On the Brinks

by Sam Millar

  While the Feds were telling me that Pat was spilling out his guts, and vice versa, in Rochester, the Feds were telling Tom he was ‘on a sinking ship. Your two friends down in New York have said you were the mastermind.’

  “Listen, you dumb mick,” said Bad Cop, an inch from my face. “Where you’re goin’ to be spendin’ the rest of your life is in the arms of a big fuckin’ nigger, fuckin’ you in the ass, night and day – and three times between meals. He’ll make you floss with his dick. Do you understand that?”

  I recognised that line from a movie, but couldn’t for the life of me remember which one. I wondered if Bad Cop would tell me if I asked? All the Feds seemed to have Irish-sounding names, with large ‘O’s shoe-horned in the middle of them.

  The interrogation went on for about an hour, at the end of which Bad Cop and Good Cop left, mystified at not having their offer jumped at by either Pat or myself or the mysterious McCormack. As a last resort, one of the Feds showed me a note they had taken from Pat, throwing it down on the table, contemptuously.

  “Is that what a priest carries with him, in his pocket? You should be ashamed of him, not protecting him.”

  I glanced at the note, but quickly erased it from my thoughts. I would talk to Pat, later, about it. Right now, I wasn’t playing their game.

  The mirror in front of me, presumably, was one-way, with a handful of Feds standing behind it, analysing my expression.

  I remained alone for about fifteen minutes, when in walked the black man who had shadowed me for so long, munching a Hero sandwich. He didn’t speak for some time, content simply to munch, licking his lips with delight – at the sandwich or my capture, it was hard to tell. He studied me for a minute, oblivious to the mayonnaise falling on his shirt.

  “My name is Louis Stith, Special Agent and leading investigator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  He waited for my reaction. When none was forthcoming, he continued. “Between you and me, off the record, when did you start to suspect I was following you?” His voice was very low as he continued the self-conversation. “I think I screwed up at the elevator, that day. Remember? You refused to get in with me? Was that it? Did you suspect I was FBI at that time?” He smiled.

  The only thing I wanted to tell him was how the other Feds referred to him as “that boy”. That, plus he had some lettuce trapped in his teeth. I stared at the one-way mirror, checking my own teeth.

  “You realise that you’ll not survive our penitentiary system, don’t you? It’s not like those pussy British prisons that you came from, everyone answerable to some Human Rights group.”

  I wondered what propaganda brochure he had found that one in, but quickly realised he was simply goading me for an answer – any answer – to break my silence, to prove that all his years of training, his law degree, his belief in himself, could bring home the bacon. I hated to disappoint him, but he wasn’t frying tonight – or any night.

  For the next twenty or thirty minutes, I had to endure his soliloquy. Then, resigned and shaking his head, he got up, mumbling, “You’re a mystery. I’ll see you in court.”

  What really was a mystery, I realised shortly afterwards, was what had happened to the $30,000 that had occupied my pocket for such a short period? It was a mystery never to be solved, at least not by me.

  Shortly after our one-way discussion, I was removed from One Police Plaza, and taken to the court. In the elevator, Pat was placed beside me. We didn’t speak. The elevator stopped at another floor, and a young man stepped in. Just like Pat and myself, he was handcuffed. I presumed he was simply another prisoner about to be charged in the court, same as us, and was surprised when he sat beside us at the table. Was he an undercover fed, still trying his luck to obtain some information? I slowly eased away from him, as if he were a leper.

  I was even more surprised when this young man, whom I had never seen before, was charged along with us. I glanced at Pat, with a what-the-fuck’s-going-on look on my face, but he simply ignored me. Correct behaviour under the circumstances. A few minutes later, the mystery was cleared up, if only a little bit.

  The young man’s name was Charlie McCormack. A school-teacher, he was the resident of the apartment, not Pat. He had been out of the country, visiting family, and had asked Pat to keep an eye on the place for him. Fuck! I almost pissed myself laughing at the irony of that.

  Sure, I’ll keep a good eye on it for you, and you don’t mind, do you, if I leave a few million scattered about while you’re gone?

  Shortly after the hearing, Pat was granted bail. Charlie had the charges withdrawn after Pat stated that Charlie knew nothing about the money. As for myself, I was quickly introduced to what is fearfully known amongst American Federal prisoners as “diesel therapy”.

  Diesel therapy is a form of mental and physical torture of prisoners whom the government is desperate to break, in the hope of securing a confession or obtaining some vital information to be used in court at a later stage. This punitive travail consists of moving the prisoner from penitentiary to penitentiary – as much as three times a day – disorientating and isolating him in the process, in the hope of breaking down all resistance.

  I was shackled, hands and feet, with only a jump suit to help stave off the elements of winter. After a seven-hour journey in the back of a converted pick-up truck, ball-freezing, I arrived at a penitentiary, somewhere, at about two or three in the morning, gratefully receiving a bed pack, just wanting to sleep. No sooner did I have my bed made, than a guard shouted for me to get dressed; I was being moved again. This time I was hoisted aboard a bus that had been stripped of all its comforts, legs chained to the floor along with fifteen to twenty other prisoners, and told in no uncertain terms by the shotgun-hugging guard what would happen if even the word escape entered our tiny brains.

