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.