And so, Billy Shea, Whitey, and his crew had to come up with a plan to force the neighborhood drug dealers into the fold without it appearing as if Bulger were the puppet master. Thus they hired Tommy Nee to do the dirty work. “He was viewed as very dangerous in the neighborhood,” said Billy. “I would be playing the part of a diplomat.”
The Tommy Nee renegade gangster strategy had worked so well that thirty-three years later, when Joe Tower took the stand and testified, he still believed that it was legitimate. He had no idea that it had all been a ploy put in motion by Bulger and Billy Shea to take over the drug trade in Southie. Tower was forced to turn to them for protection, which is exactly how they planned it.
In the early days, there had been some hiccups. For one thing, Bulger was not a drug user of any kind. He didn’t know much about the product or the business. Early on, for instance, the organization was forcing dealers to take inferior marijuana, which became known in Southie as “gangster weed.” Shea realized that they needed a new supplier. “I went to Jim and explained that we had a problem with supply. I mentioned that this so-called gangster weed was getting even worse.”
Whitey didn’t know weed, but he knew business. That’s how he saw himself, as a businessman. Even though he did not want it known that the drug trade in Southie was within his domain, everybody knew. And Whitey knew that everybody knew. If anyone in the town were ever caught mentioning Bulger’s name in relation to marijuana or cocaine, they might very well “take a beating.” But, in truth, everybody knew. And they were expected to keep their mouths shut.
As for a new weed supply, Bulger took matters into his own hands. He introduced Shea to a guy who had a schooner down in the marina and made regular trips south of the border. The guy was an offloader of goods on the docks in Southie. Shea wasn’t sure; he didn’t know the guy, but both Bulger and Steve Flemmi said the guy was a major player. Said Shea, “We made arrangements and started buying some very, very good Colombian gold. They came in fifty-pound bales. Our grass problem was over.”
Bales of incoming grass were picked up on the waterfront and transferred to a location the gang referred to as the Vault. “Because marijuana comes in bales,” said Shea, “it’s bulky. You need a place to store it and distribute it. I owned a triple-decker at 252 E Street. I turned the first floor into what appeared to be a living space, made it look like somebody was living there, furnished, with timers on the lights. Nobody lived there. In the closet of the apartment was a trapdoor. At first you wouldn’t see it, clothes, shoes, carpet. But pick up the carpet, you had a trapdoor. That would drop down into a cellar that was partly walled off. Anyone coming into that cellar, it would appear to be a complete cellar. It wasn’t. It was blocked off with the same brick as the foundation of the building. This is where the Vault was created.”
Cocaine was also a major local commodity, now that Bulger’s organization was in charge. They ran into a similar problem with supply as they had with weed. The people Joe Tower had been getting his coke from—a group of Colombians associated with the Medellín Cartel—had come under investigative scrutiny. Tower and Shea had been making regular trips down to Florida to purchase the product, but in 1985 the Colombians abruptly closed up shop.
Shea was concerned, but Bulger told him not to worry. Again, Whitey had someone he wanted Billy to meet. That person turned out to be Joe Murray, whom Shea first met one evening in M Street Park, across from some of the neighborhood’s most fashionable brownstones.
Originally from Charlestown, the city’s other rambunctious Irish American enclave, on the other side of town from Southie, Joe Murray was a legendary trafficker of various illegal goods, including cocaine, marijuana, and guns.
What Billy Shea didn’t know, of course, was that at the same time Bulger was initiating business with Joe Murray, he was “ratting” on him to John Connolly and the FBI. Thanks to Bulger, the feds were compiling a file on Murray, which meant that anyone who did business with him could one day be a target. Bulger was protected; he had a special relationship with the FBI. But Billy Shea did not.
With high-grade product provided by master smuggler Joe Murray, Southie was awash in cocaine in the 1980s. There were rumors that the organization was also smuggling heroin, but Kevin Weeks, Pat Nee, and others who eventually turned against Bulger deny this was ever true. If it was known that smack was being sold in Southie, members of the Bulger organization would track them down and give them a beating—which happened one time when the crew found out that the Sullivan brothers, a notorious family in the neighborhood that often engaged in renegade criminal activity, was selling dope. Kevin Weeks, as Bulger’s primary enforcer, put together a crew of thugs and boxers, sought out the brothers, and gave them a beating in the street. Heroin and prostitution in Southie were forbidden under the Bulger regime.
