CRIME: Record Haul

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One sunny day last week New York City's Police Commissioner John Francis O'Ryan celebrated his 60th birthday. Same day Rubel Ice Corp., operating 40 distributing plants throughout the city, was making backpage news on the ground that the firm had refused to sell small ice peddlers short lots. Next day Rubel Ice Corp. was on Page 1 of every paper in the land, and Commissioner O'Ryan had received a most unwelcome birthday pres ent.

Shortly after 9 o'clock that morning a man in a white apron rolled a pushcart filled with gunny sacks up to the loading platform of a Rubel plant in the Bay Ridge district of Brooklyn. He pushed away an inquisitive child who poked among his sacks, strolled across the street to some tennis courts, lolled on the grass all the forenoon. Later a nattily dressed character sauntered into the neighborhood, obligingly tossed back a ball that had bounced across the tennis court fence. A third character drove up in a huckster's wagon and, waiting for the noon ice delivery, comforted his horse by feeding him first water, then hay. Another wagoner watched him with astonishment. Every horseman knows that his beast gets his hay first, his water second.

At 12 130 p.m. a Rubel employe known as Charlie left his shanty office on the loading platform, went into the building to open the company safe. He was about to remove $450 to turn over to U. S. Trucking Corp.'s armored car, which was due on its collection round at any moment. Another employe dashed through the office. "Close it, Charlie! Close it quick!" he panted. "There's a hold-up outside!"

The one weak link in any armored car service is the 15 seconds between the opening of the car door, to let out the armed guard and a cash carrier at a pick-up point, and the closing and locking of that door from the inside by the driver. At that precise moment, after the U. S. Trucking Corp.'s car had halted close to the Rubel platform, the man in the white apron whipped out a submachine gun from beneath the sacks on his pushcart. Instantly he was surrounded by numerous allies, some of whom had just drawn up in three automobiles. Others, like the natty dresser and the inexpert huckster, emerged from the crowd that had loitered about the plant during the morning. Like a crack football team, the robbers went through their criminal plays with the precision of true professionals.