Last Rites Read Online Free PDF Page B

off-duty Revere Police officers who were seeking an enjoyable night out with their wives or girlfriends. Often, the club would have live entertainment and a free buffet for the club-goers. Officially, the club was owned by Richard Castucci. His wife held the liquor license on the club because of his criminal record for forgery and various other charges. In later years, Richard Castucci was a FBI informant. One evening, a young Turk by the name of Joseph Barboza gave Castucci and his uncle, Arthur Ventola, the owner of Arthur’s Farm, a hard time. Castucci spoke to Henry Tameleo and asked for protection. Tameleo granted the request. Almost immediately, word hit the street that the club was protected by the mob. The club was in operation from the 1950s until the 1970s. During this period, the club was owned and frequented by members of the New England mob. In fact, they used to have card and dice games upstairs. One night, Fats Domino went upstairs and decided to try his luck after playing to a sold-out crowd. While upstairs, he lost the money he had made for the evening and sold the house his jewel-encrusted cuff links so he could keep playing.
    Another little-known secret of the club took place every Thursday afternoon. A nondescript vehicle would pull up to the club and a man would exit the vehicle and enter the club. A short time later, the man would leave the club and drive away. Unbeknownst to law enforcement, the man would then head to Rhode Island to give Patriarca his weekly share of what had been collected from local bookmakers by Angiulo. The Ebb Tide served as a collection facility for the Angiulo operation. Angiulo now had a very powerful partner, Raymond Patriarca.
    A field report written by an unidentified agent of the FBI, dated April 15, 1975, stated that Castucci had recently purchased the Squire strip club located in Revere and that the previous owner was paying Anthony Cataldo, aka Max Baer, $250 per week in protection. Castucci, who also owned the Ebb Tide, was already paying Bulger weekly protection. Therefore, Castucci refused to pay Baer and Baer recruited his nephew, Butchie Cataldo, a Massachusetts state representative, to spearhead a crusade to try to close down the Squire or at least get the topless and bottomless dancers banned. The mayor of Revere at the time was William Reinstein, whose motto was “Let Revere be Revere.” At the time, Reinstein was indicted in a corruption scandal involving the city’s new high school. He survived three mistrials. His field report raises an important question as to why Castucci was paying Bulger when originally he was paying protection to the mob. This bit of information should have tipped off the FBI that Bulger was starting to push the Italian mob out of its long-held territory. It may have also helped to give them some insight into the fact that the Patriarca-Angiulo reign was in jeopardy. On the other hand, it may have been that the Italian mob and the Winter Hill Gang were working together and splitting the take by the mid-1970s. Unfortunately, the FBI field reports don’t give a clear and decisive answer either way.

C HAPTER 4
    T HE E ARLY Y EARS
    Sometime in 1955, a seventeen-year-old neighborhood kid with a propensity for violence began working for the Angiulo faction as a debt collector. His name was Edward “Big Eddie” Marino, and he stood at six feet, two inches, with a solid muscular frame, thick, curly, dark hair and movie star looks. Big Eddie was extremely well liked in the neighborhood; he was friendly, outgoing and always willing to help anyone in trouble. By 1960, at the age of twenty-two, he was married and living in an apartment on Everett Street in East Boston with an infant son, Edward, and his wife Corrine was expecting again. Big Eddie was steadily moving up within the Angiulo organization, proving himself to be loyal and trustworthy. In other words, he was a man among men. However, he was not yet a made