybe."

"Boss don't like scared cats. Makes him nervous."

Rollie knew better than to ask who the boss was. He was certain that one existed - probably somewhere outside the plant - just as it was obvious that an organization existed, Rollie having seen evidence of it not long before.

One night, after his shift ended, instead of leaving, he and a half dozen others had remained inside the plant gates. Ahead of time they had been warned to make their way singly and inconspicuously to the Scrap and Salvage area. When they arrived, a truck was waiting and the group loaded it with crates and cartons already stacked nearby. It was obvious to Rollie that what was being loaded was new, unused material, and not scrap at all. It included tires, radios, and air conditioners in cases, and some heavy crates which required loading with a hoist - and marked as containing transmissions.

The first truck left, a second came, and for three hours altogether the loading went on, openly, and although it was after dark and this portion of the plant saw little nighttime traffic, lights were blazing. Only toward the end did Big Rufe, who had appeared and disappeared several times, look around him nervously and urge everyone to hurry. They had, and eventually the second truck had gone too, and everyone went home.

Rollie had been paid two hundred dollars for the three hours he had helped load what was clearly a big haul of stolen goods. Equally evident was that the behind-scenes organization was efficient and large-scale, and there must have been payoffs to get the trucks safely in and out of the plant.

Later, Rollie learned that the transmissions and other items could be bought cheaply at some of the many hot-rod shops around Detroit and Cleveland; also that the outflow through the Scrap and Salvage yard had been one of many.

"Guess you bought yourself a pack o' trouble by knowin' too much," Big Rufe had said when he and Rollie had their talk behind the storage bins.

"That'd make the big boss nervous too, so if he figured you wasn't with us no more, he'd likely arrange a little party on the parking lot."

Rollie understood the message. So many beatings and muggings had occurred recently on the huge employee parking lots that even security patrols went around in pairs. Just the day before, a young black worker had been beaten and robbed - the beating so savage that he was hovering, in hospital, between life and death.

Rollie shuddered.

Big Rufe grunted and spat on the floor. 'Teah, man, I'd sure think about that if I was you."

In the end, Rollie went along with drug peddling, partly because of Big Rufe's threat, but also because he desperately needed money. The second garnishee of his wages in June had been followed by Leonard Wingate's financial austerity program, which left barely enough each week for Rollie and May Lou to live on, and nothing over to pay backloans.

Actually, the drug arrangement worked out easily, making him wonder if perhaps he had worried too much after all. He was glad that just marijuana and LSD were involved, and not heroin which was a riskier traffic. There was horse moving through the plant, and he knew workers who had habits.

But a heroin addict was unreliable and likely to get caught, then under interrogation name his supplier.

Marijuana, on the other hand, was a pushover. The FBI and local police had told auto company managements confidentially that they would not investigate marijuana activity where less than one pound of the drug was involved. The reason was simple - a shortage of investigating officers. This information leaked, so that Rollie and others were careful to bring small amounts into the plant each time.

The extent of marijuana use amazed even Rollie. He discovered that more than half of the people working around him smoked two to three joints a day and many admitted it was the drug which kept them going. "For Cri-sakes," a regular purchaser from Rollie asserted, "if a guy wasn't spaced out, how else could he stand this rat run?" Just a half joint, he said, gave him a lift which lasted several hours.

Rollie heard another worker tell a foreman who had cautioned him for being obvious about marijuana use, "If you fired everybody smoking pot, you wouldn't build any cars around here."

Another effect of Rollie's drug peddling was that he was able to get squared away with the loan sharks, leaving some spare money which he used to indulge in pot himself. It was true, he found, that a day on the assembly line could be endured more easily if you were spaced, and you could get the work done too.

Rollie did manage to work to the continuing satisfaction of Frank Parkland, despite his extra activities which, in fact, took little time.

Because of his lack of seniority, he was laid off during two of the four weeks when the plant shut down for changeover to Orion production, then resumed work when the first Orions began to come down the line.

He took a keen interest in the Orion, describing it to May Lou when he returned from his first day of working on it, as "Hot pants wheels!" It even seemed to affect Rollie sexually because he added, "We gonna lay a lotta pipe tonight," at which May Lou giggled, and later they did, Rollie thinking about wheels most of the time and the chances of getting an Orion himself.

