The Pierre Hotel Affair

by Daniel Simone

  As for Nalo, he had haunting evils to harness. The bookmaker to whom he owed his losses hadn’t forgiven the debt, and the moment he’d learn Nalo was out in the streets, he might wish he were back in the Tombs. But Nalo was also fretful about his Bronx apartment; after the search, was it in shambles? And he couldn’t stop thinking about the satchel of jewels he’d buried under the sink in his bathroom. Did the FBI or the NYPD find it? If so, it would solidify the charges against him.

  Nalo walked gingerly into the apartment, switched on the lights, and scurried to the bathroom. He crouched by the sink, and saw that the lose planks beneath which he’d hidden the satchel were intact. He breathed a sigh of relief and removed the wooden slats. He plunged his hand into the hole and felt nothing. Nalo’s heartbeat suddenly pounding, he lowered his head above the hole to look inside it. “Ough!” He pounced on the floor harder than an enraged ape. “Those motherfuckin’, thieving, bastard scumbag cops. They robbed me.” Indeed, they did, namely Detective George Bermudez. And Nalo couldn’t do a damn thing about it. And maybe this was for the best; had Bermudez not pirated Nalo’s jewels, assistant DA Pope would’ve had an ironclad prosecution.

  The second set back, or so it seemed, came to light when Nalo, through an intermediary, sent messages to Al Green. No response. It was becoming more and more apparent that he, and possibly, Ali-Ben, had absconded with the bulk of the Pierre gems. Comfort, who hadn’t yet posted bail, was oblivious to these calamities that were simmering Nalo into a stew.

  CHAPTER 58

  At last, in early June of 1972, Pope’s legal contrivances to repeatedly adjourn the preliminary hearing ran aground. The proceedings were now on the New York State Supreme Court calendar for June 5.

  The function of a preliminary hearing is for the presiding judge to weigh statements and evidence proffered by the prosecution, so to determine if there are grounds for the charges or indictment lodged against the defendant. If the judge deems the prosecutor’s allegations justifiable, he orders the accused to stand trial. If the indictment is defective—baseless—he may dismiss it or reduce the charges to lower class felonies. Both sides can introduce witnesses who may be examined and cross-examined. The jury is not present, and spectators are not in attendance.

  In the matter of The People of the State of New York vs. Robert Comfort and Sorecho Nalo, the preliminary hearing was underway. The courtroom had an overall worn appearance and a stench of staleness. The brownish wood wainscoting lining the walls was dull and graying from decades of dust. And the tan marbled floor was scuffed and had lost the luster it once must’ve shone. An alabaster chandelier, six feet in diameter, with ornate brass stems spanned grandly in the center of the ceiling, and two smaller replicas hung over the judge’s bench.

  At the prosecution table was Assistant DA Doug Pope, and Assistant DA Keith McMillan. Tapping nervously on a manila folder, Pope, in a dowdy gray flannel suit that draped him too loosely, an elbow planted on the tabletop, stared at the door fifteen feet to the right of the judge’s bench. Behind that door, the prisoners, whom the deputy sheriffs herded up from the bowels of the Tombs, waited in rows of cells to be called in the courtroom.

  At the defense table was Sammy Nalo, Counselors Leon Greenspan, and James La Rossa, who had substituted him in representing Nalo. It would’ve been a conflict of interest for Greenspan to simultaneously represent Nalo. La Rossa’s sartorial taste was the portrait of luxuriant male fashion. In a light-gray worsted wool suit—Italian made, of course, that fit him as if the tailor had used his body as a template—he seemed as though he were an advertisement in a glossy magazine. But for his modish garments, costly Italian shoes, year-round tanned face, and pompadour-styled jet-black hair, he was often taken for a gangster. The inflection of La Rossa’s speech, too, simulated that of a Mafia mobster, though his movements were deliberate and slow. He walked slowly, turned slowly, sat slowly, and stood slowly.

  In defined dissimilarity, Greenspan always wore the same shabby gray suit and white wrinkled shirt.

  A bailiff knocked on the door to the holding cells, and it opened. Two marshals preceded the manacled Comfort, ankle chains clanging, and another tailed him, all in a short procession to the defense table.

  “So this is your partner, the illustrious Bobby Comfort,” defense attorney James La Rossa said to Nalo in a hush.

