Angelo was still inside the phone booth when he spotted Tony walking toward him with a big smile on his face. He passed the original keys to Angelo.
A couple of minutes later DeLeary and his partner came out of the restaurant and headed back to the truck. The telephone booth was now empty, and Angelo was hovering by the door as though waiting for somebody. DeLeary, as instructed, told his partner he had to make a quick phone call. The other guard waited by the booth too, as DeLeary put in a dime and dialed a number. As though ready to talk privately, he turned his body to block the other guard’s view and casually reached into the coin return slot, where the original Brink’s keys lay. He then hung up the phone, told his partner he couldn’t get through to his party, and together the Brink’s guards headed back to their truck.
Only one more obstacle lay ahead. Phil had Kelley return both new keys to DeLeary temporarily, to make sure they fit the truck’s front and back doors. He also asked DeLeary to scratch an F on the key to the truck’s front door, to avoid any fumbling for the right key during the robbery. When he returned the keys to Phil, Kelley reported smugly, “They passed with flying colors!”
The stage was now set for a crime that would be described by a Suffolk County district attorney in open court as “one of the most interesting, carefully planned, and well-executed armed robberies in the history of Massachusetts.” Phil and team, keys in hand, planned the hit for Saturday afternoon, December 14.
PHIL CRESTA awoke on the morning of December 14, 1968, with a sense of foreboding. This was the day that he and his six accomplices planned to make history. They had gone over the plans all week. If something went wrong it would not be for lack of planning. Every man had an assignment and each knew where he and every other team member were supposed to be. Phil had made it clear that the best scores are quick and decisive. They were going to take down the Brink’s truck in the middle of downtown Boston as thousands of unsuspecting Christmas shoppers went about their holiday business. Phil had reminded Red Kelley the night before, “There’s no need to go in heavy. Make sure your guys know that.” “Sure, Houdini, you’re the boss,” Kelley shot back.
It was a typical Boston December day, cold but clear. Phil didn’t mind the cold, but he didn’t like the clear weather. He would much rather have seen snow or rain. The members of the team arrived separately at the Fenway Motor Inn and parked their cars in the vicinity but not in the parking lot. Two cars in the parking lot that morning didn’t belong to anyone staying there; they had been stolen the night before from Brighton. These two cars would transport seven men to two locations: one in South Boston and the other in the South End. Those going to the South End location would collect another recently stolen car for Red Kelley and Carmello Merlino to use. All three cars would cross the Broadway Bridge into South Boston, where they would retrieve a fourth stolen car, for Angelo and Sonny Diaferio. Then all four cars would leave for the robbery site.
Phil turned onto B Street in Southie; there was no car. He looked at Tony, who just shrugged and said, “Phil, I dropped the car off right here at ten last night.” “Well, the fucking thing isn’t here now,” Phil, already on edge with that pre-crime tension, said menacingly.
They got out to meet the guys in the other two cars. “Someone must have stolen our stolen car,” Tony said to the others. “Unbelievable!” Phil cried to no one in particular while throwing up his hands to the sky. “Can you believe the nerve of these people—stealing our car like that?” Tony asked Angelo. “First of all, numb nuts,” Phil barked, “it wasn’t our car and second of all, what the fuck are we, Boy Scouts?” Angelo couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh, and before they knew it they all were standing in the middle of B Street in Southie, laughing hysterically. Everyone, that is, except Red Kelley.
“What’s the matter, Red, ya gut no sense of humor?” Angelo asked between guffaws. “You guys are all crazy. All we need is for some flatfoot to drive by and do an FIO [field interrogation observation] on all of us. How would you like that?” “Lighten up, Red,” Phil said, feeling better now. “We live to rob another day.” “It’s all right, Phil, I gutta do some Christmas shopping anyway,” Tony said. Angelo began to laugh again, so hard this time that he had to hold his side. “He’s gotta do some Christmas shopping!” he yelled. “Tony, you’re priceless,” Phil said as they piled back in the cars and headed back to the motor inn.
There would be no Brink’s robbery on December 14, 1968.
