Hitman (47 page)

Catherine Greig, Whitey's dental-hygienist girlfriend, who could have obtained a professional dental tooth-extraction kit for Stevie to use in later murders instead of pliers.

*   *   *

BRIAN HALLORAN
had sense enough not to go anywhere near the feds' organized-crime unit. He knew what Zip Connolly and John Morris were. Instead, he reached out to a couple of agents he knew from the labor-racketeering unit. He told them who had murdered Louie Litif—he was an eyewitness to that one.

Then there was Roger Wheeler. Callahan had told him about the Wheeler hit one night when they were out drinking at one of those Irish pubs in Quincy Market where they both spent so much time getting wasted. Halloran mentioned his earlier meeting with John Callahan and Whitey Bulger in the apartment above the Rusty Scupper. The agents from the labor-racketeering unit were impressed by the detail and consistency in Halloran's stories, and they started moving him from one safe house to another. But any decision to formally shield him, in the Witness Protection Program, was a decision that would have to be made by Jeremiah O'Sullivan, the head of the Justice Department's organized-crime task force.

He'd cut Whitey and Stevie out of the race-fixing indictment, and he'd kept them on as informants to protect them during the Dog House bugging. Now O'Sullivan did them yet another huge favor—he vetoed Halloran's entrance into the Witness Protection Program.

Of course, O'Sullivan could rationalize his decision. He was preoccupied with the pending Angiulo indictments. Halloran was a junkie charged with first-degree murder, who could provide only uncorroborated testimony. Still, everyone in the Boston FBI office knew exactly what cutting Halloran loose would mean.

Whitey dictated another report to Zip on April 23, 1982, saying, “The ‘outfit' continues to be interested in having Halloran killed. Source advised that the ‘outfit' consider Halloran to be a weak person and are concerned that he may make a deal with the DA's office to give up Salemme.”

Among the honest FBI agents, there was shock over what was tantamount to a death sentence for Halloran. The U.S. attorney was William Weld, a future governor of Massachusetts. In federal court in 1997, Weld recalled what he was casually told by the number-two agent in the Boston office, Robert Fitzpatrick.

“You know, people always say there's a danger for this snitch or that snitch,” Fitzpatrick had told Weld of Halloran's predicament. “I'm telling you, this guy—I would not want to be standing next to this guy.”

*   *   *

THE GUY
who was unfortunate enough to be standing next to Brian Halloran was named Michael Donahue. On the afternoon of May 11, 1982, Donahue was drinking with Halloran at the Pier, a barroom on Northern Avenue on the South Boston waterfront. Blocks away, Whitey was hanging out at the gang's new appliance store at F Street and West Broadway. It was simpler, moving hijacked appliances directly without having to worry about any fences, plus without a middleman the markup was higher. There were never any complaints from the customers, several of whom were FBI agents, including Zip Connolly.

John Hurley, the Charlestown hood who'd fingered Indian Joe—and earlier the unlucky bartender Milano—dropped into the appliance store and mentioned casually that he'd just seen Brian Halloran drinking at the Pier. Hurley apparently had no idea what he was setting in motion, but Whitey immediately snapped to attention. Within an hour, he had Kevin Weeks stationed outside Jimmy's Harborside, across Northern Avenue from the Pier. Whitey arrived a few minutes later in a souped up blue Chevy that they called “the tow truck.”

Among other things, the “tow truck” was outfitted with a specially built oil tank in the trunk. With the flick of a button under the steering wheel, Whitey could release enough oil from the tank onto the street to put any pursuing vehicle into a spin. Another button would release clouds of blue exhaust. The license plates were of course stolen. The hit car was usually stashed in a hidden garage in the Lower End, to be taken out only for tasks like this one.

By the time he was in the hit car, Whitey was wearing a brown Afro wig. In it, he looked a lot like Jimmy Flynn, another Winter Hill associate who was widely known to be feuding with Halloran.

