When Dry Tom Sweeney found Branigan’s headless corpse in his backyard, there was no question in his mind about who was responsible. It had to be the Cosa Nostra. The brazen hit made him feel vulnerable and he would need to answer, but he wasn’t sure how to do it yet. Dry Tom resisted the urge to act on impulse. Anger had the tendency to cloud judgement, he needed to think things out first.
He called Mac Laverty, his most reliable connection in the Cleveland PD. Laverty was a crooked cop, he took regular bribes from Sweeney to fix problems and make police files disappear. Laverty showed up with Pete Hagarty, another Cleveland patrolman on the take. Before calling the homicide detectives, they went over things thoroughly with Tom to help him keep his story straight when the straight arrows arrived. He decided to play dumb with the detectives, no idea whatsoever about who might be responsible because if he told them he suspected the Cosa Nostra, they would certainly want to know why.
The lead homicide detective was named Mick Bailey. “How do you know the corpse belongs to Joey Branigan?”
“Because he was staying in my storage garage.”
“Why was Mr. Branigan living in your garage?”
“Because he didn’t have anywhere else to stay.”
“How come?”
Dry Tom shrugged his shoulders. “Down on his luck and unemployed.”
“Who’s his next of kin?”
“I’m not sure. Both his parents are dead. Might not be any family left in Cleveland.”
Bailey called the coroner, and they came and hauled Branigan’s corpse away. Joey the Bum was normally on the other end of homicide investigations because the detectives had suspected him of killing more than one man in the past, but there’d never been enough evidence for an indictment. Because of the decapitation, Bailey suspected the Cosa Nostra too, but the reason why they’d clipped him was unknown and though the case remained open, it was never actively investigated. The homicide detectives had nothing to go on, and Sweeney wasn’t volunteering any clues.
Dry Tom was the de facto leader of the Irish mob in Cleveland. They weren’t as well-organized as the Sicilians, there was no national organization, just a loose confederation of criminals with one thing in common—their Irish heritage. They were best known for armed robbery and contract killing. Sweeney was also involved in fencing stolen goods and trafficking in bootleg liquor and cigarettes. The numbers running and loansharking were Sicilian avocations.
The detectives downtown had long suspected him of being the local kingpin, but they’d never been able to stick anything on him. He’d never been arrested, and he had a legal used auto parts business to justify his income and lifestyle. Dry Tom had a knack at insulating himself from the criminal enterprises while at the same time profiting from them handsomely. He was rumored to be worth a lot of money.
He lived with Bridget Murphy, a saucy female mobster with experience in bank robberies and jewelry store heists. They weren’t married, she was more of a sidekick. She was a slender woman with hair as black as night and striking green eyes. Most of her family still lived in Ireland and she had two brothers in the militant IRA.
At first, there’d been talk at McLoone’s about a large contingent of family members traveling to Las Vegas to bury the three Irishmen who’d been gunned down on the docks outside Javernick’s hotel. But most of the men with legitimate jobs worked at the steel mills, and with America at war now, the plants were gearing up for increased production with a diminished workforce. Taking leave for anything beyond serious injury was out of the question and there’d soon be women working overtime too.
So instead of a mass party in multiple cars, Dry Tom decided to drive out there with Bridget and three others, all full-time mobsters; Angus Duffy, Brian O’Leary, and Donovan Dwyer. Two of them were related to the fallen Irishmen currently residing in the Clark County Morgue—Angus was Oscar Duffy’s older brother and Brian was Big Ted O’Leary’s younger sibling.
They left Cleveland in two cars, Dwyer’s 1936 Series 70 Cadillac convertible and O’Leary’s 1940 Nash Coupe. Dry Tom and Bridget rode with Dwyer and Angus Duffy rode in O’Leary’s Nash. The trunks on both cars had concealed compartments that were loaded with a small arsenal of weapons including Thompson sub machine guns in musical instrument cases, sawed off 12-gauge shotguns and various pistols. They were ready for anything.
