The Pierre Hotel Affair

by Daniel Simone

  “Mr. Pope,” Judge Tyler said in a voice lower than normal. In his chambers, he always called Pope by his first name, Doug. Referring to him as “Mr. Pope” was the byproduct of the judge’s irritation for the assistant DA’s unreasonable stipulations. “I can’t understand why you’re so inflexible.”

  Although Pope’s obstinate objection to reduce Comfort and Nalo’s sentencing was unwavering, the Honorable Tyler would not concede to such a harsh stance. The hearing disbanded, and that afternoon the judge, whose moral compass needed recalibration, bypassed Pope and opened a dialogue with his boss, Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan. Pope, Tyler knew, had to abide by the terms of any plea agreements his superior would consent to. And His Honor telephoned Hogan. “Sir, I called to request a concession from you.”

  Hogan guessed what this was all about. “What can I do for you, Your Honor?”

  “I don’t know how much you know about me,” Tyler said.

  Hogan thought, What I do know, judging by your reputation, is that I wouldn’t put anything past you. Instead, he replied diplomatically, “Frankly, Your Honor, I’m uninformed in respect to your tenure on the bench.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. When I’m in my black robe, I’m fair-minded—and anyone who’s appeared before me will attest to that. I uphold another principle: I never forget an accommodation and never forget a discourtesy. In simple terms, I’m the sort of judge who subscribes to the motto that if you wash my hands, I’ll wash yours. And our world, the legal profession, is a small carousel of judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and law enforcement agents that spins in a tight circle. And one never knows when he or she will find themselves confronting somebody whom they’ve slighted.”

  “I see,” Hogan said. “And in this instance, how can I accommodate you, Your Honor?”

  “Oh, it’s a minor favor I’m asking. My docket is terribly overloaded. To add insult to injury, I’m arthritic, and this summer the high temperatures cursing us New Yorkers has me in agony. I need to spend time at my vacation home in Vermont. And I want to clear my calendar as much as possible by disposing those cases where the prosecutors’ charges are anemic—and even frivolous. If I can accomplish that, it may afford me to take time and get away from the humid heat we’ve been enduring here. One such case that should be disposed of is The State vs. Robert Comfort and Sorecho Nalo.”

  “Ohhh, yes,” Hogan said in a chord that suggested, I knew this was coming. “And how can I indulge you?”

  “I’m asking you not to oppose a four-year sentence for guilty pleas from the defendants. Your deputy, Doug Pope, is adamant and won’t consent to anything less than fifteen years, which I find utterly ridiculous, considering the indictments are baseless.” And this is where Judge Tyler administered a bitter dose of reality by placing Hogan on notice that, “In fact, I’m inclined to grant the defendants’ Motion to Suppress.”

  If I’m reading Tyler right he’s telling me that If I don’t play ball with him, he’ll rule against me. “I see, Your Honor. Before deciding, may I have the opportunity to confer with Mr. Pope?”

  “Why of course, Mr. Hogan. You’re a respected district attorney, and I trust you’ll act accordingly. And anticipating your cooperation, I thank you in advance. I’ll be much obliged to you and your office.”

  NICK SACCO

  Christie Furnari phoned and asked me to round up Al Visconti, Bobby Germaine, and Frankos the Greek, and drive those guys to a pool hall he owned in Brooklyn on 73rd Street and 20th Avenue. Furnari, as he normally would, didn’t say much over the phone other than him wanting to talk to all of us about something urgent. In the rear of the pool hall at the end of an alley was a narrow outdoor cement stairway leading to the basement of the joint. It was out of plain sight, and it suited Furnari just for that reason. He and I go back since I was fifteen, and as long as I can remember that’s where he held sit-downs and meetings with people who didn’t want to be in the public eye, him included.

  The Lucchese consigliere, unlike John Gotti, the addicted attention-getter, was private, discreet, and secretive. He didn’t talk much, and didn’t ask too many questions. And he didn’t want you to ask too many questions. He never drove luxury cars, or dressed in fancy clothes. And you’d think Furnari was a working-class stiff and nothing more. I don’t recall ever seeing him with gold rings, or expensive watches, or Havana cigars. An average man.

