The Flying Bandit Read online

  As they drove home, Robert asked, “You know why I don’t rob little jewellery stores?”

  “Sure,” Tommy replied, “Birks got the best stuff, and the most stuff. You get the best bang for your buck.”

  “Well, that’s a big part of it but you know it’d be a lot easier doing a little store; one little guy behind the counter, probably no alarm, no gun to worry about. I wouldn’t need another guy with me. Probably work out every bit as good for me.”

  “Ah, I don’t know I ... ”

  “But you know why I don’t want to do the little guy?”

  “Why?”

  “Cause it would break him.”

  Tommy looked over at Robert.

  “That’s right,” Robert said, “I’d put him right in the fucking poor house. Most of those little guys can’t afford insurance. I go in there and take their stuff and it’s coming right out of their pockets, right off their kitchen table.”

  “I know what you’re saying,” Tommy replied. “That’s why the little guy will fight you like a bastard.”

  “He’ll fight you and he won’t hand over fuck-all.”

  “Well, he will if you give him a good whack on the side of the head.”

  “Well, fuck, I’m not going to do that to some little guy. What do think I am, some kind of fucking sadist?”

  “No, no ... but I mean that’s what you got to do to get the shit off him. He ain’t giving you nothing unless you get fucking mean with him.”

  “I know that. Fuck, I don’t blame him ... “

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Tommy said, “if he does have a gun, he’s going to shoot you.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, you didn’t mention that. You didn’t say nothing about guns when you were telling about preferring to rob a big store like Birks.”

  “That wasn’t the issue. The Birks security guards got guns. They’ll shoot you.”

  Tommy let out a snort.

  “Are you kidding me?” he challenged. “Robert, it’s me you’re talking to, the Fat Man. That security guard in Birks is not going to get himself shot for some big fucking outfit that’s covered by insurance. He don’t give one shit about you holding up the place. He probably envies you. He’s making minimum wage and he never fired a gun before in his life. He’s scared shitless. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Besides, if he pulls out his gun, he probably shoots himself right in the dick anyway.”

  “Probably,” Robert agreed.

  “Well, you failed to mention that, Robert.”

  By then, they were in front of Robert’s house.

  “You coming in?” Robert asked.

  “Are you crazy?” Tommy replied. He knew Janice hated him and the feeling was mutual.

  As Robert got out of the car, he said, “I’ll be in to see you after I get back from Vancouver.”

  Robert looked forward to the Vancouver robbery more than any other he had ever done. If everything went as planned, his share of the loot would bring him around $200,000. His mind went wild thinking about what he would be able to do with all that money. Even Baptiste had been talking about buying himself a new Corvette.

  Twelve days after his daughter’s birth he flew in to Vancouver with his assistant and they checked into the Bayshore Inn. The day before the robbery they did a dry run of the Birks store on Granville Street. Robert went over every detail of the plan and every step of the route. As a robbery, it was no more difficult than many others that Robert had been involved in, although the great size and openness of the store caused him some concern.

  On the morning of the robbery, while they were eating breakfast, the only thing that Baptiste said was, “Robert, are you sure about this?”

  “I am,” Robert said with a smile. “Aren’t you?”

  Robert wasn’t lying to him. He was confident because this was the third time he had been here to do this job. He knew it like the back of his hand.

  Doing Birks in Vancouver was the high water mark of Robert Whiteman’s illicit career. He and his partner stole over a million dollars worth of jewellery from the estate counter plus another $200,000 in diamond rings from the diamond counter. Their haul included over fifty items, everything from an emerald-encrusted diamond ring valued at $57,750 to bracelets, necklaces, pendants, brooches and diamond shirt studs listed at $15,375.

  The heist was well planned. They knew exactly want they wanted to take and knew the layout of the premises and the adjacent Vancouver Centre Mall and its connecting parkade. During the robbery, they wore London Fog trench coats over their clothes and used their usual wigs, moustaches, hats and glasses to hide their facial features.

