“Julie?”
“Yes.”
Julie did not recognize the deep and husky voice coming at her over the line.
“I know you, I like you, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Who is this?”
The voice ignored her question. “You should get out.”
“Who is this?”
“The store is going to be bombed.”
“Why are you doing this?” Julie’s voice was rising in alarm. “If you like me, why don’t you say your name?” She was shouting. “Why don’t you say your name!” But she was yelling into an empty hum. The caller had hung up.
Julie was frightened. She looked around the mostly empty store, feeling like someone was watching. She was back on the telephone with her husband, upset and explaining to him about the call she had just taken, and the more she described the anonymous call the more upset she got. Stephen, for his part, tried to sound comforting. Julie could hear the television in the background, and she could hear the kids making noise. But hanging up, Julie also thought Stephen’s voice sounded awfully tense.
Stephen Rakes had a good reason for sounding that way. In his kitchen at that precise moment he was entertaining three uninvited visitors. He had been cleaning up after dinner, playing around with his two girls, getting them changed for bed and letting them watch some television, when he heard a knock at the door. He hadn’t been expecting anyone. He went to the door and pulled it open. In the dark stood three men, and Rakes recognized them all. He actually knew Kevin Weeks from growing up, although they were never close; in one of those Southie coincidences, one of his brothers had married one of Weeks’s sisters. Stephen and Julie sometimes stopped by Triple O’s for a drink, and Weeks was often there—his wife was one of the bartenders. Stephen also recognized the other men. He sometimes saw them at Triple O’s too. But he didn’t know them personally, he’d never had anything to do with them, and they’d never come around to his house before. It’s just that everyone knew Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi.
It did not look good. The men walked right in and took Stephen into the kitchen. Bulger and Flemmi sat down. Weeks stayed on his feet nearby. Bulger was in charge. “You got a problem,” he told Rakes. The competition, Whitey said, some of the other liquor store owners, wanted him dead. But Bulger had an option. “Instead of killing you, we’ll buy the store.”
Rakes fidgeted. “It’s not for sale,” he said.
It was the last peep of protest Stephen Rakes would make. Bulger exploded, saying they would kill him and take the store. Bulger stormed out, Flemmi and Weeks at his heels. In a panic, Rakes called his wife and told her about the surprise visit. They didn’t know what to do. Before Stephen had time to begin to think clearly, there was another rattle at the door.
Bulger was back. He pushed his way past Rakes, accompanied again by Flemmi and Weeks and squeezing a brown paper bag. Back in the family’s kitchen, Bulger put the bag down and stood over Rakes at the table. Bulger had a pocket knife in his hand, which he opened and closed as if to punctuate his words. Stephen’s little girl wandered into the kitchen to see what was going on. Flemmi pulled out a handgun from his waist, put it on the table, and lifted the girl up onto his lap. “Isn’t she cute,” Flemmi said. The gangster tousled her blond hair. The gun’s hard metal caught the girl’s attention, and she reached for it. Flemmi let her touch it, and the girl even put part of the gun in her mouth. “It would be a sin for her not to see you.”
Stephen Rakes watched in horror. Bulger continued: either we kill you or we buy the store. Rakes sat still and listened. Bulger explained that inside the paper bag, packed in neatly folded bunches, was $67,000 in cash. Never mind that Stephen and Julie actually had put about $100,000 into their new business—between the cost of the lease, the renovation, the refrigerators, and the stock—all of which they fully expected to make back and more. Bulger had set his own price, and this was Bulgertown.
“You’re lucky you’re getting what you put into it,” Bulger told Rakes. Lucky? Bulger said offhandedly that they would give him another $25,000 if all went well. “Now go away,” he told Rakes. The three visitors moved to leave.
“It’s ours,” said Flemmi.
Rakes sat transfixed. He certainly didn’t look lucky. Instead of seeming as if he’d just been made whole, he was falling apart. It was now approaching eleven o’clock, and back at the liquor mart Julie Rakes, struggling to keep her wits, was anxious to close for the night. The telephone rang. She grabbed the phone.
It was Stephen again, and this time he was beyond tense. His voice sounded strange and far away, and then Julie Rakes realized her husband was crying. Stephen explained the sudden turn of events, about a new deal that had fallen into their laps, and Julie just listened in cold silence, a numbness washing over her. This was what shock must be like, a suspended, out-of-body feeling: Stephen, whimpering, muttering things beyond belief, explaining what would happen next, what she had to do.
Julie Rakes looked up and saw an oversized man—well over six feet and heavily built—walk into the liquor mart. It was Jamie Flannery, someone she’d known from high school. They’d been friends. Flannery was also a regular at Triple O’s. He had a drinking problem and sometimes worked as a bouncer at the bar. Julie had seen him at the bar with Whitey Bulger. Things suddenly were making terrible sense.
Julie put down the telephone. Flannery was abrupt. He told her to gather up her things, that he’d come to take her home. He told her not to ask any questions, and Julie Rakes complied. Hurriedly, she collected some money from the cash register. She picked up the plants her family had sent to mark the opening of the store. Flannery carried out some wine Julie and Stephen had stocked for a friend who’d made it and was looking for their help in distributing it. They put these things in the car and then Julie, fumbling, turned out the lights and locked up. They quickly drove away.
She never went back to their liquor store again. In the car Julie was shaken, but Flannery said little, just drove, and as he made his way down Fourth Street and began to slow down Julie saw that up ahead in the dark three strangers were standing outside her door. She wanted to know, who were they? Flannery identified the three—the one at the front steps (Bulger), the one just off the stairs (Flemmi), and the one nearing the car parked at the curb (Weeks)—and as Flannery got closer Julie could recognize for herself two of the men, Bulger and Weeks. Behind them Julie saw her husband frozen in the doorway.