Black Mass

Investigators knew the convenience store was a front for one of the busiest bookie joints in that part of the city. They also believed that Baharoian paid tribute to Flemmi. But then investigators began to develop evidence that Baharoian was also bribing several Boston police officers for protection. Once that happened, the case was transferred to Morris’s squad, with an expanded focus on the police corruption.

In the late winter of 1988 agents working for Morris were putting together a plan to install a wiretap on Baharoian’s telephone. Morris’s unspoken worry was that Flemmi, and possibly Bulger, would be caught on the tape. It was a possibility that stoked his worst fear—an arrest of Bulger and Flemmi leading to his own apprehension if the mobsters, looking for leniency, turned and traded him in. He decided he’d have to warn them off.

Morris told Connolly about the imminent danger, that Flemmi and Bulger needed to stay off the telephone and stay away from Baharoian. They should call a meeting, replied Connolly. Connolly, recalled Morris, “thought they would like to hear from me. He wanted me to give them that information as opposed to him giving them that information, or meet with them at least to discuss it with them personally.”

Fine, said Morris. The four could meet. But there was one other worry haunting Morris. Even if these circumstances were not exactly the same, Morris knew that on a prior occasion when he’d disclosed a secret investigatory effort to the group, the outcome had been bad, chillingly bad. “I don’t want another Halloran,” Morris told Connolly.

Connolly made arrangements for another get-together, this time at the Lexington town house Morris had moved into. It seemed that on every front Morris’s life was bottoming out. His marriage was torn beyond repair, and he was worried sick about his teenage daughter. But as troubled as Morris was, Connolly just cruised along. Bulger and Flemmi seemed fine too. They had certainly come to expect this sort of input—tips about investigations, wiretaps, bugs, and the names of other wiseguys who were cooperating with the police. “As the need arose and I was in a certain situation,” said Flemmi, “I would ask him [Connolly] a question regarding certain people, and he would advise me.” It was as if the two agents were serving as their consiglieri, the Mafia’s term for advisers.

But Morris’s own reasons for protecting Bulger and Flemmi had multiplied. He was desperately looking to cover himself. “I was completely compromised at that point, and I was fearful that Mr. Flemmi might be intercepted, and that would be the beginning of the unraveling of what in fact had transpired between myself and them,” Morris said. He knew he was breaking the law—obstructing justice. “I believe that the Baharoian matter clearly was a violation of regulations.” But he saw his own neck on the chopping block if agents caught Flemmi or Bulger on tape. Connolly, Bulger, and Flemmi arrived at the town house, and Morris got right to it, telling the two informants “that we had already started a Title III on Baharoian, and I warned them to avoid Mr. Baharoian.”

Flemmi appreciated the heads-up. “Morris said that he could keep me out of the indictment, but he couldn’t do the same for other participants in that operation, meaning Baharoian and Puleo.”

The FBI’s wire on Baharoian was up from June 22 to September 26, 1988. That wiretap and other evidence resulted in the indictments of Baharoian, Puleo, and several Boston police officers. Baharoian eventually flipped and testified at trial against the police. Tapes were played, featuring the voices of bookies and cops. But not Flemmi’s. Not Bulger’s. They knew when it was safe to talk, and when to keep quiet.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Secrets Exposed

If Connolly was the Elmer Gantry of the Boston FBI office, an agent who used the power of his word to win converts, John Morris was another story. Unable to resist temptation but tortured by all the wrongdoing, Morris was like a kid at the wheel of a raceway video game who bumps his car against one wall and then overcompensates and veers at high speed back across the track, crashing into the opposite wall. Careening back and forth, unable to hold his place inbounds, he was approaching Game Over. By 1988 Morris’s marriage was ruined. He’d risked his FBI career. Even his friendship with the proselytizing Connolly was taking a turn for the worse. Morris, after saying he would support it, had opposed Connolly’s bid for promotion to supervisor. Connolly felt betrayed, with good reason. Morris had legitimate concerns about an agent who liked to come and go, could rarely sit still behind a desk, and handed in lackluster paperwork while serving as a manager for other agents.

More to the point, Morris’s opposition stemmed from matters he would not dare mention. In his letter to the FBI’s career board, Morris was not about to go into the corruption or explain that promoting Connolly would enhance the protection enjoyed by an increasingly dangerous Bulger. “I didn’t think he should be a supervisor, period,” was how Morris said he put it. “I didn’t think he was fit.”

The career board’s decision against a promotion naturally upset Connolly. But then Connolly went into action. He went to Jim Ahearn, who’d been in Boston as the office’s special agent in charge only a little over a year, since late 1986. Connolly and Ahearn had become fast friends. More than any supervisory agent who ran the Boston office, Ahearn was a boss Connolly could count on.

“They were,” observed Morris, “very, very close.” There were more than two hundred FBI agents assigned to the Boston office, and Morris watched the new manager do “things for Connolly that I have never seen done for an agent in my career.” One of those things was making sure Connolly got what Connolly wanted. “I have never seen a SAC go to FBI headquarters and recommend somebody be made a supervisor when the career board recommended against it. Never.” But Connolly got his wish, and during 1988 he was working as a drug task force supervisor. Jim Ahearn had come to the rescue.

Now, having crossed Connolly, Morris was more worried than ever about the agent’s influence, which was cresting at an all-time high. “I was concerned it would absolutely destroy me.” Morris felt he was falling out of the loop, becoming isolated. And fresh from leaking the Baharoian wiretap, he was also suffering a whiplash of guilt, careening back across the raceway.

Morris decided he would make a pledge to himself: “I wasn’t going to do anything more, you know, in terms of protecting them to protect myself.” Morris was going to put an end to it.