Brutal_ The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob - Kevin Weeks [105]
“Look at those cars, Stevie,” I said as I pointed out all four to him.
“Holy shit,” he said. “I didn’t see one of them. You have good eyes.”
I said nothing. He drove me back to the store. I got out.
“Only four people in the FBI office know about these indictments,” Connolly went on to tell me that December afternoon in the beer chest. He’d heard it from Dennis O’Callahan, the SAC, or Supervising Agent in Charge, of the Boston office. “So, where are Stevie and Jimmy?”
After I talked to Connolly for a while to make sure I had it right, I told him I’d beep Jimmy and try to get hold of him. By then it was three-thirty. When Connolly left, I went next door to the variety store and beeped Jimmy. He called me back a couple of minutes later and told me he was going shopping with Theresa. I told him to swing by and pick me up. In a few minutes, he picked me up in his blue Ford LTD and I got into the back seat and the three of us drove to Neiman Marcus in Copley Plaza. Always aware the car might be bugged, I didn’t say a word about the indictments or Connolly while we were in the car.
When we got to Copley Plaza, Jimmy told Theresa he was going to talk to me. She stood by the entrance to Neiman Marcus while Jimmy and I walked toward the back of the car, which he had parked illegally at the sidewalk. I told him exactly what Connolly had told me. There was no change in his facial expressions as I explained how O’Callahan had told Connolly that the feds had plans to arrest him and Stevie over the holidays. And how only four people in the FBI office knew that.
“Have you gotten hold of Stevie yet?” he asked me and I told him no, that he was the first one I’d called. He said he’d call Stevie and I should, too. Then he called over to Theresa, who was still standing in front of Neiman Marcus. The two of them talked privately for a few minutes, and then the three of us drove off and he dropped me off at Preble Street near the variety store. “I’ll call you later,” he said before the two of them took off, and I went into the store. I realized he might be gone for a while. Things were changing.
Around five-thirty, Stevie finally showed up at the variety store. He looked the same as always, black leather jacket, black gloves, dungarees. I told him the same thing I’d told Jimmy. Jimmy hadn’t reached him, so it was the first time he’d heard about it. I also told him that Jimmy had already gone. Stevie didn’t seem panicked. “My guy is right on top of it,” he told me. “I’ll be hearing from him.” He left the store, assuring me he had plenty of time. I repeated that only four people knew and that maybe his guy wasn’t one of them.
A week later, Stevie came back in the store and I said to him, “What are you doing? Stevie, you’ve got to take off.”
“My guy is right on top of it,” he told me again.
“Stevie, I told you there are only four people who know. Take off for a couple of weeks. If anything comes down, you’ve got a head start. If nothing happens, you had a vacation.”
Stevie got a little upset, and we started arguing. He kept telling me his guy knew everything and I was telling him there were only four people who knew. Finally he said he had a couple of things to do and then he would take off.
I heard nothing from Jimmy that week or the next, but I felt more interest in me, obviously, since I was the only one left in South Boston. I continued doing my loan-sharking and my usual business activities, but there was no ignoring the stronger presence of the law. Before the indictments, Jimmy and I had always joked about FBI agent John Gamel, a former Worcester weatherman, six-eight, with black hair, thick glasses with oversized black rims, and a mustache, a real geeky kind of guy who always wore the same brown trench coat and tried to blend into a crowd. But he looked like a huge bookworm, a big