The Pierre Hotel Affair

by Daniel Simone

  In his early years, Sacco was raised in a turn of the century tenement across the street from Mille Luci. And today, seven hours after the Pierre escapade he was at a table in the café when Furnari walked in. Sacco stood, and they hugged. Furnari shed his black wool coat and sat, the hissing espresso machine steaming an aroma of brewing coffee.

  “Right about now I’d love an espresso with some anisette.” Relishing that cocktail, the Lucchese consigliere smacked his palate.

  “Me too,” Sacco said. He waved at a waitress, a cute brunette who didn’t speak a word of English. She was “fresh off the boat” and probably “hadn’t even had the chance to unpack her suitcase.” Sacco held up two fingers and said to her, “Two espressos with anisette and two cannolis.”

  She smiled, her teeth even and bright, and spoke in Italian: “Ah! Si, si, ho capito. Lei vuole due espresso con anisette e due cannoli. Vero?”

  Sacco and Furnari shrugged. They didn’t understand what the girl had said, but assumed she had confirmed the order, the ceiling speakers belting out Mario Lanza’s tenor voice singing a popular Neapolitan song of the fifties.

  O Sole Mio

  Sta` brond’ a te

  O sole mio

  “Ritorno subito.” I’ll be right back, she said, stepping away, a sexy bounce in her walk, steaming the air.

  “The girl’s round ass looks like a pair of hot buns,” Sacco said to Furnari. “A hot little Sicilian. Ain’t she?”

  Furnari moved on. He hunched forward into the table and hushed, “How did it go last night?”

  “I’m here, ain’t I?” Sacco winked. “No problem. None at all, Christie. I don’t wanna go into it here. A lot of ears in this joint.” Sacco pushed a key and a piece of paper across the tabletop. “I left your package at the Algonquin Hotel on 44th Street. Room 6672. In the closet safe. The combination is on that paper.”

  Furnari placed a hand over the note and the key, and scooped them in his fist. “Where’s that hotel again, Nick?”

  Sacco was about to answer, and the waitress reappeared balancing a tray. She had refreshed her lipstick. “Ecco. Due caffé e due cannoli.” Two coffees and two cannolis. She rested the hot blue demitasse cups and the pastry on the table and backed away.

  “Is this girl ever gonna learn English?” Furnari remarked offhandedly.

  Sacco sipped the espresso and bit into his cannoli. “Um, good!” He chewed for a few seconds and said, “The Algonquin is on 44th between Fifth and Sixth. It’s a couple of hundred feet west of the Harvard Club.”

  Furnari, too, chomped on the creamy cannoli, and with a mouthful said, “I’ll find it.” He slurped the demitasse, and signaled Sacco to lean in. The Lucchese consigliere said, “I got a message from the 19th Precinct. In a nutshell, they’re watching Comfort and Nalo. They think those two are behind the Pierre job. And I was told the cops are gonna ride Comfort and Nalo ‘til they pinch them.”

  Sacco grunted, “Uh! I was afraid of that.”

  “We’re gotta keep our ears open. Meanwhile, you should take a powder until everything cools. Go somewhere warm. Know what I mean?”

  Sacco swiped his lips with the tongue. “I plan to. I’m gettin’ the fuck outta here tonight.”

  “Good move, kid. Good move.”

  “I think we’re done here. Let’s go, Nick.”

  They stood, and Furnari picked up the check that the waitress had written out. It totaled $2.50. “I got it, Nick.” And he chucked a five-dollar bill on the table.

  Sacco reached in his pants pocket and put a ten-dollar bill on top of Furnari’s five. Furnari whistled. “You’re a big tipper these days, Nick.” In 1972, ten dollars was equivalent to $115.00. “Ten bucks plus my five for a $2.50 tab?”

  Sacco veered his lips downward. “Eh, what the hell! That girl’s sweet. Maybe she’ll save some money and take English lessons.”

  “Never mind the girl,” Furnari said. “Just make sure you leave town tonight.” He finished buttoning his coat. “I don’t like what’s gettin’ back to me. I got a feelin’ they’re gonna get Comfort and Nalo, and I hope those two don’t crack when the cops put them under the hot lamp.”

