Big Stick-Up at Brink's!

by Behn, Noel;

  “‘Oh, hello, how are you? Come on in,’ I said and opened the door. ‘Have a drink.’

  “So now we were alone, and Tony Pino was probably getting annoyed because my face was trying to copy his, do that twitch. So we’re just sitting there like a couple of nuts.

  “‘A friend of mine told me to look at you,’ Tony Pino said.

  “‘Oh, what friend is that?’ I said.

  “‘Mike.’

  “‘Mike? Oh, sure, Mike. He’s a good friend. How is he?’

  “‘He’s off getting seasick. He wanted me to ask you if you wanted some work.’

  “‘What kind of work?’

  “‘Didn’t Mike tell you, dammit!’

  “‘If he did, I forgot.’

  “‘I take petes, that’s what I do. I got the best goddamn crew that ever was, and I don’t need nobody along who don’t know that.’

  “‘Oh, I guess you don’t need me along then.’

  “‘Jesus Christ, fella, you’re giving me a lot of heartache.’

  “‘Have a drink?’

  “‘I don’t wanna goddamn drink. I wanna know if you’re any good and if you wanna come along.’

  “‘Well, you won’t know if I’m any good until I do come along, will you?’

  “‘Do you wanna come along?’

  “‘With you and who else?’

  “‘I’m the one who’s supposed to be frying you!’

  “‘Okay, what you wanna know?’

  “‘If you’re coming a-goddamn-along to take a pete with me and Sandy!’

  “‘Sandy who?’

  “‘Sandy Richardson!’

  “‘Oh, that Sandy. I hear he’s a nice guy. Who else?’

  “‘You’ll see when you get there, mister. Now you coming along or ain’t you coming along?’

  “‘Sure, I don’t mind coming along. When?’

  “‘I’ll tell you when. I’m boss, and I say when and where. We all split even, but I’m boss, understand? You got a pair of gloves?’

  “‘Oh, sure.’

  “‘Well, make sure you bring them and a handkerchief. A big handkerchief. How much notice you need?’

  “‘A day.’

  “‘How do I reach you?’

  “‘By phone. I’m here every morning. Call around twelve.’

  “‘What about afternoon or night?’

  “‘Call Jimmy O’Keefe’s.’

  “‘Well, if someone calls you there by the name of Stretch, that’s me.’

  “‘Stretch? I thought you was Tony Pino?’

  “‘I am Tony Pino. Stretch is my secret name, so you know who the hell wants to talk to you.’

  “‘Oh, well, make sure you use it. I wouldn’t want anyone to know it was you who was calling. And never drop by O’Keefe’s, okay?’

  “‘Why the hell shouldn’t I if I feel like it? It’s a free country.’

  “‘Well, if you drop by, don’t say hello. You’re bad for my reputation.’”

  John Adolph “Jazz” Maffie bore many reputations and lived up to most. Born of immigrant Italian parents in the Jackson Square area of Boston’s Roxbury section, young John Adolph was remembered best by neighbors for being easygoing, a dutiful son, a practical joker and, above all, an excellent athlete. Few rivals could best the Roxbury Eagles when their fullback was listed as No. 27 “Maffie” Adolph. Certain lingering fans of the brief and bygone eleven insist No. 27 could punt a pigskin sixty to seventy yards with uncanny regularity or carry half a dozen tacklers across the goal line with his flap-eared helmet flapping and a cigar clenched between his teeth. A few folks, not many, recall that Adolph worked at a shoe factory bench beside his father. More remember him as being an inveterate gambler since he was in knee pants; recalling that when only twenty-three he was a partner in the Columbus AA Club. The Columbus AA was no competition to neighboring drinking clubs such as the one Joe McGinnis operated at nearby Egleston Square, but you could shoot a comfortable rack of pool on any of the three tables in the single garage-sized room or readily find a seat in the poker game behind the screen in the corner. One or two people remember Maffie peddling dollar bottles of hooch back in Prohibition; many more recall him as a frequenter of the better speaks and restaurants in town, remembered that he was a spiffy dresser and always had a fat wad in his pocket and a pretty girl on his arm. In that jazzy era he qualified as a jazzy fellow—which may account for his nickname.

