by Bill Mason
Confessions
of a Master
Jewel Thief
Bill Mason
with Lee Gruenfeld
VI L L A R D / NE W YO R K
Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
PART I
1. BEGINNINGS
2. CIRCUMSTANCE
3. FIRST SCORE
4. LUCK
5. GLITZ
6. SCALING THE HEIGHTS
7. HEAT
8. PROSPECTING
PART II
9. ON DOING TIME
10. ON DOING TIME (CONTINUED)
11. THE STORM AFTER THE CALM
12. THE BALLAD OF RAY AND FRED
13. TICKLING THE DRAGON’S TAIL
14. BEEN THERE . . .
PART III
15. ON THE RUN
16. CRAZY
17. THE LOVEMAN SCANDAL
18. “THE PERFECT HEIST”
PART IV
19. DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY
20. STRIKING TWICE (OR NOT AT ALL)
21. ANOTHER CLOSE CALL
22. SOONER OR LATER
23. BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN
24. PREY NO MORE
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRAISE FOR CONFESSIONS OF A MASTER JEWEL THIEF
COPYRIGHT
For those who loved me anyway
Prologue
PRETTY MUCH anybody who was anybody in southern Florida lived close to the ocean between Miami and Palm Beach, and anytime a lot of well-off people are squeezed into one area, the natural human instinct to compete sets in. When you don’t have a job and you don’t do anything athletic and you’re filthy rich, the way you compete is by trying to convince everybody else that you’re richer than they are. South Florida’s high-net-worth ladies did this by wearing their money on their bodies in the form of jewelry and then trying to get photographed. Maybe they thought only other high-net-worth ladies read the society pages, but, to a thief, all those photos and stories read like advertising brochures.
I didn’t have much of a problem getting dressed up and crashing charity balls and other posh events. I didn’t like to do it, because I didn’t want my face to become familiar, and it was also tough to explain to my wife why I was heading out on a Saturday evening dressed to the nines and not taking her with me. I did it only when the circumstances called for it, and I usually got into the party by attaching myself to a large group of people on their way in and then acting like I belonged there.
I made it a point to start conversations but then let the other person do all the talking—not much of a trick, believe me—and became fairly adept at spotting who was just trying to impress others and who really had the goods. I also learned where people lived and a good deal about the habits of the idle rich. For example, I learned that if a woman was planning to attend a big bash of some kind, she’d spend the afternoon at the beauty shop, but only after laying out her clothes and baubles first. That meant an empty apartment with exposed jewelry, and, if there was a safe, an open one. The same people who wouldn’t think of leaving a safe unlocked when they were home with it at night thought nothing of leaving it wide open if they were out for the day. One of the perceived cardinal rules of robbery is that you never do it during daylight. But the real rule is just a variation of baseball player Willie Keeler’s famous comment on his batting strategy, “Hit ’em where they ain’t.”
I first became aware of Mrs. Armand Hammer at some high-society ball. I didn’t know who she was at first; all I saw was a very beautiful woman wearing some very serious stones. It didn’t surprise me to learn that she was the wife of one of the richest men in the country.
Dr. Armand Hammer insisted on being identified as “Dr.” even though he’d gotten his medical degree over fifty years before and had never practiced. He was the chairman of Occidental Petroleum, one of the biggest oil companies in the country. He’d bought it when it was near bankruptcy and spent years building it into the giant conglomerate it had become by the mid-seventies. Hammer was a major philanthropist as well, donating massive sums of money and significant works of art to a variety of prestigious institutions. Maybe it was about time he donated a little something to me.
The city directory told me where the Hammers lived, which was in a high-class condo right on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. Their apartment was on the fifteenth floor, which was terrific news for me; they probably assumed they were invulnerable. But the building had doormen, so I’d have to do some careful watching to see how to get into it. Not exactly tough duty. I could sit on a beach lounge chair and watch not just the building but gorgeous women in skimpy bathing suits gliding by.
The building was shaped like a series of staggered square columns, with four apartments to a floor. Each room was set at right angles to the ones on either side of it, effectively making every room a new corner. Two of the apartments faced the ocean to the east, and the other two faced the Intracoastal Waterway on the west side of the building. A narrow ledge, barely noticeable from street level, zigzagged its way completely around the building on every floor, but it looked more like an architectural flourish than a feature of any real use. There was an open stairwell running from the second story all the way to the roof. Anybody in that stairwell would have access to the entire building. Iron bars encircled the second-floor landing, but above that, all the landings were open-air. I guess the working assumption was that no intruder could get above that barred second story, so why spoil the appearance of the building by encasing the whole stairway?
Eventually I’d seen all I was going to see from the ground, so it was time for a little up-close testing. Late one evening I threw a grappling hook up to the second-story ledge between two apartments, climbed up, then rehooked to the third-floor stairway landing above the iron bars. I climbed the stairs another twelve stories and found myself standing right in front of Mrs. Hammer’s door. It had a big, bright ADT warning sticker on it and two pretty formidable-looking locks in addition to the standard one just above the doorknob. No way to tell if the place was really alarmed, or if the sticker was only for show, or if they habitually armed the thing. I swear, it was getting harder and harder to make a decent living. Why couldn’t they have lived in the unit next door, which had only the standard lock that came with the place originally? This was not looking good.