Like Adriano Falanga, they decided to take the southern route to avoid winter storms, though occasional snow and ice storms were not that unusual on the high plains of Oklahoma and Texas. They picked up Route 66 halfway across Illinois and were crossing the Mississippi at St. Louis by sundown. After spending the night in a hotel, they set out once again the following morning.
O’Leary led the way in his Nash with Duffy in the passenger seat. He was keeping his speed down to avoid getting pulled over. Donovan Dwyer followed in his well-polished maroon caddy with the whitewall tires and extra-long hood. Bridget rode shotgun and Dry Tom was in the back.
Bridgit was naturally high strung and grew restless on the monotonous highway. She leaned over to observe the instrument panel. “Jesus Christ, Donovan, you’re barely doing fifty miles an hour, is that the fastest this boat will go?”
“Brian’s pulling the lead, I’m not going to pass him.” Dwyer kept his eyes on the road.
“The speed limit’s fifty-five,” said Dry Tom from the backseat. “We don’t want to get pulled over with all the hardware in the trunk. Brian’s doing exactly what we talked about so just relax and enjoy the scenery, Bridg.”
“It’ll take forever to get to Vegas.” She turned on the car radio, but there wasn’t much on the AM dial in the daytime. She’d found a decent big band station in St. Louis, but they were out of range now. “There isn’t anything on the radio beyond this hillbilly crap.” A station playing bluegrass was all she could find. “I’ll go nuts sitting in this damn car all day.”
“Take it easy, Bridgit, we’ll be in Vegas before you know it,” said Tom.
“We should find something constructive to do.”
“Like what?”
“Pull a bank job. These stupid little towns out here look like easy pickings.”
Dry Tom laughed. “Yeah, but the highway is crawling with state troopers, I just saw another one go by a few minutes ago.”
“Find a back route then.”
“Then we’ll never get to Vegas.”
She turned, put her elbow on top of the leather seat, and gave him a sexy smile. “But we could use the extra cash. Money to gamble with when we get out there.”
“You and who else?”
“Me and Angus. We’ll find a small town off the main drag.” She opened a folding road map she’d picked up in St. Louis. She studied it for a few minutes and then said, “I have it, Tom. If we get on state route 32 in Lebanon, we’ll still be heading west and roughly paralleling 66. Headed out into the sticks. Brian said he wanted to get gas in Lebanon. Let’s talk it over when we stop.”
Dry Tom wasn’t crazy about the idea of robbing a bank in unknown country, but after thinking about it, he went along with the idea. It would be Bridget’s operation and serve to mollify her edginess, he hoped. After discussing it with Duffy and O’Leary, they headed out into the boondocks on Missouri 32, a quiet two-lane highway. Dwyer was in the lead now, with O’Leary following close behind. Bridget’s mood improved markedly. She felt like she was in control of things now.
They traversed rolling hills covered with thick stands of deciduous trees, leafless in mid-December. The valleys were shallow with occasional farms here and there, but most of the country was heavily forested. They reached the outskirts of a small town, Ordinola, and Dwyer reduced his speed to the posted 25 mph limit as the highway became a typical heartland Main Street.
Bridget studied the town carefully as they passed through it. There were a few traffic lights towards the center of town, and a modest commercial district with quaint storefronts that looked as old as the hills. It was a quiet little burg out in the sticks.
“I haven’t seen a police station yet,” said Bridget. “Since we left 66.”
“Bound to be one around here somewhere,” said Dry Tom from the backseat.
They passed by a grocery store, a hardware store, and a barber shop. As Dwyer brought the car to a stop at a red light, Bridgit looked to her right and saw it—the only bank in town, maybe in the whole agrarian county.
“There it is, the First National Bank of Ordinola,” she said, reading the name on the sign out front. It was in a vintage, Victorian era building with a blond limestone veneer.
“You want me to stop somewhere so you can case it?” said Dwyer.
“We’ll find somewhere further along to stop for the night,” said Dry Tom. “Then Bridgit can come back with Angus and Brian in the Nash.”
