“This better be good,” the pilot said, eyeing the bundle I was carrying as I ran up the manual gangplank and came on board.
“It is,” I told him.
He saw the evidence bag in my hand, his eyes begging for more information.
“This is the rifle that killed Martin Luther King,” I told him.
The pilot nodded and, in complete stunned silence, turned back to the controls. Minutes later, we were airborn, and the evidence bag lay across my lap for the entire trip.
Only we couldn’t land in Washington; radioed reports described gunmen shooting at our plane and the whole downtown D.C. area on fire from rioting. Word of King’s assassination had reached the streets and the FBI had to act fast to stop the violence from spreading across the country.
The plane landed in nearby Baltimore, where agents were waiting to drive me—and the rifle—to the lab at headquarters. Meanwhile, Memphis Special Agent Bob Boyle asked the FBI Indentification Unit to check the Bureau’s files on prison escapees. And a hand search of those 36,000 files managed to pinpoint James Earl Ray’s from fingerprints taken off the rifle I’d given to a special agent named Frazier in the Firearms Unit.
This was the FBI at its best. At the time it was the biggest investigation and manhunt in the FBI’s storied history, all the better when it came to a successful conclusion. Ray, our investigation revealed, had driven to Atlanta from Memphis, making his way to Canada and then England. Forensics gathered from our investigation at the scene, including marks on a window ledge on which a rifle had been steadied, left no doubt Ray was the shooter and that the rifle we recovered from the scene had killed Dr. King. To preserve the chain of evidence, I later returned to Memphis to personally secure the bullet as soon as it was removed during the autopsy. Before long FBI Most Wanted flyers featuring Ray’s face and aliases were distributed everywhere.
Thanks in large part to the speed and thoroughness of our response, Ray was apprehended at London’s Heathrow Airport by British authorities on June 8, two months after the assassination. After Ray emerged from a flight originating in Lisbon, an alert Immigration official recognized his face from our FBI Wanted poster and immediately summoned the Special Branch of Scotland Yard. Although I didn’t participate in his actual apprehension, Director Hoover ordered Bob Jensen and me, as lead investigators, to perform the first interviews with James Earl Ray at Brushy Mountain Prison. I remember how unimpressed I was when I first laid eyes on him. He looked squirrelly, his gaze shifting and constantly furtive. An utterly common guy who had taken on the stench of the flophouse where he’d been holed up waiting to take his shot at Dr. King.
Back in Boston, facing Whitey Bulger from across that kitchen island in 1981 made me think of facing James Earl Ray from the other side of a steel interrogation table. It was extremely uncommon among FBI informants to display such hostile behavior; we were on the same side, after all, at least that’s what they were supposed to think. Normally informants went out of their way to be cordial and make an impression, knowing the wrong word from one of us could land them back in the jam they were in at the start.
“Nice place you got here, Whitey,” I said, enjoying myself.
“I never got your name.”
“That’s ’cause you didn’t shake my hand. It’s Fitzpatrick.”
“You don’t understand,” he boasted. “I was in Alcatraz; I was in the toughest penitentiaries. I’m a bad guy, not somebody you wanna come out here and mess with.”
“Is that what I’m doing, Whitey? Messing with you?”
“You tell me.”
“I just asked you.”
“You got any idea of the stuff I’ve done?”
“That’s why I’m here, to find out what you’ve done and what you’re doing for us. See, you wanna tell me about all the stuff you’ve done when I want to hear what you’re doing for me. Because you’re the informant.” My last remark, a caustic taunt.
Bulger bristled when I said “informant.” I recognized that the word was explosive. Especially for an Irish guy who grew up loathing informants, and still did to this day. His reaction told me Whitey didn’t really consider himself an informant at all. In this case there was very little to be gained from a man who hated the very creature his handlers made him out to be, further explaining why Morris and Connolly had handled Bulger with kid gloves.
I measured his stance. Psychologically, the way he carried himself evoked a “tough guy” and an “in your face” attitude, coupled with a sinister bravado gained from his murderous deeds, aimed at further intimidating me. This man was every bit a tried-and-true, hardboiled thug who’d long ago grown weary of any sense of moral obligation, and had no need for the simple courtesies that might make him appear weak or, just as bad, ordinary. He relished his toughness. Wore it as a talisman.
“Whitey, what are you doing for the FBI?” I finally asked when he lapsed into silence, even though the answer was already written on the parts of his face I could see through the dim lighting. “What are you doing for me?”
I put the stress on the word “me” to let him know who he was dealing with now, to whom he needed to pay deference. I thought I caught Connolly wince in the shadows. I deliberately avoided looking at him and kept my focus on Bulger. I could smell the smoke from Whitey’s girlfriend’s cigarette.
I’d known lots of guys like Bulger, part and parcel of growing up in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen and the Mount, and plenty of them were tougher than he was. Even if he did have a gun stashed under his T-shirt, I was hardly intimidated by this guy and he sensed that. I recalled the Puerto Rican kid I’d fought for the Golden Gloves title at Madison Square Garden while I was a kid at Mount Loretto. No matter how hard I hit him, he wouldn’t go down. Impervious to pain, not even seeming to know my punches were landing. I hit the guy with everything I had and still lost on points. A guy like that would make mince meat out of Bulger.
