Black Mass by Dick Lehr Gerard O'Neill

Author:Dick Lehr, Gerard O'Neill [Lehr & O'Neill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786745197
Publisher: Perseus
Published: 2011-05-23T09:54:09+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Black Mass

Tight-lipped and intense, the John Morris of 1985 was still enjoying the glow of having overseen the successful bugging of Mafia headquarters in early 1981. He was viewed as a seasoned veteran, thoughtful and determined. He was also leading the double life of a libertine, as were the other members of the cabal—John Connolly, Whitey Bulger, and Stevie Flemmi. Each had a public pose that contrasted sharply with a private reality. Morris and Connolly were FBI agents by day who at night caroused with the two gangsters they now zealously protected, even if it meant bending rules and breaking laws. Bulger and Flemmi feasted off reputations as the ultimate stand-up guys who cunningly outwitted the police at every turn, when in fact they had for years given the FBI tidbits about underworld friends and foes and enjoyed a protective shield from the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

Morris was essentially in Bulger’s back pocket—having solicited and taken $1,000 in 1982 to fly Debbie Noseworthy to Georgia. And during the early days of 1984, amid the start-up of the DEA’s Operation Beans, Morris had taken a second bite from the apple Bulger held out for him.

“Connolly called me and said, ‘I have something for you from these guys. Why don’t you come on over and pick it up?’ I went over; I picked it up. It was a case of wine. On the way out he said, ‘Be careful with it, there’s something in the bottom for you.’ So I took the case of wine, and then when I opened the case I found that there was an envelope on the bottom that contained $1,000 in it.” It was as if Morris needed more moments like this one to keep the high going. The concern was not whether he should march into the office of the special agent in charge of the Boston office and turn them all in; instead, his narrow eyes darted this way and that to make sure no one was watching. He picked up a corkscrew, opened a bottle, pocketed the Bulger money, and savored it all.

But if Bulger saw the case of wine as a second premium on his FBI insurance plan, he was suddenly disappointed. The FBI that considered Morris a model of integrity dispatched the supervisor off to Miami to oversee a special team of agents investigating—of all things—the corruption of an FBI agent in Florida. The timing was horrible, given the detectable increase in scrutiny Bulger and Flemmi were getting from the drug agents and the Quincy police. Throughout the remainder of the year and into early 1985, Bulger and Flemmi weathered Operation Beans with the help of Connolly and, to a lesser degree, Jim Ring. It had not been easy, however, and now that federal drug agents were stymied and John Morris was resurfacing, it seemed like the time for a reunion. Time to clarify their secret alliance over a good meal. Time to review some old business—Operation Beans—as well as

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