Chapter 3
Just as nature endows certain species of poisonous snakes with bright colors, some inmates bear colorful nicknames, monikers such as “The Greek” or “Hammerhead” or “The Weasel”. But the most feared resident of the New York penal system had no such label. He was known simply as Mr. Weiss. Morris Weiss. A charter member of Murder, Inc. the infamous 1940s crime organization.
Murder, Inc., got its name from its detached, almost corporate approach to contract killings. Essentially, a “retainer” was paid and a hit man from, say, Chicago would fly into New York, make the hit, and then fly back to Chicago. Since the killer had absolutely connection to the victim except an untraceable monetary one, the murders were virtually impossible to solve. But Murder Inc., was visited upon by its own form of justice: Most of the membership was terminated by other segments of the membership. Not Morris Weiss. Morris Wiess was considered untouchable. And if it weren’t for the same catchall charge that got Al Capone- tax evasion- and if it weren’t for the turncoats who panicked and took the state’s evidence route, Weiss most likely would still be trading in death. As it stood, he was serving a life sentence.
Despite his advanced years, the Mafia money man was intimidating. Although his body has grown frain from age and his skin had waxed pasty white from lack of sunlight, his power had grown stronger and more far reaching, even from the confines of a prison cell. Nobody fucked with Morris Weiss. Nobody.
In early 1975, the NYPD was able to link Weiss to a decade-old unsolved murder. To facilitate his availability for court appearances in New York City, Weiss was temporarily transferred from an upstate maximum security facility to the Queen House of Detention.
Although Weiss kept a distance from the prison population at the QHD, he took a liking to Maher. And likewise, Maher found Weiss a good ally to have in a place like the Queens House of Detention. They were an odd pair indeed but they got along famously, neither asking much of the other. In fact, their friendship consisted of but one exchange of favors. Weiss, who always seemed to have wads of cash, would buy whatever Maher wanted from the commissary. Food. Clothing. A television. Whatever. And Maher, who knew plenty of girls, would invite a pretty one over to the QHD once in a while and arrange for her to alone in the visiting room with Weiss. Weiss never touched the girls, he just had them strip and dance in front of him while he masturbated. Then he’d hand the girl a hundred-dollar bill and shuffle back to his cell.
In May 1975, Maher was informed that two detectives from the Manhattan district attorney’s office wanted see hi. Maher shrugged his approval and was led to a holding area to wait for yet another detective duo, bracing himself for the inevitable tag team as each of the cops took turns hammering at him for information regarding past crimes, specifically the Cross Bay bank robberies. But Maher was no rat. Hadn’t the cops learned at least that after five years?
As Maher waited in the small room, The Hustle by Van McCoy echoed in the cell block. The perky melody of the disco anthem irritated the hell out of Maher. Stealing cars was a hustle. Prison was a hustle. His whole life had been just one big hustle. And it sure as hell didn’t feel like violins.
The door swung open. Detective Sergeant Jim Doherty and Detective Josh Wainright walked in. Maher had met Wainright a couple weeks before. The six-foot, four-inch detective, who was black, had interviewed Maher while investigating a robbery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Although the suspect was someone with whom Maher was unable to tell Wainright anything about the robbery, and nothing ever came of the investigation. However, Wainright felt Maher might have some other useful information, and, with a long prison term looming ahead of him, might be willing to take some kind of deal. To that end, Wainright brought his sergeant along this time. Maher certainly was in a vulnerable position. And Sergeant Jim Doherty had the power to initiate deals with the district attorney.
Doherty had a benevolent, almost fatherly demeanor, an Irish smile in his clear blue eyes. His ruffled red hair, now specked with gray, added to the illusion that an overgrown leprechaun had arrived. Indeed, Doherty exhibited none of the oozing cynicism Maher had come to expect from a seemingly endless parade if jaded investigators. To Maher, that meant one thing: Here was a soft touch. Maybe, Maher’s instinct told him, I can get something out of this guy. Maybe I have finally found the end of the rainbow.
Born in New York City in 1931, Doherty enlisted in the Marine Corps at age twenty and fought with the 1st Marine Air Wing K-6 during the Korean War. Upon discharge, he went to work for Merril, Lynch as a “troubleshooter” who investigated problem accounts and then, in 1956, became a cop. After a year in Harlem’s 25th Precinct, he was assigned to an elite group of traffic cops chosen to work in unmarked cars at accident-prone locations. Doherty saw the assignment as an opportunity. Knowing that no one paid much attention to traffic cops, he kept his eyes and ears open. As a result, he issued more than traffic tickets: He quietly tracked down four car thieves and an armed robber.
