Wheels (21 page)

He glanced up, then down again at a blue
bound folder in his hand.
"Maybe half an hour
.”

Adam had not appeared to notice the see
-
through nightgown which could
not compete, apparently, with the folder, lettered, Statistical
Projection of Automobile and Truck Registration by States. Hoping that
the perfume might prove more effective, Erica came behind his chair as
she had earlier, but all that happened was a perfunctory kiss with a
muttered, "Good night; don't wait for me
.”

She might as well, she
thought, have been drenched in camphorated oil.
She went to bed, and lay with top sheet and blanket turned back, her
sexual desire growing as she waited. If she closed her eyes, she could
imagine Adam poised above her . . .
Erica opened her eyes. A bedside clock showed that not half an hour,
but almost two hours, had passed. It was I A.M.
Soon after, she heard Adam climb the stairs.
39 He came in, yawning, with a, "God, I'm tired," then undressed sleepily,
climbed into bed, and was almost instantly asleep.
Erica lay silently beside him, sleep for herself far away. After a while
she imagined that she was once more walking, out of doors, the softness
of the rain upon her face.

Chapter
nine

The day after Adam and Erica Trenton failed to bridge the growing gap
between them, after Brett 'DeLosanto renewed his faith in the Orion yet
pondered his artistic destiny, after Barbara Zaleski viewed frustrations
through the benthos of martinis, and after Matt Zaleski, her plant-boss
father, survived another pressure-cooker work day, a minor event occurred in
the inner city of Detroit, unconnected with any of those five, yet whose
effect, over months ahead, would involve and motivate them all.
Time: 8:30 P.m. Place: Downtown, Third Avenue near Brainard. An empty
police cruiser parked beside the curb.
"Get your black ass against the wall," the white cop commanded. Holding
a flashlight in one hand, a gun in the other, he ran the flashlight's beam
down and up Rollie Knight, who blinked as the light reached his eyes and
stayed there.
"Now turn around. Hands above your head. Move!-you goddam jailbird
.”

As Rollie Knight turned, the white cop told his Negro partner, "Frisk the
bastard
.”

The young, shabbily dressed black man whom the policeman had stopped, had
been ambling aimlessly on Third when the cruiser pulled alongside and its
occupants jumped out, guns drawn. Now he protested, "Wadd' I do
.”

, then
giggled as the second policeman's hands moved up his legs, then around his
body.
"Hey man, oh man, that tickles!
"
"Shaddup
!
" the white cop said. He was an old-timer on the force, with hard
eyes and a big be
ll
y, the last from years of riding in patrol cars.
He had survived this beat a long time and never relaxed while on it.
The black policeman, who was several years younger and newer, dropped
his hands. "He's okay
.”

Moving back, he inquired softly, "What
difference does the color of his ass make
.”

The white cop looked startled. In their baste since moving from the
cruiser he
had
forgotten that tonight his usual partner, also white, was
off sick, with a black officer substituting.
"Hell!
" he said hastily. "Don't get ideas. Even if you are his color,
you don't rate down with that crumb
.”

The black cop said drily, "Thanks
.”

He considered saying more, but
didn't. Instead, he told the man against the wall, "You can put your
hands down. Turn around
.”

As the instruction was obeyed, the white cop rasped, "Where you been the
last half hour, Knight
.”

He knew Rollie Knight by name, not only from
seeing him around here frequently, but from a police record which
included two jail convictions, for one of which the officer had made the
arrest himself.
"Where I bin
.”

The young black man had recovered from his initial shock.
Though his cheeks were hollowed, and he appeared underfed and frail,
there was nothing weak about his eyes, which mirrored hatred. "I bin
layin' a white piece o' ass. Doan know her name, except she says her old
man's a fat white pig who can't get it up. Comes here when she needs it
from a man
.”

The white cop took a step forward, the blood vessels in his face
swelling red. His intention was to smash the muzzle of his gun across
the contemptuous, taunting face. Afterward, he could claim that Knight
struck him first and his own action was in self-defense. His partner
would back up the story, in the same way that they always
corroborated each other, except-he remembered abruptly
tonight his partner
was one of them who might just be ornery enough to make trouble later. So
the policeman checked himself, knowing there would be another time and
place, as this smart-aleck nigger would find out.
The black cop growled at Rollie Knight, "Don't push your luck. Tell us
where you were. .
The young Negro spat on the sidewalk. A cop was an enemy, whatever his
color, and a black one was worse because he was a lackey of the Man. But
lie answered, "In there," motioning to a basement bar across the street.
"How long
.”

"An hour. Maybe two. Maybe three
.”

Rollie Knight shrugged. "Who keeps
score
.”

The black cop asked his partner, "Should I check it out
.”

"No, be a wasta time. They'd say he'd been there. They're all damn liars
.”

