Wilmington Woman's Club Ch. 55

"I suggest reinforcing each counting house," Vic said.

"Done."

"And using two or three pickup SUV's. That way they won't know which one is carrying the money. All three will be ready for them if they come at us again, and they won't know which vehicle has the money."

"I like it, Vic. Do it."

"Boss, you have any idea who knocked us off?"

"I think we can eliminate any local competition. They don't want a war any more than we do. We haven't stepped on their toes, or they ours. I don't want to start anything with them over this. I'll make a couple calls, tell them I'm not looking at them, but if they happen to hear anything I'd appreciate it if they shared it with us."

"That's good. I doubt they had anything to do with it myself," Vic said.

"On another item, Vic."

"Yes?"

"Sosnowski's probably the guy we want to take Pardo's slot."

"Boss, you think Piatkowski's behind the jobs"

"I'm positive he is. We know he's out of the joint. We know, or we're pretty sure he did Sammy. Now someone knocks off two counting houses on successive days. Marty's specialty is armed heists, which is exactly what we have here. Of course he done it."

"I can have some guys sniff around, maybe find him, you want," Vic offered.

"Yeah, do it. But I doubt we'll find the mother. He's too cute to find easily."

"So we nail him when he bites at the next place."

"I don't like it Vic, he takes down two places, it's bad for morale; it's bad for business in that someone might be tempted to try it after we stop him. And we're out the money. How much was it anyway?"

"The Paterson counters weren't sure. They had about $75,000 counted and roughly the same waiting to be counted when they got hit, so say, $150,000. We don't know what was at the Nyack warehouse."

"What was it on average?"

"On average, $225,000. But it varied by say, $20,000 week to week."

So between three hundred and three hundred fifty thousand," Conrad said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, around there," Vic agreed.

"Fucker's almost got his money back."

"What, Rad?"

"Nothing, Vic, just thinking. Just thinking. Get on this right away, will ya?"

"I'm on it Rad."

Marty Strikes Again

The take from both heists amounted to $362,440. Burns and Kunz were caught off-guard when Marty informed them that they were not finished.

"Hey, they'll be waiting for us now, Marty," Burns said.

"Where will they be waiting?"

"Why, at the counting houses, I guess," he replied.

"My specialty is hitting armored cars," Marty said with a grin.

"Yeah, so?"

"Burnsie, they gotta come to the counting house and pick up the money. Then they bring it someplace."

Both Burns and Kunz had broad grins on their faces. "Oh, I think I'm gonna like this," Kunz laughed. "Go on, I'm all ears."

"I figure we take a month, follow them everywhere they go. I expect after getting hit two days in a row, they'll be on guard. But people are funny, the more time passes, the more they tend to forget to keep their guard up. And while we follow them, we learn more about the operation."

"Right," Kunz said, jumping in, "We pick them up at the Paterson warehouse, right?"

"For starters, yes," Marty said. "The Nyack site is too hot. They'll close it down for good. But the pickup from Paterson will lead us to another place and maybe even their headquarters."

"We need another man," Burns said, holding up his chicken sandwich while chewing out the words.

"I think maybe three more men," Marty said as the others listened attentively.

"We'll do it the way the Feds do, tail them with multiple vehicles. It's less likely to come to their attention. And in the event they use two or more vehicles to transport the cash we can keep up."

"Why would they need more than one to pick up the cash?" Kunz asked.

"I can think of two reasons off hand," Marty answered. "One, they load the money in one and put a dummy load in the other. That lowers the risk of losing their dough in case we try ripping them off. Or, they put half the cash in one and half in the other, again protecting the mother lode to some extent. That's why I want to follow them for a while. We'll figure out what they're doing and when we strike, we'll hit the right pickup. We might even decide to hit the headquarters after all the pickups have been delivered."

"Man that would be the jackpot!" Burns sighed and worked at picking a stray piece of chicken from between his teeth.

