THE CONFESSIONS OF A HIGH-CLASS BURGLAR:

-Birdymckee

WILLIAM MASON doesn’t look much like a high-society burglar any more. The debonair looks with which he used to charm the rich and famous before relieving them of their jewelery have given way to the rugged wrinkles of a likable old rogue.

But think back 20 years, when he gave up thieving for good, and dress him in black tie and tuxedo and he could pass for the master jewel thief Raffles, played by David Niven, or for John Robie, the high-class cat burglar played by Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. 

It is hard not to have a sneaking admiration for Mason, 63, who over a career lasting 35 years, lifted jewels at the rate of $1 million a year, tax free. He was not quite Robin Hood, because the poor did not get a look-in, but he made a point of limiting his elegant trade to stealing from celebrities and the super-rich. As he put it, “I never hit anyone that needed it. They always had insurance.” 

His list of clients included some of the smartest and best-known names in America, starting with Armand Hammer, the oil and gas mogul who sank his fortune in Impressionist paintings and diamonds for his wife. Then there was Truman Capote, the bejeweled author of In Cold Blood. And Margaux Hemingway, the grand old man’s grand-daughter. And Johnny Weissmuller, the muscle-bound Tarzan actor. Mason paid a call, too, on Bob Hope, though the old skinflint had the last laugh as he was as mean as his reputation and there was nothing worth pinching. 

Even those he didn’t succeed in stealing from were famous. He routinely cased Elizabeth Taylor’s holiday home in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and still regrets that her visits never coincided with his. 

“But I blame it all on Phyllis Diller,” said Mason, who stole all her jewels, then stole them all over again years later. “After I took Phyllis Diller for a lot of money I really got hooked.” 

Which is another reason to admire Bill Mason. He not only took a pride in not physically harming his victims; he didn’t really do it for the loot. “It was a lucrative hobby and I got addicted to the thrill of it,” he said. “With the first couple, the Hammers, I did it for the money. Then I did it for the high-wire act, achieving something that others couldn’t do. I always wanted to increase the pressure, increase the odds, increase the challenge.” 

Thieving became an addiction as powerful as the buzz of crack cocaine. “You get high. You start with the planning and it builds to a crescendo with the job at the pinnacle. And it didn’t matter if I left with a million dollars. Later that night the adrenalin had stopped pumping and I was feeling let down because it was all over. I looked at the stuff the next morning and thought, what’s next?” 

Even when a security guard took a pot-shot at him and sent bullets flying through his belly, he was not put off. “You would think that when I got shot I would learn the lesson, and it did slow me down for six months or so. But then I started to read the society pages and before long I was back in the swim.”
The compulsion to steal became almost suicidal. After spending five years in and out of prison, hating every second behind bars, Mason was tempted to try his hand one last time. It was an encore that nearly killed him. 

“You always think, like a gambler, just one more time. But I was left hanging from my fingertips 20 storeys up and watching helpless as the ladder fell all the way down.” Literally looking over the precipice at his own death, he finally determined to end his thieving. “I remodel houses and sell costume jewelery now. You could say I earn an almost honest living.” 

No one doubts that Mason was the best. He made a profession of burglary, working out in gyms to build the upper-body strength needed to scale apartment block walls, learning the science of lock-picking and safe-cracking, becoming a museum-quality expert on gems. 

“They say if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime,” he said. “But if, like me, you can’t bear to do the time, you plan the crime a little more carefully.” 

He was so good that no one could believe that his jobs could be the work of one man. When the police finally set a trap for him, they were so angry at his audacity that they came after him mob-handed and packing enough heat to take Baghdad. 

Above all, Mason did his homework. “In South Florida, with all the snowbirds coming down from New York for the winter, there was no shortage of prospects. I used to go to society balls to case out the people. I had a false press pass and by the end of the evening everyone was three sheets to the wind. You could ask any question you wanted. 

