Black Mass by Dick Lehr

Author:Dick Lehr
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Canongate Books

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Shades of Whitey

By 1984 Billy Bulger was securely on top of the State Senate, running it smoothly and firmly with vinegar and honey. Yet he had ignored his private law practice with a boyhood friend from Old Harbor and was having trouble financing his hectic household of nine children. He worried about the roof falling in on a house full of kids and about paying their tuitions. He fretted that his battered car would drop dead by the side of the road, stranding his wife, Mary, as she gamely transported youngsters hither and yon. Even though he earned between $75,000 and $100,000 that year, he was swimming upstream, with more money going out than coming in. In his memoir he lamented that though he was not bankrupt, he was “not far from it.”

Then, according to Billy, a miracle client walked into his downtown law office out of the blue. Two brothers wanted to buy back property from a customer, and Bulger got them a $2.8 million loan from a friendly South Boston bank to do it. In exchange for his help in negotiating the loan and the property buyback, Billy was offered a prodigious fee. The prospect flooded Bulger with happy visions of hearth and home: “A new car for Mary . . . a new roof.”

After paying sporadic attention to the buyback, Bulger settled it in 1985 and agreed on a deferred fee of $267,000, more than enough for Mary and Bill to stop worrying about the car and the tuitions. But the cash flow problem persisted because Bulger agreed to take the fee in 1986. He told his law associate from South Boston, Thomas Finnerty, that he would be among the “impoverished rich” until his money came through.

But Tom leaped to the rescue. He offered to give Bulger a $240,000 loan against the fee. Bulger was ecstatic, but his relief was short lived. A few weeks after taking the loan he learned that Finnerty had been working with Boston developer Harold Brown. Bulger flushed with alarm when he heard that Finnerty was dealing with the likes of Brown and warned him that the disreputable landlord was trouble. But Finnerty laughed it off and teased Bulger about being a compulsive worrier. Besides, he said, a $500,000 fee from the developer was already in a trust fund Finnerty had set up.

Recoiling at the mention of the fund, Bulger realized that his recent loan came from Brown money. “You didn’t tell me that,” Bulger objected. “I’m paying it back—and right now. I want no connection, however remote, with Brown.” Back went the Brown money, with repayments totaling $254,000 with interest by the end of 1985. Mary was told to put plans for easy street on hold.

The next year Bulger felt more than justified in his cautious reaction when Brown was convicted of bribery in federal court. Brown began wearing a wire for the FBI, seeking out conversations with politicians. Bulger and Finnerty joked about avoiding Brown in a rainstorm for fear of being electrocuted.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.