Whitey Bulger America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him To Justice (29 page)

A half-hour later she was back in the house on Roseland Street and called the boys down from the third floor. They had been on the landing for hours, listening to the adults speaking in hushed tones downstairs, and they knew something was wrong. Some of the women were crying, and Michael, the oldest, knew in his heart what had happened. If his younger brothers couldn’t comprehend what was going on, thirteen-year-old Michael did.

Pat Donahue cleared the living room of everybody else and asked her boys to sit on the couch. “Dad died and he’s not coming back,” she said, and eight-year-old Tommy was crying before she got the last words out.

The waterfront rubout was right out of the movies,
and it dominated the news. Law enforcement agents were everywhere, trying to find Jimmy Flynn and the unknown second gunman. If Whitey was concerned about the heat, he didn’t show it. A couple of days after the murders, he drove Flemmi and Weeks down to the tow lot in Southie where Donahue’s Datsun had been impounded. They found it and saw that it was riddled with bullet holes. Whitey pointed to his handi-work on the driver’s-side headrest: strands of hair, scalp, and tissue.
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About ten days after the murders, John Morris dropped by Whitey’s condo in Quincy with John Connolly. The agents were concerned that their informants were being mentioned as suspects in the killings. Whitey plied Morris with beers as Morris filled him in on what various law enforcement agencies were saying. Morris told Whitey that an FBI agent had been doing a stakeout, trying to keep an eye on Halloran, and had gotten the license plate number of the hit car.

The next day, Whitey told Weeks to make sure the Tow Truck stayed out of sight in a garage on K Street until they could chop it up. Whitey said Morris had been forthcoming the night before, the beer eventually serving as a truth serum. “Thank God for Beck’s,” Whitey said.
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Not long after that talkative evening at Whitey’s place, Morris had to fly down to Georgia for a two-week training session on narcotics investigations. He called Connolly with a delicate sort of request. Morris had been carrying on an open affair with his secretary, and he knew Connolly had left his own wife and was a ladies’ man. So Morris felt comfortable in asking him for some help. Morris reminded Connolly that Whitey and Flemmi were always volunteering to help him. “Do you think they could arrange for an airline ticket?” Morris asked.
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Not long after, Connolly handed Morris’s girlfriend a white envelope, saying that what was inside had come from Morris. It was a thousand dollars in cash, more than enough for a ticket to Georgia. Connolly smiled and lied to her: He said Morris had been saving the money, little by little, just for this occasion. She put in for a few days off and rushed to Logan Airport, waiting for a flight that was a gift from a pair of murderers.
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Morris was now compromised to the point that he wasn’t just protecting Whitey and Flemmi, he was protecting himself. He was on the payroll. They had given John Morris wine and women. The only thing left was song.

Two weeks after the Halloran hit,
there was a big meeting at FBI headquarters in Washington. Headquarters staff and agents from Boston, Miami, and Oklahoma City crowded around a conference table. There was a problem: two key informants, Whitey and Flemmi, were suspects in the Wheeler hit and in the waterfront ambush that killed Halloran and Donahue. Bob Fitzpatrick, the assistant special agent in charge of the Boston office, recommended that they be closed as informants. But Sean McWeeney, the organized crime section chief in Washington, noted that headquarters remained impressed that “they were extremely valuable assets” in the FBI’s war against the Mafia.
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It wasn’t just the Boston office that had Whitey and Flemmi’s back; headquarters in Washington did, too. FBI brass were willing to cover for a pair of suspected murderers because the Boston field office had convinced headquarters that they were indispensable. It was a critical season in the bureau’s ongoing campaign against the Mafia. In the spring of 1982, as officials debated what to do with Whitey and Flemmi, FBI technicians were enhancing the audio tapes from the bugs that would lead to the September 1983 arrests of Jerry Angiulo and the rest of the Boston Mafia leadership. What would come of that case if two of the informants the FBI relied on were charged with murder?

The overreach had claimed a businessman,
a bystander, and a bad guy. John Connolly was beginning to worry that the heat might claim them all. Still, he didn’t ask Whitey if he had killed Halloran and Donahue. Instead, he said, “You guys are going to get a lot of heat on this.”
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Flemmi, however, had no doubt that Connolly knew that Whitey had done it. Whitey told Connolly that Halloran had mistakenly fingered the wrong man in his dying declaration and that Jimmy Flynn had nothing to do with the killing.
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Connolly believed he could manage the finger-pointing that had engulfed his office since the murders, but he felt uneasy about all the interest his colleagues were showing in John Callahan. Other FBI agents were determined to question Callahan. He was the link to the Wheeler and Halloran homicides, the only obvious connection between the two.

