The Anderson Tapes (22 page)

QUESTION: Please, Mrs. Bingham … please… . Would you like to put this over to another day?

MRS. BINGHAM: No … no … that’s all right … no… .

QUESTION: Let’s take a little break. What I would like you to do, if you feel you are capable of it at this time, is to come with me downstairs to another office. There we have an exhibit of many types of guns used by lawbreakers. I would like you, if you can, to identify the gun the man used when he hit your husband. Will you do that for us?

MRS. BINGHAM: It was a very big gun, very heavy. I think it was black or maybe… .

QUESTION: Just come with me, and let’s see if you can identify the gun from our collection. I’ll take the machine with us.

[Lapse of four minutes thirty-eight seconds.]

QUESTION: This is NYDA Number one-four-six, nine-eight-B, two.

We are now in the gun room. Now, Mrs. Bingham, as you can see, these are cases of weapons that have been used in crimes.

What I would like you to do is to examine these weapons—take all the time you need; don’t hurry—and try to pick out the weapon you think that first masked man used to strike your husband.

MRS. BINGHAM: There are so many!

QUESTION: Yes … many. But take your time. Look at all of them and try to identify the gun the man used.

[Lapse of one minute thirty-seven seconds.]

MRS. BINGHAM: I don’t see it.

QUESTION: Take your time. No hurry.

MRS. BINGHAM: It was black, or maybe dark blue. It was square.

QUESTION: Square? Come over to this case, ma’am. Something like this?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes … these look more like it … Yes … yes …

there it is! That’s the one.

QUESTION: Which one is that?

MRS. BINGHAM: There it is … that second one from the top.

QUESTION: You’re sure of that, ma’am?

MRS. BINGHAM: Absolutely. No question about it.

QUESTION: The witness has just identified a U.S. pistol, caliber .45, 1917, Colt automatic, Code Number nineteen seventeen, C-A, three-seven-one-B. Thank you, Mrs. Bingham. Shall we go upstairs now? Perhaps I’ll order in some coffee or tea?

MRS. BINGHAM: A cup of tea would be nice.

QUESTION: Of course.

[Lapse of seven minutes, sixteen seconds.]

MRS. BINGHAM: I feel better now.

QUESTION: Good. This is NYDA Number one-four-six, nine-eight-B, three. Ma’am, do you think you’d like to finish up today—or should we put it off?

MRS. BINGHAM: Let’s finish now.

QUESTION: Fine. Now then … you said your husband hit out at the masked man. The masked man drew a weapon from his pocket and struck your husband. Your husband fell to the floor. The masked man then kicked him in the stomach and in the groin. Is that correct?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes.

QUESTION: Then what happened?

MRS. BINGHAM: It’s all very hazy. I’m not sure. I think I was out of my chair by this time and moving toward the door. But I distinctly saw the second masked man push the first one aside. And the second man said, “That’s enough.” I remember that very clearly because it was exactly what I was thinking at the time.

The second masked man shouldered the first one aside so he couldn’t kick my husband anymore, and he said, “That’s enough.” QUESTION: And then?

MRS. BINGHAM: I’m afraid I don’t remember in what sequence things took place. I’m very hazy about it all… .

QUESTION: Just tell it in your own words. Don’t worry about the sequence.

MRS. BINGHAM: Well, I ran over to my husband. I think I got down on my knees alongside him. I could see his eye was very bad. There was a lot of blood, and he was groaning. One of the men said, “Where’s the kid?”

QUESTION: Do you remember which man said that?

MRS. BINGHAM: I’m not sure, but I think it was the second one—the one who told the first man to stop kicking my husband.

QUESTION: He said, “Where’s the kid?” MRS. BINGHAM: Yes.

QUESTION: So he knew about your son?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes. I asked him please, not to hurt Gerry. I told him Gerry was asleep in his bedroom and that he was crippled and could only move in his wheelchair or for short distances on crutches. I asked him again, please not to hurt Gerry, and he said he wouldn’t hurt him.

QUESTION: This is still the second man you’re talking about?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes. Then he went into my son’s bedroom. The first man, the one who kicked my husband, stayed in the living room.

