Wheels (61 page)

"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 semi
-
legal businesses. In the area, the name Mafia is more
appropriate than Cosa Nostra since Sicilian families form its core. The
"semi" of semi
-
legal 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 thef
ts 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 recogition 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 un
authorized 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 counter
raids, 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.
I 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-tbe 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 f ace 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 ja
nitor's closet. "In there, baby!
" He ordered the
other, "You, tool" 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 long
bladed
hunting knife, leaping down the stairs and cutting off escape.
Simultaneously, the muzzle of
Big Rufe's revolver slammed into his f ace, 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 itl It ain't gonna work
I" All he wanted was to have done with this, without more violence. The
red-haired man subsided.
Now the four ambush
ers shoved the others ahead of them into the little
room.
The red
-h
aired 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, bad 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 bad thrust hard into his belly.
"Jesus Christ
' the red-haired man said. He stared down at the slumped,
motionless form of his co
mpanion of a moment earlier. '-y
ou bastards
killed him I"
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 Colf
ax 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.

Chapter
twenty-six

Matt Zaleski sometimes wondered if anyone outside the auto industry
realized how little changed, in principle, a final car assembly line was,
compared with the days of the first Henry Ford.
He was walking beside the line where the night shift, which had begun
work an hour ago, was building Orions-the company's new cars, still not
released to public view. Like others in senior plant management, Matt's
own working da
y did not end when the day shif
t went home. He stayed on
while the next shift settled down, dealing with production snafus as
they occurred, which inevitably happened while the plant's people-management as well as workers-learned their new assignments.
Some assignments had been discussed during a foreman's meeting, held in
Matt's office soon after the change of shifts. The meeting had ended
fifteen minutes ago. Now Matt was patrolling
an alert surveillance, his
experienced eyes searching for potential trouble spots.
While he walked, his thoughts returned to Henry Ford, the pioneer of
mass production auto assembly.
Nowadays, the final assembly
line in any auto plant was unf
ailingly the
portion of car manuf
acturing which fascinated visitors most. Usually
a mile long, it was visually impressive because an act of creation could
be witnessed. Initially, a few steel bars were brought together, then,
as if fertilized, they multiplied and grew, taking on familiar shapes
like an exposed fetus in a moving womb. The process was slow ' enough
for watchers to assimilate, fast enough to be exciting. The forward
movement, like a river, was mostly in straight
lines, though occasionally with bends or loops. Among the burgeoning cars,
color, shape, size, features, frills, conveyed individuality and sex. Eventually, with the fetus ready for the world, the car dropped on its tires. A
moment later an ignition key was turned, an engine sprang to life-as impressive, when first witnessed, as a child's first cry-and a newborn vehicle
moved from the assembly line's end under its own power.
Matt Zaleski had seen spectators thronging through the plant-in Detroit
they came like pilgrims, daily-marveling at the process and talking,
uninformed and glibly, of the wonders of automated mass production. Plant
guides, trained to regard each visitor as a potential customer, gave
spiels to titillate the sense of wonder. But the irony was: a final
assembly plant was scarcely automated at all; in principle it was still
an old
-
fashioned conveyor belt on which pieces of an automobile were hung
in sequence like decorations on a Christmas tree. In engineering terms it
was the least impressive part of modern automobile production. In terms
of quality it could swing this way or that like a wild barometer. And it
was wholly susceptible to human error.
By contrast, plants making auto engines, though less impressive visually,
were truly automated, with long series of intricate operations performed
solely by machines. In most engine plants, row after row of sophisticated
machine tools operated on their own, masterminded by computers, with the
only humans in sight a few skilled tool men making occasional adjustments.
If a machine did something wrong, it switched itself off instantly and
summoned help through warning systems. Otherwise it did its job unvaryngly, to hairsbreadth standards, and stopped neither for meal breaks,
toilet visits, nor to speak to another machine alongside. The system was
a reason why engines, in comparison with more generally constructed parts of
automobiles, seldom failed until neglected or abused.
If old Henry could come back from his grave, Matt thought, and view a
car assembly line of the '70s, he might be amused at how few basic
changes had been made.
At the moment, there were no production snags-at least, in view-and Matt
Zaleski returned to his glass-paneled office on the mezzanine.
Though he could leave the plant now, if he chose, Matt was reluctant to
return to the empty Royal Oak house. Several weeks had gone by since the
bitter night of
Barbara's departure, but there h
ad been no rapprochement
between them. Recently Matt had tried not to think about his daughter,
concentrating on other thoughts, as he had on Henry Ford a few minutes
earlier; despite this, she was seldom far from mind. He wished they
could patch up their quarrel somehow, and bad hoped Barbara would
telephone, but she had not. Matt's own pride, plus a conviction that a
parent should not have to make the first move, kept him from calling
her. He supposed that Barbara was still living with that designer,
DeLosanto, which was something else Matt tried not to think about, but
often did.
At his desk, he leafed through the next day's production schedule.
Tomorrow was a midweek day, so several "specials" would go on the line
cars for company executives, their friends, or others with influence
enough to ensure that an automobile they ordered got
better-than-ordinary treatment. Foremen had been alerted to the job
numbers, so had Quality Control; as a result, all work on those
particu
lar cars would be watched with e
xtra care. Body men would be
cautioned to install header panels, seats, and interior trim more
fussily than usual. Engine and power train sequences would receive close
scrutiny. Later, Quality Control would give the cars a thorough going over
and order additional work or adjustments before dispatch. "Specials" were
also among the fifteen to thirty cars which plant executives drove home each
night, turning in road test reports next morning.
Of course-as Matt Zaleski knew-there were dangers in scheduling
"specials," particularly if a car happened to be for a plant executive.
A few workers always had grievances, real or imagined, against management
and were delighted at a chance to "get even with the boss
.”