Stung

by Gary Stephen Ross

  Andrews enjoyed the rigorous training and mental discipline. He liked the intensity and camaraderie of the gun team. The work was demanding and exciting. Each shift brought five or six calls — someone was brandishing a weapon, or holding a hostage, or barricaded in a house. The satisfaction came with a safe resolution, but not every incident was satisfying. One night the team was called to a rooming house off Queen Street, where a drunk was threatening people with a .22 rifle. The man turned out to be a holdup artist who had become a police informer and, not coincidentally, an alcoholic. Booze had addled his wits: no amount of talking would separate him from his weapon. Finally the gun team teargassed the house.

  Andrews was in the hallway when the fink came unexpectedly through the bedroom door, wild-eyed, rifle trained on Andrews’ heart. Andrews backed off, talking through his gas mask and watching the fink’s trigger finger. When the finger turned white, Andrews fired. His twelve-gauge Remington short barrel was fitted with a shot diverter, which fanned the pellets. Andrews knew about shotguns from duck hunting and his ETF training, but he wasn’t prepared for what the Remington did to the fink. It lifted him off his feet and slammed him, face down, back up the hall. It took off one finger and blew away one shoulder, but it was the four pellets in the fink’s liver that killed him. He died a month later of lead poisoning.

  The fink was convinced, up to his death, that he had murdered a policeman. It turned out his gun had jammed. The rifle was in good condition, the ammunition new. Nobody could recall another instance of rim-fire shells jamming a .22 automatic. Such things make you wonder if maybe there isn’t somebody up there looking out for you. Make you imagine what it would be like for your kids to have no father. Make you realize you survive a finite number of such encounters.

  Shortly after the shooting, Andrews went on another gun-team call and ended up wrestling a hood with a .45 automatic pistol. When they fell to the ground, Andrews took the man’s full weight on his left knee. The knee joint shattered, and Andrews underwent extensive surgery. Bone had to be taken from other places and used in reconstruction. Andrews was lucky to walk again. When he tried to resume running, to get back in shape for the gun team, the staff sergeant said maybe he was asking too much of himself. The staff sergeant happened to know of a temporary opening in Morality. That’s where Ron Andrews got to know The Bulldog. When a permanent spot opened up on the anti-gambling squad, Andrews made the change.

  It was very different work, but then Andrews was a different man from the one who’d joined the force. He and his wife had a busy household — two children, plus assorted cats, dogs, and birds — and a cottage up north. He enjoyed getting away for the weekend and spent as much time with his family as he could. He no longer prized some of the things that had once seemed so important. A rack of antlers hung over his fireplace, a splendid trophy, the first moose he had ever shot and the last. Take the life out of such a magnificent animal and you deaden something in yourself. You learn to be satisfied just watching it in the wild.

  Andrews didn’t know much about gambling. He never bet, and preferred snowmobiling and racing hydroplanes with his son to the sports that drew action. Ordinarily this would have been a formidable handicap. Every wiretap demands interpretation — nobody ever says, “Let’s buy an ounce of heroin from Rick and then shoot him” — and bookmaking wires sound especially like gobbledygook. Bookies do as much as possible on the street. They assume they’re being tapped and speak cryptically. An inexperienced monitor could easily listen to a conversation and miss its import.

  Andrews lucked out on his first authorization. The bookie, George, was expanding his clientele. He took the time to explain to new bettors how bookmaking worked. Andrews, sitting eight-hour shifts in a tiny, windowless room, got an instant education. George taught him about favourites and underdogs, odds and spreads, nickels and dimes. When he came off that wire and moved onto the next he knew what to listen for.

  When The Bulldog was approached by 14 Division, he thought immediately of Ron Andrews. On previous investigations Andrews had got to know a good deal about the Colizzis. The family was originally from Bari, on the Adriatic coast in southern Italy. Mario had come to Canada in 1952, at age seven, with his mother and two brothers. The father had emigrated the year before. Mario’s older brother, well known to police, had run the gamut of illicit enterprise. Mario’s younger brother also made a living that did not require a social insurance number, though he lacked the brains and drive of the eldest son. Mario himself was also well known to police.

