Animal (15 page)

When it came time to empanel a grand jury to hear the case, no witness would identify McLean, Nicholson, and Petricone as the men who had gunned down Bernie McLaughlin, and the case went away. Nicholson, the former cop, was eventually gunned down himself, while Petricone traveled west to Hollywood and changed his name to Alex Rocco. Under the name Alex Rocco, Petricone would go on to land memorable roles as Las Vegas casino owner Moe Green in
The Godfather
and as Jimmy
Scalise in the 1973 Boston-based gangster film
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
, opposite Robert Mitchum.

Punchy McLaughlin could not exact his pound of flesh from Buddy McLean himself, as Buddy was shipped off to prison for a two-year stint on a weapons charge unrelated to Bernie McLaughlin’s murder. Instead, the McLaughlin Gang went after Winter Hill member George “Ox” Joynt, a first-generation Irish-American whose parents had emigrated from Limerick. Ox was a well-known brawler who served as muscle for the Winter Hill crew. Joynt disappeared a short time after Bernie McLaughlin’s murder. His remains were discovered nearly a year later on a hot July day in 1962 when a work crew dug up his bones while building a new shopping center in Wellington Circle in Medford, Massachusetts.

The Irish mob war would simmer for another year while McLean was incarcerated. During that time, each gang looked for vulnerabilities in the other. The Wild West show formally opened just two days before St. Patrick’s Day in 1964, when Georgie McLaughlin, now fully healed from his beating, attended a party in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. Georgie was drunk as usual and got into an argument with another man at the party. Georgie left the celebration only to come back a short time later with a gun. He approached twenty-year-old William Sheridan, who bore a resemblance to the guy Georgie had been beefing with. Sheridan told McLaughlin that he was not the man Georgie had argued with, but it was too late. McLaughlin shot Sheridan dead right in the middle of the party.

A month later, on April 30, 1964, Joe Barboza was paroled from Walpole. He had been corresponding with a young blonde named Claire Cohen, whom he had met while working at Scooterland. They were polar opposites in every way. While Joe had spent much of his youth locked up, Claire had been raised outside the realm of violence in the quiet and predominantly Jewish community of Swampscott along Boston’s North Shore. Claire was Jewish, the daughter of a local grocer, and the only way for the couple to have a future together was if Joe converted from Catholicism to Judaism. Barboza loved Claire too much to allow any religious barriers to stand in the way of their relationship, so he agreed. He knew that his mother, Palmeda, a devout Catholic, would have concerns, but he had very little faith in the God, who had showed him little mercy over the course of his life. As part of his conversion, Joe changed his last name
from Barboza to Baron, the moniker he had used in the ring. He also got circumcised at Beth Israel Hospital; he later said it was the worst pain he had ever experienced in his life.

The couple got married immediately following Joe’s release from prison. They had exchanged vows in a small ceremony in Maine and were driving to their honeymoon in Johnston, Rhode Island, when Joe decided to make a pit stop at his friend Guy Frizzi’s place in East Boston. Frizzi presented Joe and Claire with a wedding cake and introduced Joe to another guy Frizzi wanted to bring into their gang. The hood’s name was Joseph “Chico” Amico, and the three men would go on to form a formidable crew. Barboza promised his new partners that he would be in touch and continued on to his honeymoon.

Two days later, while Joe was relaxing with his bride in a suite at the Colonial Motor Lodge in Johnston, he got a frantic call from Frizzi back in East Boston.

“Did you hear the news?” Guy asked.
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Before Joe could respond, Frizzi blurted out the bulletin. “They found a body in the trunk of a car with his head missing.”

“His head missing?” Joe replied astonished. “Did they identify the body?”

Frizzi told Barboza that he had no idea who the victim was, but the mystery of the headless gangster would soon be solved. When Barboza returned to East Boston, Frizzi told him that the body belonged to a former convict named Francis “Frank” Benjamin. Joe had known Benjamin since they were kids. Like Barboza, Benjamin was fresh out of prison and, like Barboza, Frank Benjamin had built his reputation with his fists.

