Final Confession (20 page)

Phil replied, “Nothing personal, Ange, but Red Kelley doesn't trust his own mother.”

At the next meeting at the Log Cabin, Red Kelley introduced Angelo to DeLeary. “Who's he?” DeLeary asked. “He's the guy who's been staking you out.” Kelley smiled. DeLeary was shocked. “You guys have been
watching
me?” “Fucking right we have, whadda ya think this is, Ted Mack's
Amateur Hour?”
Kelley laughed. DeLeary turned pale and looked around to see if there were any more eyes watching him. Very nervous now, he asked, “Is anyone going to get hurt?” “That all depends on how it goes down,” Kelley said nonchalantly. “Hey, I
know
one of those guys,” DeLeary said, producing a sheet of paper with the names of the three guards who rode Brink's truck number 6280 on the Saturday-three run. “Be careful, okay?”

The names were Richard Haines—the one who carried the personalized revolver—John Gillespie, and Joseph Kelly.

Angelo and Red Kelley looked at the paper and Kelley began to laugh. “Joe Kelly, huh? I like that. He doesn't spell it like I do, but I like it a lot. Luck of the Irish, eh?” And then he ceremoniously
burned the paper and put its smoldering remains in the ashtray on their table.

ON A BITTER COLD
November morning Kelley got word to meet DeLeary on Boston Common.

“You aren't going to believe this.” DeLeary was smiling ear to ear. “I just got assigned to 6280's Monday run.”

Kelley grinned. Things were starting to look up.

The next Saturday the entire team—seven men—met at McGrail's and then went to the North End. They lunched together at Joe Tecce's, then walked in three groups from the restaurant to the stakeout on Canal Street. Red Kelley and Santo “Sonny” Diaferio, whose wife had been the pretty “accident victim” in the Plymouth robbery some six years earlier, walked in front. Phil, Tony, and Angelo were a block behind Kelley and Diaferio. Stephen Roukous and Carmello Merlino, recently added to the team after Phil had done a count of how many guys would be needed, brought up the rear, a block behind Phil, Tony, and Angelo. It was now the last week of November and the wind whipped down Canal as they waited for truck 6280.

Each group watched from a different vantage point. The truck came to a stop on Canal, in front of the Union Oyster House. Two guards got out and, as was their custom, walked into Downey & Judge's and stayed there for eighteen minutes. The armored truck was locked, with a lone guard in the back who did not bolt the front doors. They all liked what they saw.

At their conference afterward, Kelley suggested they could hit the two guards as soon as they opened the door.

Phil shook his head and said, “Two doors, Red, two doors.”

“Oh yeah,” Kelley said, and took a drink of his beer.

“Let's just go in heavy, hit all three, and grab the loot,” Diaferio suggested.

Phil listened to this cowboy scenario and others until he'd heard enough. Then he said, “Why don't we just get a key and
let ourselves in?” Everyone stared at him. Kelley asked, “Are you crazy? Those guards have to sign for all the keys they get, and sign again when they return them. It's impossible unless you're Houdini.” Diaferio agreed, saying, “Nobody has
Brink's
keys. Not even the great Phil Cresta.”

Phil shook his head again. “You guys with this shoot-'em-up mentality make me laugh. We want to get in and out without anyone knowing we've even been there.” Nobody spoke. Phil continued, “Listen, we have a guard on our payroll, right?” “We do?” Diaferio asked. This was news to him, and to the newest team members, Merlino and Roukous. “Shut up and listen,” barked Angelo. “Yeah, listen to Mr. Houdini,” Kelley said sarcastically. Phil, ignoring Kelley's taunts, said, “Kelley, check with DeLeary and see how tough it would be to borrow a key to truck 6280. A couple of minutes is all I need.”

That night Angelo and Kelley grilled DeLeary on every aspect of 6280's Monday schedule. DeLeary told them that he and his two partners took two breaks, one in the morning, at the Bulkie Restaurant near Copley Square, and one in the afternoon, on Commonwealth Avenue. DeLeary stayed in the truck in the afternoon, but not in the morning. The pattern of the breaks was not expected to change.

“So there's a guy in the truck while you take your morning break?” Angelo asked.

“Yes,” DeLeary stated. “We always leave someone in the truck.”

“Where's the truck parked?” Kelly probed.

“Right there, on Boylston Street.”

