That’s how it starts and most often it’s the beginning of the end. Pitman knew all these things in that long tunnel of silence he was in. I knew it too. The guards were kidnapped, probably killed. That’s a capital crime; that’s shackles, bars, brutalization, forced labor, and a sudden return to the lives of our ancestors.

Pitman was a white man but he knew these truths as clearly as any descendant of slavery. He cleared his throat mightily.

“What are you getting at?” he wheezed.

“Come on, man,” I said. “Alonzo, Plennery, and a man named Ketch offered you some thousands of dollars to let them use a big truck and maybe to store it someplace. You might have convinced yourself that it was just a truck but you know that when the cops get hold of it, you will be on trial too. You’ll be up in Q with the niggers and spics, more aware of bein’ a white man than you have ever been in your life.”

Pitman began to sweat. It was like I had become the narrator of his nightmares. His breath was labored and his rage transformed to despair.

“Look,” Pitman said, trying to wrest back control. “We were workin’ on a block of new row houses down in Compton. We got a steel-gated work area down there with a double-reinforced series of storage units inside meant for construction vehicles. Plennery told me that I could make um, some, some money if I filled out the paperwork for him to drive one of those vehicles with Alonzo as the nighttime guard.”

“What kind of vehicle?” I asked.

“I left that blank on the request form.”

“What else did they need?”

“One of the storage units for the more expensive equipment. Yeah. One’a the lockups.”

“And what’s in there now?”

“Nuthin’. I looked just a few days ago. There wasn’t nuthin’ there.”

43

43

We all—Starr, Pitman, myself, and a company jack-of-all-trades named Bob Bester—took a ride out to Compton in the golden limousine. The chauffeur had turned on the air-conditioning, but sweat dripped off Pitman’s brow anyway. He didn’t want to be in that car. I couldn’t blame him.

Starr had called a special connection he had at city hall to tell them what he expected to find at the Compton installation. I called Anatole and Melvin but they were out together on a triple homicide that happened in Hollywood the night before.

Nineteen sixty-nine was an interesting year. There was strong anti-war action from the colleges and universities and all kinds of black political insurgence. The sleeping giant of white guilt was awakening and there seemed to be some kind of hope for the future. If you were innocent enough, or ignorant enough, you might have believed that things were improving in such a way that all Americans could expect a fair shake.