by Bill Mason
Hardly aware of having consciously gone through any kind of decision process, I found myself planning a new score.
Diller was slated for a weeklong run, so I returned the next night and waited for the show to end, then followed as she left the theater in a limousine. It wasn’t hard to keep track of her, given how few limos there were in the suburbs of Cleveland. I was also very familiar with the roads and could guess where the next turn would be without needing to get too close.
As it happened, the more we drove, the more familiar the roads became, because Diller was heading for a restaurant that was just down the street from the Highlander, on Northfield Road. It was called the Blue Grass Motel and Lounge and had the same kind of clientele as the hotel.
I went to the bar as Diller headed for the dining room, and was able to observe her without being noticed. She was with two men, beefy types who I assumed served as security.
After they finished dinner and got up to leave, I stayed put and went to the front door only when I was sure they wouldn’t notice me. As I got there, I saw them getting into the limo and also noted which way they headed down the street.
They drove slowly, and a thought suddenly occurred to me: Was it possible . . . ?
It was. From a quarter mile away I could see them pulling into, of all places, the Highlander.
I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me, since the Highlander was the toniest place in town. But to think Diller would be staying in a place with which I was already intimately familiar was too much to hope for. Just another example of the role luck plays in this kind of work.
The next night I waited at the Highlander and watched as one of the bodyguards walked her into the lobby and then returned to the limo. She proceeded alone from there, which surprised me a little until I learned that her entourage had taken up an entire floor of the hotel, an arrangement that probably made her feel pretty secure. I also noticed that she hadn’t bothered to check any of the trinkets she was wearing in to the hotel’s safe. What I didn’t know was whether she was wearing everything she’d taken with her on the road or if more goodies were left in the room when she was out. And was there anybody else in the room, maybe her faceless husband, “Fang,” the butt of so many of her onstage jokes?
What I needed to know was which room she was staying in, how I could get in and out and what security was like when she wasn’t on the property. I already knew when she’d be gone because of her show schedule at MusiCarnival.
The next morning I fell back on my most sophisticated and reliable reconnaissance equipment, old work clothes and a clipboard. Because I knew people at the Highlander, I also wore sunglasses and a cap pulled down low on my forehead. Armed with a retractable tape measure, I walked the floor she and her entourage were staying on, measuring everything in sight and making careful notes of absolutely nothing, but I sure looked like I knew what I was doing.
She had to be in a suite, but there were three of those on the floor and I couldn’t find a way to tell which was hers. A few people wandered by and paid no attention to me, but at some point I’d start to be noticeable to anybody who passed by me more than once.
Just as I was running out of things to measure, a bellman appeared with a breakfast tray. Paying even less attention to me than the guests had (one of the few joys to be found in a menial job is snubbing someone else who you think is even lower on the food chain than you are), he walked to one of the three suites and knocked. I watched as the door was answered by a sleepy woman with short hair, no makeup, tired slits for eyes and wearing an old bathrobe. Seeing her without the huge wigs, flashy bangles and trademark cigarette holder, it took me a few seconds to realize that it was Diller herself.
Now that I knew the right room, I exited the floor, frowning at my clipboard and scratching my head in deep concentration, a simple workman contemplating the complexities of a job and not amenable to light conversation from passersby.
Trying to get into her suite through the corridor was out of the question; there was too much traffic on that floor and I knew that most of the entourage did not attend the show every night. There were only two possible ways in. One was to go through a wall. I already knew from the Mob hit that the walls were very thin and could easily be breached, but there were a couple of problems, chief among them being that I would need an adjoining room to be vacant, and the floor was full.
The only other option was her private balcony, but to avoid detection I’d have to come in from above, and the balcony was twenty feet below the high-peaked roof. It was my only choice, though, and the good news was that getting through a sliding glass patio door is not much of a trick.
The next night I dressed in black from head to toe, including black crepe-soled shoes and dark gloves. Carrying a rope and some tools in an ordinary overnight bag, I went up to the roof of the wing Diller was staying in. It was secured with a heavy-duty combination lock, which I opened, and then I jammed the standard doorknob lock with a toothpick. I stashed the rope behind a vent pipe on the roof, then went back into the building and pulled the door shut behind me.
I went down to ground level and crossed over to the opposite wing, then went up to that roof. The door there had a combination lock equally as formidable as the other one, and again I—
A word of warning here: If you like to think that hotshot burglars open locks using secret methods that would make Houdini green with envy, you might want to skip this next bit.
I didn’t use paper clips to crack those locks, or a set of lock picks in a classy leather pouch or some super-hi-tech electronic gadget with glowing numbers. The only place thieves pick industrial-strength locks in three seconds is in the movies, which you already know if you’ve ever gotten locked out of your apartment and called in a locksmith. They show up with a belt full of exotic-looking tools, fiddle with your lock for half an hour, and 90 percent of the time end up just smashing it in. And these are guys who spend forty hours a week working on locks.