A shame, too, because I was starting to get a handle on Mrs. Hammer’s habits, and I was sure there was a load of treasure inside. I was able to follow her easily as she went in and out of the building. I kept my car about a hundred yards up A1A, the road that parallels the waterway, and watched for her car from the beach using binoculars. She was a slow driver and it was a simple matter to catch up with her once I’d established her direction. She liked to do her own food shopping, and I once followed her around inside a grocery store just to see what kind of stuff she was wearing. Nothing, as it turned out, which meant all of it was still upstairs in the apartment.
Mr. and Mrs. Hammer would almost always go out for dinner, usually returning by around ten o’clock. I started watching the place at night. Two of the other units were almost always lit up, and I never saw a single time when they were both dark. But the fourth one, the one with the cheap lock, was always dark. I’d already checked and knew it wasn’t for sale, so I went back to the city directory and discovered that it was listed as a guest apartment for some corporation. I grappled my way back up the building one night and saw that if I could get into the guest unit, I should be able to get out on that skinny ledge and work my way over to the Hammer place.
The guest unit was on the side of the building opposite the Hammer apartment. The thought of walking all the way across the front of the building (including five right-angle turns to get past all those corners) on an eighteen-inch-wide ledge and with no rope to hold on to was not particularly appealing. Not with a fifteen-story fall as a reward for a slipup.
The challenge of planning a caper is to anticipate as much as possible and prepare accordingly. In addition to things like escape routes and contingencies in case you trip an alarm, you have to decide what kinds of tools you’re likely to need and what backup items make the most sense to drag along as well. I had a pretty good feel for what I was likely to be up against in the Hammer apartment, but I was also starting to come to grips with the fact that there was no choice but to navigate that sliver of a ledge and go in through a window. The door was just too risky. But with my back literally to the wall and the tips of my shoes sticking out over the edge, there wouldn’t be any way to carry a whole load of tools with me. And if I ended up tripping an alarm before I even reached the unit, it would be tough enough moving quickly along that ledge without being further encumbered by a lot of weighty gear strapped to my body and not easily undone and dropped.
The answer, when it came to me, was so simple I kicked myself for not having thought of it sooner: I could carry all the tools I wanted up to the guest apartment and stash them there before I went out on the ledge. Once I was inside the Hammer place, all I had to do was go out their door and across the hall to the guest unit, pick up all my stuff and carry it right back.
All I really needed to have with me out on the ledge were some glass-cutting tools. If the Hammer patio door was locked and I suspected it was armed, I could cut a hole in it big enough to crawl through and then disable the alarm system from inside. This was in the days before ultrasonic motion detectors, so once I was in, there’d be nothing further to trip.
Best of all, I wouldn’t have to get back out on that hairy ledge to leave once I was done. I could just go down the stairs, same way I got up.
This was looking better and better. It further occurred to me that if I found I was missing a tool, I could simply leave the building altogether—using the stairs and the grappling hook—go get what I needed and come back. Again, no second outing on the ledge.
My escape route in case I somehow tripped a silent alarm in the guest apartment was looking good, too. I’d have such a good view from that ledge I’d be able to see flashing lights from miles away, with plenty of time to get inside and hide in almost any unoccupied unit with a cheap lock. By the time I was ready to do the job, I’d identified three such apartments and knew how to open the doors on all of them. As long as I didn’t have to cut through the glass in the patio door, there would be no trace of my having been in the building at all, and it would be treated as a false alarm. I could then come back after things had settled down and try a different tack.
The ideal time for a job like this would normally have been when the Hammers were planning to go to some fancy do, which I’d be able to know in advance from the society pages. But that would probably be on a Friday or Saturday evening, and the beach area those afternoons would be teeming with people who could spot me easily. If I hit the place when they weren’t in the process of getting ready for some event, though, there might not be anything worth stealing. It was certainly possible that they kept the baubles in a safety-deposit box and took out what Mrs. Hammer needed only when she needed it. So one time when I knew they were scheduled to attend a particularly fancy gala, I followed the Mrs. around for two days to see if she went to the bank, and she didn’t. That told me they had a safe up there, and I included on my list of tools the stuff I’d need to get into that.
More important, though, all that surveillance and analysis led me to a truly unpleasant conclusion: As if that ledge wouldn’t be dangerous enough, I decided that this job needed to get done on a stormy night, when the beach would be deserted and there’d be the sound of thunder and rain to drown out any noise I might make. It also had to be on a night when the Hammers weren’t going to be at a posh soirée, because I didn’t want to go into that apartment on a night when Mrs. Hammer’s best stuff was around her neck instead of in her safe.
Windy, wet and dark . . .
Over the next few days I started looking at the wisp of a ledge in a whole new light.
