Doctor Dealer

by Mark Bowden

  He was ready for another shipment of the same amount within two weeks. Larry had never seen anything like it.

  In a matter of months, over the winter of 1978-79, Larry’s prodigious six-year-old pot business got shouldered aside like a crippled pensioner in the stampede for more cocaine. The net-worth total on Larry’s private accounting sheet climbed so quickly past his goal of a hundred thousand dollars that it seemed stupid to consider that milestone a place to stop. Larry was filled with precisely the kind of rush he had felt four years earlier when he had started selling large amounts of marijuana. Stop now? Why, Larry was just getting started!

  His new goal, which he announced to Ken Weidler, was One Million Dollars.

  Early in 1979, Hank Katz, Billy South Philly’s contact at the hoagie shop, got shot in the stomach in an argument with some Greek dealers in Center City over an unpaid loan. Billy was sick. He had lost his pot connection. He had no way of getting in touch with Larry. Although they had met several times over the past two years, Billy didn’t even know Larry’s last name. He had no idea where Larry lived.

  So he went to the Katz hoagie shop in West Philly and began asking employees, customers and employees behind the counter, if they knew Hank’s friend Larry, tall, thick black hair, liked to talk a lot, a dental student. It didn’t take long—almost everyone seemed not only to know Larry, but to know exactly where he lived.

  Billy buzzed at Larry’s door and got no answer, so he tacked a note on the door: “Larry, this is Billy. I would like to have an opportunity to speak with you. Let’s have lunch.” He wrote his phone number on the note and left.

  Larry called back that same day. He said he was too busy for lunch, but that he would like to see Billy. So the next afternoon, Billy met Larry at the Osage Avenue apartment. Larry was wearing a white lab coat. He led Billy back to his study. They talked about Hank, who was making slow progress at a local hospital.

  “He’s crazy to get mixed up with those Greeks,” said Billy, who was actually relieved to have him out of the way. Billy had been wanting to deal directly with Larry for a long time. He liked Larry more, and it would lower his costs up front. He saw new levels of profit for his pot business. But Larry had other plans.

  “I’ve got a business proposition for you,” said Larry. Larry sat down in front of his broad wood desk and from one of its many small drawers he withdrew a glass jar containing one ounce of white powder.

  Billy just shook his head. “Hank was after me to start buying that. He wanted, like, sixteen to eighteen hundred dollars for a little jar like that.”

  “I’ll sell it to you for fifteen hundred,” said Larry.

  “My people don’t use cocaine,” Billy said.

  “Just try. See what happens.” Larry reached over his open dental textbooks to hand Billy the jar. He explained that Billy could mark the stuff up and make an easy couple hundred dollars.

  “Who are you trying to kid?” said Billy. “I don’t know who your customers are, but mine are scraping to come up with forty bucks for an ounce of pot.”

  Billy said he could see no reason to start dealing something new anyway. Larry, who could hear echoes of his own old arguments in everything Billy said, was convincing. He offered to front the coke, and to discount a hundred dollars off each ounce bottle if Billy would take four.

  “Why carry an elephant around when you can put a mouse in your pocket?” he said.

  Billy took the four bottles. He didn’t want to sour his relationship with Larry, because he had hopes of being introduced to Larry’s pot connections in Florida. He wrung from Larry a tentative commitment to be allowed to make a Florida run. He took the cocaine home reluctantly. It took months and months to sell. Billy saw Larry several times during that period, but Larry never bugged him about the money. Slowly, Billy peddled the last of the powder, pushing it on his people, discounting it, anything to get rid of it.

  Then something unexpected happened. All of the people who bought it came back asking for more.

  Miguel, Larry’s new connection in Florida, was so delighted to have a new buyer in Philadelphia that he flew north to discuss matters with Larry personally. Larry met him in a hotel room near the airport. Miguel was a cadaverously skinny Cuban with a sallow complexion and the dreamy-eyed look of a man who overused Quaaludes. He was about ten years older than Larry and dressed in high southern Florida fashion—designer jeans neatly laundered and pressed, brightly colored shirts worn open to midabdomen, and lots of gold, including a Rolex nearly as big as his fist. The eager dental student explained that if his two-kilo, or “two-key,” gamble went well, he wanted to continue buying at that amount for a while. Miguel was eager to oblige.

