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.