The Pierre Hotel Affair

by Daniel Simone

  The Irish physician heard the knocking and, half-dressed, opened his door. As soon as Sacco and Ali-Ben saw him, they knew he had more alcohol in his blood than a liquor store. Dr. Houllahan, a freckled man whose bushy brown hair and a handlebar mustache looked cartoonish, wasn’t too steady on his feet, and reeked of whiskey. Sacco and Ali-Ben eased him out into the hallway, and walked him inside the elevator. “What in the bloody world is this? Uh, who . . . who are you two hooligans?”

  “Nothin’ to worry about, Doc,” Sacco said. “We got a sick guy in the lobby, that’s all. Sorry to wake you up, but you’re the only doctor in the house.”

  Though his kidnappers were civilized and well-mannered, Dr. Houllahan seemed unnerved, and couldn’t shake out the cobwebs in his whiskey-sodden mind. “I don’t know who you really are, and I should call the police.”

  Sacco and Ali-Ben grappled his arms. “Like I said, nobody’s gonna hurt you. We simply want your help, and then you can go back to sleep. Or drinking,” Sacco said.

  Down at the front desk, they brought Dr. Houllahan to Comfort, who looked at him and exclaimed, “Oh, that’s just great. One doctor in this whole place, and he’s a drunk.”

  “I beg your pardon,” the doctor said in his Irish brogue, his weedy eyebrows rising, eyelids blinking. “I’m one of the most respected physicians in Dublin, young man.” He burped, a blast of stale liquor emanating from his mouth. “Eh, where’s the person who needs treatment?”

  Despite the alcohol, Dr. Houllahan rose above it, and superficially examined Mr. Graff, who was suffering with chest pains. The doctor stood straight, swaying faintly, burping again. “This gentleman is in grave danger. I detect a coronary thrombosis that will surely lead to a myocardial infarction. He should be supine on a bed.” He nodded solemnly and fell into a green upholstered divan.

  Comfort hadn’t understood the doctor’s medical jargon and bent over the now dozing Irishman. “What the hell did you say?”

  Dr. Houllahan, eyes semi-closed, sighed impatiently. “He’s about to have a heart attack, me lad.” He waved lazily. “You must transport him to a hospital. Immediately! Give him an aspirin right away.” his whispery voice trailing off into sleepiness.

  “And what’s this about a supine position?” Comfort asked, but it was too late; Dr. Houllahan was snoring on the divan.

  Sacco nodded at the unresponsive Jordan Graff and said to Comfort, “This guy can go any minute. What’re we gonna do?”

  Comfort pinched the bridge of his nose. “We have to call 911 and get this man to a hospital before he dies.”

  “Call 911?!” Ali-Ben blurted out.

  “Yeah, we gotta get the EMS here,” Comfort said. “Go tell Germaine and Sammy to stop hammering in there and come out here right now.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sacco said, puzzlement in his eyes. “We can’t call the cops.”

  Comfort petted his chin and glanced at Graff. “We have to call 911. Get everybody out of the alcove and put them somewhere they can’t be seen. Let’s move fast.”

  Ali-Ben, Sacco, and even Blondie, who was beginning to feel as if he were one of the gunmen, thought Comfort had gone mad.

  CHAPTER 20

  Nalo and Germaine were at it in the safe room, smashing and prying, ignorant of the Graff crisis. Sacco walked in there to update them on the developments in the lobby. Nalo, electrified at the harvesting of millions of dollars in gleaming diamonds, wasn’t cognizant of anything, and clanged on. Sacco grabbed his wrist and stopped him. “We got a problem out there, Sammy. You guys gotta come out ’cause there’s a change of plan.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Germaine asked, beads of sweat on his forehead, a fuming cigarette stuck on the side of his mouth.

  “Both of youse stop and come out. And close the door to the vault room. We gotta make a move,” Sacco said.

  Out in the lobby, Comfort was devising an impromptu strategy. He moved close to the reception clerk, who was still manacled. “Blondie, listen and listen good. You gotta help us. Okay?”

  Blondie, thankful not to have been harmed, nodded willingly, his ears red from fright. “What . . . what do you want me to do?”

  Speaking as if he were coaching a Little League pitcher, Comfort said to him, “We’re gonna untie the porters and the maids in the alcove, and I want you to tell them to take Mr. Graff to a vacant room, and lay him on a bed.” He patted Blondie on the shoulder. “Do you understand?”