“He was a tough southpaw and a right-on mother,” Joe told Frizzi.
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Frank Benjamin had made countless friends while in prison, including fellow Roxbury native Vincent “Jimmy the Bear” Flemmi. Flemmi was also back on the streets and beginning to make a name for himself when the two men bumped into each other one night at a Dorchester bar. They shared old jailhouse stories, but the more Benjamin drank, the more he talked, and that began to annoy the Bear. Benjamin began spouting off that he was connected to Buddy McLean and that he was going to whack out members of the McLaughlin Gang. This didn’t sit well with Flemmi, or with the tavern’s owner, Roxbury rackets king Edward “Wimpy” Bennett,
who was tied in with the McLaughlins. Finally Flemmi had had enough of Benjamin’s big mouth, so he slipped off his bar stool and walked out into the chilly April night. The Bear came back a little while later with a gun, walked up to his old prison pal, and shot him in the head. With the help of Wimpy Bennett, Flemmi dragged Benjamin’s body into the storage room while they tried to figure out what to do with the corpse.

A short time later, Wimpy went back into the storage room to check on the body and was shocked to see that Benjamin was alive and crawling around. Blood flowing from a gaping wound in Benjamin’s head was virtually everywhere. The scene was like something out of a zombie movie. Bennett pulled out his own gun and shot Benjamin again—killing him. There would be no coming back from the dead this time. Still, Bennett and the Bear had other problems. Wimpy Bennett looked around the bar and realized that there was no way a simple mop job would soak up all the blood, so he decided the best course of action was to torch the place. Flemmi had used a cop’s gun in the shooting and he knew that a ballistics test on the bullet would mean big trouble, so he got a saw and severed Benjamin’s head. No head, no ballistics test. The Bear stuffed the head in a plastic bag and buried it in the woods while Wimpy Bennett soaked the bar with gasoline and lit a match. Frank Benjamin’s headless body was placed in the backseat of a stolen car and later abandoned on a side street in South Boston. The head was never found.

Barboza had known Jimmy “the Bear” Flemmi from their prison days. They had both come from tough backgrounds. The son of a bricklayer and a homemaker, Flemmi had grown up in the Orchard Park housing project on Ambrose Street in Roxbury with his brothers Stephen and Michael. Brother Stephen, or “Stevie” as he was called, was a year older than Jimmy and had served as a paratrooper in Korea, while Michael would later embark on a long dubious career with the Boston Police Department. All three Flemmi brothers had a penchant for crime, including Michael, who used his position as police sergeant and later detective to act as mole, intelligence gatherer, and full-blown accomplice for his siblings.

Older brother Stevie was first arrested at the age of fifteen for “carnal abuse” and had spent time in juvenile detention before enlisting in the U.S. Army two years later. Stevie Flemmi joined the 187 Airborne Regimental
Combat Team, serving two tours before receiving an honorable discharge in 1955. Classified as a Rifleman by the military brass, Flemmi carried the nickname back to the streets of Boston, where he soon made a name for himself as a bookie, pimp, and killer. Stevie Flemmi began operating out of the Marconi Club in Roxbury while also nibbling around the edges of Jerry Angiulo’s growing kingdom in the North End. The Italian Mafiosi appeared to respect the very businesslike, older Flemmi brother while keeping younger brother Jimmy at a safe distance. The slight did not seem to bother the Bear, who did not create any strong alliances, as he was willing to pull the trigger for the highest bidder. Predators in the truest sense, “the Animal” and “the Bear” should have been natural rivals, but instead they chose to hunt as a pack, each with an insatiable appetite for bigger game. Once Barboza had heard about the early demise of the now headless Frank Benjamin, he decided to pay his old friend a visit on Flemmi’s home turf. Barboza and Guy Frizzi hopped into Guy’s 1962 gold Cadillac and drove from East Boston through the Sumner Tunnel toward Dearborn Square in Roxbury. They spotted the Bear in the doorway of a restaurant, his eyes darting nervously up and down the street. Barboza waved to his fat friend, who waddled over to the Cadillac and jumped in the backseat.

“Gotta watch it,” Flemmi told Barboza. “The area is loaded with law.”
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Joe needled his old friend about not coming to see him after Barboza had been released from prison.

“Man, I got more heat on me. I did you a favor by not coming by,” Flemmi responded.

Barboza pulled the Cadillac off the curb, and the trio began a leisurely drive around the winding streets of Roxbury. Flemmi pulled his ever-present cap down over his bald head just above his eyes. Barboza told him there was plenty of talk on the street that the Bear had been involved in Benjamin’s murder. Flemmi shook his head firmly, his puffy cheeks making him look like a basset hound attempting to dry itself after a heavy rain. Flemmi retold the story, but this time inserting Punchy McLaughlin’s name in place of his own.

