Chapter 7
The Armored Car Heist, Ten Years Earlier
Tony Nazario sipped a Sazerac cocktail at the Carousel Bar & Lounge in the Hotel Monteleone. His thoughts wandered, as he rubbed his stumpy facial hair. Is Frank O’Neil ready? Would Lorenzo, the newly appointed head of the Savino family, follow through with his part of the deal? A carefully laid-out plan nurtured for years, no detail overlooked. The armored car route, the drivers, the uniforms, and most important, Tony got close enough to the guards to view their weapons. It was perfect; all they carried were handguns. He never thought he could put all the pieces together to make it work until he met Frank O’Neil.
Frank was once in demand as a stuntman for movies in Hollywood, a hire most studios depended on to protect their leading man from getting hurt during car crashes and fight scenes. Too many bad falls ended Frank’s career when his leg was broken for the third time. Turning to something less dangerous, Frank became a makeup artist and found new life on movie sets until Jack Daniel’s took it all away. Not able to stay sober long enough to finish a movie, the directors called less on him, until he had no work for a year and moved back home to New Orleans.
When the bartender saw Frank walk in, he had a double Jack and water placed next to Tony’s seat. They were both regulars.
“How did the run-through go?” Frank asked.
“Out in the swamps, I blew the rear doors wide open,” Tony said. “The steel was twice as thick as an armored car. A little something I learned in Vietnam, thanks to our government’s excellent training.”
“Did you see my work?”
“You, my friend, are a genius with makeup and a brush. That guy looks like me, only dead,” Tony said. “A little spooky.”
Frank knocked back his drink and shook his glass. The bartender gave a nod and fixed another Jack and water.
“Let’s go easy on the whiskey,” Tony said. “I need you at your best tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be ready.”
The National Bank in downtown New Orleans was the bank used by most nightclubs, restaurants, groceries, and gas stations to deposit their daily takes from customers. Once a month, the bank ordered an armored car to move surplus money out of the bank vault to the Federal Reserve Bank. Keeping only the cash the Feds required a bank to have on hand was a safety precaution. The Federal Reserve Bank in the Warehouse District of New Orleans was buried thirty feet underground, secured by concrete walls and steel; some say protected like Fort Knox. That’s why Tony planned to hit the armored car in broad daylight on the streets of New Orleans.
The next morning, Tony awakened to bright sunlight beaming through his bedroom window. A hot shower and a shave, and he was ready. Black tie, white shirt, and a black suit, looking like a funeral director, he took the elevator to the parking garage of his high-rise apartment. Right on time, Frank O’Neil pulled up and parked next to Tony’s car. They went over some last-minute details and headed out of the garage in separate vehicles.
Tony parked on the corner of Convention Center Boulevard at the end of Canal Street. Frank parked a few blocks away, then hoofed it to the edge of Camp Street. The landmark clock on top of the National Bank could be seen from Frank’s viewpoint. He hit Tony up on the radio and confirmed he was in position. Now it was a waiting game.
“I have a visual,” Frank said, his radio light turning green when he talked. The Crescent City blue and white logo draped on the side of the armored car could be seen blocks away. The truck slowly rolled down Camp Street, stopped at the corner, and parked behind the bank. Ten minutes later, the truck proceeded on Camp Street, just like Tony said it would.
“Green package, on the move,” was the code Tony instructed him to use, if the police picked up their conversation over the airwaves. It merely let Tony know the money was moving and the next step was up to Frank.
In Tony’s car, his eyes were locked on an electronic monitor, sitting on the car dashboard. He could do nothing until the lights blinked on the device.
The target vehicle was close to Canal Street when the traffic light turned red. The armored car stopped. By Tony’s calculations, the traffic light would stay red for twenty seconds.
Frank grabbed his radio. “Showtime.”
People hurried across Camp Street, while traffic stopped. Then the little electric sign on the post blinked yellow, indicating time was about up, and traffic would flow again.