Three weeks before, I’d visited both doors and jotted down the serial numbers of the two locks. Using stationery from the building management company I worked for, I wrote to the Master Lock Company with the numbers and told them I had two of their locks hanging uselessly from opened doors in a building I’d just taken over, and hated like hell to use bolt cutters on them because they were such great locks and I’d like to be able to use them, so couldn’t they help me out? A few days later a cheerfully worded letter (“We’re only too delighted to be of service, Mr. Smith”) came back with both combinations. Letterhead stationery is one of the most useful tools for both business and burglary. Later on I even got them to send me master keys for the entire Ramada Inn and a bunch of other hotels.
Once on the roof and sure that I was in deep shadow, I trained a pair of binoculars on Diller’s balcony. The lights in the suite were on and the curtains were parted slightly. There was no movement that I could see, but I forced myself to watch for a full hour to make sure no one was inside.
Time passes with excruciating slowness when you’re in a risky situation and doing absolutely nothing, and there’s an almost overwhelming temptation to jump the gun because you’re sure it’s been long enough. The best way to stop yourself from doing that is to plan ahead as much as possible and avoid making on-the-spot judgments. My plan that night called for me to watch the room for an hour, and I did it by the watch.
Convinced now the room was empty, I went back down to the bottom level and crossed over to her wing and up to the roof again. I swung open the door I’d jimmied earlier and retrieved the rope, then walked over to a vent stack closer to the edge and tied the rope around it. Once it was secure, I pulled on it as hard as I could, but the vent didn’t budge.
Playing the rope down the slanted part of the roof and then out over the edge—slowly, to make sure it didn’t flop around and attract attention—I lined it up with the edge of the balcony rather than the middle. That would make it even harder to spot, for someone either down below or in the room.
I waited ten minutes, strictly by the watch again, then backed myself down the slanted part, stepped over the edge and began lowering myself down.
I heard music coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t locate it. Music, like any “natural” noise, could be both a help and a hindrance. It helped because it could mask suspicious sounds I might make, but it was also a problem because it could mask sounds I needed to hear, like someone pushing a chair back because I’d somehow alerted them to my presence, or someone opening a door to come into a room I happened to be occupying illegally at the moment.
The music grew louder as I got lower, and as I came within a few feet of the balcony, I realized why: It was coming from inside Diller’s room.
This was not good. Who could possibly be listening to music in there, and doing it without moving around at all? I’d watched the place for a solid hour and hadn’t seen a single sign that anybody was in there. Was it possible they’d come in while I was making my way to the other roof?
Not likely. I could see Diller maybe leaving someone behind in there when she left, but if anyone came in afterward, they’d need a key to the room, which was a different story. What was much more likely was that Diller had left music playing either by accident or to ward off an opportunistic thief who might be wandering by. She’d spent thousands of nights in hotels like this and, like many experienced travelers, probably knew a bunch of little tricks to give herself a slight edge against casual troublemakers. (Leaving the radio or television on, as well as the lights, is a pretty good one. Another is to never use one of those “Service Please” door tags that tell chambermaids they can come in and make the beds but also tell the whole world the room is empty. Let the desk know on your way out instead, or phone up housekeeping just before you leave.)
I set down on the balcony as softly as I could and waited again, hands wrapped around the rope in case I needed to get back up quickly, but there was no sound other than the music, and still no movement. It was time to go to work on the sliding glass doors, which was when I noticed the inside curtain fluttering slightly, as if in a breeze. Sure enough, the doors were not quite touching and obviously not latched together.
Heart pounding almost painfully, I slid one open quietly. I pushed the curtains apart very slowly and looked around, but there was no one there, and I stepped inside. I would have loved to turn down the music, but I didn’t want to take a chance that someone in an adjacent room might know Diller was gone and wonder who lowered the volume.
Clothes were scattered everywhere, as were used plates and silverware. Bureau drawers were half open, closet doors were ajar, carelessly thrown towels were visible through the bathroom door . . . the suite looked like someone had tossed a hand grenade into it. I remember wondering, given the condition of the room, how long it would take someone to notice that a robbery had even occurred.
The first place I looked was the top bureau drawer, and it was the only place I needed. A box inside was filled nearly to overflowing with a huge amount of jewelry. It was hard to figure out if my pulse was racing because of the danger I was in or because of the sight of those glittering gems and shining precious metals. I emptied all of it into my black canvas carryall, relishing the weight of it, then slung it over my shoulder and headed back to the sliding doors.
With the treasure in hand, I forced myself to slow carefulness, fighting the urge to scramble away as fast as I possibly could. I knew that leaving could be even more dangerous than entering: By now, anybody who had seen me at any point thus far would have had plenty of time to summon a security guard or the cops. If they didn’t know exactly where I was, they’d be waiting and watching for someone to make sudden, furtive movements.
Worse still, I was now holding. If I’d been nabbed on the way in, all they’d have on me were suspicious clothes and some tools, and I’d have plenty of reasonable doubt on my side. Now, though, I’d be hard-pressed to explain away a bag of jewels. Even if I managed to fling them away from me, someone might see me do it and be willing to testify to it.
