Meantime, Nick “the Cat” Sacco was venturing into a succession of thefts. But his rising reputation as one of the top-ranked jewel thieves in the country was a fast-brightening blip on the FBI and NYPD’s radar screen. More glaringly, in fashionable suits he was womanizing at elite night clubs and restaurants from one end of town to the other: the famed El Morocco, the Rainbow Room, the iconic Copacabana, the ultra-exclusive Regines, and the legendary Xenon Disco Club. And in Sacco’s line of work, such limelight, and spending pockets full of cash in the swirl of the New York nightlife, was as hazardous as tap dancing in a minefield.
“Nick,” Christie Furnari warned, “you gotta slow it down, kid. You’re drawing attention to yourself.”
Furnari’s sermons were unheeded, and Sacco’s philandering became his signature. One morning in May of 1973, the Cat found a crumpled piece of paper in his wallet. He unraveled it and read: Joanne Rinaldi 212-288-7124. (Throughout the late seventies, the 212 area code was designated to not only Manhattan but to the five boroughs as well.) Joanne was the gorgeous Pierre captive, the Brazilian’s mistress who had given the classy Sacco her telephone number.
Should I phone her or not? What if she calls the cops and sets me up?
Against his better judgment, Sacco’s libido prevailed. “Hello, you may not remember me, but I was one of the robbers at the Pierre that night. The one you gave your number to.”
“Oh, yes, yes. You’re the tall handsome guy with the brown bedroom eyes. Well, what a surprise,” Joanne said in that melodic voice when someone is ecstatically surprised and rendered speechless by an unexpected caller.
“Did I get you at a bad time?”
“No, no. But you never told me your name.”
That knocked Sacco off balance. Should I give her my real name? What if she does set me up? “Eh . . . Donnie. Yeah, Donnie.”
“Okay, Donnie. Surely you have a last name. Only pets have just one name.”
This broad is a wiseass. “Caputo . . . Donnie Caputo.”
“I’m so glad you called, Donnie. You’re Italian, like me.”
“Yeah. I wanna apologize for that night. Hope we didn’t scare you.”
“Not at all. You did me a favor because I found out that . . . that two-timing, ex-boyfriend of mine, the Brazilian asshole, had just gotten married. And that night, remember when you and I were in the black chick’s room waitin’ for her to get herself together in the bathroom, even you said he was stringin’ me along. I was just too blind to see through his bullcrap.” Joanne softened her tone. “But I’m so glad you called.”
“I’m glad too. Uh . . . can I take you out to dinner tonight?”
“Sure. Where are you takin’ me?”
He wouldn’t tell her the restaurant he’d chosen. If she were to turn him in, why chance walking into a SWAT team? “I’ll surprise you.”
“All right, surprise me, Donnie.”
“I’m gonna send a limousine for you, and the chauffeur will know where to take you.” This was a precaution in case Joanne might have the police at her home lying in wait for him.
“Wooh, this sounds exciting.”
“Give me your address, Joanne.”
If Furnari caught wind that Sacco was scheming to date one of the Pierre hostages, he’d castrate him with a rusty hacksaw blade, and feed the testicles to his German Shepherd.
Sacco the Cat knew a limo operator, Lenny, a skillful driver who, if tailed, could easily lose the chasers. He had another quality well suited for this assignment; he was a street guy and wasn’t timid in dealing with nosy cops. And Sacco’s instructions were for him to go to Joanne’s apartment in Long Island City, Queens, and bring her to the Palm, an upscale steakhouse on 50th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue. But Lenny was not to map out a straight route to that restaurant. Instead, he backtracked east to the Long Island Expressway and rode it west to Van Dam Street, the last exit before the Midtown Tunnel. The exit ramp is an eighth of a mile long, and if another vehicle was following the limo, Lenny would’ve known it. He looked through the rearview mirror and no other cars were behind him, but admiringly he saw his beautiful passenger’s emerald-green eyes staring out the side window, her modestly made-up face exuding radiance. He loved her bobbed auburn hair and pearly cheeks. If only she wasn’t Sacco’s property. He drove on for a mile to the underpass crossover that leads to the tunnel’s toll booths. The deft chauffeur paid the twenty-five-cent toll, and the tunnel devoured the black limo. Once again, Lenny looked behind him and saw nothing odd. His destination, where Sacco was waiting for his date, was fifteen minutes into Manhattan.
