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THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
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BRIAN MCGRORY Shoveling the . . . dirt
By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist, 3/14/2006
Weeks, to the vast majority of people who have never heard of him, was a mob go-fer, Whitey Bulger's Boy Friday who used to stand lookout on South Boston street corners and bury bodies while his boss sprawled on the couch for his relaxing postmurder naps.
These days, he's trying to be a best-selling author, but even between two hard covers he's nothing more than a huckster. He's not shaking down cocaine dealers these days, but trying to steal money from hard-working people by selling them sludge he's put into print.
But before we get to the book, let's go to the highlights of yesterday's chat to debunk the persistent myth that Weeks was an uncommonly thoughtful Bulger understudy, smarter than the average crook.
Question: ''Do you have trouble sleeping at night knowing what you've done to people?''
Kevin Weeks: ''No, thank God.''
Question: ''I heard from Howie Carr that you and Whitey were lovers at one point. You must miss him a lot.''
Weeks: ''Not as much as I miss your wife.''
Question: ''If you were Whitey, where would you hide?''
Weeks: ''The Playboy Mansion.''
Thank you, Kevin, for your insightful and articulate commentary on the state of all things Bulger, then and now.
But, hey, you can hardly blame the guy for his attempted salesmanship. He probably thought he was going to own the literary market on Bulger expertise, and now he finds himself up against three other Bulger-related books, all of them released at the same time. You see, Bulger, once a killer, is now a commodity, and every penny-ante criminal is trying to cash in.
Those books, as well as another by Carr, have something in common besides the subject. They all contain a grossly exaggerated sense of the authors' importance. Weeks, for one, wants you to believe he was a Bulger equal and intimate (though not in that way). He was, in reality, a star-struck gravedigger.
Carr wants you to think he was the only newsman in town with the guts to go after Bulger's gang. That Howie, he really is a funny guy.
In his book, Weeks lards the text with eye-rolling tales of Bulger's good deeds around South Boston. He reserves special animus for the reporters who helped expose the fraud and violence of the Bulger-Steve Flemmi gang and its link with the FBI.
Of Dick Lehr, a former Globe reporter, Boston University professor, and coauthor of the best-selling Bulger book, ''Black Mass,'' Weeks writes, ''I'd like to meet him one-on-one with no one else around besides the two of us. Then he could tell me what he thinks of me, and I could show him what I think of him.''
Actually, Kevin, I know Dick Lehr, and I don't think he spends a moment thinking about you at all.
Of the Globe's Kevin Cullen, coauthor of the 1988 story that first revealed Whitey Bulger as a federal informant, Weeks writes, ''Being the tough guy he was, [he] fled to Europe.''
Actually, Cullen ''fled'' for Europe nine years later -- to cover, among other things, the violence in Northern Ireland and the war in Kosovo.
In what passes for philosophy, Weeks writes, ''I've always believed that if you have a problem with someone, you knock on his door and say, 'You have something to say to me? Okay, now what do you want to do about it.' ''
That's odd, because when Weeks was in the Globe newsroom yesterday on his publicity stunt, Cullen was sitting 20 yards away. Did Weeks say something? No, he slinked in and out without stopping by.
All these years later, Weeks is still wielding a shovel, only it's not the dirt from some victim's grave he's tossing around any more. Do yourself a favor and save your money.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. His email is mcgrory@globe.com.
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 3/14/2006.
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