The Anderson Tapes (16 page)

D’AGOSTINO: Couldn’t be better, Papa. Angelica asked about you. I told her you’d outlive us all.

ANGELO: And the children?

D’AGOSTINO: Fine, Papa, fine. Everyone is fine. Tony fell off his bike yesterday and broke his tooth—but it’s nothing.

ANGELO: My God. You need a good dentist? I’ll fly him out.

D’AGOSTINO: No, no, Papa. It’s a baby tooth. We got a good dentist.

He said it’s nothing. Don’t worry yourself.

ANGELO: Good. You have any trouble, you let me know.

D’AGOSTINO: I will, Papa, I will. Thank you for your interest. Believe me, Angelica and I, we appreciate it.

ANGELO: Toast, you remember when you were here, we discussed your problem?

D’AGOSTINO: Yes, Papa, I remember.

ANGELO: This problem, Toast—I think we can help you with it. I think we can solve it.

D’AGOSTINO: Believe me, I would appreciate that, Papa.

ANGELO: It would be a permanent solution. You understand, Toast?

D’AGOSTINO: I understand, Papa.

ANGELO: That is what you want?

D’AGOSTINO: That is what I want.

ANGELO: Good. It will work out well. You will send him to me as soon as possible. Within a week. Is that possible, Toast?

D’AGOSTINO: Of course.

ANGELO: Tell him only that it is a big job. You understand?

D’AGOSTINO: I understand, Papa. You will have him by Friday.

ANGELO: Good. Please give my love to Angelica. And to Auntie and Nick. And tell Tony I will send him a new bicycle. This one won’t throw him off and break his tooth.

D’AGOSTINO [laughing]: Papa, you’re too much! I love you. We all love you.

ANGELO: You keep well.

D’AGOSTINO: You too, Papa. You keep well—forever.

Transcription of tape recording POM-20JUL68EVERLEIGH. This recording began at 1:14 P.M., 20 July, 1968, and ended at 2:06 P.M., 21 July. It was recorded at Apartment 3B, 535 East Seventy-third Street. This tape has been heavily edited to eliminate extraneous conversations, names of innocent persons, and repetition of information already obtained from other sources. During the more than twenty-four-hour period mentioned above, it is not believed that Mrs.

Agnes Everleigh and John Anderson left Apartment 3B.

SEGMENT I. 20JUL-1:48PM.

ANDERSON: … can’t. I had last weekend off.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: You can call in sick, can’t you? It’s not the whole weekend. It’s just tonight. You can be back at work tomorrow night. You get sick leave, don’t you?

ANDERSON: Yes. Ten days a year.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Have you taken any?

ANDERSON: No. Not since I been working there.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: So take tonight off. I’ll give you fifty dollars.

ANDERSON: All right.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: You’ll take the fifty?

ANDERSON: Yes.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: This is the first time you’ve ever taken money from me.

ANDERSON: How does it make you feel?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: You know … don’t you?

ANDERSON: Yes. Go get the fifty. I’ll make a call and tell them I’m sick.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: You’ll stay with me? All night?

ANDERSON: Sure.

SEGMENT II. 20JUL-2:13PM.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: I love you when you’re like this—relaxed and nice and good to me.

ANDERSON: Am I good to you?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: So far. So far you’ve been a perfect gentleman.

ANDERSON: Like this?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Must you? Must you do that?

ANDERSON: Sure. If I want to earn my fifty bucks.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: You’re such a bastard.

ANDERSON: Honest. I’m honest.

SEGMENT III. 20JUL-5:26PM.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: … at least forty percent. How do you like that?

ANDERSON: Can they do it?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: You idiot, of course they can do it. This apartment is a cooperative. I’m not on the board. After my husband moved out, our lawyers got together and I agreed to pay the maintenance and he agreed to keep paying the mortgage. The apartment is in his name. Now they’re going to increase the maintenance by at least forty percent.

ANDERSON: What are you going to do?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: I haven’t decided yet. I’d move out tomorrow if I could find something better. But go look for an apartment on the East Side of Manhattan. These new places charge one hundred and eighty-five dollars for one room. I’ll probably give them what they want and stay right here. Roll over.

ANDERSON: I’ve had enough.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: No you haven’t.

