Black Mass - Dick Lehr

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former school chums shared a drink and got to jiving each other about their opposite lots in life. Johnny Martorano jabbed Billy Delahunt about there being more honor in his world than in the one populated by bankers and lawyers. Delahunt just chortled and did not argue the point with him. But when it was Delahunt’s turn to dish it out, he touched a nerve. Delahunt urged his old classmate-turned-gangster to stay out of Norfolk County. Stick to Boston, “for both our sakes,” Delahunt cautioned.

      Martorano told Delahunt to pound sand, and the repartee got animated enough that one of Martorano’s companions joined them at the table to see what was going on. Bulger hung back, waiting by the entrance and out of sight, but Delahunt certainly recognized Martorano’s companion Stevie Flemmi. Then the odd encounter ended suddenly, and amicably enough, when Delahunt’s dinner companion, federal prosecutor Martin Boudreau, arrived at the table. When they were alone, Delahunt rolled his eyes and said, “You’ll never guess who I was talking to.”

      Meanwhile, Bulger joined Martorano and Flemmi, and the threesome picked a cocktail table against the back wall and set up there. Arms folded, they sat waiting for the owner to appear. They had come to see Francis Green because he had some explaining to do.

      About a year earlier Green had borrowed $175,000 from a high-interest Boston finance company for a real estate investment. The problem was that Green had not paid back a dime and, though he didn’t know it, was stiffing a friend of Winter Hill’s. Whitey knew a way to solve such bad debts. It was not genteel.

      Green came into the large central room, spotted the three gangsters, and slid into an empty seat. As was his wont, Bulger skipped the small talk. “Where’s our money?” he asked. Green, a glib salesman with a checkered past, tried a salesman’s tap dance. His finances were in shambles. His business deals had gone bad. He was in bad shape. This had to count for something.

      But Bulger would have none of it. No money is no answer. It didn’t matter that two prosecutors were seated across the way. Bulger leaned into Green’s face, his eyes cold marbles. “Understand this,” Bulger told him, “If you don’t pay, I will absolutely kill you. I will cut off your ears and stuff them in your mouth. I will gouge your eyes out.”

      Then Bulger leaned back. He told Green he really should make an appointment with his loan officer to arrange a schedule for repayment. And Flemmi, playing the good cop to Bulger’s tough cop, advised Green to pay something real soon. That way, comforted Flemmi, no one would get hurt. Then it went back to Bulger, who made one final chilly comment: make it $25,000 within a few days.

      An ashen Green said he would see what he could do. The brisk business meeting was over. An FBI report afterward recorded in leaden government prose that the conversation “greatly upset” Green. It was an understatement. Green was in fear for his life, and it was fear mixed with bewilderment. He was aware that Martorano and Delahunt had earlier been mingling at the bar, and the entire scene that night left him confused about what exactly he was up against.

      It was all pretty bizarre, the kind of odd occurrence that comes with life in and around a big small city like Boston. For their part, the two prosecutors were oblivious to the extortion nearby. Over at their table Delahunt and Boudreau joked during dinner about winding up at the same restaurant with Martorano and Flemmi of the Winter Hill gang. They hadn’t realized that the third man in the entrance shadows was the notorious Whitey Bulger. But Delahunt had no idea at the time that the business activity at the cocktail table was actually a prelude to the bad relations to come between the rest of law enforcement and the Boston office of the FBI. In the future it would seem like the world was divided between the FBI and Bulger, on the one hand, and all the other police agencies on the other. At the moment, though, the chance meeting just seemed to be one of those crazy things that happen but don’t really mean anything.

      The Bulger ultimatum—pay or die—quickly sent Green scrambling to seek out his own contacts in Boston’s law enforcement community. He started with Edward Harrington, the former chief prosecutor at the federal Organized Crime Strike Force for New England. Green not only had had some dealings with the strike force over the years but had also raised money for Harrington’s unsuccessful run for state attorney general in 1974. Harrington was about to rejoin the ranks of government service as the new US attorney in Massachusetts, but he was in private practice at a law firm when Francis Green came calling in full panic.

      Green wanted Harrington’s counsel. What should he do? Harrington, according to an FBI report, was blunt. He told Green he had three options: pay the money, get out of town, or testify against Bulger.

      Green took stock of the situation. Repayment was out of the question. He had squandered the money. Relocation was not appealing. Testifying against the reputed killer seemed even worse. But it was this last option, the one that perhaps carried the highest risk, at least to life and limb, that Green began to contemplate.

      In the weeks that followed Green asked Harrington more questions about cooperating, and Harrington decided that because the extortion occurred in Norfolk County, the matter could best be pursued through a state investigation. He told Green that the case should be developed out of District Attorney Delahunt’s office. But what about Delahunt? Green was worried about Delahunt’s ties to Martorano. He had seen the two men sitting there at the Back Side Restaurant sharing a drink and having a laugh.

      Harrington phoned Delahunt and briefed him about Green and Bulger’s threat. Then he mentioned Green’s concern about the county prosecutor bantering with Martorano. Delahunt assured Harrington that it was only a chance meeting, that there was nothing between the two men beyond faded boyhood memories. Arrangements were made for Green to take his evidence to Norfolk County prosecutors.

      Soon afterward Green met with Delahunt and his top staff. In gripping detail, Green recreated the dramatic night at the Back Side. The story stunned Delahunt. He’d had no idea that this conversation was happening just out of earshot of his dinner with Boudreau.

      Later Delahunt huddled with his staff. Green’s story was explosive, and Delahunt was personally involved. He had, after all, been in the restaurant that same night and could provide eyewitness corroboration that Martorano and Flemmi were present. Could he be both witness and prosecutor? Unlikely. Plus, the county prosecutors wondered if Harrington had been wrong to conclude that this kind of case should be pursued at the state level. They knew that federal extortion laws carried stiffer penalties than they could ever hope to win under Massachusetts law. So Delahunt consulted with Boudreau, the federal strike force prosecutor and law school classmate he’d dined with that night at the Back Side, who agreed with Delahunt’s analysis. He even offered to walk the case over to the FBI office personally to get the ball rolling. With Delahunt’s approval, the case was forwarded to the FBI.

      ▪ ▪ ▪

      John Connolly was worried. Green was the first big bend in the Whitey Bulger highway. But priorities were priorities, so Connolly quickly set out to ensure that the case would never leave the Organized Crime Squad where he worked.

      Two agents from the squad did some perfunctory poking around. The agents, both of whom worked side by side with Connolly in the close-knit squad, interviewed Francis Green. They even visited Delahunt and wrote down what he knew.

      Then they wrote up a report and put it in the FBI files. And that was the end of it. In about a year the agents asked their boss for permission to close the case officially against Bulger, noting that Green was reluctant to testify against him. Local prosecutors had heard that Connolly had conducted an interview in the case and asked for a copy of his report, but the FBI denied it had taken place and said there was no paperwork.

      In the years to come a similar pattern would emerge about witness “reluctance.” Time and again John Connolly and his colleagues would talk to a potential witness against Bulger and come back to the office and throw up their hands—the once-promising person was now reluctant to cooperate. Or reluctant to testify. Or reluctant to wear a wire. And what was an agent supposed to do if the witness was so reluctant? Time and again leads went nowhere, and that pattern began with Francis Green’s “reluctance.” Eventually Green would testify for federal prosecutors in an unrelated public corruption case, but no one ever contrasted his willingness in that case to his reluctance

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