Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery by Michael Haskins Read Free Book Online Page A

story. If something happens to me, I want the fuckin’ truth to be known. Someone needs to know. That’s why I called you, Mick. I want to document that I shook hands with the fuckin’ devil in Boston and I want to make sure everyone knows about it. You can do that, right? Get the story told.”
    “I can’t promise anything.” I put the engine in gear and left Bob on watch as the Fenian Bastard moved forward on autopilot.
    “Leave the hatch open,” Bob whispered, as he stood by the wheel.
    Walsh and I went below. I got my small tape recorder and cassettes from the chart table while he tried to make himself comfortable on the settee. I sat across from him and put the recorder on the table. He squirmed about, never finding a comfortable spot.
    “The fuckin’ devil can promise you anything, Mick, and in his own way, he keeps his fuckin’ word,” he said cynically. “Just promise me you’ll do whatever you can, especially if something fuckin’ happens to me.”
    “Dick, until I know what it is you’re talking about, I can’t promise anything.”
    He thought for a moment and then nodded his head. “Sounds fair. Let me tell you the fuckin’ story of how I took the stairway to the bottom and it all began in Boston and I bet you know of some of the players.”
    I turned the on recorder and placed two empty cassettes on the table.
    “I killed for Whitey Bulger,” he said without emotion. “For Whitey and the Winter Hill Gang. You with me, so far?”
    I nodded. Whitey Bulger was Dick Walsh’s devil and recently captured by the FBI after sixteen years on the run.
    “I didn’t kill their girlfriends or someone straight that pissed Whitey or Steve Flemmi off. All that shit that’s made the papers. They killed them, they fuckin’ enjoyed it. I killed anyone that tried to fuckin’ cheat Whitey or someone in his way on business and, of course, he required I get rid of a few Dagos. I killed them. By our standards, they deserved what they got. It was business to me.”
    It took Walsh six profanity-filled hours to tell his story and then answer questions I wrote down as he spoke. When I realized what he was telling me I found a notebook and began taking notes, questions I had about what he said, but kept the questions until he was done. When we were done, I had no blank tapes left. Bob used the head twice, or said he needed to. I think he was checking on me. We reached Sand Key and I felt the boat turn toward Key West.
    When it was over I lit a cigar and sat back.
    “Walsh ain’t my real name,” he said with a shallow laugh. “Write my story and I’ll tell you what it is.”
    He was in the witness protection program, he admitted, because he traded testifying against Whitey and admitting helping him escape in exchange for not being tried for murder. Now Whitey was caught it was time for him to testify.
    “I took Whitey money from Boston to New York City, Miami, New Orleans before the fuckin’ FBI caught on to me,” he said, almost with pride. “Now they got him, they need me to testify.”
    Whitey trusted him, but Walsh rationalized that turning informant was okay because Whitey had been an FBI informant all along, so had Steve Flemmi.
    “You can’t rat out a fuckin’ rat,” he said using old gangster slang.
    Walsh had been in the program since the mid ‘90s, a few years after Whitey Bulger escaped an FBI arrest because his friend and handler in the FBI warned him about it. The agent was doing prison time, Flemmi received life without parole, and the FBI finally caught up with Whitey and his girlfriend.
    “Why are you running from the marshals,” I asked when he had finished.
    “I was tired of someone looking over my fuckin’ shoulder all the time and I know I’m sick,” he said. “I had a good ID and money stashed in Boston, so I got it and came here. I was pretty public, if they wanted me they could’ve found me.”
    “You haven’t said why everyone wants you dead.”
    “Because I know too