Borland turned his head to regard them, then swiveled back and socked me on the jaw.

I was on the floor when Anatole McCourt took the three steps that brought him from the door to Borland. The blow the Irish cop threw was so fast and so hard that my torturer had to be unconscious before he hit the concrete.

44

44

I don’t think there had ever been another moment in my life where I felt so much glee and so much pain at the same time. McCourt lifted me to my feet with one hand—he was that strong.

“One of you men get him out of these cuffs,” he barked at Borland’s officers.

The command was obeyed immediately because Anatole was not the kind of man you ignored.

Suggs was at my side holding my left arm. I guess I was a little unsteady on my pins.

“What’s going on here?” Suggs asked the man working to unlock my chains.

“Nigger knew where the armored car and the dead men were,” the guy behind me said.

Anatole gave the man a questioning look.

“What did you say?” the head cop asked.

“We knew that the, that the crew was nig—was Negroes and this one knew where the car was hid. He musta known we were closin’ in and figured to get to the money before we did.”

“But you said that there wasn’t any money,” Melvin challenged.

My hands came free and the cop behind me backed away.

And then a really amazing thing happened.

Borland climbed to his feet and Anatole hit him again! The jab traveled no more than six inches but the San Bernardino cop collapsed in a heap. Anatole turned his head toward the other out-of-town cops, daring them to complain.

They had nothing to say.

Rinaldo Pitman was arrested, charged with conspiracy, and held over for other, yet-to-be-filed charges.

When the three of us were alone in the unit boss’s office Anatole McCourt asked, “Why weren’t they questioning him?” It was unclear if he was addressing his question to his boss or me.

“He just saw three of his uniformed white brothers dead in probably the worst way he could imagine,” I said. “And there I was, of the race that slaughtered them. He was just gettin’ his pound’a flesh.”

“But you didn’t do it,” Anatole said.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It always matters.”

“So what you got for us, Easy?” Melvin interrupted.

“This isn’t even the case I signed up for,” I told the cop, once again treading water, guarding myself from men who didn’t see themselves as threats. “Like I told you already, Craig Kilian thought he stabbed a black man named Alonzo.”

“Only the guy’s name was Reynolds Ketch,” Anatole interjected.

“Probably, yeah. The three of them—Ketch, Griggs, and Plennery—did the heist.”

“Who’s Plennery?”

“He’s the third heist man.”

“And where’s he now?”