When he heard of an opening for a detective in the Central Investigation Bureau – an instant shield – he applied. However, there were forty other applicants. And, of course, only one job. But then Doherty learned of a clerical position at the bureau, a desk job no one wanted.
“I can type,” Doherty announced. “I’ll take that job.”
Doherty didn’t think of it as becoming a clerk, rather as an opportunity, reasoning that once inside the bureau, anything could happen.
In March 1958 Doherty met an auburn-haired beauty named Elizabeth Riley. They were married in May 1959.
Although deskbound at his job at CIB, Doherty carefully observed everything and everyone around him. In 1964, after six years as a clerk, he started accompanying a lieutenant on investigations. Two years later Doherty was promoted to detective. In 1969 he made detective second grand and then, in 1972, detective sergeant. As a result of his rise, Doherty was often asked: “How the hell did you do it?” In response, he always smiled and said: “I can type.” (Doherty could also father children, He and Elizabeth had six kids: Pat, Pam, Betsy, Gerri, Jimmy and John.)
In 1973 Doherty was tapped by Deputy Inspector Joe Comeriati as one of six investigators in the theft of the French Connection heroin. (The other investigators were Jack Vobis, William Grimes , Tom McGabe, Ed Killeen, and Harry Fagan.)
The French Connection heroin- a hundred pounds of dope packed into a suitcase- had been stored at the property clerk’s office since 1969. At the end of 1972, someone opened the suitcase to find roaches devouring the stuff. A test revealed that the white powder was not heroin, it was flour.
No one was certain precisely when the switch occurred, but it was clear how it might have been carried out. And it sounded like a Keystone comedy.
Following the media hoopla surrounding the French Connection bust, the feds wanted to show off what was then the largest cache of illegal drugs ever seized. Accommodating Washington, New York cops escorted the contraband to Capitol Hill, where it was carted from one location to another, like a circus sideshow. When the bloom of publicity began to fade – and this the political benefit of displaying the heroin- the feds decided to give the suitcase back to the NYPD. They didn’t deliver it, however; they shipped it. Railway Express. Along the route, someone could have penetrated the “formidable” security of Amtrak and exchanged crushed wheat for crushed poppies on the train. But evidence seemed to indicate that the suitcase had made it back to the property clerk’s office intact, so Comperiati, Doherty, and the team of investigators zeroed in on what they considered to be a more likely scenario.
Since the property clerk’s office was not a desirable assignment, the station was manned by cops who were designated as “light-duty police officers,” predominately those who had lost their right to carry a gun due to meal instability or alcoholism. Detectives had two nicknames for them: “The Rubber Gun Gang” and “The Bow and Arrow Squad”. If the heroin had been taken from the property clerk’s office, these misfits had either been involved, either inadvertently or conspiratorially.
The subsequent investigation not only uncovered gross incompetence by property clerk officers but also netted a number of indictments, including corrupt narcotics cops and organized crime figures. Case closed, the French Connection saga dissolved into a historic footnote, and Doherty was transferred to the office of Robert Morgenthau, Manhattan district attorney.
And so it was that Doherty found his way to the Queens House of Detention on this day to meet a potential source of information named Kevin Maher. Most cops wouldn’t have to bothered. But Doherty was always bothered. If he got a good lead on some difficult case, great. If not, he would only be wasting a few minutes. So when Wainright had told Doherty about “the kids over in the QHD who may have driven the getaway car in the series of bank robberies,” Doherty shrugged and said: “Let’s go talk to him.”
Doherty looked Maher over. This couldn’t be the notorious South Bronx wheel man he had heard about, the Billy the Kid of grand theft auto. Hell, the inmate sitting there was just a freckled-face Irish boy with a smile that could melt a nun’s heart.
“You Kevin Maher?” Doherty asked?
“Yeah. I’m Kevin Maher.”
Maher and Doherty studied each other like two chess players sitting across a board, on used to playing the white pieces, the other always playing black.
“You gotta get me outta here,” Maher said in his best “little boy lost” voice.
“Sure, Kevin, I’ll get you out of here,” Doherty responded with conviction. “But you’ve got to give me something first.”