  On March 6, 1941, he was drafted into the Army. His tour of duty kept him stateside, where he made a minor killing playing cards and betting the ponies. Maffie was discharged on September 11, 1943, returned to his Boston haunts and most particularly Jimmy O’Keefe’s restaurant—a popular watering hole for politicians, athletes, detectives, gamblers and a goodly segment of well-regarded hoods. He married a former Jimmy O’Keefe’s waitress, took an apartment in Brighton, slept late every morning he could, pulled a string or two which resulted in his obtaining rare high-priority wartime papers, which in turn allowed for the purchase of a brand-new chromeless Oldsmobile at Bronigan’s Auto Showroom. Then one afternoon, while having a shoeshine, he was approached by a guy who said, “Hey, you seen Augie?”

  “Oh, no,” Maffie replied, “I haven’t seen Augie for a couple of days. But don’t worry, he’ll be along.”

  “When you see him, give him this, okay?”

  Jazz accepted the $200 intended for Augie the Bookmaker and a few minutes later was approached by a friend of the first bettor—who also handed him a bet for Augie.

  “I forgot all about it, and I didn’t bump into Augie,” Jazz relates. “So the next thing I knew, I got myself four hundred bucks because Augie disappears for a while. That’s how I became a bookmaker. If the horse those two guys bet had come in, I would have been something else.”

  Jazz Maffie earned a reputation as an honest and lethargic bookmaker. Never try to find him before noon, then go look in Jimmy O’Keefe’s or wander up the street to Marie’s or McNiff’s. If he knew you and if you approached him, Jazz might take your bet. If he turned you down, he’d probably buy you a drink. Above all, Maffie had the reputation of being as nice a guy as you’d ever meet.

  There was another side to him, which few people knew about. On April 16 and 25, 1925, fourteen-year-old Jazz was brought to court but never convicted on two different arson charges. On December 2, 1926, he was found guilty of breaking and entering at night and subsequently sent to reform school, where he served ten months and two weeks. A 1927 larceny arrest was set aside.

  “Oh, I got into some trouble with the police when I was a kid,” Jazz admits. “But all of that was more for adventure than money. I liked money, and I did some stealing to get some. But half the fun was the thrill, the adventure. If you don’t have adventure in your life, you’re dead.”

  Maffie’s adult record prior to going into the Army shows nothing more serious than two drunkenness arrests and a $10 and $5 fine for being present where gaming implements were and gaming on the Lord’s day. He found additional adventure by being involved in at least two respectable robberies—armed robberies in 1940. Mike Geagan knew this and told Sandy Richardson. Said that with or without a gun, Jazz Maffie was a potent guy.

  “Nobody ever impressed me much or scared me for as long as I can remember,” says Jazz. “My father was very strict, and his word was law when I was young. Maybe he scared me when I was young. But he was the only one I would do what he told me to do—some of the time.

  “So when I ran into Mike Geagan and he told me some of the things Tony Pino had done, I was almost impressed. Maybe if I hadn’t met him, it would have stayed that way.”

  Pino was less than impressed by Maffie.

  “The man acted like he couldn’t remember his own name,” Tony recalled. “I was desperate for hands, but not that goddamn desperate. I told Sandy to look around for somebody else. Sandy told me that wasn’t his job and that nobody else was around. So I knew I was stuck with the fella for at least one job sooner or later. I was hopin
g it was later.”

  Big Steve tried again. The clerk came back in the room. Big Steve smiled and pointed to the jumbo-sized lunch bucket on the top shelf, took out his billfold, removed the nine $1 bills.

  Mary handed Tony the list of supplies she needed for the new apartment, cocking a finger, warned that nothing must be stolen, demanded that he bring her a receipt for the most inexpensive of items.

  Two hundred and seventy-five dollars is what the Winchester matron stated, cross-armed on her porch. Costa revised his bid to an even two hundred. Three hundred was the return quotation.

  Pino watched Aunt Elizabeth pack the last of his “double” lunch into the jumbo-sized bucket, concurred he should go on a diet, kissed the woman on the cheek, took the lunch pail down to his apartment, removed the six sandwiches, two pieces of pie, four apples, two oranges and thermos, put in a pair of binoculars and the empty milk bottle he had boosted some days before, replaced as much food as he could, snapped shut the lid, stuffed the remaining sandwiches in his pocket.

