CHAPTER 26
At the safe house, Comfort and Nalo almost ruptured their hernias lifting the heavy Louis Vuittons onto a folding table, an unsteady fixture that could barely withstand such weight. A white, bell-shaped porcelain lamp hung low over it, casting a dimness of light. Comfort, his posse of buccaneers watching hawkeyed, emptied the luggage and methodically sorted and spread the jewelry on the flimsy tabletop, separating and grouping the items into categories. In haste, he and Frankos got into counting the cash. They were amused at peeling through hundreds of five-hundred-dollar bills, a rare denomination of US currency. When they finished the count, it totaled $2,920,000. “Wow!” Frankos said. “Wow!”
On the opposite side of the table, Nalo, a loupe wedged beneath his eyebrow, was immersed in assessing the gems, discerning for cracks and carbons. “Um, I see a lot of flaws in some o’ these,” Nalo said mournfully, downplaying the quality and uniqueness of the stones.
Frankos the Greek, Ali-Ben, Bobby Germaine, and Al Visconti had little knowledge about jewels. Neither did Al Green, who hadn’t yet returned from his errand in Brooklyn. Sacco glanced at his watch. “It’s eight o’clock. Wonder what happened to Al?”
“Yeah, he should’ve been here by now,” Visconti said. “When it comes to collecting money, you can make book that the most unreliable asshole will be on time. And if Al ain’t back here to get his piece, I betchu somethin’ is wrong.”
Germaine flopped a hand at Visconti’s negativity. “Nah, he probably got jammed in traffic. This is the height of rush hour.”
“Hope you’re right,” Sacco said, rocking his head in doubt.
But what about these jewels they were looking at? Besides Comfort and Sammy Nalo, the Cat was the only one of the Pierre prowlers who had expertise in gems and stones. He felt in his pocket, pulled out a loupe, and reached for the diamond bracelet that Nalo had dispraised. Through the magnification of the loupe Sacco scanned those diamonds for more than thirty seconds. He put away the loupe and scowled at Nalo. “Sammy, what flaws are you talkin’ about? This ain’t costume jewelry. These are Asscher cut diamonds with a high color grade, man. I mean, they got almost no color at all. I bet they’re three carats each, and I’d say they got a damn good clarity grade, too.”
An Asscher cut diamond is square-shaped, and its facet cuts are rectangular, radiating an exceptional brilliance. And what Sacco meant by the near absence of color was the limpidness of the gem as if it were a pristine drop of water, the ideal characteristic of a stone. “So I don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about, Sammy.”
Indeed, Sacco knew his apples, and Frankos looked at him to read his thoughts whether Nalo was having an impulse to cheat his partners. “Sammy, don’t even think about trying to fuck us,” the Greek warned, a mean sternness in his voice. “And I’ll tell you right now, I gotta get more than two hundred and fifty grand.”
Comfort diffused the building tension. He lit a cigarette and put on a friendly grin. “Most of you don’t know much about this. Right?” Everyone other than Sacco nodded in agreement, and Comfort swept a hand over the piles of cash neatly stacked in rows on the table top. “We got about $2,900,000 in cash, so why don’t we each take two hundred and fifty grand, and we also give the same cut to Furnari? Eh!”
It seemed simple, but it wasn’t. Frankos demanded a larger share because, as he reasoned, he had introduced Comfort and Nalo to Sacco and Furnari. And frankly, without the Lucchese consigliere’s blessings, the armament, and the three duped vehicles he supplied, the Pierre job couldn’t have been exacted. Moreover, Furnari had arranged for Ralph’s Auto Wrecking to rid of the duped automobiles, and loaned his three most competent burglars, Nick “the Cat” Sacco, Bobby Germaine, and Al Visconti. Ali-Ben and Al Green were acquaintances of Nalo.
Incidentally, a duped car is a stolen vehicle with the serial number tags of a legitimate automobile that had been wrecked or burned. Sacco also felt he was due more than a $250,000 share. After all, Christie “the Tick” Furnari was his connection, and their bond was as strong as a dam. Sacco could’ve persuaded or dissuaded Furnari to either sanction the Pierre proposition or to reject it. “Lemme have a look at some o’ these things,” Sacco said, scooping a handful of jewelry and shoving it closer to him on the table.