Two pawns thrust forward, and now it was Maher’s move again. Maher eyed Doherty for a moment , then looked at Wainright. Wainright smiled and stepped back, signaling that this was Doherty’s game. So Maher turned and stared at Doherty.
“Like what?” Maher asked.
“Like what have you got?” Doherty countered.
Maher frowned. “I don’t know nothin’ about the Cross Bay bank robberies.”
“I didn’t ask you about any bank robberies,” Doherty said quietly. “And I’m not going to. The Cross Bay bank robberies are four years old and the cause is as cold as a block of ice.”
Maher racked his brain. What could he give Doherty? Maher realized he better come up with something because he was a two-time loser and, considering the fact that he had been charged with burglary and grand theft auto, he had really screwed himself to the cell block was this time. Suddenly it struck him. The rug guy. Nobody likes him anyway, always whining about how cold it was in the cell block. I’ll give up the rug guy. And Doherty will think he’s got the bust of the century.
Maher looked directly into Doherty’s eyes. Doherty stared back with equal intensity. Finally Maher spoke: “How about a rug?”
Doherty rolled the concept over in his mind for a moment.
“A rug? What kind of rug?”
“Persian. Supposed to be worth seventy-five hundred dollars.”
The corrections officer standing nearby was surprised. He had seen a hundred cops try to pull information out of Maher with no success. Now this guy Doherty waltzes in and gets something right away, even if it was just a rug.
“Okay,” Doherty said after an appropriate pause. “Let’s talk about this rug.”
Actually, there were many levels of interplay between Maher and Doherty, and none of them had anything to do with a rug. On Maher’s part, he still believed he had found an easy mark and could parlay almost any crumb of information into some kind of concession. On Doherty’s part, he felt the baby-faced Maher just didn’t belong in jail, and if the conversation yielded anything, anything at all he could use, the he would see what he could do for the kid. But underlying that noble thought, there was a motive. Doherty was a methodical investigator who was used to building cases one piece at a time, and he speculated that Maher’s jailhouse contacts might reap a bumper crop of leads on unsolved crimes. The trick was to lure Maher into the game.
Beyond the objectives, however, there was a immediate bond between the two, a spontaneous connection that transcended logical explanation. Something they saw in each other fit together. The underdog and the hero, happening upon each other in a concrete room.
“A guy asked me if I knew a rug dealer,” Maher told Doherty. “Said he wants to sell this Oriental carpet.”
“Maybe he owns it,” Doherty said matter-of-factly.
“No,” Maher insisted, jumping from his chair. “He stole it from Sloane’s furniture store. And he’s been hiding it in the Bronx.”
Doherty sat silently for a long moment as Maher squirmed.
“And what do you want for this rug?” Doherty asked.
“I want to get out of here until my trial. I want my bail reduced.”
Doherty looked away for a beat then stared back at Maher. “What are you in for?”
“Auto theft. Three counts.”
That was no problem. In New York, everybody walks on stolen car raps.
“And then I’ve got one count of burglary.”
Now, that was a problem. Not only did the courts look at burglary as a serious felony, Maher already was a convicted felon, which exacerbated the situation because of a statute called the Rockefeller Law. Simply the Rockefeller Law – also know as the Predicated Felony Offender Law- stated that anyone who had been convicted of a felony during the previous ten years must serve half the maximum jail time on any new felony conviction. In Maher’s case that would be one and a half years of a three-year sentence for burglary. Doherty knew that the only way to get around that provision was to lead the charge down to a misdemeanor. But this was no simple task. Once a suspect had been indicted, as Maher had been, the law prohibited any plea arrangement that reduced a felony to a misdemeanor.
Doherty was suddenly troubled. Maybe he was wrong about Maher. Maybe Maher was just a punk after all. Snatching hot rods was one thing, but burglary?
“It was an auto supply house,” Maher elaborated. “I needed parts.”
“Sure,” Doherty said, “that explains it.”
Maher smiled. Doherty appeared deep in thought.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Doherty said, knowing full well that the chances of extricating Maher from the mess were almost nonexistent. “All right, give me a name.”
Maher hesitated. “There’s something else.”
Doherty rolled his eyes. Something else? Weren’t three counts grand theft and one count burglary enough?
Maher explained to Doherty that he had served thirty-two months of a four-year sentence, the last sixteen months being suspended via good behavior. But now, after three more car thefts and a burglary, he had been notified by the parole board that, despite the absence of conviction, they were deeming him in violation of the conditions of his release for “failure to lead a law-abiding life.”
