Doctor Dealer

by Mark Bowden

  “When do you stop?” asked L.A.

  “When do you stop?”

  “When I’ve got fifty grand together, that’s when I’m getting out,” said L.A.

  Larry laughed. “Fifty thousand dollars! You’re nuts! I’ll be happy if I can put together twenty.”

  “Don’t you want a boat?” said L.A. “I’d like to have some financial security, to be able to buy a boat, a nice car, a big house. Don’t you want those things?”

  In fact, Larry had never really imagined such goals. Dealing was a way to get by, it was fun, and it earned spending money and helped pay his bills. Even with his loans and scholarship job, money remained tight. Through most of his freshman and sophomore years he had periodically made trips to a clinic near Drexel University, which was just a block east of Penn’s campus, where he and his friends would donate a pint of blood for twenty-five dollars.

  Yet L.A. remembers Larry seemed intrigued by the fifty-thousand-dollar mark, and within months he had adopted it as his own.

  Larry told Marcia that after fifty thousand dollars he was getting out. It was a lot of money, but it was the first time Marcia had known him to contemplate stopping. Larry even had himself half convinced.

  Marcia was hopeful, but L.A. was suspicious. He guessed it would be harder for Larry to quit than that. His younger partner enjoyed it too much. You could see it in the way his eyes lit up when he was putting together a deal, or in how much he enjoyed presiding over the “breaks,” as the packing sessions were called. Larry enjoyed being the king of his own little circle. As time passed, the two dealers’ roles reversed. L.A. came to consider dealing a short-term risky business, a way to make a few fast bucks and stay high. He enjoyed the constant partying and the drugs, but scrambling to put together deals and to sell more and more dope was not his idea of a good time. But as the deals and profits continued to grow, Larry’s goals grew with them.

  To Larry, it was obvious that his partner’s strength was not marketing. L.A. had better contacts—by now there were four or five Florida pot dealers eager to do business with them—but Larry felt he was doing 90 percent of the work. So toward the middle of his junior year Larry enforced a new division of labor. From then on, L.A. would be responsible for running back and forth to Florida every two weeks or so. Larry would handle packaging, marketing, and sales. It made sense. Larry worked his magic at Penn, while L.A. fed the inventory.

  Of course, as L.A. knew, the unspoken agenda in this arrangement was that he took the bulk of the risk. Dealing pot on a college campus was not terribly risky. By 1976, national surveys of high school students indicated that more than 60 percent had smoked marijuana. On college campuses, where so many students lived away from home and without any supervision, those numbers were higher—one study found more than 80 percent were casual marijuana users. In most cities, campuses were free zones for recreational drug use. Fifty-three percent of the nation’s students believed that laws against marijuana ought to be repealed. But venture off campus—and not just with an ounce or two in your backpack but with a hundred pounds or more packed into suitcases—and travel across state lines, and you were flirting with a prison sentence. Not all college students fully comprehended this. They tended to believe that the rest of society was as flexible as campus cops and administrators, or as forgiving as their parents. L.A. knew his trips to Florida were risky, but they were also fun. They were adventures that enhanced his reputation among friends, and they earned him 50 percent of the profits from Larry’s remarkable sales network—which by the end of junior year reached off campus and even out of state (for instance, Paul Mikuta had left Penn and was attending college in Rochester, New York, but he still frequently bought wholesale from Larry. Larry had made other friends at Penn State, and at other college campuses). L.A. figured the risks he took for the business were worth it, but he tried to be careful.

  Because most pot was distributed on college campuses, the business tended to dry up at the end of May and stay dormant until September. Off-season dealing was potentially more lucrative. Demand fell off sharply, while supply held steady—the Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Colombians getting rich off pot in Florida weren’t in college. So a dealer looking to make a big buy could get incredible summer bargains. Larry was eager to take advantage of the opportunity, but L.A. balked. Off-season was also the most dangerous time to make buys in Florida because the various federal, state, and local agencies busting dealers didn’t take off for the summer either. So there were fewer dealers and more cops—too many cops.