  The bus drove us all the way back to Manhattan, past all the hookers on Tenth Avenue, who waved and shouted at the zombies inside. Zombies. That’s what we had all been relegated to. Something from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The diet of spam sandwiches and watered milk, twice a day, didn’t help. I didn’t care. All I wanted was sleep. But the lights from the tiny spotlights above our heads in the bus, combined with the blaring canned C-and-W music, made sleep impossible. I promised myself never again to listen to Jim Reeves.

  When we reached the penitentiary, a bed-pack was once again handed to me. I went through the routine, making the bed, picturing what it might be like to be between the sheets, waking up in my house, realising that this had all been some sort of terrible nightmare.

  But enough of that. It was time, once again, shouted the guard, for my scenic trip to Upstate New York, to wonder at the beauty of snow-capped mountains and shivering trees, naked of leaves. And when the two armed guards stopped at McDonald’s for Big Macs, hot fries and coffee, leaving me shivering in the back of the pick-up without shoes or socks, I thought I had earned, at least, a Happy Meal for my endurance.

  I watched as they came back, squeezing their massive bulks into the seats, checking that I was still there. I could hear them turn on the heat full blast, knowing the glass panel prevented me from benefiting from it.

  “How do you like your coffee, Sam?” asked the smaller giant, a smirk on his face.

  I wanted to give him a smart answer, but my teeth refused to stop chattering.

  “Here. You’re gonna have to drink ’cuffed and in motion. If it burns your balls off, you can’t sue us, or MacDonald’s. Understand?”

  They were both laughing now, unwrapping the fiendish spam sandwich and watered milk. My stomach was turning at the thought of one more pink and white.

  “Here.” He opened the glass panel, and even though the heat blasted in I couldn’t feel a thing; not even the hot, beautiful coffee that burned my greedy lips, or the salty taste of fries in my mouth.

  They left the panel open for the remainder of the journey, thawing me out as night trucks skimmed past us, their headlights colouring us.

  I was all
roasty-toasty now, and my eyelids became heavier and heavier. Fatigue slowly seeped through me while the two guards talked in a whisper, as if not wanting to disturb me. We could easily have been three buddies venturing out on a hunting trip, except that they had already captured their quarry.

  Tiny spikes of insomnia interrupted my flow of sleep, but these were mercifully few. These were the bad weeks of diesel therapy, a testing taste of things to come. I slept – if that’s what it could be called – for the first time in over three weeks with the taste of salt and coffee in my mouth.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Making Headlines Again for All the Wrong Reasons

  It’s an odd job, making decent people laugh.

  Molière, La Critique de Pecole des Femmes

  World is crazier and more of it than we think …

  Louis MacNeice, Snow

  New York Times:

  Officials Detail Two Lives of Brinks Robbery Suspect

  In his Jackson Heights neighborhood, the man who called himself Andre Singleton or Patrick was known as the owner of a bustling comic-book shop, a religious family man, a responsible tenant who lived quietly with his wife and three children.

  In another life in Ireland, it had been a different story. The trim, neatly dressed man was Samuel Ignatius Millar, a young rebel from Belfast who had spent at least eight years in prison, first for belonging to a “proscribed group”, then on weapons and explosives charges. In 1984, at age 29, he made his way to the United States under an assumed name. He worked as a street vendor, seeking to start anew.

  The authorities now claim that while he discarded his old identity when he came to this country, Mr. Millar did not leave behind his “criminal” ways. Last week, Mr. Millar became one in an odd trio of suspects, including a Melkite priest and a former police detective, accused of helping to steal $7.4 million from the Brinks armored car service in Rochester – one of the biggest armed robberies in United States history.

  Looking for Clues

  Law-enforcement officials said yesterday that they still did not know who actually robbed the Brinks depot last January. Nor do they know what became of all the money or whether the robbery was linked to the struggles in Northern Ireland.

  But they have begun investigating the suspects’ pasts, examining evidence found in their apartments, looking for clues to the robbery and where the money went. None of the three has been accused of direct participation in the robbery, but officials said further charges might be made in the case.

  “We don’t know who did it,” said Special Agent Paul M. Moscal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Buffalo. “And we still don’t know what the motive was. I don’t think anyone knows at this point.”

  While lawyers for the men have denied connections to the outlawed Irish Republican Army or other Northern Irish causes, both the priest under arrest, the Rev. Patrick Moloney, and Mr. Millar have histories of involvement in Ireland’s conflict, the authorities said.

  Father Moloney, 61, who is known for running a shelter for homeless teen-agers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, was arrested in 1982 for trying to smuggle weapons into Ireland for the I.R.A. with his brother, John, officials said. The brother was convicted, but “Father Pat” was released.

  Thomas O’Connor, the retired police detective who was working as a security guard at the Brinks depot when it was robbed, also had connections to Ireland. In 1983, on a tour of his parents’ native land, Mr. O’Connor met Mr. Millar, who was fresh out of prison, according to a court affidavit.

  Creating a New Identity

  The next year, after Mr. Millar was refused an American visa because of his political background, Mr. O’Connor helped smuggle the young Irishman into this country, the affidavit said.