  At work on his delivery route he told the driver he had a chance to get laid in the coming week by a “beautiful” married broad, got a promise that for a few extra bucks he could get off between 8 and 10:30 P.M. when he had to.

  After work that morning he walked to the tall wood-façaded office building on Pearl Street, tripped the lock, climbed the creaking steps to the fifth-floor single-room office. He chose the window desk to the right, seated himself in the darkness, hoisted up the lunch bucket, opened the lid, placed the two remaining sandwiches neatly down on the blotter, spun the cap off the empty milk bottle and placed both the bottle and cap neatly beside the sandwiches, removed the binoculars, put them to his eyes and focused out the window and across the construction site and parking lot at the Congress Street façade of the Chamber of Commerce building. All the upper windows were dark. Light flowed from the marble lobby and spilled out into the parking lot. Pino took off his watch, placed it on the blotter, checked the time. It was 5:02 A.M. He began eating a sandwich.

  At 5:07 A.M. two men angled forward in the lobby. At 5:12 lights went on in a line of upper windows. A bridge adjustment was made. The room behind the first window to the left was empty except for a desk and three filing cabinets. At the rear was a door. The glasses jumped to the adjacent windows. A coatless man with spectacles was standing over a long table. His hand reached down, tickled the top. He inspected his finger, then departed through a door at the rear of the room.

  The glasses shifted down to the marble lobby. A Brink’s guard and a spectacled man in an overcoat and tasseled ski cap were getting on the elevator. Pino zeroed in on the janitor. He walked forward to the Congress Street end of the lobby and began unlocking the glass doors. The time was 5:18.

  The binoculars swept up, came to rest on the long table. Paper money was being stacked along one side by the coatless man with the spectacles. Another spectacled, coatless man was seated opposite counting bills—counting with the rapidity and precision unique to trained cashiers. A third man, wearing a gray dust jacket, was seated at the table end, binding piles of currency with what appeared to be paper strips. Once the stacks were bound, he stuffed them into a gray cloth sack which had a small padlock dangling from its mouth. Pino glanced at the wristwatch on the blotter. It was 5:22.

  The glasses moved back along the counting table, then up to the rear of the room. A fourth man, most likely the one who had gone on the elevator with the Brink’s guard, was coming through the door. He wore a dust jacket, a green eye visor and glasses and was carrying a metal tray and book. The newcomer exchanged a few words with the men around the table, moved on to the next room and settled down at a desk. One of the coatless men brought him a stack of currency.

  The binoculars skipped to the door at the back of the room which held the big counting table. It seemed to be made of wood. No extra locks or chains were evident. The rear doors in the adjoining rooms all appeared to be ordinary.

  Pino kept his eyes pressed hard to the binoculars with one hand as he lifted the milk bottle with the other, unzipped his fly and relieved himself.

  The glasses tilted down, picked up a white armored Brink’s truck pulling to a stop in the parking lot. A uniformed guard got out, locked the cab, placed the key in the right-hand pocket of his jacket, pushed through a glass door, strode up the marble lobby to the wall phone on the right and lifted the receiver.

  The three men seated around the large table continued their counting and stacking. The eye-shaded man sat in the adjoining room making notations in a book. The lobby phone was back on its wall cradle, and the driver was gone. The door behind the large table opened. A guard Pino hadn’t seen before stood in the frame holding several white cloth money bags. Each had a piece of paper attached. The man in the dust jacket rose from the table, went to the guard, shook his head, removed the sheets, then led the way out of the room.

  Seven minutes later a guard Pino hadn’t noted previously stepped off the elevator and, carrying a gun, came forward down the lobby, moved through the Congress Street door, moseyed over to the rear of the armored truck, leaned his weapon against the wall, took out a pack of cigarettes and lit up.

  The binoculars kept skipping between the smoking guard and the marble lobby and the upstairs offices. Four and a half minutes elapsed before the driver and the guard who had entered the counting room appeared in the lobby, pushing a portable cloth hamper. The driver moved around in front and helped open a glass door as his companion wheeled the hamper out.

