BADGE AND CARS FOR SALE

Cliffhanger Notes of Tin for Sale, by informant and convicted detective, John Manco, NYPD ["Nicky Eyes" in the movie Goodfellas], with Vincent Cosgrove

     "My first beat was through wiseguy city. You couldn't walk half a block and not pass a place that wasn't somehow connected. I was a very happy cop walking that beat my first day. Then the sergeant drove up and warned me off the card game. A card game wasn't no big deal. But getting paid off to ignore it was something else. Three hours into the job and already I was dealing with corruption. [The sergeant said:] 'Kid, I know this is your first day, but you're gonna have to learn sooner or later that life in the street ain't like life at the Academy. There are certain facts of life up here—and you can do a few things with them. You can accept them, which in my opinion is the smartest move you can make. You can turn your back on them and let bygones be bygones. That's okay, but not smart for you in the long run. Or you can do something else, which would be very dumb—and dangerous. Nobody likes a cop who rocks the boat.

     "[Officer] Kenny told me to always have a stamped, self-addressed envelope when I was on the job. That way if I made some money on the side, I could stick it in the envelope and drop it in the nearest mailbox. If any bastards from Internal Affairs were to stop me, I wouldn't have any money on me to incriminate myself. Mongoose told me, 'Live and learn kid. Just remember: never expect a cop to do the right thing where money is concerned unless he absolutely has to.'

     "For [Officer] Mongoose, making bucks on the Blue Laws was penny ante. He loved coming up with scams. When you work a squad car, scamming is a challenge. The job was making a lot of runs on pure garbage—husbands beating up wives, two-bit robberies, minor-league vandalism. No real chance to make any money. The times something had potential, a detective would show up and we'd be out the door. Mongoose used to make money on red lights. He'd wait until a nice new car went by. It didn't matter if they went through the red light or not. He new the chances were good they'd come across with a fiver if we let them drive away without a ticket. He used to let old cars run red lights all the time. 'No money in that piece of shit,' he'd say. One night a car ran a red light and smashed into another car right in front of us. Mongoose jammed the car in reverse and backed down the street. He said, 'You know how we'll be in court if they find out we saw the fuckin' accident?'

     "He gave me the arrest papers and he pointed to some junkie sitting in the lockup cage. That was the guy I'd supposedly arrested. Of course, nobody gave a damn, and at least I was on record as having made one arrest as a patrolman. All this proved to me how screwed up the system was, and I fugured since I wasn't going to change it I might as well get as much out of it as I could. Detective school was a joke. I thought it would be all about ways to catch crooks—fingerprints, interrogation, surveillance. What it mostly was was about how to fill out reports. No one in the department seemed to expect you to solve a crime.

     "I started hitting him in the head with the side of my gun. My mind just went blank. I kept hitting him until he was bleeding. Then I dragged him through the door and threw him down the stairs. I was mad beause he made me run up those goddamned stairs. The funny thing is, it turned out he wasn't the guy I'd chased.

     "He wanted us to arrest his sister and let him and his friend go. The guy was smart. He knew how the system worked. The guy said they had $8,000 in the apartment. [Detective} Lizard told him to go get it. Then we went back to the station house with the girl and the drugs. For me, that marked the day I became a Meat-Eater. I was learning the facts of life in the NYPD.

     "About a month after the party for [Mafiosi] Joe Aiello, [I] was sitting in the squad room in the approved detective position: feet on desk and ear to phone as he talked to one of his latest girlfriends. The job was paying off beautifully. [I] considered myself an average detective, breaking a few cases, but filing most away as unsolved. [My] true talent lay in scamming, and [I] had a daily routine he fit around [my] work schedule, visiting the bookies and a few pimps, smoozing at various gin mills, always nursing a beer as [I] looked for ways to make a buck. The more money I made on the side, the more I spent at the track and restaurants and nightclubs and the less time I spent at home. Making money with my gold shield became completely second nature, like it was my right. I didn't feel a lick of guilt. Making dirty money on the job was as natural as checking a suspect's priors.