Frank, ready, stood two steps from the curb. The light switched to green; he stepped into the street as the truck pulled away from the traffic light. He put on an Academy Award performance for stunt actors, throwing himself into the grill of the armored car, then lying on the ground. As planned, the passenger guard jumped out, and the driver stayed with the vehicle, the motor still running.
Frank popped up as the guard approached. “I’m okay,” he said.
The guard steadied him. “You’re sure?”
Frank brushed himself off and followed the guard back to the passenger door. “I’m so sorry. It was my fault.”
The steel running board helped the guard lift himself back into the cab of the truck. That split second, when the guard looked away, Frank placed a small, magnetic transmitter on the door panel. The vehicle rolled forward, a second one set on the side. A third transmitter firmly locked on the back door, as the armored car turned the corner.
“Bug moving,” he said, pressing the talk button on his radio.
In Frank’s truck, the device monitoring the transmitters blinked. Everything was in place. Through the rearview mirror, he watched the armored car come up Convention Center Boulevard. Other than a vehicle pulling out of a parking garage, there was no traffic on the street. Frank, a stickler for details, observed the route often. His surveillance paid off. He watched the two guards in front talking and laughing as the vehicle passed him, parked on the side of the road. At a cross street, the light on the device blinked fast, the armored car was close enough for the switches to ignite the explosives. With one finger, he pressed the blinking light; an implosion at the passenger door blew both men out the driver’s door, killing them instantly. The second and third bomb ignited simultaneously, caving in the side and blew the back door open.
Tony’s car brakes squealed when pulling up to the back of the wreckage. Movement inside the truck showed one guard might be alive, so Tony pumped two bullets into his chest.
With the gun in the dead man’s right hand, Tony discharged one shot out the back door. Then took one bullet out of the revolver and put it in his pocket. The weapon back in the guard’s hand lay at his side. The final part of the plan was in place other than grabbing the money.
Frank’s Ford pickup, right on time, backed snug against the bumper of the armored truck. Tony checked for money, then pitched three National Bank duffel bags full of cash into the bed of the Ford. Frank took off, and Tony was right behind him. The biggest, armored car heist took one and a half minutes in the street in broad daylight. By the time Frank and Tony’s vehicles hit the ramp of Interstate 10, the sound of sirens was heard going to the scene from many directions.
The two vehicles crossed the Greater New Orleans Bridge, putting them on the other side of the Mississippi River. Arriving at an empty warehouse, a place Frank called home on top of a warehouse that housed Mardi Gras floats. He worked as an artist for ten months out of the year designing and painting floats; this was the offseason.
The vehicles pulled into the warehouse; the overhead door was locked down. They celebrated, then opened the duffels bags and gazed at a ton of cash.
“How much you think?” Frank said.
Tony picked up one bundle of money wrapped in clear plastic. “This is one hundred thousand. Got to be over two million dollars in here.”
Leon Giordano, the third piece of Tony’s plan assisted by Lorenzo Savino, stepped out of the apartment. “It went off okay?”
“As planned,” Frank said.
“Come inside. I have a celebration lunch,” Leon sa
id, then carefully took off a white apron with splashes of the red sauce covering the front.
After a great Italian meal, Leon cleaned the dishes. Humped over the basin, he scrubbed pots with hardening, red sauce stuck to the sides. Leon listened to Tony give directions about where to move the money after delivering Lorenzo’s cut.
Lifting his shirt up, Tony pulled his revolver out and replaced one bullet with the single shot he took from the guard’s chamber. From two feet behind, Tony called out to Leon. He turned around, and Tony fired a shot into his chest.
“Let’s get him on the bed,” Tony said to a shocked Frank, gawking at Leon’s lifeless body on the floor. Knowing it was part of the plan, it still rattled him. He’d never witnessed a real murder, only a fake one in the movies. “It’s showtime, Frank. Make Leon look like me.”
Knocking the dust off a wood box pulled from under a bed, Frank came out with his Hollywood makeup and disguise equipment. With Tony sitting in a chair next to the bed looking straight at a wall, Frank made Leon with the perfect size forehead and hairline look like Tony. Something that wasn’t by chance.
