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new office in a trailer on Flatlands Avenue at the Bargain Auto Junkyard, and the Queens County
courts, where we got our postponements.
"The customers were often legitimate retailers looking for swag. There was also a whole army of
fences, who bought our loads and then sold pieces of the loads to guys who had stores or sold the
swag off the backs of their trucks or at factory gates or to a whole list of customers who usually
retailed the swag themselves to their relatives or to the people they worked with. We were a major
industry.
"Lots of our jobs were called 'give-ups'--as opposed to stickups--which meant the driver was in
on it with us. For instance, you own the driver who leaves the airport with a $200,000 load of silk.
An average score, but nice. Somewhere along the road he stops for coffee and accidentally leaves
the keys in the ignition. When he finishes his coffee he discovers that the truck is gone, and he
immediately reports the robbery to the police. The 'give-up' guys were the ones we always had to
get Johnny Dio to protect when their bosses tried to fire them.
"The guys with the guns who did the actual hijackings usually got a fixed rate. They'd get a
couple of grand just for sticking a gun in the driver's face, whether it was a good score or lousy,
whether the truck was full or empty. They were like hired guys. They didn't share in the loot. In
fact, even Jimmy, who hired most of the guys who did the stickups, didn't share in the ultimate sale
of the loot. We would usually sell pieces of the load to different buyers, wholesalers and distributors
and discount-store owners, who knew the market and had the outlets where they could get near a
retail price.
"On an average hijacking we'd know the truck number, what it was carrying, who was driving it,
where it was going, and how to circumvent the security devices, like triple lock alarms and sirens.
We usually tailed the driver until he stopped for a light. We'd make sure that he wasn't being
followed by backup security. We used two cars, one in front and one behind. At the light one of the
guys--usually Tommy, Joey Allegro, or Stanley Diamond--would stick a gun in the driver's face and
put him in the car while other guys drove the truck to the drop. Tommy always carried his gun in a
brown paper bag. Walking down the street, he looked like he was bringing you a sandwich instead
of a thirty-eight.
"The first thing Jimmy would do with the driver was to take his driver's license or pretend to
copy his name and address. He'd make a big thing about how we knew where he lived and how
we'd get him if he was too helpful in identifying us to the cops. Then, after scaring the shit out of
the guy, he'd smile, tell him to relax, and then slip the fifty-dollar bill into the guy's wallet. There
was never one driver who made it to court to testify against him. There are quite a few dead ones
who tried.
"An average hijacking, including unloading the truck, usually took a few hours. Jimmy always
had the unloading drop lined up hi advance. It was usually in a legitimate warehouse or trucking
company. The guy in charge of the warehouse could pretend afterward he didn't know what was
going on. Jimmy would just come hi with some stuff to unload. He paid the warehouse operators
fifteen hundred dollars a drop, and sometimes We had to store the stuff there overnight. Some
warehouse owners were getting five grand a week from us. That's a lot of money. We had our
unloaders, who got about a hundred a day. They were local guys we knew and trusted and they
worked like dogs. When the truck was empty we'd abandon it and tell the guy babysitting the driver
to let him go. The drivers were usually dropped off somewhere along the Connecticut Turnpike.
"I got into hijacking because I had the customers looking for the merchandise. I was a good
salesman. Early on, Jimmy told me that I should start using some of the same people who were
buying my cigarettes to buy some of the swag. But I was already looking out for big buyers. I had a
drugstore wholesaler who had discount stores all over Long Island. He'd take almost everything I
had. Razor blades. Perfume. Cosmetics. I had a guy in the Schick razor blade factory in Connecticut
who smuggled cartons of blades out for me to resell at twenty percent below the wholesale price.
When that was going well, I'd make between seven hundred and a grand a week just on blades. I
had a furrier who would buy truckloads of pelts top dollar. Mink. Beaver. Fox. I had Vinnie
Romano, who was a union boss down at the Fulton Fish Market, who would buy all the frozen
shrimp and lobster I could supply, and we could always supply the bars and restaurants with
hijacked liquor at better than half the price.