  The Colizzis had extensive contacts in the underworld. To eavesdrop Mario was to tap into a network that stretched from Montreal to Buffalo, from the prisons in the Kingston area to the mob families of Hamilton and Niagara Falls. Someone who knew the cast of characters could extract that much more meaning from references and allusions. Ron Andrews began monitoring live calls. He went back through the log and replayed the conversations marked “nothing relevant noted,” to make sure nothing relevant had been missed. He drew up a flow chart, placing Mario Colizzi at the centre of a web linking all the people he spoke to or mentioned.

  The authorization rooms were on the second floor of a two-storey brick building at 60 Richmond Street East. The rooms were part of the Intelligence Bureau which, for bureaucratic reasons, had its own anti-gambling unit. A certain antagonism had developed between the two anti-gambling squads, and when Morality needed an authorization room they were usually assigned to Room 8.

  All the authorization rooms on Richmond Street were cramped and uncomfortable, but Room 8 was the worst. It contained a desk, chair, filing cabinet, typewriter, phone, and a bank of Uher 4000 reel-to-reel tape recorders. Starkly lit and poorly ventilated, it was smaller than most prison cells. Someone had taped a picture of a window to the wall.

  Thanks to the growing frequency of his visits to Caesars and growing size of his bets, the unlikely roller from Toronto had become as familiar to employees of the surveillance department as he was to the dealers and casino executives on the floor. Molony imagined he was attracting little notice, but his name was turning up more often than ever on the Game Observer’s Reports:

  Feb. 6, 1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Archie Rich.

  2 p.m. Baccarat 3. $40,000 marker Maloney. Ran it up to $110,000. Lost back to $40,000 and walked.

  3:45 p.m. Baccarat 3. $30,000 marker Maloney. Ran it up to $150,000. Sent $80,000 to the cage. Still playing.

  5:45 p.m. Baccarat 3. $20,000 marker Maloney. Lost all and walked.

  Feb. 6, 1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Jim McCarthy.

  6 p.m. Observed Craps 11. Purple action Maloney. Pass line with odds. Player has approx. $5,000 and receives $10,000 marker. Player betting Don’t Place for $3,000 inside. Maloney lost $15,000 and left.

  7 p.m. Observed Craps 11. Maloney receives a marker for $20,000. Betting Pass line also with maximum double odds. Also betting $3,000 coming with maximum double odds. Also betting behind the inside number Don’t Place. Player is losing. He receives $10,000 more in a marker and starts betting the Don’t Pass with odds and Don’t Come behind also with odds. Player is losing. Received another $10,000. Made a Pass line bet and left the game with approx. $8,000.

  9:30 p.m. Observed Craps 12. Maloney received $10,000 marker. Player is one from stickman. Maloney is betting purple in the Don’t Pass $4,000 with double odds $8,000. Also pressing odds 2nd paying vig. Also betting Don’t Come with odds. 2nd Don’t Place. Maloney started winning, then lost and left.

  Feb. 6, 1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Frank Hines.

  10:30 p.m. Baccarat 3. Maloney on game. Received $10,000 marker. Bets up to $2,000. Was up to $25,000. Now has $8,000.

  12:30. Baccarat 2. Maloney on game. Bets up to $10,000. Was up to $90,000 at one time. Now has $30,000.

  3:30 a.m. Craps 10. Maloney now on game, next to 3rd base dealer. Received $40,000 marker. Bets $2,000 Pass line — odds. Buys 4—10, $2,000 each. Places inside numbers, $2,000 each. Lost $30,000 while I observed game. Went to Cr
aps 11. Received another $30,000 marker. Betting same pattern. Left game with approx. $15,000.

  Alex Osborne rounded up tickets for his son’s first professional game at Maple Leaf Gardens and dropped into the get-together in the Hot Stove Lounge beforehand. He was in fine fettle, laughing and telling stories about Mark’s childhood. Molony noted that he was actually responsible for Mark’s success in Detroit, having signed Mark’s passport application. Jeremy Brown, a radio commentator, bank customer, and friend of both Osborne and Molony, wanted to bet a dollar on Detroit.

  “Don’t bet with friends,” said Molony. “Think how bad you’d feel if you took your banker’s money.”

  Before the hockey game, Osborne told Molony he was still trying to get him up to Lawrence and Keele, but that Harry Buckle was resisting the move. Molony had hoped Osborne might have dropped the idea. If Osborne succeeded in arranging the transfer, Molony would have no choice but to accept it. He’d be given two weeks’ notice and then his accounts — legitimate and fraudulent — would be turned over to another assistant manager.

