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“What are we talking about?” I asked him. “How many years, Richie?”

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

“Just tell me, Richie,” I said. “What are we talking about—for years?”

“You’re gone,” he said. “It’s over. If I was you, I’d do some thinking. I’m not telling you what to do, but it’s over.” Then he informed me he might have a conflict of interest with another client who was involved in the case and he wasn’t sure he could represent me.

Soon after that, I met with another attorney, Charlie Rankin. He came up to Wyatt on a Friday and we sat around for a while and talked about the case. He basically told me the same thing Richie had said. On every charge, they would give me the maximum. “For me to represent you, by Monday, you’ll have to give me one hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the bail hearing,” he told me. “Then it will be twenty thousand dollars a week for the case. And you’ll pay all expenses, for transcripts and appeals, for everything like that.”

Right then, I was thinking, He’s talking appeals. This guy thinks we’re going to lose. “How long will the trial last?” I asked him.

“Four to six months,” he told me.

“So you’re talking around six hundred thousand dollars,” I said. “For that, what are you guaranteeing me?”

“No guarantees,” he told me.

“What about time?” I said. “I’m going to give you six hundred thousand dollars and you can’t even tell me what to expect out of this?”

“No guarantees,” he said again.

That Monday, they brought me to Boston to the bail hearing at the federal courthouse. When I was sitting in the holding cell, I looked over and caught a glimpse of Bobby DeLuca, dressed nicely in a suit, sitting in the cell next to me. Bobby was one of the original people who got indicted in 1995, along with Jimmy and Stevie and Frank Salemme and Jimmy and Johnny Martorano. He was Stevie’s codefendant in the case. I had gotten to know him when I was visiting Stevie at Plymouth and had always found him to be a real nice and honorable person. Out of everybody who got indicted at that time, he was one of the only ones who didn’t cooperate. He went and did his time. That day, he was pleading out guilty and getting sentenced, taking a ten-year sentence on top of the five he already had.

Anyhow, while we were in adjacent cells, he called out, “How you doing?” and the two of us shook hands through the bars. We couldn’t see each other well, but we talked for a couple of hours. Right away, Bobby said, “Stevie is a selfish bastard. He don’t give a shit about anybody but himself. That day he mentioned your name in court, we all told him, ‘What the fuck are you doing mentioning Kevin’s name? He’s the only guy out there helping you. And you just put a bull’s-eye on his back.’”

As it turned out that day, my bail hearing got postponed, so nothing happened and I was brought back to Wyatt. Charlie Rankin later informed me he was going to put the bail hearing off.

I did receive some good news, however, when I learned that my case and bail hearing had been assigned to Judge Harrington. That pleased me because I knew the judge was good friends with John Connolly and that Jimmy knew him. If I had a shot with any judge, he was it. When I was in the courtroom that day, along with Kevin O’Neil, waiting for Judge Harrington to enter, Tom Duffy and Steve Johnson from the state police served me a piece of paper. I noticed that the agents all had smiles on their faces when I was given the paper. I looked at it and read that Judge Harrington had recused himself.

Back at Wyatt a few days later, I received a letter from Stevie. The last time I had seen him was during my last visit to Plymouth the end of October or beginning of November 1999. He had sent the letter to a family member of mine who had forwarded it to me. At the bottom of the handwritten note, Stevie had written, “My case is going good and good luck with yours.” In other words, “You’re on your own.” I didn’t expect anything from him, but I hadn’t expected that.