They traveled across the low hills for another twenty miles before finding a suitable place to stop for the night. Angaiak Lake was a public recreation area with a privately owned general store and motel in a dense hardwood forest that bordered the lake. There were a handful of rental cabins on a winding drive. Dry Tom rented two of them, far enough from the highway that their vehicles couldn’t be seen by passing motorists. The manager said she appreciated the business because it was the off-season for camping and the place was largely deserted.
With O’Leary standing watch, Bridget and Angus removed the luggage from the trunk of the Nash, and then opened the concealed compartment built into the floor. They pulled out a pair of pistols. Bridget’s weapon of choice was a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber Model 10 revolver that she concealed inside her plaid wool jacket in an IWB holster. Angus preferred a Colt .45 single action. The tommy guns would be overkill for a small-town job and they left them in the hidden chamber in the trunk.
It was mid-afternoon on an overcast, early winter day by the time O’Leary drove back towards Ordinola in his Nash Coupe. Angus was on the passenger side and Bridgit rode in the back. Dry Tom rarely went anywhere near the scene of a crime and he and Donovan Dwyer stayed at the lake. They’d monitor a short-wave police band radio and await the threesome’s return.
When they reached the small town, O’Leary slowly circled the bank, driving the side streets. He found an alleyway that paralleled the main drag, and a suitable place to pull in and park behind a restaurant. O’Leary stayed with the car, while Bridgit and Angus walked down the alleyway towards the bank, about two blocks from the parked car.
They crossed a side street and then walked behind the bank. “No back door on the building,” said Angus softly, walking close to Bridgit. “Is that unusual?”
“Slightly,” she replied. “Normally there’d be some type of service entrance, but the building looks old, maybe 1800s.”
They kept walking through the alley, another block beyond the bank and then cut down a side street and began strolling towards their mark along the main drag. There was a bench close to the entrance on the sidewalk and a nearby newspaper machine.
“Have a seat,” said Bridgit as they came to the bench. “I’m going to go inside and look things over.”
As she entered the bank, she carefully took note of her surroundings. There were two young women behind a vintage oak teller’s counter. One of them was busy waiting on a customer. The other, a redhead, smiled and made eye contact with Bridgit as she approached. “Good afternoon, Ma’am. May I help you?”
“Could you give me change for a dollar?” She laid a dollar bill on the counter.
“Do you have an account?”
“No, I’m just passing through town with my husband. We’re waiting on a tire repair, and I want to buy a paper.” Bridgit spoke in a practiced midwestern dialect, hiding her strong Irish brogue.
“Well, I can certainly make change for a dollar.” She picked up the bill and opened her cash drawer.
“Thank you.” Bridgit glanced behind the counter as the teller counted out the change. There was a manager’s office with the door open, and she could see a middle-aged man in suit and tie sitting at the desk doing paperwork. She could also see a closed vault door.
As she walked outside, she took note of the banking hours posted by the front door. The place closed at 4:30. She looked at her wristwatch—it was 4:15. Back out on the sidewalk, she went to the newspaper machine, deposited a nickel, opened the door and took out a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She sat down on the bench close to Angus and began looking through the newspaper.
“They close in 15 minutes,” she said softly. “There’s only one way in and out so they’ll need to come through the front when they leave.”
“How many inside?”
“Two tellers and a manager. Didn’t see anyone else beyond him,” she tilted her head towards the lone customer as he walked out the door and went down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.
“No armed guard?”
“Didn’t see one, but it’s likely the manager has some kind of weapon.”
“What’s the plan?”
“When they show up at the door to close the place, we’ll force them back inside.”
“What if someone comes walking by at the same time?”
“Then we scrub it, but there aren’t many people on the street…Look around,” she said keeping her eyes on the newspaper.
Angus glanced both ways. “Not much traffic, either.”
“Let’s play it by ear. I lead, you follow. If it looks wrong, I’ll simply say no, and we’ll keep walking.”