“They drove off with two cars, Wimpy in his own car and Punchy driving his car with the cut-up in it,” Flemmi insisted. He then told Barboza and Frizzi that Bennett and McLaughlin dumped the car with the body
in it, and drove away together with Benjamin’s head in a bag between them. They were looking for a quiet place to bury the skull while eyeing each other as a potential threat. The men had just spilled blood together, and that meant each had enough information to send the other to the electric chair. Like pirates in the centuries before, these mobsters lived by the code,
Dead men tell no tales
. There were two killers in the car and only one gun between them.

“When they got to a wooded area, Punchy asked for Wimpy’s gun,” Flemmi told them. “When Wimpy asked Punchy, What for? Punchy said he would not dare go in the woods with no gun while Wimpy was armed.”

Of course, Bennett refused to hand over his weapon, and each man stared at the other, wondering if they too would survive the night. Finally Wimpy broke the silence. “I’ll drive you to your car,” he said.

“Where are you going now?” Punchy asked him.

“I’m taking my head and leaving,” Bennett replied coldly.

Upon hearing Flemmi’s retelling of the incident, Barboza just nodded his head, while Frizzi was truly horrified.

“That’s the story,” Flemmi said, trying to convince himself of his own words. Barboza knew the real truth but was unwilling to call out his friend, especially with Frizzi in the car.

Jimmy “the Bear” Flemmi’s murderous exploits had gained him plenty of attention within the Boston underworld, and his reputation soon reached the local office of the
FBI
. Special Agent Dennis Condon asked one of his gangland informants to reach out to Flemmi just weeks after the murder of Francis Benjamin for an “off the record” conversation. Condon was startled to see how glib Flemmi, whose only known fear was getting pinched by police, could be when discussing his chosen profession.

“All I wanna do is kill people,” Flemmi told the informant without a trace of insincerity in his voice. “It’s better than robbing banks.”
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Flemmi went on to say that he had his eye on becoming the number one hitman in New England.

Special Agent Condon immediately typed up a memorandum to
FBI
director Hoover detailing Flemmi’s conversation with the informant. “Flemmi is suspected in a number of gangland murders and has told the informant of his plans to become recognized as the No. One hit man in this area as a contract killer,” Condon wrote. He later informed Director
Hoover that Joe Barboza had been telling his closest friends that he believed Flemmi had been involved in the decapitation of Frank Benjamin.

Just eight days later, another mob associate would be taken off the streets for good. Former
MDC
police officer Russell Nicholson had been looking over his broad shoulder just about every day since getting fingered as the wheelman in Buddy McLean’s 1961 assassination of rival Bernie McLaughlin. Like both McLean and fellow alleged conspirator Alex “Bobo” Petricone, Nicholson had been spared jail time because several key witnesses had refused to testify at trial. But Nicholson had spent his last years in his own psychological prison, waiting for his day of reckoning to arrive. That day came on May 12, 1964, when several members of the McLaughlin Gang forced the six-foot, seven-inch Nicholson into a waiting car. The killers drove the thirty-three-year-old Nicholson out to another wooded area, this time in the Boston suburb of Wilmington, and put two bullets into the back of his head.

The month of June 1964 would be relatively bloodless as both warring factions contemplated their next move. Joe Barboza spent this time on the sideline as well, eager but somewhat helpless to join the fight. The Animal was in pain, although he refused to let even his closest friends know. When Barboza had converted to Judaism upon marrying his new wife, Claire, she had insisted that he follow through with the sacred tenet of circumcision. The Animal assented to his wife’s demand and prayed the pain would subside quickly. Instead, it lasted several weeks, despite Barboza’s cautious attention to protecting and cleaning his wound. While he was stitched up, Joe refused to use most public bathrooms because of their filth. Barboza and his crew had just begun using the corner of Bennington and Brooks streets in East Boston as their operational headquarters. The gang frequented a drugstore located on the corner when they were in need of cigarettes, soda pop, or the daily newspaper. Barboza and his crew were always scouring the late editions of Boston’s competing newspapers to see how the mob war was playing out in print. Gangsters referred to the police blotter as the “Irish sports page.” While most of Barboza’s associates treated the drugstore owner with great disdain, Joe was always polite and soft-spoken in front of the old man. He figured this show of respect would come in handy when he needed something, like a quick escape route through the back of the store. While still recovering
from his circumcision, Barboza asked the store owner if he could use the man’s private bathroom. The druggist replied with a terse no, which enraged the Animal.