=SEVENTEEN=

LUFTHANSA SHOULD HAVE BEEN the crew's crowning achievement. A dream come true. The ultimate score for anyone who had ever hijacked a truck or moved swag out of the airport. It was the heist of a lifetime. The one robbery where there should have been enough for everyone. Six million dollars in cash and jewels. And yet, within days of the robbery the dream score turned into a nightmare. What should have been the crew's happiest moment turned out to be the beginning of the end.

    Henry had been running around so frantically that weekend trying to keep his point-shaving scheme afloat that he didn't even know that there had been a robbery until ten o'clock Monday morning when he woke up, turned on the radio, and got into the shower:

    "... and nobody knows for sure just how much was taken in that daring predawn raid at Kennedy Airport. The FBI says two million dollars, the Port Authority police say four million dollars, the city cops say five million. How much maximum? That they won't say. So far Lufthansa has not said anything, but they've promised to break their silence soon with a press conference, and WINS will be there to cover it live from the scene of the heist at JFK when they do. It looks like a big one, maybe the biggest this town has ever seen. Stay tuned ..."

*     *     *

    "I didn't even know they were going to take the place that night. I was drunk out of my mind. I was with Marty Krugman all night. We were drinking at the Spice of Life, in Cedarhurst, not two miles from the airport, and we didn't know a thing. When I got home that night I had an argument with Karen. I got so pissed I packed my clothes and took the Long Island train to the place of a girl I knew, on East Eighty-ninth Street.

    "About ten o'clock in the morning Jimmy calls me up. He says he wants me to meet him at the Stage Delicatessen that night just before he checks into the halfway house.

    "I go over to the Stage. Tommy was there, smiling. Fat Louie Cafora was there. He weighed three hundred pounds, owned a parking lot in Brooklyn, and was going on trial for extortion and arson, but he was happy. He was marrying his childhood sweetheart, Joanna. He had just bought her a white Cadillac for a surprise wedding present.

    "Lufthansa was all over the television and radio that day. Everybody knew about it, but I didn't say two words. Jimmy and Tommy were on their way back to the halfway house to check in. Jimmy was half drunk and feeling good.

    "He was concerned about whether I was going home to Karen that night. Karen had come to his house looking for me that morning. In fact, he had had to call around just to get the girl's number where I was staying. Karen didn't know where I was.

    "He asked if I was going home. I said in a couple of days. He said okay. I now see that he didn't want anything out of line. He wanted everything to appear normal. He didn't want angry wives running around from house to house looking for their lost husbands.

    "He asked me if I needed money. I said no. I asked him if he needed money. He laughed. He took out an envelope stuffed with fifty- and hundred-dollar bills—there must have been ten thousand dollars there—and he counted out about five hundred to Tommy and five hundred to Fat Louie.

    "With that he says that he'll meet me in the morning at Moo Moo Vedda's dress factory, next to Robert's.

    "The next morning I meet Jimmy at Moo Moo's, and we started driving to Bobby's Restaurant, in the garment center. We have a meeting with Milty Wekar about betting the Harvard game we'd rigged for the next Saturday. Later that afternoon we had the same kind of meeting set up with Marty Krugman back in Queens. Milty and Marty were two of the bookmakers we used to get our bets down in the point-shaving games.

    "We were on the expressway, getting close to the tunnel, when Jimmy let go of the steering wheel, turned toward me, and gave me a big, one-armed hug around the shoulders. 'We got it!' he said. 'We got it!' Then he started driving again like he hadn't said a word. I was so surprised by his sudden move that he almost broke my neck, but I knew it was his way of telling me that we had taken Lufthansa.

    "But the next thing he said made me feel sick. He was looking ahead, driving, and he asked, almost casually, if I thought Marty had told his wife Fran about Lufthansa.

    "At that point I knew that Jimmy was going to whack Marty. I knew Jimmy better and longer than most people. Sometimes I knew what he was going to think about something before he did. I could tell whether Jimmy was going to like something or hate it. And now I knew Jimmy was thinking about murdering Marty Krugman.

    "I shrugged. I didn't want to look as though I even considered Krugman important enough to think about. We kept driving. I didn't say anything. After a minute or two Jimmy said that when we got to Bobby's he wanted me to call Marty and make an appointment with him for later that night. Now I said that I was certain Marty had told Fran everything. I wanted to sound like Marty probably talked with lots of people. That it was no big deal. Nobody could prove anything. I was scrambling to try and keep Marty alive. Jimmy didn't listen. He just said that after our meeting with Marty I should figure out a way to get Marty to go somewhere with me later that night.

    "Now, I know where to find Marty every hour of the day. I had been with him all night Sunday, but since the robbery early Monday morning I had been purposely ducking him. Marty must have called my house a million times. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to know when he was going to get his money. And now I began to suspect that he had been busting Jimmy's balls about money too.

    "I called Marty from Bobby's and said that Jimmy and I would meet him at the Forty Yards at four-thirty. I didn't say anything about later. When I got back to the table I saw that Tommy DeSimone was sitting there with his sister Dolores, and so was Milty Wekar. Jimmy started talking to Milty about the basketball bets, and then he turned to me and said that I should work out with Tommy where we were going to take Marty later that night.

    "That's how it happens. That's how fast it takes for a guy to get whacked. It was getting crazy, but I still had from two in the afternoon until eight or nine o'clock that night to talk Jimmy out of killing Marty. Meanwhile I'm going along with the program.

    "Tommy said that he and Angelo Sepe would meet me at the Riviera Motel. There was a big parking lot in the rear of that place. Tommy said, 'Just bring Marty to the back of the parking lot. Tell him you got to meet some broads downstairs. Just get out of the car and leave him there. Me and Angelo will take it from there.' Tommy loved it. To Jimmy whacking people was just business, but Tommy got enjoyment out of it. I told Tommy that I'd be there between eight and eight-thirty.

    "In a little while Jimmy and I were on our way to the Forty Yards to see Marty about the baskets. I could see for the first time that Jimmy was a nervous wreck. His mind was going in eight different directions. All the way to the Forty Yards I talked about what a pain in the ass Fran Krugman would turn out to be if we whacked Marty. That she'd pester everybody until she found out what happened. I also reminded him that we needed Marty to lay off some of our bets. I didn't use the words, but I was trying to say that killing Marty was like taking bread off our table.

    "When we got to the Forty Yards, Marty was waiting. On the way in the door Jimmy said, 'Forget about tonight.' It was like a load off my mind. And in a few minutes Jimmy's drinking and joking with Marty like they were the best of friends. We drank for the rest of the afternoon, and there was no mention of Lufthansa and no mention of the money. I thought maybe Marty was wising up. Maybe he had a chance.