SEGMENT IV. 20JUL-6:32PM.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: It depends on what you want. Feraccis has barbecued chicken or short ribs—stuff like that. It’s a kind of a delicatessen. If we’re going to cook, we can order up from Ernesto Brothers. We can get frozen TV dinners or Rock Cornish hens or we can get a steak and pan fry it or broil it—whatever you want.

ANDERSON: Let’s have a chicken—a big chicken. Three pounds if they’ve got a fryer-broiler that size. We’ll fry it. And maybe some French fried potatoes and greens.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: What kind of greens?

ANDERSON: Collards? They got collards?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: What are collards?

ANDERSON: Forget it. Just get us a big chicken we can fry and a lot of cold beer. How does that sound?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: That sounds scrumptious.

ANDERSON: Order it up. I’ll pay for it. Here’s fifty.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: You sonofabitch.

SEGMENT V. 20JUL-9:14PM.

ANDERSON: What are you going to do in Rome?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: The usual … see the new fall collections … visit some fag boutiques … buy some stuff … it’s a drag.

ANDERSON: Like I said, I wish I could travel. All you need is money.

Like this apartment house. You’re going to Rome. Your neighbors are going down to the Jersey shore. I bet everyone in the house will be going somewhere on the Labor Day weekend—Rome, Jersey, Florida, France … somewhere… .

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Oh, sure. The Sheldons—they’re up in Four A—

they’re already out in their place on Montauk. The people below me, a lawyer and his wife, will be out in East Hampton. Up on top in Five B, Longene and that bitch who’s living with him—they’re not married, you know—are sure to be invited some place for the Labor Day weekend. So the house will probably be about half full.

That fag in Two A will probably be gone, too. What are you going to do?

ANDERSON: Work, probably. I get triple-time when I work nights on a holiday. I can make a lot of loot if I work over the Labor Day weekend.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Will you think of me?

ANDERSON: Sure. There’s one drumstick left. You want it?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: No, darling. You finish it.

ANDERSON: All right. I like drumsticks and wings and the Pope’s nose. More than I do the breast. Dark meat got more flavor.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Don’t you like white meat at all?

ANDERSON: Maybe. Later.

SEGMENT VI. 21 JUL-6:14AM.

ANDERSON [groaning]: Mammy … Mammy… .

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Duke? Duke? What is it, Duke?

ANDERSON: Mammy?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Hush … hush. You’re having a nightmare. I’m here, Duke.

ANDERSON: Mammy … Mammy… .

SEGMENT VII. 21 JUL-8:56AM.

ANDERSON: Shit. You got a cigarette?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: There.

ANDERSON: Filters? Christ. These places around here—they’re open on Sundays?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Ernesto’s is. What do you want?

ANDERSON: Cigarettes—to begin with. You mean this place is open on Sundays?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Sure.

ANDERSON: Holidays too?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: They’re open every day in the year, twenty-four hours a day. That’s their brag. They have a sign in the window that says so. If you’re pregnant, you can get a dill pickle at three in the morning from Ernesto’s. That’s how they stay in business.

They can’t compete with the big supermarkets on First Avenue, like Lambreta Brothers. So they stay open every minute of the day and night.

ANDERSON: My God, don’t they get held up?

MRS. EVERLEIGH: They sure do … about two or three times a month. But they keep open. It must pay off. Besides, doesn’t insurance pay when you get robbed?

ANDERSON: I guess so. I don’t know much about those things.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Well, I’ll call and have them deliver some cigarettes. It’s about nine now. When do you have to go?

ANDERSON: Around two o’clock. Something like that.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Well, suppose I order up some food for a little breakfast and some food for a dinner about noon. Like a steak and baked potatoes. How does that sound?

ANDERSON: That sounds all right.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: You’re the most bubbling, enthusiastic man I’ve ever met.

ANDERSON: I don’t understand that.

MRS. EVERLEIGH: Forget it.

The following is labeled SEGMENT 101-B of document NYDA-EHM-101A-108B, a dictated, sworn, signed, and witnessed statement by Ernest Heinrich Mann.

MANN: So … we are now up to twenty-sixth July. I remember it was on a Friday. On this date the man I know as John Anderson came to my shop and… .

QUESTION: What time was this?