“I’m not surprised,” Doherty said, laughing.
Maher laughed, too. “So I need you to go to the parole hearing with me and put in a good word.”
Doherty stopped laughing. All this for a rug?
“Where?” Doherty wanted to know.
“Green Haven.”
“Green Haven?! That’s in Stormville! Four hours upstate!”
“Yeah,” Maher acknowledged.
“When?”
Maher took a deep breathe. “Friday.”
“Which Friday?” Doherty was incredulous. “Not this Friday?”
Maher nodded.
“It’s Memorial Day weekend,” Doherty bellowed.
“I know,” Maher said with a sigh, “but if my parole is revoked I’ll have to go back and serve the sixteen months I owe them.”
Maher sounded desperate, even pathetic, and Doherty felt queasy. As much as Doherty had wanted to lure Maher into his game, the opposite occurred. Indeed, Doherty was suddenly fretting over Maher’s well-being.”Will you come with me, Sergeant Doherty?” Maher asked.
Doherty could, of course, turn and walk out of the room. But he saw too much of himself in Maher. The patter, the nervous energy, the smile, all reminded Doherty of his younger self.
“Okay, Kevin,” Doherty said softly.
Maher broke into a broad grin. “Thanks, Sergeant Doherty. Thanks!”
Doherty didn’t know whether to feel warm and fuzzy or like a complete sap. After all his years on the force, what was he doing in a Norman Rockwell painting?
“Oh yeah,” Maher said, “I almost forgot. I have a few speeding tickets. Can you take care of them, too?”
“Why not?”
“Thanks. Detective.”
Doherty had to ask. “How many tickets we talking about?”
Maher stared away, thinking, then looked back at Doherty. “Seventy-one. I think.”
Doherty couldn’t help but smile.
“Seventy-one?”
Maher nodded.
Doherty shook his head then stood to leave. Maher seemed surprise.
“Don’t you want the name of the rug guy?” Maher asked.
Doherty frowned. Rug? Jesus, that’s right. This whole thing was about a goddamned rug!
When Doherty arrived home that night he told his wife, Elizabeth about Maher.
“What kind of guy is he?” Elizabeth asked.
Doherty regarded her silently for a moment. She generally didn’t ask him about his workday. Then again, he rarely talked about the felons he encountered. But Maher was different.
“If you saw him,” Doherty said of Maher, “you’d think he was one of your kids in home study.”
Elizabeth taught a Confraternity class (Catholic religious studies) after school. She pictured her students for a moment.
“They’re just young kids,” Elizabeth noted.
“Exactly,” Doherty sighed. “Kevin is just a kid. He doesn’t belong in the QHD.”
The following morning, Doherty set about fulfilling his promise to Maher. As always, Doherty looked at the problem in a series of incremental steps. First order of business was to get Maher to Green Haven for his parole hearing. Then he would work on reducing bail for the grand theft auto and burglary charges. Beyond that, he just didn’t know.
Getting Maher to Green Haven was supposed to be the easy part, and –except the snarling bureaucracy of the criminal justice system – it would have been a cinch. Unfortunately the documents that were intended to effect Maher’s transfer from the Queens House of Detention to Green Haven were written in such a way that they precluded such a transfer. Something about a phrase that said in part: “… to be returned whence he came.” It was nothing more than semantics, a legal paradox created by an obscure reading of the law pertaining to relocation of prisoners. Nonetheless, if the paperwork could not be amended by the weekend, Maher could not be release from the QHD for his parole hearing in Stormville. Since the penalty for missing a parole hearing was automatic revocation, he would be turned over to the state to begin serving the balance of his previous sentence.
Doherty was outraged at the legal quagmire. And he grew more and more outraged as hours ticked by and he was unable to find the “right” person to speak with regarding Maher’s release forms. On the eve of the parole hearing, Doherty called the Queens House of Detention and asked for the warden. No in. Doherty asked to speak with the assistant warden.
‘You guys about as much chance of getting him out of here,” the assistant warden said, “as a snowball’s chance in hell.”
“You don’t know us guys,” Doherty said with a growl: Give me the warden’s home phone number.”
Doherty reached the warden at home and presented his case.
“All right, Doherty,” the warden said, “I’ll call up there. You can take Maher out. No paperwork. But if he gets away, I don’t want to know.”
Doherty laughed. “If I can’t transport a kid to Green Haven and back, then I –“
“Watch yourself,” the warden interrupted. “He’s an escape risk.”
