The Ravine (5 page)

When they told their father that they had decided to quit without another job lined up, it made Steve curious, so he went over to Tager’s and discovered the real reason they were no longer employed. By this point, he knew this was the sort of thing his boys were capable of, and he was getting used to apologizing for them, so that’s what he did, and then he headed back home.

He couldn’t believe how radically things had changed in just a few short years. He’d given them everything he had, and it wasn’t that long ago that they were pretty much the toast of the town, but now that was starting to feel like a dim memory. He thought all of their problems could be traced back to that group of guys they were hanging with at Barton’s Pub, but they wouldn’t listen to him about that crowd. They were good boys at heart, but he was going to give them a piece of his mind.

Of course, when he got home and confronted them, a big argument ensued, and in the end Tony and Danny marched out the door, threatening never to return, which was fine with Steve. But Debby was terrified something awful would happen to her sons “out there on their own.” Steve assured her they would be back once they ran out of money and were hungry, and of course he was right. Besides, they were now at the age when they
should
be out on their own, but neither he nor Debby had the heart to toss them out into the street.

There was something to Steve’s idea about the crowd at Barton’s being part of the problem, but the fact of the matter was that Tony was pretty much the ringleader whenever they would go out on a petty crime spree. If they knew someone was going to be away for the night, then a few of them would figure out how to break a window, sneak in, and steal anything of value. The problem was that most items were too big to haul away, and even if they were able to snatch a watch or a necklace or some jewelry worth a few hundred dollars, they would only get a fraction of the value. So, even with a little job here and there, Tony and Danny were broke most of the time.

Despite being out of pocket, when one of the guys would suggest a B&E at a house they knew would be vacant, Tony would usually find a reason to nix the idea. They’d had too many close calls over these stupid little hauls. He had the good sense to realize their luck would run out eventually. He knew the answer was cash. Cold hard cash. But how to get that? A bank job was too risky. Gas stations and convenience stores had cash, but that was almost like robbing a place in broad daylight, and you never knew if the guy behind the counter had a gun or some other weapon. They were bound to get busted or worse.

Then one day their luck started to turn for the better.

Tony and Danny were friendly with this tall, skinny, frizzy-haired kid named Jimmy Bagneski, who drove a truck for a local delivery service. He liked to call himself “the Bagman,” because he thought it gave him a certain criminal cache, but to most folks he was usually just “Bags.” Bags was one of the Turner groupies who attended Geauga High back in the glory days, and he still thought Tony and Danny might one day find great fame. Tony thought Bags was an idiot, but he put up with him because he always picked up the tab—and he enjoyed reliving the days when he was the big man on campus.

One night he showed up at Barton’s as excited as a dog at dinnertime, convinced he had found just the ticket they were looking for.

“You know that antique shop over in Novelty, the one that sells all that crap like old clocks, paintings, tables, and stuff?” Bags asked smugly. He didn’t know it, but he had just asked a rhetorical question.

“Yeah, what about it?” Danny said. “What would we do with that stuff even if we could get that junk out of there?”

“Well, here’s the deal. I deliver to that place every day, and I got friendly with that old bald dude, Jack, who hauls the stuff around for the two old farts who own the place. He says they do a lot, I mean
a lot
, of business in cash, and that they take it home to their house in Chagrin Falls, and have it stashed there in a safe.”

Tony started to get interested. “Okay, that sounds good, but how are we going to actually get it out of the safe, if we don’t know the combination?”

Bags was ready with the answer he knew would impress the guys. “That’s the best part. This guy Jack says he knows the combination, and he’ll give it to us if we cut him in. He won’t help do the break-in, but he’ll give us the combination. Better yet, he says they’re going down to Florida for a few months in January, and if we give him a thousand bucks up-front, he’ll make a copy of the key and tell us the code to the alarm system!” Bags had really done his homework, covering all the bases.

Tony and Danny couldn’t believe their good fortune. This was going to be like taking candy from a baby. It felt just like the good old days, when the Turner brothers would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and score a touchdown in the final seconds of the game, striding off the field like the gladiators they were meant to be.

Danny, Tony, and Bags managed to scrape together the thousand bucks, and met with Jack the day after Christmas behind the bandstand with the cupola at the park in the center of town. Snow was falling, which was something the folks in Chesterland took for granted this time of year. “Lake effect,” they’d say knowingly to one another.

Jack handed over the key as well as the combinations to the safe and the alarm system. He told them the safe was bolted to the floor in the upstairs bedroom. He also made it clear that he knew for a fact there was at least $50,000 in it, so he expected his take would be a minimum of $12,500 and not a penny less. Of course Tony and his buddies had intended to beat Jack out of his share.

Tony stared right into Jack’s eyes, giving him his most sincere look. “You don’t think we’d cheat ya, do you?”