Bulger’s drug operation became a smooth-running machine, and Billy Shea was an important player. “My responsibilities primarily, after the initial creation of the enterprise, was collections, making sure collections were on time and then chopping up the pie. . . . One of the things I did learn from Jim, he schooled me pretty good in the beginning, was to create buffers. I basically was his buffer to the endeavor, and, of course, I created buffers with trusted associates so they would take the heat before I did. And I learned to stay away from the product. I was never there with the product.”
Prosecutor Kelly had elicited from the witness a detailed description of the organization’s structure and distribution process. Now he asked, “Describe for us how much sales you were making from cocaine.”
“I would say close to a hundred thousand or more every week, at its height.” From the witness box, Shea smiled sheepishly and glanced toward the defendant. “I’m thinking Jim is looking at me and saying, You son of a bitch. You made that kind of money and I got my lousy end.”
Bulger let loose with a genuine, good-natured chuckle. He seemed to be enjoying Shea’s testimony. Billy was a great storyteller with an eye for detail, and he told his tales in a mood of nostalgia. For the gangsters in Southie, these had been the good old days.
Said Kelly, “So, if it’s one hundred grand a week, you’re talking over five million dollars a year, gross.”
“Yes. That sounds about right.”
Shea and Bulger became tight during those years. Bulger would stop by Shea’s home at least once and sometimes twice a week.
“How long did these meetings last?” asked Kelly.
“It varied, depending on, I guess, Jim’s mood. Sometimes he would sit there quite a while. He appeared to generally like my family, and he would sit and chat and talk with my wife and blah, blah. And he liked animals. I had a couple of dogs, he liked that. He would stay awhile. Sometimes he would not. Sometimes, if he was busy, bing, bing, and he was out, got his chop and was gone.”
This note of kitchen table camaraderie between the witness and the defendant from long ago reminded Kelly that he had not yet done his due diligence. “By the way,” he said, “could you, for the record—do you see Mr. Bulger anywhere in the courtroom? Can you identify him, please?”
“Sure, I can identify him. He’s the young fella there with the green shirt.”
Billy pointed at Whitey, who smiled. It was a smile tinged with acceptance and regret. He seemed to harbor no hard feelings toward Billy Shea.
IT WAS CLEAR from Billy Shea’s testimony that he liked Jim Bulger. He spoke of the neighborhood gang boss with affection. Shea was impressed with Bulger’s intelligence and his leadership abilities. As Billy put it, “I was always able to reason with Jim. If we had a difference of opinion all those years, we would work it out, you know. I didn’t always win the argument, but we could always reason it out. There was never no violence or hint of violence towards me.”
But there came a time, in early 1986, when Billy Shea began to grow tired of the drug business. For six straight years it had been an everyday thing; the money they made was phenomenal. But Shea was worried that it was only a mat
ter of time before he would wind up on “the screen,” his term for the radar screen, the focus of a law enforcement investigation. Involvement in the narcotics business is supposed to be temporary, a way to make quick cash and move on to other things. Because eventually some human cog in the operation will get jammed up, maybe for something that has nothing to do with their involvement in the drug trade, and that person will cut a deal to save their hide. It is as certain as the rising and setting of the sun that it will happen one day. Better to get out now before the law comes knocking, and people start getting killed to prevent them from becoming a snitch.
Said Shea, “It’s early 1986. I decided I’m going to talk to Jim and tell him I want out.” Billy felt it was a good time to make his pitch. The pie was huge, money rolling in. It was Shea’s intention to make a clean break and therefore leave his “chop” behind. His getting out would be a windfall for Bulger. “I assured him I could step away, and I told him I’m not looking for a pension plan, because there is none in this type of business. And I said, Do what you want with my share.