Ali-Ben, who so far hadn’t done any talking, seemed disquieted. “I’d like to know what the hell happened to my brother-in-law.” The reference to “my brother-in-law” was Al Green, who had married Ali-Ben’s sister. And understandably, Green’s lateness was nerve-racking. Ali-Ben began pacing as if he were in a cage.
Comfort placed his hands on the hips, elbows winged. “I’m kind of thinking myself if something might’ve gone wrong.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Nalo said without looking up, averting eye contact with Sacco and Frankos.
Was it likely that a witness might’ve reported the limo to the authorities, and Green had been stopped and arrested? At this very moment, Green might be handcuffed in a police precinct lockup, and soon to be interrogated. Al Green was not a hardened felon, and if pressured, well who knew if he could withstand charges of armed robbery? And what if he would readily name his coconspirators? These catastrophic scenarios were buzzing in Ali-Ben’s mind and, as the minutes clicked, the same poignant thoughts sprang inside everybody else’s heads.
Nalo got busy removing the gems from the settings, and Sacco concentrated on gauging a variety of jewelry pieces, selecting the most unique and larger gems. To his advantage, he was keenly aware that the size of a stone impacts the grading and market value, as do other factors. The key elements, known as the four C’s, are color, clarity, the carat weight, and the type of cut. And one ingredient of great importance is the density of inclusions, which are microscopic particles and blemishes that can only be seen under magnification.
Using a vague mathematical formula Comfort and Nalo approximated the worth of the jewels at $2,000,000. But Sacco’s estimation differed significantly; he was at a total of $20,000,000 to $22,000,000 (present value $225,000,000). “Nobody’s gonna tell me that what we got here is only about two million. Fuck no!” Sacco, a foot taller and seventy-five pounds heavier than Comfort and Nalo, and backed by the alliance with Frankos the Greek—a feared contract killer—wielded the dominant force of this disagreement.
Nalo held his ground and said to Sacco, “Nick, I don’t know where you see twenty to twenty-two million here.”
Tenseness was thickening, an aura of malice and deceit in the air.
Comfort, more honorable and sensible than Nalo, did not wish to tangle with Sacco and his ally. “Hey, whatever you guys want, take it.” This was not agreeable to Nalo, though he chose not to contradict his partner.
Comfort’s magnanimous offer didn’t appeal to Frankos. “Man, I don’t wanna have to deal with jewels. Fencing them and all that shit, just ain’t my thing. I want my cut all in cash, and it’s gotta be more than two-hundred and fifty grand. A lot more. Period.”
“All right, Greek,” Comfort placated, a burning cigarette in his hand. “First, let’s split the cash, so everybody can go home, and you and I can talk about this later.”
“Whatever you say, Bobby,” Frankos said but not meaning it, raising his palms at chest level to intimate, In the end you better satisfy me.
Counting the two hundred and fifty thousand dollar shares, eight for Team Pierre, and one for Furnari, consumed two hours. As this was going on, Nalo plucked a considerable portion of the gems and set aside the settings, and Sacco centered on selecting roughly two million dollars of the glittering stones for himself. “When all is said and done,” he said, “Furnari has to get his thirty-five percent of whatever we got here.”
Everyone took his money and concealed it in brown grocery bags. Ali-Ben saw that his stacks of cash, which Comfort had pushed across the table to him, were the same height as the others’. “What about Al Green’s end?”
Comfort bent over into the table, and stared at him without lifting his head b
ut with an upward movement of the eyes. He said dryly, “When we know he’s safe and sound, he can come and get it.”
Ali-Ben, his Arabic hook nose twitching involuntarily, glanced around the table, looking for a hint of backing, but didn’t find any. Amid everyone’s uneasiness over Green’s sudden disappearance, speculations of a worst-case scenario were growing faster than a fungal virus. And it was decided that Bobby Comfort, the most righteous of these thieves, would retain in escrow Al Green’s proceeds. The troops seemed satisfied, for now, and except Frankos, disbanded, departing one by one. He, Comfort, and Nalo stayed behind at Nalo’s safe house to negotiate the Greek’s “due share.”
