Animal

by Casey Sherman

  But the Animal would have his own problems. That same evening, while Barboza lay waiting for Connie Hughes in an alleyway near his home, a figure stumbled upon him in the darkness.

  “You’ll leave with more than you came if you don’t leave right now, mister,”55 Joe warned him. The man followed the instructions and walked back down the street. When the man passed a street lamp, Barboza was shocked to see that it was Connie Hughes. Connie jumped into a car, and Joe and his crew followed. The Animal positioned himself in the passenger seat with a rifle. He ordered his driver to pass alongside Hughes’s vehicle as he peered inside, spotting not only Connie Hughes but his brother Stevie as well. Unfortunately for Barboza, he could not clear the rifle quickly enough to get a shot. Instead, the Hughes brothers opened fire, piercing the windshield and the passenger-side door and narrowly missing Barboza. The Hughes brothers disappeared into the darkness, leaving the Animal behind to contemplate the day-long comedy of errors.

  11

  Turning Up the Heat

  My sign is vital, my hands are cold

  THE KILLERS

  Out of frustration and no doubt a little embarrassment, Barboza suspended the pursuit of the Hughes brothers, at least for the time being. Joe understood that the law of averages was on his side—the Animal only had to be lucky once, while the Hughes brothers would have to be lucky every day from now on. With his friend the Bear hospitalized and out of commission, much of the contract business would flow Joe’s way during the upcoming months, and he planned to make a killing in every sense of the word.

  His first order of business was to take out a sixty-five-year-old Jewish gangster named Sammy Lindenbaum, who also went by the name “Sammy Linden” in mob circles. Lindenbaum had been a longtime rainmaker for the mob thanks to a profitable and well-organized loansharking business. Lindenbaum had recently been funneling a considerable amount of money to the McLaughlin Gang to help fund their efforts to murder members of Winter Hill. Following a newly established protocol, Barboza traveled to Providence to seek permission from Raymond Patriarca. As in the Deegan case, the Man proved once again to be economic in his words and hard to pin down on his position. By no means was this a sign the Mafia boss had become aloof; instead Patriarca probably knew that the feds were out there somewhere listening to his every word, and he did not want to be captured on tape approving Lindenbaum’s murder. Although Patriarca believed this was a good strategy for self-preservation, it did lead to miscommunication with button men like Barboza. The Animal left the meeting thinking that he had been given the license to kill.

  Soon news traveled to the well-connected Lindenbaum that he had been marked for death. The wanted man quickly reached out to his old friend and semiretired Mafia don Joe Lombardo. Although Lombardo had given up control of La Cosa Nostra in the New England area years before, he still maintained considerable influence with Patriarca. Lombardo reached out to his successor and underboss Henry Tameleo and explained that he had a great deal of cash tied up in Lindenbaum’s criminal enterprises and that he would take a financial hit if the contract were carried out. Patriarca was never one to let bloodshed get in the way of business. Out of respect for Lombardo, the Office got word back to Barboza that he was to call off the hit against Sammy Lindenbaum.

  The feds had followed these negotiations closely. The FBI’S gypsy wire—BS 837C*—had recorded much of the back and forth in this “on again—off again” mob murder in the making. Boston special agent in charge James Handley sent a memo to his fellow SACS in Connecticut and New York, along with Director Hoover, telling them that Lombardo was angry over Barboza’s close association with the Flemmi brothers and that the Animal had been with Jimmy Flemmi when they killed Teddy Deegan.

  With the Lindenbaum hit off the table, Barboza set his sights on another human target. The Animal returned to Providence for a sit-down with the Padrone at his headquarters inside the National Cigarette Service Company and Coin-o-Matic Distributors. It was not the first meeting of the two men, but it would be the most memorable. Barboza had long admired Patriarca for his no-nonsense yet even-handed approach in dealing with his soldiers. Patriarca, though, remained leery of the Portuguese hitman from New Bedford. He knew the Animal didn’t have any limits and that he didn’t play by the rules of engagement; this didn’t sit well with Patriarca. Barboza entered the warehouse and showed his respect by taking off his ever-present dark sunglasses. After a quick pat-down by his soldiers, Patriarca ushered him into his small office, where Barboza meticulously described how he planned to kill a very reclusive mob associate who owed him money.