  Blondie tipped his head in agreement and couldn’t have been more obedient. Comfort said, “After you bring Mr. Graff into a clean room, we’re gonna take the rest of the hostages, you included, to somewhere else on the ground floor. Got it?”

  Nalo and Germaine knew nothing about the sudden change, and they were thrown off balance. “What the fuck is goin’ on?” Nalo asked.

  Comfort informed him of the Graff emergency, and that they had to phone for an ambulance. Nalo objected. “Call 911! Have you lost your marbles? We’re in the midst of a robbery, and we got two dozen hostages. And you wanna call the cops?!”

  Germaine was also opposed.

  Comfort inched in closer to his compatriots. “You guys wanna deal with a murder rap? Because that’s what’s gonna happen if this guy dies on us. Now let’s get busy.”

  Nalo was in a stunned stare, and Comfort asked him, “What?”

  Nalo motioned toward the vault room. “Why don’t we put the hostages in there? Once you shut the door, it’s soundproof. And if anyone o’ them makes any noise, no one will hear the fuckers.”

  Germaine and Comfort chortled. “Great idea, Sammy,” Comfort said, slapping Nalo on the side of his arm.

  Sacco and Ali-Ben were commandeering the relocation of Mr. Graff to a suite on the third floor. As prescribed by Dr. Houllahan, one of the maids had shoved an aspirin into the patient’s mouth. Nalo, and Germaine went into the alcove and told the captives they’d be placed elsewhere.

  Visconti, who hadn’t yet known about Graff, asked Nalo, “Why do we gotta move everybody?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. Take off everybody’s duct tape.”

  “Why?” Visconti asked, a bemused look on his face.

  “Just do it,” Nalo cracked.

  Dreadfulness was daunting the hostages. “Where are you taking us?”

  “Why can’t we stay here until you finish doing your thing?”

  “Oh, Jesús, Maria, y José,” shrilled the old Chihuahua, the de Montejo mother-in-law, her palms together in prayer. “They’re taking us to be killed like a herd of sheep. Oh, Jesús, Maria, y José.” This prompted hysterics in the alcove, and Mr. de Montejo’s party and his paramour, Joanne, whose sexiness was steamier when mad, were still kicking one another, annoying the other victims.

  “Please don’t kill us,” the black elevator operator beseeched, saliva wetting his rubbery lips. “I tell yah, we won’t be sayin’ nothin’ to nobody. No siree, no siree. Please don’t kill us.”

  “All right, everybody calm down,” Visconti said. “Calm down. We ain’t killin’ nobody.”

  A wide grin blossomed on the black man’s mouth, his teeth resembling the keyboard of a piano. “See, I knew you wouldn’t do us harm. Oh, may the Lord bless you. He goin’ bless y’all. Uh, uh. He goin’ bless y’all.” He said to his co-hostages, “Don’t worry everybody. These good people here ain’t gonna hurt us. The Lord be watchin’ over us. I feel it.”

  “Thanks for your sermon, pop,” Germaine said.

  “Okay, everybody up and let’s start movin’ out,” Nalo said.

  The heartening words from the elevator operator did not dispel those terrible visions of slaughters and tortures. Instead, one of the four security officers stood chest out and chin high. “We’re not leaving here. If you wanna kill us, you’ll have to do it here.” This heroic decree triggered moans and cries from the women, and another guard resonated, “That’s right! We’re staying right here.”

  “Speak for yourself, you fool,” Joanne Rinaldi said.


  Nalo walked out to consult with Comfort. “They don’t wanna leave where they are. They think we’re gonna take them somewhere and kill everybody.”

  Comfort looked confounded. He could not and should not delay calling for help; Graff must be stabilized without wasting another minute. “I’ll talk to the hostages.” He went into the alcove, Nalo trailing him. Comfort put out his cigarette butt in a crystal ashtray lying on a maple bureau and smiled cordially at the prisoners. A pitiful sight. “I’m here to appeal to you. First, I want to say how sorry I am for inconveniencing you. I wish for nothing more than for you to be absolutely comfortable. But we have a medical emergency. A man who came into the hotel a while ago might be having a heart attack. A doctor, one of the guests here, wants him hospitalized immediately.”

  “Oh, poor man.” Everyone sighed and listened attentively as though they couldn’t wait to hear more. One of the brave security officers asked, “Who is this man? Is he a guest?”