“He said no. At that time, he said it’s running smooth as a sewing machine. You’re important. You need to stay.”
“So what happened?” asked the prosecutor
Shea furrowed his brow. All these years later, the memory was still fragrant. “Okay. That ended that conversation. I made up my mind that the argument he presented to me—which was, ‘It wouldn’t run without you, Bill, it would fall apart’—well, I’ll just show him. I’ll show him that it can run, that I don’t need to be here. Okay. So. I go down to Florida. And I stayed there, I don’t know, a month, maybe longer. I was trying to demonstrate to Jim that this could run, I could pull away. I had put people in place, people he knew and trusted. I wasn’t needed.”
Shea received a call from Bulger, which was highly unusual. Bulger didn’t like to talk on the phone. “He says to me, ‘It’s all falling apart, ba-be, ba-be, ba-be. It’s falling apart. I told you it would. You can’t just go off to Florida like that and think you’re retired.’ He did not threaten me at that point. Up to this point, we had a good working relationship.
“Okay. So now I’m back [in Southie]. I listen to the riot act [from Jim]. I stay maybe three weeks, make sure all the little fires are put out, everything is running smooth again, and I leave. That was very stupid. That angered Jim. . . . I can’t speak for him, but I believe that angered him.”
Again, Shea received a call from Bulger while down in Florida. “He said, ‘If you don’t come back up, I’ll come down there.’ I didn’t take that as a threat, just his patience running out.”
Prosecutor Kelly was incredulous. “Well, did you think he was coming down there to vacation with you?”
“No. But he didn’t say it in a threatening way. I took it as he was just blowing off some hot air. . . . Anyway, I did come back.
“Okay. I’m back. I was probably back only a day, and I got a message that he wanted to see me. Usually, if I seen him, it would be at my home. But he wanted to see me at Triple O’s.”
Nobody wanted to be called to a meeting with Bulger at the Triple O’s Lounge. It was a bad omen. But Billy knew he had to go. One of Bulger’s sidekicks, Patrick Linskey, came by and picked him up. They drove to the bar. Jim Bulger was waiting. “So we sat down. I knew he was very angry. I said, ‘Look, Jim’—I tried to reason, the same story. And his reply this time, first time ever, he threatened me. He said, quote—I’m sure he remembers it because I remember it real clear, the first time he ever threatened me—he says, ‘You remember what happened to Bucky Barrett.’
“Now, you know, I wasn’t even upset he said that. What was more upsetting, he embarrassed me in front of Patrick.”
“What did you understand that to mean?”
“I understood that to be what it meant. ‘Do you remember what happened to Bucky Barrett?’ Hey, I took it as Bucky Barrett is among the missing. You know. I took it as a threat, and it was the first time he ever did that. It changed my perception of Jim just like that.
“I got up. I’m feeling embarrassed. I’m looking at a guy that I thought I knew for many years, and he’s threatening me, like, you know, You’ll do as I say or I’ll whack you, basically.
“I told him, I said, ‘Are you threatening me, Jim?’ He didn’t answer. I said, ‘Because I don’t respond good with threats.’ I didn’t mean I was going to do something to him. I meant, I don’t fucking—threats is—I don’t respond well to them. I’ll do the opposite. I do that most of my life when people threaten me. I’ll do the opposite.
“So, I left Triple O’s. I go home, clean up some old business, tie up some loose ends. . . . I proceed right to Florida again. That’s what I did. . . . I was down there about three weeks, maybe more, and I came back. I didn’t get no phone call this time. I thought, Hey, hopefully he’s starting to realize that I’m breaking away.”
Billy Shea was home one day when his front door buzzer sounded. It was Bulger. Shea came outside and was surprised to see not only Bulger but two others, his partner Steve Flemmi and his bodyguard, Kevin Weeks. “He said he needed to talk to me. Well, I found that odd. Whenever we talked, all those years, he didn’t want anybody around. So now he wants to talk with two other individuals, one of them, Flemmi, being a very, very dangerous person, just as dangerous as Jim.
“So I said, ‘Okay, just a minute.’ I went upstairs, and for the first time ever—I never carried a gun around Jim, ever—I armed myself.
