in flemmi 's mind , the two agents had reaffirmed a group protection policy featuring a full menu of services : snuffing out trouble before an investigation could even get going , as the agents had done in the past in matters involving the melotone vending machine executives , frank green 's extortion , the many unsolved murders , and the takeover of the rakes family liquor store ; tipping them off to wiretaps against them , as they had done in the state police 's lancaster street garage case and , most recently , the dea 's operation beans ; pulling them out of any indictment that actually made it to the development phase , as they had done in prosecutor jeremiah o'sullivan 's horse race-fixing case ; and finally , if all else failed and bulger and flemmi were actually facing indictment , giving them a head start .