Connolly told Whitey and Flemmi that Callahan wouldn’t stand up. He was a civilian. He wasn’t a wiseguy, just a wannabe.
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Whitey agreed and knew it was time to meet face-to-face with Johnny Martorano and give him one more job. After an elaborate series of phone calls, the meeting was set for the Marriott Hotel at LaGuardia Airport in New York. The choice of hotel was no accident. Martorano knew somebody who worked there and got a reduced rate.

Martorano flew up from Florida, using as his alias the name Richard Aucoin. Whitey and Flemmi drove down to New York. “Your friend is not going to stand up,” Whitey said, as soon as they sat down. Whitey did all the talking. He kept repeating that John Connolly had warned him: “We’re all going to end up going to jail for the rest of our lives if he doesn’t hold up.”
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And he tried to talk Martorano into doing it, building his case logically like a lawyer at a trial. “Whitey told me Halloran had gone to the FBI and told the FBI that I killed Roger Wheeler,” Martorano said.
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“I killed Halloran to protect you,” Whitey said.

“Thanks,” Martorano replied. “I appreciate it.”

And, now, in Whitey’s mind, it was time to reciprocate. But Martorano resisted. He knew Callahan was many things, but he was not a rat—he told Whitey that Callahan wouldn’t give them up. But that’s the point, Whitey countered. “Callahan gave you up,” Whitey said, “to Halloran.”
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Martorano was heartsick. Callahan had helped him on the run. Gotten him an apartment, a car, some furniture. They had had a lot of good times together. He was a friend, and Martorano had never killed a friend before.

Whitey closed his argument with one final question.

“Can he do twenty years?” Whitey asked.

Martorano thought about it, and he had to be honest. Callahan was a party animal. He liked the good life. Martorano couldn’t imagine Callahan doing hard time. “No,” Martorano said, and John Callahan was at that very moment as good as dead.

Whitey said no more bodies in Boston. They were already feeling enough heat. Lure him down to Florida. Kill him. Take his wallet and watch, leave them in Little Havana. It will look like a drug deal gone bad. Have Joe McDonald help you. A week later, Whitey and Flemmi met John Connolly at Connolly’s house in Southie. “We talked to Johnny Martorano about Callahan,” Whitey said. “We gave him the information and he said he’d take care of it.”
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A few weeks before Callahan was murdered, Connolly would file a 209 informant report based on information that Whitey fed him, suggesting that Callahan was involved in criminal activity with a bunch of Cubans in Miami.
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They were creating a list of plausible suspects and pushing the direction of an investigation of a murder that hadn’t happened yet.

Martorano couldn’t find Callahan for weeks. He didn’t know that Callahan had spontaneously left for a trip to Ireland. When he got back, he found a stack of messages from Martorano. “Come on down,” Martorano told him. “I want to see you. We can hang out.”
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The plan was to stay at Callahan’s condo in Plantation, just outside Fort Lauderdale. Callahan flew in, and Martorano met him at the gate. He even carried his luggage, all the way to his Dodge van in the airport parking garage. As Martorano went to the side door to put the bag in the middle row of seats, Callahan settled into the front passenger seat of the van, a captain’s chair. Martorano tossed the bag in the side door of the van, then picked up a .22 that he had hidden under a blanket, put it to the back of Callahan’s head, and fired. Martorano pulled Callahan’s body down between the two captain’s chairs, closed the van door, got in the driver’s seat, and drove off.
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Joe McDonald, who had kept watch, followed in another car. It was just after 11:00 p.m., and if there was anybody else around, they didn’t notice. Martorano had parked the Cadillac that Callahan used when he was in Florida in a garage so they could move the body into the trunk without being seen. But as Martorano and McDonald were moving the body, a noise emanated from Callahan. It sounded like a moan. McDonald asked for Martorano’s gun, extended his arm into the trunk, and fired repeatedly into Callahan’s head. There was no more moaning. They took his wallet and watch and anything else in his pockets and left them in the men’s room of a bar in Little Havana.
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Then they drove the Cadillac to the airport in Miami and left it in a parking lot. A couple of days later, one of the parking lot attendants noticed a foul odor emanating, and something dripping, from the trunk.

John Callahan was dead
but his Swiss bank accounts were still very much alive.

