by Behn, Noel;
If you have your outside man, Costa, and possibly a top pickman like Henry Baker, why not wrap the whole thing up and take care of the wheel? That was Pino’s logic at the second meet. Let’s bring in Barney Banfield. We can find that bug any minute now. There’s no sense in finding it and then sitting around waiting while we go arrange for a wheelman, wait around for a wheelman to grab a truck and get it tuned and in shape. Let’s bring in Barney and have everything ready. And even if the bug isn’t found, we’re gonna take that lady anyway—and right away—so what the hell’s the sense of not being prepared? There ain’t a better fellow for the job than old Barney.
That’s when Joe McGinnis’ name came up for the first time. Barney, somebody said, certainly is a nice fellow and a good wheel, but he belongs to Joe McGinnis lock, stock and barrel. No way can you bring Barney in and leave Joe out. And Sandy Richardson, for one, wanted no part of Skinhead. No way can you even tell Barney what you have in mind without him telling Joe McGinnis.
Every way, Pino argued. He did some business with Joe, didn’t he? He knew better than anybody, didn’t he? Well, Barney and he were in on lots of things together that Joe didn’t know anything about. Tony Pino would swear on a grandmother’s grave that Joe wouldn’t know a thing about it. Sandy said no to Barney. Mike said no. Jimmy wouldn’t vote. Jazz and Jimma were indifferent. Stanley smiled and nodded and said, “Whatever all you boys want.”
Tony Pino was irate and said it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to have Joe McGinnis himself in on the score, that Joe could be a big help if you let him.
Sandy Richardson picked up on this and during the third meet, when Pino again hammered away at bringing in Barney, picked up on an idle comment concerning the counting, processing and distribution of stolen loot. It had always been a crew practice in the past, and had been agreed to in regard to the impending Brink’s haul, that all “bad money”—new bills whose serial numbers ran consecutively and therefore could be easily traced—was destroyed, usually by burning. For safety’s sake big bills in good money—old, used currency—should be broken down into small denominations. The gang was aware the Sturtevant robbery had been partially solved when a money changer in New York City ratted to the police that he had been contacted but not used for a big score tip in Boston, had sung about being told by Sam Granito that Pino, Geagan and Costa were in on the haul, had led to Sam’s conviction.
“If we had had someone reliable like Joe making the change, that man wouldn’t be in the can today, but you guys are too hard-nosed to listen to reason,” Pino had commented to Richardson’s disgruntlement.
And a little while after that, when the discussion turned to the best ways of disposing of bad money, Pino let it slip that Joe had a surefire way for laundering new bills—processing them in an ordinary washing machine with some type of ink or dye which made them appear old and used.
Sandy, Maffie, Richardson and Costa again voted firmly for destroying all bad bills. Jimma Faherty went along with Gus, who said, “Anything all you boys want.”
The question of a plant came up at the third meet, and Tony said he was still looking around for one, ran down a list of people who had plants he might be able to take over, a list that included Joe’s name.
Sandy Richardson picked up on this mention as he had picked up on the early ones but didn’t say anything at the time or afterward, when he and Tony drove over to North End, pulled up on Hull Street, turned into the second-level common garage of the North Terminal building and parked. He carried the box of graphite Pino gave him all the way across the auxiliary garage used by Brink’s, listening to Tony complain, not always in whispers, about having to pay cash for the graphite, recount his unsuccessful try at boosting it off a shelf behind the counter while two clerks stood nearby in the hardware store.
He couldn’t talk once they had passed through the pair of fire doors leading out of the auxiliary garage.
Pino slid back the first of the two squeaky fire doors opening into the regular Brink’s garage. He knelt down, tore open the box top and carefully sprinkled graphite on the tract, and rubbed some under the door edge. He rose and moved the door forward a few inches, then back. Forward and back several more times. The graphite began doing its job, grinding into the tract and rollers, smoothing them, killing the squeak. Back and forth over a longer area, and longer. Soon the first door glided open and shut in total silence. The second fire door was processed with graphite. Soon it too skimmed between its tracts, making almost no noise.