     [Mafioso] Joe [Aiello] introduces us and I recognize the local assemblyman. It seems the assemblyman's brother got into a jam. He was drunk and a cop was writing a ticket on his car. One word led to another and the guy swoung at the cop and connected. The cop wasn't hurt, but he arrested the guy—after belting him around. I went down to night court for arraignment of the assemblyman's brother. I introduced myself to the cop. I explained there were people who would make it worth the officer's while if he submitted a weak affidavit. Without batting an eye he says, 'A grand.' I told him to consider it a done deal. He got his thousand and I got the same.

     "[I] became an expert at writing weak affidavits. [Me] and a local attorney worked a scam in which [I] would make an arrest, then point the defendants in the direction of the lawyer and I'd go over and tell them what a good attorney he was. They'd usually hire him, and I'd catch a piece of the fee. For more money I'd screw up the affidavit in such a way that the judge wouldn't have any choice but to throw the case out.

     "[I] shoved the barrel of the gun deeper into the thief's mouth. [I said,] 'Show us where the money is', working the gun deeper into the thief's mouth. There was real fear in his eyes. The thief had broken into the Automat next to the bank, cracked through a wall, and taken about $17,000 in cash left overnight in the deposit box. [At the crime scene, I] took a look at the No Parking signs. [I] ran the plates on nine cars written tickets nearby, and matched one name to a convicted felon. [I] told him it wasn't his money and it wasn't worth dying over. The money was still in the canvas bag from the bank. Freddy started to cry. I told him not to worry, we weren't going to arrest him. On the way down the stairs I split up the money and gave [Detective] Wolf and [Detective] Igor their cut.

     "I see the beam of a flashlight inside a jewelry store. There was a guy in there emptying out the jewelry cases and putting jewelry into a bag. For one fast moment I actually thought of doing my job and putting the collar on him. Then I realized there was a treasure trove of jewels there and the guy had done all the hard work. It was an easy score. I shouted, 'Police! Don't move motherfucker! Don't turn around. I want you to walk out of here without looking back. You understand me? Just keep going.' He did just as I told him. Then I went to work and emptied the last two display cases. The next morning I went to work with the stuff in my trunk. About noon a middle-aged guy comes up, I slip a crime report in my typewriter and start typing his complaint. I almost had a coronary when he said it was his jewelry store that was robbed. I assured him I would give his case the highest priority. First chance I got I sped down to the fence [who] immediately locked the door and turned the sign in the window to 'Closed". He announced the swag was worth $60,000 [and he] would pay 30 cents on the dollar.

     "Whenever I wanted to beef up my arrest record I'd hang out at pawn shops. Nine times out of ten the item in question was hot and I had an easy arrest. It didn't matter that few of the arrests led to convictions—if you wanted to get promoted you had to make arrests. That was all that counted.

     "I had a few phoney shields made up at a place near police headquarters. Lots of guys had fake tins. They came in handy if you were working a con. Or you were working a case legitimately—no sense letting him know who you were so he could charge you with police brutality.

     "Things were so slow that I let it be known in certain wiseguy circles that I could arrange for arrest and conviction sheets to disappear. The asking price was $500 a folder, and about a dozen wiseguys paid up, including several with murder convictions.

     "Someone had hired Dave [Cadillac] to bug a house, and [we] planted the bug behind a dresser when a car came down the driveway. I had my snub nose. If they come in, he said, make it look like a robbery.

We were on the turnpike when a New Jersey state trooper pulled the Caddy over for speeding. 'There's something I've got to tell you,' [Dave Cadillac] said before the trooper came over. 'I stole this baby yesterday.' I smelled a deal. 'I want half what you get for the car,' I said. I flashed my tin to the trooper. He never asked for the registration and he never wrote a ticket. Dave was stealing about two cars a month. He sold to legitimate people who thought they were getting a good deal. He was always on my case to get him the right forms from the Motor Vehicles Department, the forms dealers use to get plates and registrations. If Dave had those, he could go to motor vehicle in the morning and get registration and plates for the car he wanted to steal. Then he'd drive around until he found the right car. I'd drive him around until he spotted one. Then he'd hop out and walk to the car like it was his. It didn't matter if there were people milling around. He had some kind of master keys, so it was just a matter of standing there until the right key clicked. Dave used to give me $250 for every car I helped him to steal.