A month after the murder, Whitey and Flemmi sent word for Callahan’s friend and business partner, Mike Solimando, to visit them at the Triple O’s. Solimando dabbled in real estate and was a part owner of Durgin Park, a famous restaurant in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. He was in charge of Callahan’s estate, and Whitey and Flemmi said they had an interest in it. Solimando was escorted to the private room on the second floor. Despite his powerful weightlifter’s body, he looked uneasy as he took his seat at one of the round tables.

Whitey pulled up a seat next to him. He held a machine gun and put it on his lap.

“John Callahan owed us money,” Whitey said. “His debt is now your debt and we want our money.”

How much?

“Six hundred thousand,” Whitey said. “And we know it’s in those Swiss accounts.”

As he was saying this, Whitey pushed the machine gun under the table, into Solimando’s crotch. “If we don’t get our money, we’ll kill you, your partners, your family,” Whitey said.

Flemmi just watched and smirked. It was a scam. Callahan didn’t owe them anything. But Solimando was in no position to demand proof. Whitey pulled the machine gun from underneath the table and pushed the barrel into Solimando’s chiseled chest. “All those muscles aren’t going to do you any good now,” Whitey sneered.

Solimando agreed to get the money even if he had to fly to Switzerland. Whitey lowered the gun and he was free to go. But Whitey had a parting shot. Just as Solimando got to the door that led downstairs, he called out to him. Solimando stopped and turned. “Don’t go to the FBI,” Whitey said. “If you go to the FBI, I’ll know in five minutes.”
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Callahan’s murder continued to intensify the pressure on Whitey and Flemmi and, by extension, on Connolly and Morris. Connolly closed out Flemmi as an informant seven weeks after Callahan’s murder, but only on paper. He didn’t tell Flemmi he had been closed, and continued to meet with him. Whitey was kept open, and he was credited with information that, as so often before, came from Flemmi. It was a formality, a diversion. Whitey and Flemmi were still in business and knew that Connolly and Morris were still watching their backs. They reminded Morris how much they appreciated his loyalty. They gave Connolly another case of wine, with an envelope stuffed with a thousand dollars, and, once again, he delivered it to Morris in the garage at the FBI’s Boston office. This time, Morris took it without raising an objection.
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Gerry Montanari, the FBI agent whose informant had been cut to shreds on the waterfront, kept after Connolly, saying he wanted to talk to Whitey and Flemmi. “Gerry Montanari is trying to make a career out of the jai alai case,” Connolly complained to Whitey and Flemmi, without a hint of irony.
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There was also pressure coming from agents in the FBI’s office in Oklahoma City, who were being pushed by Mike Huff, the Tulsa homicide detective. In April 1983, FBI agents in Oklahoma asked for permission to interview Whitey and Flemmi, but Boston refused. The request did, however, prompt Connolly to file a report creating an alibi for Whitey on the days of the Wheeler and Callahan murders.
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Still, Huff and the Tulsa PD wouldn’t go away. They continued to press for an interview with Whitey and Flemmi. In November 1983, Connolly gave in and arranged for the two to meet with Montanari to answer questions about the murders of Wheeler, Halloran, and Callahan. The whole process was a sham meant to insulate his informants, and the transcript of that November 2, 1983, interview reveals a number of major irregularities and breaches of FBI protocol. For starters, Whitey and Flemmi were interviewed together, a highly unusual procedure that removed any chance of catching them in contradictory statements. They insisted the interview take place at the old Mullens clubhouse in Southie, not at the FBI’s offices. And Connolly, like a defense counsel prepping a low-life client, warned them in advance to dress in business suits, because the photos that Montanari would take would be sent to the grand jury in Tulsa investigating Wheeler’s murder.

In their report, Montanari and FBI agent Brendan Cleary said Whitey claimed that under normal circumstances he wouldn’t submit to such an interview at all, but that he and Flemmi wanted to clear the air and put on record that Halloran’s story about their being involved in Wheeler’s murder—not to mention allegations that they had killed Halloran, Donahue, and Callahan—was patently untrue. He denied everything: that he and Flemmi had anything to do with any of the murders; that they had anything to do with Halloran, whom Whitey dismissed as a liar, a bully, and a braggart. Whitey told the FBI agents that he and Flemmi would never get involved in a crime outside of the Boston area because they couldn’t control the situation. And he said that it would be more their style to simply take somebody’s money and then not bother with the crime. The guy they cheated couldn’t very well go to the police, Whitey said.