In the backseat of the hit car was a second shooter Whitey had rounded up in Southie. Weeks later testified that the second man was wearing a ski mask, which no other witness ever mentioned, and which would have drawn attention on a sunny weekday afternoon in May. But by putting a ski mask on the second shooter, Weeks was relieved of the necessity of having to identify Whitey's backup. Later that would make it easier for him to return to South Boston after he served his brief prison sentence.

Whitey had given Weeks a walkie-talkie, and told him that when Balloonhead left the bar, he should radio simply that “the balloon is in the air.”

Halloran was getting a ride from his friend Donahue, a father of three sons. They both stumbled out of the bar, and Donahue walked across the street to retrieve his blue compact car. Weeks gave the signal as Donahue stopped in front of the bar to pick up Halloran. Just as Balloonhead got into the car, Whitey pulled up alongside Donahue's car.

“Brian,” he yelled, and then he aimed his automatic carbine out the front window and began shooting at point-blank range. Mortally wounded, Donahue floored the car, and it lurched across the street, finally coming to a stop when it hit a building. Whitey pulled around and emptied the carbine into the car as Weeks sped off.

By the time the police arrived, Donahue was dead, and Halloran was going fast. The cops asked him who had shot him.

“Jimmy Flynn,” he said, and then died.

*   *   *

THAT NIGHT
, Zip Connolly and John “Vino” Morris stopped by Whitey's condo to question him. Their question for him was, Do you have any beer? Whitey did, and plenty of it, good imported lager—Beck's. Weeks had already sawed up the gun and dumped the pieces off the Fore River bridge into Quincy Bay. The hit car was back in its garage. Vino mentioned that someone had gotten the number of the license plate. Whitey nodded and opened two more beers. Now he knew he'd have to get rid of the plates, and sooner rather than later.

After a while the two crooked FBI agents staggered out of the house.

“Thank God for Beck's beer,” Whitey would say later. “Thank God for Beck's.”

*   *   *

ONCE THE
immediate heat died down, Whitey decided to point some more fingers in the wrong direction. First he and Zip made up a story that Charlestown wiseguys had heard that Halloran and his brother the state trooper “had met with Colonel O'Donovan”—another foe.

The next day Whitey floated a different trial balloon—maybe it was Jimmy Flynn and one of the Mullens who'd killed Donald Killeen, Weasel Mantville. Later Whitey named more Charlestown hoods, and invented a “backup van” with three more guys inside whom he didn't like. By July 7, it was all the fault of the state police because they “let the cat out of the bag.”

*   *   *

ABOUT A
month after Halloran's murder, John Morris flew off to an FBI drug-training seminar in Glynco, Georgia. The married agent had a girlfriend in the office, Debbie Noseworthy, and he told her how much he wanted her to fly down—they could stay in his motel room, make it their own little love nest. The only problem was, he couldn't swing the airfare; his wife would be sure to notice an expenditure of that size.

One morning shortly after Morris left for the conference, Zip walked up to Debbie's desk in the FBI office and handed her an envelope he said came from her boyfriend. She opened it and saw ten $100 bills.

“Where did John get this?” she asked. He was always complaining about being broke.

“He's been saving it,” Zip told her. “It was in his desk and he wanted me to give it to you to go down to visit him in Glynco.”

John Morris was now officially on the payroll.

*   *   *

MEANWHILE, STEVIE
called Johnny Martorano in Florida and said he and Whitey needed to meet him in New York, face-to-face, at the usual place—the Marriott at LaGuardia. Richard Aucoin got there first, rented a room, and soon Whitey and Stevie arrived. It was a strictly business meeting. No refreshments were served. There was only one item on the agenda: John Callahan.