A few minutes later, Maher called for Rikers.
“You escaped?” Doherty asked, his voice not overly warm.
“Yeah,” Maher said. “But only once.”
“Well, let me tell you something, Kevin. You try and escape on me and I’ll blow the back of your head off. I’ve got more than twenty years in this job, and you’re not going to jeopardize that.”
Maher chuckled. Somehow he couldn’t picture Doherty pulling the trigger.
“Don’t worry, Sergeant Doherty,” Maher assured him. “I won’t try to escape.”
Doherty’s next call Paul Renaldo, Maher’s Legal Aid lawyer and was told that Renaldo had left for the weekend.
“What’s his home number?” Doherty shouted into the receiver.
After several rings, Renaldo answered, sounding out of breath. Doherty recounted how he had arranged to get Maher out of the QHD for the day and asked Renaldo if he wanted a ride to Stormville the following day.
“I can’t go to Stormvill tomorrow,” Renaldo countered. “In fact, I was just on my way out the door to the country. I’m getting a jump on the long weekend.
Doherty was not please. “Waited a minute! You have a client with a parole hearing.”
“I understand that,” Renaldo said, “but I was told that he wouldn’t be released. So I madeplans. I’m sorry.”
“No,” Doherty roared, I’m sorry. You are going to Stormville even if I have to hold a gun to your head.”
The next morning, Doherty and Detective Josh Wainright arrived at the QHD to pick up Maher. Two corrections officers led Maher to the front gate in handcuffs.
“Here’s your prisoner,” one of the guards said as he unlocked the cuffs.
Maher stepped up to Doherty and held out his hands, waiting to be cuffed. Doherty just turned and started for the car.
“Aren’t you going to cuff me?” Maher asked.
“Nah,” Doherty said. “You ain’t going anywhere.”
Maher looked at Doherty and then at Wainright. Wainright was an imposing figure.
“That’s right,” Wainright chimed in. “You ain’t going anywhere.”
Doherty stopped and picked up Renaldo, then headed to Stormville. They arrived a half hour before the hearing and took a seat next to a long line of inmates who also were waiting for their chance to be heard. Both Doherty and Wainright, bleary-eyed from the early wake-up call, fit right in. Dressed in plainclothes, the two detectives were indistinguishable from the prisoners. A particularly psychotic-looking man fidgeted nearby, then leaned over to the man next to him.
“if I get denied.” The man said with a growl, “I’m going to kill me a cop.”
Doherty looked at Wainright. Neither of them wanted to grapple with this crazo. They stared straight ahead and listened to the man rant and rave, happy that he was unaware he was sitting next to two detectives. But then a corrections officer approached with a clipboard.
“Who are you?” The officer asked alternately sizing up Doherty and Wainright.
Doherty leaned in close to the officer. “We’re cops,” Doherty whispered.
“What?” the officer asked.
“We’re the good guys,” Doherty whispered more insistently.
The officer shrugged and looked down at the clipboard. “Maher! Kevin!”
Maher and Renaldo entered the hearing room. During the next fifteen minutes, Doherty must have glanced at his watch a hundred times.
“What the hell is taking so long?” he asked rhetorically.
Finally Maher emerged.
“They don’t need to see you,” Maher told Doherty.
Doherty slumped in his chair. After everything he had gone through, it was all for naught.
But then Maher smiled broadly. “They upheld my parole.”
Indeed, the mere presence of two high-level detectives from Morganthau’s office had swayed the board.
“The luck of the Irish,” Doherty said with a chuckle as he put his arm around Maher.
When a prisoner is about to leave prison, everyone in the cell block hears about it. So, on the night Maher returned to the Queens House of Detention from Green Haven, Morris Weiss summoned him to his cell.
“You’re a good kid,” Weiss said as he hugged Maher. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Me, too,” Maher said, returning Weiss’s embrace.
“You think you can still send me a girl over here once in a while?”
Maher laughed. “Sure, Morris.”
Weiss paced for a moment and then looked at Maher with a piercing gaze. “Kevin, I got a couple of jobs. You, interested?”
Maher weighed the question for a moment. And then he recalled what Doherty had done, how Doherty had taken his side like a father. Sergeant Doherty is a good man, Maher thought. Suddenly, it was if a curtain had been drawn. Morris Weiss is nothing more than an old, weak, pitiful, evil man. Maher wanted to retch.
“Sure, Morris.” Maher said with a smile. “I’m interested.”