*****

It took three days to fill out the crew with the right people. Roger Toughey, Marty's old friend was available, and he brought in Tuskegee Wilson, a huge black and a former professional wrestler turned thief in his fifties. Burns was able to reach an old buddy named Carson, not his real name, but one he was known by among his criminal friends. Carson was also known to Marty in that both specialized in armed robberies, and while they had never worked together, they had high respect for the others work.

They spent $15,000 on three used vehicles: A Honda Civic; invisible, according to Marty. A Chevy battered pick-up, and a tan Plymouth sedan. All ran well, and since they saw no need to test them at high rates of speed, they were more than acceptable for the job at hand.

When questioned about spending the money to acquire them instead of stealing the vehicles, Marty responded, "We don't need a chance stop by some nosy cop ruining the plan. Better we buy them, use them and sell them off when we're finished with them. We'll get at least twelve grand back, so it costs us two grand to operate safely for a month.

They took turns watching the Paterson warehouse and on the tenth day Tuskegee Wilson saw what looked like a pickup take place at the site.

"How many men went inside?" Marty asked, when they gathered later.

"Three," Wilson replied. "The driver and one other stayed in the car."

"The other guy, front or back seat?" Marty asked.

"Back seat. Looked like he had a big weapon, maybe a shotgun, but could have been an Uzi, or something like it."

"When they can out, what were they carrying?"

"Two guys came out holding Uzi's, one guy carried two heavy looking canvas bags and another guy had one canvas bag. They looked all around before venturing out on the platform and kept looking around until they were in the car. Then one guy ... he had an Uzi, went back inside."

"The guy went back inside, can you describe him?" Burns inquired.

"I can do better, I got his picture. I got all their pictures."

They had to wait an hour for the pictures to be developed, but then Marty and the others saw that the chubby Hispanic from the first heist had been the one carrying the Uzi and retreated back into the warehouse after the car was loaded and ready to depart.

The others were unknown to Marty and his crew, although one of those hauling a bag seemed familiar to Carson. "I seen him somewhere, but I just can't make the connection. Maybe it will come to me later."

"Give it some thought," Marty said, "You never know how it might help us."

"Wilson, you didn't follow them did you?" Burns asked.

"Nope, my job was to spot them and stay in place."

"Damn it!" Burns swore.

"No," Marty said, "Wilson was right to hold his ground."

"I'm glad you see it that way, Marty," Wilson grinned.

"You have something to add?" Marty said, grinning back at the black man.

"Twenty minutes later a van pulled up. Three guys, black guys hopped out. They all had Uzi's. One of them knocked on the door ... I'm not sure if it was a coded knock or not, but the door opened quickly. Must have been standing there waiting, and with the three Uzi's covering everyone, three guys come running out and dump three canvas bags into the van. Then the guys with the Uzi's slowly backed their way up to the van and jumped in. Might have taken fifteen, twenty seconds."

Wilson had a shit-eating grin on his face as he turned to face Burns. "How's that for scouting?"

"Fuck you, Wilson," Burns said, but he was smiling when he said it.

"Good work, Wilson. That's sort of what we hoped to find," Marty said. "We'll keep watching them, wait for them to grow lax. Probably another week or two. But next week we'll have a team follow that second van.

After that the men relaxed a little, and Toughey began one of his many stories. "Hey, Marty, I tell you about this chick I'm tryin' to hit on last night?"

Marty smiled and said, "No Rog, how did it work out?"

"Aw, she's about twenty, twenty-one. Anyway, I took her to Jilly's and she's tellin' me about how she wants to settle down one day, get married. So over drinks I tell her, 'Hey, this is 1990, baby, I'm just a dirty old man lookin' to score with some pussy."

"Struck out, eh?" Burns grinned.

"Yeah, in the late innings," Toughey admitted as the others laughed.

Still laughing, Marty said, "Ah, Rog, you look like a night's sleep wouldn't kill ya."

"Wilson made his voice deep and very Negro: "Yuh know sleep be good, but good pussy probably kill that boy."

Everyone, including Toughey cracked up at that, and Marty knew the group had bonded and things would work out for the best.