“You gonna answer my question, Whitey?”
“What question is that?”
“The one I just asked you.”
“I forgot.”
“What are you doing for me?”
“I don’t do shit for you,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at Connolly, perhaps expecting him to intervene.
“Talk to me about drugs.”
“I got nothing to do with drugs.”
“Tell me who’s moving the shit through Boston, then. Tell me what you know.”
“I already did,” he said, coming up just short of a grin.
“How about some names?”
No response at all this time, and my instincts told me no answers would be forthcoming.
“How many people have you hurt, Whitey?” I asked, hoping to get a rise out of him.
His spine seemed to arch proudly. “I don’t have to tell you that.”
“How about since you’ve been an informant?”
He bristled again at the term.
“You kill anyone since you’ve been an informant, Whitey?”
“Know what?”
I didn’t answer him.
“I took on plenty of guys like you,” he continued anyway. “Turned out they weren’t so tough either.”
8
BOSTON, 1981
I had to make a decision. My questions were getting blown off and redirected. How he had kept the wool over Connolly’s and Morris’s eyes for so long I didn’t know, nor did I particularly care at that point. My intention going in had been to get into areas of investigation, mostly drug investigations and cartel intelligence that he was supposedly supplying. Bulger, though, didn’t answer a single question in either regard and it was obvious to me why.
My research in the office indicated that Whitey was not being truthful about street drugs and how they got there. He evaded anything to do with drug cartel connections, cartel distribution, entry points, and when braced on these issues, he grew angry. My judgment was that he was not being honest and truthful, and that negated his purpose as a TE informant.
Since trust was and is the prime ingredient of informant relationships, how could the FBI continue to rely on Bulger when clearly he was a man not to be trusted?
I’m going to close this son of a bitch, I muttered to myself.
Bulger thought he was gaming me, pulling the tough guy act to show that whatever he had to say he’d say to Connolly or Morris, not the new guy on the block who hadn’t earned his respect. I didn’t have to earn anything from Bulger, though; he had to earn it from me. I showed no frustration over his continued refusal to answer any of my questions over our thirty-minute interview. Instead I grew more and more relaxed, casual, letting him think he had beaten me down and the dark night belonged to him.
In college, part of the curriculum to fulfill my dual major in psychology and sociology involved on-site study at Rockland State Hospital in New York where I observed countless subjects who’d been adjudged psychopaths by psychiatrists and mental health experts. I knew I was looking at a psychopath now, and realized that the whole time I was assessing him, Bulger was assessing me, too. And since I didn’t have sunglasses on, as he did, he had a much better shot of reading me than I did of reading him.
When I left the Quincy condominium, I didn’t extend my hand and Bulger, again, didn’t extend his. I could feel his eyes burning into me all the way through the door.
“So,” John Morris said, as I slid back into the passenger seat, “did you like him?”
“No, John, I didn’t.”
Morris seemed shocked and surprised, perhaps having been assured by Bulger that he intended to put on a good show for me. “You didn’t?” was all he could manage.
“We’re going to close this guy.”
Without missing a beat, and suppressing his surprise, Morris responded, “No, you’re not.”
“What do you mean?” I challenged, holding back my anger.
“You’ll never close Bulger,” Morris said defiantly.
I felt my blood course at his impertinence and, seething with anger, did not want to discuss this any further with him at that point. I had just assessed Bulger and watched as his handler Connolly lurked by his side at the scene. Now I had to listen to Morris, Connolly’s direct superior, tell me what I could and couldn’t do. Morris’s response had caught me equally by surprise, and I tried to calm myself as he drove me back to my office. I made some mental notes to speak with the SAC as soon as possible, though not in the presence of Morris.
After Morris dropped me off, I spent all night working on a detailed report that I presented to Larry Sarhatt the following morning. My unequivocable recommendation was to close Bulger as an FBI informant, not just for his propensity for violence, but because he definitely could not be trusted. Telling the complete truth was paramount to me, and in my usual idealistic manner, I thought this was the best and most professional thing to do. I dictated my report to my secretary, outlining the criticism and points I needed to make about Bulger’s lack of cooperation and lack of performance, particularly in the drug area. I also knew that because of Bulger’s status as a Top Echelon informant, my assessment was going to ruffle more than a few feathers at headquarters. Heads might even roll, though not mine.
My two-page report had Sarhatt’s complete attention, and when he finished reading, I braced myself. But his response caught me off guard.
“Well,” he said. “What are we going to do?”
“We keep it simple and just tell Washington that we are closing Bulger.”
I don’t remember Larry responding at all to my statement, which I took as him affirming my plan. As Special Agent in Charge, Larry was the one dealing with FBIHQ and I wasn’t privy to any specific immediate outcome or resolution. There were other cases in progress in the Boston office that took me away from Bulger, who was far from my only pressing concern. At that time, we were doing undercover operations to expose organized crime penetration of the Boston stock market, as well as a corruption case against a Boston politician. Ironically, that politician, and a main target in the corruption case, was none other than Whitey Bulger’s brother Billy, president of the Masschusetts State Senate.
