The fact that Johnny “The Mouse” Kaplinski stayed alive at all after the two biggest families on the East Coast discovered his betrayal to the Feds said something about his resourceful nature. If he hadn’t also cheated on his bookmaker, who decided enough was enough and shot him, he may even have lived to testify.

I guess we’ll never know. I do know, however, that the families would have inflicted more than a bullet through the head. The fact that he was dead before they reached him may have been the biggest stroke of luck he ever had.

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