The black officer pointed out, "To get here in this time from West Grand
and Second he'd have needed wings, anyway
.”

The call had come in minutes earlier on the prowl car radio. An armed
robbery near the Fisher Building, eighteen blocks away. It had just happened. Two suspects had fled in a late model sedan.
Seconds later, the patrolling duo had seen Rollie Knight walking alone on
Third Avenue. Though the likelihood of a single pedestrian, here, being
involved with the uptown robbery was remote, when the white cop had
recognized Knight, he shouted to halt the car, then jumped out, leaving
his partner no choice but to follow. The black officer knew why they had
acted. The robbery call provided an excuse to "stop and frisk," and the
other officer enjoyed stopping people and bullying them when he knew he
could get away
with it, th
ough it was coincidental, of course, that those he picked on
were invariably black.
There was a relationship, the black officer believed, between his
companion's viciousness and brutality-which were well-known around the
force-and fear, which rode him while on duty in the ghetto. Fear had its
own stink, and the black policeman had smelled it strongly from the
white officer beside him the moment the robbery call came in, and when
they had jumped from the car, and even now, Fear could, and did, make
a mean man meaner still. When he possessed authority as well, he could
become a savage.
Not that fear was out of place in these surroundings. In fact, for a
Detroit policeman not to know fear would betray a lack of knowledge, an
absence of imagination. In the inner city, with a crime rate probably
the nation's highest, police were targets-always of hate, often of
bricks and knives and bullets. Where survival depended on alertness, a
degree of fear was rational; so were suspicion, caution, swiftness when
danger showed, or seemed to. It was like being in a war where police
were on the firing line. And as in any war, the niceties of human
behavior-politeness, psychology, tolerance, kindness-got brushed aside
as nonessential, so that the war intensified while antagonisms-often
with cause on both sides-perpetuated themselves and multiplied.
Yet a few policemen, as the black cop knew, learned to live with fear
while remaining decent human beings, too. These were ones who understood
the nature of the times, the mood of black people, their frustrations,
the long history of injustice behind them. This kind of policeman
whether
white or black-helped relieve the war a little, though it was hard to
know how much because they were not in a majority.
To make moderates a majority, and to raise
standards of the Detroit force generally, were declared aims of a recently
appointed police chief. But between the chief and his objectives was the
physical presence of a contingent of officers, numerically strong, who
through fear or rooted prejudice were frankly racist like the white cop here
and now.
'Where you working, crumb
.”

he demanded of Rollie Knight.
"I'm like you. I ain't workin', just passin' time
.”

The policeman's f ace bulged again with anger. If he had not been there,
the black cop knew, his partner would have smashed his fist into the frail
young black face leering at him.
The black c
op told Rollie Knight, "Beat it! Y
ou flap your mouth too much
.”

Back in the prowl car the other policeman fumed, "So help me, I'll nail
that bastard
.”

The black officer thought: And so you will, probably tomorrow or the next
day when you've got your regular sidekick back, and he'll look the other
way if there's a beating or an arrest on some trumped-up charge. There had
been plenty of other vendettas of the same kind.
On impulse, the black cop, who was behind the wheel, said, "Hold it I I'll
be back
.”

As he got out of the car, Rollie Knight was fifty yards away.
"Hey, youl" When the young black man turned, the officer beckoned, then
walked to meet him.
The black cop leaned toward Rollie Knight, his stance threatening. But he
said quietly, "My partner's out to get you, and he will. You're a stupid
jerk for letting your mouth run off, and I don't owe you favors. All the
same, I'm warning you: Stay out of sight, or better-get out of town 'til
the man cools
.”

"A Judas nigger cop
!
Why'd I take the word from you
.”

"No reason
.”

The policeman shrugged. "So let what's coming come. No skin
off me
.”

"How'd I leave? Where'd I get wheels, the bread
.”

Though spoken with a
sneer, the query was a shade less hostile.
"Then don't leave. Keep out of sight, the way I said
.”

"Ain't easy here, man
.”

No, it was not easy, as the black cop knew. Not easy to remain unnoticed
through each long day and night when someone wanted you and others knew
where you were. Information came cheap if you knew the pipelines of the
inner city; all it took was the price of a fix, the promise of a favor,
even the right kind of threat. Loyalty was not a plant which flourished
here. But being somewhere else, absence for part of the time, at least,
would help. The policeman asked, "Why aren't you working
.”

Rollie Knight grinned. "You hear me tell your pig friend . .
.”

"Save the smart talk. You want work
.”

"Maybe
.”

But behind the admission was the knowledge that few jobs were
open to those with criminal records like Rollie Knight's.
"The car plants
are
hiring," the black cop said.
.That's honky land
.”

"Plenty of the blood work there
.”