An assistant Wayne County prosecutor looked at the screen, frowning. No convictions? The guy had stolen automobiles, broken into homes, business establishments, once attempted to shoot a man, apprehended with a concealed weapon, one willful destruction… and no convictions? Well, they had the guy this time. Two eyeball witnesses who’d picked him out of a line-up, two positive IDs, man. Calvin Maguire was going away.

The prosecutor’s office also had an impressive computerized light show on the Patterson brothers: Andre Patterson and Grover “Cochise” Patterson, both male Negroes, both with previous convictions going back to ages thirteen and fourteen, and both picked out of line-ups by the same two tight-jawed no-bullshit witnesses. Bye-bye Maguire and the Patterson brothers. The assistant prosecutor was going to trial happy. He didn’t see how he could lose.

Andre Patterson had come to Maguire with the deal. This man was going to pay them fifteen hundred each to go and take a hit at the Deep Run Country Club out north of Detroit. Mess the place up, but mostly mess up their minds, the people out there. Maguire didn’t get it. A man was paying them to hit a place?

Paying them and furnishing clean weapons. The man had some reason he didn’t like the place, or he wanted to pay them back for something, not anybody in particular, the whole place. Maguire said, At a club they sign for everything; there’s no money at a club. Andre Patterson said, But the rich people who go there have money; put it in their locker, go out and play golf. See, they could keep whatever they took. The man didn’t want a cut; it wasn’t that kind of deal.

Maguire was uncertain. What’s the matter with your buddies Ordell and Louis? Why me? And Andre answering that those two were away for a while. No, you my man, only man I know can do it cool, without a nosefull. Maguire told Andre he was doing fine without the thrills; he had a job he thought he’d stick with at least until the end of the year, then take off.