They were all richer than a few hours ago, and going home with bundles of unmarked cash, this new day should’ve been a merry one; but not knowing what had happened to Al Green made it a stomach-churning morning.
NICK SACCO
I couldn’t believe Sammy Nalo was trying to pull the wool over my eyes. He had never imagined that I knew more about gems than most jewelers. But as he watched me pick out the best shaped stones, he figured I knew what I was doing. I took for myself a few Marquise, Oval, and Emerald-cut diamonds. These are the most brilliant gems money can buy. But the rest of the guys had no clue as to what anything in this hodgepodge of jewelry was worth. And Nalo took advantage of that.
But something else was bothering me. By the time I got home, I thought for sure Al Green must’ve gotten pinched.
CHAPTER 27
JANUARY 3, 1972
The day was in full bloom, steel-gray clouds smothering New York City, and the Pierre debacle had been registering top billing on TV and radio news stations, headlining in newspapers across the country. As far as any headway in solving the case, the prognosis among the NYPD investigators was bleaker than bleak. At the first press conference, the sad-faced detectives were hiding an outlook of pessimism. The nervy Pierre pirates had not left an iota of a clue; the hostages were unclear as to the physical descriptions of the gunmen, and didn’t remember a hell of a lot, or so they said to anyone who inquired.
Because the odds were that the criminals responsible for the heist might transport the stolen merchandise across state lines, the FBI was poised to claim jurisdiction of the case. The agents spearheading the investigation, though, had wisely chosen to stay on the sidelines for the initial confrontation with the media. They had nothing to tout, no witnesses, no suspects, no informants, no fingerprints, and no evidence whatsoever. The supervising agent, Jack Goodwin, reasoned, why stand there empty-handed before a bank of cameras, microphones, and cranky reporters, looking as baffled as a zookeeper after the animals have escaped? The FBI understood it’s best to skirt the media than to host a press conference dodging an onslaught of questions, offering lame responses, and ducking hand grenades. No, those pestering journalists couldn’t be fooled into believing the good guys were winning; it’d be obvious that the authorities were at point zero.
NYPD detectives, though, were known suckers for cameras and microphones—and gluttons for punishment. NYPD Lieutenant Don O’Neil, a tall, long-necked, tough-talking Irishman, directed the onset of the investigation. The tint of his skin, by nature beet-red, some said, “He was born that way.” But inside the walls of the NYPD, the rumor mill had it that Lieutenant O’Neil, known as a hardline crime buster, “nipped at the spirits,” though to a stranger his alcohol-sodden brain was unnoticeable. In his day-to-day duties, he functioned with effectiveness and behaved perfectly normally. Remarkable!
And here, O’Neil, clean shaven and in his crispiest shirt and black tie, stood shakily behind a podium. He was inappropriately dressed for the weather. The white uniform jacket displayed a shiny gold badge, and the ornate embroidery on the visor of his hat looked like scrambled eggs. Amid a mob of frenzied reporters, mouths billowing cold breath, an NBC journalist in curious apparel—a safari vest with a dozen pockets—raised his hand. “Lieutenant, can you give me a summary of what happened? How many thieves were there? How much did they steal? And how quickly do you expect to make an arrest? Or, in view of the fact that several other hotel burglaries in New York City remain unresolved, do you anticipate ever getting to the bottom of this one?”
As O’Neil pondered that grilling bombardment—which he saw as “harassment rather than unbiased journalism”—a long-haired CBS correspondent interrupted the Lieutenant’s thoughts.
“Do you believe the Pierre Hotel burglars are the ones also responsible for the Sophia Loren job? If so, do you know who they are?”
O’Neil gulped, his face darkening to a purplish red, and couldn’t process the fusillade of queries. Stalling, he tapped the microphone as if he were testing it. And a third reporter dispatched by Channel 5, brandishing a fur-covered mike, hollered, “Lieutenant, word has it that while the robbery was in progress your precinct sent police officers to the Pierre in response to a hostage with a failing heart. If that’s so, how could your men not have realized that armed bandits had the entire hotel under siege?”
How the hell does he know about that? O’Neil’s mortification was swelling, a rattled look in his sapphire-blue eyes. The Lieutenant rankled inwardly, closing his eyelids, and wishing for the obnoxious journalists to vanish in some magical way, and that he’d be in a cozy bar, cooling his throat, sipping an icy gin and tonic.