About two weeks later a perfectly timed storm roared in from the south. It began in the late afternoon of a weekday, and by the time I’d grappled my way up to the stairs, stashed the hook and rope in a fire-extinguisher case and walked up to the fifteenth floor, it was coming down like a monsoon. I got into the guest unit without incident and did a quick look around to make sure I was really alone. I stayed busy and fast and wasted no movement, because I didn’t want to dwell on what it would be like out on that ledge. I had planned this down to the tiniest detail, had even thought of carrying a washcloth to wipe the bottoms of my shoes so nobody could tell afterward how I’d gotten in, and so now all that was left was to execute the plan, not give it any more thought. Front door closed but unlocked, bag of tools just inside of it, nothing sticking out of my jacket or pants to impede travel. That was the extent of my mental checklist, so I opened a window and put one leg through it, setting my foot down onto the ledge and sliding it around to test the traction.
It wasn’t good. I’d assumed the surface was of rough concrete and would have decent grip, but it was smoother than I’d anticipated and the water from the rainstorm only made it worse. I’d have to make sure to set each foot straight down with every step so as to rely as little as possible on friction to stop my forward motion, which is not the normal way of walking. I got my other leg through and then I was standing up on the outside of the building, still holding on to the bottom of the open window. I leaned back to slide it shut, in order to keep the rain out of the room, leaving a small gap to make sure I could get my fingers in to open it again. Not that it would have locked, but with no real purchase on that tiny ledge, I didn’t want to be shoving upward on the glass itself trying to get it open. Finally, I let go completely and stood up again, then started moving.
I’d envisioned the whole trip with my back to the wall, but after about ten feet of futilely wiping rain from my eyes and imagining my feet sliding out from under me in a heel-to-toe direction, I turned around and hugged the wall instead. I wiggled my feet slightly with each step, feeling for any changes in traction, and the way my shoes were sliding on that slick surface started up a sickening feeling in my belly. I wondered what the police would make of a body squashed on the concrete far below if I slipped. A suicide, perhaps?
It was a truly horrific goddamned trip. I’d already done some high-wire heists, like at the ultra-ritzy Fountainhead, but that was a cakewalk compared to this. That had been a vertical climb, and I’d had a nice comfortable rope to hang on to with both hands, could even wrap my legs around it if I needed a rest, and at worst would have had a forty-foot drop to some sand and a broken leg or two if it all went to shit.
But this . . . this was insane. One sneeze and I could be over the edge. I hadn’t fully appreciated before this how reassuring it was to have something—anything—to grab on to. All I had here were my hands flat along the wall, and every gust of wind that whipped at my back was like a malevolent force trying to tear me off the building and fling me into the void.
Maybe you were expecting some bullshit about how I stared imminent death in the face and forced it to keep its distance. Well, forget it. I was scared shitless. I was always afraid on scores. Not to be would have been lunacy, and this was the most lunatic situation I’d ever launched myself into. On top of all the inherent physical danger was the fact that I was engaged in a criminal activity, so at the same time that I was trying not to die, I was also trying not to be seen. The trick was not to be afraid of being afraid, because fear was a healthy thing in this game, and what you were really after was balance: Be afraid enough to keep you on your toes but not so
much that it compromises the execution of the plan. If you’re going to let fear get in the way, this is the wrong business to be in.
Stepping onto the Hammer balcony was such a relief, I just sat there and gulped air for a minute, gripping the railing so hard I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to uncurl my fingers from it. When I finally did, I found that the patio door was unlocked and there were no sensors anywhere to be seen. That bit of good fortune should have had a calming effect on me, but my mind was racing nevertheless. This was going almost too smoothly, notwithstanding the nightmare trip along the ledge. I started to wonder if I’d really thought of everything, but I drove that out of my head immediately. It wasn’t too likely I was going to think of anything useful while in the thick of things that I hadn’t already considered during weeks of careful planning.
I stepped into the apartment and just listened for a while, then did a thorough search to make sure I was absolutely alone. It was dark, but I didn’t want to turn on any lights, so I used my penlight. Last stop was the bedroom, and what do you know: There was a large jewelry box right on top of the dresser. The lid was flipped open and the top section was nearly overflowing with fabulous stuff. Santa Claus never had it this good, and he was only after cookies.
This moment, right here, was why I was a jewel thief. It was like a narcotic, being someplace that everyone assumed no one could possibly get into. People spent fortunes, even altered their lifestyles, trying to protect valuables like these from people like me, and here I was, all alone, inches from the treasure. As I liked to do, I’d leave the premises looking exactly like they had before my arrival. To the astonished occupants, it would seem as if the jewels had simply evaporated. This wasn’t some mind game I was playing, though, not thumbing my nose or demonstrating any superiority or trying to make a point. It was simply how I avoided getting caught. No changes meant no clues. By keeping my ego in check and my methods obscure, everything the police came up with concerning how I might have done the job was the purest speculation, and the more they had to guess, the safer I was.