Angus monitored his wristwatch as Bridgit continued looking through the newspaper. “Five minutes. You think they’ll leave on time?”
“More than likely. Small town and business is slow.”
A few minutes later, the manager appeared at the door with a keyring in his hand. He pulled it open and looked back inside, waiting on the tellers. They were closing the place right on time.
Bridgit left the newspaper lying on the bench as she rose and began walking towards the door. Angus followed, glancing over his shoulder for company but the sidewalk was empty, and the traffic light was green. No witnesses in sight beyond a couple of passing motorists but they had their eyes on the road.
Bridgit reached the door, pulled out her pistol and stuck it in the manager’s face. “Back inside,” she said sternly. The put-on accent was gone now. She was back to her heavy Irish brogue. The wide-eyed manager complied and walked back inside the bank.
Angus followed them inside. He shut the entry door and turned the hanging sign from “open” to “closed,” then dropped the blind. He walked to the window and closed the drapes.
“Please don’t hurt us,” said one of the tellers. Both women were terrified, and the manager stood close by trying to maintain his composure.
“No one gets hurt if you do as you’re told,” said Bridgit.
Angus put the barrel of his .45 a few inches away from the manager’s face. “Open the vault.”
“I can’t do that.”
Angus pulled the hammer back with his thumb and moved the barrel closer. “Open it, Mack, or it’s curtains.”
Beads of sweat appeared on the manager’s face as he surveyed the barrel of the powerful handgun, but he refused to give in. “If you kill me, you’ll have murdered an innocent man, and the vault will still be locked…And if I open it, my life will be ruined anyway so I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir.”
Angus’s eyes narrowed and he looked like he was considering a pistol whipping. If he hurt the man bad enough, more than likely he would comply.
Bridgit normally avoided violence. Smooth robberies with unhurt bystanders were more her style. Killing anyone was an absolute last resort. The clock was ticking, and they needed to move as quickly as possible. “Forget him then,” she said, intervening, “do you think you can crack the combination?”
Angus pulled the gun away from the manager’s face, gently let down the hammer and held it by his side. He shifted his attention to the vault door. “It’s an old-style Mosler. I can probably open it, but it might take a while.”
She glanced at her watch. “I’ll give you 15 minutes max, and then we’ll need to get out of here.” Bridgit stepped behind the teller counter, keeping her pistol up and her eyes on the hostages. There were three cash drawers, and the keys had been left in the locks in all of them. She slid one open, examined the contents and went on to the next one. “If you can’t open it, we’ll get the cash on hand anyway…But there’s not much here.”
Angus sauntered over to the vault door while Bridgit kept the three bank employees covered. He stuck his pistol back inside his jacket and rubbed his hands together. “Nothing to it.” He put one ear close to the oversized dial and began slowly turning it. He stopped when he felt a slight, telltale mechanism shift. He’d found one of the numbers, but he still needed to find the other two, as well as the sequence of the combination.
“You’ll never get it open,” said the manager.
“Safecracking is a venerable old talent that runs in the family, mister brave bank manager.” Angus kept his eyes and ear on the dial as he continued to gently rotate it back and forth. “My Irish granddaddy taught me how to crack my first safe when I was ten.”
“Eight minutes,” said Bridgit glancing at her watch. “Then we need to go.”
Over the course of the next few minutes, Angus found the other two numbers and then began going through the possible combination sequences. It took a high level of concentration, and he had to remember the ones he’d already tried.
Bridgit and the three hostages stood quietly as he continued to work. Outside, the traffic light turned green, and a car with a bad muffler broke the silence, startling the terrified tellers. Bridgit met the eyes of the redhead who’d given her the change and felt a wee bit of empathy when she saw the young lady’s intense fear. “Three minutes and we need to get out of here.”
Finally, Angus found the correct sequence and the mechanism unlocked. He spun the wheel counterclockwise and pulled the door open.
“You did it,” said Bridgit.
