The Flying Bandit

by Robert Knuckle

  Robert had been reading travel brochures and discovered he didn’t need a passport to go to either the Bahamas or to Bermuda. He loved the idea of a vacation in the sun and had never been to one of these places before. Using the money he had saved he went to a travel agent and made some arrangements. When he got home, he handed Janice an envelope. As soon as she saw it, she was excited. She knew it was something special because he often brought her little surprises and gifts, especially when he returned from a business trip.

  “What’s in here?” she asked.

  “Open it and see,” Robert replied.

  Janice couldn’t believe her eyes. She came off the couch shouting: “We’re going to the Bahamas?”

  “Yep,” Robert said with a devilish smile on his face.

  “When do we go?”

  Robert pointed to the package in the envelope.

  “Read what it says.”

  Janice sat down while her eyes scanned the document.

  “It says we leave on Friday, January 11th.”

  “Well, I guess that’s when we’re going then.”

  “And for a whole week!”

  “It better be a whole week, that’s what I paid for.”

  “Oh, this is great, Robert!” She got up and threw her arms around him. “This is really great. Thank you honey.”

  “Want to hear something else?” Robert asked.

  “What?”

  “Laurie and Steve are coming too.”

  “You’re kidding! Have you and Steve been planning this all along?”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying they’re coming with us.”

  Robert didn’t want to tell her that he was paying the tab for Laurie and Steve Veinot from the apartment upstairs. A few nights earlier, when Janice was at work, he had been sitting around drinking with them. All of a sudden he heard himself blurt out, “How’d you guys like to go to the Bahamas with us after Christmas – my treat.” They, of course, accepted immediately.

  From the moment Robert opened his mouth he knew he had made a mistake. He wanted the Veinots to come with them to the Bahamas but he knew that he shouldn’t be throwing his money around so freely. People tended to take notice of things like that and then they started asking questions.

  To cover himself, Robert told them a fabricated story about his father giving him four free tickets as a Christmas bonus. He explained that the four of them would have to share a room once they got there. Robert told Janice the same story he told the Veinots, except he added that his father was really pleased with the work he was doing for the firm and had given him a raise. Janice was impressed.

  “I’d really like to meet your father, Robert,” she said. “When am I going to get to meet him?”

  “It’s going to take a while,” Robert answered. “We have to go slow here because my father is really an old fashioned guy.”

  The expression on Janice’s face showed she didn’t understand.

  Robert explained: “He’s not real happy with our relationship ... our living arrangements.”

  Janice was surprised. “Geez, living together is so common today. I don’t see why ... “

  “I’m not trying to insult you, but he thinks you’re after his money, through me.”

  “Oh, Robert, that is the biggest bunch of ...”

  “I know it is. But please let me play this my way. For a little while. He’ll come around, then I’ll take you out to meet him. Can we do that? Can we play it my way, for just a little while?”

  Janice didn’t want to argue about it.

  “Sure,” she said and dropped the subject.

  Since Robert had so generously invited everyone to go on this trip, he had to make sure he could pay for it. On January 3 he took an Air Canada flight to Winnipeg. In his briefcase he carried a .38 calibre handgun. He checked into the Holiday Inn because the Westin was fully booked. At 11:30 a.m. he walked into the Royal Bank on Portage Avenue and handed teller Roxy Melnyk a small plastic bag and a note that was written in red ink on foolscap. It read: “THIS IS A HOLDUP. THERE’S TWO OF US AND WE’RE ARMED. GIVE IT TO THE CENTRAL TELLER.”

  Robert showed Roxy a gun inside his coat.

  She nodded that she understood, took the plastic bag and the note and handed it to Sharon Kelly who was handling the cash in the cage. Now Sharon had to read the note.

  Robert whispered to Roxy, “Hurry up, Miss.”

  Roxy whispered to Sharon, “Hurry up, Sharon.”

  Sharon filled the bag with money and handed it to Roxy. She gave it to Robert.

