Wheels

"Yes," Adam said, "I remember."

He was wondering about timing, and a tide, for Erica and himself.

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.