“If I couldn’t find out a name, I would flash my pass and take a picture of them and say I would send them proofs if they gave me their address. You know how people are, they love to have their picture in the paper. Then I discovered that the society papers were doing my job for me, giving me all the names, the faces and the jewels. When you are running around town flaunting a $200,000 necklace, I think you are asking for it.”
Mason doesn’t try to conceal that he was motivated by class envy. “I was a poor boy brought up in West Virginia. My mother was very straight-laced and taught me morality. My father was moral too. But it didn’t rub off on me too much. When our family moved to a wealthy apartment complex in Cleveland, Ohio, I developed an animosity towards those people. I was the only child and they were always giving me orders.” 

When setting out to steal from the rich he was careful not to think about the misery he would cause them. “I had to stay distanced. I had to keep them in the category of objects, not human beings. And that was mostly easy because so many of them were so ostentatious. I certainly had no morality about wealthy people who flaunted their jewelery.” 

Sometimes he succumbed to sentimentality. “Carol Channing was so sweet and nice that I couldn’t do it to her. And in Palm Beach there was this couple I had my eye on, but they were in the paper talking about their 50th wedding anniversary and they came over all lovey-covey and I thought, drop it, just drop it.”
Now older, wiser and safely beyond the statute of limitations, he has written Nine Lives: Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief, a candid memoir of his exploits and confronted for the first time the consequences of his actions. It was a cathartic exercise. 

“I look back and I know I hurt a lot of people. Writing this book has been tough on me because I came to realize the misery I caused, to my victims and to my family. I became very depressed. I am sure that there are people who read my book who are going to be very adverse to me and I can understand that.
“There were a lot of things I stole which had sentimental value and there was nothing I could do except tear them apart and sell them piecemeal. I would take a Tiffany piece and by the time I had taken it apart it was worth half the value.” 

But it is the harm he did to his family that really distresses him. It led to divorce from his first wife, Barbara, and too often deprived him of the company of his children. “Some of the time I was not there because I was incarcerated, yet they never turned on me. They were always very supportive.”
The role of his wife Barbara is puzzling. Although she protected him when in trouble, she took no part in the robberies, covered up for him when the police came calling and even tended his bullet wounds without question. 

“How soon did she know? That’s questionable. The first score I made a lot of money and all of a sudden I had enough to put a down payment on a house. The second score, when I hit the Mafia, I had enough to put money down on an apartment building. Barbara knew I didn’t inherit the money. She closed her eyes to what I was doing.” 

However, the prospect of the book reviving all the old heartache has caused ill feeling in the family for the first time. While Mason has a pride in his dubious achievements, his loved ones are wary of parading his notoriety. 

“My grandchildren all love me but they don’t know what their grandfather has done. I said when they get older they will be able to read my side of the story rather than a bunch of newspaper articles. They aren’t going to stop loving me for something they hear ten years from now. 

“But Barbara and my daughters are not real happy. At first they thought the book was a great idea. Then all of a sudden Barbara decided she didn’t want to hear about it again.” 

Looking back on his life of crime, Mason knows he got off lightly. He worked for 35 years, made $35 million and spent only five years locked up. 

But, apart from a dread of being incarcerated again, his time inside has left him with few insights into how criminals can be deterred. “Some people don’t mind prison. It was excruciating to me. Thank God I could read. I was able to lose my mind in a story. But I didn’t hang around with anybody. I didn’t want to make any friends in there. 

“I have been in all sorts of prisons and you aren’t going to reform those people. Prison is their life. All their buddies are in there. They play cards, lift weights, work out ways of getting high. It is much like their life on the outside. And it is all part of a game. 

“But can you lock them up for ever? People don’t want to pay the taxes it costs to incarcerate these people and they don’t want them out either. They don’t want to be robbed, hurt or bugged by them.
“I don’t know what the hell the answer is. There is no easy answer, that’s for sure.” 

Nine Lives: Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief by Bill Mason, Bantam £10.99 [UK]
A CAT BURGLAR’S ADVICE

• Don’t park in your parking bay. Buildings which assign parking places according to your apartment number only tip off thieves as to when you are not in.