Brutal_ The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob - Kevin Weeks [40]
Although there were some people to whom I was introduced, often I wasn’t introduced at all, and just stood there and listened. If the people had no idea who I was, they’d just glance nervously at me, most likely wondering what I was about. Inevitably, it would create a chilling effect as I watched and listened and didn’t say a word.
The first and only time I met Chico Krantz, who ran a bookmaking operation, was at an afternoon meeting in Triple O’s. Chico was in his late forties or early fifties, kind of a big guy, with a mustache and bald head with hair on each side, always covered with a Stetson hat with a wide brim. At this meeting, there seemed to be a problem concerning the amount of money Chico was receiving and what he was paying to Jimmy and Stevie. There were about twenty people in the bar, none of whom noticed the three of them sitting quietly at a table. Jimmy and Stevie did all the talking and I stood off to the side. It took no more than fifteen minutes before Chico agreed to pay them around $90,000 more. The meeting never got heated and all three of them remained calm. After the meeting was over, Chico stood up, they all shook hands, and he left.
When I first went to work at Triple O’s, I had begun my own loan-sharking business. It was a simple business. I’d taken whatever money I made and turned it over, increasing it little by little by lending it to people who paid it back at a certain rate, between two and five points a week. It wasn’t rocket science. I simply decided my own rates and loaned to people, mostly my age or a little bit older, who I had known over the years. It was a quick loan for people who couldn’t go or didn’t want to go to a bank; people who had jobs or who I knew could come up with the money they’d owe me.
Someone would come up and say, “Kev, I need five hundred bucks,” and I’d give it to them and say, “Here you go. You pay me twenty-five a week on interest for the five hundred.” That was the juice that didn’t come off the principal. When I began, I had from twenty to twenty-five customers and I lent from $100 up to $25,000, with interest from two and half points to five points. If someone borrowed $25,000 at two and a half points, they’d have to pay me $625 a week interest, which I collected weekly. Sure, they paid more interest than at a bank, where they paid a maximum of 21 percent a year on a credit card. With me, it was up to 260 percent a year or five points a week, while a bank could only do 21 percent a year or a point and a half a month. But my customers needed cash quickly with no questions asked, and that was exactly what I provided, albeit at exorbitant rates.
Since I knew everybody I dealt with, there was no need for me to keep detailed records on every loan I made. I’d keep the smaller ones in my head and just write the larger ones down for my records. Now that I was with Jimmy, I was loan-sharking at the variety store and the liquor store, as well as at Triple O’s and the L Street Tavern, and my reputation grew even stronger. When I told Jimmy I was going to continue to do it, he had no problem. “Fine. Just be careful,” he told me.
As my business expanded, I had $150,000 to $200,000 on the street, still not a large business, but a comfortable one. My base continued to grow as customers would introduce me to other people who needed money. I rarely said no to the criminals who I knew would make money. There was no violence involved in my loan-sharking business because most people paid it back. If they didn’t pay it back on time, they’d tell me a story and I’d say, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll pay me back when you get on your feet.”
The only loan-sharking customer I ever had a problem with was Jimmy