Master Thieves Read Online Free

fully intending to jump him and show him how furious he was. But Louis and Billy both knew that even if he landed a punch, that would be it. There would be no beating. Although Billy was several years younger than Louis, hewas already catching up to him in height and size. The crazed toughness that would later manifest itself in his shooting two Massachusetts prison guards, whom Billy thought had frisked his mother too closely when she came to visit him in prison, was already beginning to show up. Though he wasn’t even a teenager yet, neighborhood kids knew not to mess with Billy Royce. He was stronger and tougher, and, as Louis had learned for sure earlier in the day, Billy had in him something Louis did not: their father’s DNA.
    When he left the Royce house that night, Louis became a “boy of the streets,” skipping school whenever he felt like it, hanging out in Scollay Square, Boston’s seediest area, a mecca of strip joints, all-night movie houses, bars, and diners.
    â€œThe way I felt, that man wasn’t my father,” Royce told me, thinking back. “There was no reason for me to stay in that house.”
    When he recounted the story to me, all those years later, it was clear that just thinking about it again made Louis ashamed and embarrassed. Soon that sense of being an outsider, of never belonging, became a strong part of his psychology. He compensated by being loyal to the cohorts he spent his life in crime with, especially the members of the East Boston gang he joined in the mid-1970s after walking away from a minimum-security facility in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood. He was always doing favors for them, it seemed: turning over the details of armored cars and banks he’d cased and figured were vulnerable to being robbed or accepting culpability for a crime so another gang member might evade prosecution. Or turning in stolen artwork so the gang leader might stay out of jail.
    The urge to be part of a group, no matter a criminal gang or a cell-block group of prisoners, defined Louis Royce, and regardless of whether the enterprise was legal, it meant that Royce never—absolutely never—informed on anyone.
    But first Louis had to learn the lesson of what loyalty could bring on the streets of Scollay Square. Right away, Royce loved the life he found there. He felt at home in the seedy Boston district populated by burlesque halls and rough bars, that attracted gamblers, thrill seekers, and down-and-outers. He quickly began running numbers for bookies like the infamous Ilario Zannino (aka Larry Baione), who rose to become one of Boston’s biggest organized crime figures.
    And Royce, and his inimitable abilities as a thief, were remembered by them. When Zannino was being prosecuted for bookmaking at a local district court, Royce and an associate broke into the courthouse during a weekend night in 1970, picked the lock on the evidence safe, and stole the cash and other incriminating records seized in Zannino’s arrest. Although Royce was prosecuted after police arrested him and found in his wallet some of the marked bills he had taken from the safe, he recalls with pride that Zannino paid him $10,000 for the job, which resulted in the charges against Zannino being dropped. More important, Royce earned trust and respect within Boston’s crime world by refusing to cooperate with the police who arrested him.
    â€œI figured this was the family that I had now, so no matter what scrapes we got in, I’d keep my mouth shut,” said Royce.
    His vulnerability, his need to make friends and gain respect, made Royce an oddity in the underworld. It also explained his loyalty to some gang members and not to others. In fact, except for being a master thief, Royce had few personal vices. He didn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. And while it may have caused some smart-ass comments among his criminal associates, he made no secret of his being gay.
    No doubt, though, there