*****

January was beginning its last week when Marty realized they had the patterns of Conrad's random pickups solved.

Holding a pile of notes in one hand, he told the group, "It appears they don't use a random pattern, but follow a fixed routine, staggering the pickup days and times. We now know they pick up from Paterson on either Tuesday or Thursday, alternating with a building in Suffern on those days. More importantly, they take the money to a building in Newark, which I think is accessible to us if we want. We can either take the vehicle out and probably get about $300,000. Or, we can hit the fortress in Newark after they make delivery. We could get lucky, very lucky there. Other deliveries must be made there as well as the Paterson, Suffern shipments. It might just be their bank. That would mean over a million. It will also mean a fire fight. But from what we've observed, it's the counting houses and the vehicles that are beefed up. I figure they don't suspect we know about the bank in Newark; that they will be light on artillery. Maybe very light."

"We figure on a fire fight with the guys in the SUV anyway, I say hit the bank," Burns said.

Carson, usually reticent about speaking up, said, "We gonna fight, we should be fightin' for the big bucks."

Marty took a vote. It was unanimous for the Newark location.

"We hit the bank," he said. "Um, one thing, we wait and watch one more series of deliveries."

No one had a problem with breathing another day or so, or at least that's the way Wilson phrased it, and they agreed to meet the following morning to begin another series of following and watching the several facilities.

They were almost positive that only vehicles carrying money were now arriving at the Newark bank. It was a Thursday that two SUV's arrived and off-loaded canvas bags. Carson had previously placed a tap on the inside phone and now disabled the television camera that covered the front door. It was noticed immediately, and two armed men came out to investigate, but other than acknowledging the fact that the camera no longer worked, they went back inside convinced the camera was malfunctioning and placed a call to have it repaired.

That, of course, was Marty's plan to gain entry to the bank. Wilson and Toughey pulled up in a van with the name of the surveillance company painted on its sides. Toughey got out and walked over to the camera, then returned to the van and started taking a ladder off its roof. Wilson ambled up the steps to the front door and knocked.

A man Marty recognized from years before answered Wilson's knock. He was not armed, or it appeared so. Wilson gestured toward the camera and then to Toughey who was pulling the ladder off the truck. The man nodded and closed the door. Marty and the others moved in on the entrance, and when they were in place, Wilson knocked again. When the door opened Wilson shoved the man backward and into another man who was holding a Uzi. Fortunately for Wilson and perhaps the others behind him, the safety was on the weapon, and before he could activate the weapon, Marty had him by the throat with one hand and smashed his jaw with the other, stunning him and rendering him useless as they piled into the bank and held their weapons, mostly shotguns, on those inside.

Carson abandoned the stolen van and brought the getaway van to the front of the bank. Other than the man Marty had stunned, no one was harmed, but they were all tied and gagged and the robbers took their time filling as many canvas bags as were needed.

Marty was the last to head out the door. "Tell Conrad he's next on my list. Tell him Piatkowski's coming after him. Got that? Piatkowski, Marty Piatkowski."

It took them five hours to count it all.

"I make it 2.6 million," Burns said, "What was I thinking, maybe a million?"

Divide it up, equal shares. Oh, figure in a half share for Graziano's ex-wife and kid. He gave his life, he's entitled to something."

No one objected. They were all very satisfied with their lot and told Marty so.

"Okay, you all know the drill. No heavy spending, no talking about anything and you never saw anyone here before," Wilson told them. He received knowing nods from each man. They took their shares and left one by one. Wilson, Toughey and Burns each drove off in one of the cars they had used to follow the money. They would sell them or keep them as they wished. Carson took possession of the weapons as he had something planned for the following month and no one objected.

Marty doubted any of them would be found by Gentner's people. They travelled in a different circle, and none of them used drugs, it would slow their reflexes and instinctive habits, and in their trade such mistakes could kill them. He did wonder if he would call on any of them again before he managed to kill Gentner.

"Well, they're only a call away," he muttered to himself as he got into his Grand Am and headed to his new hideout.