by Reason of Sanity

by Gene Grossman

  Out in the hall, I firmly grip Stuart by the arm and walk him into the elevator. “Stuart, I know that Vinnie didn’t rob any banks, but he did have the stolen bags of currency in his hands and he was putting them into the back of your armored truck. I think you’ve got some explaining to do because I haven’t got the time to get involved in a federal criminal case this month.”

  It’s late in the afternoon now and the feds always tire me out, so I tell Stuart to be at the boat tomorrow morning – and to have his explanation all ready. I expect a full report of how Vinnie got into this situation – and it better be good.

  Stuart followed my instructions and he ’s here at the boat. His explanation is just one more reason why I’d like to own screen rights to ‘The Vinnie Story.’ He tells me what the unbelievable chain of events were.

  After a long day at the cemetery and completing two funerals with the armored truck, Vinnie stopped by a Ralph’s Market at about nine in the evening, to get some milk and food for his apartment. The armored truck was too wide to fit in the normal parking spaces, so he pulled up right in front of the main entrance and left the truck’s blinking emergency lights on while he was inside shopping. He also left the back door to the truck slightly ajar, so that with arms full he could manage to get the doors open to put his grocery bags in.

  After his shopping was done, he put his bags into the rear of the truck, slammed the door shut and drove home. When he got to his apartment, he had two things to do. First, he wanted to get his groceries inside so that the milk and ice cream wouldn’t go bad. Next, he wanted to drive over to a sewer, where he could pump out the porta-potty that Stuart had installed for him to use on those long hot days. When he went inside to hook up the drain hoses, he noticed two bags of money in the back of the truck. At first he didn’t know they were full of money, but upon opening up one of them, he realized what they were. One main clue is that stenciled quite clearly on each bag were the words “property of Brinks Armored Transit,” and an ID tag from Ralph’s Market.

  Vinnie called Stuart and told him what happened. Stuart reasoned that when the truck was parked in front of the market, they must have thought it was Brinks coming to make the evening’s regular pick-up, so a helpful market employee, seeing the truck’s back door open, walked out and tossed the money bags in.

  Stuart’s advice was that Vinnie should immediately go back to the Ralph’s Market and return those moneybags to the store’s manager.

  A little while later, but before Vinnie returned, the real Brinks truck pulled up and found out that the cupboard was bare. An all-points bulletin was immediately put out to the local police to be on the lookout for anything that looked like a Brinks truck, but really wasn’t one. The Feds were also notified that a search was being done for a possible suspect.

  Following Stuart’s advice, which is always risky, Vinnie drove the truck back to the market and was in the process of taking the bags out of the rear of the truck when he was nabbed by a local police squad car who had heard the bulletin on their radio and were staking out the market just in case another robbery attempt might be tried.

  If what Stuart tells me is true, Vinnie wasn’t trying to steal the money… he was trying to return it.

  Okay, that sounds amazing enough to be a true ‘Vinnie’ story. No one but Vinnie could get into a situation like this.

  I don’t think that going to the feds with this story will do any good, so I figure the next best thing will be to try a manipulation of the press – those ignorant, blow-dried anchor people who bring us the local news each evening, which is actually a neighborhood crime report with pictures, and an occasional car chase.

  Stuart has a police scanner in his car, so he can alert Vinnie to where police activity might be blocking traffic that a funeral procession might be going into. I know that most news crews monitor those scanners, so we decide to plant some info.

  I call the L.A.P.D. metro division and let them know that I’ll be giving a press conference tomorrow morning on the steps of the Federal Building and that there should be some crowd control there. The police dispatcher notifies a few squad cars to remind them of my conference. The press hears the police broadcast and the game is afoot.

  This is all helped along by the pompous federal authorities rushing to make an announcement on the evening news that they’ve made an arrest in the bank robbery cases and have recovered ‘one hundred percent’ of the loot from a related robbery. When it comes to blowing your own horn, nobody does it better than our gendarmes.

  Next morning the reporters are waiting for me as I walk up the dock gangway to my car. I’ve already made a phone call to Special Agent Snell, asking him to meet me at the Federal Building, but he has other business and declines my invitation.

  As usual, the press is p ushing their microphones in my face and asking the most inane questions I’ve heard since the last time this happened to me on a high profile case I was handling.

  It never ceases to amaze me how these reporters actually expect to get answers to the questions they shout out at you. I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen these goofs on television, at the scene of some arrest or appearance of a wellknown lawyer or client near the courthouse. They shout out things like “did your client really commit those crimes?” or “do you think your client is innocent?” Are they kidding? Are they actually getting paid to ask those questions? Do they really expect an attorney to ever answer with a “yes, my client is guilty?” – That’s not going to ever happen, but they keep trying. It reminds me of the Saint Bernard watching me eat a steak. He sits there waiting for me to offer it to him. He’s got a better chance of getting that steak than those reporters have of getting a scoop-making answer like some lawyer or criminal defendant shouting out an admission of guilt. I politely smile and tell them that my statement will be made at the Federal Building and they’re welcome to meet me there.