All was going well, it seemed, and for a while Rollie Knight almost forgot his own credo: Nuthun' lasts.

Until the last week of August, when he had cause to remember.

The message from Big Rufe came to Rollie's work station via the stock man, Daddy-o Lester. The next night there would be some action. At the end of Rollie's shift tomorrow he was to stay in the plant. Between now and then he would be given more instructions.

Rollie yawned in Daddy-o's face. "I'll check my engagement book, man."

"You so smart," Daddy-o threw back, "but you don't hipe me. You'll be there."

Rollie knew he would be, too, and since the last after-shift episode at the Scrap and Salvage area produced an easy two hundred dollars, he assumed tomorrow's would be the same. Next day, however, the instructions he received half an hour before his work day ended were not what he expected. Rollie - so Daddy-o informed him - was to take his time about leaving the assembly line, hang around until the night shift began work, then go to the locker and washup area where others would meet him, including Daddy-o and Big Rufe.

Thus, when the quitting whistle shrilled, instead of joining the normal frenzied scramble for exits to the parking lots and bus stations, Rollie ambled away, stopping at a vending machine area to buy a Coke. This took longer than usual because the machines were temporarily out of use and being emptied of cash by two collectors from the vending company. Rollie watched while a stream of silver coins cascaded into canvas sacks. When a machine was available he bought his drink, waited a few minutes more, then took it to the employees' locker-washup room.

This was drab and cavernous, with a wet cement floor and a permanent stink of urine. A row of big stone washup basins - "bird baths" was set centrally, at each of which a dozen men normally performed ablutions at once.

Lockers, urinals, toilets without doors, crowded the remaining space.

Rollie rinsed his bands and face at a bird bath and mopped with paper towels. He had the washup area to himself since by now the day shift had gone and, outside, the new shift was settling down to work. Workers from it would begin drifting in here soon, but not yet.

An outside door opened. Big Rufe entered, moving quietly for a man of his bulk. He was scowling and looking at his wrist watch. Big Rufe's shirt sleeves were rolled back, the muscles rippling in his raised forearm. He motioned for silence as Rollie joined him.

Seconds later, Daddy-o Lester came through the same door that Big Rufe had used. The young black was breathing hard, as if he had been running; sweat glistened on his forehead and on the scar running the length of his face.

Big Rufe said accusingly, "I told you, hurry it . . ."

I did! They runnin' late. Had trouble at one stand. Somethin' jammed, took longer." Daddy-o's voice was high-pitched and nervous, his usual swagger gone.

"Where they now?"

"South cafeteria. Leroy's watchin' out. He'll meet us where we said."

"South cafeteria's those guys' last stop." Big Rufe told the others,

"Let's move it."

Rollie stood where he was. "Move Where? An' what?"

"Now get on this fast." Big Rufe kept his voice low, his eyes on the outer door. "We gonna bust the vending machine guys. The whole deal's planned - a cincheroo. They carry a big load, 'n we got four guys to their two. You get a cut."

"I don't want it! Don't know enough."

"Want it or not, you got it. You got this, too." Big Rufe pressed a snub-nosed automatic into Rollie's hand.

He protested, "No!"

"What's the difference? You done time for armed. Now, if you carryin' a piece or you ain't, you get the same." Big Rufe shoved Rollie ahead of him roughly. As they left the locker-washup room, instinctively Rollie pushed the pistol out of sight into his trousers waistband.

They hastened through the plant, using out-of-the-way routes and keeping clear of observation - not difficult for anyone knowing the layout well.

Though Rollie had not been inside the south cafeteria, which was a small one used by supervisors and foremen, he knew where it was. Presumably it had a battery of vending machines, as had the employees' area where he bought his Coke.

Over his shoulder, hurrying with the others, Rollie asked, "Why me?"

"Could be we like you," Big Rufe said. "Or maybe the boss figures the deeper a brother's in, the less chance he'll chicken out,"

"The boss man in this too?"

"I tol' you this piece of action was planned. We bin studyin' them vending guys a month. Hard to figure why nobody knocked 'em off before."

The last statement was a lie.

It was not hard to figure - at least, for those with inside knowledge - why the vending machine collectors had gone unmolested until now. Big Rufe was among those who possessed such inside knowledge; also, he knew the special risks which he and the other three were running at this moment, and was prepared to accept and challenge them.