  Larry offered Miguel a ride back to the airport, and he walked the Cuban dealer to the gate for his flight. On the way to the gate, Miguel was waved down by an acquaintance, who happened also to be a friend of Tom Finchley’s.

  That night Tom phoned Larry. They chatted for a few minutes about unrelated things. Larry had not told Tom that he was dealing with Miguel directly, so Tom’s question was angry and abrupt.

  “What the hell are you doing with Miguel, Larry?”

  “Look, Tom, it just happened.”

  “You son-of-a-bitch!”

  “What can I say?”

  “You son-of-a-bitch!” Tom drew the words out slowly.

  “Come on, Tom. Miguel has been trying to use me for the last two years. It would be foolish for me to deal with him through a middleman.”

  Finchley was furious. He knew Larry would be dealing in much larger volume than he was. This move meant not only that he would not be getting a cut of Larry’s business for introducing him to Miguel, but that he would have to start buying from Larry if he wanted to get the best price. It was humiliating. And Larry wasn’t making it any better.

  “It’s not my fault, Tom. Miguel was tired of dealing with you. He says you’re Quaaluded out all the time and you’re too busy with your legitimate business. He can never get ahold of you when he wants.”

  “You wouldn’t even know fucking Miguel if it weren’t for me, Larry. Don’t give me this shit.”

  “Don’t take it personally, Tom. It’s just business.”

  “You’re fucking crazy it’s just business, Larry. Are we going to have to go to war over this?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Tom hung up the phone. Larry didn’t hear from him for a day or two. When Tom called again he had calmed down. He knew there was no margin in cutting off his dealings with Larry, especially now. Larry tried to be conciliatory.

  “Look, Tom. You know I’ve always treated you right, fronting you things, getting you things at cost.” Larry had paid some of Tom’s legal fees the year before when he was arrested—Philadelphia police had searched the trunk of his MG and found cocaine, but the charges were later dismissed because they didn’t have a warrant for the search. Larry reminded Tom of every good turn he had done him in the last few years.

  “And you know you’re a preferred customer, you’ll be buying from me at cost,” said Larry.

  After the first three two-kilo shipments, Larry had accumulated enough cash to make the buys himself. Making the flights to Florida were Matt Weder, a tall, fat member of Phi Delta Theta who had graduated a year behind Larry and had been living with Andy Mainardi, and Ken. Ken couldn’t believe that Larry just kept sending the piles of cash he made back down to Florida.

  “You might lose it all!” he would say.

  Larry was so used to shocking people with his dealings that he considered it a form of tribute.

  “You gotta have balls, Kenny. You gotta have balls.”

  Dealing cocaine reversed the usual transportation problems. With pot, one had to cope with the smell and bulk coming home from Florida. With cocaine, the bigger challenge was moving so much money south. Even in 1979, when cocaine use was just beginning to join the mainstream, airport security guards would stop and ask questions when large bundles of hundred-dollar bills
showed up on their X-ray machines.

  At a secondhand shop as an undergraduate, Larry had bought for seventy-five cents an old gray-brown tweed overcoat that was much too big for him. Marcia had tried to throw it away once or twice, but Larry always spotted it out in the trash and saved it. It had big deep pockets on the inside and outside and hung down to his knees. It was perfect for carrying money through airports. He and Ken would accompany Matt to Philadelphia International Airport. Matt would pass his luggage through the X-ray machine and walk through the metal detector. Then Larry and Ken would go through. They then went to one of the men’s rooms on the concourse, and with Larry and Ken taking stalls on either side of Matt, they would pass bundles of hundreds under the partitions to him. Matt would then stuff the cash into his carry-on bag.