  We climbed down the stairway, one so steep it made you dizzy, and I knocked on the black steel door. Furnari welcomed us in the basement of the pool hall, and music from the big band era of the forties was playing, his favorite. In the center of the cement floor was an octagon-shaped card table and eight chairs. We sat around it, and he said to us, “I took out insurance on Bobby Comfort and that Turk Nalo. Just to make sure they don’t get the idea of rattin’ us out.” He raised a palm and cocked his head. “I’m not sayin’ they would. Especially Bobby. But when somebody is up against the wall and lookin’ at thirty years in the joint, you never know how he’ll take it.”

  I had an idea what Furnari was talking about. “What did you do, Christie?” Germaine asked.

  Furnari smiled. “I paid off the judge.” He nodded in confirmation. “I funneled two hundred and fifty grand to him to make sure Comfort and Nalo don’t do more than four years in the slammer.”

  None of us were surprised; Furnari’s tentacles were long and mighty. “A couple o’ days ago,” he went on, “I spoke with Bobby and told him I was gonna get to the judge. He sure was glad to hear I’m able to do that. He said he’d pay me back when things are straightened out, and I have no reason to doubt him. He’s a man of his word.” Furnari pointed at all of us. “But if things don’t go right, or somethin’ happens to Bobby or Nalo—God forbid they should get killed—you guys gotta give me back your share of the two hundred and fifty grand. Got that?”

  I said, “Oh, yeah. I don’t have a problem with that.” And neither did Germaine, Visconti, and the Greek. And even though we knew that Comfort and Nalo wouldn’t buckle if new charges for their past felonies started falling on top of them, nevertheless we felt a lot better knowing the fix was in. Money, the evil of all and the solution to all.

  The only problem that was getting in the way for Judge Tyler to seal the deal was the goddamn prosecutor, Pope. “Number one on his agenda was to make a name for himself,” Furnari said. The assistant DA wouldn’t budge from wanting to put away Comfort and Nalo for fifteen years. And it wasn’t anything personal. It was business, but that’s how the system works. The average American believes anything the government says and everything they read in the papers. They think that judges, prosecutors, and cops place justice above any situation. Wrong! It’s all about self-serving motives at anybody’s cost.

  Frankos the Greek hadn’t said a hell of a lot. And that wasn’t unusual; for the most part, the Greek never talked much. But here I saw a certain look on his face and knew what he was thinking. He turned to Furnari and said, “Maybe I should whack this mouleenian, Pope.”

  Furnari crimped his lips and nodded at the Greek. “That may not be a bad idea.”

  CHAPTER 64

  Three days had passed, and District Attorney Hogan had not yet replied to Judge Tyler’s overture. The judge was incensed at Hogan’s irresponsibility for timeliness and asked his law clerk, Gertrude Higgins, to phone him. Ms. Higgins, a spinster in her fifties, rimmed glasses on her thin, hook nose, graying, straw hair in a bun, spoke with the Manhattan DA’s secretary, and imparted his message to Tyler, which was, “Mr. Hogan will call you tomorrow.”

  His Honor was displeased and felt Hogan’s indecision was an ominous sign.

  Judge Tyler was coercing Hogan, and the district attorney was not the average politician who easily bent to strong winds. But sometimes it’s wise to yield to a gale. Hogan conferred with Doug Pope and rehashed the salient facts by raising these points: “Doug, besides Weathersby and Rabon, we don’t have anyone else to corroborate their stories. Worse yet, Tyler told me, in so many wo
rds, that if we don’t assent to the four-year sentence he’ll suppress the testimonies of those two witnesses. Then we’ll have less than nothing to introduce at trial.”

  Pope was shaking his head in discord. “I’m confident I can push Comfort and Nalo into taking longer sentences than four years.”

  Hogan, too, was shaking his head but more vigorously. “I totally disagree. These are astute veterans at their game and are not easily dissuaded.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Hogan, I couldn’t live with myself if those two thieves get away by spending so little time in jail. It’s unfair to those who committed far lesser crimes and are imprisoned for a lot longer.”

  What Pope couldn’t live with was missing out on the nationwide publicity that would spark at press conferences as he’d tout how he had so cleverly outwitted the foxes of jewel thieves, and wiped two treacherous felons off the streets for a long time. He’d stand gallantly in front of cameras and microphones and claim boldly, “That pair of robbers will no longer pose a threat to the thousands of hotel guests in Manhattan.” Indeed, Doug Pope, the rising legal eagle, would be stepping foot on the golden ladder to stardom.