  “He lives in a three-family house,”56 he told the boss. “So what I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna break into the basement and pour gasoline all over the place, after which I either get him with the smoke inhalation or I just pick him off when he climbs out the window.”

  Barboza also told Patriarca that he’d cut the phone lines so the mobster couldn’t call the fire department and that he would have three gunmen watching the other sides of the house.

  “Does anyone else live in the house?” Patriarca asked.

  Barboza nodded his head. “His mother,” he replied.

  “You’re gonna kill his mother too?” the boss asked incredulously.

  “It ain’t my fault she lives there,” the Animal shrugged.

  This didn’t sit well with Patriarca; even he had a set of rules to live by—and innocent family members were strictly off limits, especially someone’s mother. The Mafia boss immediately canceled the hit. The Animal had proved to be too vicious even for a cold-blooded killer like Raymond Patriarca, who began consulting privately with Tameleo about the best way to deal with Barboza. The two agreed that there were only two ways to deal with a vicious animal—you cage it or you kill it.

  Was Barboza serious about his willingness to murder another man’s mother? Or was he attempting to sell Patriarca on the notion that he was crazy and therefore should be left alone? Joe’s devotion to his own mother and his disdain for violence against women in general suggest the latter. He most likely knew that he was beginning to fall out of favor with the Office and wanted Patriarca to understand just how far he was willing to go to conquer his enemies. If the Man made a move against the Animal he would do it at the risk of his own family’s safety.

  Barboza most likely shared this strategy with his closest friend, Jimmy Flemmi, and no one else. Joe was a constant presence in Flemmi’s hospital room as the killer continued to recover from his gunshot wounds. The Bear also had another semiregular visitor—H. Paul Rico, who would slip into the hospital after hours when the two could be alone. During one late-night meeting, the special agent explained the details of Flemmi’s confidential relationship with the bureau.

  “You’re not an FBI employee,”57 Rico told him. “But you will furnish information only to the bureau.”

  Rico was making a veiled reference to Flemmi’s relationship with Boston police detective William Stuart. From this day forward, the Bear would be serving one master, not two.

  Rico also stressed emphatically that Flemmi was never to contact the FBI directly. All information and correspondence would be handled by Rico himself.

  The Bear responded with his pledge to assist the bureau and help put away the gunmen who had tried to kill him. Rico had only a cursory interest in taking down the McLaughlin Brothers Gang; instead he planned to use the Bear as bait to trap much larger game—La Cosa Nostra.

  Developing Jimmy Flemmi as a Top Echelon Informant was the epitome of high-risk, high-reward for the FBI. Both Rico and his boss, James Handley, explained to Hoover that Flemmi maintained direct contact with Patriarca and other major New England Mafia members and could potentially be an “excellent informant.” On the flip side, however, they informed the director that Flemmi had killed seven people, including Francis Benjamin, George Ashe, and Teddy Deegan, and from all indications was going to continue to commit murder.

  In a memorandum sent directly to J. Edgar Hoover on June 9, 1
965, Handley wrote: “Although the informant will be difficult to contact once he is released from the hospital because he feels that the McLaughlin group will try to kill him, the informant’s potential outweighs the risk involved.”58

  While his friend Jimmy Flemmi had the invisible protection of the federal government, Joe Barboza was virtually alone, and the walls were beginning to close in. It would only be a matter of time before someone got pinched and flipped on the Teddy Deegan murder. Joe was sure that most members of his hit squad would protect him and refuse to implicate him if they were ever arrested for the slaying. The one member of his gang that he still had questions about was his friend Romeo Martin. Romeo had enjoyed all the trappings of the gangster lifestyle and had proved capable on the street; still, the Animal’s instincts told him that Martin could not be trusted. In July 1965, several months after the Deegan murder, Martin found himself playing golf with Vincent “Fat Vinnie” Teresa and Richie Castucci, a nephew of Arthur Ventola and a part owner of the Ebb Tide Lounge. The golf outing was meant to be a leisure gentleman’s outing for the newly married Martin, who was planning to travel the next day to Florida for his honeymoon. After walking the golf course in the hot summer sun, the men retired to the Ebb Tide in early evening for a steak dinner and cocktails.