“The cheap sons of bitches oughta pay me for what I’m doing for ’em here,” Tony crowed, on examining his handiwork. “I’m putting up the real estate value, see?” he told Sandy as they started across through the rows of armored cars parked between the columns in the dark. “Making improvements in their property for nothing. Remind me to steal an extra hundred grand from ’em for this, okay?”
A sound of approval rose somewhere deep in Sandy’s throat, but no words were spoken—not as they entered the picked door of the guardroom, not as they turned left and walked across the unlit money room, turned right and walked across the unlit vault room, turned left and walked across the unlit payroll wrapping and counting rooms and on into the dark corridor and through the door to the right.
Only after they had been in the unlit general office, looking out onto Prince Street for quite some time, had searched through filing cabinet drawers, had stood reading folder contents with the hope of finding some information on the alarm wiring connected to the vault did Sandy get around to mentioning what was sticking in his craw.
“What’s that gorilla got on you, Anthony?”
“Which gorilla?” Pino asked while pfft-pffting his penlight on pages of company correspondence.
“The skinheaded one.”
“Hey, don’t call him Skinhead, okay, Sandy? He’s sensitive.”
“Snakes in the grass are sensitive, but that’s no reason to say they don’t have tails and bite.”
“You got Joe all wrong.”
“Anthony, it’s not very easy to get him right. There’s nothing right with him.”
“Don’t go listening to all those goddamn rumors. You don’t even know the man, and you’re accusing him of things he ain’t even thought about. People say terrible things about Joe ’cause they’re jealous. They make him out to be some kinda rat and—” Pino caught the slip, realized Sandy had as well and cleared his throat.
“You, said it, Anthony, not me.”
“Okay, I’m gonna tell you something nobody in the world knows except you and me. Joe gives Crowley some dirt every now and then ’cause he gotta make it look good, see what I mean? Joe owns Crowley, but he gotta make it look the other way—like he’s the cop’s pigeon. So he gives him something on some punk. So what? Punks is punks, and Crowley does what he’s told to do. He gives Joe all the inside stuff and stays outta the way.”
“What about you and Crowley?”
“Oh, Detective Crowley comes and sees me all the time,” Pino readily admitted. “He thinks I’m his pigeon, too. He thinks he’s smarter than me any day of the week. He believes anything I tell him, and not one fucking word of it’s ever been the truth.”
“That’s a risky game, Anthony. A slimy game.”
“Eh? It pays the rent and keeps you outta the can. So far none of us are in the can, are we?”
“You still haven’t said what Joe’s into you on,” Richardson persisted.
“Nothing, I told you, nothing!”
“You wouldn’t be pitching him if he didn’t have something. Anthony, I know you. You’ve pitched. Skinhead two meets in a row now.”
“I ain’t pitching nobody, and nobody owns me. Joe and me is friends and neighbors, that’s all. And we do a little business on the side.”
“A little?” Sandy queried. “I hear it’s a lot.”
“What are you, a goddamn priest in the box?”
“I don’t need the box. I’ve got eyes and ears and listen to what reliable people
have to say. I’ve listened to you in your own living room.”
“Stop shouting at me!” Pino shouted.
“You’re the one who’s shouting.”
“Well, you cut it out, and I’ll cut it out. Look, Sandy, Joe and me live in the same neighborhood. You want me to ignore neighbors? I’m seen with the fella. So what? That don’t mean we’re sleeping in bed together. I do some business with him—that don’t mean nothing either. I like the man. I like you, too, and I’m seen with you. That’s all there is to it. Nothing.”
“Then you don’t want him in?” Richardson asked.
“All I goddamn want in is Barney,” Pino exploded. “But you goddamn guys don’t wanna believe that. You hate Joe so goddamn much for no reason you’ll let the whole ship go down. Okay, you wanna do that, fine. You think you can go out and get another driver as good as Barney, fine—go out and get him.”
