bobo,
hope you like it;
ON THE BRINK
I like this place; it doesn’t have any windows, nice and dark even at 11 in the morning. Sunny days just don’t cut it anymore with the mood I’ve been in. So why am I sitting in the Valley of the Sun in Glendale, AZ in a joint called Cactus Willies? It’s kind of a fucked up story but if you have Marie get me another pint of Guinness and a shot of Jim Beam I’ll tell you about it.
“Hey, would you reject that friggin song, you know I love Springsteen but I hate this Bobby Jean song” I yelled across the bar to the barmaid.
I guess the whole thing started a while ago, a Friday night poker game over a buddies bar. Five friends and drinking buddies at a semi-regular game that was more of an excuse to get away from wives and girlfriends than serious gambling.OK, it was also an excuse to bring in a stripper once in a while, so even if you lost it wasn’t a bad night.
“You look like you are about the same age as me, getting close to 50 aren’t you? That’s what I thought”.
So you pretty much have the picture, a bunch of guys all past forty and pretty much stuck in their lives, knowing they have pretty much achieved all they are ever going to, and this is about all they have to look forward to until the check out. Did I mention that this was January in Buffalo, NY? Grey and bleak are the only two words that come to mind. Like I said it wasn’t a serious poker game and I think I won $20 or $30 that night so after the game me and Jamie went downstairs and I bought him a couple Jack and Cokes.
After about five hours of drinking and joking around the topic of conversation turned to some way to get rich and get the fuck out of South Buffalo and go someplace warm and sunny. Of course a situation like this is not the best breeding ground for good ideas, did you ever hear of a brilliant plan being born around closing time in a bar? I didn’t think so. I’m not even sure which one of us brought it up but somehow the idea of hitting a Brinks truck seemed the answer to all of lifes bullshit. Living on a beach in Mexico, with nothing but sun, sand and Corona’s sounded pretty damned good about then. A couple of drunken off duty cops started fighting at the other end of the bar and that was the end of our talk for then. Holly decided to toss everybody out and close up for the night.
I had pretty much forgot all Jamie and I`s talk until he brought it up about a week later when we were having a couple of beers after work one afternoon. He told me a bank truck stops at the Tops supermarket down the street every night between 10 and 10:30 picking up the days receipts. We got to talking and figured that there must be quite a few pick ups before that one and the truck should be pretty much full by then. This idea born out of some drunk griping was starting to sound a bit promising. I got a call on my cell phone from my girlfriend telling me if I didn’t get home soon for dinner the dogs were getting my spaghetti. So to keep peace at home I shagged ass out of there and that was the end of the Brinks talk for now.
Unless you ski there isn’t a lot to do in Buffalo in January except for football and hockey. Football playoffs were the highlight of the month and somebody was usually having a party for watching the games. Me and maybe eight other people were over at Jamie and his wife’s house for the Sunday games. Steaks on the grill and a fridge full of beer. Only bad thing is grilling steaks ain`t a lot of fun when it’s six degrees outside. I went out to help Jamie shovel last night’s snow from the deck that was attached to the back of the house. Snow all cleared Jamie grabbed the platter of steaks and I got the bottle of Jack and we headed back outside. He then proceeded to tell me that he followed the armored truck on Friday night and that the supermarket was the last pick up before it went back to the depot. Super Bowl was in two weeks and the markets would be as busy the night before the big game as they are right before thanksgiving. We were quiet for a few minutes just looking at each other when I took a big gulp of the whiskey and passed the bottle over to Jamie and he did the same. That was when I realized we were both serious and this was going to happen. I knew something like this had to be done right or you were either going to die trying or spend the rest of your life rotting in Attica. I wasn’t enthused about either one of those options. Time to start researching other armored car hold ups and see what worked and what didn’t.
The internet is a wonderful tool for information, whether you are a high school freshman or a potential felon. Run a “Google” search for brinks hold ups and you will get 976 hits. If you read enough of these newspaper articles it is almost a self help book on how to do it right. A few ideas were starting to gel and this was really beginning to look possible. A couple more hours research at a site called the anarchist’s handbook and I had what I thought was a pretty good plan. I called Jamie’s cell and told him to meet me the next day after work at Susie’s Bar for a few beers and to talk.