  Jack B. knows the routine. We pull up in front of the courthouse in the Yellow Hummer rented yesterday from Budget on Lincoln Avenue. It always pays to make a nice impression – you never can tell how many prospective clients are watching. After I step out of the Hummer and walk up the courthouse steps, Jack turns on his portable TV set, so he can monitor my speech and know when to circle back around the block to pick me up. I walk up the steps and give the press a chance to focus their cameras and get some still shots. I then pull a stack of papers out of my briefcase, all copies of Stuart’s extensive statement. It’s been slightly refined to depict Vinnie as the victim.

  It’s Showtime. I’ve got my Sunday suit on and I’m ready to start. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you all for coming today. The purpose of this conference is two-fold. First, I want to state that my client, Mister Vincent Norman, is not the culprit here, he’s the victim. And we want to state here and now, that we are hereby putting in a claim for any reward that may have been offered for the return of misplaced currency to Ralph’s Market.

  “I called Special Agent Robert Snell and invited him to join me here, but he declined, stating that he had more important matters to take care of today. Well, if Special Agent Snell can tell us what’s more important then letting an innocent person out of custody, then I’d like to hear it.

  “Here in my hand is a notarized affid avit from Mister Norman’s employer. It explains quite clearly how Vincent was in fact attempting to return funds to their rightful owner. He found the moneybags, and being the honest hardworking citizen that he is, made an effort to return them. It was at this point that the authorities, not coordinating the proper timeline, arrested him.

  “I only hope that the federal authorities take note of the injustice of his confinement before they go too far. He should be released immediately, and because I have such great respect for the press, I’ll be looking forward to your respective organizations doing the investigation that the authorities neglected to do. Thank you.” I hand out copies of Stuart’s statement, complete with pictures of the armored car and Vinnie. Also included is J
ack’s affidavit of the off-the-record conversation he had with the clerk who actually made the mistake of putting those moneybags into Vinnie’s truck.

  Jack knows when I’m done and when to pull up with the Hummer so that I can make my clean exit. Once back in the car, Jack asks me how it feels making a statement up there, in front of all those people and cameras.

  “Jack, my good man, the toughest part about it all is trying to keep a straight face while telling the press about the great respect I have for them.”

  This evening’s local news shows all carry my press conference and also show the reporters descending upon the Ralph’s Market, not stopping until they ferret out the employee who tossed the bags into the back of Vinnie’s armored truck.

  Apparently, the FBI can’t handle the real truth because shortly thereafter, Vinnie is released. I guess that after talking to Vinnie for a while, they compared his level of sophistication with what they considered to be the minimum required for grand theft, and decided he wasn’t their man.

  Now it’s back to trying to figure out how those truly sophisticated people knocked over a couple of banks during afternoon business hours. Like a cop friend of mine once said, ‘crime doesn’t pay, but the hours are good.’

  There were three banks robbed within a onemonth period of time. They started one month before Drago’s slip-and-fall and continued until the afternoon of his accident. That’s interesting. There’s always a bank getting robbed somewhere in Southern California, but the authorities have only linked three to this particular gang. I assume that’s because the methods of the three were unique and therefore separated out from all others. All three first-floor banks in office buildings, always two or three robbers in the bank, no getaway car and the perps disappearing into the office building with no trace of the stolen money.

  The cops cross-indexed the tenant lists in all three of the bank office buildings: there was no overlap of tenants. No one lessee had places rented in all three of the buildings. This means that if they were hiding in the building of each bank robbery, they’d have to find new places to hide after each job.

  Security tapes show that the robbers wore business suits. They didn’t flash guns, but discreetly showed that they were being carried in shoulder holsters or shoved into belts. They didn’t wear masks. Instead, they merely put on large sunglasses and made their threats by passing one note to a teller and another to the bank manager, both at the same time. The note to the teller would be a demand to quietly fill up some bags with large bills – and if he or she didn’t, the bank manager would be killed. The note to the bank manager was to let him know that his bank was being robbed and that if he did anything to stop it, his family would immediately be killed. To make themselves appear more threatening than usual, they signed the notes as representatives of a mid-east terrorist organization, which was a threat discounted by the authorities as bogus and only done for shock effect.

  The only thing surprising is that the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t brought into the mix. They should have been very interested in the fact that a mid-east terrorist organization was at least mentioned.

  All the robbery notes were examined by the best federal CSI investigators in the business and were found to be ink-jet printed on cheap copy paper, with no fingerprints or other identifying marks.

  Not one dollar of the stolen money has been recovered, and because a trace was put on the serial numbers, not one dollar has been spent yet.

  This doesn’t sound too tough to figure out. All I have to do is plan a bank robbery and try to think like a robber. Where would I go, where would I stash the loot and how would I get away?

  I don’t have an Archie Goodwin - I run a oneman and one-kid shop, so I make a personal visit to all three of the banks. One of them I’m already familiar with because that’s where Drago fell. The other two look quite similar, but that’s no surprise because most banks look the same to me. They all have counters with tellers, desks with people to open new accounts, and senile uniformed guards.

  If the robbers were to melt in with the background, there would be no need for them to do it inside the bank – it would have to be out in the building’s lobby.

