Westies

by T. J. English

  “Sissy! We got a fuckin’ problem here!”

  Sissy came out of the bathroom and went to the front door. As soon as she opened it, the agents flooded in, shotguns and revolvers pointed in all directions. Sissy and Billy Comas were told to sit on a couch in the front room. Sissy’s six-year-old niece, who had been in the kitchen, came into the room, terrified. Sissy grabbed her and brought her over to the couch. They could hear Mickey, Jr., crying loudly.

  “Tell your son to get out here!” one of the agents told Sissy.

  “He’s eighteen months old, he’s an infant! Whaddya want him to do!?”

  Sissy went into the bedroom, where three or four agents had already begun turning things upside down, and lifted Mickey, Jr., from his crib.

  Over the next two hours the Featherstone apartment was vigorously searched. Among the items confiscated were two bayonets, one machete, 30.06 rifle shells, two blank New York State driver’s licenses, an honorary Westchester County detective’s shield, and a fully loaded .25-caliber Beretta. Underneath a cushion on the couch, right where Billy Comas had been sitting, they found a small black address book. But there were no counterfeit plates.

  Nor were there any plates next door in Ray Steen’s apartment, which was unoccupied when the cops arrived. They had also hoped to find a large arsenal of weapons which Steen told Malfi was stored in his closet. But earlier that day, Mickey Featherstone, sensing a raid was imminent, had told Ray to move the guns to his aunt’s apartment. By the time the agents arrived there was a .25 and a 12-gauge shotgun, a nice cache but hardly an arsenal.

  Five blocks uptown, at 61st Street and 11th Avenue, the third and final stage of the night’s operation was going down. After Steen got into Malfi’s van, they drove around the corner to 55th Street between 10th and 11th avenues. Another undercover agent was in a car that pulled up behind the van. Malfi told Steen he was going to give the counterfeit money to “his man” in the car behind them.

  Steen looked nervous. “Well, you know, my people ran a check on your plates. They come back registered to a whole different car, man. This is why they’re suspicious.”

  “These plates?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Registered to a different car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, my man, your people must’ve made a mistake on the plate check.”

  Malfi stepped out of the van and took the two brown-paper bags containing the counterfeit notes to the agent parked behind him. He and the agent talked for a few minutes, then the agent radioed to two more agents in another car, telling them he now had the counterfeit money in his possession.

  Malfi got back into the van. “Okay, Ray, we just gotta drive up here a few blocks to get the bread.”

  Steen was even more nervous now. Beads of perspiration were beginning to form on his brow. “Hey, Ronnie, you said this guy was gonna have it.”

  “Hey, relax Ray. Are we friends or what?”

  Steen laughed nervously. “Alright, but I don’t feel too good about this.”

  Malfi and Steen drove to 61st and 11th, followed by the agent who had just received the counterfeit. It was dark now and the streetlights on 11th Avenue were a pale yellow. Malfi parked, got out of the black van, and walked across the avenue to a dark sedan, where two armed agents were waiting. Without saying a word, the two agents got out of the sedan and walked over to the van. By then the third agent was out of his car. The three of them surrounded the van and placed Steen under arrest.

  Later the agents counted the counterfeit money Steen had given them. There was $48,000—$2,000 less than there was supposed to be.

  They had to laugh. Little Al Capone had tried to stiff them.

  That night, high above Manhattan, at the Secret Service’s New York Field Office in the World Trade Center, Steen sat in a leather chair surrounded by five or six agents. At first, Steen claimed that Mickey Featherstone had nothing to do with the counterfeit operation. He’d only used Featherstone’s name to make himself look big, he said. As for the counterfeit money itself? He’d stolen it from the Town and Country Pub on 49th Street and 9th Avenue.

  Nobody believed Steen’s story, but he persisted. Eventually, they brought in a tall, bearded man in a nicely tailored suit.

  “Raymond,” said Agent Derkash, “I have someone I want you to meet. This is Ira Block. He’s an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He’s going to explain to you what the charges are and how much time you’ll be spending in prison after you’re convicted. Have you ever spent time in prison, Raymond?”