  But a couple of things went wrong. One occurred when the security guard got into the act. While Robert was emptying the jewellery trays behind the estate counter a Birks security guard, Gulwansh Virk, approached him and asked what he was doing. The guard hadn’t noticed Lee Baptiste standing nearby. When Virk began talking to Robert, Baptiste moved in, pushed his shotgun into the guard’s face and commanded, “Hit the fucking floor!”

  Lee Baptiste, Galvan’s accomplice in the Big Vancouver

  The guard fearfully complied.

  The next thing that went wrong was Baptiste called Robert by his name. As the security guard lay there prostrate on the floor with the gun against his head, Baptiste broke a cardinal rule for thieves and called out his partner’s name.

  “Hurry up, Robert!” he yelled.

  Robert was upset when he heard his name called out, but as angry as he was, he still went calmly about his business. When he had taken as much loot as he could carry, he and Baptiste ran down the escalator to the lower level of the store and headed out into the crowded mall.

  As they were walking briskly through a corridor from the mall to the Parkade, they passed a second security guard, Danny Conlin, who was employed by the Vancouver Centre Mall. He had heard the alarm go off and was heading for the Birks store to find out what was going on. At this point he didn’t even know that an actual robbery had taken place, so he paid little attention to the two men who were walking through the service corridor. His energy was focused on getting up to the store.

  When Robert and Baptiste discarded their outer clothing and disguises in the stairwell of the parking facility, Baptiste made another mistake. This one would prove to be far more serious. He left behind the sawed-off shotgun. This was the second weapon of this type left behind by bandits who had robbed Birks. Eventually the discarded shotgun would play a significant role in Robert’s fate.

  But for now Robert wasn’t concerned about Baptiste’s mistake. He was absolutely elated that they had pulled off the heist. He had just become a card-carrying member of the million dollar club.

  That night he had a steak and a few drinks at the hotel’s exclusive restaurant. Later, before he went to bed, he called Janice to say hello and ask about the baby.

  The next morning, he and Baptiste went for a walk among the huge Douglas firs in Stanley Park. After a while they stopped and sat down on a bench where Robert proceeded to read about the previous day’s “daring daylight robbery” in the morning Vancouver Sun.

  Baptiste asked, “Robert, are you sure we’ll get away?”

  “Not yet,” Robert replied.

  Later that day, when they boarded the plane for Ottawa, Baptiste asked the same question again, “Are you sure we’ll get away?”

  “Now I’m sure,” Robert said with a grin.

  His assurance would prove to be unfounded. He still had months of freedom ahead of him, but the noose was beginning to tighten. An intense search was begun by the police to determine the origin of Baptiste’s discarded shotgun. The shotgun convinced Detective Sergeant Jim Corrigan of the Metro Toronto Holdup Squad that the same two thieves that did Birks in Vancouver had also done Birks in Toronto. The robbers were using the same methods, the same disguises and brandishing sawed-off shotguns, which, in both cases, they had left behind. Furthermore, Corrigan saw similarities in
all the Birks robberies that made him all the more convinced one man was behind all of the Birks holdups. With that theory in mind, he began to work closely with Birks security to develop a profile of the bandits so they could anticipate the thieves’ next move. Since the Birks store in Montreal had not yet been hit, there was some suspicion that it might be next on the robbers’ list. There was also some suspicion that, since Montreal hadn’t been robbed, the crooks might be living there. Corrigan based this hypothesis on the concept that “birds don’t like to foul their own nest.”

  Birks, in an attempt to stop the pillaging of their stores, offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the Birks’ bandits. Although the reward seemed like a pittance against the value of the stolen jewellery, it proved to be a seed in the wind that was destined to find fertile ground.

  When Robert and his sidekick got back from Vancouver, they had a meeting at the Chimo Inn with their fence and several other parties who cannot be identified here. Robert was paid $110,000 for his share of the stolen goods and the fence asked for forty-eight hours to raise the money. All the jewellery was dismantled and distributed to a variety of dealers in a number of different locations.

