The Art of the Heist

Eighteen

Even with Santo’s sloppy mistake, it appeared as if the Milton bank robbery had been a success. As was always the case when a crime of this sort was committed in the Milton area, police immediately suspected that I’d been involved. In the days following the robbery I had a number of unfriendly visits from detectives. But as usual, no one was able to come up with any concrete evidence linking me to the crime.

With the bank robbery behind us, I hoped to cut all ties with Sperrazza and Stokes. After the incident with the hitchhiker and Sperrazza’s treatment of the bank teller, I could barely stand to be around the pair. But extricating myself from my relationship with the two fugitives wasn’t easy.

On the afternoon of Saturday, February 22, 1975, Sperrazza called me at my mother’s house in Milton. He was highly agitated, saying he and Stokes were skipping town and that they needed my help.

“Is this about that thing over in Roslindale?” I asked. The night before, at the Beachcomber, I’d heard several people talking about the fact that Stokes and Sperrazza had been involved in a fight outside a Roslindale bar. “What the hell happened?” I asked Sperrazza.

“I don’t know, Myles. I think I shot a guy.”

“What guy?”

“Some local kid,” Sperrazza answered. “He and his buddy thought we were horning in on their territory.”

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“I guess so.”

“Fuck, Tommy!” I said. “You can’t just go around shooting people.”

“We need your help, Myles,” Sperrazza pleaded, ignoring my rebuke. “We need to disappear for a while. Just till everything dies down.”

“Sorry,” I told him. “You’re on your own.” Aside from the fact that I didn’t want to involve myself in whatever dirty business Sperrazza and Stokes had gotten tangled up in, I already had plans for that evening.

My mother had been complaining for weeks that I never spent any time with her. I’d made reservations to take her out to dinner that night at Maison Robert, a snooty French restaurant in Boston’s Old City Hall building. After that she and I were driving up to Northampton for the weekend. I’d already reserved a motel room. I told Sperrazza this.

“Could you get a room for us at Shaw’s?” he asked, naming the motel where he, Stokes, and I had stayed on a number of occasions while scouting the Northampton bank job.

I hesitated, wondering just how much trouble the two of them were in.

“We just need you to register for us,” he said.

Hearing the desperation in his voice reminded me of all the times I’d been on the run, looking for a place to stay. “Okay,” I finally agreed, regretting my words even as I spoke them. “I’ll meet you up there.”

By the time I got up to Northampton I was regretting my decision even more. After my conversation with Sperrazza I’d found out that the shooting was much more serious than he’d made it out to be. At the time, the details of what exactly had happened that Friday night were still emerging. But the basic outline of the events was clear.

By all accounts, the evening started innocently enough. Sperrazza and Stokes were on a casual double date with two young women, Karen Spinney and Susan Webster. As the foursome were driving through Roslindale, they passed a local pub that Webster frequented, and Webster asked if she could go inside to look for a friend. They parked across the street from the pub and Sperrazza accompanied Webster inside. Stokes and Spinney waited in the car.

While Sperrazza went to the men’s room, Susan Webster stopped at the bar to talk to Anthony DiVingo, a friend and sometimes boyfriend. She was still talking to him when Sperrazza returned from the bathroom. Not pleased to see his date getting friendly with another man, Sperrazza approached the bar and grabbed Webster’s arm, snapping, “Let’s go!”

“Hey,” DiVingo responded, “take it easy.”

The comment did not sit well with Sperrazza. “You want to take it outside?” he snarled, challenging DiVingo. Then, pulling Webster by the arm, he headed out the door.

By all accounts, DiVingo let the incident go, but Sperrazza wasn’t willing to. Ten minutes later someone came into the bar and informed DiVingo that Sperrazza was still waiting outside for him. Accompanied by his friend Ralph Cirvinale, DiVingo headed outside to confront Sperrazza.

No sooner had DiVingo stepped through the door of the pub than Sperrazza pulled his forty-five from the waist of his pants and fired. The bullet passed through DiVingo’s shoulder and, in a horrible twist of fate, continued on its path, striking Ralph Cirvinale, who was standing behind his friend, his mouth wide open in shock. Cirvinale was shot fatally in the mouth.

