Free Hitman by Howie Carr Page A

SYLVESTER murder investigation dragged on for months. Jimmy Martorano was finally indicted—but only as an accessory after the fact, for replacing the rug in the back room. Luigi’s, of course, was finished. The Boston Licensing Board had no choice but to pull its liquor license after fourteen years in business.
    Life went on for Johnny. The gang war was dragging on, but that didn’t directly concern him. He wasn’t involved, although he was “rooting for” Buddy McLean and the Flemmis to prevail, as he put it in court almost forty years later. The Roxbury crew had started out on the side of the McLaughlins—they had handled some of the hits Wimpy farmed out. In 1962, when George McLaughlin blew up a car belonging to Buddy McLean’s top hand, Howie Winter, it was Stevie Flemmi and Wimpy who drove McLaughlin over to Somerville to plant the bomb. But after a while, Wimpy the Fox realized that Somerville was gaining the upper hand. A peace meeting was brokered by a Boston police detective on the Roxbury payroll, and Buddy McLean sat down with Stevie and Wimpy at the Holiday Inn in Somerville to hask out their differences.
    Through it all, Johnny remained tight with the Bear, who was turning into the main target of the McLaughlins after Buddy McLean. In 1964, Flemmi was shot and wounded by a Charlestown hit squad in Dorchester. In May 1965, he was ambushed by two McLaughlin gunmen as he left his apartment in Dorchester. The Bear was struck by nine bullets, and the shooters were walking toward him to administer the coup de grâce when the wounded Bear managed to pull his .38 out of his coat and begin wildly firing in the direction of his would-be killers. They fled, and Flemmi was taken to Boston City Hospital (BCH).
    A couple of days later, against his doctors’ orders, the Bear checked himself out of BCH. Johnny Martorano was waiting for him in a car. They would drive to Vermont, where an undertaker friend of Johnny’s would rent them a cabin in which the Bear could recuperate in peace and quiet—and safety.
    In addition to guns, Martorano had stocked the car with booze, which they got into as soon as they hit the road. Once they were drunk Johnny and the Bear began talking about how much fun it would be to pull into their campground with a dead deer strapped to the hood, as they’d seen so often during hunting season in northern New England. It was dark by the time they crossed into Vermont. Suddenly the Bear screamed—he had seen glowing eyes in a field by the side of the road.
    â€œTurn around, Johnny,” he yelled. “It’s a fucking deer!”
    Martorano put the car in reverse and backed up until he, too, saw the eyes, peering over a fence. The deer seemed remarkably serene, but they were too drunk to notice. They stumbled out of the car, Martorano brandishing a carbine, the Bear a revolver. Both emptied their guns in the direction of the eyes, yelled in exultation, then climbed over the fence. Johnny had a flashlight, which he shined down on the carcass … of a dead cow.
    â€œShit,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “I’m not putting a cow on the hood of my car.”
    At the campground, their host was not impressed by their story.
    â€œDon’t tell anybody else here about that,” he warned them. “You’ll get more time in Vermont for shooting a cow than for shooting a human.”
    *   *   *
    AS THE summer of 1965 wore on, Johnny was hanging out more and more with the Bear’s younger brother, Stevie—the Rifleman. As for the Bear, he had totally lost it—in September, he defaulted on a $25,000 bond in the Hayes & Bickford stabbing. A fugitive warrant was issued. His own lawyer said he didn’t know if the Bear was alive or dead.
    Stevie Flemmi was running a grocery store at Dearborn and Dudley streets in Roxbury, and that was where Wimpy Bennett and his gang were spending more of their