  But Larry was insistent. He had parlayed the first few hundred dollars he made early in his sophomore year into about forty thousand dollars, and he saw a chance of closing in on his fifty-thousand-dollar goal before the summer off-season. He went to work on L. A., ragging him about being such a doper that he had gotten lazy and unmotivated, threatening to cut him out of the business next year—which was okay with L.A. because he was due to graduate in a few weeks anyway—and otherwise needling him. When Larry was able to put together thirty thousand dollars for the buy, L.A. gave in.

  So Larry’s reluctant partner flew to Fort Lauderdale. He called his main contact, a would-be pro golfer named Sammy whom he had known in high school in California. Sammy hooked him up with a dealer who was selling Hawaiian, which was the current favored brand of potent weed—$280 per pound. L.A. liked to buy Hawaiian dope because it meant dealing with Americans, usually Californians like himself. He was always frightened by the Hispanics. L.A. spoke very little Spanish and never quite felt in control of the situation. But with his own crowd he felt he could relax. So he met with the Hawaiian dealers and right away they all got blitzed. The next morning he woke up in his hotel room with more than a hundred pounds of ragweed. He had been had.

  “Larry, I can barely get high off this stuff,” he said, in a mournful long-distance phone call.

  “Then why did you buy it?”

  “I didn’t know. I was wrecked . . . what can I say?”

  Disgusted, he said, “Maybe we can still sell it.”

  But L.A. said no. “I think I can trade out of it down here,” he said.

  So L.A. spent several more days, all the while exposing himself to greater and greater risk, calling around to all of his contacts trying to dump the lousy weed. He got rid of about nine thousand dollars’ worth of it, and recovered a lump of cash, but the bulk of the so-called Hawaiian just sat in his hotel room like a bad joke. So L.A. called Sammy and threatened him every way he knew how. The golfer was unsympathetic—“Don’t you try it before you buy it?”—but he agreed to help. He called L.A. later to say he had set up a meet with somebody who would take the rest of the load off his hands.

  L.A. drove out to an apartment building outside of Fort Lauderdale, the same place where he had picked up the dope two days earlier. He parked his car outside the building and walked upstairs, leaving three plastic garbage bags full of pot—seventy-five pounds in all—in the trunk of his car. As he crossed the lobby the crowd made him nervous, but he knew that he had to dump this stuff or he and Larry were going to take a beating. It was even more alarming when, inside his friend’s apartment, there were three other people L.A. had never met before. Sammy introduced everyone, which calmed L.A. somewhat, and then they sat down and counted out the money. It was all there. So Sammy and L.A. walked out to the parking lot. Sammy went to his car; L.A. went to his. They drove to a prearranged spot off to the side of the apartment building, where L.A. was to get out of the car and move the bags to Sammy’s trunk.

  But just as L.A. got his trunk open and reached in for a bag, he heard, “Hold it right there!”

  He stood up, startled, and there were cars pulling up all around him, and two young men pointing shotguns at his head.

  L.A. thought, Oh, shit, we’re being ripped off! But after a closer look at the men with guns, a worse thought occurred. Oh, shit, we’re busted.

  Poor L.A. He was back in Philadelphia to graduate in June, but beyond that his whole life
was on hold. He was afraid to see his parents for fear they would see how down he was and work the truth out of him. So even though his mother fell seriously ill in Los Angeles, he spent the summer of 1976 laying low in Philly. His conscience bothered him about that. He didn’t dare start looking for a job because then he would have to disclose his arrest, and besides, who knew where he would be in six months? Prison terrified him. He was afraid to think more than a few days ahead. Larry let him have a room at 3939 Chestnut, even though having him around was depressing. L.A. tended to be an introspective, moody guy anyway. His arrest sent him into a six-month-long funk. When he was well stoned—which was most of the time—sometimes he would weep.

  “You’ll look good in stripes,” Larry would joke. “I’ll send you a jar of Vaseline every month.”

  Andy Mainardi, who was around 3939 Chestnut a lot that summer, told Larry to lay off.

  “I’m just kidding,” said Larry. “Somebody’s got to try and cheer him up.”