  “I don’t know about illustrious, whatever that means,” Nalo jested.

  The Honorable Judge Tyler stepped through another door to the side of the bench, his black robe billowing.

  “All rise,” crowed a bailiff.

  The attendees stood, and the tall Judge Tyler, whose fat, dark brown face did not relate to his otherwise medium build, said in a baritone voice, “Be seated.” He barely raised his eyes to look at the bailiff and instructed him, “Proceed.”

  The stenographer, seated in front of the bench, nodded to mean she was ready, and the bailiff bellowed, “This is docket number 72-00101433: The People vs. Robert Comfort and Sorecho Nalo.” And he handed the judge a packet of papers.

  Tyler read those documents, and half a minute passed. He coughed and spat into a white handkerchief. He said, “Mr. Pope, you may begin.”

  Following the perfunctory statements by Assistant DA Pope and the defense lawyers, he, Pope, sent McMillan to fetch one of Comfort’s arresting officers, Will Bannon. He had been in a room across the hall with the prosecution’s roster of witnesses, all waiting to be beckoned to the stand. Other than when testifying, witnesses aren’t permitted in a courtroom in session. At the end of Greenspan’s blistering of Bannon, Pope called Lieutenant O’Neil to recount the specifics of Comfort’s arrest at the Royal Manhattan. The lieutenant’s testimony amounted to a jargon of police parlance less any substance. Next, Detective George Bermudez took the stand. Seemingly competing, but not quite, with the exquisitely accoutered La Rossa, he was sharply dressed in a pale blue suit accented by a violet tie. His nappy, graying hair contrasted against the blue jacket.

  On cross-examination, these witnesses hadn’t fared well; their testimonies only verified they had played a role in taking into custody Comfort and Nalo, and nothing else. More disarming, and even comedic, when La Rossa probed Bermudez, his justification for apprehending Nalo was as pointless as last week’s newspaper. The adroit-tongued lawyer had asked Bermudez, “What made you decide to arrest Mr. Nalo?”

  Bermudez touched the knot of his tie as if it needed to be centered. “Well, he was carrying a bag that had a large crowbar, a sledge hammer, and some other things.”

  La Rossa placed his elbow on the top edge of the witness stand and leaned on it. “What kind of things?”

  “Uh, you know . . . tools, burglary tools.”

  “No, I don’t know. What exactly are burglary tools?”

  “Uh . . . things like . . . pliers, eh, chisels.”

  “You call common hand-tools . . . pliers, chisels, and hammers, burglary tools?”

  The detective, usually an overall sly expression in his eyes, was suddenly stammering.

  Judge Tyler saw fit to intercede. “Detective Bermudez, what else impelled you to arrest Mr. Nalo?”

  Bermudez looked up at the judge. “Eh . . . excuse me, Your Honor, what do you mean by impelled?”

  Irritation was stamped on Tyler’s face. “I’m not here to teach you English. I’ll rephrase the question. What caused you to apprehend Mr. Nalo.”

  “Oh, I see. I also found a passport in his apartment.”

  La Rossa said deprecatingly, “Detective, I have a passport at my home. And in my garage I may have the same type of tools you discovered in Mr. Nalo’s bag.” He stalled, and his eyes shot toward the ceiling for a moment of drama. “Well, now you got me thinking. Does that mean I should be in fear that you may arrest me as well?”

  Laughs and guffaws drowned the courtroom, including the usually serious-faced Pope. Tyler rapped his gavel. “Order please.”

  And La Rossa terminated his cross-examination.

  The mornin
g grew to a sultry day, and the courtroom warmed to a sticky temperature, sweat staining the judge’s crisp white collar, and those of everyone else. His Honor decided to spare himself and his court the muggy heat. He pounded his gavel with extra force as though he were forging a fiery-red horseshoe, and fanned his face. “This hearing is adjourned until tomorrow, June 6.”

  The next day, the proceedings reconvened. The same cast of characters took their respective places, and once again Comfort burrowed from the door to the holding pens, shackled ankles and feet swishing on the floor, Nalo winking at him from the defense table.