As the limo was nearing the exit of the tunnel, Lenny peeked into the side-view mirror, and to his startle a black Plymouth was tailgating him. Possibly an NYPD unmarked car.
CHAPTER 79
Sacco was at the bar in a three-piece, blue-violet suit, and the headwaiter of the Palm came to him. “Sir, anytime you’re ready. Your table has been ready.”
The Cat peered at his watch. “I’m still waiting for someone to show up. It must be traffic.”
“Very well. At your convenience.” And the waiter walked away.
The limo raced through the exiting mouth of the Midtown Tunnel, and Lenny switched on his right-turn signal. He checked the mirror, and the tailing Plymouth’s left-turn signal was blinking. He exhaled and turned right onto Third Avenue, as the suspicious car steered left for 34th Street.
The chauffeur walked Joanne into the Palm, and this pampering electrified her. Watching her hips wag as she sashayed in his direction, Sacco put down his drink on the bar and stood. He thrust his hand for Joanne to take, and she rose on her toes to peck him on the cheek. He was instantly drunk with her perfume.
Lenny stepped away to lend Sacco and his lady friend privacy. But the Cat called him back and slipped him a fifty-dollar bill. “Thank you, Nick. I’ll be outside in the limo.”
“No problem, Lenny.” Sacco then said to Joanne, “Do you wanna have a drink here at the bar?”
“Why not, Donnie,” Joanne answered in an off-note as though she didn’t believe Donnie was his real name. But she keenly understood that, in light of how they met, Sacco would have to be totally crazy to have told her his real name. As it was, asking her out, a person he had held at gunpoint, had been a chancy pursuit. A chancy pursuit! No, it was insanity on his part. When it comes to women, the most sensible, intelligent men, even those in high positions, lose common sense and dive headfirst into the stupidest situations.
They sat on barstools as the bartender mixed the cocktails, a whiskey sour for the lady, and scotch on the rocks for the Cat. She was side-glancing him, approving his taste in clothes, and admiring the neatly parted, ear-length, brown hair. Sacco, too, was surveying Joanne. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her cleavage. And those pouty, painted lips.
They clinked glasses, and she said, “Cheers. To us.”
“To us,” he echoed, sipping his scotch. He rested the drink on the bar top, and took a gift-wrapped box the size of a book from the inner lining of his vest “I have a little somethin’ for you. Nothing fancy. Just a thought.” He handed it to her. “Go ahead, open it.”
Taken aback, she smiled and patted her heart. “What is it?”
“Hope you like it,” he said bashfully.
Joanne removed the wrapping paper and opened the lid of the box. Her pretty mouth fell open. “Ohhhhh!” As if suddenly overheated, she vented her face. “This . . . this is . . . I don’t know how to say it.” She was looking at a gold necklace with emeralds set in a platinum pendant. Unable to find befitting words, Joanne kissed Sacco on his mouth.
The Cat was slightly embarrassed. He hadn’t foreseen her planting a kiss on his lips. “The emeralds match your beautiful eyes.” No investment yields a higher return than that of complementing a woman.
Joanne spread the necklace on the upper part of her bosom, a pair of pear-shaped breasts. “It’s . . . it’s unimaginable that you would give me such an expensive gift on our fir
st date.”
“Oh, it’s nothin’. I’m in the business, remember?”
“I don’t know anybody who’d give me something like this . . . so expensive.” She kissed him again. “I mean, I don’t even know your real name.” And she winked. “And that’s another gift you could give me. Your real name.”
They laughed into silliness, and he placed his hand on her thigh. She didn’t object. ”At some point, I’ll tell you my name. But I gotta play it cool. Know what I mean?”
“Aha, aha.”
They swilled the cocktails and then moved to the Palm’s dining section, a stately oak-wainscoted room lighted by crystal chandeliers over each table set. Preceded by the flavor of broiled beef, a uniformed waiter in a dark tan server jacket doled out to Sacco and Joanne evenly cut chunks of a two-inch-thick Porterhouse steak. Side orders of roasted red potatoes and creamed spinach complemented the scrumptious meal. As a final touch, Sacco ordered a bottle of Joseph Drouhin Cabernet.