  With this kind of payday, Robert could afford to take a couple of months off. One of the first things he did was arrange for his mother to come to Pembroke for a one week visit. When she arrived, Robert had to brief her about his impersonation as Robert Whiteman and related some of the details of his charade. He explained how he was supposed to be working for his father, her imaginary ex-husband, out of Calgary. He told her he was doing this to bury his U.S. criminal past so he could maintain his marriage and sustain his new life in Canada.

  He didn’t tell her a thing about how he was really making his money or how he was spending it. Although his mother suspected that Robert was probably up to something illegal, she agreed to go along with his charade.

  “Whatever you say,” she said, “just don’t drag me into it, Gilbert.”

  “Ma,” he complained, “Janice doesn’t know a thing about my past. She knows me only as Robert Whiteman. You got to remember that ... please?

  “All right. I can do that, Gilbert,” she replied.

  “NO, Ma,” he insisted, “it’s Robert. Robert Whiteman!”

  Throughout the week his mother avoided conversations with Janice that might take them into areas that would reveal her complicity in Robert’s deception. Since the two women had little in common, they didn’t spend a lot of time together anyway. Robert’s mother either sat on the porch and smoked or whiled away the hours playing with the baby.

  Janice was surprised by Robert’s mother. From what she had been led to believe, Janice expected her to be wealthy, refined, stylish and very outgoing. What she found was a coarse, crude woman, anything but chic and with little to say.

  Janice avoided asking anything about Robert’s father because she had been told that there was no love lost between them and that entire part of her life was rather a touchy subject. Janice heard nothing from the older woman that gave away the hoax.

  Robert and his mother weren’t close but he was happy she came to visit him. Although he was living a lie, he felt good being able to show her that he was married, had a child and was doing all right.

  His mother too enjoyed her stay. She knew there was something very wrong in the way he was deceiving his wife, but she said nothing. By the end of the week all three of them were relieved when her visit was over and she flew back to Oregon.

  Once his mother was gone, Robert began slipping back into his old routine. He loved taking the baby out for a walk, but often when he did, he’d push the stroller down to Wally’s and go in for a few drinks. At night he started visiting Ottawa again and staying out till all hours. The arguments with his wife slowly started to build again.

  Partly to cool the situation off at home and partly to satisfy his constant need to be on the move, he offered to take Janice on another holiday to the Bahamas. This time they took the baby. It was the third trip Janice took there that year.

  Their time together in the islands was peaceful but the tranquility didn’t last long once they got home. They quarrelled almost every night. Finally, Robert made up his mind he had to get away by himself. He wanted to go overseas to either Portugal or Spain, two places he had always dreamed of visiting. The only problem was he needed a passport. Lucky for him, he knew just the people at the Playmate Club who could get him one.

  Whiteman filled out an application in the name of Bradley Stafford, Robert’s first boss in Ottawa at the Mr. Frostee ice cream business. Robert was still in possession of Stafford’s birth certificate and other identification which he had stolen from him in 1984. The only tricky part of the application was getting a guarantor to sign it. He needed someone to vouch that he had known Robert for two years and to attest that the name on the passport was, in fact, the person shown in the passport photograph. The guarantor’s name on Robert’s application was that of Ottawa lawyer Scott Milloy. Although his name appeared on the document, it was never proven that he was the one who actually signed it.

  Getting a passport was a big accomplishment for Robert. All it took was another battle with Janice to have him put it to use. One weekend, when Janice was visiting a friend in Toronto, she left Robert in charge of the baby. Upon arriving home, she found out that Robert had taken the baby to Ottawa and dropped her off with a baby-sitter Robert didn’t even know while he went drinking and carousing with his friends at the Playmate. That was the last straw for her.

  “What the hell is the matter with you anyway?” she railed.