Jack had a few years on Tony and wasn’t about to be taken. “Sure I do, which is why I will be far, far away, out of Ohio, with a rock-solid alibi when you guys do this, and if I don’t get my full cut, then I promise you the cops will be tipped off about you three and you’ll be toast.” If Jack had had an ace on him, he would have pulled it out of his sleeve at that instant. Even Bags could figure out that his cut just went way down.

“A deal’s a deal,” Tony assured him, annoyed with himself for thinking he could trust a thief to trust a thief.

Now that they had the address, the key, and the combinations, all they had to do was wait for the owners to pack up and go to Florida. With any luck, they wouldn’t even discover that the money was missing until they returned a few months later.

The house was on Maple Street in Chagrin Falls, one of the most picturesque, quintessentially American towns in the country. Downtown Chagrin during the Christmas season could have been the set for
It
’
s a Wonderful Life
. With the enormous white face antique clock smiling down at the end of the square, you half expected to see James Stewart and Donna Reed arm in arm, viewing the spectacular falls where the Chagrin River had a natural drop of fifty feet, and the icy rush of the cascading water created an immediate hypnotic daze. At that time of year, snow usually coated the ground, and the square was ablaze in colorful lights. For families in surrounding towns, it was a tradition to make the annual pilgrimage to Chagrin Falls to get a taste of old-time Christmas. There was no better way to transform a grinch into a good-natured, patient, and generous man or woman.

However, the trio of Tony, Danny, and Bags couldn’t have cared less for the festivities and wholesome feeling of the town. They had a plan, and they were starting to get pretty annoyed with the home owners, Don and Linda Grant, for still being in attendance as late as the fifth of January. Jack said they always closed the shop the first weekend after Christmas, packed up the car, and headed south almost immediately. If they didn’t leave soon, there might have to be a change of plans, Tony thought.

The Grant home was a classic colonial, bracketed by massive brick chimneys on either side with a generous porch that surrounded the front of the house. The landscaping was immaculate, and the Christmas decorations were tasteful, yet meaningful. There was a manger on one side of the front lawn and a reindeer on the other. The ground was covered with snow, which only added to the simple beauty. At eleven o’clock at night, when the Grants’ decorative lights shut off, the nearby street lamp stretched a surreal silhouette of the reindeer that resembled a giant black stallion.

On that particular night, the nefarious trio was brazen enough to pull up in front of the house just after the outdoor lighting went dark. They sat silently and stared into the windows. They could see the movements and hear the sounds of a household shutting down for the night: the TV flickering off, dishes clattering in the kitchen, pillows being fluffed, a phone ringing, muffled conversation, laughter in the distance. Eventually the lights went out downstairs and were turned on upstairs. There wasn’t much to see, but the simple act of watching from the shadows gave the guys a thrill. Somebody said he felt like Charles Manson, and they all had to struggle to stifle their laughter.

After all the bedroom lights were turned off, Tony suggested they get out and take a walk around to get the lay of the land. “Make sure you keep your mouth shut,” he warned, “and don’t knock anything
over.” They silently worked their way through the front gate and onto the porch. A peek through the window convinced them the Grants had some serious money. This wasn’t the usual type of place they hit; this was a real step up. They noticed that the next-door neighbor’s house turned slightly toward the Grants’, and Tony made a mental note of that. He decided that, when they robbed the place, it would be prudent to wait until around three in the morning, when everyone in the neighborhood would be asleep, and not to turn on the houselights.

They were exhilarated when they got back into the pickup truck. Danny pulled out a pint of vodka, and they passed it around. They knew this was going to be a piece of cake, so they were chomping at the bit to get this party started, and actually put their hands on the cash. The amount of money they were going to pocket in a matter of days would be more than any of them could earn in a year.

Bags lit up a smoke, while Don Grant, who had gotten out of bed because he thought he heard footsteps on the porch followed by the slam of a car door, looked down from his bedroom window and watched the beacon from the cigarette swirl in the darkness. He thought it was a pretty odd scene, but then the truck drove away, and he shrugged and went back to bed. He and Linda had plans to finish packing the next day so they could leave for Florida by the end of the weekend, and he was exhausted.

The gang drove by on Sunday afternoon and the manger and reindeer were no longer in the front yard. The three agreed that Danny was the most respectable-looking of the group, so they parked around the corner while he walked up to the front door and rang the bell. If anyone answered, he would just pretend he was looking for directions. No one answered. Tony still wasn’t convinced, so they drove around the front and rear of the house later that night, and it appeared that only a small lamp in the hallway was on, probably managed by the same timer the
Grants used for the Christmas lights. Tony felt they needed a little more preparation, so he decided they would wait one more day to do the job. It was a fateful decision.