Brutal_ The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob - Kevin Weeks [94]
After Jimmy and I left Stippo’s store, we went to the package store owned by the Luongos and talked to two of the three brothers who were there. After a forty-five-minute conversation, we were convinced the Luongo brothers had nothing to do with the bomb threats. But they were open about the fact that they didn’t like Stippo and that there had been hard feelings when they had parted ways. They also told us Stippo had been stealing money off them and had previously tried to buy a liquor store on the same block as their store. The Luongos said that when the owner refused to sell it to him, the store had mysteriously burned down. There was no doubt that Stippo did not have a good reputation in town and that more than one piece of property he had owned went up in flames. He’d even been investigated by the arson squad, although nothing ever came of it. But still it was clear that the Luongo brothers, despite their dislike of Stippo, had not made the bomb threats.
After we left the Luongos, Jimmy and I decided to go our separate ways for supper and meet later in the evening. On his way home, Jimmy drove up to Perkins Square and went into the Bayview Liquor, a store owned by the Barrys. When I met Jimmy later, he informed me that the people there didn’t know anything about the bomb threats. During the week, the two of us went to a couple of other places, but we couldn’t make any headway. No one we talked to knew anything about the bomb or death threats.
The following Monday afternoon, Jimmy and I were driving down Andrew Square when an old friend of Jimmy’s yelled out, “Hey, Sonny,” using an old nickname Jimmy had since he’d been a kid. Jimmy pulled over and introduced me to Domi Musico, who owned a liquor store and also a bar near Andrew Square, not far from where Stippo had opened his store.
We were talking small talk for a little while when, out of the clear, Domi said, “So, do you believe that cocksucker Stippo opening up and undercutting everybody? But that’s all right. I keep calling him up and telling him I’m going to blow the place up and kill them all.”
Jimmy and I looked at each other and started laughing. We had just stumbled onto it. Then Jimmy looked at Domi and said, “Domi, you can’t do that. His father is a friend of Kevin’s.”
“I’m not going to do anything,” Domi said. “But I want that cocksucker to have some restless nights like I’ve had.”
“Don’t do anything,” Jimmy told him again.
“I won’t do anything,” Domi promised Jimmy. “I just hate him.”
Later that evening, we went back to Stippo’s and told him we had found out who was making the threats and that he didn’t have any more problems. “It’s all taken care of,” Jimmy assured him. Stippo was pleased and thanked us. And that was the end of it. Or so we thought.
The following week, after Christmas, Mary came back down to Court’s Inn and sat in a booth with Jimmy. After they’d been talking for a while, Jimmy called me over. “Stippo wants to sell the liquor mart,” he told me. “He wants to know if we’re interested. A legitimate business wouldn’t be a bad idea. What do you think?”
Mary was still there but I said, “It doesn’t hurt to listen.”
That night, Jimmy and I went down to Stippo’s. He and Jimmy started talking, but Stippo didn’t want to talk in front of his wife, who was down at the store at the time. He asked us to meet him later at his house on East Fourth Street. I knew the house well, from when I used to visit its former owner, Marty McDonough, a high school hockey referee who worked as a liquor salesman and was a real nice guy, a legitimate guy. Later that evening, when Jimmy and I went up to his house, Stippo told