  As everybody settled in, Doug Pope declared he’d be placing on the stand Louis Rabon and Elijah Weathersby, his only ammunition for the trial. Assistant DA McMillan came through the swinging doors of the courtroom with Louis Rabon, his black, slicked-back hair shining as if he had used a can of axle grease to plaster it. Rabon went into the witness box, and a bailiff swore him in. Pope navigated him through the obligatory questions and then asked, “Mr. Rabon, do you see in this courtroom any of the gunmen who held you at gunpoint in the course of the robbery?”

  Unhesitant, Rabon pointed at the defense table. “The third one from the left . . . uh, the bald cat.”

  “Mr. Rabon, please explain to the court what do you mean by the ‘cat.’”

  “The bald dude over there,” Rabon clarified. In the fifties through the seventies, cat was a term referring, particularly by Puerto Ricans, to an unfamiliar person.

  “Let the record reflect the witness indicated Sorecho Nalo, also known as Sammy the Arab,” Pope boomed as if he had won the battle, striding to his chair in a swagger of triumph.

  Nalo dropped his head as though he was losing faith, and his lawyer tapped his arm. “Everything will be fine, Sammy.”

  La Rossa sauntered to the witness stand as though he were strolling through a museum. “Good morning, Mr. Rabon,” he said smilingly. “Sir, when you picked out Mr. Nalo in the lineup, was he bald or not?”

  “He didn looh bald to me. He had a whole head o’ hair.” Rabon was born in Puerto Rico but raised in the United States, and his enunciation rang in a Black-American accent.

  “Did anyone tell you Mr. Nalo is now bald?”

  “Eh . . . uh . . . whatchu mean?”

  The obese bellman seemed flustered and La Rossa increased the heat. “The question is simple. Did anyone tell you Mr. Nalo is now bald?”

  Rabon, a drop of sweat dribbling on the side of his face, looked to Pope in a way to ask for help. Pope’s head sunk, and he was about to crawl under the table.

  La Rossa persisted, “Mr. Rabon.”

  “Uh, yeah. Somebody told me he’s bald now,” Rabon answered in a meek, inaudible voice, unlike his cockiness on direct examination.

  “Who told you, sir?”

  Rabon stole another desperate glance at Pope, praying he’d give him a sign of an inkling. Nothing. The assistant DA was studying the floor in shame, knowing that at this very moment the judge was probably thinking the worst of him.

  “Answer the question, Mr. Rabon,” Tyler admonished.

  “Mr. Pope told me,” said Rabon, garbling his words.

  The Honorable Judge Tyler ripped off his glasses, crinkled the eyelids, and shot a scowl at Pope.

  “I have no further questions for the witness, Your Honor.” La Rossa had scored a win on this first round, and the grimness on Nalo’s face perked up.

  NICK SACCO

  When they put Comfort, Nalo, Paolino, and Stern in the lineup, O’Neil also put in three detectives as decoys, two of which Rabon had seen earlier in the waiting room. The third one, even a child could’ve picked him out as a stand-in. They were clean shaven, groomed, and had on nice, clean clothes. On the other hand, O’Neil’s men had given the four accused shabby, poor-fitting clothes to change into from the green jumpsuits they’d been wearing. Given all this, the lineup had been a sham, and it wasn’t hard for Rabon to guess who the criminals were and who were not.

  CHAPTER 59

  Judge Tyler dismissed Rabon, and Weathersby replaced him. Would he be Pope’s savior? The assistant DA’s pleas to Weathersby, “Don’t you wanna help a brother?” had been taunting him day and night. He did want to help a brother. If blacks, Weathersby professed, unified and favored fellow blacks, rather than undermining one another, African Americans would prosper as a populace, and gain fair treatment and equality. “Das how them Jews done it,” Weathersby ruminated. “But what about them Mahfeea guys?” Wrestling with his inner self, he paced in the waiting room, hands wringing in despair. “I doun know . . . I doun know about this.”

  The prosecution and the defense predicted the hearing might lag on for another week. Millie, terribly missing her husband, saw this as an opportunity to see him, and for him to update her on how matters stood. She drove from Rochester to the New York metropolitan area and lodged with Comfort’s sister, Rose, for the duration of the hearing. In a conservative, olive-green dress that covered her knees, she was the emblematic dutiful housewife. Millie’s ruby lipstick highlighted her pearl-alabaster skin, and lent sleekness to the fluffy, black hair that framed it. A silk scarf enfolding her tall neck, and brown, low-heel shoes, Mrs. Comfort’s angelic countenance could only project positively on the African American judge, who eyed her more often than he should have. Was he attracted to the white sistah?

