Big Stick-Up at Brink's!

by Behn, Noel;

  When the man in the back of the truck—and Tony now realized two people, a driver and rear spotter, would have to remain on the truck—when the man in the back saw Costa’s second signal, the signal telling the men to proceed into Brink’s, he would tell Barney to get going. Barney would drive the truck down Snowhill, take a left onto Charter Street at the base of the hill, take another almost immediate left onto two-way Commercial Street, drive back along Commercial to Prince, pull into Prince and park just opposite the Brink’s doors. By that time the gunmen would just about be reaching the window in the counting room. If, at this juncture, Costa saw that the vault had been closed, he would give the appropriate signal, the men would turn around, sneak out of the offices, come out the door at 165 Prince, climb into the waiting truck and drive away.

  Assuming the vault was open, Costa would wait until he saw the seven gunmen subdue the employees and begin their sacking before leaving the roof. His appearance on the street would be enough to let the two men in the truck know the robbery was in progress. Costa would return to the follow car parked near the Commercial Street corner on Prince.

  The robbers inside would haul all the millions down to the area just inside the 165 Prince Street door. When everything had been amassed there, they would give some type of signal. The truck would pull in front of the door. The money and men would be loaded on, and they would leave the area via Lafayette Street. Costa would follow.

  For the plan to work, Lafayette Street was a necessity. If, when they first drove past and saw the lights on in only the first window, the truck drove all the way up Prince and turned right on the first wide street and then came back to Commercial, valuable time would be lost. That first wide right up Prince would also bring the truck out into the heavy nighttime commercial traffic in the heart of Little Italy—possibly causing even more delay, a delay during which the employees might very well close the vault. No, from all that had been observed, ten to fifteen minutes seemed to be the average time the vault door remained open after the other offices were vacated. The timing on this heist would have to be split-second. Minutes could not be wasted. Lafayette would absolutely have to be used. The only truck that could get through Lafayette was the one Barney had spotted at Lalime and Partridge. The one that had suddenly disappeared.

  On Friday, September 30, 1949, a convoy carrier of the University Overland Express Company pulled through the double gate in the cyclone fence enclosing Lalime and Partridge’s car lot at the rear of 1255 Boylston Street, Boston, and made a single delivery—one 1949 model 112 (chassis) six-cylinder heavy-duty stake body, three-quarter-ton green Ford truck.

  Leo Fedor, new car foreman of Lalime and Partridge, was handed two sheets of paper by the carrier driver, a pink bill of lading from University Overland and Invoice No. C-110451C from the Ford Motor Company plant in Somerville, Massachusetts. Fedor checked the specification contained in the two forms against the actual vehicle and made one notation of his own. He jotted down “432” on the bill of lading, 432 representing the digits of the ignition key number. The brand-new pickup truck was signed for and left to stand with some other 100 vehicles in the fence-surrounded Burns-Detective-Agency-protected lot.

  The following morning Lalime and Partridge was informed that Leo Fedor was ill and would not be in for work.

  For all intent and purposes the crew had a truck. Now all that Pino had to concern himself with was some lifting, some sketching, some rigging, some guns, a plant and, of course, the light in the fifth window.

  *On August 26, 1934, O’Keefe, under the alias of Fred Hale, was fingerprinted in the Detroit, Michigan, police station in regard to a statutory rape investigation. He was subsequently released on bond and apparently cleared of any involvement.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rehearsal

  On September 9, 1949, Tony Pino received a “Full and Complete Pardon” on both counts of the 1938 convictions for breaking and entering at Rhodes Brothers in the daytime with the intent to steal, as well as possessing burglar’s implements and for which he served two concurrent terms of six years and nine months at Massachusetts State Prison. A “Full and Complete Pardon” meant that these two convictions were technically stricken from the record. Technically Pino had now served only one sentence of more than one year in a penal institution. The existing law on which the United States Immigration Board had predicated their continuing, action to send Tony back to Italy clearly stipulated the serving of two one-year sentences as the minimum requirement for deportation. The state pardon cut the ground out from under the federal government, which dropped its case against Tony. The full and complete pardon had been granted by both the governor and council. Signing in place of Governor Paul Dever was Lieutenant Governor Charles F. Sullivan.