He was beginning to feel more tranquil; Joanne had flouted his fears and not notified the police. He was eying her, and she seemed genuinely smitten by him. They ate, drank, shared jokes, and enjoyed each other’s company, an upwelling coziness loosening the jitters of a first date.
They moved on and boarded the limousine. Lenny asked from the front seat, “Sir, where to?”
“Regine’s on Park and 59th.”
“You got it,” Lenny said.
Joanne snuggled into Sacco and wound her arm around his. “Wow! We’re going to Regine’s? I always wanted to go there, but it’s so hard to get in. You think they’ll let us in?”
The Cat took Joanne’s hand and looked at her with a devious smile. “Of course they’ll let us in.”
Regine’s Night Club and Discotheque was the elite of the elites, playground for the rich and famous, “the beautiful people.” A cadre of celebrities, Roger Moore, Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Richard Harris, Mick Jagger, and Elizabeth Taylor were fixtures at Regine’s.
The limousine parked a few yards from the club’s entrance, above which extending over the sidewalk and to the street curb was a burgundy awning displaying the famed Art Deco–style lettering, Regine’s. At the entryway, in a visor cap and brown uniform, the doorman admitted the few he’d choose from the long line of people hankering to be part of “the happening.”
A misty drizzle twinkled in the night air. The Cat and Joanne—who was sheathed in a tempting black-and-white hip-hugging dress, baring tan-bronzed shoulders and three-quarters of her succulent thighs—waded through the crowd, making their way to the front of the line. The doorman spotted Sacco, who towered above everyone else, and waved him in. “Nick, is that you? Get yourself and that knockout redhead out of the rain. Come on in.”
Oops! The doorman had let the Cat out of the bag, pardon the pun. He called him Nick. Joanne looked at Sacco and gave him the widest grin she could muster. “Well, pleased to meet you, Nick,” she mocked in a mode that said I caught you. “Now all you have to do is tell me your last name.”
If Christie Furnari only knew!
“Oh well. “I guess you had to find out sooner or later.” He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “But we’ll wait a while for my last name.”
Sacco paid the entry fee, and the heavyset doorman said, “Good to see you, Nick. Who’s the green-eyed hot mama on your arm?” And he winked at the Cat.
As they made their entrance into Regine’s, Marvin Gaye’s hit, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” was reverberating off the walls, the floor and ceiling of the world-famous discotheque. Joanne, prideful to have Nick flanking her, was starstruck when she recognized Sammy Davis Jr., and boxing champion Joe Frazier, both lounging on one of the red velour settees. And there goes Cher, and Roman Polanski, and . . .
It had been a dazzling evening, and a costly one for the Cat, finalizing the night in Joanne’s bed.
CHAPTER 80
He had plastic tubes in his nostrils, penis, throat, and ears. An IV needle was inserted in the left arm, and his head and naked torso had been bandaged. Lying immobile in the hospital bed, swathed head to toe in sterilized gauze, the patient could’ve been misconstrued for an Egyptian mummy, his chest barely inflating and deflating as he breathed weakly. The attending physicians had listed Sammy Nalo in serious condition. The bullet count they had carved out of his legs and stomach was eleven. And the surgeons could not understand how Nalo was still alive. Everyone who knew him said he had nine lives; and if that were true, he had already extinguished three of the nine: the crippling beating outside Sirocco, the short-range shot from Frankos’s pistol, and the telephone booth sniping barrage.
Nalo would linger precariously on the critical list for three months, wavering between life and the brink of death.
Comfort had adjusted to Hotel Attica’s unstable environs, where a minor disagreement as trivial as cutting into the line waiting to use the pay phone could trigger a prison-wide riot. Wisely, Comfort didn’t socialize with other inmates, and kept his distance from the danger zones: the television room, the card games, the monopolizing of the daily newspapers, and the library, where fighting over a book was an everyday happening. Those were the primary sources of outbreaks, quarrels that often sparked violence.