  Mrs. Comfort sat behind a glass partition, and before the hearing would begin she’d chat with her Bobby, reheating passion for one another. They’d press their palms on the partition, longing for physical contact. “It’s all gonna work out, baby. It’s gonna work out. You’ll see,” Comfort said, sensing she didn’t believe it.

  That morning, Pope called Weathersby to the stand, but the result was not what the prosecution had expected. Weathersby’s testimony was ambivalent and convoluted, not at all how Pope and he had scripted it. The witness said he had recognized Nalo, Comfort, and Stern in the lineup, when in fact he had sorted out only Comfort. Knowing that, Judge Tyler understood the damage of Weathersby’s ambiguity, an irreparable discrepancy. Was Weathersby now having second thoughts and intentionally contradicting himself?

  Pope was on the ropes from this blow, and cut short his examination. Motioning off-handedly at the witness box, he said dejectedly, “He’s all yours, Counselors.”

  Pope was scribbling away in his yellow pad, and Greenspan quick-stepped to the witness box. “Mr. Weathersby, why here in the courtroom you just accused those two additional defendants and did not do so in the lineup?”

  “Well . . . ’cause . . . ’cause then I wasn’t really sure.”

  Greenspan fired back acridly, “And what makes you so sure now?” Greenspan, in the stance of a pirouette, spun on his feet 180 degrees, and pointed at the defendants. “Did they come to you in a dream?” He nodded at Weathersby as though he wasn’t anticipating an answer. “Or did you see a fortune teller?”

  Everyone laughed, save for Pope, who was chewing nervously on the cap of his pen. His humor had melted as the chances of winning a conviction were becoming bleaker than bleak.

  “No, das not what happened,” Weathersby answered weakly. “Just that back there at the lineup, well, I wasn’t sure.”

  “And now you’re absolutely sure. Is that right?” Greenspan asked scornfully.

  “Well . . . I’m pretty sure.”

  “You’re pretty sure! But you’re not positively sure, Mr. Weathersby. Are you?”

  The witness, eyes downcast, glanced at Brother Pope as Greenspan, walking back to the defense table, said, “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Pope was still scribbling in his pad so to avert eye contact with the judge.

  The defense lawyers filed motions to disqualify Rabon and Weathersby’s testimonies on the basis they were inconsistent and nebulous. In so far as the affidavits of the arresting officers, these too should be tossed out, Leon Greenspan and La Rossa contended. Other than ascertaining that they were the ones who had arrested the defendants, the
cops’ accounts were irrelevant in establishing Comfort and Nalo’s culpability. In his Opposition Brief, Pope’s arguments to dismiss the motions were meritless for the sole reason that the validity of Greenspan and La Rossa’s motions was irrefutable.

  The proceedings were adjourned, and at an attorney-client conference Leon Greenspan prophesized, “The way I see it, the judge has to grant our motions to suppress.” He chewed on his lower lip and shook his head. “I read Pope’s Opposition Brief, and I can tell you it’s worthless.”

  La Rossa said, “I read it, too. And Leon’s right. I believe Judge Tyler is duty-bound to disregard Weathersby and Rabon’s testimonies.”

  If that were to happen, then Pope’s case might dissolve quicker than ice in boiling water. And then, what else was there for the assistant DA to hurl at Comfort and Nalo? Not much of any substance. Agent Jack Goodwin had forbidden his informant to appear in court. Louis Peppo steadfastly declined to come forward against Nalo. Paolino, who had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, withstood O’Neil’s pressuring him to implicate anyone. And Bert Stern, who had also pleaded guilty to a minor offense, was an innocent bystander and truly knew nothing about Comfort and Nalo’s past. And Greenspan and La Rossa were euphoric that an acquittal was definite.

  It had been twenty-four hours since the defense lawyers filed the Motions to Suppress, and Judge Tyler was ready to render a preview of his ruling. But anticipating that his analysis of the evidence before him would be met with hostility and objections, he invited all parties back to his courtroom. “Gentlemen, I carefully considered your motions and Mr. Pope’s Opposition Brief. I must say, both sides put forth compelling arguments.”