  “You wanna know where a thief’s money goes?” asked Pino. “I’ll tell you where it goes. Go ask his lawyers where it goes.

  “I’m gonna give it to you straight how much that pardon cost me to buy. It cost me fifty thousand dollars. All I had and more, see? I had to go begging and borrowing to make it all up,” averred Tony, who since his release from prison in September, 1944, to date was responsible for an average of 180 thefts per year with an estimated aggregate value of $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 and of which his personal share came to approximately $400,000.

  “Now I don’t know who got all that money, see what I mean?” Tony said. “I don’t know if the Governor took it or the acting governor had his hand out, too, or who the hell up there got rich off me. All my money went through lawyers. I had three lawyers, not counting Paul Smith. Paul Smith wasn’t in on this. He only handled me for pinches and judges. And my other three lawyers only did the setting up. They got other lawyers to work this thing out. I paid my money over to the other lawyers. And the guys they bought off up on that hill [statehouse] was all lawyers, too. So who the hell knows who got what? They don’t give you receipts when you do this kind of business. But fifty thousand dollars and one hell of a lot of lawyers were mixed up in this thing.”

  Despite disclaimers of poverty, obtaining of the pardon prompted subsequent expenditures—many of which were legal fees. Once Pino was sure he would beat the immigration action, he began investing in his future—letting his professedly nonexistent fortune go to work for him, No lawyers were required when he and Costa made a cash deal with a well-established lottery operator and his brother to open up the territory around Canton, Massachusetts.

  This particular racket was commonly known as the Federal Reserve or Treasury Balance Lottery since the winning daily ticket was the one whose numbers were the same as the final number of the daily Federal Reserve Bank balance as printed in the local newspaper.

  Pino and Costa’s initial outlay was approximately $15,000, mainly to cover the cost of purchasing the physical tickets, hiring ticket folders and recruiting agents. The bank was not an out-of-pocket expense. They would simply have to stand good for any losses they suffered. No money was paid to two established lottery operators with whom they were affiliated. The pair would be provided with physical tickets at cost and share in the profits.

  Pino and Costa’s involvement in the lottery had both a positive and negative effect on the planning of the Big Haul. Jimmy, not surprisingly, was tied down with the bulk of the work, was totally responsible for recruiting agents up in the Canton area, couldn’t be as readily available for Brink’s activities as before.

  Tony, on the other hand, found the perfect way to minimize the potential suspicion meets at his apartment could generate. He sped around Boston trying to find agents, talked to everyone he could, including Ben Tilly, and he now had the perfect guise under which to stay in constant and direct touch with each and every gang member away from home. Tony even convinced Richardson and Maffie to try to sell lottery tickets for him.

  Acquisition of the Harbor Motor Terminal preceded involvement in the lottery and did require the services of a lawyer. The parcel of property lay adjacent to the U.S. Navy Yard in South Boston and belonged to t
he Commonwealth of Massachusetts. When it went for auction, Tony and his three partners—Jimmy Costa, a cousin and an uncle—seemed to be the only bidders. The estimated purchase price was $100,000. Legal papers drawn in October, 1949, showed that Tony purchased a one-fourth interest in the operation. Both Pino and Costa, another one-fourth owner, claimed they had to borrow the $25,000 required for investment. In truth, Jimmy put up his own money, and Tony put up the money for himself and two other relatives.

  From the moment of purchase Harbor Motor Terminal became a second command post for the impending assault on Brink’s. The phone in the gas station shack on the property was a much-used point of contact. Any of the gang members could drive in, buy gas and unobtrusively chat with whoever was manning the pump—Costa or Pino. Should longer and more direct conversation be required, Tony and a crewman could wander out into the vast much-used commercial parking lot, sit in a car and say what had to be said.