  Martin had been on edge for much of the day and finally revealed to Teresa and Castucci that he and Barboza had gotten into a serious argument following a recent job in which they had been paid to bust up a nightclub whose owner had not been paying tribute to Patriarca and the Office. Joe and his crew were getting paid by the Mafia to protect their clubs and hand out beatings to rival club owners at joints like the Living Room on Stuart Street in Boston and Alfonso’s Lonely Hearts Club in Revere. Club protection and plundering provided Joe with another steady revenue stream to add to his already lucrative loansharking and contract business. The scam worked this way: Barboza and his crew would enter a club and immediately begin tossing chairs around, smashing bottles and mirrors, while smacking around anyone who dared to stop them. The victimized club owners would then run to Henry Tameleo and offer the Mafia money to protect their business from Barboza. Joe would get 25 percent of the take from each club, and he made sure that every penny was accounted for. On the last job, Martin had shaken the club owner down for more money than he was supposed to and foolishly tried to pocket the extra cash without telling Barboza. Joe quickly got wind of the bait and switch and told Romeo that he would be gunning for him. This of course made little sense to Martin. Barboza was truly an animal, but he would rarely commit murder over a few dollars. The fact is, the missing money had only reaffirmed in Joe’s eyes the fact that Martin could not be trusted. Teresa and Castucci had no idea how the game was actually being played, so they told Martin not to worry about it, that Barboza had considered him a good friend and that he would eventually cool off. Fat Vinnie then reminded Romeo that he had left his golf clubs in Teresa’s car.

  “I’ll get my bag and I’ll come back and have one more drink with you,”59 Martin told Teresa as he headed for the door. “Then I’m going to get my wife and we’ll take off.”

  Martin strolled out of the club probably thinking that his friends were right—that he had overacted to Barboza’s threats. Romeo Martin quickly learned just how serious Barboza was when he entered the parking lot and saw that Joe and his pal Ronnie Cassesso were waiting for him.

  Martin tried to flee but he was snatched by the Animal and thrown in the back of a waiting car. Barboza drove to an undisclosed location where he shot Romeo Martin five times. Although it was believed by many in mob circles that Barboza had murdered Romeo Martin because of a squabble over a few bucks, no one dared confront Joe about the issue. In fact, both Barboza and Cassesso served as pallbearers at Martin’s funeral.

  Following the murder of Romeo Martin, the red-hot Boston mob war went cold for the remainder of the summer, but flared up again in a major way in October 1965, thanks in part to Paul Rico and the Boston office of the FBI.

  It was no secret that the remaining members of the McLaughlin Gang all had big targets on their backs, especially after their botched hit on Jimmy Flemmi. Barboza wanted the McLaughlin brothers and the Hughes brothers wiped out, and so did the Bear’s brother Stevie. In the Rifleman’s eyes, Punchy McLaughlin, the gang’s new boss, was unfinished business. He had first tried to kill Punchy several months before in November 1964. The Rifleman had convinced another gangster to lure Punchy to the parking lot of Beth Israel Hospital, where the two were supposedly going to discuss business. The gangster never showed. Instead, Punchy was met by Flemmi and “Cadillac Frank” Salemme, both disguised as Hasidic rabbis and both carrying weapons. One of the men fired a shotgun blast that tore apart Punchy’s jaw. Before Flemmi and Salemme could fire a few more shots into McLaughlin for good measure, they were forced to flee after the loud noise of the shotgun drew a slew of potential witnesses from nearby buildings. Punchy was badly wounded, but he somehow survived. In August 1965, the Rifleman and Salemme tried to kill Punchy again, this time sniper-style, while the gangster was driving down a rural road outside of Boston. Flemmi fired several shots from high atop a nearby tree. One bullet struck Punchy’s right hand, which later had to be amputated. One could say that Flemmi and Salemme were killing Punchy slowly over time, but they were certainly frustrated by the latest botched attempt, and so was Special Agent Rico.

