Made Men by Greg B. Smith Read Free Book Online

experience with the finer details of foreign currency exchange rates. They did the best they could. He arranged to have the bulk of the overseas cash hidden away until he could figure a way to exchange it for real American bills. He made sure to tell all three of his guys to get out of town as quickly as possible, and then he went on his way. He was happy that the job itself had come off, but talking with Sal Calciano, he was not so happy about the foreign aspect of the haul.
    “Maybe we can figure it out on a computer,” he said. “I got to know what a pound is worth. I got to know what the Armenian dollar is worth. Excuse me. What a lire is worth. I mean, I look at the paper, but I can’t understand it. You know? It’s zero-zero-point-five. I’m not good at it. I have bad dreams about this.”
That morning, the New York Daily News story headline
    on page 3: 1.6M LOST IN WTC HEIST .
That was bad. What was below the headline was worse.
There were two photographs, taken off surveillance cameras on the eleventh floor of the World Trade Center. In
one photo taken from Camera no. 4, the time was listed as
8:40:11 A . M . 1/13/98. There, for all the world to see, was
Melvin Folk. His face was as clear as if he was appearing
on America’s Funniest Home Videos. He might as well
have waved at the camera. Then right behind him came
Michael Reed, his jacket open, carrying two bags, oblivious. Richie Gillette walked behind the three, his face obscured by a hooded jacket. The photographs were precise
and clear. They offered time to the nanosecond and wellfocused detail of Mel and Mike’s collective mugs. “What’s the big deal about buying a hat?” Ralphie
asked Sal. “No good news. Can’t get no good news out of
this. Sitting on a million dollars. I never lied in my whole
life.”
Sal: “You know what I want? We need to get somebody
sharp.”
Ralph: “I mean, I’m so pissed. I should be. You know
what? I don’t mind. You want to get caught, you get
caught. These things happen, right? Can’t go to fucking
Mommy.”
But the details. The stories alongside those horrible
photos provided galling details.
“They knew the layout of the World Trade Center well,” one law enforcement source was quoted as saying. “They
seemed to know the delivery schedule.”
And worst of all—the newspapers reported that the
thieves left behind $1.6 million of mostly U.S. currency. “How can you only take two bags?” Ralphie asked
rhetorically. “Two bags whatever the fuck you take. He
was on the elevator. He saw it. I mean, I can’t believe they
did this. I think they just panicked.”
One question begat another, then another.
Ralph: “I mean I didn’t see them. You know, they went
by train. And then I saw them later on. So who knows what
they fucking did. You know they’re fucking junkies. All
right? I mean I hate to say the fucking word junkie, but I
mean, they’re fucking thieves.”
As the day wore on, more and more details of the Trade
Center robbery became a matter of public entertainment.
By the next morning, on the front page of the Daily News,
it deteriorated into high comedy.
    MOE, LARRY AND CURLY Three stooges swiped $1M from WTC then went home to show off in B’klyn nabe
    What did that make Ralphie? Shemp?
Now the photo of Richie, Mel, and Mike was on the front page, too, over the caption: “Oooh look, a camera!” And as a final insult, one of the suspects had already been picked up by the FBI.
Though no names were yet mentioned, it was clear everybody knew who was involved. That’s because at least two of the three—Mel and Mike—had clearly ignored Ralphie’s advice to get the hell out of Dodge and instead returned to their old haunts in Windsor Terrace. This indicated they either had no clue their faces were all over the
newspapers and on the TV news, or they simply didn’t care. Otherwise, why would Michael Reed have headed straight back to his usual barber at the Unisex Salon on Prospect Park West to drop