The Art of the Heist

Seventeen

I’ve always wondered what those old fogies on the parole board really think, whether they truly believe their cautionary speeches have an impact on the behavior of the cons they’re preaching to. If they do, they’re hopelessly naive. A man will promise anything if he thinks it’ll get him paroled. I’ve known guys who’ve apologized for crimes they didn’t even commit, knowing remorse was their only ticket out of the joint.

I had absolutely no intention of following through with my promise to the parole board. In fact, keeping my nose clean was just about the last thing on my agenda.

In the late fall of 1974 my crew and I began planning what would be our last big bank job together. Our target was the Norfolk County Trust Company in Milton, Massachusetts. We were all familiar with the establishment. Al Dotoli had his business account there, and the band’s paychecks were drawn on the bank. Whenever my bandmates or I needed to cash a check we went to Norfolk Trust. As a consequence, we had become friendly with several of the tellers, who in those days were almost all young women. There was one teller in particular, an attractive brunette named Barbara Drew, with whom I was on especially good terms.

Despite Barbara’s conservative exterior, she had a mean wild streak. Barbara and her boyfriend, a former classmate of mine and now a Milton cop, were regulars at the Beachcomber. On nights when he was working, Barbara often stayed on to party with us after the shows. The more I got to know her the more I grew to believe she could be convinced to help us with the bank heist.

Our initial plan had been to kidnap the bank manager at his home, drive him to the bank, and force him to open the safe for us. But as we hashed out the details it became clear to me that a kidnapping was far too dangerous. There was simply too much that could go wrong, too many opportunities for someone to get badly hurt. On the other hand, if Barbara gave us even limited assistance, we could forgo the kidnapping and pull off the job with relative ease.

Approaching Barbara with my proposal was perhaps the riskiest part of the plan. It was one thing to use her friendship for small favors at the bank-cashing unendorsed checks for friends, for example-but quite another to involve her in a full-scale robbery. I would have to be extremely careful in feeling her out. If she balked and told someone-especially her boyfriend-we’d be screwed. Still, I had a good feeling she would agree to help us.

The following Sunday at the Beachcomber I pulled Barbara aside after the show.

“So,” I asked, “you like working at the bank?”

“It’s a job.” She shrugged, then took a drag off her cigarette and exhaled wearily.

“It must pay pretty well,” I commented, “working with all that money.”

“You’d think it would, wouldn’t you?” She seemed mildly buzzed, groggy and giddy at the same time.

“You ever think about taking a little extra for yourself? You know, just to even things out.”

She sucked at the cigarette again, smiled slyly. “All the time.”

“Then why don’t you?” I prodded, lowering my voice, letting my shoulder touch hers. I liked this part of the game.

She turned her head slowly and looked over at me, her blue-shaded eyelids fluttering open. Suddenly she was wide awake. “What do you have in mind?” she asked.

It was a question with many possible answers.

As it turned out, Barbara was an even bigger asset than I had anticipated. She was well acquainted with the procedure for preparing the weekly Brinks pickup, a task that required the head teller to be at the bank first thing every Wednesday morning to unlock the vault in which the money shipment was kept overnight. There were two locks on the vault: a standard dial, to which the head teller knew the combination, and a timed lock, which the teller was in charge of setting the night before. If we could overpower the teller, we’d have easy access to the cash.

Barbara was extremely smart, with an uncanny ability to see all the angles. Under slightly different circumstances we would have made quite a team. Clearly, she’d given the idea of a possible robbery a fair amount of thought before we’d come along. She volunteered to trip the bank’s alarms several times during the days leading up to the robbery. That way, if we did set off the security system during the break-in, the police would think it was yet another false alarm.

While we were making our final preparations for the Norfolk County Trust Company robbery, Tommy Sperrazza and Johnny Stokes, who were still on the run, came to me with a side proposal. They’d been scouting a small bank up in Northampton and wanted me to partner with them on the heist. It was a straightforward job, the kind of robbery that was almost second nature to me by then, and I readily agreed to participate.

As usual, we planned the heist to coincide with the Brinks pickup. On the afternoon of the robbery we met in the parking lot of the Northampton VA Hospital, on Route 9 just north of town. I had driven up in my Griffith the night before to see Martha. Stokes and Sperrazza, along with Ozzy DePriest, who’d come on board at the last minute, had made the trip up from Boston that morning in separate cars: Tommy and Johnny in Tommy’s Chevelle, and Ozzy in a Ford he’d stolen off the street that morning. Our plan was to use the stolen Ford in the robbery, then dump it in the woods behind the hospital, hike back to the parking lot, and drive our own cars back to Boston.

The robbery itself was unremarkable. Stokes and Sperrazza went inside while Ozzy and I waited in the getaway car. As soon as they were out with the cash we hightailed it up Route 9 and down the dirt track that ran back into the woods behind the hospital.