I got there before he did and already had a beer and two shots in me when I saw his truck turn the corner into the lot. I had the barmaid set him up with his usual. After he got his coat off and settled in at the bar I asked him if he was still serious about this. He didn’t say anything for a minute then quietly said”I`ve been outside in ten degree weather, the snow and wind, for almost nine hours. I’m way too old for this shit. Tell me what you came up with” I laid out for him what I had so far, what had worked before and what didn’t, what we would need and a few ideas of where we could get it. After hearing me out he said he only had two things that had to be or we don’t go ahead with it. One was nobody gets killed and the other was we don’t get caught. I told him that works for me and we proceeded to have a couple irish car bombs to celebrate our plan before we headed home.
We had only ten days and a lot to do. I’ve got to tell you something, probably 98%of all crimes are spur of the moment or acts of passion or rage. To actually think about and plan something like this takes all your time and concentration. It’s not exactly the easiest thing to do all this without somebody figuring out what you are up to, especially when you have to run out to farm country to buy ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the middle of winter. This part was a little easier now than it would be now, since 9/11 and the outbreak of meth in upstate New York it’s almost impossible to get your hands on ammonium nitrate. I knew we were going to need three disposable vehicles so I got in touch with my brother in law who has a used car lot and told him to grab me three full sized vans at the car auction on Monday. He started asking some questions I really didn’t want to answer so I made up a quick lie about a friend starting up his own plumbing business. It satisfied his curiosity enough that he said he would do it. I drove out to Alden the next day and handed him $1500 and told him to call me Monday. Next things to purchase were some medium weight steel panels and some angle iron for framing and then move things around in my garage so I could pull a van in for some modifications. two of the vans were dropped off at my house on Monday evening and I got right to work on them. First thing to do was rip out all the interiors except for the drivers seats, next was to build a tub that covered all of the exposed floorboards that was two foot high. Stripping and framing took me until after midnight and I was chilled to the bone, no my garage wasn’t heated. A nice long hot shower and I crawled in my warm waterbed and slept like a baby.
After work the next day Jamie met me in the garage and we started the job of welding the steel sheets to the framing to make the tubs. We had a few hours into it when we realized it was going to be a two day job so we knocked off about ten and called it a night. Jamie had a few things to do the next day, pick up some prepaid cell phones and then steal three license plates for the vans. By Thursday night we were all set, at least as much as we could do at the time, so we decided to hit the poker game Friday night and try to relax a bit. My girlfriend and Jamie’s wife were getting a bit bitchy about us being so tied up all week so we took them out to dinner before the game then left them downstairs at the bar drinking when time for the poker game rolled around. My head just wasn’t in the game and I lost around two hundred, but I figured what the fuck, look at what I was looking to pick up the next night if it all worked out. The game broke up about one and the four of us hung around until closing time at 4:30.
“I’m getting a bit dry here, wanna get me another Guinness?”
Saturday was finally here and we had lot left to do, some time consuming and some that involved more than a little risk. First thing we had to do was drive the vans with stolen plates out to Springville, about thirty five miles to the south, then buy and load up the tubs with the fertilizer then making it back to the city without getting pulled over. For a nice change the Buffalo weather was to our advantage. It was right around freezing and it was snowing big wet slushy flakes. The county even helped us by having salters and sanders out in force to keep the roads clear. By the time we had driven just a few miles the vans and the boosted plates were covered with dirty slushy slop from the road. I took this as a sign that things were going our way and we just might pull this off. We got the vans back to my house safely, and put them behind the fence that across the back half of my driveway, out of sight.
The next project was also time consuming, filling up five gallon cans of diesel fuel. We each had four cans so it was only twenty gallons for each one of our trips. Not wanting to arouse too much suspicion we hit different gas stations until we had enough for one hundred gallons mixed with the fertilizer in each tub to make a nice thick slurry. Thanks again to the anarchist’s handbook and their printed plans for a cell phone detonating system so simple almost any moron that knows how to read and connect four wires could make it.