  “Couple of months down the line might be better than now in any case. Still things to be done at Bay and Richmond. Shall we go sit down? It’s almost game time.”

  Alex Osborne couldn’t have had a happier night. Not only did Mark score Detroit’s first goal in his first NHL appearance at Maple Leaf Gardens, he was named first star. After the game, when Mark skated out to acknowledge the applause, Osborne leapt to his feet, clapping and cheering. Molony was delighted as well. Thanks to Mark’s goal, he’d won his $10,000 bet with Colizzi.

  The out-of-town scoreboard had more good news. Molony had won every game. Three good days in a row. It was starting to turn around. The months of anxiety had been the dues required in any grand endeavour. At last he was on his way to bailing himself out. He’d halved his debt to Beck and Colizzi, and at lunch the day before Colizzi had paid him $60,000. He already had U.S. cash for Saturday. If he could just keep the streak going at Caesars. He’d start with craps. He’d move to baccarat as soon as he lost three bets in a row. Maybe he’d never leave the crap table. Maybe this would be the weekend he’d pick up the dice and never put them down, play day and night without —

  “— evening like this.”

  “Pardon?” said Molony. Everyone else was standing, trying to file past him. He was still in his seat.

  Downstairs, amid the exiting crush of people, Osborne said, “Tell the others to wait here. I want to congratulate Mark. Then I’d like to buy everybody a drink.”

  Feb. 20,1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Kevin Kelly.

  10:40 a.m. Craps 10. Maloney lost $4,000 on two rolls and walked.

  11:25 a.m. Baccarat 3. Heavy purple. Maloney $10,000 a hand; as high as $70,000. Loses all but about $12,000. Goes to Craps 12. Loses the $12,000 and walks.

  2:45 p.m. Craps 11. Purple play. Maloney betting Pass line, odds, and Don’t Place. Lost $20,000. Went to Baccarat 3, got $20,000 marker.

  4:15 p.m. Maloney walked with $105,000.

  Sit wires eight hours a day and you become expert on the human voice. You can tell many of the same things a spectrograph reveals — whether someone’s tense, or lying, or disguising his voice. The same voices turn up again and again, and you become as familiar with inflection, with the tiny hesitations and changes in pitch, as a therapist or a lover. You also get to know a good deal about individual lives. A wiretap is relentlessly intimate. To eavesdrop everything a person says on the phone is to know that person better than anyone he talks to. Each caller gets a single piece of the puzzle. You get all the pieces. Everyone deals in gaps and distortions. Some people say one thing to one caller, the opposite to the next. Eavesdrop the same voices day after day and you find yourself forming clear opinions about people you’ve never seen.

  One fellow who often spoke to Mario Colizzi was a certain Mr. Brown. He was different from Colizzi’s other contacts. He was impatient on the phone, articulate and well educated. He probably held a responsible position at work. He was quick at mathematics and versed in all areas of gambling — horses, card games, football, basketball, baseball. He addressed Colizzi with a curious politeness, though in his voice you could sense distaste. “Sir,” he would say, “I’ll see you out there tonight. Be good.”

  Colizzi often spoke to another well-known bookie, Nick Beck. Someone owed them both substantial sums, though he regularly gave them money. The two bookmakers frequently groused about this someone and discussed who should get the next payment. Sit wires eight hours a day and you get a gut feeling for who’s being talked about. Maybe it’s timing — one discussion ends and ten minutes later the line lights up again. Maybe it’s a phrase in one conversation — “Atlantic City” — that recurs in the next. Andrews couldn’t swear, but he had a feeling the someone who owed money to the bookmakers was Mr. Brown.

  Each morning, Andrews took the streetcar to work, bought two bran muffins and a coffee, signed himself into the authorization room, and played back the overnights. He noted each call in his log, monitored the live calls, and did preparatory work for future authorizations. Every so often he stretched his legs, to keep his bad knee from stiffening. The more often he heard Mr. Brown’s voice, the more convinced he became that something was stirring beneath the surface. He had a feeling the day might come when he’d need to put all the Mr. Brown calls together.

  Each time Mr. Brown spoke to Colizzi, or Colizzi and Beck alluded to the fellow who owed them money, Andrews put a red star beside the entry in his log book.