It was early evening by the time we walked the mile or so to the VA parking lot. We climbed into our respective cars-Ozzy and me in the Griffith, and Stokes and Sperrazza in the Chevelle-and headed south with the Chevelle in the lead. We’d been driving for close to half an hour went I saw the Chevy’s brake lights flash. Stokes, who was driving, pulled the car to the shoulder of the road. Thinking something was wrong, I did the same. Only then did I see the real reason for the unexpected stop: a young woman was standing by the side of the road. She walked to the Chevelle, leaned in the passenger window, and said something to Sperrazza. Then the door opened and she climbed into the backseat.

As we pulled away I could see the three heads silhouetted in the Chevelle’s rear window: Stokes in the driver’s seat, Sperrazza on the passenger side, and the girl leaning over the seat to talk to them. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of taking on a hitchhiker. I became even less so when I saw Sperrazza climb into the backseat with her. But there was little I could do about the situation. As long as the girl was a willing participant in whatever was going on in the car, I figured I might as well let it slide. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that this was not the case.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Ozzy asked as we watched Sperrazza climb on top of the girl and push her down. She tried to fight him off, her arms flailing wildly, but she wasn’t strong enough. I had to do something.

Telling Ozzy to roll his window down, I pulled the Griffith up alongside the Chevy at the next straightaway.

“Pull over!” I called across the seat.

Stokes leered at us from the driver’s seat, then shook his head.

“Pull the fuck over!” Ozzy yelled.

Suddenly, headlights appeared coming toward us. Quickly I slammed on the brakes and fell back behind the Chevelle again as the oncoming car passed.

“My Walther,” I told Ozzy, nodding toward the glove box.

Ozzy opened the latch, grabbed the gun, and handed it to me.

I pulled even with Stokes’s window again. “Pull the fuck over!” I yelled, pointing the gun at him. “Now!”

This time he complied, slowing the car, then pulling it to a stop on the shoulder of the road.

I parked behind it and leaped out of the Griffith, followed by Ozzy. “Get out of the car!” I yelled, banging on the rear window, motioning with the Walther.

Glaring at me like a petulant child, Sperrazza climbed out of the backseat. “What’s the matter?” he asked defiantly.

“What’s the matter?” I was stunned. “You’re trying to rape that girl, and you’re asking me what’s the matter?”

He shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a big deal. We do this all the time.”

I wanted to punch him, or worse. Enraged, I flexed my palm on the Walther, sickened by Sperrazza’s admission-we do this all the time-contemplating for a brief instant the idea of shooting him.

“Get back in the car,” I told him, then, turning to the Chevelle’s passenger window, I spoke to the girl. “Where are you going?”

“Spencer,” she said, naming a town just a few miles down the road.

“You’re riding with us,” I told her, offering her my hand, helping her out of the car.

She squeezed into the Griffith’s tiny front seat with Ozzy, and we headed off down the road. Ten minutes later, we dropped her off. The incident was over, but neither Ozzy nor I could get over what we’d witnessed.

“You should have killed him,” Ozzy said as we pulled away from the girl’s house and headed back toward the highway. I could tell he was dead serious.

It would have been remarkably easy to do so. I could have shot Sperrazza dead without any repercussions. Neither Stokes nor the girl would have said anything, of that I’m certain. Clearly, Ozzy wouldn’t have, either.

If I had known what was to come, if I had understood the consequences of my inaction, I would have killed him then, without so much as a second thought. But I didn’t. If I made a list of all my regrets, of every decision I wish I could retract or revise, my choice to spare Sperrazza far outranks all the others. It was a decision that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

By January 1975 we were ready to act on our plan to rob the Norfolk Trust Company. The thought of working with Stokes and Sperrazza again made my stomach turn, but by then there was no cutting them out of the job. Vowing that the Milton robbery would be my last interaction with the two fugitives, I gathered my crew for one final meeting.

It was decided that Tommy Sperrazza and Joe Santo would overpower the teller as she unlocked the bank. Johnny Stokes would wait in the switch car. As usual, I would act as lookout and getaway driver.

One of the newer members of my crew at the time was a kid named Steven Gregory. Gregory wasn’t the sharpest criminal mind, but he had a good heart and a willingness to do whatever was asked of him. He also owned a marine uniform, though he had never been in the service.

“You still have your uniform?” I asked him.

“Yup.”

“What about your duffel bag?”

“That too.”

“Good,” I told him. “Sperrazza can wear the uniform into the bank. They can put the cash in the bag. No one will suspect a marine strolling down the street with his duffel over his shoulder. I’ll park around the corner and Tommy can walk back to meet me.” I nodded to Santo. “You’ll head off in the opposite direction. Any problems with that?”

Both men shook their heads.

I turned back to Gregory. “In the meantime I want you to go to Kustom TV in Quincy and buy a couple of police scanners. And wear the uniform. It’ll look better that way.”

Gregory nodded. “Whatever you say, boss.”

That Sunday at the Beachcomber I sought out Barbara between sets. “We’re on for this Wednesday,” I told her. “Can you work your magic with the alarms?”

I was prepared for her to back out or at least stumble on the answer, but she didn’t miss a beat.

“You got it,” she said.