While horrified witnesses watched from inside the pub, Stokes, who was still in the car with Karen Spinney, opened fire on the wounded men. Sperrazza hightailed it across the street, forcing Susan Webster into the car with him. Then the foursome sped off into the night. It was a gruesome scenario, made all the more troubling by the fact that neither Spinney nor Webster had been seen since.

“You know you’re in a shitload of trouble,” I told Sperrazza when we met in the parking lot of Shaw’s Motel late that night. I had already dropped my mother off at the Howard Johnson’s in nearby Hadley.

“I haven’t seen those girls since late last night. We gave them some money and put them on the train. I swear, Myles,” he pleaded, no doubt sensing my skepticism. “They got spooked. They were worried the cops would think they had something to do with the shooting. I’m sure they’ll come back once things cool down.”

“They’d better,” I told him. I glanced into the front seat of his car, where Stokes sat waiting, then across the parking lot toward the motel’s office. “Come on,” I said, wishing I hadn’t agreed to help them. “Let’s get this over with. I’ll get you two a room, but after this you’re on your own.”

I was true to my word. The next afternoon I left Northampton and drove back home to get ready for my gig at the Beachcomber that night. Once again I thought I had washed my hands of Tommy Sperrazza. Once again I was wrong.

In the days and weeks to follow, Karen Spinney and Susan Webster failed to materialize. As the winter wore on, people grew more and more concerned. Though there was no direct evidence confirming that the women had been killed, everyone feared the worst. Knowing Sperrazza and Stokes as I did, I couldn’t help drawing the same grim conclusion.

More than once I found myself thinking of the bank robbery we’d pulled together up in Northampton and the hitchhiker Sperrazza and Stokes had picked up on the ride home. The Roslindale shooting and the subsequent disappearance of Karen Spinney and Susan Webster further confirmed what I had felt in my gut that night: that the world would be a better place without Tommy Sperrazza in it.

But I didn’t have much time to dwell on this fact. Unfortunately, I had problems of my own to worry about.

That December Judge Caffrey, the judge in the Wyeth case, had denied an important motion brought by my attorney. Despite this legal setback, my attorney, Marty, remained optimistic. I wasn’t nearly so confident. Having been found guilty in the past of a crime I didn’t commit, I had no expectation of being acquitted of a crime I was actually guilty of.

My father was understandably beside himself. I was looking at a good ten years in prison for the Wyeth paintings, plus the three years I had left to serve once my parole was revoked, as it most certainly would be if I was found guilty in the federal case. On top of all of this, rumors about my involvement in the Norfolk Trust robbery were starting to gain some traction.

“You didn’t have anything to do with that bank robbery in Milton, did you?” my father asked me one night not long after the heist.

“Of course not,” I assured him.

At the time I was cocky enough to think he believed me. But looking back, I’m not so sure. He was a cop, after all. He was also a good man. There’s no way around the fact that I broke his heart.

“I want you to talk to John Regan,” he said. “See if he can help you work out some kind of deal.”

I shook my head. I had my doubts that my old friend and former bedside companion, who by then was working for the Department of Corrections’ Office of Investigative Services, could do anything for my cause. Even if he could, I had no intention of making a deal. I’d serve out the full thirteen years I had coming before I’d rat on my friends.

“Just talk to him, Myles,” my father pleaded. “For me.”

Reluctantly, I agreed.

In the days leading up to my meeting with Regan, it occurred to me that I held a number of bargaining chips that were worth far more than any testimony I could offer, and that I might be able to make a deal with the federal prosecutor without compromising my loyalty.

The bargaining of fine art for freedom from prosecution is one of the dirty little secrets of the art world. Since there is not much that is stolen that cannot be replaced, in most cases of theft, recovery of the goods is of secondary importance to the capture and prosecution of the thief. In the case of fine art, however, its theft deprives the world of something no amount of insurance money can replace. Add to this the overwhelming pressure on museums to keep these thefts from being disclosed to the public, and the pressure the museums in turn put on law enforcement, and you end up with a system in which prosecutors will agree to almost anything.

There are many critics of these underground deals, those who argue that bargaining with art thieves contributes to future thefts. They’re right, of course. But how many of us, faced with the choice between recovering a priceless masterwork and losing the man who took it, on one hand, or punishing the man who took it and losing the art forever, on the other, would choose the latter?

