BRUTAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MY LIFE INSIDE WHITEY BULGER'S IRISH MOB, by Kevin Weeks and Phyllis Karas, ReganBooks, 283 pages, $25.95.
For 25 years, Kevin Weeks served as second-in-command to the Boston Irish Mob led by James J. "Whitey" Bulger. He'd done everything he was told — including murder. It was only after Bulger disappeared that Weeks learned that his boss had sold him out. Bulger had been an FBI informant.
That is why Weeks feels no qualms now about telling the story in "Brutal," the only member of the Boston Irish Mob who has ever talked.
Bulger has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for almost 10 years. Weeks has done his time — 63 months in prison for 38 counts of racketeering, money laundering (which Weeks calls "economic stimulation") and extortion — plus his role in five murders.
He was released from prison a year ago and has apparently lived a quiet life, until the appearance of this book. It's ironic that it appears at the same time as Howie Carr's book on Bulger and his politician brother, Billy.
On last week's "60 Minutes," Weeks told Ed Bradley that he had hidden in the cemetery across the street from Howie Carr's house and seriously intended to kill Carr as he emerged from his home — but when Carr walked out holding the hand of his daughter, Weeks chickened out.
In "Brutal," Weeks makes a convincing effort to detail the major activities of the mob, including a description of "justice and morality Southie (South Boston) style;" loan sharking, extortion and drug dealing; five murders, for which he admits culpability; the many bodies he buried; and Bulger's relationships with several FBI agents.
It's an absorbing book — unless real-life crime makes you queasy. It's not well-written, in spite of the help of a collaborator, but it is conversational and detailed in the extreme.
Weeks refers to Bulger always as "Jimmy," suggesting a very close companionship.
The author grew up in a housing project in South Boston where he became a Golden Gloves boxer and then a bouncer in a popular Southie bar called Triple O's. It was there that Jimmy noticed Weeks and hired him away. It was 1982 when Weeks went full time with Jimmy.
"Basically, we were gangsters," writes Weeks. "We took what we wanted. We shook down drug dealers, bookmakers, like that. What were they gonna do — go to the police? We beat people up; shot and stabbed them. And we made people disappear — permanently. We were smart — experts at avoiding microphones and cameras. We made millions through extortion and loan sharking and protection. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys."
Weeks asserts in the book that he is "brutally honest." He is certainly brutally graphic in his descriptions, which would earn an R rating if they were a film.
Weeks claims he has only the room to tell 20 percent of the story: "It would take another two to three books to chronicle the other 80 per cent. . . . But whatever Jimmy and I and all the others did, it was always for the money. Not even for the power. Just the money."
And, by the way, Jimmy is still basking in the sun — somewhere.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com