  Paul Rico had been gunning for the McLaughlin brothers in his own way since he found out that they had called him a “fag” during a conversation that was captured by a gypsy wire. Rico had planned to murder at least one of the brothers himself. When Rico and Condon had discovered where fugitive killer Georgie McLaughlin was hiding out in the winter of 1965, Rico had no intention of bringing the man to justice. Instead, Rico wanted to kill Georgie and had asked Stevie Flemmi for an untraceable gun that he could use as a throwdown to make it appear as if McLaughlin had drawn his weapon first. The plan was scrubbed when Rico could not get the full support of his FBI raid team. Five agents had agreed to the plot, but a sixth agent could not be convinced. H. Paul Rico knew that there would be no questions of conscience among his underworld friends. The FBI man had provided Flemmi and Salemme with valuable information about Punchy’s whereabouts, including the address of his girlfriend. The two mobsters began trailing McLaughlin and found their third opportunity to strike on October 20, 1965, when Punchy made plans to support his brother Georgie at his murder trial. Since he could no longer drive, the one-handed gangster’s girlfriend drove him to a West Roxbury bus stop where he would travel by bus and then by subway to the courthouse in Boston’s Pemberton Square.

  As he stood waiting for the bus with six other commuters, Punchy gripped a small brown paper bag he had been carrying. Inside the bag was a handgun. Suddenly, two cars came into view. The first vehicle carried two hitmen, one behind the wheel and the other in the backseat. The second car, a four-door Chevy, pulled up across the street. The Chevy would be used as a crash car to delay any pursuit of the killers as they tried to flee. Wearing wigs and heavy makeup, Stevie Flemmi and Frank Salemme stepped out of the first vehicle and ran toward Punchy with weapons drawn. McLaughlin turned and ran. With his one good hand, he tossed the brown paper bag concealing his gun to a frightened woman who was waiting in line for the bus. His killers closed the gap quickly and fired five shots into his body, hitting his heart, lungs, liver, and spleen. The last bullet was fired at close range and pierced his scrotum. Punchy McLaughlin fell dead in the street. His luck had finally run out.

  Police quickly began rounding up the usual suspects including Joe Barboza, who had been spending a lot of his time recently trying to figure out a way to kill Punchy’s brother Georgie, who was being housed at the Charles Street Jail during his murder trial. Barboza had hoped to shoot Georgie from an apartment window overlooking the prison yard about seventy-five yards away. The problem was that the youngest McLaughlin brother refused to leave his cell out of fear that he would be assassinated. O
nce it became known that the turtle would never poke its head out of its shell, all focus was shifted to Punchy. The hit on Punchy had been carried out by Flemmi and Salemme, but investigators believed that the Animal had most certainly participated in the planning, considering the fact that a crash car had been involved. Also, Barboza’s James Bond car had fit the description of the vehicle used by the killers. When police searched Joe’s car, they found a suitcase filled with wigs and makeup. Barboza told the cops that the case had been left behind by a girlfriend who worked as a showgirl and actress. Joe was kept at the station for eleven hours until several female witnesses were brought in with the hope that they could positively identify Punchy’s killers. Barboza was asked to stand in front of a one-way mirror. Cops ordered him to stand still, but the Animal refused. Instead he paced back and forth, growling at the people he knew were standing on the other side of the glass. “You’d better be fucking sure,”60 he yelled. No doubt rattled by the thinly veiled threat, the women told investigators they were not sure whether Barboza was one of the men in either of the two cars. The murder of Punchy McLaughlin would go unsolved, at least officially.