Kevin Weeks talked about this in his autobiography. He said that Whitey Bulger would always only use violence as a last resort. As an example, he brought up a time when he and Whitey went over to someone’s house, and they tried every way from Sunday for a long time to talk him into giving Whitey the money. But no matter how they tried to explain it, the guy just wouldn’t. So of course Whitey had to fuck him up. Like really bad. See? Absolute last resort.

I grew up in the Old Colony housing project in South Boston and became partners with James “Whitey” Bulger, who I always called Jimmy.

Jimmy and I, we were unstoppable. We took what we wanted. And we made people disappear—permanently. We made millions. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys.

I found out that Jimmy had been an FBI informant in 1999, and my life was never the same. When the feds finally got me, I was faced with something Jimmy would have killed me for—cooperating with the authorities. I pled guilty to twenty-nine counts, including five murders. I went away for five and a half years.

I was brutally honest on the witness stand, and this book is brutally honest, too; the brutal truth that was never before told.

So, violent and unreasonable, until they were faced with their own consequences, until they turned into the exact same rats. Sounds about right.