After a while the second man came out of the bedroom. He was pushing my son’s empty wheelchair and carrying his aluminum crutches. The first man said to him, “Where’s the kid?” The other one said, “He’s pretending he’s asleep, but he’s awake all right. I told him if he yelled I’d come back and break his neck. As long as we’ve got his chair and crutches, he can’t move. He’s a gimp. We checked this out.” And the first man said, “I think we should take him.” And then the second man said, “The elevator is stopped.

You want to carry him down? How we going to get him down?” And then they argued a while about whether they should take the boy. Finally they agreed they would leave him in bed but they would gag him and look in on him every ten minutes or so. I asked them please not to do that. I told them that Gerry has sinus trouble, and I was afraid if they’d gag him, perhaps he wouldn’t be able to breathe. The second man said they were taking my husband and me down to Mrs. Hathway’s apartment on the fourth floor, and they couldn’t take the chance of leaving Gerry alone in the apartment, even if he couldn’t move. I told them I would make Gerry promise to keep quiet if they would let me talk to him. They argued about this for a while, and then the second man said he would come into the bedroom with me and listen to what I said to Gerry. So we went into the bedroom. I snapped on the light. Gerry was lying on his back, under the covers. His face was very white.

His eyes were open. I asked him if he knew what was going on, and he said yes, he had heard us talking. My son is very intelligent.

QUESTION: Yes, ma’am. We know that now.

MRS. BINGHAM: I told him they had taken his chair and crutches, but if he promised not to yell or make any sounds, they had agreed not to tie him up. He said he wouldn’t make any sounds. The man went over to the bed and looked down at Gerry. “That’s a bad man out there, boy,” he said to Gerry. “I think he’s already put your pappy’s eye out. You behave yourself or I’ll have to turn him loose on your pappy again. You understand?” Gerry said yes, he understood. Then the man said there would be someone looking in on him every few minutes so not to get wise-ass. That was the expression he used. He said, “Don’t get wise-ass, kid.” Gerry nodded. Then we went back into the living room.

QUESTION: Did you leave the light on in the bedroom?

MRS. BINGHAM: Well, I turned it off, but the masked man turned it on again and said to leave it on. So we went back into the living room. My husband was on his feet, swaying a little. He had gotten a towel from the bathroom and was holding it to his eye. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before. I’m afraid I wasn’t behaving very well.

QUESTION: You were doing just fine.

MRS. BINGHAM: Well … I don’t know… . I don’t think I’m very brave. I know I was crying. I started crying when I saw my husband on the floor and the man was kicking him, and somehow I just couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop… . I tried to stop but I just… .

QUESTION: Let’s leave the rest of this for another day, shall we? I think we’ve done enough for one day.

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes … all right. Well, they just took us down the service staircase to the fourth floor, to Mrs. Hathway’s apartment.

I imagine you know what happened after that. I helped support my husband on the way down the stairs; he was still very shaky.

But in Mrs. Hathway’s apartment we could take care of him. They had brought everyone there, including Dr. Rubicoff, and he helped me bathe my husband’s eye and put a clean towel on it.

Everyone was very … everyone was very … everyone … oh, my God, my God!

QUESTION: Yes, Mrs. Bingham … yes, yes. Just relax a moment.

Just sit quietly and relax. It’s all over. It’s all completely over.

The following is a personal letter to the author, dated 3 January, 1969, from Mr. Jeremy-Marrin, 43-580 Buena Vista Drive, Arlington, Virginia.

DEAR SIR:

In reply to your letter of recent date, requesting my personal recollections and reactions to what happened in New York City last year on Labor Day weekend, please be advised that both myself and John Burlingame have made very complete statements to the New York City police anent these events, and I’m sure our statements are a matter of public record and you may consult them. However, as a matter of common courtesy (called common, no doubt, because it is so
un
common) I will pen this very short note to you as you say it is of importance to you.

John Burlingame, a chum of mine, and I planned to spend the Labor Day weekend in New York, seeing a few shows and visiting companions. We wrote to Eric Sabine, a very dear friend of ours, who occupies Apartment 2A at 535 East Seventy-third Street, hoping to spend some time with him and his very groovy circle of acquaintances. Eric wrote back that he would be out of the city for the weekend. Fire Island, I believe he said. But he put his gorgeous apartment completely at our disposal, mailed us the key, and said he would leave instructions with the doormen that we would be staying for the weekend. Naturally, we were delighted and very grateful to kind-hearted Eric.