Whitey did all the talking. He was in his politician mode, making the case, point by point. He said, we killed Halloran for you; he was telling the FBI that you killed Wheeler. Zip told us. What Whitey didn't say was that Halloran had also named him and Stevie as being in on it. He also didn't tell me that they were the ones who approached Halloran first, to kill Wheeler, not me. They didn't tell me that Whitey was in the room when Callahan made the pitch to Halloran to kill Wheeler. Whitey also didn't tell me that Halloran was a witness to his murder of Louie Litif, which I had nothing to do with. Whitey was very selective with the facts, you might say, but what did I know? I'm on the lam. You're at a disadvantage in so many ways when you're a fugitive.

So Whitey goes on: the reason Halloran knew about how you killed Wheeler is because Callahan told him. Callahan! Your friend. Here's a guy you killed somebody for in Oklahoma, we all helped out. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and we wouldn't be here today and Halloran and that other guy with him wouldn't be dead.

Whitey says, we told him—hell, Johnny, you told him, too—we told Callahan to stay away from that drunk asshole Halloran and keep out of those Irish pubs. Whitey was right about that, we did all warn Callahan to watch his step. Whitey was good at that kind of thing, mixing in facts with the lies. He was very effective.

Then he tells me, Zip says the feds want to talk to Callahan, so I'm asking you, Johnny, can you guarantee he'll stand up? I says, I don't think he'll talk, but I can't guarantee anything. Whitey says, well, if he does crack, Zip says we're all going to jail for the rest of our lives. At that point, I was convinced. It was clear Callahan had been talking, whether it was just to Halloran or to the FBI, I wasn't sure, but he had been talking about things he had no business talking about.

Whitey always knew what buttons to push with me, and this time he was pushing the rat button.

Finally, he asks me if I agree with them that Callahan has to go. What can I say? Callahan's my friend, but these guys are my partners. They're clever, they've proven they know how to handle the FBI, they're my lifeline with cash—one of my lifelines anyway. And they've already killed two guys to protect me, or so I think. I'm sick over the thought of my friend being killed, but I finally said okay. In for a penny, in for a pound.

So now Whitey says we need you to handle it, Johnny, down in Florida. There's too much heat on us right now back home. They'd already had to go in for mug shots that the FBI had sent down to Oklahoma—that was another one of those facts Whitey threw out there, which made the lies and evasions and half truths he was feeding me somewhat more believable.

Whitey's making the pitch, trying to close the deal, saying the cops in Boston are all over them, so it needs to be done somewhere else. Whitey tells me he's already been feeding stuff to Zip, trying to set it up so that when he gets hit, somebody else'll get the blame, Cubans, drug dealers. Again, he was telling the truth about that. I got a look at the reports later. But by now I am really distraught, that I actually have to kill this guy, my friend, who's been helping me out ever since I went on the lam. I mean, I reluctantly agreed to the hit, and I very reluctantly agreed to do it myself. Once I agreed, the meeting was over. No small talk. They left and I just sat there by myself, thinking. I always liked to take in a couple of shows when I was in the city, but not that day. I was sick at heart. I checked out immediately and caught the next plane back to Florida.

Johnny called Joe McDonald and they began planning. They'd take Callahan the next time he flew to Florida. By now there was a routine to Callahan's visits. Johnny was living in Fort Lauderdale at the time, so he would always pick Callahan up at the airport in Fort Lauderdale and then drive him to his condo in Plantation. They were planning to leave Callahan's body in the trunk of his own car, a Cadillac. But even though Callahan had given Johnny keys to both the car and the condo, Johnny couldn't pick him up in the Caddy, because Callahan might realize something was wrong. Johnny always met him in his own Dodge Ram conversion van.

So the hit would have to be done in the van. First Johnny and Joe laid down plastic rubber runners on the floor of the van. Johnny put beach towels on the captain's chairs, to soak up the blood. Rubber would have been less messy, but it would have been too obvious a tip-off. Then Johnny put more towels on the two back captain's chairs, and underneath the towel on the backseat on the passenger's side he placed a loaded .22, one of the guns left over from the Wheeler hit.