Lorenzo, when taking over for the family, knew Leon didn’t fit into his plans but didn’t know how to off him. Tony’s armored car heist was perfect, and he volunteered Leon. It worked for everyone but Leon.
An hour passed, and Frank put his makeup brush down. “Take a look,” he said.
Tony stood and gazed down at what was Leon’s body. “You’re unbelievable,” Tony said, shaking his head. “He looks like a dead me.”
They left the place clean of all fingerprints and blood from the gunshot. Frank would have to live with Leon getting offed in his apartment.
They loaded Leon into the trunk of Tony’s car and drove up River Road. Frank followed in his truck. Tony turned off the main highway onto a dead-end street. Together they sat Leon in the driver’s seat of Frank’s car and took off in the truck, leaving what looked like Tony Nazario dead at the wheel.
“You’re breathing better now?” Tony asked Frank, as they pulled into the warehouse to pick up the duffel bags. No answer, just a head nod was the response.
“Is that your little girl?” Tony said, looking at a picture clipped to the sunshade.
“It sure is; she lives with her mother,” Frank said, taking the picture down. “I’m trying to get visiting rights. Jack Daniel’s took that away too.”
“I’ll make sure your family gets your cut of the money,” Tony said, pulling his gun and pumping one bullet into Frank’s head. “Sorry, man, you just weren’t in the plan.”
Chapter 8
A phone call to the doctor’s lounge at Mercy Hospital took little persuading for the on-duty night staff to discharge Olivia Johansson to the guarded hands of Detective Mario and four, heavily armed, police officers. Olivia’s wheelchair rolled the hallway as Mario pushed her, observing every movement around them. Two officers dressed fully in riot gear walked in front and two in the back of him. They weren’t sure who was after Olivia, but they were ready for any attack.
The elevator zipped them down to the ground floor, then out a rear door to the back seat of a vehicle. A caravan of police cruisers flashing colored lights escorted Olivia through the Warehouse District to Mario’s condo. It was the best place to protect Olivia for the night. A police car stationed at the front entrance and an officer on the side street at the fire exit were the only two ways in or out of the building. Another cop got comfortable in the lobby, keeping an eye on the elevator door, and making small talk with the doorman, who identified residents coming into the building. Mario, with Olivia locked in his condo, scrambled to straighten his bachelor pad, the best he could for an unexpected guest.
Directing Olivia to his bedroom, Mario insisted she’d stay there for the night. She didn’t argue. Eyeballing the bathroom, she set her sights on a long, hot shower.
Mario rested on the pullout bed in the living room. The television screen illuminated the room, and with the sound on mute, he read case files the way he ended most days, just not on an uncomfortable sofa bed.
A half-hour later, Olivia stood in the doorway. Her hair damp was stringy from the shower and she wore one of Mario’s long-sleeved dress shirts hanging mid-thigh. “I hope you don’t mind, my clothes smelled like a hospital,” she said.
“Not a problem,” Mario smiled. “It looks better on you than me.”
“There is no reason I can’t sleep on the sofa.”
Mario nodded, “Wouldn’t be gentlemanly.”
“True, and we all know you’re a gentleman,” she grinned, closing the door.
An hour later, Olivia, wide awake, found Mario on the sofa bed writing notes and joined him. They agreed on a list of things to be checked out before explaining to the chief there was a need to reopen a fifteen-year-old case.
“First, we look up Tim Marks,” Mario said. “Hopefully, he still works at the morgue.”
Something Mario said clicked in Olivia’s head. The hair on her arms raised and a chill came over her. “There are only two people who know I have Tony Nazario’s file,” she said. “Me and Alton Simmons.”
Mario stared for a second, not even a blink, “Could Alton be on the payroll?”
“Whose payroll?” Olivia rubbed her arms, that hair-raising tinkly feeling still present.