  I take a goo d look around out there at different times of the day and see the same fixtures: elevator operators, lobby security, maintenance crew, magazine stand, the occasional appearance of a genuine armored truck, a car-parking guy, and all the other usual things you would expect to see there. The real puzzle seems to be how they got away with their loot.

  I ask the office to try and get some security tapes from the lobby of each bank. I want to see the action near those bank exit doors, to see if anything out of the ordinary happens. I also make a request to see the logs from those lobby security guys who sit behind their counters and view an array of about ten little television screens.

  It’s now a few days later and I’ve just received a big package that contains copies of security videotapes from the three lobbies, but only footage shortly before and after each robbery. Also included in the package are copies of the three lobby security guard incident reports. Everything gets scanned in to the computer at thirty-five dollars an hour, with the computer instructed to only seek out items that occurred in all three lobbies on the day of each robbery.

  The list gets printed out and includes several items, but only one looks too odd to be a coincidence

  – and it was the same series of events each time. A woman enters the lobby with a large Rottweiler dog on a leash. When a security guard approaches to inform her that no animals other than seeing-eye dogs are allowed inside the building, she begins to argue with the guard and the dog strains at his leash, trying to attack the guard. This commotion in the lobby causes the other guards to run over. The woman is told that she must leave the building immediately and she does. The incident draws the attention of everyone in the lobby.

  I may not be a trained detective, but if that dog act isn’t a diversionary tactic, then I’ll hang up my amateur detective badge. I also appreciate the fact that the purpose of any diversion is to take attention away from some other activity that is going on at the same time.

  The incident reports indicate that each dog act took place at about the same time as the bank robbery concluded, so it looks like she was trying to give the robbers a chance to exit the bank and enter the lobby without being noticed. At that point in time, they would still have the money with them.

  Each dog incident lasted less than tw o or three minutes. Because we already know that the gang didn’t go into an elevator or exit the building with the money, the diversion must have been for the purpose of giving them a chance to stash the money somewhere. It wouldn’t serve any purpose to have the dog lady’s face scanned into facial recognition software, because she always wore a hat that has some dark veil hanging down in front. And even if we could identify her, there’s no way to tie her into the bank robberies…. yet.

  Fortunately, all the security videotapes have that stop-watch-like time code running at the bottom of the screen, so it’s not hard to figure out the timing. By comparing the lobby tapes with the bank tapes, it looks like all the inside guys needed was about ten seconds to dump the money - but where? And if they do dump it somewhere, how do they retrieve it?

  They’ve obviously got a pretty good plan working, and with their current success rate, there’s no reason for them to stop now. They’re too young to retire, so I would think they’re going to pull another job or two - and with the information I’ve already got, I think there might be a way to catch them.

  A big map of the west side of town shows the location of all three of the bank jobs. They appear to be in a small area, so it seems reasonable that they would stay in the neighborhood. I drive up and down the neighboring main streets and locate another eight or nine large buildings that have banks located on their main floor. The next job will be the setting of the trap.

  I grab a handful of some special business cards our computer printed and start out with
the first bank and go directly to the person in charge of lobby security. He introduces himself to me and invites me into his office. I hand him my card and try out the spiel that we rehearsed earlier at the boat. The dog believed it, so I see no reason why the security chief shouldn’t.

  “Chief, as my business card indicates, our practice is limited only to the civil prosecution of dog bite cases. I know that sounds strange but as you probably know, there are a lot of dogs here in Southern California.”

  Long ago, I learned that if you utter four magic words, they make any person’s head nod up and down in agreement with whatever you’re saying, so always try to use them, and they are: ‘As you probably know…’ Now that he’s agreeing with me, I press on. “We’ve had some small children injured by a woman’s large Rottweiler. Our problem is, we don’t know how to locate her. Several of the clients are quite well-off, so they’ve authorized me to offer a reward for any information that leads us to her.”

  At this point the chief tries to straighten me out. “Mister Goodwin, I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to locate this dog-lady, but all we do here is building security – we don’t go out looking for people with dogs.”

  “Chief, you’re absolutely correct, and that’s why I came to you. We’ve got some information that her husband runs a business in one of these large office buildings and she occasionally comes to visit him. We also understand that she may have bribed some lobby security guards because she’s allowed to bring the dog into the building and elevator when she goes up and visit with her husband.”

  The Chief strenuously denies this. “No way, Goodwin. My guards are above reproach. There’s not enough money in the world that’ll make them break the rules and let a big Rottweiler into this building, let alone into an elevator.”

  “Okay, Chief, I believe you. Tell you what, here’s what I’d like to offer you. On behalf of my clients, if your staff have any reason to stop a woman with a large barking Rottweiler and ask her to leave the lobby, I’m authorized to pay five hundred dollars in cash to the charity of your choice, if while in the line of duty, one of your guards discreetly follows her outside and gets a description of her vehicle and its license number. And if that member of your staff wants to go above and beyond the call of duty and follow the vehicle to wherever her next stop is, my client will pay an additional five hundred dollars for that address.”