MANN: It was perhaps one o’clock. Definitely after lunch. He came to my shop and asked to speak with me. So we went into the back room. There is a door there I can close and lock; we would not be disturbed. At this time, Anderson asked if I would be available for a job he had in mind.

QUESTION: What kind of a job?

MANN: He was most evasive. Very vague. Deliberately so, you understand. But I knew that it was to be in the apartment house I had already investigated for him. When I learned that, I asked him if he had determined the purpose of the cold room I had discovered in the basement of the house.

QUESTION: What did he say?

MANN: He said yes, he had discovered the purpose of the cold room.

QUESTION: Did he tell you what it was used for?

MANN: At this time, no. Later he told me. But at this meeting on July twenty-sixth he did not tell me and I did not ask further.

QUESTION: What kind of a job did John Anderson ask you to do for him?

MANN: Well … he did not actually ask me to do it. At this date he merely wanted to know if I was interested, if I would be available.

He said the job would consist of cutting all telephone and alarm connections of the entire apartment house.

QUESTION: What else?

MANN: Well … of cutting the power supply to the self-service elevator.

QUESTION: What else?

MANN: Well … uh… .

QUESTION: Mr. Mann, you promised us complete cooperation. On the basis of that promise we agreed to offer you what assistance we could under the law. You understand, of course, we cannot offer you complete immunity?

MANN: Yes. I understand. Of course.

QUESTION: A great deal depends upon your attitude. What else did John Anderson ask you to do at this meeting on July twenty-six?

MANN: Well, as I told you, he did not actually ask. He was outlining a hypothetical situation, you understand. He was feeling me out, I believe you say. Determining my interest in an assignment.

QUESTION: Yes, yes, you’ve already said that. The assignment would include cutting all telephone and alarm connections of the apartment house in question, and perhaps cutting the power supply to the self-service elevator.

MANN: Yes. This is correct.

QUESTION: All right. Mr. Mann. You have now admitted to destruction of private property, a relatively minor offense. And perhaps breaking and entering… .

MANN: Oh no! No, no, no! Not breaking and entering. The premises were to be quite open when I arrived. I was to have nothing to do with that.

QUESTION: I see. And how much money were you offered for cutting the telephone and alarm connections, and for cutting the elevator power supply?

MANN: Well … we came to no definite agreement. You must realize we were talking generalities. There was no definite job, no definite assignment. This man Anderson merely wished to discover if I was interested and what my charge would be.

QUESTION: And what did you tell him your charge would be?

MANN: I suggested five thousand dollars.

QUESTION: Five thousand dollars? Mr. Mann, isn’t that a rather large sum for cutting a few wires?

MANN: Well … perhaps … yes… .

QUESTION: All right. We’ve got as much time as you have.

We’ll try again. What else were you asked to do on this hypothetical assignment?

MANN: Well, you understand it was very indefinite. No arrangement was made.

QUESTION: Yes, yes, we understand that. What else did Anderson want you to do?

MANN: Well, there were, perhaps, some doors that would require unlocking. Also, perhaps, an upright safe and perhaps a wall safe. He wanted a technically trained man who understood those things.

QUESTION: Of course, Mr. Mann. And you understood those things?

MANN: But naturally! I am a graduate of the Stuttgarter Technische Hochschule, and served as assistant professor in mechanical and electrical engineering at the Zurich Académie du Mécanique. I assure you, I am quite competent in my fields.

QUESTION: We are quite aware of that, sir. Now let’s see if we’ve got all this straight. On July twenty-six, at about one P.M., John Anderson came to your shop at one-nine-seven-five Avenue D, New York City, and asked if you would be available for a job that might or might not materialize. This job would consist, on your part, of cutting telephone and alarm systems in a certain apartment house—location unspecified—of cutting the power supply to the self-service elevator in that house, of forcing open doors or picking the locks of doors in that house, and of opening safes of various types in the apartments of that house. Is that correct?

MANN: Well, I… .

QUESTION: Is that correct?

MANN: Please, may I have a glass of water?

QUESTION: Certainly. Help yourself.

MANN: Thank you. My throat is quite dry. I smoke so much. You have a cigarette perhaps?

QUESTION: Here.

MANN: Thank you again.

QUESTION: The statement I just repeated to you—is that correct?

MANN: Yes. That is correct. That is what John Anderson wanted me to do.