  Steen shook his head.

  “Okay. You just listen to this man.”

  After Block told Steen he might be facing fifty or sixty years for counterfeit currency, gun, and narcotics possession charges, Raymond began to waver. Sensing that he was about to turn, Derkash went for the clincher. He knew it was always risky to confront a prospective stool pigeon with the undercover agent. Sometimes they got agitated and refused to cooperate. Other times they melted before your eyes and signed whatever agreement you put in front of them. With Steen, Derkash was banking on the latter.

  “Hello, Ray,” said Malfi, after he was brought into the room. He was still wearing his street clothes from when he’d met with Steen earlier that night.

  The color drained from Steen’s face. “Man, they told me you was bad, but I stuck by you.”

  Ray said he wanted to meet with his girlfriend, Alberta Sachs. Within thirty minutes, the agents brought her into the room. For five or ten minutes the two teenagers sat off to one side of the office and talked in private. Occasionally their voices rose; Ray looked distraught, Alberta frightened. Eventually, on the verge of tears, Steen came forward and said they would both be willing to cooperate.

  While Ray and Alberta were signing their agreement papers, down the hall Billy Comas was being interviewed by several other Secret Service agents. After the agents had finished searching the Featherstone apartment, they brought Comas downtown, sat him in a chair and gave him a cup of coffee. They told him they knew he was Featherstone’s source for the counterfeit $100 notes, but they wanted to hear his side of the story.

  “I know what you guys really want,” said Comas. “I been ’round the goddamn block. You got my record.”

  Unlike Ray Steen, fifty-five-year-old Billy Comas was a hardened criminal with a long list of arrests and convictions. Over the years he’d weathered beatings, homosexual assaults, and inmate uprisings in a wide variety of penal institutions, both state and federal. Prison did not scare him. What did scare him was Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone.

  “They’re bad guys,” he told the agents, as if that were all that needed to be said.

  The agents told Comas that, for the moment, they weren’t interested in his dealings with Coonan and Featherstone. They just wanted to know where the counterfeit notes were coming from.

  “Yeah,” said Comas. “Then what?”

  One of the agents shrugged. “Then we build a case.”

  Before he had even decided whether to cooperate, Comas told the agents his source for the bills was “the Greeks.” He said his contact was a guy named Nick Daratsakis, although the notes were printed by a Pete Christie, who lived in New Jersey. Comas added that he had been buying the $100 notes off Daratsakis at 6 points and selling them to Featherstone for 12.

  They briefly discussed the quality of the bills, which one of the agents mentioned was not that good. Comas agreed, saying the problem was in the way they had been “treated.” Usually, to give the bills a used look, they were treated by dipping them in coffee. These bills had been dipped in tea.

  The agent said they wanted Comas to arrange a meeting with the Greeks and wear a transmitting device.

  “Sure,” replied Comas, “that’s good for you guys, but what about me? I once helped the cops and went to jail anyway. So, you know, what’re we talkin’ about here?”

  The agents told Comas they could make his cooperation known to the U.S. Attorne
y’s office and the U.S. Probation Department. As it stood now, he was going to do hard time for his involvement in the counterfeit operation and maybe a few other charges too, like gun trafficking. They weren’t making any promises, but if he became an informant there was a good chance he could get out of this with little more than a long probation sentence. Furthermore, his status as an informant would be closely guarded throughout the investigation. Nobody would have to know anything.

  “Yeah,” said Comas, with a knowing smile. “But what happens if it goes to trial? Then what?”

  That, replied the agent, was a definite possibility. The case against Featherstone and Coonan was strong. If he were called as a witness, there was nothing they could do about it. But he could go into the Witness Protection Program where he and his family would be guarded around the clock.

  Comas shook his head and laughed. For a few seconds he sat mumbling to himself.

  “Alright,” he said finally, looking none too pleased about it. “I’ll take a shot.”

  Then he put his index finger up to his temple, as if it were the barrel of a loaded gun, and pulled the trigger.

