Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (13 page)

Eight

THE FIRST ACCOUNTING of cargo thefts at Kennedy Airport was released in October of 1967; it revealed that $2. 2 million in cargo had been stolen during the preceding ten months. The amount did not include the hundreds of hijackings of airport cargo stolen outside the airport, nor did it include thefts valued at less than one thousand dollars. The total also did not include $2. 5 million in nonnegotiable stock taken from Trans World Airlines. The $2,245,868 worth of cargo stolen during the ten-month period had been grabbed right out of the storage bins and security rooms of the Air Cargo Center. At the time, the Air Cargo Center was the largest such facility in the world. It was a thirteen-building complex of warehouses and truck-loading ramps spread over 159 acres. Space in the buildings was leased to twenty-eight airlines, air express agencies, customhouse brokers, federal inspection services, and carting companies. Each of the airlines kept its own valuables in specially guarded security rooms, some of them enclosed by steel or cinder blocks, others by wire cages. In addition, the airlines all had their own guards or hired private detective agencies to protect valuables at the twenty-four-hour-a-day facility.

Besides the airline security personnel, the Port Authority had 113 policemen on duty during the average day. There were also customs inspectors, FBI men, and police from the 103rd Precinct roaming through the facility on a fairly regular basis. But during the ten-month period pinpointed by the survey forty-five major robberies were committed there, including thefts of clothing, palladium ingots, pearls, watches, musical instruments, hydraulic pumps, cigarettes, phonograph records, drugs, wigs, and diamonds-and $480,000 in cash, which was stolen shortly before midnight on Saturday, April 8, from the locked and guarded security room at the Air France cargo building.

“Air France made me. No one had ever pulled that kind of cash out of the airport before, and I did it without a gun. It began around the end of January in 1967. I had been selling cigarettes out at the airport. I had a regular route, and one of my best stops was at the Air France cargo dock. Bobby McMahon, the cargo foreman, was one of my best customers. He also used to come across stuff once in a while, and we’d buy perfume, clothes, and jewelry from him. Bobby McMahon had been with Air France for so long his nickname was “Frenchy,” and there wasn’t too much about the whole cargo operation he didn’t know. He could tell by looking at bills of lading and freight-forwarding orders what was coming in and what was going out. Since he ran the whole operation at night, he could go anywhere he wanted and pick up anything he needed. Nobody watched anybody out there anyway, but Frenchy had carte blanche. Once he came across a small 24-by-48-inch box of silk dresses, which Jimmy unloaded at the garment center for eighteen thousand dollars and which Frenchy got a piece of. Frenchy always got a piece of anything he brought us or pointed us toward.

“Then one day I’m there and Frenchy tells me about money coming in. He said they were building a new strong room with cement blocks where the old wire cage room had been, and in the meantime they were storing all the valuables in the cargo office right up front as you entered the cargo warehouse. Frenchy said the money was in sixty-thousand-dollar packages in large white canvas bags with big red seals over the side flaps. He said there were usually three or four of the canvas bags dropped off by planes coming in from overseas and that they were usually picked up in the morning by armored trucks. Three or four guys with pistols could easily take the load.

“I was really excited. I drove over to Robert’s and told Jimmy. He knew Frenchy had great information, so that weekend Raymond Montemurro, his brother Monte, Tommy DeSimone, and me go over to stick the joint up. Johnny Savino and Jimmy were going to wait for us at Jimmy’s house. We do the usual thing about getting rented cars and putting on bum plates. We go right up to the cargo office, and immediately we see there are too many people. There must have been about twenty-five, thirty people wandering around. We looked at each other and tried to figure out how we could round them all up, but it was no use. The office was in front, but, then, behind a loading platform there was a whole warehouse full of cargo resting on pallets and crates and boxes piled ceiling-high. There was just too much activity and too much going on we didn’t know about. We decided to forget the stickup. We had all gotten a look at the canvas bags. They were just stacked up against the wall where they were building the safe room. All those pretty little bags full of money. Just the sight of it drove me nuts. It was so good we didn’t want to blow anything. We did the smart thing and took off.