  “I don’t know, but we can’t waste time. I have to call 911. And this is the reason we have to move you into the vault room.” Comfort glanced at the captives for a reaction; everybody seemed to feel compassion for the sick man, whoever he might’ve been. And Comfort implored, “Please, let’s all go into the vault room as fast as possible. Okay?”

  The hostages rose on their feet, and shuffling and groaning, wrists cuffed, marched in a single file to the vault room. Ali-Ben woke Dr. Houllahan, who was startled, propped him off the divan, and led him to the new holding pen. Nalo, Visconti, Ali-Ben, and Germaine stayed there with the detainees, shutting and locking the vault door from the inside. No sooner had everyone settled in, the de Montejos and Joanne resumed the squabbling, hissing at one another.

  The phone rang at the front desk, and the call was from Suite 8336 belonging to Mrs. Henrietta Randall, widow of billionaire J. Arnold Randall III. She was a plump dowager, her bluish hair coiffed and glued in a coating of hairspray. Her stout, overly rounded shoulders brought to mind a humpback whale. Mrs. Randall wanted fresh bath towels, and Comfort gave this task to Sacco.

  Everything appeared normal as if all was calm and peaceful. Comfort phoned 911 and reported that a guest may be suffering from a serious illness, and to please send an ambulance. The 911 operator’s voice was monotone. “What is your name and location?”

  “I’m James Young, and I’m at the Pierre Hotel on 61st Street between . . .” Comfort said.

  “I know where the Pierre is. What is the name of the patient?”

  Comfort thought for a moment, deciding whether he should give the 911 operator Graff’s name. “I don’t know who he is.”

  “I’ll dispatch a cruiser and an ambulance. They’ll be there shortly.”

  Up on the eighth floor, Sacco gave Mrs. Randall the towels, and she questioned his tuxedo. “Umm! You’re so handsome in a tux,” she said in a lustful hiss. “But I never saw any of the hotel personnel in a tux.”

  “Oh, I’m not part of the hotel staff. They have a temporary shortage on the night staff, and I’m fillin’ in.”

  Mrs. Randall found Sacco appealing. “I see. Won’t you come in?” She touched her chin as if a thought came to her. “Actually, my toilet isn’t flushing from time to time. Would you mind checking it for me? I’ll take care of you.”

  He obliged her, but nothing was wrong with the flushing system, and bid her good night, rushing through her suite door.

  Frankos was stepping out to forewarn the limo driver, Al Green, not to be alarmed when ambulances and police cruisers would be swarming in. But as the Greek was about to exit, a man and a woman rang the buzzer. Frankos pushed the intercom button. “Are you guests here tonight?”

  The man, bundled in a three-quarter length black coat and a gray beret, stared awkwardly as though he were trying to recognize Frankos’s face. When he couldn’t, he answered, “We’re residents here. Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz. Aren’t you supposed to know us?”

  The Greek couldn’t believe this coincidence. The police could be here any second, and this couple had to come just now. Incredible! He unlocked the door, and skipping the standard protocol of confirming residency, allowed the couple in. The Goetzes found this breach of security odd, and the husband noted, “This guard doesn’t seem to know us. Why would he let us in?” The answer came in a moment; Frankos deftly jammed his pistol in the middle of Mr. Goetz’s shoulder blades. He resisted and made a foolish attempt at outmuscling the Greek until Mrs. Goetz, a bleached blonde, begged him to surrender—though in the scrap she scratched Frankos’s cheeks. When the tussle fizzled, Frankos, hanging on to Mrs. Goetz by the arm, his gun pressed against her husband’s spine, shepherd the latest arrivals to the vault room. There they were shackled beside the other sorry souls, whose stares were bleak and wary. Thankfully, the police cruiser and the ambulance hadn’t yet come.

  CHAPTER 21

  Sacco was in the suite watching over Mr. Graff, whose symptoms were worsening. He had been struggling to breathe, and was lapsing in and out of a coma. Sacco believed Graff was on the verge of heart failure. Uneasiness was enveloping the Cat, and when this would be over he was envisioning a police dragnet hunting him and his Pierre coconspirators. They’d be sought for murder. Life imprisonment. It is a widely assumed misunderstanding that a murderer sentenced to twenty-five to life is paroled after serving the minimum bit. Wrong. It’s a rarity for a parole board to free a killer. The only circumstance under which someone convicted of a homicide ever leaves his or her prison is in a pine box. This unthinkable outcome bubbled perspiration on Sacco’s forehead. Fretting, he phoned Comfort at the front desk. “Hey, this guy looks like he’s gonna go any minute. Where the fuck is the ambulance?”