  12

  THE WESTIES, ONCE AND FOR ALL

  The weeks following the February 1979 raids and arrest of Ray Steen were marked by a flurry of activity. Once Ray and Alberta began to tell their tales, it opened a treasure trove of possibilities for the government. Ira Block and the U.S. Attorney’s office had the federal counterfeit case, which looked to be strong even without the printing plates. On the local level, the Whitehead homicide investigation was beginning to come together. There hadn’t been any formal charges yet for the murder, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s office was about ready to empanel a grand jury. And there was an assortment of smaller violations, including gun possession and a parole violation against Featherstone.

  The authorities were still in the dark about a lot of Coonan and his crew’s activities, but from what they did know, they figured they had enough to wage war confident of victory. As ammunition, they had informants like Steen, Sachs, Comas, and whoever else they might be able to bring into the fold. As evidence, they had the counterfeit notes Agent Malfi purchased from Steen and other items seized in the raid on Featherstone’s apartment. And they had mounds of incriminating taped phone conversations involving, among others, Mickey, Sissy, and Donald Mallay of the Westway Candy Store.

  The only problem, as far as the government was concerned, was ferreting through the evidence and potential witnesses and deciding which cases should take priority.

  In other words, it was a prosecutor’s dream.

  On a cloudy spring day in April 1979, Larry Hochheiser stood in his law office in the elegant Chrysler Building, overlooking the frenzied midday traffic on East 42nd Street. On a clear day, the view from Hochheiser’s forty-ninth-floor window was spectacular; it took in the Empire State Building—just eight blocks south—the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, the East River, and in the distance, the enormous twin towers of the World Trade Center. Today, however, the view was gray and ominous, as a hovering mass of nimbus clouds hung over the city like smoke trapped in a bottle.

  These were busy times for Hochheiser, now thirty-seven years old. He had just finished a staggering succession of trials, one right after the other, in state and federal court. It had been a good ten months since he’d had anything even remotely resembling a vacation. Now, having just closed the book on his most recent case, he was being asked to dive headlong once again into the wild and wicked world of Francis Featherstone.

  Not that he had ever been all that far removed. In the seven years since Hochheiser first represented Mickey at the Linwood Willis murder trial, he’d developed a soft spot for Featherstone. Part of it was Mickey’s puppylike devotion, which Hochheiser found endearing. For example, only a few weeks ago, when Hochheiser’s wife Sandra was planning to attend a Broadway show and Mickey heard about it, he insisted she park for free in one of the many Hell’s Kitchen parking lots. He even offered to meet her there and walk her to the theater. When Hochheiser told him it wasn’t necessary, Mickey eagerly insisted. “Hey, believe me, it’s not a safe neighborhood. Your wife shouldn’t be walking around at night without a bodyguard.”

  Hochheiser laughed and said thanks, but he’d make other arrangements.

  Featherstone’s devotion was rooted in the Linwood Willis verdict. During that trial, Mickey had never expected to see the light of day again. What’s more, he didn’t seem to care. When Hochheiser pulled a rabbit out of his hat and got him an acquittal with the insanity defense, it literally gave Featherstone a reason to live.

  Hochheiser also had fond memories of the Willis case, inasmuch as it more or less launched his career. Not long after that trial Hochheiser left the firm of Evzeroff, Newman, and Sonenshine to begin his own practice. As expected, there were lean years spent building a clientele. But before long Hochheiser had earned a reputation as a tenacious courtroom performer especially adept at the fine art of cross-examination.

  In the early months of 1975, the attorney had been doing well enough to take on a young, inexperienced associate by the name of Kenneth Aronson. Aronson, like Hochheiser, was Jewish. But that’s where the similarities ended. Hochheiser was six-foot-one with a forceful, slightly cynical nature. Aronson was five-foot-six, pale and soft-spoken. Born in 1949, Aronson was eight years younger than Hochheiser, but seemed even younger than that. Raised in a sedate, middle-class neighborhood of Valley Stream, Long Island, he had none of his senior partner’s street smarts. Before hooking up with Hochheiser, in his two years with the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn, he’d come to be known as something of a nebbish.