“Aye, that I did.” He turned and winked at the disappointed manager before walking inside…Then, “Holy Christ, it’s loaded with cash.” The shelves inside held metal trays with stacks of bundled greenbacks piled high.
“Is there something in there to carry it in?” said Bridgit.
“Plenty of canvas money bags.” Angus went to work stuffing the bags full and piling them outside the vault. “We hit the mother-loving jackpot.”
When he was finished, Bridgit herded the three hostages towards the vault with her pistol. “Easy does it, all three of you get inside now.”
“You’re locking us in?” said the redhead. “We’ll suffocate.”
“Not likely, there missy,” said Angus. “Mosler builds their vaults with ventilation. Otherwise, the money would get moldy. There’s an inside light and if you flip the switch in the back, the fan will come on…Nice and cozy but no way to unlock it from the inside.
“Someone will come and get you out in no time,” said Bridgit. “They’ll miss you at supper and know something’s gone wrong.” Then she closed the heavy door and spun the wheel clockwise, relocking it.
“We’re rich,” said Angus gazing at the stuffed money bags, grinning.
“The problem is moving it to the car.”
“That’s a good point, Bridg. Might raise some suspicion if we carry it out the front. There’s no back door, what do we do now?”
“The building has a flat roof, there must be some kind of access.” She looked around the room and saw a closed closet door. When she opened it, she found what she was looking for, a ladder to the roof. She climbed up it and found an access portal. After unlocking the hatch, she swung it open. Sticking her head through the opening, she saw that the parapet walls around the perimeter were tall enough to hide behind if she stayed low. She climbed back down the ladder. “I’ll go get Brian. He’ll park in the alley, and we’ll drop the bags off the back of the building.”
It was mid-December, close to the winter solstice and the sun had already sunk beneath the horizon. By the time Bridgit slipped out the front door and walked back to the Nash, it was becoming dark. When she reached the car, she opened the passenger side door and climbed in.
O’Leary looked relieved. “You were gone for a while. Where’s Angus?”
“Sitting on a pile of dough. I didn’t have the time to come back and fill you in. We forced the manager inside when they were closing and then Angus managed to open the vault door.”
“What happened to the manager?”
“We locked him inside the vault. With the two tellers.”
“Big score?”
“Aye, it was loaded with cash. It’s in money bags now ready to go but we have a problem—there’s no back door on the building and the front entrance is next to the traffic light. It’s tough enough slipping in and out, we’ll never be able to get all the money out the door without being seen.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“I found a way to climb up on the roof. It’s a flat one. I can drop the money bags off the back.”
“And carry them over here?”
“No, you’re going to park in the alley and catch them when I throw them down.”
“Sounds risky.”
“Risky, Brian? You think what Angus and I just pulled off was a walk in the park?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then start up the car and roll over there. Nice and slow. I just checked it out, there’s a good place to park.”
There was little traffic in the town after dark. Most of the businesses closed early and the sidewalks were empty. O’Leary drove slowly down the alley. He crossed the side street and then pulled in behind the building. He switched off his running lights. Bridgit climbed out and gently shut the door. She walked around the building and waited until the light turned green and a handful of cars had passed. Then she slipped through the front door and found Angus anxiously pacing the floor.
“We need to get moving, Bridg. Before someone misses one of the workers and realizes something’s up.”
“Brian’s parked out back. I’ll climb up on the roof and you can relay the bags to me when I get up there.”
Angus hoisted each bag partway up the ladder and then handed it to Bridgit. Keeping her head down so she couldn’t be seen easily from the ground, she carried the bags to the rear of the building, and then one by one, dropped them off to O’Leary, who piled them up in the trunk; it was mostly empty because they’d left their luggage at the cabin.
They were ready to vacate and Bridgit pulled the blind on the door aside and checked the street. The light was green and once a farm truck had passed, she cracked the door open just enough to slip outside. Angus followed.
They began walking towards the intersection, and Bridgit saw a young man in soiled work clothes crossing the street, moving in their direction. He gave Angus an odd look as he passed, turning his head to look him over as he walked by.