“I come out, I got in the car. Best I can remember, I was in the back with Stevie, and Jim and Kevin was in the front. Okay. We’re in the car. I know the car routine. So we drive down not too far from where I live on the Seventh Street side of the D Street housing project. It just so happened it was being remodeled. The courtyards are deserted, there’s nobody living in those apartments; plywood on some of the windows. Yeah, okay. Not as comfortable as my house, or even as comfortable as the Triple O’s. So, Jim gets out. We’re going in there. I believe Stevie said something to me to the effect of, I wish you would reconsider. I got some of it, because by now my antenna is up, I’m focused. I’m paying attention.
“There is no one around there for me. The only people there was us four.
“Jim and I walked into the courtyard. The courtyard, as I said, was abandoned. Deserted . . . I think we’re going to stop, there’s some wash yards there, there’s a doorway there, there’s four or five doorways. No, he doesn’t want to talk there. He wants to talk down on the cellar steps.
“Now, I don’t know how many people are familiar with housing projects. But in housing projects, the cellar steps are like a coffin. As you walk down the cellar steps, deeper and deeper, to get to the cellar door, there’s concrete reinforcement that is built around those stairs. So by the time you hit the bottom of the stairs, you’re in a well-enclosed area. That’s what really got me very paranoid. Very paranoid.”
“What happened? What did you do?”
“We come down the stairs. I think Jim was in front of me. I’m trying to the best of my ability to remember this. It should be burnt in my memory. I think he was in front, I was in back. I wanted to get down the stairs before him, because at the bottom, basically, there’s four feet of concrete all around you. I tried to get in front of him, and I succeeded. Very quickly, I got in front of him and turned so my back was at the cement wall, so there would be nobody coming from my back side.
“So we talked. And I didn’t see any tells that he was aggravated. What I was doing was watching his hands. . . . He didn’t normally carry a gun. He normally carries a knife, and it’s down here. . . .” Billy tapped his ankle, where Bulger kept a knife in his cowboy-style leather boots. “I was looking at his hands to make sure they didn’t move anywhere, and I was looking over his shoulder at the top of the stairs to make sure I didn’t see Stevie’s head show up.”
“What was discussed?”
“Again, my getting out of the business. The same argument I presented many times
. I’m adamant. But I’m thinking that he took me down there to either frighten me or whack me, either one.”
“By ‘whack’ you, what does that mean?”
“Well, I don’t come out of the cellar. If I come up, I’m gone.
“So, this is the first time—I’ve always feared him a little bit, because I know he’s smart and clever—but this is the first time I really focused on him, like if he makes a move, you’re going with me. That’s basically the state of my mind at the time. Jim, you make a move on me, you’re gone. And, of course, I know I’m gone if Stevie shows up at the stairs.”
“So how did the conversation conclude?”
“He surprised me. We talked back and forth. He mentioned something—trust. That’s what I remember. Don’t forget, I’m down there, you know, my heart’s beating a little bit. I’m focusing on him, but I’m very nervous. I know there’s other people with him. I know that if it went bad, I’d be gone. I’d be left there.
“So, he mentioned trust. I couldn’t think right away what he meant by trust. Is he thinking I’ll be a loose end? Is that what he’s worried about? Because there’s no other reason. He’s not greedy. I pointed out that he would be getting a big piece of the pie. So it isn’t greed. If it was greed, he’d say, ‘See you later, Bill.’ So it had to be trust.”
“Trust as to what?”
“A loose end. Maybe I knew too much. You know, the knowledge of the years in the business. I don’t know, I can’t speak for him. Only he can speak for himself.”
“So what happened?”
“All of a sudden, he relaxed. The tension came out of his face. . . . He turned and he said, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ And we walked up the steps.”
“Did he invite you back to his car?”
“You know, as a matter of fact, he did. It was over then. I was relieved. I was very nervous, but then we were talking and walking back out to the car, where Kevin and Stevie was, and he asked if I wanted a ride. I said, ‘No, I can walk.’”
Where the Bodies Were Buried Page 27