“When I met with Frenchy I told him we needed another way. He said it was tricky, because he never knew exactly when the money was coming in. Sometimes it wouldn’t come in for a couple of weeks, and then there’d be two deliveries at once and they’d leave for the bank the same day. The money came from American tourists and soldiers who converted their American cash into French money. The French would then send all that cash back to the United States and get credited for it in American banks. It was usually in hundreds and fifties, and it was untraceable. It was a dream score.

“Meanwhile, every time I went to the airport to sell cigarettes, I’d stop by and talk with Frenchy. As we talked I’d watch the workmen get closer and closer to finishing the new storeroom, and then one day the storeroom was finished. There were two keys. Frenchy? No such luck. They gave one of the keys to a guard from a private agency; he had a crew cut and took his job very seriously. He loved being a cop. He loved guarding doors. The guy never let the key out of his sight. If Frenchy had to put something in the room, the guard would never give Frenchy the key--he’d open the door and wait until Frenchy was done and then he’d personally lock the door himself. He wore the key on a key ring attached to his belt. The only other key we knew about belonged to the supervisor of the entire operation, and he worked days.

“The problem with just sticking the guy up and taking his key was that we never knew when the money would be there. We had to have a key of our own so that we could get in there at a moment’s notice from Frenchy. If we stuck the guy up and got the key, they’d just change the locks, and we’d also alert them that we knew about the money. I figured we had to get the key, so I asked Frenchy to start making up to the guy. Buy him some drinks. Bullshit a little. Meanwhile Frenchy gave me the guy’s address. He lived in a furnished room on Rockaway Boulevard, near Liberty Avenue, across from the White Castle hamburger joint. One day when the guard was off, Raymond Montemurro and I waited all day for him to leave, and when he did we burglarized his apartment, looking for the key. The plan was to get the key, make a copy, and put it back so no one knew. Then, when the money arrived, we’d have the key to a fortune.

“We went in and out of every drawer in the place and we couldn’t find the key. The sonofabitch must have carried it around with him even on his day off. I couldn’t believe it. I had a fortune waiting for me and I’m stuck with a hundred-dollar-a-week nut job for a guard. The other problem was that Jimmy was getting impatient. He was beginning to say the next time Frenchy tells us there’s something in the room, we snatch the guy and take the key. I was pretty sure that meant Jimmy would have whacked the guy too. It all made me try harder.

“The guy lived in a typical bachelor’s apartment. It was depressing. It was crummy. He had all these detective magazines around, but he also had a lot of girlie magazines. He was a nebbishy-looking guy around forty. He had glasses and was thin. Frenchy was the opposite. Frenchy was a big, gruff, funny guy. He was married and had a nice family somewhere in Hempstead. He was great company. He told funny stories. On the night shift he was the boss. I just knew that would be important to the guard. Company men always like hanging around with the boss. I told Frenchy about the girlie magazines. I said maybe we could butter him up with a girl.

“So now Frenchy took the guy to the Jade East Motel, right across the parkway, for a few drinks. Frenchy started talking about girls, and the guy was definitely interested. Then Frenchy began to talk about this girl friend he had who was a real swinger. She loved to screw. The guard practically went nuts listening to Frenchy’s dirty stories.

“The next day we got a really great-looking hooker from the Bronx. She used to do numbers for Ralph Atlas’ clients. Atlas was a top-of-the-line bookmaker, and all his clients were big-money bettors from the garment center and Wall Street. She was about a hundred and a half a night, which was very steep back then. She looked like Natalie Wood. She had black hair, a great figure, and beautiful big eyes. She didn’t look like a hook. She looked more like a student or a stewardess.

“That night Frenchy brought the guard to meet his ‘girl’ at the Jade East. She immediately began to make a play for the guy. Frenchy, playing dumb, made up an excuse that he had to go back to work, and the girl took the guard upstairs to bed We did not make a move on the key that night. We just wanted to see if it could work. I wanted to know if the guy was vulnerable. He was.

“The next weekend Tommy and I picked her up again, and we took her to the Jade East. This time the plan was to see if Frenchy and the girl could get the guy away from his key. The Jade East had private steam rooms and whirlpools in the basement, and if we could get them all down there long enough to get the key, make a copy, and put it back, we were home. But first we wanted to do a dry run. Frenchy was supposed to leave the key to the room under the hall ashtray, and we’d know they were going downstairs when he parted the: blinds in the room. It worked beautifully. They were down in the steam room for an hour and a half-more than enough time to get a copy of the key made.