“What’s Skinhead got on you, Anthony?” Sandy asked again, evenly.
“Nothing. Honest to Christ, nothing. I just want Barney.”
“If we bring in Barney, what’s to keep Skinhead from knowing?”
“Barney’ll clam. I swear on my grandmother’s grave he will.”
“How’s he going to keep Skinhead from grabbing his share?” asked Richardson. “I hear Skinhead goes through his pockets at night.”
“I’ll work it out, Sandy. You get me Barney, and I’ll take care of Joe. Come on, let’s hit the other room.”
Drawers to cabinets in the manager’s office were opened; papers came out and were pfft-pffted. Nothing relating to the ADT alarm was found. The search continued to other parts of the room.
“Hey, don’t tell me you’re the president?” Pino commented on seeing Sandy seated behind the manager’s desk.
Richardson righted himself slowly, looked quizzically in Pino’s direction and carefully folded his hands on the blotter. “Only the president sits here. Every schoolchild knows that. Is there something I can do for you, my good man?”
“How about a job?”
“If you’re asking for a job, sit down. Presidents don’t talk to people who stand up over them.” Pino drew up a chair. “Now, am I to understand you wish honest employment with Brink’s?”
“I think you desperately need me.”
“Brink’s needs nobody!”
“I can save you lots of money.”
“My good man, a million here and there is nothing to us big companies. The important thing is experience and character. What’s your experience?”
“Nothing nobody can prove.”
“Ah, that’s what we like to hear. May I inquire into your particular specialty?”
“I’m very good with money and safes.”
“Your own or other people’s?”
“There’s something about other people’s that gets up my dedication.”
“You certainly sound like you belong here with us. We money carriers feel the same way. How’s your character?”
“Never been sick a day in its life.”
“You certainly sound like the upstanding young man we’ve been looking out for. When could you start?”
“Right now.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“That’s when I do my best work.”
It was nearing 10 P.M. when Pino and Richardson abandoned the file search, walked across the general office and into the corridor, went left along the corridor to the door on the right and out into the counting room. Rather than take another sharp left, going into the Money Room Cage, crawling through the money box into the short L of the checking room as he usually did, Tony followed the playground side route. Rather than crouch down as he always did when he was moving along the wire-covered windows, he stayed erect. This was foolish. Even though the rooms were unlit, their shadows might still have been noticed from the outside. But Pino was often careless when he was preoccupied.
“You don’t like Joe, do ya?” he asked, stopping beside the last double row of counting room desks.
“He’s a phony and a cheat, Anthony. He cheats his own.”
“I got something on my mind, Sandy. Something very important to me, and I ain’t asking you to do nothing one way or another besides hearing me out. I wanna know what you and Mike has got against bringing Joe in on this job?”
“For the love of God, Anthony, the man’s a leech, a blood-sucking scavenger. He takes over everything he gets near and sucks it dry and screws it all up. He’s done it to friends of mine time and time again. To friends of yours, too.” Richardson hesitated, then deliberately, if not menacingly, asked, “Have you told him about this?”
“I haven’t told him nothing. I’m just finding out how you feel.”
“I don’t want him in two thousand miles of anything I’m on.”
“Okay. Now suppose he didn’t take over. Supposing he does what he’s told like everybody else? How’d ya feel then?”
“There’s nothing he can do for us, Anthony. Don’t you understand? He can’t carry his own weight. He’s of no use.”
“There’s lots of things he could do for us. Mother of God, he’s got plants and the best connections in the state. He can handle the count and change the bills. He can even do the financing and if you—”
“Financing?”
“This is gonna cost a fortune before we’re through. Joe can put up all the money—and—”
“What the hell are we, a bunch of crippled welfarers? We have our own money, and we’ll pay our own way! Tony, don’t you understand? Can’t you see? There’s nothing that baldheaded louse can do for us except fuck it up.”