Coached by his attorney, Bobby Comfort drafted and filed the appeal to strike out the seven-year sentence. But this had a double purpose: it’d also quell the rumors that bribery was why Judge Tyler had manipulated District Attorney Frank Hogan into accepting Comfort and Nalo’s plea deal. And Comfort and his lawyer, Greenspan, concurred on a positive outlook: the Appellate Court would rule in his favor. As for Nalo, if he might live to hear that verdict, he, too, would’ve had his wish.
Sacco and Joanne’s dalliance carried on for two months, and as a toy that no longer fascinates a child, he had grown tired of her. The Cat was concentrating on following a lead that might’ve been lucrative. Through an inscrutable contact, Frankos had heard that Detective George Bermudez, still living in Miami, Florida, needed to liquidate the jewels he’d filched from Nalo’s apartment. Bermudez had been in search of a fence who’d purchase the ill-gotten gems, but had failed to find one willing to pay his price. Typically, a fence pays ten to twelve percent of the retail value of stolen products, but Bermudez had been asking no less than forty-five percent.
NOVEMBER 1975
Contrary to his physicians’ prognostications, Sammy Nalo had recuperated and the court remanded him to Attica to begin his four-year sentence. He and Bobby Comfort had won the appeal, and in January of 1976, Comfort, who had gone in fourteen months earlier, was paroled. For the first ninety days of Nalo’s incarceration, the warden had placed him in the hospital ward, and for that reason he and Comfort hadn’t bumped into each other at Attica.
The warden cleared Comfort for freedom, and Millie was at the gates of the penitentiary. The sheer anxiousness of whisking her husband away and taking him home to Rochester was irrepressible. She had been praying he’d never again leave her and the two girls—the two-year old she had been pregnant with, and little Nicole, who wasn’t so little anymore. The missy was three months shy of seven, and in her mind going on sixteen. Daddy couldn’t have been prouder, and the first time he kissed the little one his eyes pooled.
“Millie, this is the first day of our new life. I’m a changed man, and from now on my income is going to come strictly from legitimate businesses. And that’s a promise.”
They kissed, and she got into the driver’s seat of her maroon Buick Riviera. Her Bobby was the passenger as she drove south on Route 684. But no sooner had Millie shifted the selector lever into drive, he lit a cigarette.
“But one thing will never change, Bobby. You’ll never quit smoking. Will you?”
“Probably not. What’re you want, everything? Who’s perfect?”
In three hours, they’d be in bed, feasting on one another.
In February of 1976, George Bermudez borrowed $50,000 from his credit union to invest in a
parcel of “highly desirable real estate” in Fort Meyers, Florida. But to his chagrin that “sought-after property” proved to be worthless land, an alligator swamp. Thus Bermudez’s need for immediate cash. But so far, no fence had offered more than twelve percent of the retail value of his jewelry.
At last, a miracle, which he believed in, happened. A supposed South Miami hustler, Clint something or the other, whom Bermudez had met in a bar, said he knew a “big time buyer” of gold, who was predisposed to paying much more than street money. The fence’s name was Waldo Jaegermeister. And for a five percent broker fee, Clint volunteered to coordinate for Bermudez and Jaegermeister to meet at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.
The Bermudez and Jaegermeister meeting was set, and the ex-detective boarded a Pan Am flight from Miami International to Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas. From wheels-up to wheels-down, the Boeing 707 had been in the air for two hours and twenty-five minutes. The landing of the four-engine aircraft on the relatively short 4900-foot runway was hair-raising. The full blast of the jets’ reverse thrust, and the two pilots’ weight on the brake pedals were necessary to bring the airplane to a halt before skidding into Moravian Highway. Bermudez’s heart was in his mouth, and as the Boeing 707 slowed to a roll he made the sign of the cross. “Gracias, Dios mio. Gracias Dios Mio.” Puerto Ricans are devoted Catholics and adore Jesus, even though none of them ever met him.
A flight attendant opened the cabin door, the warm tropical air wafting into the aircraft, and Bermudez climbed down the roll-up steps onto the tarmac. He was surprised to see that the extent of the terminal was a twenty-by-eight-yard open barrack, and a shack for a customs office. Bermudez only had a carry-on briefcase and trotted to the taxi stand, running ahead of the other disembarking passengers, anxiousness in his steps.
The Pierre Hotel Affair Page 32