Surely, I thought, there was at least one piece out of the many I’d stolen that would be worth my freedom.

But when I broached the subject with Regan-speaking theoretically, of course-he was less than encouraging.

“I know Twomey,” he said, referring to Assistant U.S. Attorney David Twomey, the chief prosecutor in the case. “He’s not in the mood to negotiate. And even if he was, his hands are tied. Face it, Myles, nothing short of a Rembrandt could get you out of this mess.”

I swear, these are the words he uttered. I’m sure he was using Rembrandt’s name as an example, not an actual presumption. Yet his comment got me thinking. I knew I would need something big-really big-if I was going to bargain my way out of the Wyeth charges. And since I did not yet possess such a piece, I knew I would have to steal it. An actual Rembrandt wasn’t part of the plan until several weeks later, when fate intervened in my favor as it had so often before, this time in the form of a cherubic young Dutch woman named Elizabeth.

Early in the spring of 1975 I was having dinner at my maternal grandparents’ house when my grandfather brought up the topic of a well-known Rembrandt portrait that was on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting was of the artist’s sister, Elizabeth van Rijn. Art was a favorite topic at my grandparents’ dinner table. My grandfather, whose tattered Mayflower bona fides still provided the slimmest entree into Boston society, knew several members of the MFA’s board, and it was not unusual for us to discuss current exhibits. After my conversation with Regan, I found the subject particularly interesting.

“Who’s the benefactor?” I asked.

“The Paine family,” my grandfather answered between bites of Sunday roast.

Descendants of Robert Treat Paine, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Paines were Boston royalty. The MFA was one of many local causes they generously supported. If anyone could persuade Twomey to contemplate making a deal, it would be the Paines.

“Do you know if it’s insured?” I asked.

There was little point in stealing a painting like the Rembrandt if it wasn’t insured. Unless you have a buyer lined up-like some crazy Arab sheikh who wants to keep the thing in his basement rec room-it’s impossible to fence a famous piece of art like that. But an insurer will do anything to keep from making a full payout.

My grandfather looked at me suspiciously. “I happen to know that it is,” he said. “But then, they’d be crazy not to insure it. It’s got to be worth close to a million dollars.”

“Really?” I commented, trying to sound nonplussed. “That much?”

In hindsight, I suppose I should have felt at least a twinge of guilt at the thought of robbing the Museum of Fine Arts. It was a place I knew and loved, having spent many afternoons there as a child, most of them accompanied by my grandfather. Much of what I knew about art in general, and Asian art in particular, had started with these boyhood visits.

But as much as the MFA had done to enrich my appreciation of fine art, the space it occupied in my mind at the time had more to do with denial than opportunity. Like the Forbes Museum-that symbol of the unwavering superiority of Milton’s upper class-the Museum of Fine Arts embodied Boston’s rigid caste system. It was, primarily, an institution run by and for the elite. Families like the Paines not only sat on the board and hung their art on its walls but socialized within the confines of the museum as well.

The idea of forcing Twomey’s hand, while at the same time thumbing my nose at the bluebloods, was too good to pass up. The day after my conversation with my grandfather I paid my first visit to Miss van Rijn.

I have to admit, my first meeting with the famous Elizabeth left me slightly underwhelmed. That’s not to say she wasn’t beautiful. Like any Rembrandt subject, she was exquisitely rendered, her skin luminous against her rich surroundings, her dark cloak trimmed in radiant gold. Her blond hair was dotted with tiny shimmering pearls, her ears adorned with pearl drop earrings. As stunning as the portrait was, however, it was not something I would have paid a million dollars for. But then, the business of art is based not on individual taste but on the collective will of the market. At the time Rembrandts were fetching astronomical prices at auction.

Besides, the real question at hand was not one of aesthetics but whether or not I would be able to get my hands on the painting in the first place. Despite the fact that I had already robbed several museums on par with the MFA, I had never conducted a heist like the one stealing the Rembrandt would entail. This painting was not stored in some dusty basement but was on display and no doubt well secured. There’d be no sneaking out of the archives with the portrait hidden under my coat.