“Later that night Frenchy called. He had heard that between four and seven hundred thousand dollars in cash was coming into the airport the following Friday.

“No more dry runs. This was the time to do it. Again, that Friday, Tommy and I picked up the girl, and now she’s getting suspicious. She knew we were up to something illegal, but she couldn’t figure it out. This time to make things even nicer I bought some terry-cloth robes for the three of them to wear on the way to the steam room. We gave the girl the robes so she could pretend she got them for Frenchy and the guard as presents. She was a great actress. They were all supposed to meet at the motel at around five-thirty.

“It wasn’t until about six o’clock when Frenchy and the guard got to the Jade East. By then we’re getting nervous. Everything was running late. We had found a locksmith nearby who could duplicate the keys, except he closed at seven. The minute Frenchy and the guard arrived we sent the girl over to rush them along. She hugged the two of them. Frenchy’s sweating and rolling his eyes up in his head because he knows we’re late. The guard was just a slow and stubborn guy. Every time Frenchy had tried to move the guy along he’d just stand there. He’d get slower. Now at least we had the girl goosing him along, but it still wasn’t until six-thirty that they went to their room to get undressed for the steam room.

“The minute they were gone I went right upstairs. I reached under the ashtray in the hall. The key was there. I opened the door, and right next to the guy’s pants was his whole key ring. I grabbed the ring and ran downstairs. Jimmy had the car waiting, and we shot out of the motel to the locksmith’s. He was on Rockaway Boulevard, near Jamaica Avenue. We went like hell, but when we got there the guy was getting ready to close. We had to bang at his door and beg. Then we didn’t know which of the keys was the one we wanted, so we ordered duplicates of all eighteen keys. The guy started to work and when he was finished he only gave us fifteen duplicate keys. I asked where the other three were and he said he didn’t have the blanks. Fifteen out of eighteen aren’t bad odds, but in this job I didn’t want any odds.

“We drove like mad back to the motel and I went upstairs, put the keys down exactly where I had found them, closed the door, and put Frenchy’s door key back under the ashtray. Tommy took half his clothes off and went walking around the steam room until Frenchy saw him. That was our signal that the room was clear.

“First thing Saturday morning I met Frenchy near the cargo area. He took the fifteen keys to make sure we had the one that worked. He came back smiling. Not only did the key work but he had seen the sacks we had been waiting for. Frenchy said the best time over the weekend for the heist would be just before midnight. Lots of guys would be coming and going during the new shift and the guard would be on his coffee break at the other end of the warehouse. Frenchy also said that there was not going to be a bank pickup until Monday afternoon because of a Jewish holiday, and that was music to our ears. The delayed pickup, which would normally have been made on Sunday night, meant the loss wouldn’t be discovered until Monday afternoon. It also meant the cops wouldn’t know when the money had actually disappeared. People might be able to remember one or two strangers around a place on one night but not over a three-day weekend. It’s just too long a time to pinpoint anybody at the scene of the crime.

“We had about twelve hours to go. I kept the key in my hand all day long. I was so happy I went out and bought myself the biggest suitcase I could find so I could put the sacks of money inside. At eleven-forty Saturday night Tommy and I drove into the cargo parking area. We had a rented car with bum plates. We waited until the shift began to change. Frenchy said he would be waiting near the platform and that we should just walk in as though we were returning a suitcase to the office. The plan was that he wouldn’t acknowledge that he knew me, but if there was any problem he’d be there to straighten it out. He said chances were that no one would bother me, because there were always lots of people wandering in and out picking up suitcases that had been lost and misdirected. I climbed up the platform ramp and walked into the office area, and I could see Frenchy hovering nearby. I could see the room and walked right up to the steel door. I’d had the key in my hand ever since I left the car. I slipped it in, turned it once, walked inside. The room was just like a big, dark closet. I had brought a pen-size flashlight because I didn’t want to turn on any lights. The seven white canvas bags were right on the floor. I could see the red seals. I opened the suitcase and put the seven sacks inside and I walked out the door. The suitcase was so heavy I could hardly walk, but Frenchy later said he thought I was leaving empty, because I practically floated out of the joint. ”