On the morning of Wednesday, January 29, Santo, Sperrazza, Stokes, and I met at Giuliani’s Garage in Quincy, just a mile or so from the bank. Though not an active member of my crew, Ricky Giuliani was an old friend of mine, and my associates and I often used his service station as a rendezvous point. It was bitterly cold out, damp and foggy, the low gray clouds spitting an unpleasant mixture of snow and icy rain.

I was the first to arrive, driving a rented Ford Torino. (Though we still made use of Ralph’s inventory of stolen cars from time to time, we had found that renting vehicles was often far more expedient.) Sperrazza, Stokes, and Santo got to the station next, having driven down from Dorchester together in Sperrazza’s Chevelle. The car stopped next to mine. Santo and Sperrazza, who was wearing Gregory’s fatigues, got out of the Chevy and climbed into the Torino for the ride to the bank. Then we took off for Milton together, with Stokes following behind.

It was about twenty minutes before eight when we reached the bank. I pulled off the street and into the parking lot while Stokes, in the Chevelle, headed for our designated rendezvous point, down a nearby side street. About five minutes later the teller’s car pulled into the bank’s parking lot, her pale face visible behind her car’s rain-streaked front windshield.

I handed Santo one of the two police scanners I’d sent Gregory to buy, keeping one for myself. “Keep it on,” I told him. “Just in case.”

Santo nodded.

“And remember to go easy on the girl,” I reminded him and Sperrazza.

We all watched the teller get out of her car and start toward the bank. Her stride was just slightly hurried, her manner businesslike. As she neared the front door, she slid a ring of keys from her pocket.

“Now!” I told Santo and Sperrazza. “Go now!”

Pulling their masks on, the two men jumped out of the Torino and sprinted for the front door of the bank, their guns drawn. The teller’s key was already in the lock when Sperrazza grabbed her from behind, jabbing the barrel of his pistol into the small of her back. Santo spoke briefly to the woman, who appeared too stunned to offer any resistance. Within a matter of seconds the door was opened and the three of them disappeared inside.

Seconds later the police scanner crackled, shattering the early morning silence, a call from Milton dispatch. Tensing, I glanced up and down the empty street. Barbara had sworn the front door was unalarmed. Could she have been wrong? I wondered. Or, worse yet, setting us up? I fine-tuned the scanner, catching a snippet of friendly banter, two stiffs trying to keep each other awake. Nothing to be concerned about. At least not yet.

Inside, Santo and Sperrazza got to work. The first order of business was to persuade the teller to open the vault. With this accomplished, Santo began transferring the money, which was already bundled and bagged for the Brinks pickup, into Gregory’s marine duffel.

While Santo dealt with the cash, Sperrazza took the teller to a small office in the back of the building. This was the part of our plan that most worried me. As I waited in the car I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake in assigning the task of dealing with the teller to Sperrazza. I had repeatedly instructed him not to use physical violence with the woman, but with Sperrazza there were no guarantees that things wouldn’t get out of hand.

Just before eight o’clock, as I waited anxiously for Santo and Sperrazza to finish the job, the dispatcher’s voice came over the scanner again, this time with the news that something had tripped the alarm on the back door of the Norfolk Trust. They’d done it, I thought: Santo and Sperrazza were out of the building, but they still weren’t out of danger.

The scanner blared a response, an impatient voice answering the dispatcher’s call. “That’s the fifth alarm we’ve answered there this week,” the cop complained before reluctantly agreeing to head to the bank and check it out. “I’m on my way,” he sighed.

The plan now was for Sperrazza and Santo to split up. Sperrazza would walk north up the back alley to meet up with Stokes, while Santo, carrying the duffel, would head in my direction. Knowing Barbara’s false alarms would buy us only so much time, I glanced toward the mouth of the alley, hoping to see Santo emerge. One minute passed, then another. In the distance, a lone police siren wailed.

I turned the key in the ignition and the Torino’s engine purred to life. Three minutes. Four. Where the fuck was he?

Finally, Santo ambled out of the alley with the duffel slung over his shoulder. I pulled away from the curb, meeting him as he crossed the street. He popped the passenger door and threw the bag into the backseat, then climbed inside.

“Everything go okay?” I asked as we drove away.

Santo nodded.

“And the girl?”

“She’ll be fine,” he said, pausing to catch his breath. “Sperrazza had to clock her with his forty-five.”

“Why the fuck did he do that?” I asked, angry at myself as much as at Sperrazza. I should never have allowed him to have anything to do with the teller, I thought.

Santo shrugged. “I think we got a good haul. At least it sure felt like that on my shoulder.” He grinned, then turned suddenly and glanced into the backseat. “Shit!” he swore. “I knew I forgot something.”

I felt my stomach hit the back of my throat. “Forgot what?” I asked.

“The scanner,” he said. “I left the fucking scanner in the vault.”

I paused for a moment with my hand on the wheel, contemplating what to do. Leaving the scanner behind was a major fuckup. The cops would be able to trace it back to Kustom TV in a matter of hours. But there was no going back for it. Now there was more than one siren, and they were getting closer by the second.

“We’ll just have to hope it doesn’t matter,” I told Santo. Punching the accelerator, I felt the Torino’s wheels spin briefly, then catch the street.