  “Give the guy a break,” said Andy.

  “Come on,” Larry said. “What’s gonna happen to him? He’s a college kid dealing pot.”

  There was a measure of unspoken hostility between Larry and L.A. that summer. L.A. had always believed that Larry was passing most of the risk off on him, but he had never adequately assessed how much risk that was. L.A.’s lawyer in Florida had told him that this was a case with “exposure.” He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but assumed it had something to do with the case’s notoriety. Back in Philadelphia Larry had gotten a big kick out of the word. Around 3939 Chestnut the fun word for that summer was “exposure.”

  Everybody laughed except L.A. Larry’s little jokes infuriated him, and when Larry got off on one of his tangents about risk taking, about the importance of taking risks and about what a risk-taker he, Larry, was . . . well, it made L.A. want to throw up in his partner’s lap. He should have had the good sense to stop taking Larry’s risks a long time ago.

  But Larry felt entitled to rag his partner a bit. The bust had cost him. He had been hoping to turn his money over once more before the semester ended and end up close to his goal of fifty thousand dollars. But he had lost his complete stake in the deal, which was nearly twenty thousand, and he had kicked in almost fifteen thousand to help with his partner’s legal defense. He still had a few thousand dollars left, but on Larry’s private net-worth sheet he was nearly wiped out. And though he never directly confronted L.A. with his feelings (that was not Larry’s style), down deep he blamed his partner for the loss. L.A. should have known better than to get blitzed before making such an important buy—how did he know what he was getting? It was clear the dealers in Florida had suckered him with some terrific weed and then slipped him the garbage. Larry felt his own mistake had been hazarding his cash with such a hopeless pothead.

  By the end of his junior year there was very little of the old marathon doper left in Larry Lavin. He was 90 percent business. Larry still enjoyed partying, and when his studies were done and his money was counted and tucked away he enjoyed getting high as much as anyone. But business was business. Larry’s thick black hair no longer hung down to his shoulders. He still combed it across his forehead, but it was carefully barbered around the ears and in back. In keeping with his more conservative image, he had traded in the ’66 Nova for a big white ’73 Impala—paying nearly four thousand dollars in cash. Marcia was domesticating Larry. Her parakeets filled their apartment with soft chirping all day. Larry had a soft blue carpet installed. Marcia draped an easy chair and sofa with paisley covers and scattered throw pillows and blankets she had crocheted herself. She painted the kitchen yellow and kept it immaculate, with flowered curtains over the sink and neat racks and shelves for spices. Larry bought a brand-new Sony TV and two aquariums, one for keeping hermit crabs and the other for tropical fish. Marcia had a black cat named Spooky. Corners and surfaces and windows and even the tops of Larry’s precious Advent speakers sprouted like tropical forests. It was the first real home Larry had known since leaving his parents’ house on Highland Street in Haverhill five years ago.

  But although Larry’s living habits had quieted considerably, his dealing had not slowed. To the contrary, the time that Larry had formerly spent out carousing was now spent wheeling and dealing. Marcia more or less staked out the bedroom as private turf. Whenever people stopped by to visit Larry—and they came and went at all hours of the day and night—Marcia would do her best to make them feel unwelcome, often retreating to the bedroom with a defiant slam of the door. She grew to hate the telephone—Larry had five of them, five different lines, and it was not at all unusual for him to spend all night talking on them, sometimes two or three calls at the same time. For her the phones embodied the business and were an ever-present rival for Larry’s attention and heart. His premed classes took most of his time during the day, and studying and talking on the phone kept him awake most of the night.

  One evening, when Marcia had contrived to get Larry away from the phones by taking him out to dinner, he fell asleep at the table!

  Now that she was living with him, Marcia fought harder against the dealing. She wanted it to stop; it was foolhardy and it frightened her. But having spoken her mind, and having been reassured by Larry that he was about ready to stop, Marcia was not inclined to be a nag. Larry had such a winning way about him. He would start off arguing, then he would just listen or walk away. He would come back an hour later, smiling, contrite, acknowledging the truth of Marcia’s complaint, promising some sort of compromise. For a few weeks he might even strive to do his dealings out of Marcia’s sight. But the all-day, all-night routine would eventually return, and there would be another row over it. Marcia knew that if it came right down to it, she could either put up or shut up. As a junior in college, Marcia was willing to put up with it a while longer. Larry had, after all, begun to settle down.