We started out very early Saturday morning, driving up, but with one thing and another, we did not arrive until 10:30 or so, quite worn out with the trip. The traffic was simply murder. So we bought the Sunday papers and just locked ourselves in for the night. Dear Eric had left a full refrigerator (fresh salmon in aspic, no less!) and, of course, he’s got the best bar in New York—or anywhere else, for that matter. Some of his liqueurs are simply incredible. So John and I had a few drinks, soaked a while in a warm tub, and then went to bed—oh, I’d say it was 12:15, 12:30, around then. We were awake, you understand, just lying in bed and drinking and reading the papers. It was a very groovy experience.

It was about—oh, I’d say fifteen minutes after one o’clock or so, when we heard this terrible banging on the front door, and a man’s voice shouted, “Fire! Fire! Everybody out! The whole house is on fire!” So naturally, we just leaped out of bed. We had brought pj’s, but neither of us had thought to bring robes. Fortunately, dear Eric has this groovy collection of dressing gowns, so we borrowed two of his gowns (I had this lovely thing in crimson jacquard silk), put them on, rushed into the living room, unlocked the door …

and here were these two horrid men with masks over their heads. One was quite short and one quite tall. The tall one, whom I am absolutely certain was a jigaboo, said, “Let’s go. You come with us and no one get hurt.” Well, we almost fainted, as you can well imagine. John shouted, “Don’t hurt my face, don’t hurt my face!” John is in the theater, you know—a very handsome boy. But they didn’t hurt us or even touch us. They had their hands in their pockets and I suspect they had weapons. They took us up the service stairway at the back of the building. We went into Apartment 4B where there were several other people assembled. I gathered that everyone in the building, including the doorman, had been brought there.

One man was wounded and bleeding very badly from his eye.

His wife, the poor thing, was weeping. But as far as I could see, no one else had been physically harmed.

We were told to make ourselves comfortable, which was a laugh as this was the most old-fashioned, campy apartment I have ever seen in my life. John said it would have made a perfect set for Arsenic and Old Lace. They told us not to scream or make any noise or attempt to resist in any way, as they merely wished to rob the apartments and not to hurt anyone. They were polite, in a way, but still you felt that if the desire came over them, they would simply slit your throat wide open.

After a while they all left except for the man who was, I’m sure, a spade. He stood by the door with his hand in his pocket, and I believe he was armed.

I’m sure you know the rest better than I can tell it. It was a very shattering experience, and in spite of the many groovy times I have had in New York, I can assure you it will be a long time before I visit Fun City again.

I do hope this may be of help to you in assembling your account of what happened, and if you’re ever down this way, do look me up.

Very cordially,

[signed] Jeremy Marrin

Statement NYDA-EHM-106A.

MANN: It was now twenty minutes after one. Perhaps one thirty.

Everything was going very well. Everyone had been assembled in Apartment Four B except for the superintendent, drunk and asleep in his basement apartment, and the crippled boy in Apartment Five A. So then, the building secured, we moved into the second phase of the operation in which we were divided into three teams.

QUESTION: Teams?

MANN: Yes. The man I knew as John Anderson and I constituted the first team. We worked from the basement upward. He had a checklist. We would move to an apartment. I would unlock the door and… .

QUESTION: Pick the lock?

MANN: Well … ah … my assignment was purely technical, you understand. Then we would enter the apartment. Anderson, who carried the checklist, would point out to me what he wished me to do.

QUESTION: What did that entail?

MANN: Well … you understand … perhaps a box safe, a wall safe.

Perhaps a locked closet or cabinet. Things of that sort. Then, as we left the apartment, the second team would enter. This was the very short man, Tommy—effeminate, I believe—and the two men I knew as Ed and Billy. Tommy, who apparently knew the value of things, carried a copy of Anderson’s checklist. He would direct the two brothers as to what should be removed and carried down to the truck. They were merely laborers, you understand.

QUESTION: What did they remove and carry to the truck?

MANN: What did they
not
remove! Furs, the triptych from the super’s apartment, a small narcotics safe from one of the doctor’s offices, jewelry, paintings, silver, unset gems,
objets d’art
, even rugs and small pieces of furniture from the decorator’s apartment in Two A.