  Toward mid-October a great deal was being said. Daylight savings time had ended. The nights were longer. The crooking season was under way. The crew in pairs and sometimes trios was sneaking back into Brink’s to recheck the physical premises and contents. The locks for which they had made keys were the same. The other doors and locks were the same. The pull-down and stomp alarms were the same. The personnel records indicated the staff was essentially the same. Except for the vault door having been painted white* and the removal of a counting room desk, they found no changes of note. Costa was back on the roof at 109 Prince Street almost every night with his binoculars, watching the closing procedures in the windows above the playground, and he observed no appreciable changes from the season before. And away from the joint many other things were being done.

  “Okay, I go over to Abe’s place,” Tony recounted. “Some fella named Abe, see, and he’s in the auto business, too. I knew he keeps auto plates in his drawer. So it’s late at night, and I have keys to his front door. I open the office, and I go in and open his desk and take the plates. One set of plates for a truck.

  “Now I go pick up Barney. We drive over to Lalime and Partridge and open the lock on their gate ’cause I got a key for that, too. I got a key for Abe’s, and I got one for Lalime and Partridge. I’m in the auto key business tonight. Barney don’t need no key ’cause he finds it under the mat.

  “So Barney and me go in and put Abe’s plates on the green pickup [Ford truck]. Barney starts the pickup and drives her right out of there. Maybe it’s one o’clock at night. I get in my car and go over to where Barney is parked, waiting. I flash my lights and pull in behind so he knows it’s me. I take the three-galloner out of my trunk and pour gas into the pickup. Now Barney’s got gas to go where he’s going. I’m making sure he’s got the plans with him, see? I drew up these plans to show just how I want the rigging to be. So he drives over to the rigger’s—they’re over in Charlestown, right next to the can over in Charlestown. I follow him over, but I don’t go in. Those are good, reliable fellas in there, but you don’t want them knowing everyone who’s around. They know Barney from the smuggling days. They rigged a helluva lotta trucks for him.

  “Now Barney comes out of there, and he’s got the plates with him. I drive him back to Egleston Square, and then I go take the plates back to Abe—let myself into Abe’s office and put the plates back.”

  The light in the fifth window went out the earliest on Monday night, usually between 6:45 and 6:55 P.M. This could be expected since the loading schedule on the clipboard in the office showed that only $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 was usually in the vault on Monday nights.

  On Tuesday nights the light in the fifth window generally went off between 7 and 7:15, and the vault usually contained, according to the crew’s interpretation of clipboard figures, between $2,500,000 and $3,000,000.

  The fifth window was less predictable on Wednesday evenings. On some occasions the light had gone out as early as 7:15. On one occasion it hadn’t gone out until 7:55. The clipboard reflected a variance of money on Wednesday. Figures as low as $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 had been computed. On one occasion it had been $5,500,000. Usually, the totals ran between $3,500,000 to $4,500,000.

  The single most unpredictable night for fifth-window darkness was Thursday. This could be expected since Friday was the traditional payday for a majority of Boston area businesses. The light had often remained on past 8:30. The clipboard for Thursday night, as could have been expected, showed the greatest of vault holdings. The norm seemed to be $5,000,000 to $6,000,000. To the crew’s delight $7,000,000 and $7,500,000 had also been noted.

  Friday night was the next least predictable evening for the fifth window. The vault holding ranged from $4,500,000 to $5,500,000, but figures as high as $6,500,000 had been computed. The light was observed going out at 7:45, 8, 8:10, 8:15, 8:25 and once as late as 8:40.

  Not only was the fifth window the most erratic on the heaviest payload nights of Thursday, Friday and Wednesday, respectively, but so were the lights in the fourth, third, second and first windows. Thursday and Friday were far more difficult than Wednesday. On these two evenings people had often been seen working in the counting room almost to the time when the vault door was closed. Sometimes they left early, turned the switches off for the lights in the first, second and third windows a full hour before or even an hour and a half before the vault was closed.

