Mighty Mercury

I was paroled to my sister Clorinda and her husband Earl in California. I tried going straight. I landed a job in a body shop,repairing wrecks and painting cars, as I had learned that trade while locked up. But I had gained a reputation as a mover. Acquaintances from prison looked me up when they got out. I planned jobs, robberies, for them and they carried out my plans. Everything went well for six months or so.

 

Then they decided that they could work on their own. I bailed a couple of them out of jail, but we no longer worked as a team. Those six guys, Ernie, Benny, Bo, Robert Piccolo, my nephew, and Blacky, all went back to prison in a short period of time.

I was paroled to California in autumn of 1962. I couldn't find a job right off, so I began hitting telephone booths for spending money. I had a method to open the phones on the spot. I would make anywhere from 3 to 4 hundred dollars a night, which by today's standards was a lot of money. I would travel by bus from Hayward, to downtown Oakland, hitting various locations on the way.

When I reached Oakland there was a bar on 11^th Avenue that I frequented. I got to know the owner, Jim, pretty well. Jim would exchange the 3 or 4 hundred in change for paper currency.

While hanging out in Jim's bar I happened to run into Mike, a friend I had done time with in Colorado. He was pulling penny ante gas station robberies and such, and wasn't doing too well. He had a partner, Manuel, that he worked with and introduced me to. Mike asked me if I wanted to work for them, but I refused. I told Mike that I would work with them if they agreed to do the jobs I planned. They probably thought that I was talking shit. But they soon found out that I was for real.

One morning they appeared on my doorstep where I lived with my sister and brother in law, in Hayward. With them was a guy named Tad.

"Let's go! let's see what you're made off." Mike said.

I asked to see the weapons for the job I had in mind. I was shown a sawed off shotgun and a .22 caliber pistol that didn't even work. I told them that I wouldn't work with weapons like that.  Then Tad spoke, "I know where we can get some brand new weapons."

We drove to a sporting goods store in San Leandro. Tad was dressed in a white shirt and tie. There were some pistols on display in a glass enclosed case in the sporting goods section. Tad went behind the counter, as if he worked there, and placed two .357 magnums and a .38 special in a briefcase. We left the store without anyone noticing us.

After buying ammunition, we went over the getaway route of the score I had in mind. It was a bar in San Leandro that cashed payroll checks on Fridays, which my brother in law had pointed out to me weeks prior to that.

It was Friday, New Year's weekend of 1962, going into '63. The bar was packed. I wore a hat, glasses, and a handkerchief over my face. I went into the bar, Mike and Manuel behind me. I handed the briefcase, the same one we used to get the pistols, to the bartender and ordered him to fill it with money. He opened the cash register and placed the currency in it into the briefcase. But I knew where the money was that he used to cash cheeks. I leapt over the bar, gun in hand, and pulled out the drawer with the payroll cash. I pulled the entire drawer out and emptied it into the briefcase. Rather than leap back over the bar, I closed the briefcase, went all the way to the opposite end of the bar, then started to the front door.

The bar was full of partiers. Mike and Manuel were somewhere in the crowd. As I reached the halfway point to the front door, I was hit from behind and slammed to the floor. At that moment, Mike and Manuel fired some shots into the ceiling. I somehow bounced back up and spun around to see who had hit me. A guy about 6'6" was about 6 feet from me. I pointed my .357 at his head. He fell to his knees and began to pray. He weighed at least 300 pounds. But I wasn't hurt, and though I was tempted to shoot him, he was praying to God to save him. I held back.

"You, damn fool!" I said. "I should blow your brains out."

Instead I turned, left the bar and got into the getaway car which Tad was driving. In a few moments, Mike and Manuel exited the bar and got into the car. We got away from there. We split the money 4 ways at a friend's apartment in Oakland. It was a sizable amount of cash. The next day I went to a car lot and purchased a two-door 1956 Oldsmobile for about a thousand dollars. That was a lot of money in those days.

I had a girlfriend that I lived with. After awhile I found out that she was a call girl. But we got along just fine. She had some pretty wealthy clients. She asked me one day to find some girls for one of them, so I did. He would pay me $150 for every new girl I would find for him. I guess I became a pimp for awhile.

I became well known in Oakland. Running with Mike, Manuel and Tad drew the attention of another segment of the criminal element, which consisted of four ex-cons. They sought to join our group. Our group was a lot younger, in our early to mid 20s. They were in their late 30s and early 40s. I was the repository for all the weapons of our group. One day Mike advised me that C.D. wanted to rent our weapons to do the same work we were into. C.D. was the leader of the older group. C.D. wanted to ride with us. But as we were doing quite well, we needed no help. I told Mike to go ahead and let C.D use the sawed off 12 gauge and a .38.

A few days later, C.D. and his gang robbed a Safeway supermarket in east Oakland. They tried to get away, and a motorcycle patrolman gave chase. C.D. blew the patrolman off of his Harley, wounding him seriously. Since the patrolman had radioed for help, other police units closed in on them. C.D. and his cronies were outnumbered and outgunned. All four of them were captured.

While undergoing interrogation, and a hell of a beating, C.D. informed the inspectors about my gang. Mike and Manuel were busted within a week. My friend Jim at the bar on E. 14th St. warned me that the police were looking for me. I managed to lay low for a couple of months,staying with my friend the call girl.

I had to plan another robbery, as my cash reserves were running 1ow.I knew of this bar in east Oakland that cashed payroll checks for the employees of the Gerber baby food company. Rachel, my call-girl friend had a cousin who worked there named Bob. I told him, against my better judgment, about my plans to rob the bar, and that I needed his help in obtaining a couple of uniforms from the company that he worked for.

One night he called me from work and told me that he had what I needed. I drove to the Gerber baby food company and picked him up at midnight, as he worked the swing shift. He gave me the sets of uniforms I had asked for, which I paid him for. I was driving him home and he began talking about how he just couldn't make it on the wages he earned on his job.  I listened to him for awhile. Then I told him, "Look Bob, if you want, I'll show you how to open payphones. You can make yourself two, or three hundred at a time."

Being the type of guy I am, I pulled off the Nimitz freeway and pulled into a gas station which was closed. There was a phone booth there. I opened up my trunk to get my phone tools. I told him to stand by me, so that he could observe how I broke into the phone. As I was working on opening the coin box, a police cruiser pulled into the station. I ran, trying to escape the cop, but he tackled me and I was busted. Bob could have gotten away. Instead, he stood right next to the phone I tried to open and waited for the cop to get him too. We were taken to the city jail in Berkeley.