Blind Man's Bluff

This story will convince you beyond all doubt that the sightless are not always the victims of, dependent upon, or deserve the pity of the sighted.

It all started when a mine exploded in the face of Johnny Greco in Viet Nam. The blast should have killed him, of course. Instead, it took both eyes, a mouthful of teeth, and each hand.

Now, I'm not saying that all of Johnny's ancestors were crooks. It's just that this particular Greco did a lot of thinking while he was recuperating. Especially when he got two plastic hands with NO FINGERPRINTS and a seeing-eye dog that could do everything but blow his nose. That's right, imaginative Johnny Greco who knew he had financial compensation guaranteed for the rest of his life, conceived on hospital sheets a gang that would never be caught because no one would ever suspect them.

So before the ex-Marine entered the ranks of those for whom he'd given his eyes, teeth, and hands, he contacted all his buddies who felt the way he did -- that the civilian world owed him a living -- and they created Paraplegic Plus and lived together in New York's East Side.

Now, unless you've been around government outfits in the real world

that deal with veterans who don't give up and allow themselves to become vegetables, you don't know how pleased officialdom was to see the boys make something of themselves.

"Such a support group," said the case workers who thought Paraplegic Plus meant that all was well in Crutch Town and Wheelchair City. I told you, no one suspected a thing when these legless, armless, sometimes both, occasionally sightless veterans like Johnny created a criminal syndicate right under everyone's nose and used government funds to boot. They thought it was a boy's club whose virtuous goal was to help their fellow men stand on their own prosthetic legs.

Let me tell you about some of the jobs the boys pulled off. There was always the bread-and-butter scam of sending a dog through a crowded terminal and lifting purses and wallets. This brought a steady cash flow plus many credit cards the vets used to the fullest.

One Marine, who'd spent time in the Canine Corps, did the training, and everyone was amazed how his four-legged friends could pickpocket a man as slickly as any of New York's best thieves. The few times the victim did sense something strange going on back there, well, Louie trained the dogs to pretend to want to be patted. That always diverted the attention, and the tail-wagging dog loped off happily with a wallet hidden in the pocket of his cute, custom-made vest.

Not all jobs included dogs, though. A lot of jewelry lifts came about by stuffing goods in wheelchairs and into hollow limbs. You see, not every member of Paraplegic Plus was sightless. But Johnny Greco's favorite did include Houdini, his highly trained Shepherd. The master dog totally occupied clerks while he emptied the till leaving no trace because of his fingerprintless plastic fingers.

Anyway, Paraplegic Plus pulled off job after job right under the noses of

the very officials who supported them. The members justified their acts by saying they'd given enough protecting democracy, now it's the people's turn to support them.

The most daring small-time thievery came when two trained-for-the-purpose dogs pretended to get into a fight. Because their obviously thoroughly distraught blind owners were unable to control them, every storeperson desperately tried to unwind the snarling mass of fur and fang. That's when two PP-ers unobtrusively ordered sheets of numbers through the lottery computer, each fingerprintless.

But Johnny Greco and his compatriots couldn't satisfy themselves with petty theft. More than once they rigged the dogs with miniature cameras to reconnoiter bank set-ups and even vault combinations. Inventive Louie meticulously manufactured a mouthpiece in one Labrador so he could cut security wires as easily as hot bolt cutters could snip through warm butter. This allowed the gang to enter many treasure-yielding banks and insurance offices. The mind of the disabled can create contraptions at least as clever as the "normal" criminal.

All this came about by the master-teacher, Johnny Greco, who understood how a man can face death day after day and never be overshadowed. Now he used the same principle with his cohorts. He armed his members with powerful psychology. He told them if they got caught they could claim temporary insanity from shellshock and probably get off; that they'd be taken care of by the government wherever they lived anyway; and they already lived in prison caused by the disabilities so they couldn't lose a thing, so why not lead a life of wheelchaired crime. Conditioned by such powerful arguments, the boys of Paraplegic Plus were the most patriotic, obedient, and boldest crooks in New York City and that's saying something, isn't it.

I want you to know that I know what "politically correct" means. I know you're not supposed to say spaghetti-eater or grape-stomper or even blind or crippled unless you want to get dragged over the coals or keelhauled or have hot bamboo driven up your fingernails. But I also know that this has gone too far when you have to say a short guy has a vertical challenge and a mailman is -- oh, who knows. Now, the reason it's gotten too much for me is the same as how crooks hide behind the law by having a lawyer so sharp that he can find laws that actually protect him. So I'm not being politically incorrect when I tell you that the paraplegic veterans abused the system. That the PP members took advantage of the kindheartedness of those who felt sorry for them or leaned over backward because they couldn't see or hear or walk. Nor am I saying that all disabled vets are goldbrickers or featherbedders. I'm just saying that Greco's bunch had a sweet thing going and got away with a lot just because the tendency for most people is to look the other way when a guy in a wheelchair, guided by a seeing eye dog, is around.

Johnny certainly called our bluff.