“So the guard who's still in the truck has you in sight at all times?” Angelo asked.

“Absolutely,” DeLeary replied firmly.

Angelo groaned and repeated, “So you're never alone and you're always in sight of each other.”

“Yeah,” DeLeary said. “Keeping each other constantly in sight is a rule none of us breaks.”

“Okay,” Angelo said glumly. “We'll get back to you.”

On the way back from the meeting, Kelley said to Angelo,
“Doesn't sound too good.” “Phil will come up with something,” Angelo said confidently. “Yeah, I forgot we're working with Mr. Houdini.” “Fuck you, Kelley,” Angelo said, a little too loudly. He was really getting annoyed at the way Kelley liked to put Cresta down.

Monday morning Phil and Angelo were in Copley Square. At ten-fifteen exactly the big gray Brink's truck double-parked, and Phil saw Andrew DeLeary for the first time. Laughing and joking with his partner, DeLeary went into the Bulkie Restaurant on Boylston Street. The two men were inside for six minutes and thirty seconds, and came out holding paper bags.

Phil made notations on everything he saw, including traffic conditions and the number of a Boston police car that drove by while the two guards were in the store. On the way to their car Phil said to Angelo, “Go into that phone booth and call Tony. Tell him to meet us at my room in an hour.”

Later that night Phil called Kelley and they all met at McGrail's.

Just as Angelo had predicted, Phil came up with a plan. He went over it with Kelley and Angelo, and stressed that nobody else needed to know anything. Kelley instructed DeLeary on what to do the next Monday.

The following Monday, December 9, Angelo was in the phone booth, approximately seven yards from the restaurant's entrance, when the Brink's truck pulled up to the Bulkie Restaurant. As DeLeary and his partner left the truck on Boylston Street and passed the phone booth where Angelo was pretending to be talking to someone, DeLeary quickly slipped two keys into Angelo's hand. The pass-off was perfect, completed in the blink of an eye.

Walking behind DeLeary was Tony, who took the keys from Angelo and quickly went around the corner to a parking lot on Exeter Street. Phil Cresta was seated in the front seat of his Bonneville. Cresta took the keys and began work, using the smoker he kept in his glove box. Within two minutes he had a copy of each key—one to truck 6280's front door, the other to the back.

Angelo was still inside the phone booth when he spotted Tony walking toward him with a big smile on his face. He passed the original keys to Angelo.

A couple of minutes later DeLeary and his partner came out of the restaurant and headed back to the truck. The telephone booth was now empty, and Angelo was hovering by the door as though waiting for somebody. DeLeary, as instructed, told his partner he had to make a quick phone call. The other guard waited by the booth too, as DeLeary put in a dime and dialed a number. As though ready to talk privately, he turned his body to block the other guard's view and casually reached into the coin return slot, where the original Brink's keys lay. He then hung up the phone, told his partner he couldn't get through to his party, and together the Brink's guards headed back to their truck.

Only one more obstacle lay ahead. Phil had Kelley return both new keys to DeLeary temporarily, to make sure they fit the truck's front and back doors. He also asked DeLeary to scratch an
F
on the key to the truck's front door, to avoid any fumbling for the right key during the robbery. When he returned the keys to Phil, Kelley reported smugly, “They passed with flying colors!”

The stage was now set for a crime that would be described by a Suffolk County district attorney in open court as “one of the most interesting, carefully planned, and well-executed armed robberies in the history of Massachusetts.” Phil and team, keys in hand, planned the hit for Saturday afternoon, December 14.

PHIL CRESTA
awoke on the morning of December 14, 1968, with a sense of foreboding. This was the day that he and his six accomplices planned to make history. They had gone over the plans all week. If something went wrong it would not be for lack of planning. Every man had an assignment and each knew where he and every other team member were supposed to be. Phil had made it clear that the best scores are quick and decisive. They were going to take down the Brink's truck in the middle of downtown Boston as thousands of unsuspecting Christmas shoppers went about their holiday business. Phil had
reminded Red Kelley the night before, “There's no need to go in heavy. Make sure your guys know that.” “Sure, Houdini, you're the boss,” Kelley shot back.

