If you can tell who a person is by the company he keeps and the actions he takes, then you already know Wady David. He was a South End character arrested at age 39 for possession of a knife and illegal drugs.
The arrest in of itself is not particularly interesting until you learn the circumstances of the arrest. David was found with a knife and drugs when he was visiting Theodore “Teddy” Green in State Prison.
The New Yorker has a story called “The Old Man and the Gun” about a bank robber named Forrest Tucker. The story was made into a movie by the same name. Tucker allegedly broke out of prison 18 times. He described various episodes in his life to the writer for the New Yorker. Among the things, he talked about doing time at Alcatraz prison. “He began to concoct elaborate schemes with a fellow-inmate named Teddy Green, an escape artist and bank robber who had once dressed as a priest to elude the police and had broken out of the state penitentiary by shipping himself out in a box of rags.”
We next hear of David when he was 41. He was in federal court and described by the prosecutor as “a top man in the narcotics racket.” The prosecutor recommended he be sentenced to ten years in prison. The judge called the recommendation harsh. He imposed a three-year sentence.
David spent time in and out of the prison. He was known for his white felt hat with a wide, wide brim. He had, years earlier, been called the greatest supplier of heroin in the Greater Boston area with reports suggesting he was bringing in $200,000 a year. Like with Buccelli, David’s time in prison opened the door for others to move into his racket and push him off his pedestal. Wimpy Bennett most likely would have taken over control of the heroin supply or would be getting tribute from those who did when Wady David was in prison.
There was a report that David was friendly with Spike O’Toole and Jimmy Flemmi, both guys who would later be shooting at each other. O’Toole’s and Flemmi’s friendships with other gangsters was always ephemeral. Other reports suggest that David was trying to get back into the narcotics business. Wimpy and Steve Flemmi would not take too kindly to someone else horning in on their territory. They would have taken care of him the best way they knew how. When David was found dead in an alley in the South End with one shot in the head at age 52 on August 22, 1965, he still had his hat on and $4.25 in his pocket.