Private Deceptions by Roy Glenn

learned how to handle the big rigs. Now, once Bobby was gone in the truck, Black would always ask, "Is that your rig or the companies?" If it was the driver’s rig, Black would tell the driver where he could find it, if not, he would sell the truck for parts.
    Even though he didn’t like doin’ it, Black would sometimes rob warehouses. But only if it presented a tempting enough prize, and it definitely had to be minimal risk involved. Black was never one to take risks that would put himself or his organization at risk. "Remember, no risk," Black would say before we went on any job. "Bail ain’t cheap." The reason that he didn’t like robbin’ warehouse was because; "Time waitin’ to load the truck was time waitin’ to get caught," he’d say. And gettin’ caught was never on his list of things to do.
    Black had gotten some information that there was a warehouse that offered just such an opportunity. His first thought was to wait and see if his informant could give us a target to hit, but when that didn’t happen, Black decided that it was too much money involved to pass on, so it was on.
    The information came to from a woman who worked as a routing supervisor at the warehouse. Black got his hooks into her because of her favorite pass time. Gambling. She owed Black five grand, so one Sunday afternoon, around dinnertime; Black and I paid her a visit.
    After a very filling meal, Ayana was a great cook; she set it out for us. "Black, look, I know I owe you some money. And to be honest with you, I just ain’t got it." Which caused Black to put his gun on the table. Which wasn’t any big deal, ’cause Black would never shot a woman. If that became necessary he’d get me or Freeze to do it for him. "But I do have something that maybe worth something to you."
    "And what might that be, Ayana?" Black asked.
    "Yow know I work at a warehouse in Jersey. Well there’s a shipment full of electronic equipment comin’ in. You know, flat screen televisions, DVD’s boom-boxes and digital cameras, just come in from China. After the shipment passes though customs and all that shit, it’s taken to this warehouse and I schedule it to be shipped out to locations around the country. My position gives me the inside track on what’s in house, and what’s worth taking."
    After making sure that he wasn’t playing in anybody else’s backyard, Black formed a plan. He got her to draw a map of the warehouse and to identify the good stuff from the junk by marking the target pallets with a piece of black tape. This saved us a lot of time. Black simply walked around and told me, ’cause I learned to drive the forklift, which one to pick up, while Bobby took over the security shack at the gate and Jamaica stood guard at the door.
    By one o’clock the truck was half full and everything was going smoothly until the forklift died on me. Black and I looked around for another forklift. "You find one?" Black asked.
    "No," I told him.
    "Try to get this one working." I tried everything I knew, which wasn’t much, to get it running.
    "We’re wasting time, Nick, get down from there. Jamaica, come here," Black said as he took one gun out of his pocket and took off his coat. "We’re gonna have to do this the hard way. I saw some hand jacks while I was looking for another forklift. We’ll each get one." Black looked at his watch, "It’s a little after one. I want to be out of here by three. We got about two hours to get as much as we can and get out of here."
    We all got busy, we we’re done by two-thirty. Black and Bobby left in the truck while Jamaica and I followed in the car. We’d been driving for a half-hour maybe when we passed through a small town. Once we got a little ways out town Bobby began to slow down and came to a complete stop. "What wrong now?" Jamaica asked.
    After a while Black came to the car, "What’s goin’ on, Black?" Jamaica asked.
    "There’s a road block. We passed a bar a little while ago, there just out here