  But what if . . . what if Hogan were to override Pope and cave in to the scant four years? The sentencing would have to be executed discreetly without sounding off before an orchestra of press corps. Such a quiet, dull ceremony would dampen the effect of Pope’s goal. And the elite sector of jurisprudence, that league of high-powered lawyers with year-round tanned faces; yes, those impeccably attired barristers, who dwell in mansions and flaunt trophy wives a third their ages, and own stables of luxury cars, would never know of Doug Pope. This was miserably depressing to him; and he couldn’t bear the thought that he’d never again be in the epicenter of an exceptionally high profile case. This was why Pope had to ensure that Comfort and Nalo, the two most-sought jewel thieves in the whole USA, would not escape the punishment they deserved, so he could trumpet his victory from the highest mountain and become a shining star.

  Yes, Pope’s indomitable ambitions were in top gear; how could he be bridled? Perhaps Frankos’s blunt impulse to assassinate the tenacious assistant DA might be the solution.

  CHAPTER 65

  Speaking of Frankos the Greek, he had stumbled upon a major discrepancy, the total worth of the Pierre haul, and he was keen on speaking with Nick Sacco about it. They met at Café Mille Luci in Brooklyn.

  Frankos and Sacco were at a table in the marble-veneered dining room, an expansive hall reminiscent of ancient Roman bacchanalian décor. The Cat, in a mauve silk jacket and violet-blue custom-made shirt, said, “How’ve you been, Greek?”

  Frankos waved a hand in a negative signal. “As if it’s not bad enough that I haven’t gotten my full cut, I gotta worry that someone may rat us out.” Frankos leaned into the table, his black, bushy mustache twitching. “But listen to this, Nick. Bobby Comfort gave a huge chunk of his take to Rene the Painter up in Rochester to fence for him. A couple of days later, Bobby asked Rene when he can get paid, and Rene told him to take a walk.” Frankos chuckled as if Comfort’s misfortune was the most hilarious story he’d ever heard. “Rene’s boys roughed him up a bit, and Bobby figured he’s better off cutting his losses and keeping his mouth shut about it.”

  Sacco saw an opportunity in this. “How much of those jewels did Bobby lose to Rene?”

  “From what Bobby told me, although he wasn’t too committal,” Frankos fluttered his hand as if he were estimating, “I’d say about four million. And to think that he and that little prick Sammy told us the whole score was only about two million. And here, another four million turns up in Rochester. Never mind the necklace that surfaced in Detroit.” Frankos lay back in the chair and rested his arm on the table. “How about those fuckers? They’ve done us wrong.”

  “Are you sure about Rene swindling Comfort?”

  Frankos waved at a waiter as he answered, “I’m absolutely sure. I ran into Bobby at Dangerfield’s, the new comedy club on 61st and First Avenue. I went to see George Carlin there, you know, the comedian. Bobby happened to be there at the bar, and he gave me the whole rundown.”

  “Umm, very interesting . . . very interesting!” Sacco said.

  That afternoon, he was with Furnari and told him about Frankos’s findings. “So they beat us out of a few million, eh?” Furnari said in a not too surprised tone.

  “It could even be more.”

  Furnari pondered this revelation. “Nick, get a hold of Germaine and Visconti. Tomorrow morning we’re all goin’ up to Rochester. We’re gonna pay a visit to Rene,” Furnari said roguishly, winking at Sacco. “We’ll leave here early at six o’clock, and we’ll be back by tomorrow night, hopefully with a few million bucks in diamonds.”

  CHAPTER 66

  The powder-blue Lincoln Mark III, purring at an 85-mph cushion-ride, was in cruise control mode on Interstate 90 for Rochester, New York, seventy miles to the west. The occupants, Christie Furnari, Al Visconti, Bobby Germaine, and Nick Sacco at the wheel, were drowsy from the long, monotonous drive. It was 10:20 A.M., and judging from the low, dark-gray clouds, and the humid air inside the car—despite the air-conditioning on full blast—a thunderstorm might’ve been imminent.

  “We’re comin’ up to a rest area,” Sacco said. “Youse wanna stop and get some coffee?”

  Germaine, in the rear of the smoke-hazed Lincoln, tapped Furnari on the shoulder to wake him. For the past forty-five minutes of the six-hour trip, the Lucchese consigliere had been asleep in the front passenger blue leather seat, his balding head resting on the window. “Christie, we’re stopping for coffee and to take a leak.”