  But there was no use trying to stop him during the summer of 1976. Larry was a man possessed. He had to make back the money he had lost. It had taken almost two years of dealing to reach that thirty-thousand-dollar level, and now he was almost back to zero. Larry had the necessary connections. He knew where to buy marijuana, and, even in the campus off-season, he had enough customers to sell it. All he needed was one more big deal to get back on his feet.

  His determination took some of the fun out of dealing. This was the first summer he had devoted full-time to it. He felt restless staying in West Philly all summer. The year before, in the summer after his sophomore year, Larry had managed the frat house’s rental program, and he had worked with Paul Mikuta. He and Paul had worked for the Mikuta family’s roofing company, until Larry got fired for goofing off. Then he had driven a taxi for another small company owned by Paul’s father. Larry had gotten to know the back roads and beautiful estates of Philadelphia’s Main Line suburbs. He and a friend one afternoon broke into several big houses and stole odd items from mantelpieces and bookshelves, then left little notes behind. In one house they had sat at the dining room table, sipped whiskey, and taken a golf club; in another Larry had unplugged a telephone and carried that home—Larry had this thing about telephones. “Can you imagine coming home to discover that someone has broken into your house and stolen . . . your telephone?” Larry would say. He thought that was so funny.

  But this summer there was little time for fun and games. He worked a few small deals with friends in western Pennsylvania, and for the big deal he needed in order to get back on his feet, he contrived a plan. He would wait until Phi Delta Theta’s rental account was fat at midsummer, use it to make a big buy in Florida, sell as much as he could by the end of summer, and be in good shape for an even bigger deal by the time senior year began.

  Larry was so desperate that, for the first and last time, he planned to make the run to Florida himself.

  First Larry had promised Marcia a vacation. He still had a few thousand dollars left after L.A.’s debacle. He and Marcia took off first for New Orleans, where they stayed with the
family of a wealthy classmate Larry had known at Phillips Exeter.

  It was a style of life that wowed Larry and Marcia. His friend belonged to a fabulously wealthy social circle, people who lived on estates surrounded by high fences, where you had to show an I.D. card just to get in. At a party one evening, cocaine was set out on tables around the swimming pool. Larry went off on a friend’s motorcycle, and when he came back the crowd was all naked—all except Marcia, who sat clothed and very uncomfortable, awaiting Larry’s return.

  Next they flew to Florida. Larry grabbed a pile of brochures at the airport. Snapping away with Marcia’s little Instamatic, he and Marcia hit every theme park and tourist trap they could squeeze into the week. At Sea World, Larry snapped a fuzzy sequence of pictures of leaping whales, performing porpoises, and a barking walrus. Marcia took Larry’s picture feeding three tame deer. He wore a bright yellow sportshirt and blue-and-maroon checked pants. At the wax museum in Orlando, with Marcia mildly protesting, Larry snapped pictures of all the wax figure displays—Captain Kirk and Spock, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Burt Reynolds in his role from the movie Deliverance, the Beverly Hillbillies in their jalopy, Hoss, Ben Cartwright, and Little Joe. They went to Disney World one day, Cypress Gardens the next. Larry snapped Marcia’s picture before a beautiful botanical display. Marcia wore a white sundress and sandals. At Gatorland, Larry took pictures of writhing alligators, and at the Kennedy Space Center he took pictures of rockets.

  Suntanned Marcia was pictured wearing a red dress sitting on Larry’s lap, smiling, at Rosie O’Grady’s. Larry looked sunburned and weary. Marcia looked radiantly happy. At nineteen she was slimmer and prettier than she had been two years before. Her face had outgrown some of its baby fat, and her high cheekbones framed big brown eyes. She had reason to be delighted—she had kept Larry to herself, away from telephones and nights out with the fraternity boys, for almost two weeks!