Hitman (20 page)

Sometimes it was almost as if Barboza was retelling an inside joke. He said In Town wanted Deegan dead because he'd broken into a Mafia bookie's house and stolen $82,000 in cash—the exact figure Tash Bratsos and Tommy DePrisco supposedly had on them when they were murdered in the North End in 1966.

On July 31, the jury brought back guilty verdicts against all six defendants, four of whom had nothing to do with Deegan's murder. Two ended up on Death Row at MCI-Walpole. It would be another thirty years before Johnny Martorano would be able to follow through on his offer to testify on behalf of the men whom Joe Barboza and the FBI had framed.

*   *   *

A COUPLE
of days after the trial ended, FBI agents Rico and Condon stopped by Wimpy Bennett's old garage in Roxbury, which was now run by Cadillac Frank Salemme. The two G-men were elated, especially Condon. In his testimony to congressional investigators in 2003, Salemme recalled his conversation with FBI agent Condon.

“He made the statement, I wonder how Louie Grieco likes it on death row, and he wasn't even there. I was thinking, why was he saying that? I said, you're a Knight of Columbus, you're Holy Name Society.”

Condon shrugged. “If you're so smart, why don't you get up on the stand and testify?”

“Dennis, who's going to believe me? But you won't get by St. Peter at the gate, you can't. You broke one of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not bear false witness, Dennis. You can't get by him, Dennis.”

Dennis Condon was irate at such insolence. Frank Salemme wouldn't be on the street much longer.

*   *   *

THE OLD
Nite Lite Café on Commercial Street, where Tash Bratsos and Tommy DePrisco were murdered by the Mafia in 1966, had reopened under new management, sort of, as the 416 Lounge. In October 1968, just outside the 416, police responding to a call of men fighting found a young man bleeding, clutching his stomach.

It was Arthur Pearson, the Everett ex-con who had gone to jail two years earlier rather than testify against Barboza. He had been stabbed seventeen times, and was pronounced dead on arrival at Mass. General Hospital.

Witnesses reported seeing two men in “navy uniforms” running toward the coast guard base farther up Commercial Street, but no arrests were ever made in Pearson's murder.

*   *   *

ZIP CONNOLLY
still wanted to join the FBI. At age twenty-seven, he was tired of teaching high school in Dorchester. Rico and Condon hadn't been able to meet him the night Fitzgerald's car was bombed, but it didn't hurt Zip's prospects. He still had those Southie connections to John W. McCormack, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. His father was known in South Boston as “Galway John.” How much more did the Speaker need to know about anyone?

In August 1968, Speaker McCormack, second in line to the U.S. presidency after Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, wrote a letter to his friend J. Edgar Hoover.

“Dear Edgar,” it began. “It has come to my attention that the son of a lifelong personal friend has applied to become a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.…”

John J. “Zip” Connolly Jr. was appointed to the FBI in October 1968.

LAWYER:
Now, Mr. Hicks, Ronald Hicks, who I believe you testified you murdered, was going to be a witness against friends of yours, isn't that right?

MARTORANO:
Against people that I hadn't met yet. They weren't friends until after.

LAWYER:
Well, at some point they came to you to ask for your help with an attorney for their defense?

MARTORANO:
Nope. That's … at one point his wife came to me and asked for some help with an attorney for their defense.

LAWYER:
And at some point, you went to see Mr. Hicks to dissuade him from testifying against the woman's—

MARTORANO:
No. I met with him. I had a few drinks with him, socialized a couple of times, and I didn't like the guy, and I decided to take him out … I didn't go looking for Hicks. He came to my restaurant.

Abie Sarkis, Andy Martorano's old business partner in Luigi's, had a club on Columbus Avenue, the 411. It had a long bar, with bookies hanging out near the door, waiting for the daily number to come in the late afternoon, after which they'd start making their collections and payoffs. Farther back were the working girls. Johnny Martorano knew the place well, and one night a girl from the 411 came into Basin Street looking for Johnny.

Her name was Roberta Campbell—Bert, for short. She needed a favor. She was crying. He told Bert to sit down and the waiter brought her a drink. He asked her what she needed.

“Have you ever heard of the Campbell brothers?” she began, and Johnny's answer was yes. Alvin and Arnold Campbell weren't exactly household names like Joe Barboza, but they were well known enough in Roxbury. Bert was Alvin's wife. The Campbells' father was from the islands, but his sons had been brought up in Boston. He'd taught the boys his trade, which was robbing banks. They'd been arrested in 1957 for a $32,000 bank stickup in Canton. When the judge sentenced them, Alvin was twenty-three and Arnold twenty-five.

Despite their race, up until the bank robbery in Canton, the brothers had somehow led a charmed existence with the law in Boston. At their sentencing, the judge angrily read their rap sheets aloud in court, describing what he called “fix after fix after fix.”

“This is a sordid picture,” the judge said. “Never in my life have I seen such records.”

They were good guys, the Campbells. Even Whitey liked them. He told me later he'd been working out one day in the weight room in Leavenworth, and he heard some guys talking behind him. It was pretty obvious from their accents that they were from Boston, and when Whitey turned around he couldn't believe they were black. It was the Campbells. They used to all walk the track together at Leavenworth, around and around and around, just talking about Boston.

Abie Sarkis liked them, too. He was always helping them out whenever they were in a jam. They were just good people.

Guido St. Laurent, the founder of NEGRO.