  CHAPTER 29

  When the car he was in had rolled over on the Belt Parkway, Al Green lost consciousness for less than ten seconds. As he came to, finding himself lying on the inside of an upside-down vehicle, understandably he was disoriented, to say the least. His forehead was bruised, and he had a bleeding gash on the right temple. His head had bumps and ached, and he rubbed it. “What the fuck happened?” Green asked Mickey, the driver, who was in a sprawl of arms and legs, though unconscious, his hair bloodied. The traffic in all the three lanes had stalled, and more than a dozen motorists bunched near the wreck. One of the onlookers suggested that someone should walk off the parkway to find a pay phone and call the police.

  “The white man looks like he’s badly injured. Somebody call an ambulance.”

  On hearing this, as Green was trying to regain his bearings, an awful thought occurred to him. He was a numbers runner by day and a thief by night. And he recalled he had on his person the sheet, a bookmaker’s pages of entries listing the numbers combination his customers had played. If the police found the sheet, Green would be arrested for illegal gambling. It’d be his fourth such charge, and a judge might lock him up and hurl the key into a shark tank. Tearing the sheet and ditching it in the bushes on the side of the Belt Parkway was a bad idea; he’d have no record of his bettors’ picks. And if Green were to admit he’d lost the sheet, when the winning numbers would be publicized in the papers, every one of his customers would surely swear it was the combo they had played. And it’d be impossible for him to dispute those claims. This is a bookmaker’s worst nightmare. Green had to flee the scene of the accident. But that’s also a felony; a half-dozen bystanders had seen him and could identify him from police mug shots. Green was in a catch-22 situation. Since he was a boy, his mama had been telling him that white people said, “All blacks look alike.” And if it’s true that whites can’t distinguish one black from another, he thought, it’d be wise for him to bolt before the police cruisers would be barging in. And he did, making a run through the bramble on the south side of the highway and onto the service road.

  A witness hollered, “That black dude is gettin’ away. Somebody go after him. He must’ve been the driver, and he’s probably drunk. That’s why he’s takin’ off like a rabbit.”

  That set off the adrenaline for Green to run even faster, cutting between houses, jumping over cyclone fences from backyard to backyard. But as he climbed a wooden divider, a sixty-pound pit bull, eyes red and feral, fangs exposed, clamped onto his ankle, a bite as strong as a crocodile’s. The dog growled as if he were a rabid animal, saliva drooling from his mouth, and Green fought desperately to break loose. In a matter of seconds, his sock and shoe were drenched in blood, and the pit bull wasn’t letting go. In a moment of dread, Green, holding on to the fence with one hand, stretched out his right arm to reach for a shovel lying on the grass a few feet away. If he could grab it, he’d wallop the mad canine good and hard, but the shovel was too far, and he wasn’t able to latch on to it, the dog tearing ragingly at his leg and foot.

  Green realized he was in South Jamaica, Queens, a black neighborhood.

  “Damn those niggers and their pit bulls,” he said, teeth gritted in pain.

  Suddenly, a solid thump and a yelp from the dog, and Green’s ankle was free. Ten feet to his right stood a man, presumably the owner of the property.

  “Get back into the shed,” the proprietor said to his dog. And no, he wasn’t an African American, as Green had surmised. He was Caucasian and had a shotgun trained at Green. “What’re you doing prowling around my yard, boy? Put your filthy hands up.”

  Stunned, Green obeyed, his ankle throbbing and gushing blood. “I . . . I can explain.”

  “You’d better, and you better do it fast, ’cause my wife is in the house calling the police.”

  Green plea
ded, “No, no. Tell her to hang up. Like I said I can explain. We can work this out.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  CHAPTER 30

  True to the forewarnings of the tipsy Dr. Houllaghan, Jordan Graff had suffered a coronary thrombosis at Lenox Hill Hospital. He was in critical condition, and his physicians weren’t optimistic. Three nurses and an intern were preparing the patient for quadruple bypass surgery. Piped in symphony music was playing softly in the background.

  A scraggly, thin-to-the-bone New York Post writer assigned to the crime beat walked stealthily into the reception hall of the hospital and shuffled down a narrow corridor to a stairway. He looked here and there; no one had noticed him. He avoided the elevator and climbed the stairs to the fourth level. He snuck into the operating-prep section of that floor, a forbidden zone. With the likeness of a raccoon, the gaunt reporter had dark circles around his black eyes, or depending on one’s imagination, of a ghost. He accosted a female intern in blue scrubs. “Ah!” she heaved a sigh, spooked by the ghoulish trespasser, whose tall, skinny frame and curved protruding chin brought to mind the fictitious character Don Quixote. The nurse’s aide’s hand flew to her mouth. “Who . . . who are you? How . . . who let you in here?”