  By the time the audit inspectors got to the Oskaner loan, Molony had retired it. Using money from the fictitious Sherry Brydson account, he had purchased bearer bonds from Richardson Securities, sold the bonds to the bank, and credited the proceeds to Oskaner. In this way he had repaid Oskaner’s supposed debt to the bank. When the inspector checked into it and found some troubling details, he was able to shrug and move on.

  Roger Oskaner, $175,000. Authorized limit: $100,000. No security. Did the audit officer forget to include it? No authorized credit. Better get the Oskaner file. Not much here. Personal financial statement and a twelve-line memo. That’s all? Where’s the manager’s approval? What’s the status of the loan now? Oh, paid off. Good. Don’t have to check further. Stamp it. Satisfactory loan. Two branches behind and I’m still on the O’s.

  With the fictitious Brydson account, Molony was on even thinner ice. When he started using it, her legitimate loan account had been well secured and not much used. Recently, though, as she continued making oil-and-gas investments and proceeded with construction of the Elmwood Club, the Westerkirk account had been active. She was thinking of buying an oil rig that would have to be towed from Australia; she was looking at another exploration deal; she was continually revising the estimate of the final cost of the Elmwood. She had liquidated her holdings and was now several million in debt to the bank. Molony, meanwhile, still had $2-million in fraudulent loans in her name. To the audit inspectors, who spent days going through her massive file, it looked as if Brydson had borrowed well in excess of the value of her security.

  Even so, the inspection department was reluctant to classify her loans as risky, not wanting to raise hell at Commerce Court. Classify the Brydson loan and the inspector would undoubtedly hear from a vice-president who’d been trying to land Thomson business. So the inspection department delayed classifying the loan and sought to avoid doing so. The audit inspector told Molony, “If you can get this authorized within three weeks, I’ll rate it a two. Otherwise, I’m going to have to give it a three.” Eager to help solve the problem, Molony wrote to Special Loans asking for another increase in her authorized limit — he would appear to be acting at Brydson’s request. If Credit Room agreed to the increase, the inspection department would be off the hook.

  One of the other assistant managers at Bay and Richmond was on good terms with someone in Special Loans. Molony told the other assistant, “If you happen to be talking to your friend, find out what’s happening wit
h Brydson.” A few days later the fellow came to Molony’s office. “I’ve got Special Loans on the line. They’re turning down the Brydson increase. Want to talk to him?”

  Molony asked the assistant’s friend to read the letter. “We find the customer is overextended at present borrowing levels. The available security causes us concern. We’re therefore not prepared to approve …” The branch would not be instructed to call the loan, but the application for an increased limit was being deferred. Special Loans was saying, in effect, see if you can’t get more security and then try us again.

  Special Loans would now write to Credit Room; Credit Room, in turn, would write to the branch. Credit Room would undoubtedly say not only that it was unprepared to authorize the increased credit, but that it wanted to see Sherry Brydson’s loans reduced to reflect the available security. Credit Room would suggest either that the branch reapply for a lower line of credit, or that the Thomson family be asked to guarantee the difference. In a few days, Molony would have a major problem. If Credit Room told Harry Buckle, “Get this loan down to $7-million,” Buckle would simply pass along the bad news to Brydson. The apologetic messenger. Nothing he could do. Credit Room had laid down the law.

  To which Brydson would say, “What do you mean, get it down to $7-million? The loan now stands at $6.6-million.”

  6

  LUCK OF THE IRISH

  “All fortune is to be conquered by bearing it.”

  – Francis Bacon

  on Andrews sometimes had to leave the little room with the picture of a window on the wall. As well as running wiretaps, the anti-gambling squad of the Morality Bureau was always working on future investigations. One tap might yield two or three spinoffs. Somebody had to find out whom the voices belonged to, where the traced numbers led. Physical surveillance requires inventiveness as well as patience. In one investigation Andrews was able to discover that a bookmaker worked out of a highrise. He knew which building but had trouble determining which apartment. One evening he took his son with him. The boy was selling raffle tickets to raise money for his hockey team. When the bookmaker got home, Andrews and his son managed to get on the same elevator. The boy started his sales pitch. When the bookie reached his floor, they got off with him and accompanied him to his apartment door.