Jamie drove one of the vans from my yard down South Park Ave and parked it in the street in front of the lot of the police precinct. It was the one closest to the supermarket, about six blocks away. We went back to get the other and had one stop to make with it. Taking a couple of heavy blankets and covering the tub to keep it from slashing around inside the truck we took it to Home Depot. We loaded up a cart with heavy nails, bolts and pipe fittings. When we got to the parking lot we scattered the hardware on top of the blankets that covered the slurry. The van was then driven to the supermarket parking lot and parked in a spot as close as we could get to the front doors. This van was identical on the outside to the one left in front of the police precinct. This one had a few more modifications though. That one was designed for a blast and burn, this one was set up with more care, thought and labor. We had brought the third van to the lot earlier and it was now parked next to the rolling bomb.
I was in the third van, no mods to this one except for ripping out the back seats. We had about half an hour until the armored truck got here and my nerves were getting more than a little jumpy. I sat there listening to a Colin James CD and playing with my .45 colt, loading and reloading the clip. A Mossberg 500 sawed off 12 gauge sat on the floor next to me, five deer slugs at the ready. If all goes according to plan only one will be fired. Jamie was sitting in the other truck, I`m sure he was feeling the same as me. A lot of thoughts fly through your head at a time like this. Can we pull it off? Did we set this up right? Are we doing the right thing? Rethinking it all and trying to decide whether to go through with it or not. We could walk away and be out a few thousand buck and just step back into our normal everyday sedate lives. I rolled down my window and motioned for Jamie to do the same. Damn, it was frigid outside, the air so crisp and clear you could see tiny ice crystals floating under the parking lot lights. I asked him if he was sure, a few minutes and nothing would ever be the same, no matter how it turned out. I waited what seemed like hours for an answer before I got a grin and a thumbs up. All that was left now was the wait. We both sat there silently staring at the Bailey Ave entrance to the lot, almost willing the truck to make the turn. I keep glancing down at the clock on the stereo faceplate but the damn digital numbers never seem to change. I could swear I’ve been staring at 10:37 for an hour already. When the truck got here it would drive past the front doors and stop blocking a lane in front of the no parking zone with it’s back doors about fifty feet from the entrance. And then everything would just fall into place, a few easy steps and we would be on our way. 10:39, drop the clip out and push it back in one more time, picking up the cell phone on the console and making sure the number to call is set, one simple step, just hit the send button. Jamie had an identical phone in his jacket pocket, all set with another number just waiting for the time to hit that send button.
SHOWTIME!!!!! I See the grey nose of the big truck, right directional flashing as it makes the turn into the lot. I look over and see Jamie’s hard stare as he notices it too. I see him hold the phone up in front of him, I can see his hands shaking as he hit’s the send button, before he even sets the phone back down I hear what sounds like a massive clap of thunder just as the armored truck pulls to a stop right where it’s supposed to. We both pull out, Jamie pulls in front of it and I pull behind it, my front bumper against it’s back bumper. The placement of Jamie’s van is critical. It has to be six to eight feet away with his passenger side being parallel to the windshield. This is where the extra changes to this van come in. We welded steel plates in this one, from the floor to the roof, covering the back doors, the passenger side around the front and even under the roof. Jamie hops out and runs along the side of the armored truck and get in the passenger side of my van.
I hit the send button just as he shuts the door. Blinding light and a blast of air rocks the van, did I mention loud, my ears are ringing. With the plates we welded inside the van we created a large bore cannon and the metal hardware we had in there became high speed projectiles. The windows of an armored truck are multiple laminated layers of tempered glass and plastic, otherwise known as bulletproof glass. Now the odds of any of the projectiles going through the windshield are near impossible but they will cause spider webbing in all the layers. Ears ringing and heads pounding we jump out of the van and run to the front of the truck. I’ve got the 12 gauge pump and Jamie is holding a sledgehammer. I raise the shotgun and fire one shot into the middle of the windshield, followed almost immediately by a swing from the sledge. The glass falls inward, covering the dash, the seat and the two unconscious guards. Jamie climbs over the hood and into the cab, disarming the guards and taping there hands behind their backs while I turn the van around so its back doors are facing the back of the truck. I open the doors of the van just as the doors of the truck are opening.