“He’s already done something big for us. He called up the ADT and—”
“How the hell does he know about ADT?”
“’Cause I told him about it.”
“You could have your goddamn head blown off for that.”
“He don’t know what for. He don’t know what for. All I told him is I got something big that’s having trouble with the ADT. So he calls the ADT, and you know what he has ’em do? They’re putting outfits in his store. Both his stores is gonna have them ADT systems. Once he gets ’em, we can see how the hell they work and kill the one over here. Now that’s goddamn good thinking, ain’t it, Sandy? That’s big-time thinking, and it was all Joe who thought of it.”
“I don’t care if he buys ADT and makes himself president of it. I don’t want him around.”
“Look, Sandy, I think I can make a hell of a deal. Get two for the price of one, see? I can get us both Barney and Joe for the same share. They’ll only take one, share between the two of ’em.”
“Which means Skinhead will take all the share and let Barney go begging.”
“Who the hell cares how they operate between themselves? We get the benefits.”
“You asked me, and I’m telling you how I feel. No, I don’t want that big bald prick around.”
Pino nodded, grabbed up the box of graphite he had set on the desk, led the way through the Dutch doors and payroll wrapping room and out the slanting grille wall fronting the vault room. He gave the box to Sandy, reached through the wide gauge screen and tripped the arm of the lift lock. The grille door slid back. The pair entered the vault room proper.
Tony went over, picked up the clipboard, pfft-pffted and checked out the next day’s schedules. Quick calculation told him about $6,000,000 were currently in the vault. He motioned to Richardson that it was time to leave, entered the L-shaped check-in room, spotted the portable metal money box, stopped at it, beckoned Richardson over and took the box of graphite.
“I gotta have Joe in,” Tony announced, kneeling down. “I owe him.”
“Then he is into you,” Sandy replied.
“Not in the way you think. You know my deportation?”
“Don’t use deportation on me again, Anthony.”
“It ain’t again. It’s the same goddamn deportation they been hounding me for since I came out. And that goddamn lawyer of mine screwed up. I laid out twent
y-one grand so far and made every secretary and office boy over there rich, only the big shots won’t play ball. The governor slammed the door in my face. He won’t give me no pardon. But Joe’s got a way of getting to ’em. Joe’s working on it.”
“And he told you he’s either in on this or forget the pardon?” Richardson replied contemptuously.
“I told ya, he don’t even know about it,” Tony snapped. “But I don’t want him giving up. He’s my last hope, Sandy. He’s the only thing between me and Italy.”
“You rotten son of a bitch. Brother, you’re a rotten son of a bitch.”
“Yeah. But you gotta do what you feel in your heart. You’re the only one who can help with the other fellas. If you want Joe in, you can get the others to go along if you want to, huh?”
“They’re all grown-up men. They all think for themselves.”
“Sure, but none of ’em hate Joe like you and Mike do.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Sure.” Tony was down on the floor, applying graphite to the wheels of the metal box. “Hey, lift up the other end, will ya?”
Richardson complied. Tony spun the pair of free wheels, added more graphite, then had Sandy lift the other end and repeated the process on the last pair of wheels.
He got up and rolled the container forward and back once. The wheels, which had been nearly squeakless before the application, now were completely silent.
“I was just mad enough to want to get my mind off things,” Richardson recalls. “I guess I did it with the box. The graphite made it roll smoother. First Anthony pushed the box around and then rolled it over to me. I stood with it there and gave it a little push. Anthony took it back and rolled it around again and pushed it back to me. Let it roll free over to me. I pushed it somewhat further this time. Then we got silly. Anthony started going choo-choo when it was his turn to push it. I did the same thing when it was my turn. We kept taking turns. We shouldn’t have been doing it because it was careless. But carelessness often leads to carelessness. Nobody was more careless than Brink’s. So there we were, running around in the dark pushing the metal box and going choo-choo.”