  Try as he might, Pino couldn’t establish a clear-cut operational pattern of when the counting room worked late and when it didn’t. Checking the quitting time against a heavy delivery schedule the next day wasn’t helpful. The counting room often remained operative the longest on nights when the Thursday or Friday or even Wednesday vault contents were the smallest. The robbers absolutely would not attempt to enter the premises while employees were in the counting room.

  The fourth window in the line, the payroll wrapping room window, usually went off the same approximate time the three windows in front of the counting room went off—but not always. Seldom had anyone been seen working in the payroll wrapping room at night, yet the knowledge that this light might be left on after the counting room went dark made it all the riskier for the armed robbers, who had to cross through on their way to the vault room.

  There were almost no problems with the counting or payroll wrapping rooms being illuminated on Monday or Tuesday nights. Those windows were usually dark by 6 P.M. at the latest. On these two nights the vault door closed pretty much on schedule—6:40 to 6:55 P.M. on Monday and 7 to 7:15 P.M. on Tuesday. These two nights, however, were when the least amount of money was in the vault.

  “We ruled against Monday altogether,” states Mike Geagan. “It wasn’t worth our time. Tuesday we kept in. Tuesday sometimes went up to three million. What we were after was Thursday and then Friday. The big millions. After Thursday and Friday, Wednesday. That’s the way we set it up. Thursday was uppermost in our minds.”

  The gang had penetrated and wandered through the Brink’s premises about seventy-five times by count. They had studied files and re-created for themselves what they considered internal company security, but they had never learned that on Thursday evening an armed guard was often stationed in the glass-fronted booth equipped with a pull-down alarm in the general office looking out into the front hall—the hall they intended to enter on their way to the vault.

  Barney Banfield picked up the stolen green Ford truck from the Charlestown canvas shop well after sunset. He affixed a pair of license plates he had stolen off a far larger truck in Concord and drove to Franklin Field. Barney got out, and Costa got in. Jimmy wheeled around Franklin Field, turned into Blue Hill Avenue, kept going on Blue Hill until he reached Number 780, entered the long driveway, switched off his headlights as he passed the barn, pulled in before the garage, left the motor idling as he jumped down, went to the door and knocked.

  Pino lifted the newly installed crossbar and pushed the door open. Costa pulled the truck in and again stopped. Tony closed and rebarred the door, then ran forward, ducked behind the fake brick wall pai
nted on the movie silver screen and tugged the guy line. The wall rose. Jimmy drove under and stopped. The canvas brick wall fell back in place in the darkness. Jimmy turned on the headlights. Tony ran over and flicked on the wall switch, revealing the secret sanctum whose brick wall had been whitewashed and whose windows had been painted black and covered with aluminum foil. Jimmy turned off the headlights and got out.

  Pino began his inspection of the green Ford, now a canvas-backed pickup truck.

  “I took one look at it and knew them fellows from Charlestown had done a beautiful job,” Tony related. “They rigged her up like you wouldn’t even know she was a pickup truck at all.

  “Now let me explain what they done. The first thing was to make wooden bows, know what I mean? This pickup truck in its original state doesn’t have a roof. All it’s got is that flatbed behind her with metal sideboards [racks] going around her maybe three feet high. Them removable side panels [racks]. That’s where you put the wooden bows, in them metal holders that hold the side panels in place. These bows hook into each side of the truck and look like them wire things you hit wooden balls under [croquet wickets]. Once you got all them bows up in place, you make your canvas and put it over. The canvas is built to go right over them bows and over the side panels, too. They fasten this canvas down with buttons. Snap the canvas into the buttons. So now what was a flatbed, an open panel truck, looks like a covered truck, because it’s covered in back under a canvas roof and sides.

  “So there it is, looking like a regular truck with a canvas back. This canvas has got a regular door you go in and out of in the back, but on the left side [left as you face the rear of the cab] is a trick door. Just looking, you don’t know that door is there. It just looks like a regular canvas wall from the outside, but from the inside you just unbutton a couple of them metal snaps and pull it open. There you got your door for all the sugar to come through, see what I mean? Prince Street’s one-way, so when the truck’s parked in front of Brink’s this canvas door will open up facing Brink’s door [165 Prince Street].