They met in Phil’s extra room at the motor inn, the one he kept for planning heists, on Tuesday, just to stay sharp. Phil was even more worried about Red Kelley than he’d been before: the man was starting to show signs of strain. “You gonna be all right with this, Red?” Angelo asked. “I’ve been knocking off trucks since you were in diapers, ya fucking wop,” Red yelled at Angelo. All eyes immediately turned to Phil, who jumped off the bed. “Kelley, I’ve just about had it with you, ya fucking prima donna. I’ll take my chances with Angelo any day. As far as I’m concerned, you’re all talk.” Phil glared at Red Kelley. “Yeah, about a million and a half sentences, Mr. Houdini,” Kelley said, alluding again to his Plymouth success. “You’d better stop living in the past, Kelley, or you’re gonna get us all hurt,” Phil said, and he started to walk out of the room. “Are we through, Phil?” Tony asked. “Yeah, see everybody back here on Thursday night.”
They got through the Thursday night session with no more flare-ups. They were to go into action on Saturday, December 21. This time rounding up the cars went like clockwork. They were all in place, and even the weather seemed to be cooperating: there was a slight dusting of snow, which made Phil feel a little better.
Kelley and Merlino were down the block, ready to pull up behind the Brink’s truck when it turned onto Canal Street. Sonny Diaferio and Angelo were already parked across from the Union Oyster House on one side of the street, and Steve Roukous was parked opposite them on the other side. Phil and Tony were standing at the top of Canal, waiting to spot the Brink’s truck as it turned the corner. About three minutes before it was due, Phil heard someone from behind say, “What the fuck are you greaseballs doing down here? Someone let you out of your cage for the day or something?”
Tony and Phil spun around and stood face-to-face with detectives Gary Bowman and Robert Chenetti, who worked out of Boston Police’s organized crime unit. Phil started sweating but hoped they wouldn’t notice how shook up he was. “Hey, Chenetti,” he said loudly, making sure it sounded like “Chinshitty,” which he knew pissed the cop off. He was hoping the other guys could see what was going on; with two cops standing there, they didn’t need anyone jumping out with their semis. Then Phil said, still loudly, “Come on, Tony. Let’s get some Joe and Nemo hot dogs.” Turning to the detectives, he added, “Sorry ya can’t come, guys, but Joe and Nemo’s don’t sell doughnuts.”
“Fuck you, greaseball,” Bowman shouted as the thieves moved down Canal Street.
Phil held his breath, afraid the two detectives would spot other team members. They’d surely figure something was going down if they spotted Kelley, Merlino, or Diaferio. But everyone caught the play and hid as the two dicks strolled by. Though the Brink’s truck then pulled around the corner, Bowman and Chenetti never even looked at it. The team made no move on the truck, since the detectives were still in the vicinity.
Nobody had to be told what to do. They met at the motor inn. Phil could tell from the moment Kelley walked in that he was through. “This fucking job is jinxed,” Kelley said in disgust. “You want out, Red? Tell us now so we can get someone in quick,” Angelo said. “I’m not saying I’m out, but I think we’d better reevaluate the situation,” Kelley said, looking around for a friendly face. “Reevaluate this!” Angelo said, holding his crotch. “You’re just a fucking coward, Mr. Big-Shot-Million-and-a-Half.” Kelley turned and said to Phil. “I don’t have to take this from some amateur B-and-E man.” He picked up his hat and left.
They were all depressed—especially Phil. He knew t
hat those two cops had probably cost them between a quarter and a half million dollars. A Brink’s truck rolling four days before Christmas had to be loaded. Because they’d clocked 6280’s Saturday routine only, the one time they could take the truck now would be after the Christmas holiday shopping frenzy, and the odds were that the loot would then be considerably less.
A few nights later Phil asked the remaining five men if they wanted to go ahead or not. Kelley, who was not officially out, had not been seen during the three days following their second aborted attempt. When Phil had called him at home, Kelley had used the excuse of a cold to avoid attending the next strategy session. “He’s got a cold, all right: cold feet,” Angelo said disgustedly. They went over two sets of plans that night, one with Kelley and one without. It was the latter that they used on the following Saturday, three days after Christmas.