The Channel 5 representative, a seasoned wisecracker, was riding on a good wave. “My understanding is that your men were at the Pierre for almost twenty minutes. How was it possible that they did not notice the hostages?”
O’Neil held his palms at shoulder height, as if to excuse himself for this utter failure to enlighten the press corps. But he was so tongue-tied that his lips quivered soundlessly without forming words. And in those intense seconds of weariness and stress, the highly-decorated NYPD lieutenant, ever the publicity monger, was now wishing he could’ve waved a magic wand and no longer be in this goddamn line of fire, taking heat from a pack of runaway media savages. O’Neil, feeling a moistening in his armpits, tried to disconnect from the badgering, and concentrated on composing a few sentences that, hopefully, might deflect the verbal bashing.
Just then, a female crime writer for the New Yorker, dark-haired and round-faced, her nose tiny and as pointy as the beak of a bird, to be spotted waved a blue bound notepad in the air. In her nasal, squeaky voice, she asked, “Lieutenant, do you have any comments about the two patrolmen whom the perpetrators locked inside the Pierre? Evidently, they weren’t on guard while on patrol. How else could the thieves have lured those two officers inside the hotel?” The chirpy, little woman then put on a solemn aspect. “More importantly, is that kind of ineptness representative of the state of affairs within your station house?”
Shit, she knows about that too! Who is this wiseass bitch? Exacerbating O’Neil’s embarrassment, his audience roared in laughter. The lieutenant’s innards were churning acid. And whose idea was it to call for this damn press conference? It had been humiliating. And for what, just to be in the spotlight for ten minutes? The strategy was catapulting into a public relation disaster. Maybe he should’ve barricaded himself in the sanctity of his office at the 19th Precinct in midtown Manhattan. Had O’Neil shied away from the media, “those heckling hyenas” could’ve only speculated where this whole situation stood. Instead, his witless babbling confirmed that the brazen Pierre gunmen had executed a flawless crime, so far.
To be clear, the FBI too was in constant pursuit of publicity, no less than Lieutenant O’Neil. The difference was that the bureau’s agents—polished and of a higher degree of education, and customarily in conservative, well-tailored suits—were less flagrant when courting the press. Also, agents did not call on the media purely to make meaningless headlines. Their objective was to speak to the press only if they could disclose publicly truthful statements—minus the tap dancing—and not for the sake of filling TV screens with owl-eyed faces.
And the jousting to win the dominating role of the Pierre probe would soon begin. The contest
ants were the FBI, the NYPD, the Manhattan DA, and the US attorney for the New York Southern District.
NICK SACCO
I knew that before midday what we did at the Pierre was going to be all over the news. I was glad to hear the cops hadn’t found any clues, but that wasn’t necessarily true. The detectives might already know who we were; one of the hostages could’ve recognized us from police mug shots. After all, except Nalo, we all had records. And if the cops were on to me or any of the other guys, they’d keep it quiet so to catch us off-guard. To play it safe, I had to get out of town for a while. But first I had to see Christie Furnari and tell him where I had stashed his cut of the robbery. I had rented a room at a hotel in Manhattan and left his cash there in the safe inside a closet. If anybody was tailing me or Furnari, we’d have nothing on us.
CHAPTER 28
Nick Sacco didn’t want to meet Christie Furnari at the 19th Hole; it might’ve been under surveillance. Instead, they met at an Italian café, Mille Luci, on the corner of 18th Avenue and 73rd Street in Brooklyn. The specialty of this bistro was authentic Italian pastry. It was patronized by Italian imports from southern Italy who frittered away time there from morning to night. They drank espresso, played scopa, a game with the forty-card Italian deck, and gossiped endlessly. It seemed that for the most part Mille Luci’s customers were not gainfully employed.
Italian Americans of dubious connotations, loansharks, bone-crushing enforcers, bookmakers, Mafia underlings, and general pretenders also loitered in the restaurant. And the eatery’s frontal façade, bearded by a growth of ivy vines, had tables on a second floor balcony reserved for the VIPs of the underground.
The Pierre Hotel Affair Page 11