I’m not sure what I am hearing, between the blast and then the shotgun my ears are ringing, but this sounds like sirens. Ok, it’s cool, fire trucks going past. heading towards the police precinct. The new A district precinct was built like a fortress with a large fenced lot to the side to hold police cars and the cop’s private vehicles. The way we positioned the van and the timing were just about perfect. when the van blew it started a small chain of explosions, four cars and trucks going up and effectively closing of the lot, trapping all the cars in and seeing that this is twenty minutes before shift change all cars assigned to the district were in the lot.
Jamie starts tossing bags out of the back of the truck as fast as he can, and I’m picking them up and filling our van. I look up into the back of the truck and see the sweat beaded up and Jamie’s face, along with an ear to ear grin. After getting a bunch of the bags loaded Jamie hops out of the truck and we get in the van and drive the hell out of there. Less than three minutes later the van is in my driveway behind the fence. I pull it in the garage and Jamie shuts the door behind us and turns on the lights. I crawl in the back and do a quick count and come up with thirty one bags, I’m happy as hell with this and toss one at Jamie as he opens the side door of the van. He takes it over and dumps it on the stainless steel paint bench. I have never seen so much cash in my life,100`s, 20`s,50`s ,5`s and 10`s. I can’t do anything for a minute but just stare. I cant do anything for a minute but just stare, I break free from my trance and step over to my tool chest and pull out half a bottle of Jim Beam and take a healthy swallow and hand it over to Jamie. He takes a couple gulps and sits down to start counting, I just stand there in shock. I can’t believe we walked away with all this. A few minutes went by, I have no idea how many when Jamie hands me back the bottle and says” Man there is over sixty thousand bucks in this bag” I sit up on the bench. My numb brain starts to work , can this be right? We have about two million bucks sitting here in my garage with us?
Curious to see what’s going on and to make ourselves visible just in case we head down to Dave’s bar. All everybody is talking about is the explosion right down the street at the precinct. The eleven o’clock news was just finishing up and they interrupted the weather for breaking news, a live shot from the parking lot of the supermarket, you could barely see the armored truck with all the police and fire department trucks and their flashing strobe lights. They reported that the two guards appeared to be ok and were at Mercy Hospital for treatments of concussions and minor cuts from broken glass. The little blonde reporter said there was no word yet on how much was stolen.
This couldn’t have been any better for us, we didn’t have an alibi but at least twenty people who knew us would remember we were right with them when the news broke right after it happened.. You have to understand this was a quiet little neighborhood where everybody knows everybody else and this was big news. Something they would all remember, up there with the slow motion O.J. chase and a handful of other major events. Within minutes speculation started on who did it. All kinds of ideas and opinions were flying around the bar. Some mafia guys, some black gangsters, but that was shot down quickly cuz it was more complicated than a drive by. I found it funny as time went by the ideas got more and more outrageous but not so outrageous as that the two guys that did it were sitting right there with them drinking irish car bombs.
About 1:30 or so my girlfriend, Jamie’s wife and Dave and his wife came in the bar, they were at the casino in Niagara Falls, my girlfriend was all excited she won four hundred on the slots. Of course everybody in the bar had to fill them in on the nights events. Jamie’s wife joked that she wished me and him would have done it instead of sitting in the bar drinking all night. I headed home about three but couldn’t sleep knowing what was sitting in my garage. I tossed and turned until daylight then gave up and got dressed and went out to the garage. I was sitting in the van and counting the bags, thirty four in total. My call phone rang, I was so tense I almost hit the roof. After three rings I flipped it open to check the caller ID, it was Jamie, he was up all night too. Now that we had the money we had to figure out what to do. We know there was going to be a lot of heat on the cops to catch us, not just the local cops but because it was an armored car and bombs were used the FBI and ATF would be involved .
“I gotta go to the men’s room, you want another drink?I`ll get this round. Hey Marie, can we get another round here. Thanks darlin.”