Rollie Knight had no such information. If he had, if he had known what Big Rufe failed to tell him, no matter what the consequences he would have turned and run.

The knowledge was: The vending concessions at the plant were Mafia financed and operated.

The Mafia in Wayne County, Michigan, of which Detroit is part, has a compass of activities ranging from the outright criminal, such as murder, to semilegal businesses. In the area, the name Mafia is more appropriate than Cosa Nostra since Sicilian families form its core. The "semi" of semilegal is also appropriate since no Mafia controlled business ever operates without at least some ancillary knaveries - overpricing, intimidation, bribery, physical violence, or arson.

The Mafia is strong in Detroit's industrial plants, including auto plants. It controls the numbers rackets, finances and controls most loan sharks and takes a cut from others. The organization is behind the bulk of large-scale thefts from factories and helps with resale of stolen items. It has tentacles in plants through surface-legal operations such as service and supply companies, which are usually a cover-up for other activities or a means of hiding cash. Its dollar revenues each year are undoubtedly in the tens of millions.

But in recent years, with an aging Mafia chieftain declining physically and mentally in Grosse Pointe remoteness, a power struggle has erupted within Detroit Mafia ranks. And since a bloc within the power struggle consists solely of blacks, this substratum - in Detroit as elsewhere - has acquired the title Black Mafia.

Hence, black struggles within the Mafia for recognition and equality parallel the more deserving civil rights struggles of black people generally.

A cell of the Black Mafia, headed by a militant outside leader who remained under cover, and with Big Rufe as an in-plant deputy, had been testing and challenging the old established family rule. Months earlier, forays had begun into unauthorized areas - a separate numbers operation and increased Black Mafia loan sharking, extending through the inner city and industrial plants. Other operations included organized prostitution and "protection" shakedowns. All cut across areas where the old regime had once been absolute.

The Black Mafia cell had expected retaliation and it happened. Two black loan men were ambushed in their homes and beaten - one while his terrified wife and children watched - then robbed. Soon after, a Black Mafia numbers organizer was intercepted and pistol-whipped, his car overturned and burned, his records destroyed and money taken. All raids, by their ruthlessness and other hallmarks, were clearly Mafia work, a fact which victims and their associates were intended to recognize.

Now the Black Mafia was striking back. Robbery of the vending machine collectors would be one of a half dozen counterraids, all carefully timed for today and representing a test of strength in the power struggle. Later still, there would be more reprisals on both sides before the white-black Mafia war ended, if it ever did.

And, as in all wars everywhere, the soldiers and other victims would be expendable pawns.

Rollie Knight, Big Rufe, and Daddy-o had come through a basement corridor and were at the foot of a metal stairway. Immediately ahead was a halfway landing between floors, the top of the stairway out of sight.

Big Rufe commanded softly, "Hold it here!"

A face appeared, looking downward over the stairway rail. Rollie recognized Leroy Colfax, an intense, fast-talking militant who hung around with Big Rufe's crowd.

Big Rufe kept his voice low. "Them peckerwoods still there?"

"Yeah. Be two, three minutes more by the looks."

"Okay, we in place. You get clear now, but follow 'em down, 'n stay close.

Understand?"

"I got it." With a nod, Leroy Colfax disappeared from sight.

Big Rufe beckoned Rollie and Daddy-o. "In here."

"Here" was a janitor's closet, unlocked and with space for the three of them. As they went inside, Big Rufe left the door slightly ajar. He queried Daddy-o. "You got the masks?"

"Yeah." Rollie could see that Daddy-o, the youngest, was nervous and trembling. But he produced three stocking masks from a pocket. Big Rufe took one and slipped it over his head, motioning for the others to do the same.

The basement corridor outside was quiet, the only noise a rumble, distantly above, where the assembly line was operating with the fresh eight-hour shift. This had been a shrewd time to pick. Traffic through the plant was never as great during the night shift as in daytime, and was even lighter than usual this early in the shift.

"You two watch me, move when I do." Through the mask, Big Rufe's eyes appraised Daddy-o and Rollie. "Ain't gonna be no trouble if we do this right. When we get them guys in here you both tie 'em up good. Leroy dumped the rope." He motioned to two coils of thin yellow cord on the closet floor.

They waited silently. As the seconds passed, Rollie found himself with a sense of resigned acceptance. He knew he was in this now, that his participation would not be changed or excused whatever happened, and if there were consequences he would share them equally with the other three.

