Brutal_ The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob - Kevin Weeks [113]
But the IDs turned out to be all wrong. Jimmy’s mustache looked nothing like the one I’d put on Jackie. The fake one was much bigger than the pencil-thin one Jimmy now wore. So we went shopping and bought a Polaroid-type camera and some blue sheets and headed to his hotel to take new photos. He hadn’t been able to get a room in a nice hotel, so he’d had to settle for a crummy one. In the room, we took a bunch of photos that worked fine. He’d done his homework and had four new names with addresses and social security numbers, which we could use on the second set of IDs. One of the aliases was Shackleton, the name of a man he befriended in the Illinois area and and whose ID he had acquired. I have no idea how it happened, if he gave the guy money or what. He chose the photos he liked best and compared them to the size of my license picture to ensure they would fit into the frame. Once he was satisfied with them, we were ready to head out for dinner.
Around nine, we walked over to a nearby Japanese restaurant. It was a warm, pleasant summer evening and Jimmy and I wore regular slacks and shirts. Cathy, dressed in white pants, a blouse, and a light jacket, walked on ahead with the girl I was with. Three black kids in their early twenties walked by and started to stare at the girls. They were saying something to the girls, but they were mumbling so Jimmy and I couldn’t really hear them.
Jimmy burst out, “What are you looking at, you motherfuckers?” Out came his knife and out came my knife, and we ran right toward them. The guys took off running down the street. I don’t think the girls realized what was going on with the guys, but they saw us pull out the knives. That’s Jimmy, too. On the run and still aggressive. Not taking shit from anyone. We had a good laugh about that scene during dinner.
When we walked into the restaurant, Jimmy said, “Every day out there is another day I beat them. Every good meal is a meal they can’t take away from me.” It was strange talk from him, but a few minutes later he was acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
We sat in the back of the restaurant at an ordinary table. Jimmy asked the waiter what he recommended and then checked with the three of us. Finally, Jimmy ordered some chicken dishes, some meat dishes, and some vegetable dishes. We had a couple of beers with the meal. It was a relaxing, pleasant meal with good food and friendly conversation.
After dinner, we walked the few blocks back to his hotel. We shook hands and I told him I’d be leaving early the next morning. He said he’d give me a call. Chicago was busy and there weren’t that many hotel rooms available, but I’d gotten a room earlier that day a few blocks away from his hotel. That room also turned out to be a shithole, even shabbier than Jimmy’s. After ten minutes we checked out, along with the cockroaches that had their suitcases packed, too. The two of us headed back to South Bend and spent the night in a motel on the main drag there. By the next night, we were back in Boston.
Back home, I finished the IDs and gave them to a friend I trusted to bring them to New York. There was too much heat on me to make the trip myself. While looking for Jimmy, the law had increased the surveillance on me a notch or two. But Jimmy knew I was sending someone I trusted, so it was no big deal. As it turned out, Jimmy wasn’t happy with the finished IDs. He called me to complain that there was no date of issue on the licenses. “They don’t put date of issues on Massachusetts licenses anymore,” I told him. “If they put one on and a cop stops you, he’s going to pick it right up that it’s a phony.”
He finally accepted what I said and then we talked for a while about the case. From what both of us had heard, it looked as if the case was actually falling apart. George Kaufman, the liaison between the Jewish