  But Aronson had a dedication and an attention to detail that Hochheiser—the consummate courtroom performer—lacked. Those who knew Aronson sometimes called him “Talmudic,” because of his willingness to spend hours and hours poring over documentation. Eventually, this became his forte. While other attorneys, including Hochheiser, derived sustenance from some of the more glamorous aspects of the profession, Aronson’s satisfaction came in unearthing obscure statutes that often made the difference between conviction and acquittal.

  Once the two men had established a rapport, the firm of Hochheiser and Aronson became the ideal legal partnership. Aronson spent his time preparing the cases, frequently working late into the night, and Hochheiser tried them in court. It was an arrangement that allowed both to focus on what they did best.

  Aronson had only been with Hochheiser a short time when he first met Mickey Featherstone. It was May of ’75, more than a year before Mickey was to form his criminal alliance with Jimmy Coonan. Mickey was about to be released on parole after serving five years for gun possession in the Linwood Willis shooting, but he still faced charges for the John Riley and “Mio” shootings.

  Aronson was surprised when he first laid eyes on Featherstone in Manhattan criminal court, where he had arrived to represent Mickey before Judge Harold Rothwax. As with most people who knew Featherstone’s résumé before they actually met him face to face, he was expecting someone bigger. Prison had taken a toll on Mickey, leaving him gaunt and frightened. His knees quivered, his hands shook, and he spoke in a wispy, uncertain little voice. Not exactly someone you would run for public office, thought Aronson, but certainly nobody’s image of a Vietnam vet turned street killer.

  Since then, the young attorney and Featherstone had spent a good deal of time together; much more, in fact, than Featherstone spent with Hochheiser. It was Aronson who negotiated the plea bargaining agreement that put Mickey back on the street in ’75. And it was “Kenny” who Mickey called, at home or at work, whenever he got into trouble. Aronson had a bit of the Jewish mother in him, and he was constantly doting over Mickey’s health and well-being.

  Ever since his release from prison in ’75, a grateful Mickey had been steering business to his lawyers. Mostly, it was other folks like Mickey—Irish kids from Hell’s Kitchen with little or no money. Generally they were burglary ca
ses or barroom assaults, and the fees were based on what the client could afford—which usually wasn’t much.

  A typical example was a time in 1977 when Hochheiser and Aronson represented Richie Ryan. It was a few months before Ryan, the kid with the soft Irish face, took part in the Ruby Stein murder, where Jimmy first showed him the fine art of vivisection in the back of the 596 Club. This was a simple assault charge. The fee was only $2,500, but Ryan’s payments still came in dribs and drabs—maybe $100 one month, $150 three months later. Finally, the lawyers told him to consider it paid. It would have taken a full-time bookkeeper just to keep track of what he owed.

  It was also through their association with Featherstone that Hochheiser and Aronson first met Raymond Steen. In the mid-1970s they represented Steen on a mugging and robbery charge. After that, Steen was added to their regular client list.

  Because they handled Steen, Aronson and Hochheiser were now able, in April of ’79, to determine just how formidable Mickey’s current legal predicament was going to be.

  Following the police raids and Steen’s arrest on February 9th, Aronson had called Rikers Island in an attempt to locate Raymond, assuming he would be needing legal representation. But word came back that Ray Steen was refusing to be represented by Hochheiser and Aronson. The way Aronson saw it, that could mean only one thing: Raymond Steen was cooperating with the authorities. The attorney passed his feelings along to Featherstone, who agreed that Ray must have flipped.

  Within weeks, their worst fears were realized. On March 9th, exactly one month after the raids in Hell’s Kitchen, Featherstone was surrounded by detectives at 55th Street and 10th Avenue. It was the middle of the day, and he was walking from his apartment to a check-cashing store on the corner.

  “Okay, Mickey,” said Sergeant Tom McCabe, who was taking part in the arrest along with detectives from the 4th Homicide Zone. “Let’s make this simple as possible.”

  “What’s it for?” Featherstone calmly asked.