PHIL COULD HEAR the rain as he began to stir from his fitful sleep. He was in fine spirits as Tony, who always arrived first, knocked on the door. There was a calmness about everyone that day. Everyone knew that the hit would go today, December 28, 1968, or never at all! They were ready.
The car pickups went perfectly. They arrived at the Canal Street site ahead of schedule and took their places. There were now three cars instead of four. Phil was in the first, which would park in front of the Brink’s truck. Tony also was in that first car, but only Phil was visible. With a perfect view of the front of 6280, Tony was in the car’s trunk, looking through a hole that had been drilled that morning. Angelo and Sonny were parked directly across from where the armored truck’s driver usually stopped for his eighteen-minute break. Roukous and Merlino brought up the rear. Kelley had told Phil that he was staying at home in bed.
Heavy rain pelted down that evening as Phil, looking in his car’s rearview mirror, spotted the Brink’s truck turning onto Canal. It was just after six o’clock. Phil hit his horn once, the prearranged signal. He got out of the car and stood behind it, near its trunk. The Brink’s truck, on its last stop of the day, double-parked in front of 122 Canal Street, the Union Oyster House. Guards Joseph Kelly and John Gillespie headed into Downey & Judge’s (For the benefit of the news media, Kelly and Gillespie would claim to have taken their break at a nearby Hayes Bickford cafeteria.) Through his peephole, Tony kept close watch on the third guard, Richard Haines, who, as usual, made no move to bolt the front doors. Tony was to bang on the door of the trunk if he saw Haines move toward the front, to bolt the door, which would render the key they planned to use completely useless.
Phil was waiting as Tony watched. After thirty seconds Phil took off his hat, a signal to Angelo and Sonny to move in on the truck. They were both wearing fake beards and stocking caps that they would pull down into ski masks when they got within a few feet of the truck. Sonny was carrying a semiautomatic in his long trench coat. Angelo had a .38 in his right coat pocket.
As they began to walk the twelve feet from their car to the Brink’s truck, a couple came out of the Oyster House and got into their car, which was being blocked by the double-parked truck. When Phil saw them, he thought to himself that maybe Red was right about this job being jinxed. It was too late for Angelo and Sonny to retreat, so they moved into a doorway next to the Oyster House and waited for the car to leave. The guard got into the driver’s seat, pulled ahead to let the car out, then stayed in the cab.
Once again, it was Tony’s call, and he watched to see if this time the driver threw the bolt. Phil walked over and put his foot on his stolen car’s back bumper as though tying his shoe and waited. No sound from Tony. He turned around and again took off his hat. Angelo and Sonny quickly moved to the truck’s passenger-side door.
Phil held his breath, hoping that the key would fit as promised. There was no turning back now. As though in slow motion, he watched Angelo take the key out—and then was startled by a noise behind him. Quickly turning, he saw a drunk stumble out of Downey & Judge’s. The drunk, fortunately, went the other way. By the time Phil turned back to see if the key had worked, his men already were in the truck.
Once in the truck, Angelo took control. “Do as we say and you’ll live to see your grandkids. You fuck up once and I’ll blow your fucking head off,” Angelo told the guard. “Please, I have asthma, don’t push me down,” Haines begged. “Just sit the fuck down, then, and keep your mouth shut,” Angelo told him, keeping his gun trained on the guard. Sonny, by that time, already had the truck in drive and was ready to pull out.
Phil retreated to his car and headed down Canal, followed by the armored truck, then by the third vehicle with Merlino at the wheel. The stolen car Sonny had driven to the crime scene was left there.
Boston streets have changed since 1968, but newspaper reports are clear that all three vehicles took a left onto Causeway, which until that night had been known only as the street on which the Boston Garden sat, and a right onto Nashua Street. From there they pulled into a parking lot directly behind the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. At the time, this was a dark and deserted area, especially on a Saturday evening.
As they turned into the parking lot Phil spotted the other car that had been stolen earlier that day. This was for Angelo and Sonny, who were still in the armored truck. They were out of sight of any traffic on Causeway and Nashua streets, and totally removed from any foot traffic. A perfect spot for what the Brink’s robbers had in mind.