Weiss paced again, then stopped.
“You know ‘Fat Boy’ Parlati?”
Maher thought for a minute. “Sure. I’ve heard of him.”
“Needs a wheel man. Next week.”
Maher beamed. “No one’s better than me, Morris. If I told you that once, I told you that a hundred times.”
Weiss rolled his eyes. “Another guy I know is lookin’ for a wheel man,” Weiss continued. “Guy named Joe Jefferies.”
Maher looked at Weiss and thought: Keep talkin’, you fuckin’, shriveled-up old bastard. Just keep talkin’.
“And then I got this friend,” Weiss continued. “Henry Bohle. Owns Flushing Car Service.”
“What’s he need a chauffer?” Maher laughed at his own joke.
Weiss frowned. “He’s got a partner, Louis Izzo. Lou’s fuckin’ up. So Henry don’t want Louis as a partner no more.”
Maher mulled over what Weiss was saying. “You want me to whack him?”
Weiss smiled.
“Hey,” Maher said, growing animated, playing the part of a hit man, “I’ll whack this guy. I’ll whack this fuckin’ guy.”
As he watched Weiss shuffle to a chair and fall into it like a half-empty sack of flour, Maher had just one thought: My friend Sergeant Doherty’s gonna put you out of business, you old fuck.
The following week, Doherty arranged for Maher’s bail to be reduced to one dollar per count, paid te four dollars, and bailed Maher out of the Queens House of Detention. But Maher wasn’t free yet. He was handed over to state authorities for transport back to Green Haven, where he would stay until he met the ongoing conditions of his parole: a certified address and certified job. And then there was the paperwork, of course, which was requisite to any ruling by the parole board. Basically it looked as if Maher would be spending about six weeks at Green Haven.
The certified job was easy. Maher called his uncle, Chick Maher, who was an elder statesman in Local 32B- the union that controlled doormen and concierge desks in luxury high-rise apartment buildings. Uncle Chick’s influence and a good word from doorman Buddy Hample – the family friend who took Maher in after the Catskill car chase – led to Maher being hired as a part-time doorman and handyman at 200 East 58th Street.
As certified address, Maher listed 1609 Aqueduct Avenue, the Bronx, where he had last lived with his father. The apartment held special meaning for Maher, given the fact that his father had moved into the two-bedroom residence just so his son would have his own room when he was released from prison. Recently, his mother had fled to the place, having divorced her third husband.
Compared to the Queens House of Detention, Green Haven Prison was a country club. Situated about two-hundred and fifty miles north of Manhattan in the forests of Stormville, New York, it was surrounded by towering pine trees instead of crumbling tenements, greenery instead of concrete. Even the name sounded inviting if you rolled it around your tongue: Green-haven.
One acquaintance Maher made while at Green Haven was Brian Molese, a thirty-six-year-old man with moving star looks and a dancer’s body. One might expect a pretty boy like that would have a hard time in prison, what with sex-starved inmates roaming the cell block. But that sort of thing didn’t seem to worry Molese. He was friendly and open. Almost too friendly, Maher thought.
One day in the cafeteria Maher and Molese were sharing a table and talking about life behind bars. As the conversation continued, Molese admitted to having an arrest record that went back to 1959. As far as how he would up in prison this time, Molese had essentially three stories: his version, the version he related to police, and the prosecutor’s version. All three stories had on thing in common: On the night of February 23, 1970, a bar in Greenwich Village called Danny’s burned to the ground.
According to Molese, he set the fire to Danny’s, on of his favorite hautes, because he was helping a friend collect insurance on a failing business. Naturally, Molese had not told police that he had anything to do with the blaze that gutted the place. When cops discovered him unconscious in the basement, Molese explained that he had been passing Danny’s when a fire “broke out”. Since he was a friend of the owner, he ran to the basement in an attempt to save the night’s receipts, some twenty-three hundred dollars. He was overcome by smoke and passed out.
The prosecutor, however, had a different theory. He charged that Molese had stolen the money and then set fire to the bar to cover up the theft. The prosecutor speculated that the reason Molese was unconscious because he was so drunk.
Notwithstanding which story was true (arson to defraud an insurance company or arson to cover up a burglary), Molese entered a plea bargain and was give a ten year sentence.
After Molese finished telling Maher about the fire, he mentioned that he had a wife named Alice. According to Molese, he had held several jobs that he met Alice, who worked for American Express. After he was sent to prison in 1970, the only person to visit him was Alice. They were married in a jailhouse ceremony in 1971.