By the time the Campbells were paroled, Roxbury was awash in federal money. The War on Poverty was in full swing. The Campbells were looking to get a foothold in the rackets, but the money from Uncle Sam was just as tempting. Other local hustlers had gotten there first, though, especially another black ex-con named Guido St. Laurent. St. Laurent had lost his eyesight in an accident at Walpole, but his blindness didn't stop him from quickly figuring out how to prime Uncle Sam's pump. By 1968, he had set up a sardonically named antipoverty agency of his own—NEGRO, which stood for New England Grass Roots Organization. Its offices were above a sub shop on Blue Hill Avenue.

At NEGRO, St. Laurent surrounded himself with thugs, mostly ex-cons like himself. Some of them weren't from Boston, which seemed to bother the Campbells. In November 1968, NEGRO was on the verge of its biggest score yet, a $1.9-million federal grant to run a “manpower program” that was supposed to train 500 hard-core unemployed Roxbury residents as auto mechanics. Even the Campbells had been promised jobs—in the program management, of course. Like the characters in Tom Wolfe's essay “Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers,” none of the parties involved had any interest in actually learning a trade that would require them to go to work every morning.

But St. Laurent would not live to enjoy his payday. Early on the morning of November 13, 1968, three men—later identified as the Campbell brothers and their top enforcer, Deke Chandler—burst into NEGRO headquarters.

According to newspaper accounts, Alvin Campbell first pistol-whipped the blind ex-con, then shot him. St. Laurent's top muscle, another ex-con, was also shot to death, as was a third man. Two other NEGRO members were wounded. The Campbells and Chandler were quickly arrested and were being held without bail at the Charles Street jail awaiting trial when Alvin's wife showed up at Basin Street to seek Johnny Martorano's assistance.

The Boston police offered protection to the two survivors from NEGRO but both turned down the offer. One of them, Ronald Hicks, a thirty-one-year-old armed robber on parole, went on television and said the shooting was a result of a turf struggle between militant groups over the federal funds. It looked bleak for the Campbells.

Bert Campbell was just looking for any kind of help she could get—money, lawyers, talking the other militant black groups in the city into supporting her husband. Johnny liked her. He wasn't thinking about killing anyone, not until he met the main witness against the Campbells, Ronald Hicks. He was a regular at Basin Street, and after Bert's visit, Johnny made a point of getting to know him. Johnny wanted Hicks to relax around him. He was pleased when Hicks started going out with one of the barmaids—that way he'd be around Basin Street even more often.

What Johnny quickly learned was that Hicks was a drug dealer and a pimp. One night he casually asked Hicks about the Campbells' trial.

“I'm gonna get even with them motherfuckers,” Hicks said.

Johnny began thinking about the Campbells, locked up in the Charles Street jail, awaiting trial and possibly facing the death penalty because of this guy. Even though he'd never even met the Campbells, Johnny made a decision to murder Hicks.

Deke Chandler, Roxbury gangster, a friend of Johnny's.

He thought it was the right thing to do.

He had just seen Peter Limone and the other three guys from In Town get railroaded onto Death Row because of Joe Barboza. Now it was happening again. It didn't matter to Johnny if they had killed those guys at NEGRO. Johnny's mind was made up. This Hicks was no damn good—he was a lying piece of shit.

It was personal, too. Now Johnny was thinking,
This could be me; I could be in this exact same situation
. First Peter Limone, now Alvin Campbell—who would be next? And if he didn't help, it would be his fault if the Campbells were put to death, because who else could step up for them?

Johnny came to a conclusion. It was the right thing to do to kill Hicks. His conscience was telling him he had to do it.

*   *   *

ON THE
evening of March 19, 1969, Johnny Martorano and another guy went looking for Ronald Hicks. They checked out the new hot spot in town, the Sugar Shack, where Hicks was a regular. The Boston police already had reports of “Hicks pushing H & C (heroin and cocaine) with a big fat negro male at the Sugar Shack; Hicks also recently seen in the company of a white blonde.”

As always, Johnny knew the car his prey was driving—a 1967 Cadillac coupe, brown, with a rose-colored top. In other words, a pimpmobile. Around 1
A.M.
, the other guy with Martorano decided to call it a night and go home. But Johnny continued searching for Hicks by himself in the South End.

Around 1:50
A.M.
, Hicks drifted into Slade's, the joint on Tremont Street near the Taylor brothers' old Pioneer Club. At Slade's, Hicks ran into a woman he'd once dated. He seemed pleased to see her, she later told the police, and the two decided to go across the street to Birley's to get a hamburger. Afterward, the BPD report continued, “He drove her home. He told her he had business and would like to come back and see her about getting together again. He said he would be back about 4
A.M.
… Hicks did not appear to be worried or frightened when he was with her.”

After dropping her off at her place, she watched as Hicks made a U-turn in his Cadillac on Huntington Avenue. That was the last she saw of Ronald Hicks.

*   *   *

JOHNNY SPOTTED
him in the Fenway. He honked and waved and Hicks pulled over into Forsythe Park, near the Museum of Fine Arts. Johnny parked and came over and got in the passenger's side. Hicks seemed glad to see him. He may have been planning to pull over anyway because he had a bag of cocaine that he got out of his pocket as soon as Johnny got in the car. Hicks cut two lines of coke right there on the car seat. Johnny was sitting next to him on the front seat when Hicks leaned over and snorted one of the lines. He still had his head down when he asked Johnny, “You want a line?”