  With Father Moloney’s help, Mr. Millar became “Andre Singleton,” prosecutors said. The real Mr. Singleton, who had been in a drug-rehabilitation program run by the priest, had died several years before, so his Social Security number and driver’s license number were quietly slipped to the young Irishman. He would later also use the name Frank Saunders, court records show.

  To support his family, who had arrived on a temporary visa, Mr. Millar worked first as a street vendor, then as a comic-book salesman. Selling first out of his apartment at 35-30 80th Street, he moved earlier this year to 77-07 24th Avenue and rented a storefront nearby, opening a shop called KAC Comics & Collectibles, which did a brisk business.

  “He was very nice, never a problem,” said Terry McLaughlin, 48, who rented the store to Mr. Millar for $700 a month and who saw the Millar family at the nearby Catholic church nearly every Sunday. “He took his three kids to school every day. He could have been father of the year. A real gentleman. God, you’d die to have such great tenants.”

  A woman who gave her name as Mrs. Tam, who said she owned the Millars’ apartment, said that she, too, was surprised with his arrest. “They were a very nice couple,” she said. “They went to bed early. I saw the husband taking the kids to school, McDonald’s and the movies. They had a very good family life. Really good and courteous people.”

  And Liliana Morales, 32, who lived next door, said she had found them very low-key, tidy neighbors. Nice and polite. But Ms. Morales said that in recent months, she had begun to notice something amiss – something that seemed to escape Mr. Millar.

  “We always used to see a lot of cops on the corner with binoculars,” she said. “We saw them at the comic-book store too. Everybody in the neighborhood saw the police. But Andrew (Millar) never seemed to notice.”

  Suitcases of Cash

  Indeed, only weeks after the January robbery, detectives had matched a tire track found outside the Rochester depot to those on a 1984 Plymouth Voyager minivan owned by Mr. Millar’s wife, Bernadette Fennell.

  And in the months that followed, the F.B.I. and the police carefully watched Mr. Millar as he came and left his shop, his apartment, his church. They also watched as he made several trips carrying duffel bags to and from an apartment on First Avenue in Manhattan, where a raid by investigators on Thursday uncovered an electronic money counter and duffel bags and suitcases full of cash.

  The authorities finally arrested Mr. Millar on Nov. 12 outside a post office near his home.’

  Fuck sake! How the hell did I not spot all those cops with binoculars? Ah, well …

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  A Lawyer. A Very Expensive One

  JANUARY 1994

  Now I lay me down to sleep …

  Anonymous

  Free me, I pray, to go in search of joy …

  James Merrill, The Thousand and Second Night

  The diesel therapy continued, unabated, for three more months. I was shipped out to numerous notoriously bad-ass penitentiaries until my lawyer, Anthony F Leonardo, was finally able to put a stop to it, getting a court order to have me housed in the Monroe County Prison, affectionately known as the House of Pain, where I stayed for the next two years, awaiting trial.

  The billboard as I entered Rochester said welcome and we hope you enjoy your stay. This time she winked at me: I just knew ya’d be back …

  Tony was a high-profile lawyer, who loved the burn from publicity and dressed impeccably for it. An imposing a six-foot-four and more than 200 pounds, he looked every bit the Hollywood lawyer. His father, Anthony F Leonardo Snr, was a police detective, with a reputation for being street savvy and as tough as they come. He was a legend in the police, with the nickname “Captain Fearless”.

  From 1985–86, Tony junior had won five straight homicide acquittals, and in 1991 he had been asked to represent John Gotti, the reputed Mafia boss. David Bowie asked Tony to represent him when accused of possessing marijuana. Those charges were eventually dropped.

  “How long am I looking at?” was the first question I put to him, knowing it was probably thirty to forty years.

  He quickly and tersely said, “Don’t ever ask that again. We’re beating this. That’s all you need to keep in your head. Now, te
ll me about this priest …”

  He sat there as I relayed all I knew about Pat, explaining all the work he had done for the poor, and how he had nothing to do with the robbery.

  “Bullshit,” said Tony. “Did you put a gun to his head?”

  “No. Of course not, but –”

  “What was he doing with almost two hundred grand hid in his bedroom?”

  This was the first I had heard about money in Pat’s bedroom, and it showed.

  “I gave it to him … to pay someone off.”

  “Then why was your face shocked when I asked you?”

  Because Pat had told me he had given the money to Ronnie. And that was only 100,000. Where had the rest come from?

  “That’s none of your business,” I replied.

  Tony eased himself from the chair and stood over me. “Look, let me make this as clear as possible. Everything to do with this case is my business – my reputation, and your freedom. Now, I don’t know how they do things in Ireland, but over here you play by my rules. I’ve destroyed the Feds so many times in court, they hate my guts. They even tried to set me up, but that’s another story. If you want me to represent you, then you better think long and hard, because once I take a case, it becomes personal. I want to beat these people almost as much as you. Now, I know you’re tired after all that travelling, so I’m going to let you sleep on it for a while. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

  He put out his hand and I shook it, not knowing if I really wanted him after all.