“Do you think he saw us come out the door?” said Angus softly.
“Let’s hope not.”
Angus glanced at the departing pedestrian. “He’s still looking at me funny. Should I kill him?”
“No way. I think we’re okay. Just keep walking.”
They reached the alleyway and O’Leary’s Nash Coupe. Bridgit climbed in the front and Angus took the back.
“Easy does it,” said Bridgit as O’Leary turned the ignition key and started up the car. “Drive out of town nice and slow. Don’t forget to use your turn signals and let’s get the hell out of here.”
O’Leary drove carefully on the way back to the lake, keeping his speed down and watching the rearview mirrors. They’d pulled off a perfect robbery. No shots fired, no one was hurt, and they’d cleaned out the vault.
***
The next morning, Bridgit and Angus counted the money. Donovan Dwyer stood watch at the door and Dry Tom sat in a rocking chair looking on. It was mostly in smaller denominations, but there was literally a trunk full, and they soon realized they’d stolen a small fortune.
“So how are we going to split it up?” said Angus.
“Five ways,” said Dry Tom. “Even split.”
“What the hell, Tom? Bridgit and I did all the work.”
“Yeah, but we’re all in it together, and in the eyes of the law we’d all have equal guilt if we were to get pulled over and searched.”
“Well, that doesn’t hardly seem fair.”
Dry Tom narrowed his eyes. “I’m calling the shots here, Angus. You knew that when you decided to come along.”
Bridgit concurred. “Tom’s the leader. What he says goes. We’re not putting it up to a vote. Not the way we run things.”
“Not the way we run things at all, Angus, and don’t think I was back here playing around. Donovan was monitoring the short-wave radio, to see if the cops caught wind, and me, I was busy planning our next move…You’re a lot like your late brother Oscar, packin’ that long barreled Colt so proud, but you’re not as big as you think, Angus Duffy. I’m the leader, like Bridgit said, and if that’s unacceptable to you, why you’re free to go your own way.”
Angus didn’t know what to say to that. Dry Tom had certainly put him in his place, and he thought it best to keep his mouth shut. He was outnumbered and he knew it. Dry Tom Sweeney was the undisputed leader of Cleveland’s Irish mob and wary of dissent.
They split up the money and then packed it in the trunks of both cars beneath their suitcases. Some of the luggage ended up in the backseat of the Nash to make room for it all.
They were on the road by Noon and stuck to the back roads at first. Dwyer was in the lead, and Bridgit used her folding road map to find a route westward. Dry Tom wanted to avoid Route 66 until they were out of Missouri. After crossing the Kansas line, they turned towards the south, and picked up the main highway in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Two days later, they crossed Hoover Dam on Highway 93 and drove into Las Vegas. None of the mobsters had been to the city before, and they were surprised by the pace of growth along the main boulevard.
Bridgit wanted to stay in one of the new casino hotels, but Dry Tom quickly convinced her it was a bad idea. Considering the stolen cash in the cars, it would be better to find a low-key spot on the edge of town. Somewhere they could watch the cars closely at night and they found one in the desert on the road to Pahrump. A motel with roomy furnished cottages out back and Dry Tom rented all four of them.
The next day, Brian and Angus located a mortuary in town. They made plans to bury the three Irish mobsters who’d been gunned down outside of Javernick’s casino, Oscar Duffy, Big Ted O’Leary and Jack Campbell. The corpses would be picked up at the morgue, interned in deluxe caskets and transported to the cemetery in hearses. A small funeral ceremony would take place the next day, and they also hired an in-house photographer so they could send photos to the families back east. They had plenty of money to spend.
After Brian and Angus departed, the funeral director called the county coroner’s office at the morgue to inform him of their plans. As quickly as the coroner hung up the phone, he picked it up again and made a long-distance call to the FBI in Los Angeles. As requested, he informed Curtis Dudley that the Irish had arrived to bury their dead.
To be continued…