  Within a minute, three police officers were at the 61st Street entrance, ringing the intercom. Frankos unlocked the door and let in the policemen and two EMS technicians who were tailing hastily behind. Al Green in the limo didn’t know what was happening, as cruisers, ambulances, and even a fire truck—flashing lights and strident sirens—were teeming into the quickly congesting street. He was in the dark as to the sudden fleet of emergency response vehicles. Mr. and Mrs. Goetz had interrupted Frankos from warning Green of the expected swamp of police action. The late night serenity had turned the block into a turbulent site, police radios chattering loudly, the fire truck’s loudspeakers blaring, cruisers parked haphazardly on both sides of 61st Street, and a dozen cops and firefighters walking about aimlessly. All this for a sick man who basically had to be placed on a stretcher and wheeled into an ambulance.

  Green, a rush of panic flooding his stomach, was fretting if he should scram from there or stay put and wait for instructions from Frankos. Green peered in the side view mirror. Shit! He saw a cop nearing the limo. He rolled down his window and grinned goofily, milk-white teeth seemingly iridescent against his eggplant-toned skin. “What’s goin’ on, Officer?”

  The officer, a short, stout South American, waved him on. “It’s a medical issue. You gotta move this boat. The ambulances have to get closer to the doorway of the hotel.”

  A medical issue! What the hell is goin’ on in there? Did one of the guys shoot someone? Overlapping thoughts deluged Green’s mind, his pulse beat racing. “All right, Officer.” And he drove the limo a few hundred feet to the west, re-parking it on the north side of 61st Street.

  Inside the Pierre, the three policemen and the EMS technicians had crowded the front desk, where Comfort was acting as if he were in charge. He represented himself as the night manager, James Young. He was carrying on his person proper ID for a James Young. He said to Visconti, “Show these gentlemen to Mr. Graff’s room.”

  No one suspected anything wrong, so far.

  Mrs. Randall phoned again. This time she wanted tubes of skin moisturizing cream. What is this old goat going to do with body lotion at 4:30 in the morning? Comfort marveled. He phoned Sacco, who was guarding Graff in the suite where they had placed him. Sacco answered the ringing, “What’s up?”

  Without mention
ing names, Comfort said, “Come to the lobby as soon as one of us gets there with the cops and the EMS techs.”

  Visconti ushered the response personnel to Graff’s room. The paramedics began working on the patient, and Sacco returned to the lobby. Comfort asked him, “Everything under control with Graff?”

  “Yeah, they’re gettin’ Graff ready to take him out to the ambulance. Do you need me to do somethin’?”

  Comfort said, “You won’t believe this. That old broad, Mrs. Randall, wants moisturizer.” He laughed. “At 4:30 in the morning, no less. The world is full of weirdos. Anyway, go to the supply room, find the moisturizer, and get it to her.”

  The seventy-six-year-old widow, a promiscuous relic, invited the tall, striking Sacco into her suite, engaging him in small talk. She spoke in a slight British accent, lending sophistication and the unspoken aura of nobility. Mrs. Randall made it known that today was her birthday and she intended to celebrate every minute of it. Daylight hadn’t yet peeked over the horizon, and she already had a bottle of expensive champagne on ice. The old boot snuggled up to Sacco and tickled him under his chin. “How about the first toast of the day with me, big boy?” Although Comfort and his thieves had run through every possible contingency, they weren’t prepared to neutralize an insistently flirtatious guest—a late septuagenarian, no less. Sacco, a man in his early thirties, desperately wished to free himself of Mrs. Randall’s advances. He had to patrol the first and second floors to ensure that any strays whom they might’ve overlooked earlier wouldn’t pop up while the police were in the hotel. And this horny great-grandmother was craving a tumble in the hay with someone the age of her grandson.

  Mr. Graff, unconscious on a stretcher and deteriorating by the minute, had to be loaded into a freight elevator on the extreme east end of the hotel. An oxygen mask, the clear plastic fogging, covered his mouth and nose. The EMS techs were wheeling him out and into an ambulance. The police officers filled out forms, which they required Comfort to sign. He scanned the paperwork as though he would not sign it unless nothing therein might pose a liability for him. One of the cops spurred him along and said, “Don’t worry, nothing is gonna come back at you personally. This is standard bullshit.”