  “Uh . . . oh, yeah. I . . . I do have to take a piss,” Furnari said as he wakened. “Nick, how far we have to go?”

  “Another hour.”

  “I wanna get there before Rene wakes up. This way we’ll catch him when his brain is still fried from last night’s whoring. The bastard sleeps ’til twelve o’clock.”

  As Sacco already knew, and Bobby Comfort had feared, in retribution for Nalo’s underhandedness in so far as the notorious necklace, Ali-Ben and Al Green had in fact fled to Europe, touring that continent, throwing money around as if they were two Saudi princes.

  As Furnari and his posse were en route to “shake down” Rene the Painter, Green and Ali-Ben landed at Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome. They had flown from Amsterdam, Holland, where black and Arabic men are the ladies’ preference. And evidently, the same applied to Italian airline personnel. On the two hour and forty minute Alitalia flight, the female attendants had been quite flirtatious with Ali-Ben. It is known that those stewardesses, too, host a fondness for Arabian chaps. It must be the middle easterners’ male musk.

  Ali-Ben and Green, sporting European chic apparel, had coupled with two women they’d solicited at the red light district of Amsterdam. Katja and Georgina, a pair of fleshy loosie-goosies, had been through the woods in the past, tantalizing and outsmarting the wolves in there.

  Walking through the airport terminal, the Dutch ladies, wrapped in skintight décolleté dresses that were less than three inches below their crotches, smothered Green and Ali-Ben, slithering like snakes all over the bemused Americans. As the four lovers waited for the carousel to spit out the luggage, they embraced, and kissed, and grinded, cackling and giggling, behaving as though they were ready to climax right then and there. They retrieved the suitcases—Louis Vuittons, of course—and began the exhausting walk to the terminal exit where the taxis queued for their fares. The horny couples crammed into the subcompact taxicab, a Fiat 124, and Al Green said to the driver, “Grand Hotel Plaza on Via Del Corso.” He pronounced that, Grean Hote Plasa on Vya Dee Curso.

  The driver, darkly tanned with a black pencil-thin mustache and eyes an inch apart, did not speak English, and made a face that said, What planet are you from? He asked, waving his arm, “Ma cosa dici? Mannaggi, questi Americani sono tutti scemi.” What are you saying? Damn, these Americans are all morons.

  G
reen asked in his black lingo, “Anybody know what he be tellin’ me? I don’t speak no Aitalian.”

  Georgina had a faint knowledge of the romantic language and translated for the driver in a slightly more intelligible pronunciation, though he didn’t understand her completely.

  Her tongue loosened, and she and the cabbie connected. Hand-gesturing, he said, “Ah! finalmente ho capito. Grazie signorina.” Ah! Finally, I understand. Thank you, Miss. “Ma lei da dove viene?” But where are you from?

  Georgina groveled to answer in Italian. She looked at the ceiling of the cab as if the translation was written there. She rehearsed the response by whispering it to herself, and in a staccato, a broken sentence, answered, “Uh . . . io, eh . . . sono, uh . . . dal’Olanda.” I’m from Holland. Georgina’s stuttered and butchered words amused the cabbie, and he swung back and winked at her.

  The taxi rolled away from the curb, and drove south on Via Mario de Bernardi, a tree-lined road graced by a magnificent vista leading to the end of the airport service road. Within three kilometers, the Fiat turned east for the entrance ramp to Strada 80-Este, a three-lane highway. The lovebirds in the backseat couldn’t wait to fondle and tongue-kiss and plunged right into it, the driver, seemingly envious, stole glances in the rearview mirror.

  It was a warm but dry sunny afternoon, and the foursome, so entangled into themselves throughout the ride, couldn’t be bothered to take in the perfect Roman weather. The twenty-kilometer distance to Via Del Corso, where the extravagant five-star Grand Hotel Plaza charmed that famous street, consumed forty minutes, mainly due to high-volume traffic. The hotel is nestled in a small square, a quaint setting three blocks east of Fiume Tevere, the Tiber River, a sinuous tributary that slices Rome in half. A mile to the west is Vatican City, and from the top floors of the Grand Hotel Plaza one can ingest the breathtaking view of la Cupola di San Pietro, St. Peter’s Basilica.