Brutal_ The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob - Kevin Weeks [44]
But there was always plenty of time to talk about the many topics that interested Jimmy and how they affected legitimate people, like unemployment. Jimmy was concerned with social injustice, especially with what busing was doing to the people of South Boston. Nothing got him more aggravated.
Even though I was twenty-four and he was fifty-one when we began to work closely together, our relationship never seemed like father–son, boss–employee. From the earliest years, I felt we were associates. We would exchange ideas and more times than not thought alike. He was surprisingly open-minded, listening to people for four to five hours at a time, considering it well worth his time if he gleaned one bit of information or one piece of knowledge from that conversation, usually filing it away or learning more about it. It wouldn’t necessarily be information having to do with crime. We could be sitting on a bench and he would turn to a person sitting nearby and strike up a conversation, curious as to where the guy came from and what he did, genuinely interested in him. And not just so he could relieve the guy of his money.
This made him different from most criminals, who were one-dimensional, thinking about nothing but crime. Sure, he was all the things people said he was: a killer, fierce, forceful, dangerous. But he was also fair, respectful to people and their opinions, treating most of them courteously. If someone was right or had a valid point or opinion, he gave them credit for their attitude. Sometimes he did things that I didn’t understand, but I knew he had his reasons, and I would never question them. I never tried to figure out why he didn’t like certain people or question his opinions. Again, I figured he had his reasons. I also knew he’d never ask me to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself, and I was never afraid to do anything he asked, no matter what it was. I learned early on how things could change rapidly with Jimmy, how a person could say the wrong thing and his whole standing would change. I was surprised also to learn that, unlike Stevie, Jimmy considered violence the last step. But once he made up his mind to use it, that was it. If you put him to that point, there would be no talking. Someone was going to be badly hurt or murdered.
One of the first things Jimmy taught me was to consider the long-range ramifications of whatever we did. The idea of committing a crime was to get away with it. He wasn’t interested about the next six months, but rather with how things would work out years down the road. There were lots of scores we would pass on because the percentages weren’t there. Sure, we could take the person down, but Jimmy always thought about what that action would mean later on. What might this person do in a few years? What kind of life did he lead? If he got pinched and needed an out, would he give us up? Every extortion, every dealing, every action, large or small, was carefully thought out far beyond the present moment.
One of the scores we passed on was a home invasion involving a vault with thirty million dollars in it. It was brought to us by another fellow who I had little doubt would be looking to give us up if anything went wrong. I was also worried that there would be a lot of heat and we would be the fall guys. Jimmy and I talked about it for a week or so and finally scrapped the plans. No one else took the job, and neither of us ever regretted our decision.
Most times we worked with a regular schedule, but the hours could be long. Because of his nightmares and insomnia, Jimmy was