  The exterior guard heeled out his cigarette and went to the rear of the white armored truck, leaving his rifle behind. He lifted his jacket flap, raised a waist chain, inserted a key and pulled open the metal door. Pino kept count. Eleven packages, nine in cloth sacks and two bound in paper, were loaded on before the sentinel guard closed and locked the door and disappeared around the other side of the truck. The driver strode to the cab, reached in his right-hand jacket pocket, retrieved a key, opened the door, got in, leaned across and pushed open the opposite door. The sentinel guard climbed in. The engine turned over and was gunned. The armored vehicle’s wide headlights glimmered momentarily, then sent strong beams out through the predawn haze.

  A phone call from Stretch came into Jimmy O’Keefe’s at 4 P.M. on Friday. Jazz was told to be at a corner location in three hours. He walked up Massachusetts Avenue, bought some handkerchiefs and a pair of suede gloves, returned to O’Keefe’s for dinner with some friends who planned to make a night of it. At 7:15 he excused himself from the table on the pretext of having to collect a rather large bet and walked to the rendezvous site. Pino and Richardson were already waiting in the white flower truck.

  “What t’Christ are you wearing?” Pino asked.

  “A suit,” Jazz replied as he got in. “Like it?”

  “You’re going to work in goddamn Sunday clothes?” Tony uttered in disbelief.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t get them dirty.”

  Richardson drove to the textile company and parked in a back alley. The three got out, with Sandy carrying the satchel of tools. Once in the office where the safe was, Pino opened the satchel and told Maffie to look around.

  “Okay, how do you think we should operate?” Tony asked.

  “Oh, I better stand over there and watch the front hall,” Jazz replied.

  “How come over there?”

  “Because if you’re going to peel—”

  “Who says I’m going to peel!” Tony interrupted. “Who says I ain’t going to blow hell outta her?”

  “If you were carrying nitro, we would have all blown to hell the way that satchel was getting swung around coming in here.”

  Richardson cleared his throat. Pino opened his satchel, removing a corner wedge.

  “Why don’t you move the pete out where you’ve, got more working room?”

  “You think somebody can move that pete, do you?” asked Pino.

  “Why not?”

  “Because all three of us put together
couldn’t budge that monster half an inch.”

  Maffie shrugged, walked to the corner, seized the safe by the diagonal corners, pushed and pulled and began a rhythmic rocking and, inch by inch, rocked it into the center of the room.

  Pino inserted the wedge and began prying up the metal without daring to look at Richardson.

  Jazz Maffie was back at Jimmy O’Keefe’s by ten, buying drinks for friends without a smudge of dirt on his clothes and $1,800 richer. Tony Pino was already at work on the Stop and Shop delivery truck. Sandy Richardson would soon be overseeing the crap game at the waterfront hall.

  Stretch left a message at Jimmy O’Keefe’s restaurant.

  “So I went to meet him ready for work,” Jazz Maffie states. “When I showed up, Tony Pino was by himself. He wasn’t ready for work. Tony Pino wanted to talk. I guess he was lonely. He told me about all his problems. The next time I showed up he did the same thing. I couldn’t make sense outta half of what he was saying. He told me about some old woman who was holding him up on a car and about some cop asking about him over at work.

  “Tony Pino was supposed to tell the people he worked for he had been in prison, but he didn’t do that. He told me he had to go paint the new apartment him and his wife had. His wife wouldn’t let him boost the paint, and that musta killed him. Tony Pino can’t take a drink of water without boosting the cup. He told me something else about paint. He saw some painters going into a joint somewhere. Who the hell cared where they went?

  “So when Tony Pino left messages, I didn’t answer them anymore. That made him leave more messages. One night the sent some guy [Jimmy Costa] over to Jimmy O’Keefe’s to find me. So I gave the guy the swerve.”

  Pino sneaked into the bakery, stole a half dozen rolls and two freshly laundered sets of white baker’s working clothes.

  Maffie reached out from under the blankets, lifted the receiver from the ringing phone and answered.

  “This is Stretch,” Pino’s voice said furtively.

  “Oh, how are ya?”

  “I been trying to reach you for days. Where you been?”

  “Oh, I’ve been around, but I haven’t been answering phones.”