  “I want the note back too,” he said.

  Roxy looked at him with disbelief.

  “I do!” he insisted.

  She gave him the note and Robert left in a hurry. He flew back to Ottawa that same day, and got home in time for a late supper with Janice. Later he counted his money and found that he had stolen $4,492. This would go a long way towards paying for their trip to the Bahamas.

  On the plane to the Caribbean, Steve Veinot sat beside Robert; Laurie was with Janice. The four of them were in a holiday mood and started to party from the moment they were airborne. Laurie and Steve couldn’t believe their good luck in having their way paid. For Janice, a week in the sun was a dream come true. Robert was in rare form. He kept everyone around them entertained. When he was feeling good, no one was more fun. None of them realized that his delightful behaviour was driven by desperation. Robert lived for the day; each moment of freedom might be his last.

  When they landed in the Bahamas the first thing Robert wanted to do was go scuba diving. Janice cautioned him that he shouldn’t because he didn’t know how. The more she tried to dissuade him, the more he was determined to do it. As soon as they were settled in their room he rented some gear, hired an instructor and headed for the coral reef.

  That night, they all headed down to the casino. Robert was ready. Before leaving Ottawa he had bought a gambling book called Beat the Dealer. He and Steve studied it for over a week. The first night Robert went to the blackjack tables. He was in heaven. He had $1,000 in his pocket, he loved to gamble and the drinks were free. What more could a guy want? Through the course of the evening he had a good run of luck and won over $500. Janice was nervous. She loved to see him having a good time but she was afraid he’d lose all their spending money.

  The second night, that’s exactly what happened. Within two hours Robert lost the entire $1,500. After the money was gone, the four of them went back to the room to freshen up. Janice was concerned that he’d lost so much money. He laughed off the loss, saying, “Ah, what the hell, easy come, easy go.” He turned to Steve and said, “It looks like that gambling book I bought wasn’t worth a shit. Maybe I can get a refund.”

  The two of them were feeling no pain and doubled over in laughter. Steve wasn’t surprised at Robert’s carefree attitude about losing money because he had often seen him throw it around like confetti. While they were having another drink, Robert asked Steve for a loan so he could go down and take another run at the blackjack tables.

  That was too much for Janice. She couldn’t take any more of his irresponsible behaviour. He had done nothing but drink since they got there. He’d lost all his own money, and now he was going to gamble with Steve’s.

  “Why do you have to keep on gambling?” she demanded.

  Robert turned on her.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Oh, yes it is. What if you lose all Steve’s money?”

  Robert raised his voice. “So? I’ll pay him back when we get home. There’s no fucking problem with that, is there?”

  “Yes there is a problem with that!” Now she was raising her voice. “There’s a very big problem with that. You’ve lost enough money already. Why can’t you let it go at that? Why do you have to go back for more?”

  “What the hell is it to you, what I do with my money?”

  From that point on they were screaming at each other. Steve and Laurie were trapped in the room and forced to
listen to the two of them go at it. It didn’t last long; in the middle of the battle Robert stormed out of the room. Janice asked Steve to follow him to make sure he was all right.

  Robert gambled for the rest of the night on Steve’s money and when they finally came back to the room in the wee hours of the morning Robert was ahead again. The next day all was forgotten and forgiven. There wasn’t another argument between them for the rest of the week.

  The flare-up was typical of their stormy relationship. This time their disagreement was over a legitimate concern; often a fight would break out over something trivial. Janice didn’t know this at the time, but a possible explanation for Robert’s increasing irritability and his mood swings was drug use. It is difficult to pinpoint when it began, but cocaine eventually became a major debilitating factor in his life.

  When he and Janice returned from the Bahamas, Robert started on his downward slide in earnest. He began to spend more and more time at the Playmate Club where he got to know more and more people. Some were only acquaintances, but some became his best friends. Nothing good would come of that.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Playmate

  After Robert met the Fat Man at the Playmate Club, he started going there regularly. It soon became the centre of his night life. The Playmate was located in Vanier, a tough working class area that had once been an independent municipality but was now amalgamated with Ottawa. The entrance to the club was off a quiet little side street lined with modest homes.