His choices had been limited; in fact, there were really no choices at all, merely decisions made by others and forced on him, which was the way it had always been, for as long as he remembered.

From the coveralls he was wearing, Big Rufe produced a heavy-handled Colt revolver. Daddy-o had a snub-nosed pistol - the same kind Rollie had been given. Reluctantly, reaching into his waistband, Rollie held his, too.

Daddy-o tensed as Big Rufe motioned with his hand. They could hear clearly - a clatter of feet coming down the metal stairway, and voices.

The door to the janitor's closet remained almost closed until the footsteps, now on the tile floor, were a few feet away. Then Big Rufe opened the door and the masked trio stepped out, guns raised.

The vending machine collectors looked as startled as any two men could.

Both wore gray uniforms with the vending company's insignia. One had a thatch of red hair and a pale pink face which, at the moment had turned even paler; the other, with heavy-lidded eyes, had the features of an Indian. Each carried two burlap bags slung over a shoulder and joined together with a chain and padlock. The pair were big-boned and burly, probably in their thirties, and looked as if they could handle themselves in a fight. Big Rufe gave them no chance.

He leveled his revolver at the red-haired man's chest and motioned with his head to the janitor's closet. "In there, baby!" He ordered the other, "You, too!" The words came out muffled through the stocking mask.

The Indian shot a glance behind him, as if to run. Two things happened.

He saw a fourth masked figure - Leroy Colfax - armed with a longbladed hunting knife, leaping down the stairs and cutting off escape.

Simultaneously, the muzzle of Big Rufe's revolver slammed into his face, opening his left cheek in a gash which spurted blood.

Rollie Knight jammed his own automatic against the ribs of the red-haired man who had swung around, clearly with the intention of aiding his companion. Rollie cautioned, "Hold it! It ain't gonna work!" All he wanted was to have done with this, without more violence. The red-haired man subsided.

Now the four ambushers shoved the others ahead of them into the little room.

The red-haired man protested, "Listen, if you guys knew . . ."

"Shaddup!" It was Daddy-o, who seemed to be over his fright. "Gimme that" He grabbed the canvas sacks from redhead's shoulder, pushing the man so he tripped backward over mops and pails.

Leroy Colfax reached for the cash sacks of the other collector. But the Indian, despite his cheek wound, which was bleeding, had spirit. He lunged against Leroy, thrusting a knee into his groin and his left fist hard into the stomach. Then, with his right hand, he reached up and snatched the mask from Leroy's face.

For an instant the two glared at each other.

The vending machine collector hissed, "Now, I'll know who . . .

"aaaaaaah!"

He screamed - a loud, high-pitched sound which descended to a moan then subsided into nothingness. He fell forward heavily - on the long-bladed hunting knife which Leroy had thrust hard into his belly.

"Jesus Christ!' the red-haired man said. He stared down at the slumped, motionless form of his companion of a moment earlier. "You bastards killed him!"

They were his last words before unconsciousness as the butt of Big Rufe's gun crashed into his scalp.

Daddy-o, who was trembling more than he had originally, pleaded, "Did we hafta do that?"

"What's done's done," Big Rufe said. "And them two started it." But he sounded less sure of himself than at the beginning. Picking up two of the chained bags, he ordered, "Bring them others."

Leroy Colfax reached for them.

Rollie urged, "Wait!"

Outside, hurried footsteps were coming down the metal stairs.

Frank Parkland had stayed later than usual at the plant for a foremen's meeting in the office of Matt Zaleski. They discussed Orion production and some problems. Afterward he went to the south cafeteria where, at lunchtime, he had left a sweater and some personal papers. It was when he had recovered the items, and was leaving that he heard the scream from below and went down to investigate.

Parkland was past the closed door of the janitor's closet when something impinged on his consciousness. He turned back and saw what he had observed but not taken in at once - a series of blood spatters extending under the door.

The foreman hesitated. But since he was not a man given to fear, he opened the door and went in.

Seconds later, with an ugly head wound, he tumbled, unconscious, beside the vending machine collectors.

The three bodies were discovered an hour or so later - long after the quartet of Big Rufe, Daddy-o Lester, Leroy Colfax, and Rollie Knight had left the plant by climbing over a wall.

The Indian was dead, the other two barely alive.