  He pointed to the green laminated photo ID on his chest and stooped low into her, almost mouth-to-mouth. “I’m with the Post. I didn’t mean to startle you, Miss.”

  “Leave right now,” she said in a frightened tremor, stepping back, her arm stretched stiffly toward the swinging doors.

  His teeth misaligned and as yellow as cheddar cheese, Don Quixote smiled kindly. “I’m not here to make trouble. I just want to ask you a couple of questions about the patient from the Pierre. That’s all.”

  The intern’s tension eased. “Uh, you’re talking about Mr. Graff, Jordan Graff?”

  “Yes, him. What can you tell me?”

  “All I can say is that he’ll be going into surgery,” she said tentatively.

  The area was encumbered by large medical equipment, rolling oscilloscope machines, an X-ray apparatus, two or three IV stands, and three gurneys, and Don Quixote could smell pungent odors of disinfectants and antiseptics. White built-in wooden cabinets and a Formica counter were encased on a wall, and glass flasks with liquids of various colors were lined on the countertop. The crime reporter, his stomach intolerant of this environment, was becoming nauseous. He slipped a paper tissue out from a box lying on the countertop, covered his mouth, and coughed. “Sorry. I feel queasy. I gotta get fresh air before I puke all over the floor. Just tell me what’s wrong with Mr. Graff. Does it have to do with the robbery?”

  The intern saw his complexion turning whiter than a few seconds ago. “His symptoms have nothing to do with the robbery.”

  Repressing a rush of vomit in his throat, Don Quixote said in a gurgle, “Oh shit.” He winced and gulped harshly. “You can’t give me any details at all?”

  Nauseated by his impending regurgitation and foul breath, she distanced herself. “Look, you better go. I can’t help you with anything else.”

  “Just one thing . . .”

  He persevered, and she rebuffed him. “You’ll have to go, now.”

  But Don Quixote dashed to a sink, and vomit gushed from his mouth as though it were a turbulent waterfall, the strangling sound of which was heard throughout the hospital wing.

  Graff’s heart arteries were ninety percent clogged, an accumulation of plaque over decades of poor diet, smoking, and drinking. But the Pierre incident might’ve saved Mr. Graff’s life. On that night, he had come to the hotel to organize the luggage in his room. He was to travel on an Amtrak to Washington for a speaking engagement. But had he been on that trip, tracts of which were isolated and inaccessible, by delaying first aid to his slated heart failure, he would’ve returned to New York in a pine box. Ironically, Jordan Graff was a professor of criminology at John Jay College.

  The six-hour surgical procedure to replace Graff’s heart valves was a success, and on Monday afternoon, as the Pierre poachers were savoring the magnitude of their spoils, he was recuperating comfortably in the recovery room at Lenox Hill Hospital.

  At the Pierre, TV camera crews, reporters, and freelance photographers had amassed to a throng. The usually subdued lobby had become a congested cave of murmuring people, filming and lighting equipment, the ambiance of a movie set. And the investigators were sifting through the crowd, interviewing the captives, sleuthing and doggedly talking to anyone who consented to cooperate. But to the detectives’ frustration, the victims were not too obliging. Mrs. Randall was forlorn and couldn’t erase from her mind the dashing and manly young gentleman who had fooled her into believing he was a hotel employee, and hoped she’d someday meet again, somewhere. In short, Mrs. Randall didn’t care that he was a jewel thief. A NYPD rookie detective, Dennis Landers, was assigned to question her. But she only said, “I was so upset that I can’t possibly remember what the man looked like.”

  The young, attractive African American, Amanda Jefferson, whom hours earlier her premature menstrual cycle had inconvenienced and embarrassed her, was a former Miss something or the other from a hillbilly town in Alabama. This morning at ten o’clock, she had a potential career-making appointment. A television advertising producer, who had booked and paid for Ms. Jefferson’s stay at the Pierre, had scheduled her to screen test for the commercial of a leading tampon brand. Talk about ironies. And Ms. Jefferson would not under any circumstances miss that golden opportunity. She didn’t have time to be interrogated by Joe Perillo, another detective whom Lieutenant O’Neil had dispatched to the hotel. Perillo showed Ms. Jefferson his gold badge. “I’m Detective Perillo. I need to ask you a few questions.”