  “Get off my back. I got enough pressure with my job, I don’t need to hear any of your shit.”

  “If you got so much pressure on your job that it’s making you do stupid things like leaving your kid alone with a stranger, get yourself another job.”

  “Where the fuck am I going to get another job?”

  “That’s your problem,” she screamed, “but you’re not going to stick around here and ruin our lives. I want you out of here – and I mean now.”

  Robert tried to argue but his heart wasn’t in it. He was ready to leave. They kept yelling at each other while he packed his bags. When he was finished, Janice gave him some money from their savings account and told him, “Now get the hell out of our lives.”

  On December 10 Robert moved out of Dominion Street, and a few days later, flew to Europe as Bradley Stafford. He was off to see Spain, Portugal and Rome. But his first stop would be in England where he intended to visit with one of Janice’s cousins, Mick Daglish. Robert had met Daglish when he came to Pembroke to visit the McKenzies two years ago. As soon as they met, the two of them had taken a liking to each other.

  When Robert’s plane touched down in Gatwick, he surprised Mick with a phone call. Without any hesitation Daglish offered to pick him up at the airport and insisted that Robert stay with him for a few days.

  As excited as Robert was to be in England, the first thing he did when he got to Mick’s house was call Janice in Pembroke. He told her where he was and where he planned to go. He said he would keep in touch with her along the way. Then, before he hung up, he told her he loved her.

  With Mick going off to work every day at a big construction job he was supervising, there wasn’t a whole lot for Robert to do around the house. So he started going to the construction site too, doing whatever Mick needed, from shovelling to driving a lorry. Although Daglish found him very helpful on the job and very engaging at home, his wife wasn’t so convinced.

  “I hear he’s quite the drinker,” she said.

  “Ah,” said Mick, “he doesn’t drink no more than most of the tourists who come over here.”

  “What’s he doing here, anyway?”

  “He’s heading for Portugal, on a holiday.”

  “Why’s his wife not with him?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Mick said. “He didn’t say.”

  “He seems unravelled.”


  “You think so?”

  “I do. Like he’s on a knife’s edge.”

  “Well, I don’t see that. Anyway, he’s a damn good worker. Better than lots of the blokes I get on the job. It don’t matter, anyway. He’s leaving tomorrow.”

  Robert spent the next two weeks wandering through southern Spain. Every two or three nights he called home to Janice. From Spain he moved on to Portugal where he stayed for two weeks.

  When he called Janice on Christmas Day, he was lonely, depressed and broke.

  “I want you to fly to England and meet me at Mick’s place,” he said.

  “What’ll I do with the baby?”

  “Bring her with you,” he replied.

  “Where will we stay?”

  “At Mick’s. He’s dying to see you and Laura.”

  “God, Robert, is there room for all of us there?”

  “That’s the least of our worries. If there isn’t, we’ll rent a place.”

  Janice wanted to see him badly.

  “All right,” she said, “I’ll meet you there.”

  “There’s one hitch. I’m so broke, I can’t afford to get myself to England.”

  “I’ll wire you a ticket.”

  “Great! As soon as I get it I’ll call you and get the details of your flight.” There was a slight pause. “Janice,” he said, “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she confessed. “Goodbye.”

  When she hung up the phone, Janice looked at the baby and said, “But I’d still like to strangle him.”

  Janice and Laura flew to England on New Year’s day. During most of the flight, the four-month-old child slept on the floor on top of her mother’s fur coat. When Janice got to Mick’s place, her reunion with Robert was joyous and passionate. Both of them were well aware that they were cursed with the common lovers’ dilemma of having a hard time living together and a worse time living apart.

  After a few days at Mick’s, the three Whitemans left for a whirlwind trip through Spain and a two-week tour through Portugal where Robert showed Janice all the interesting things he’d already seen. Their romantic interlude served as a second honeymoon and was a welcome change from the turbulence of their normal relationship.