“ok, where was I? oh yeah FBI and ATF guys”
From the little I know of how police investigation work, most of what they know at first comes from eyewitnesses. They didn’t have much there because the blast at the supermarket kept everybody laying low behind doors or on the floors of their cars. The feds would be the problem, they weren’t the fastest in the world but they were methodical and had the best labs in the world behind them. I was pretty confident that any traces we left behind were destroyed by the heat and fire in the explosions. I spent an hour or so in the garage then went in the house to get my rottweiller to take him for his daily walk through the park. I ended his walk short, not having the patience this morning for his endless sniffing of every tree and bush trying to find out what other dog was in “his” park. By the time we got back home the Sunday morning edition of the Buffalo News was sitting on my welcome mat. Instead of the usual Super Bowl hype the front page was filled with our exploits from the night before. I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down and read every word. There wasn’t anything alarming to me. The guards were ok and held overnight for observation. The police had no witnesses or suspects. I laid down on the couch to try and get some sleep, not the easiest thing in the world when you are sharing a couch with an overweight snoring dog but I managed to get a few hours . I threw on my boots and headed out and unlocked the garage and slipped in sliding the door shut behind me. I still couldn’t believe all this money was just sitting in here and I felt I had to keep coming out here to check on it and make sure it was really there.
Sunday night was Super Bowl and there was a party down at the bar, most of the regulars had squares in at least one of the pools.. The biggest pool was one hundred bucks a square. ten thousand total, one half of that went to the final score winner. It’s amazing but just a few days ago that seemed like a lot of money to me. I drank some beers and watched the game with little interest. I think I was in about twelve pools from a buck a square up to the big one and I didn’t win a damn nickel. The game was over at ten or so and we stuck around for a few drinks before heading home, tomorrow was a workday after all.
Between the beers and sheer exhaustion I was able to get a good nights sleep that night but was still awake before the alarm went off. I reset it and went downstairs to make coffee. My usual morning but instead of just opening he back door to let the dogs out I went out with them in my robe and barefoot through the couple of inches of snow that fell that night to the garage. I just had to reassure myself that it was still there. A quick look on both sides, no new prints in the snow, I unlocked the door and popped my head in for a quick glance. I set the lock and started back towards the house, the dogs following me. I filled the dogs’ bowls and poured myself a big cup of black coffee. I gulped that down while three dogs fought for position in the two food bowls. A fast shower and then I tossed on my thermals, jeans and carhart and hit the remote start for my truck. I hate cleaning snow off my truck and that remote was almost my best friend come winter. It was nice getting into a warm truck with clear windows when the temp is in single digits.
I made my usual stop at Tim Horton’s for a cup of cappuccino and a buttered hard roll. Sitting in the drive through line with two cars in front of me my phone started to ring. I flip it open when I see it’s my brother in law and answer it. He sounds real agitated as he starts telling me that two guys in suits were just at his house and wanted to see the three vans he bought at the auction last week. He told them the last time he saw them was Saturday night when he left the lot. He wanted to know what was going on , he didn’t need anybody looking too close at his business records. I told him not to worry, go to the lot and then call the sheriffs office and report the vans stolen. The cops couldn’t prove when they disappeared with the fresh snow last night. Now I’m feeling pretty nervous and paranoid sitting in this line, one car to go then I grab my coffee and roll and pull away. Well I damn sure don’t need this cappuccino, I’m wide awake now, all senses on overload. I turn off the heater and roll down my window, sweat is beading on my forehead and rolling down my ribs. My mind is racing trying to figure out how the vans got traced so fast. I knew the last thing in the DMV computers would be the owner the last time the vehicle was registered. There are no computer records of transfers reported to the DMV from dealers to auctions and back to other dealers and resellers until they are registered and plates issued. I thought for sure we had at least a week to play around and tie up loose ends before there was any possible tie to us and the armored truck. With my brother in law calling me right after the feds left his house I figured it wasn’t a good idea using my cell if they had a tap on him they had my number now too. I stopped at a Mobil station and picked up a prepaid cell and a thirty dollar time card. I sat in the parking lot and registered it with a phony name and a real address, just not mine, same as with the other phones that we used. I called Jamie and let him know what was going on, the trucks were the only possible tie to us, and everything else was all done with cash, no paper trail, but not to take any chances. Ok, that done now to go to work and pretend it’s just another day. Ten minutes after seven and the day is already going to shit. Trying to keep things normal I toss on my leathers and my hood and start working on a welding job I started last Thursday. I hear my cell ringing in my pocket and toss my hood on the table. Caller ID check, my house number, why do I know this isn’t gonna be good. Friggin great, it was my girlfriends’ oldest son calling to say four buffalo cops and a bunch of guys in black jackets with yellow lettering on the backs are there and they say they have a warrant.