As carefully as I moved, I was still back on the balcony and up to the roof less than five minutes later. I pulled the rope up behind me, untied it from the vent pipe and put it in the bag with the jewels. On the way out I took the toothpick out of the lock and shut the door behind me, then resecured the combination lock. Every trace of how I got into the room was now gone. They might figure it out eventually, but there was no sense helping them. First suspicion would fall to anybody on the hotel staff who had a master key, which was probably dozens of people. The resulting confusion would work to my benefit, and once that avenue was exhausted, there’d be no place else for the police to go.
I’d considered the possibility that the lock company might have had the letter from “Mr. Smith” on file, but there was nothing to suggest that the robbery had been done from the roof. Even so, I couldn’t imagine the police ever making the leap to the fact that someone might have contacted the lock company to get the roof lock combinations.
The sweet heat of triumphant elation was beginning to radiate in my chest, but on the way back to my car, sauntering between the middle buildings as casually as possible, I noticed a guy who seemed to be watching me. The heat turned into a hard knot at the pit of my stomach: How could this guy possibly have any idea what I’d just done?
I tried to chalk it off to paranoia, but as I passed, he stood up and turned in my direction, and I almost went dizzy as blood rushed out of my face. He didn’t seem at all shy about staring directly at me. I tried even harder to look casual, which never works and only made me feel like I had a neon sign on my back. I was suddenly conscious of my black outfit and hoped the bag over my shoulder looked like the kind any hotel guest might be carrying.
My mind raced through a whole menu of alternatives, but all I did was veer away from the parking lot. I didn’t want him to see me getting into my car. Even if he wasn’t on to me, he might be a compulsive type who would note the make and model and even write down the license plate number. After the theft was discovered and reported in the news, he might put it together with his sighting of me and tell the police.
Trying not to change my posture or gait, I went out onto the street before circling back out of his sight. The parking lot was huge and I’d left my car at the far end. There was no way he could see me as I got in and drove off, but I took it slow and quiet anyway, and kept the headlights off until I was halfway down the street.
Once I’d ascertained that I wasn’t being followed, I didn’t exactly relax, but the worst of the anxiety began to dissipate and I started critiquing myself. What had I done wrong? What evidence might I have left behind? How could I have played it better? Should I have driven away with the headlights off like I did? If the guy watching me had been teetering on the brink of suspicion, that would have been a giveaway that I was dirty. On the other hand, the objective was for him not to know where I was in the first place once I’d circled away on foot.
I could speculate about it forever, but the only certainty was that I’d gotten away at least for the moment, so it was fruitless to second-guess myself at that point.
Never wanting to bring anything home, or even to a building I owned myself, I took the clothes and the goods to my locker at one of the buildings I managed, then headed home for what was becoming a traditional two-shots-of-vodka-and-no-sleep-at-all night. I was actually looking forward to the typical postscore letdown; at least I’d be able to get some sleep.
The next day at work I got down to the business of examining the haul with a jeweler’s loupe.
In the aftermath of so much adrenaline and tension, my memory overlaid the score with a surreal, almost dreamlike quality. As I opened the bag now, though, the hard evidence of what I’d done stared right up at me. The rings, bracelets and pins were big and gaudy and all the stones were real.
The most interesting piece was a Cartier watch with an inscription reading “Love to Phyllis from Bob Hope.” Sometime later I bought a new back and melted do
wn the old one along with gold from some other pieces. I hated like hell doing that and regret it still, but I was first and foremost a professional and didn’t want anything that identifiable in my possession.
The theft was a page-1 banner-headline story in the next day’s afternoon papers. I almost choked at Diller’s report to the police—and, undoubtedly, her insurance company—that the stuff was worth over a quarter of a million dollars, which probably meant it was really worth maybe half that. Truth was, I’d admired the pieces but hadn’t done even a preliminary appraisal and had no idea it was that high. My shock was further compounded later when I went through the pieces in detail and discovered that Diller had made an accurate report and hadn’t fudged the value at all. It would prove to be one of the few times in my entire career that somebody I’d robbed had filed an honest report. Let’s face it: The ones really getting robbed—by both my victims and me—were the insurance companies.
Of much more immediate concern to me, though, was that cops were crawling all over the Highlander. They’d thoroughly canvassed the area and I had little doubt they’d found the guy who’d been watching me from the lobby. Over the next few days I pored through every edition of every paper, convinced that before too long I’d be reading a detailed description of myself. It didn’t happen, but the story stayed alive for a long time anyway, much longer than it would have in a major city. Nothing much happened in Cleveland, so this was big news.
As the media finished milking it for all it was worth and the stories began petering out, so did my anxieties. I even managed a smile at what was starting to become a trademark of press coverage of my scores: Everybody assumed it had been done by a “gang,” and every reference was to the “thieves” that pulled it off.
I also questioned Diller’s wisdom in leaving so many valuables lying around in a hotel room. She’s a very smart lady, so it occurred to me that she might have felt protected knowing that the place was owned by the Mob, and was probably unaware that someone (yours truly) had already robbed a safe there right under their noses. Of course, that score wasn’t something too many people knew about outside the Highlander. Big Ange wasn’t likely to let the police know, and it wasn’t something he’d want publicized.