A month later, during one of our annual FBI inspections, Connolly made overtures about bringing me to see Billy Bulger in his sumptuously reconditioned State House office. Connolly made a show of introducing me to “the power,” as he described it. I found it strange that Connolly, as an FBI special agent, even knew these people. He nonchalantly reminded me that he was a Southie boy, born and raised around the Bulger family, and that he was a good friend of theirs. He may have even told me his ice cream story again. As part of this annual inspection of investigative procedures from top to bottom, it was common practice to introduce the inspectors and brass to “important” people in Boston, whose input would likely be included in the assessment.
Connolly’s story didn’t hold. I knew he was bringing me to see Billy Bulger as the guy who posed a threat to his brother and, perhaps, to him by connection. Or, maybe, I thought, Billy had requested the meeting so that he could get a look at his nemesis. If I’d had any questions about where Connolly’s loyalties lay before, I didn’t now. His taking me to Billy Bulger carried with it an implicit threat in the form of the political connections I’d be up against if I continued to press my case against Whitey. There was no doubt in my mind that Billy had already been briefed on the fact that I was the guy who wanted to close his brother as an informant, subjecting Whitey to arrest by O’Donovan’s State Police and Billy to endless public embarrassment. Sure, I was an Irishman, but I was also an outsider sent up from Washington with no clear picture of the lay of the land and no allegiance to Connolly’s ilk.
Billy couldn’t have been warmer or more gregarious. His new office smelled of the leather furniture and freshly stained floor. He sat behind a gargantuan desk and his small stature made it look even bigger. He made it a point to tell his assistant he was in an important meeting and to hold all his calls. He said that looking at me, not Connolly. Again, body language was everything.
He didn’t look like his brother, didn’t sound like his brother. But when I shook his hand I had the same feeling as when I’d first met Whitey. They were just different sides of the same coin and I caged the rest of the meeting in a framework that Billy, too, was a con man used to getting what he wanted and taking whatever action was necessary when he didn’t. He wasn’t accustomed to being told no either, and was even less accustomed to anyone standing up to him. Shaking hands was just part of his con.
The specter of that arrogance never once rose in our carefully worded, yet cautious exchange. Connolly and I sat down in matching leather armchairs set before Billy Bulger’s large desk, so new I found a sales tag taped to the arm’s underside. We could have used the office’s sitting area, but, from a body language perspective, Billy wanted me to know who was running the show here. I was a guest, that was all, and he was granting me an audience like a power broker might.
The sun shined in over Billy, making his features seem even paler as he leaned back comfortably in his chair. “So what are your plans after the Bureau?” he asked me.
“Haven’t given it much thought really.”
“You should,” he said. “Plenty of your predecessors have gone on to bigger things.” His eyes twinkled, coming up just short of a wink above his cherubic cheeks. I knew he was talking about Dennis Condon, now with the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety, and Paul Rico, with World Jai Alai based at my old stomping ground of Miami. “We like to take care of our own here.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Bulger,” I replied, still unsure where this was going.
“Billy,” he corrected. “Everybody calls me Billy.”
We exchanged more small talk, but nothing of substance. The subject of his brother never came up, and I didn’t expect it would. Twenty minutes into the conversation Billy started checking his watch, a clear indication to Connolly that it was time to leave. And, like a dog on a leash, Connolly rose on cue. I followed, extending my hand across th
e desk to take Billy’s palm again.
“Anything I can do for you while you’re in town, just call,” he said, the sun bouncing off his pearly white teeth.
Connolly and I didn’t speak on the way back to the office. He had a smug look on his face the whole time, as if his point had been made: Whitey Bulger was not a man to be messed with and, thus, neither was he. I knew what it was like to be bullied, pushed around, and that’s the feeling that grabbed hold of my gut. Billy Bulger was a bully using power in place of his fists. And he wanted me to know I was alone, helpless against powerful forces I could neither control nor fully comprehend.
Sitting in that office that one and only time brought back many memories, but mostly it made me feel like I was back in the Mount, a little boy trying to learn enough to survive in unfamiliar territory. Not knowing whom to trust. I remembered it so vividly that my meeting with Billy Bulger brought back all the pain and heartache.
I had made the trek through city shelters to court for appropriate remands or petitions for neglect and destitute labels that had made me a ward of the State. At the Mount I was bunched with over sixty-six other kids in a cramped cottage, freezing in the winter and steaming in the summer. Privacy became a thing of the past. Affection vanished from my young life. No hugs and no familial intimacy. In other words, be and let be. There was plenty of pity to go around, but no love.
Fear was everywhere—fear of the unknown, fear of failure. We had a word for failure: Nabut. This was the cop-out for “You know, I didn’t want it anyway.” Nabut meant you could promise yourself anything because the mental reservation you held meant you really didn’t have to do it. This was born of the many promises made to all of us and never kept. Lying and deception were part and parcel of the concept of Nabut. Many, if not all, of the children were promised things—food, security, and safety, among others—but they were never delivered. Promises became meaningless. Trust ceased to exist.
Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down Page 6