  “Come on . . . come on,” Larry urged Matt on one of dozens of these trips. Larry was always in a hurry.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” said Matt. “It won’t fit.”

  “Just stuff it in,” said Larry.

  Ken started to laugh. On his way out of the men’s room he said, “Can you imagine what that sounded like to someone overhearing us in there?”

  When the weather turned warm, overcoats were out. On one trip Matt taped five-grand packets of hundreds three-deep all over his chest and legs. He wore an oversized shirt and baggy pants and just walked through the airport by himself. When he got to Florida, the bottom layers of money were soaked completely through with sweat. After that he doubled-wrapped the bundles in plastic and dripped all the way to Miami.

  Through freshman and the first half of sophomore year in dental school, Ken Weidler was selling small amounts of the pot and Quaaludes he bought from Larry to a classmate named David Ackerman.

  David was a short, slender New Yorker with thick, very fair brown hair and big green eyes. The son of divorced wealthy parents who for years had used money to vie for his affection, David was used to having and spending money. He had been a regular at expensive Center City restaurants all through his undergraduate years at Penn, and he liked to dress well at a time when most of his classmates’ wardrobes were a heap of unwashed denim and flannel on the floor next to their beds. Women loved David. With his pronounced long thin nose and sensitive eyes, he was strikingly handsome in a delicate, almost pretty way. David had the personality of a pampered little boy, combining self-assurance that was at times overbearing with an underlying sweet helplessness. He was shy about his jejune appearance, and tried to counter it with a succession of sparse moustaches and beards—a different combination almost every month. David was a brilliant student, with a crisp clear intelligence that announced itself in everything he did. He was animated to the verge of being hyperkinetic. In conversation he could be captivating, with eyes that flashed with enthusiasm or delight or anger. David had won a prestigious competitive examination after his junior year at Penn that permitted him to skip his senior year and start in at Penn’s dental school immediately. His father was a successful dentist, so David’s passage from college through dental school and into a ready-made, lucrative practice seemed effortless and assured.

  As Ken Weidler began to make money dealing the pot Larry sold him and eventually making the runs south for cocaine, he was able to keep up with David’s tastes for wine, fine restaurants, and women. David had a membership at Elan, a fashionable disco club in the Warwick Hotel that was easily the best place in town to mingle with beautiful single women. Through their sophomore year in dental school, Ken and David began taking cocaine along with them on their frequent nights on the town. The cocaine was like a magnet. At Elan, David and Ken were minor celebrities. They spent a lot of money, drank a lot, shared cocaine, and often went home with women.

  Larry and David knew each other from dental school, but David had no idea that Larry was the source of his friend’s steady drug supply. Larry had never found time to become a part of the dental school’s low-key social life. He was too busy, for one thing, and his home life with Marcia had removed most of the old incentive to go out and mingle with his classmates. Marcia herself was a confirmed homebody. Her idea of fun on a Friday night was to sip wine and knit in front of the TV with Larry. So David’s impression of Larry was that he was a dull, studious fellow. When Ken finally relented to David’s insistent demands to meet his supplier, Ackerman was flabbergasted—“That guy who sits next to you in the lab?”

  Overnight, David’s ambivalence toward Larry turned to hero worship. Larry thought it was comical. His impression of David was of an unbearably egotistical runt who made up for his youth and stature with bluster and strut, the kind of person who will just interrupt someone else in midsentence, as if to say, “What I have to say is more important.” David sometimes argued with his teachers, as if he believed he already knew more dentistry than they did. It was either that or he was busy sucking up to them. Larry didn’t like the guy. Ackerman was, thought Larry, “a typical New York Jew.” Then, suddenly, this David Ackerman was all over him, as if they had been best friends for years.

