The Fence - Dick Lehr [131]
Burgio was seated outside Nancy Whiskey’s—near closing time, again—when a car drove up and parked, and a bunch of people climbed out, including Kenny Conley.
Kenny spotted Burgio right away. His friends did too.
“There’s Jimmy,” one cautioned. “You want to go in there?”
The group had come from a fund-raiser for the Special Olympics at a union hall in Southie. No one had known Burgio was working the door. Kenny had what he called a “package on,” meaning, “I was drinking.” Since his sentencing, he’d been drinking hard—too hard.
Maybe they should go somewhere else, another friend suggested.
Kenny looked at Burgio dressed in his uniform—a reminder that throughout the Cox investigation, Burgio had stayed on the street, a full-fledged member of the police department. Kenny lost his badge the year before on the day he was indicted.
Kenny pushed the car door open. He’d made up his mind. “Fuck him. I’m not letting him keep me out of a place where I live.”
He walked past Burgio and into the bar. He and his friends ordered a round, but Kenny didn’t have much to say. Unless things changed, he was going to prison. In court earlier in the week, Ted Merritt had sought a sentence of forty-six months, a year longer than the thirty-four months the judge ended up imposing. Even with the lesser amount of time, his lawyer, Willie Davis, was demonstrably upset; by comparison, he noted that Stacey Koons, one of the L.A. cops caught on videotape beating Rodney King, had received a thirty-month term. “Tell me that’s justice,” Davis had told reporters while shaking his head. Kenny’s twin sister, Kris, was hurrying her wedding plans to make certain Kenny could attend. Kenny might have been out on bail and appealing his conviction, but he had nightmares about being scooped up off the street and taken away to prison.
He stood inside the bar thinking about Burgio. “He’s sitting there working like nothing’s going on, nothing’s happened. Three days prior I had just been sentenced to thirty-four months for something I had nothing to do with.” It was starting to drive him a little crazy. He and his friends drank a few beers, and then it was time to go.
Outside, Kenny looked over and saw Burgio talking to someone from the neighborhood. Kenny said nothing and headed up the street. He and his friends were nearing the car when he suddenly turned around. “Something came over me that I wanted to go over and confront him.” It was the toxic blend of his thoughts, the drinking, and “all the frustration built up.” He’d snapped.
Burgio saw him coming. “Kenny, how you doing?”
“How am I doing?” Kenny asked rhetorically. “I’m not doing too well, Jimmy. I’m going to jail for thirty-four months because you’re a fucking coward.”
“Is this where you want this to go?” Burgio said.
Kenny did. “You pussy,” he yelled. “You should get up and speak like a man and stop hiding behind things.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Burgio’s voice was expressionless.
“I don’t know what I’m fucking talking about?”
Kenny was drunk and yelling. Burgio was sober and calculating.
“Go home before I P-C you.” Burgio warned. He knew that threatening to place Kenny in protective custody would stoke him further.
Kenny yelled wildly at Burgio, readying for a fight. By now his friends were surrounding him and pulling him away.
“You wouldn’t want to do this when I’m in uniform,” Burgio taunted.
Kenny said any time, any place.
“I’m off in twenty minutes. Pick a spot.”
Kenny’s friends hauled him away to the car, with Kenny yelling. “I’m going to jail for you, you piece of shit.”
Burgio watched as the car drove off. He considered Kenny Conley all talk. When Burgio finished work at the bar, he saw no sign of Kenny or his friends. “Nothing happened.” Smugly, he added, “He wouldn’t want to fight me.”
Kenny’s friends had taken him home. By the next morning, Kenny was disgusted with himself for trading insults like a school-yard thug. The one thing—Burgio never once denied