“I married that fat bitch for her money,” Molese said with a sneer. “And to build a case for my parole.”
Molese shoved a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
“She’s a fat, fat, fat pig,” Molese ranted, mashed potatoes oozing from his contorted lips.
Maher was startled by Molese’s sudden rage.
Molese wouldn’t let up on Alice. He laughed derisively. “Fat Alice. That’s what she is. Fat fucking Alice. You’ll see. She’s coming up here later.”
Later that afternoon, Alice showed up with her usual care package full of cakes and cookies. Poor Alice was indeed fat – obese, really – but as is so often said of the overweight, she had a pretty face.
Maher watched as Alice fawned over the handsome Molese, and did little to hide his contempt.
“You lose fifty pounds,” Molese said, snarling. “You lose fifty pounds or you don’t come up here anymore.”
It was pathetic, and Maher felt sorry for her. She quivered like a rabbit. Helpless. Terrified.
“I brought you some cookies,” Alice said.
“You got any money?” Molese snapped.
Alice began to stammer. Molese grabbed her by the shoulders. “ I said, you got any money?”
Maher couldn’t bear to watch anymore and left the visitors’ room. A little while later, Molese stopped by the cell. He was livid, red in the face.
“That fat slob,” Molese bellowed.
In between Molese’s ravings, Maher made out that Alice hadn’t brought the normal couple hundred dollars for Molese, and Molese had promised one of his cell block buddies some commissary money.
“I want her killed,” Molese roared.
Molese was hyperventilating. “You’ll be out before I am. And I want you to kill her for me.”
Maher looked in Molese’s eyes. He was dead serious.
“I’ll have her get heavily insured,” Molese said, his voice coming from its fever pitch. “We can make a lot of money out of that fat whore. A lot of money.”
Maher stared at the floor.
“Don’t worry about it,” Molese went on. “We’ll make it look like a burglary.”
“I ain’t no killer Brian,” Maher said.
Molese’s eyes burned with rage. But Maher felt certain that Molese’s words were not just borne out of anger. Brian Molese was going to kill his wife.
As the days fell away, Maher had a great deal of time to contemplate. He often thought of Doherty, and each time he cringed. Sergeant James Doherty. Who was he, really? Maher prided himself on categorizing people, figuring them out, filing them away. But Doherty was different. He had gone to all kinds of trouble, for what? A rug? And even though Maher was an escape risk, Doherty hadn’t even handcuffed him on the way to Green Haven. Did that make Doherty a sucker? At first Maher thought it did, but now he was beginning to wonder. After all, Maher was starting to feel guilty, and Maher never felt guilty. Even when Maher was caught in the euphoria of his parole reinstatement and he asked Doherty what he could do the repay him, all Doherty said was: “Do the right thing.” Do the right thing? What the fuck did that mean? Maher wished Doherty had leaned on him like other cops and demanded that he give somebody up. But Doherty had simply said: “Do the right thing.” Maher pounded on the cot in his cell and cursed Doherty. That sneaky son of a bitch, using my fucking conscience like that. Fuck him. Fuck him!
Maher fell back on his cot and stared at the ceiling. Doherty had trusted him. Shown faith in him. Nobody had ever done that before.
Maher had just finished breakfast on the morning of June 12, 1975, when he looked up to see a corrections officer peering into his cell. The CO – or “hack”, as the prisoners referred to them – eyeballed Green Haven inmate number 21628 and then said the three words Maher had been longing to hear for six weeks.
“Pack it up.”
“I’m packed,” Maher said as the hack shoved a key into the lock and pulled open the cell door.
Maher swung the duffel bag over his shoulder and followed the guard down a corridor toward the metal gate where a camera kept constant vigil. After a moment, the gate slid to the side and Maher stepped forward a few feet to a second gate. By now he knew the drill: The second gate would not open until the first gate had been secured. Maher waited, staring straight ahead until the clank of the gate closed behind him cause him to glance over his shoulder. The hack was gone, and the corridor was empty. Maher was alone, without escort, he was a free man.
Maher proceeded to the property clerk’s office to collect his wallet, watch, keys and whatever money he had in his commissary account. He also was given the customary seventy-five dollars from the state of New York.
“Good luck,” the clerk said, his voice flat. He had said those words often before.
“Yeah,” Maher said with a laugh, “I guess I’ll need it.”