“Someone who wants to know when dead files or cold cases are resurrected,” Mario said. “Alton is a priority. I’ll move him to the top of the list.”
Mario’s strategy talk lasted until early morning. He turned to Olivia, only to find her sleeping against the arm of the sofa. She drifted in and out of deep sleep, as Mario all but carried her to the bedroom, tucking the tough cop into bed.
After four hours of sleep, Mario crept pass the bed into the bathroom, took a shower, and picked out some fresh clothes from the closet without disturbing Olivia.
After Olivia’s first night in a real bed since the accident and chitchatting until early hours, he was sure she’d sleep until afternoon. That would give him enough time to figure things out and set security plans for protection at her home, at least until they got to the root of the problem.
Mario gently closed the condo door, checking twice that it was securely locked.
Stress sparked his obsessive-compulsive disorder, and there was no doubt his anxiety was in full bloom, keeping Olivia safe. He had to grin as he checked the lock for the third time. He could chase a thug with his gun drawn down a dark alley, without barely breathing heavy but protecting Olivia caused him anxiety. He didn’t have the answer to what triggered his emotions, and neither did his doctor.
The changing of the guards planned for early morning had taken place with a new face from the Vieux Carré precinct.
“Detective DeLuca,” the officer acknowledged.
“Good morning,” Mario replied. “I appreciate your help. I know this is voluntary.”
“No problem, sir,” the officer stood at full attention. “True Blue cops; we’re one family.”
Chapter 9
It would be a beautiful day, based on the sun reflecting in the car windshield. Mario reached in his coat pocket for his sunglasses. His police cruiser, parked illegally in front of the condo building, was one perk of being a cop and something the homeowners willingly approved. Police visibility was a plus when he presented his application to the board for purchase, three years earlier.
Mario took time to collect his thoughts and drove slowly up Magazine Street into the French Quarter. Royal Street was lined with No Parking Signs on one side of the entire block that housed the Vieux Carré precinct. But it wasn’t enforced on police vehicles. Mario parked curbside, gave a hand wave to the meter maid across the street. She acknowledged with a nod, as she strolled the street looking to issue citations on expired parking meters.
Mario got to his desk before nine that morning. His eyes were engulfed with pink phone messages stacked on his desk. He arranged the notes in time order from the day before, scanning quickly for any marked urge
nt or top brass looking for him. One message piqued his interest, a call from Little Pete. The middleman and nephew who interacted with Lorenzo Savino, who never talked on the phone, only in person at his compound, restaurant, or in the open air.
He separated the pink notes in priority keeping Little Pete’s on top.
The one case Mario kept, after becoming the Vieux Carré commander, was any file involving a member of the Savino family. Lorenzo’s nephew, Joey, in the Hillbilly Country Club, was living out twenty-five years as one of the warden’s good old boys. Lorenzo’s sister, Angelina “Lina” Savino, had no rap sheet, but he kept an eye on her when she was out of the Savino compound. Lorenzo had many charges in his file, but none stuck. He’d served less than an hour in a police holding tank; his last arrest before a high-priced lawyer showed up. He’d never served time or been convicted.
Mario read booking reports from the night before and signed overtime sheets while waiting for his appointment to show, who was now late. A light knock came from a private entrance door when it opened. Mario gazed at the wall clock and laughed. “You’re right on time. Fifteen minutes late.”
“I have a reputation to keep,” Howard replied.
Mario held the phone to his ear. “Where are you parked?” he asked Howard.
“Decatur Street; came in the back of the building.”
Mario nodded his head. “Don’t need anyone knowing you’re here.”
He punched in three numbers; the phone rang once and was answered. “Truman, king late-ass is here.” Then put the phone back.
Truman joined Mario and Howard at a round table in the corner of the office. They opened their folders, and Truman gave his update first.
“Olivia’s old boss from the morgue, Tim Marks, died about a year after she transferred out,” Truman said. “Something to think about, he died in a single car accident. The autopsy showed he had enough drugs in him to kill a horse.”
Vieux Carré Detective Page 4