  The black beauty was tense as she sat on a chair under a bright chandelier, her auburn afro ablaze as if it were a glowing reddish ball. “I got some business to take care of and don’t need to be here dealin’ with this mess.”

  The average-height, slender Detective Perillo, his hair wavy and black, resembling the actor Tony Franciosa, later made an admission to a reporter: “As soon as I saw that black broad, I had a thing for her.”

  And Ms. Jefferson had known it. She fluttered her long lashes and smiled flirtatiously at Perillo. “You’re a handsome dude. Are you Aitalian?”

  “Eh, yeah,” he answered shyly. “Well, I mean my grandparents were from Italy, but I was born in Brooklyn.” Looking at Ms. Jefferson, her legs perfectly shaped and honey-toned, the skirt tight and short, barely covering those mouth-watering thighs, Perillo gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. In two or three seconds, he felt his penis swell and press against the zipper of his black polyester trousers. “Uh, lemme just ask you a couple of questions. May I call you Amanda?”

  “Uh, uh.” But Ms. Jefferson swatted a hand at the air, her fingernails purple-lacquered, silver bracelets jingling on both wrists. “Look Detective . . .”

  “Call me Joe, please.”

  “Okay, Joe. Ah like that name,” she said sheepishly. “But ah can’t really help you ’cause ah don’t even remember what them robbers looh like.” Perillo had been ready to write in his yellow pad, and Amanda, ever so lightly, placed her hand over his, a tingle shivering up the love-struck detective’s spine. “You know, Joe, I’m a model, and today may be the biggest day of mah life.” She tilted her head in a pleading way. “And ah gotta git ready to git outta here, otherwise I’m gonna blow mah thing.”

  His penis now back in its cage, Perillo flashed a grin. “I figured you must’ve been a model or someone in the entertaining field. That’s cool.” Undecidedly, he took the liberty to caress Amanda’s bicep. “Well then, I won’t keep you. But just for the record, I gotta have your address.”

  Amanda gave Perillo her contact info, and he said, “Thanks. If something comes to mind, be sure to call me. All right? Here’s my business card.”

  She looked at it, and then gazed at him invitingly, her eyes a pair of large chestnuts. “You know Amma gonna call you
.” She waved at him teasingly and walked away, her round buttocks bobbling side to side, and he couldn’t remove his eyes off her.

  But Amanda was a dead end for Perillo. As an Italian, how could he bring “this mouleenian” home to his old-fashioned mother? Out of the question. And he knew it. The poor old woman would be so shamed that it’d kill her. In those days, an Italian mother wished for her son to marry a “nice Italian girl,” who was a good cook, could sew and iron, “make plenty of babies,” and spoke Italian. And if a daughter-in-law fit that mold, though she could otherwise be a brainless moron . . . that would be just fine. “But these modern girls, who wanted careers, were nothing but puttane, whores. Forget about the ones who were actresses, models, or beauty queens. They were altogether the devil’s daughters.”

  On a different note, Lilliana de Montejo and her mother were eager to consult a divorce lawyer, and couldn’t be bothered with the investigation of the heist, stonewalling the investigators. Joanne Rinaldi was still badgering her boyfriend. Throughout their fling, Diego de Montejo had repeatedly assured her he was an eligible bachelor, and in the near future they’d live happily in Brazil on one of his ranches. But those visions had set sail and were no longer. And now Joanne, to protect her new prospect, Nick “the Cat” Sacco, the gunman whose name she didn’t know, wasn’t helpful to the police sketch artist, either. Will that good-looking, warm-hearted thief call me? She’d be thrilled if he did. As she viewed it, the likes of Sacco, criminals tied to the Mafia, were fascinating personalities. By nature, she was enraptured by mystique and intrigue, as are females of adventure.

  But the New York City police commissioner didn’t share Joanne’s fascination. Fuming, he phoned the captain of the 19th Precinct. “I can’t believe those perps had the gumption to call 911, and the responding officers weren’t aware that an armed robbery was underway right under their noses.” How was that possible? What a bunch of idiots.