As Maher continued his short walk to freedom he passed the visitors’ room when he noticed Detective Josh Wainright standing beyond the last gate. Next to Wainright was Detective Greg Demetriou, another of Doherty’s charges. What are they doing here? Maher wondered.
“Hey, Kevin,” Molese said again. “Come over here. I want you to meet Beth.”
Maher looked across the room and saw a petite brunette standing near Molese. She was cute. Sexy, even. Molese had mentioned her before. Elizabeth Eschert and her son were staying with Alice for the time being while her husband, Robert, was awaiting trial on a couple of contract killings. So that’s the kind of woman who marries a hit man, Maher mused.
“You need a ride?” Molese yelled. “Beth here will take you back to the city.”
Beth smiled sweetly and made eye contact with Maher. After a moment, Maher broke the gaze and looked at Wainright. The look in Wainright’s eyes seemed more to the point: Get your ass over here or there won’t be enough of you left to fit in a lunchbox.
“I got these guys waiting for me.” Maher shouted back, then nodded toward Wainright and Demetriou.
Maher cleared the last gate and walked up to Wainright.
“I didn’t know I rated a police escort,” Maher said. “I was planning on taking the bus.”
Wainright looked down at Maher, Doherty thought someone should meet you when you got out.”
At four o’clock in the afternoon, Maher entered the lobby of 1 Hogan Place in lower Manhattan and took the elevator to the ninth floor to the district attorney’s office. Even from way across the bullpen of desks that made up the squad room, Maher could see Doherty’s face. Doherty was smiling. Maher couldn’t help himself; he ran to Doherty’s desk and hugged Doherty like a father.
“I really appreciate everything you did,” Maher said softly.
Doherty laughed, “Hey, Kevin, I didn’t do anything.”
Maher looked at Doherty and searched his eyes. This truly was a good man. “Sergeant Doherty. I got something for you.”
Doherty studied Maher for a long moment. “Another rug?”
They both laughed.
“Morris Weiss,” Maher said.
Doherty and Wainright exchanged glances. Another of Doherty’s investigators, Detective Tom Harkins, walked over to Doherty’s desk.
“What about Morris Weis?” Wainright asked.
“He wants me to kill a guy. A guy in Queens.”
Doherty digested what he had just heard.
“And that’s not all,” Maher continued. “Morris told me ‘Fat Boy’ Parlati needs a wheel man.”
Doherty visibly reacted. Tony “Fat Boy” Palati was a Mafia soldier. The cops knew who he had killed them, and what his motive was, but they could never pin Parlati for even as much as spit on the sidewalk. (Parlati is not his real name. His identity has been changed at the request of the detectives involved in the case.)
“Morris gave me a phone number,” Maher said.
Doherty picked up a phone receiver and dialed an extension. “Peter, I think you better come here.”
A few seconds late, Assistant District Attorney Peter Benetiz entered. Benetiz, in his late twenties, was working on a case that could make his career: “Fat Boy” Parlati.
“Kevin here is about to make a phone call to ‘Fat Boy’ Parlati,” Doherty said.
Doherty slid the phone toward Maher. Everyone in the room stared at the phone for a long time. Finally Maher picked up the receiver and dialed the number Weiss had given him. After a moment…
“Hello? Mr Parlati? Yeah. This is Kevin Maher. Morris Weiss told me to give you a call.”
To everyone’s surprise, Parlati told Maher he wanted to meet him that night.
Doherty had succeeded. He had a new informant. So why didn’t he feel like he had won the game?
“How’d I do?” Maher asked as he hung up the receiver.
“You did great, kid,” Doherty assured him.
Doherty looked at Benetiz. “Can you get me Nagra?”
Maher was suddenly uncomfortable. He had spent enough time around crooks and cops to pick up the vocabulary, and he knew what Nagra was. “You mean a tape recorder?”
Doherty nodded.
Maher tapped his foot nervously.
“Parlati won’t be able to tell I’m wearing a recorder, will he?”
“No,” Wainright said.
“The Nagra goes in your pants and the mike is tapped right here,” Doherty said, touching Maher’s sternum.
Maher looked at Doherty with pleading eyes. “What happens if Parlati catches me with a fucking tape recorder?”
“he won’t,” Doherty said with emphasis. At least he prayed to God that Parlati didn’t discover Maher was wired. For Doherty knew that if Parlati did find a Nagra on Maher, Maher would be dead before the microphone was ripped from his chest.