It was a typical Boston December day, cold but clear. Phil didn't mind the cold, but he didn't like the clear weather. He would much rather have seen snow or rain. The members of the team arrived separately at the Fenway Motor Inn and parked their cars in the vicinity but not in the parking lot. Two cars in the parking lot that morning didn't belong to anyone staying there; they had been stolen the night before from Brighton. These two cars would transport seven men to two locations: one in South Boston and the other in the South End. Those going to the South End location would collect another recently stolen car for Red Kelley and Carmello Merlino to use. All three cars would cross the Broadway Bridge into South Boston, where they would retrieve a fourth stolen car, for Angelo and Sonny Diaferio. Then all four cars would leave for the robbery site.

Phil turned onto B Street in Southie; there was no car. He looked at Tony, who just shrugged and said, “Phil, I dropped the car off right here at ten last night.” “Well, the fucking thing isn't here now,” Phil, already on edge with that pre-crime tension, said menacingly.

They got out to meet the guys in the other two cars. “Someone must have stolen our stolen car,” Tony said to the others. “Unbelievable!” Phil cried to no one in particular while throwing up his hands to the sky. “Can you believe the nerve of these people—stealing our car like that?” Tony asked Angelo. “First of all, numb nuts,” Phil barked, “it wasn't
our
car and second of all, what the fuck are we, Boy Scouts?” Angelo couldn't help himself. He started to laugh, and before they knew it they all were standing in the middle of B Street in Southie, laughing hysterically. Everyone, that is, except Red Kelley.

“What's the matter, Red, ya gut no sense of humor?” Angelo asked between guffaws. “You guys are all crazy. All we need is for some flatfoot to drive by and do an FIO [field interrogation observation] on all of us. How would you like that?” “Lighten up,
Red,” Phil said, feeling better now. “We live to rob another day.” “It's all right, Phil, I gutta do some Christmas shopping anyway,” Tony said. Angelo began to laugh again, so hard this time that he had to hold his side.
“He's gotta do some Christmas shopping!”
he yelled. “Tony, you're priceless,” Phil said as they piled back in the cars and headed back to the motor inn.

There would be no Brink's robbery on December 14, 1968.

They met in Phil's extra room at the motor inn, the one he kept for planning heists, on Tuesday, just to stay sharp. Phil was even more worried about Red Kelley than he'd been before: the man was starting to show signs of strain. “You gonna be all right with this, Red?” Angelo asked. “I've been knocking off trucks since you were in diapers, ya fucking wop,” Red yelled at Angelo. All eyes immediately turned to Phil, who jumped off the bed. “Kelley, I've just about had it with you, ya fucking prima donna. I'll take my chances with Angelo any day. As far as I'm concerned, you're all talk.” Phil glared at Red Kelley. “Yeah, about a million and a half sentences, Mr. Houdini,” Kelley said, alluding again to his Plymouth success. “You'd better stop living in the past, Kelley, or you're gonna get us all hurt,” Phil said, and he started to walk out of the room. “Are we through, Phil?” Tony asked. “Yeah, see everybody back here on Thursday night.”

They got through the Thursday night session with no more flare-ups. They were to go into action on Saturday, December 21. This time rounding up the cars went like clockwork. They were all in place, and even the weather seemed to be cooperating: there was a slight dusting of snow, which made Phil feel a little better.

Kelley and Merlino were down the block, ready to pull up behind the Brink's truck when it turned onto Canal Street. Sonny Diaferio and Angelo were already parked across from the Union Oyster House on one side of the street, and Steve Roukous was parked opposite them on the other side. Phil and Tony were standing at the top of Canal, waiting to spot the Brink's truck as it turned the corner. About three minutes before it was due, Phil heard someone from behind say, “What the fuck are you
greaseballs doing down here? Someone let you out of your cage for the day or something?”

Tony and Phil spun around and stood face-to-face with detectives Gary Bowman and Robert Chenetti, who worked out of Boston Police's organized crime unit. Phil started sweating but hoped they wouldn't notice how shook up he was. “Hey, Chenetti,” he said loudly, making sure it sounded like “Chinshitty,” which he knew pissed the cop off. He was hoping the other guys could see what was going on; with two cops standing there, they didn't need anyone jumping out with their semis. Then Phil said, still loudly, “Come on, Tony. Let's get some Joe and Nemo hot dogs.” Turning to the detectives, he added, “Sorry ya can't come, guys, but Joe and Nemo's don't sell doughnuts.”