I think I’m fucked!!!
I toss my leathers on the floor and grab my jacket and fly out the door. I check my pockets, one hundred and sixty bucks, not going far with that so I head over to a mini market and pull out the daily max of four hundred. The bank doesn’t open for over an hour, first thing to do is get out of South Buffalo so I hit rte 5 and head south along the lake. I get as far as Derby, maybe 15 miles south and I notice a bars lights on so I swing into the lot, go in and have a drink and think, try to get my thoughts straight. A double Beam and a bottle of Labbatt`s to settle out my stomach and my brain, twenty minutes off staring into my reflection in the mirror behind the bar and I knew what I had to do. Time to be invisible, my life now just history. There is a branch of my bank just the other side of town so I leave a ten dollar bill on the bar and head to the bank. Ten minutes later and I’m back on the road, bank account closed and a little over nine grand in my pocket. Just a couple hours ago I thought my departure from this city would be a lot sweeter than this. The interstate is right ahead, I head west on I 90 towards Pennsylvania and who knows where. I eject the CD I was listening to and switch over to an all news station. A quick recap of last night’s football game before the voice clips from an FBI news conference that morning. One suspect wanted for questioning in the armored car heist, no other news I was interested in. My cell phone sitting on the passenger seat starts ringing, my home number, I don’t answer and take the battery out. I pay my toll and one mile later I’m in out of New York. I pull into a truck stop in Erie and get the biggest cup of coffee they have, toss my phone in a garbage can and I’m back on the road. By the time that cup is gone I’m in Ohio, still not sure where I’m heading to. I stop in Ashtabula, more coffee and a map, smoke a cigarette and look at the map. Phoenix looks good and then down to Mexico. I drive until it starts to snow a few hours after dark and pull into a motel just outside Terre Haute Indiana. I register with a fake name, different numbers from my license plate and pay in cash. I unlock the door and walk into a generic motel room by myself. This is my life now. I have a friend just outside of Phoenix, maybe I’ll spend a few days there I think to myself as I drift off to sleep. Up right after the sun the next morning I shower and take off. I stop at a Wal-Mart and fill up the gas tank then go in. I buy some socks, underwear , t shirts and some toiletries. I change clothes and brush my teeth in the washroom there. The rest of the day is pretty much of a blur, a few stops for gas, coffee and truck stop hot dogs or burgers until I’m road weary and stop at a motel in McAllen Texas that has a steakhouse across the street. A decent rib eye and six beers can even make a lumpy motel mattress bearable.
Up in the morning and on the road right after sunrise. This being my first time out west I’m mesmerized by the scenery of New Mexico along I 40, I’ve never seen anything like this and I wish my girl was here to see it with me but I’m a loner now. I see a sign for Arizona and look at the clock and figure I’ll be there by six. I dig the prepaid phone out and call my buddy and ask if it’s ok to crash on his couch for a few nights, he assures me I’m more than welcome there and is looking forward to seeing me and gives me directions to the house. So that’s where I spent the last to days, I was just feeling a little depressed and homesick so I thought I would stop in here and get drunk.
“Everybody in a bar has a story, that’s mine. What’s yours ?”
“Oh, I see you are a Maricopa County sheriff and you just stopped in for a few after your shift.”
“huh? Yeah I know the routine, hand flat on the bar, feet spread, I got it”