  On the outside, the Playmate Club appeared to be small and insignificant. A red and white sign over a worn white wall announced its existence. Anyone could tell that this was a very private place. There were no windows in the walls or in the entrance door. Two bullet holes pocked the surface of the front wall beside a sign that read: MOTORCYCLES PLEASE USE RESERVED AREA IN BACK.

  Inside the club, the show room and bar were below street level. Halfway down the stairs there was a glass showcase of snapshots showing past and present strippers in a variety of provocative poses. The showroom itself was a seedy maze of chrome chairs and red upholstered benches facing the small elevated stage in the centre of the room. There was a bar in one corner, a pool table in another, and more bullet holes in the walls. A sign high on one wall says: NO TOUCHING, NO DRUGS. Another sign announced that lunch was served from 11:30 to 1:00.

  The food was passable and the entertainment stimulating, making the Playmate a popular spot. During the day the clientele was reasonably consistent; civil servants of all ranks and businessmen from all levels of commerce would drop in for the lunchtime performances. A different crowd came in at night. There were always a few straight Johns out for a naughty evening on the town but many of the night people who gathered at the Playmate Club lived on the dark side of the law.

  This was the domain of Tommy Craig. Barrel chested and broad of girth, the Fat Man was a Runyonesque character of gigantic proportions. He loved being the centre of attention and everything he did, he did with flair. This ran from his hearty greeting of friends to his raucous outbursts of laughter that could be heard over the din in the club. A connoisseur of fine jewellery, he wore two huge rings on either hand that were worth a prince’s ransom. He was very clever and loved to discuss issues, but with little formal education he could mangle the English language with expressions like: “That don’t bother me, I’ve got no squirms about that.”

  All of this made him an endearing character who was normally pleasant and outgoing. But he was a moody man; his cheerful personality masked a smouldering anger lurking within his massive bulk. It didn’t take much to make the Fat Man miserable. In the Playmate Club, people were wary of crossing him.

  He ruled the place with an iron fist. No matter how big the troublemaker or how many were making trouble, the Fat Man could handle the situation. A lot of his “handling” was done with back-alley diplomacy; he would always try to talk people into behaving – sitting down, cooling off – but if they persisted in causing a ruckus, Tommy would fight. One way or another, he had been fighting all his life. His nose had been broken so often it was almost flush with his face. Tom developed his confidence as a fighter in reform school. He’d always had a mean streak in him, and even though he wasn’t big as a kid, he had never been afraid to fight. But it was in reform school he discovered he was agile and quick with his hands and could take on anybody.

  As Tom got older, he was never known to lose a fight. When he began to put on weight he developed a powerful, heavy punch and he learned to get it in first. That one punch usually did the job. Not only did he hit hard, but the devil’s head ring he wore on his pinky finger cut an opponent badly. Usually when the blood started flowing the fight was over. On the rare occasions when Tom had to fight more than one person at the same time he would use a baseball bat which he kept in the fridge behind the bar.

  Tommy was, as they say, well known to the police. He had been in trouble since he was a kid. His mother and father were both drunks who cared more about drinking than they did about raising their four children. Tommy grew up unsupervised and, by age six, he was out of control both at school and on the street. By the time he was seven, he was deemed incorrigible and was sent away to training school (reform school) in Cobourg, Ontario. There, he says, the “sadistic bastards” beat him to a pulp to make him toe the line. The beatings put welts on his back and a huge chip on his shoulder. He developed an intense hatred for authority figures, especially school teachers.

  The most valuable lesson he learned at Cobourg was to stand up and take care of himself. Most of the kids there had been abandoned; now they were being abused. Filled with hate and wild with rage, they tried to take out their aggressions on one another. Tommy soon realized if he was going to survive, he had to protect himself.