It was dark and rainy, just the way Phil liked it, and his adrenaline was pumping, his heart racing, as he jumped out of the car to release Tony from the trunk. “How’d we do?” Tony wanted to know. “We’re doin’, Tony, we’re doin’,” Phil said. So far, everything seemed to be going exactly as they’d planned, and the weather was a bonus.
Phil figured that by this time Angelo would have the guard handcuffed and blindfolded in the back of the armored truck. The vehicle with Roukous and Merlino in it pulled into the parking lot a few seconds later, and everyone ran to prearranged positions. The station wagon driven by Merlino backed up so that its rear bumper almost touched the back bumper of the Brink’s truck. With the guard safely blindfolded and handcuffed, the Brink’s robbers quietly went to work transferring the money.
One metal container, four feet by three and three feet deep, was labeled JORDAN MARSH and was so heavy that it required two guys to carry it. The side of another heavy foot locker had FILENE’S written on it. It too was too heavy for one man to carry. RAYMOND’S was clearly marked on a suitcase-sized box. Boston Police later stated that, besides these three big department stores’ containers, the truck contained forty-eight other bags with money from smaller downtown businesses. They estimated the take to be a million dollars.
The transfer of the money was completed in less than two minutes. In the truck that only moments before had contained so much money, the robbers left only a cardboard box, a living guard, and a guard’s hat. Since they’d worked through 6280’s back door, no one noticed that the key they’d used to get into the truck, back on Canal Street, was still in the truck’s front door. And nobody cared either. As Boston Police Commissioner Edmund McNamara would later say, the robbery was clever, quick, and well planned.
When the last bag had been put into the station wagon, Phil began to relax. “I knew it couldn’t have come off any better. Everything went right. Everything,” he said. Once Steve Roukous got the nod from Phil, he and Merlino slowly drove out of the parking lot. Right behind them were the other two stolen cars. Haines was left in the back of the Brink’s truck, handcuffed to the side door. The three cars, in sight of one another, drove four miles to Somerville.
There they put the next part of the plan into effect in a deserted parking lot behind the old Ford plant. There was one car already in that lot. It belonged to Steve Roukous and had no parking tickets or other kinds of violations outstanding. Phil had made certain of that a few weeks before. The last thing he needed was to steal a million dollars and have his driver get pulled over on an unpaid parking ticket warrant.
Nobody spoke,
but nobody had to. Each knew that getting the money out of Boston before the cops knew what had happened was essential. It took less than two minutes to transfer the money from the station wagon to Steve’s car. Once the switch had been made, Roukous and Merlino took off in one direction, the other two cars drove a different route.
Phil and Tony went over the bridge into Charlestown and headed to the projects, followed by Angelo and Sonny. Phil’s stolen car was abandoned there. Tony and Phil got in the car with Angelo and Sonny and headed to Brockton, where Phil had rented a room for the next two days in a Holiday Inn. The room was in the back of the motel, so nobody could see it from the street. When Tony, Phil, Angelo, and Sonny arrived, Roukous and Merlino were already inside.
They took all the bags from Steve’s car into the room, and separated the checks from the cash. While Phil, Merlino, Roukous, and Sonny Diaferio counted the money, Angelo and Tony got rid of the third stolen car and returned to the Holiday Inn. Now they had two clean cars—Steve’s and one Phil had left at the inn the night before, when he’d rented the room. They also had almost a half million dollars in cash, and another half million in checks. Moving quickly under the cover of darkness, the robbers placed the empty moneybags and the three boxes in Phil’s trunk. Roukous and Merlino, with a half million dollars in their trunk, headed to a safe house that belonged to Steve’s cousin. They hid the money there. Phil and Tony drove to the Blue Hills Reservation, where they dropped the boxes, bags, and canceled checks over the side of an embankment.
BY THE TIME Phil was dumping his stolen car in the Charlestown housing development, guard Richard Haines, a former Tewksbury police officer, had fashioned a makeshift key out of the tin foil from a candy bar wrapper he had in his pocket. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, he managed to open the cuffs that had secured him to the door. Then Haines walked five hundred yards to the MDC Lower Basin police station, near the Museum of Science.
Final Confession Page 18