There’s a notion among most laymen I’ve encountered that stealing a painting such as a Rembrandt requires outwitting state-of-the-art museum security. We’ve all seen the movies in which the thieves must dodge infrared beams or dangle from the ceiling, where the slightest misstep triggers steel security doors and silent alarms. Yet only once in my long career-at the Boston Children’s Museum-had I encountered anything even remotely resembling these measures, and it had stopped me dead in my tracks. I knew better than to believe Hollywood’s version of reality, yet neither was I foolish enough to compare the MFA to the Children’s Museum. Steel doors or not, I knew the building would be nearly impossible to get into once it was closed to the public.

This left only one option: a broad daylight heist.

The brazen nature of my plan meant nothing could be left to chance. As with any job I undertook, my first step was to familiarize myself with the museum’s physical surroundings. A sprawling neoclassical masterpiece, the MFA sits right in the heart of Boston, between busy Huntington Avenue and the rambling wetland park known as the Back Bay Fens. The building itself, which takes the approximate shape of a sideways H, is made up of two distinct wings connected by a long central corridor and large rotunda. The southernmost wing faces Huntington Avenue, while the northernmost wing-or Evans Wing-looks out over the Fens. It was here, in a small gallery on the second floor of the Evans Wing, that the Rembrandt portrait hung.

At the time each wing had its own entrance, but most visitors passed through the Huntington Avenue doors. Several days of casual observation taught me that the Huntington entrance was also a popular hangout for Boston cops, who liked to sit in their cruisers in the semicircular driveway, eating donuts and drinking coffee.

The Fenway entrance, on the other hand, received little use. At one time, when the park had been an elegant place for Boston’s elite to stroll, the Fenway portico, flanked by twenty-two soaring ionic columns, was the museum’s main entrance. But by the mid-seventies the Fens was a muddy, overgrown, garbage-filled swamp that most Bostonians did their best to avoid. In other words, it was perfect.

Add to this the fact that, for the most part at least, museum security consisted of a handful of unarmed old men in blue blazers, and the job began to look frighteningly easy. If I played things right, I concluded, I could simply buy a ticket, walk into the Dutch room, and lift the Rembrandt from the wall.

If the actual theft was shaping up to be relatively straightforward, the getaway, I knew, would be much more complicated. I would need help-and lots of it. For this I turned to my old friends Billy Irish and Ralph Petrozziello.

Ralph, who was always game for anything, immediately volunteered his services as well as a getaway van.

Billy, who was more of a realist, was slightly less enthusiastic.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he asked when I told him what I was planning to do.

“It’s a sure thing,” I said. “As sure as they come.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “As I suspected, you’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Just hear me out,” I told him. “We’ll go in the Fenway entrance. There’s never anyone back there. Hell, we could park a tank back there and no one would give a shit.”

“You’re right about the Fens,” Billy conceded, his forehead creased in thought. “It’s a fucking cesspool.”

“And the guards,” I reminded him. “They don’t even have guns.” Seeing that he was coming around, I pressed on. “We act like we know what we’re doing, and no one’s going to stop us. I guarantee. The last thing anyone expects to see is a couple of guys walking off with a Rembrandt in broad daylight.”

“And how do we get away?” he asked.

Luckily, I had an answer for him. “If we can make it across Huntington, it’s a straight shot down Parker Street to Bromley-Heath. We can switch cars there.”

A garbage-strewn, crime-ridden warren of a slum, the Bromley-Heath housing project was a virtual no-go zone for cops, the perfect place in which to disappear after the heist.

Billy’s brow relaxed. “It might just work. If we can get across Huntington, and that’s a big if.”

“That’s where you come in,” I told him. “You think a couple of your buddies from the Shamrocks would be willing to drive crash cars?”

As their name suggested, crash cars were backup vehicles whose purpose was to run interference with the police, including going so far as to crash into pursuing police cruisers if necessary. The Black Shamrocks, in which Billy was an active member, was one of the most notorious motorcycle clubs in New England. I couldn’t think of anywhere better to find drivers with the skills and the balls necessary for the job.

Billy smiled. “I might find a couple of takers.”

As April approached, so did my first scheduled court appearance for my role in the theft of the Wyeth paintings. Knowing that we would have to act soon to secure the Rembrandt, I contacted Billy and Ralph with a date: barring any unforeseen problems, the job would go down the following Monday.