  David made it clear right away that he wanted in on Larry’s business. Larry was always in the market for a runner, even one he didn’t particularly like, so on the first occasion that Ken could not make the trip to Florida, Larry asked David to go. Ackerman jumped. He handled himself so well dealing with Miguel in Florida, and his whole attitude was so eager and bright, that Larry couldn’t help but be impressed. He started employing David for a lot of different chores. In addition to making runs, Larry soon had David changing money for him at local banks (a time-consuming chore with the growing amounts of cash on hand), making up orders, purchasing cutting agents, and so on. David had a quicker mind than Ken; intricacies that Larry grew frustrated explaining to Ken, David understood instantly. Because David understood more, his admiration for what Larry had accomplished was deeper and more rewarding to Larry than Ken’s simple amazement. Larry began to entertain notions of handing some of the business over to David eventually—it would reduce the demands on his time, reduce the risk, and reduce the mounting pressure he was getting from Marcia.

  They had been living together for three years and been engaged for two. Marcia’s father had died in 1978, and one of the effects it had on her was to make more urgent her desire for a family of her own. In May of 1979, Marcia and Larry began looking for a Catholic church to be married in—they wanted one close to Penn because most of their friends lived there. Marcia wanted a traditional ceremony in June 1980. She wanted Larry completely out of the business before they were married, and he promised.

  But for the time being, Larry had a new edge in his differences with Marcia over dealing. Before, with his constant losses and bad debts chipping away at his earnings, Larry arguably had been spending too much time and effort for the return—maybe thirty to forty thousand dollars to show for more than four years of work. But once the cocaine business took off, there was no question but that the business was making him rich—richer than he had ever dreamed of becoming. As the totals mounted, and the stakes grew higher and higher with each deal, Larry’s excitement grew with it. Marcia might warn him about getting caught, but so far that threat remained very distant. Larry assured Marcia that he had it arranged so that other people took the risks. He had never come close to getting caught. And those of his friends who did—L.A., Andy, and Tom—got off so lightly that even to a cautious person like Marcia the rewards appeared to heavily outweigh the risks.

  Moral objections to drug dealing never entered Marcia’s mind, or Larry’s or any of his friends’. Dealing cocaine was nothing like dealing heroin. Coke was a party drug, a harmless, quick stimulant in great demand, not by derelicts and street people intent on destroying their lives, but by some of the brightest, most promising, most successful people they knew. People didn’t turn their noses up at cocaine dealing; they turned their noses toward it! Whatever social rewards Larry had gotten at Penn for dealing marijuana were multiplied tenfold by dealing cocaine. And it was making him rich!

&nbs
p; Marcia’s objections were purely personal. She knew the risk wasn’t worth it, she resented the time Larry spent engrossed in the business, and she was angered by his overgrown adolescent need for time “out with the boys.” But Larry was in another one of his phases where it was no use arguing with him about it. He had definite goals, a definite timetable . . . he had it all figured out.

  Larry, David, Ken, and Paul Mikuta flew out to Colorado in March of 1979 to visit Larry’s old friend Glen Fuller. The trip introduced a new element to Larry’s life that was to become his specialty—the outrageous, expensive, decadent party.

  Fuller had packed up his van in Haverhill in 1973 and headed west. He had heard about the great skiing in Aspen, and he was eager to strike out on his own. In Aspen, Glen kicked around from job to job, working as a short-order cook until a particularly good day for skiing came along, then he would walk out the door and head for the hills. Jobs were plentiful those days in Aspen, and Glen could always hustle a few more bucks on the slopes by stealing students out of the lines waiting to take lessons with the official ski instructors.

  Glen eventually got into the produce business and sold marijuana and small amounts of cocaine on the side. In 1977, he took the money he had saved selling pot and opened a little seafood store in Vermont. There he met a pretty, dark-haired young woman named Rita Long and for the first time in his life considered settling down. By late 1978, Glen had a refrigerated delivery truck and a delivery route with more than a hundred restaurants as customers. He was doing well enough to lease a house in Aspen while he was living in Vermont, just so that he would have a nice place to stay whenever he felt like skiing. Through the years, Glen had kept in touch with Larry’s brother Rusty, and it was Rusty who told him about Larry’s sudden incredible success in Philadelphia with cocaine.