fugitive, from a bank robbery indictment in 1955, he’d lasted only three months on the lam before the FBI collared him. But in 1994, Whitey was forty years wiser, and perhaps $40 million richer.
“So the tone of it,” Billy said, “was something like this: He told me, uh, don’t believe everything that’s being said about me. It’s not true.”
But of course it was true. All of it.
“I think,” Billy said, slowly, “he was trying to give me some comfort on that level and he—I don’t know . . .” Billy paused, as everyone stared at him. “I think he asked me to tell everybody he was okay and, uh, and then I told him, well, we care very much for you and um, we’re very hopeful. I think I said I hoped this will have a happy ending. At the time there was no talk of the more terrible crimes.”
It was December 23, 1994, the day that Whitey Bulger vanished. He had always assumed that it would come to this, so in 1977 he had begun constructing a new identity for himself. The most powerful organized crime figure in New England was about to turn into “Thomas F. Baxter.”
When the cops got around to searching his condo, and his girlfriends’ houses, they would find an Irish passport, as well as how-to books about living on the lam. There were almost as many of them as there were World War II books and videotapes. Whitey was obsessed with Nazis, so much so that in 2004 the feds would consider staking out the sixtieth anniversary commemorations of D-day in Normandy, hoping to catch him traveling on a European Union passport.
The cops would also find his diaries. He’d begun putting his thoughts down on paper a lot just before he left. He would sit at the kitchen table in his condo in Quincy, where he’d replaced the sliding glass door that led to his back patio with a bulletproof steel plate. Night after night, he’d write in his old-fashioned Palmer-style longhand about the LSD experiments he’d taken part in while in prison in Atlanta in the late 1950s.
“It’s 3 a.m. and years later, I’m still effected [
sic
] by L.S.D. in that I fear sleep—the horrible nightmares that I fight to escape by waking, the taste of adrenalin[e], gasping for breath. Often I’m woken by a scream and find it’s me screaming. I later read while still in prison that LSD can cause chromosome damage and birth defects—that one article determined for me that having children was too risky.”
Would a jury buy it? That Whitey Bulger cared about children? Whitey hoped he never had to find out.
It was late afternoon, and as he drove toward downtown Boston, the Christmas lights twinkled in the projects and the three-decker houses of South Boston where he’d spent his entire life, except for a few years in the air force, and later almost a decade in federal prison, in Lewisburg, Atlanta, Leavenworth, and Alcatraz.
About to be indicted again, for the first time in thirty-eight years, Whitey would disappear, until he could put the fix in, the way he always had. Something always seemed to happen when the law got too close to Whitey—wiretaps would be compromised, bugs discovered. Cops hot on his trail would find themselves demoted or transferred. Witnesses would disappear, or recant, or forget. Or Whitey would receive a phone call moments before the police raided a warehouse stuffed with marijuana that just happened not to be under his protection.
Surely something could be worked out this time too. And if not, “Tom Baxter” would enjoy his golden years, another retired gentleman on the road with his lady friend.
Beside him in the front seat of the Grand Marquis was his most trusted underling, Kevin Weeks, age thirty-seven. Weeks had been with Whitey almost from the day he graduated high school in 1974. Like all of Whitey’s closest associates, Weeks called him “Jim.” Over the years he’d helped Whitey plan his eventual flight. They had beepers, and code words, and now Kevin would be Whitey’s eyes and ears in the
“So the tone of it,” Billy said, “was something like this: He told me, uh, don’t believe everything that’s being said about me. It’s not true.”
But of course it was true. All of it.
“I think,” Billy said, slowly, “he was trying to give me some comfort on that level and he—I don’t know . . .” Billy paused, as everyone stared at him. “I think he asked me to tell everybody he was okay and, uh, and then I told him, well, we care very much for you and um, we’re very hopeful. I think I said I hoped this will have a happy ending. At the time there was no talk of the more terrible crimes.”
It was December 23, 1994, the day that Whitey Bulger vanished. He had always assumed that it would come to this, so in 1977 he had begun constructing a new identity for himself. The most powerful organized crime figure in New England was about to turn into “Thomas F. Baxter.”
When the cops got around to searching his condo, and his girlfriends’ houses, they would find an Irish passport, as well as how-to books about living on the lam. There were almost as many of them as there were World War II books and videotapes. Whitey was obsessed with Nazis, so much so that in 2004 the feds would consider staking out the sixtieth anniversary commemorations of D-day in Normandy, hoping to catch him traveling on a European Union passport.
The cops would also find his diaries. He’d begun putting his thoughts down on paper a lot just before he left. He would sit at the kitchen table in his condo in Quincy, where he’d replaced the sliding glass door that led to his back patio with a bulletproof steel plate. Night after night, he’d write in his old-fashioned Palmer-style longhand about the LSD experiments he’d taken part in while in prison in Atlanta in the late 1950s.
“It’s 3 a.m. and years later, I’m still effected [
sic
] by L.S.D. in that I fear sleep—the horrible nightmares that I fight to escape by waking, the taste of adrenalin[e], gasping for breath. Often I’m woken by a scream and find it’s me screaming. I later read while still in prison that LSD can cause chromosome damage and birth defects—that one article determined for me that having children was too risky.”
Would a jury buy it? That Whitey Bulger cared about children? Whitey hoped he never had to find out.
It was late afternoon, and as he drove toward downtown Boston, the Christmas lights twinkled in the projects and the three-decker houses of South Boston where he’d spent his entire life, except for a few years in the air force, and later almost a decade in federal prison, in Lewisburg, Atlanta, Leavenworth, and Alcatraz.
About to be indicted again, for the first time in thirty-eight years, Whitey would disappear, until he could put the fix in, the way he always had. Something always seemed to happen when the law got too close to Whitey—wiretaps would be compromised, bugs discovered. Cops hot on his trail would find themselves demoted or transferred. Witnesses would disappear, or recant, or forget. Or Whitey would receive a phone call moments before the police raided a warehouse stuffed with marijuana that just happened not to be under his protection.
Surely something could be worked out this time too. And if not, “Tom Baxter” would enjoy his golden years, another retired gentleman on the road with his lady friend.
Beside him in the front seat of the Grand Marquis was his most trusted underling, Kevin Weeks, age thirty-seven. Weeks had been with Whitey almost from the day he graduated high school in 1974. Like all of Whitey’s closest associates, Weeks called him “Jim.” Over the years he’d helped Whitey plan his eventual flight. They had beepers, and code words, and now Kevin would be Whitey’s eyes and ears in the
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