  After seven torturous years at Cobourg, Tommy was shipped back to his mother who sent him off to Ottawa Tech for his high school education. His career at Tech ended abruptly when a teacher singled him out and embarrassed him. Tommy hit the instructor and was given a lengthy suspension. Rather than hang around the house in Ottawa, he ran to Montreal where, surviving on his wits, he lived on the streets for a couple of months. When Tommy finally returned to his mother’s place in Ottawa, a probation officer picked him up and returned him to Cobourg. By now he was too old and too big for them to handle so they shipped him off to Bowmanville Training School, home for over 200 wayward boys.

  Things were better for Tommy there. He was big enough to protect himself and could fight back if someone tried to abuse him. He stayed at Bowmanville for eleven months, until he was accused of being a lookout for an escape attempt by three of his friends. That earned him a trip to the Guelph Training School, one of the toughest institutions in the province, a place with tighter security than most provincial jails. Tommy spent the next year and a half behind its bars.

  No sooner was he released than he was caught riding in a stolen car with two other boys who were on their way to the infamous St. Joseph’s Training School at Alfred, east of Ottawa. Their intention was to go there and avenge a beating and abuse that a Christian Brother had inflicted on one of the boys in the car. For this aborted caper, Tommy was given eighteen months probation.

  Tommy Craig, Robert Whiteman, and Neil Mclaren at Whiteman’s wedding reception

  “The Fat Man,” Tommy Craig. The police said he moved more goods than Simpson-Sears.

  In order to survive he turned to life on the streets, buying and selling almost anything. Through his contacts, Tommy became more intimately acquainted with the Ottawa underworld.

  “I might only have a grade eight education,” he says, “but I got a doctor’s thesis about life on the streets.”

  If someone wanted to sell an item, Tommy bought it and resold it at a profit. If someone wanted to buy a particular item, Tommy could get it for them at a very good price. Over time, he came to specialize in jewellery. He knew its value, its price, how to remove stones from their settings, how to melt down the gold settings. Some o
f the jewellery, bought wholesale in Toronto, was legitimate. Most of it, which he bought from thieves on the street, wasn’t. Because Tommy didn’t do any B & Es himself, he managed to stay out of trouble with the law. However, in 1964 he got caught with some stolen property and was charged with possession and breach of probation. That sent him away for a year to the Burritt’s Rapids Detention Centre near Kemptville.

  In 1968 he was arrested for breaking into the office of Bruce Firestone, a wealthy Ottawa businessman. Tom and an accomplice stole Firestone’s safe, but didn’t get very far before the police picked them up and found the safe in the trunk of their car. Caught red-handed, Tom pleaded guilty and was sent to Collins Bay Penitentiary for two years. At the “Bay” his contacts with the criminal world expanded.

  When he got out of prison two good things happened to him. First, an Ottawa detective, Steve Ladore, got him a job driving taxi. It was the first honest job he’d had in years. Secondly, in 1970 he met a beautiful statuesque blond named Linda Davies at the Chaudière Dance Club in Aylmer. She was a no-nonsense Ottawa girl who liked his brazen personality and breezy style. What’s more, she figured she knew how to handle him. Within months they were married.

  Tommy didn’t like driving a taxi. It didn’t pay, it wasn’t exciting, there was no challenge. At the first opportunity he took a job for bigger money as a bouncer at the Bayshore Hotel in suburban Nepean. It was a tough place with lots of bikers but Tommy soon showed he could control the situation. Since most of his fights were over very quickly, it didn’t take long for his reputation to get around. The longer he worked as a bouncer, the less he had to fight.

  After he had been at the Bayshore for several months, he was offered more money to come back to Ottawa and clean up the Gilmour Hotel. Linda came with him to work behind the bar. The Gilmour, located downtown on the corner of Gilmour and Bank Street, had a bad reputation as the roughest joint in town.