Doctor Dealer (15 page)

So Marcia believed Larry’s promise. She couldn’t have cared less about fifty thousand dollars and a new car, but it would be nice to have Larry’s dental tuition paid up. Still, Marcia would have even been content to do without that. She never counted on it. As far as she was concerned, her paycheck from the VA hospital was their primary means of support. Rent and utility bills and food came out of her pocket—partly because Larry was worried about showing any of his illegal earnings. As a result, to Marcia, Larry’s money was something illusory, a game he played with little numbers on sheets of green accounting paper. His future prospects in dentistry were good, certainly worth all the time and effort school required. Dealing was like some sort of dangerous, childish undergraduate stunt that Larry refused to quit.

At the end of his freshman year, Larry took Marcia on a two-week vacation to California. They flew to San Francisco, rented a dark blue Chevy, and toured the city, including the abandoned prison on Alcatraz Island. Larry was fascinated by Alcatraz. He snapped pictures of the guard towers and of the high walls with barbed wire on top and of the stark concrete-and-steel cells. He climbed down into the “Hole,” a cell with steel walls that had been used to isolate prisoners singled out for special punishment. The guide described how prisoners in the Hole were fed a mash that was prepared by throwing all the leftovers from the dining hall into a big pot, and how they were allowed to shower only with cold water. Larry asked to be closed in the punishment cell for a few moments, just to get the feel of it.

He and Marcia drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and north to the wine country and then back down through the redwood forests to Yosemite. They drove across to Monterey and then down the coastal highway to Los Angeles. Larry posed lifting a fake pickup with one hand at Universal Studios in Hollywood. He and Marcia went to Disneyland and toured the Anheuser-Busch brewery; they took the ferry out to Catalina Island and miniature-golfed; they drove down to San Diego and saw that city’s famous zoo, and visited Old World and Marineland. Then they flew east to Las Vegas, where Larry gambled with quarters, and drove out to see the Grand Canyon. Staying at relatively cheap hotels, they spent just two or three thousand dollars on the whole trip. Again, Marcia was thrilled to have Larry to herself, away from the damn telephone, for weeks at a time.

When they got back to Philadelphia, Marcia started a second photo album, filling twenty pages with snapshots of the trip. Under
the plastic sheets of those pages her relationship with Larry was assuming a history, a wholesome, normal history full of sunny days and close friends and happy moments. It was as if Marcia were willing their life to be this way.

With the onset of summer, Larry’s dealing fell off again, enough so that he was able to maintain the appearance of keeping his promise. But he and Andy were still short of Larry’s goals, and the climb continued.

Marcia was not the only one who thought Larry was flirting with disaster by dealing with Tyrone, and even with Billy South Philly. Her sentiments were echoed by L.A., who had returned from serving his time in Florida and landed a job on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and by Andy Mainardi, who was about to graduate from Penn. Both Larry’s partners warned repeatedly that drug dealing on a college campus was worlds away from drug dealing on the streets of a city like Philadelphia.

Larry believed that Marcia and his friends were too timid. Dating back to the days when he and Glen Fuller had ripped off the ski-mobiles, Larry fancied himself as someone who could cross class barriers more readily than most of his sheltered, suburban-bred peers.

During the summer, while Marcia was away in Boston, Paul Mikuta had invited Larry to a bachelor party out at his parents’ house in Frazer for a friend who was getting married the next day. Larry had called Tyrone, who had given him the names and addresses of two women willing to entertain at the affair. So Larry had driven his white Impala down to the housing projects in Southwest Philly and picked them up. He drove them out to the party on the Main Line. When he arrived at the party with these two blunt, impatient black women, eager to finish their business and get going, the houseful of white college students seemed intimidated, as if Larry had thrown them a challenge. The groom was pressured into having sex with the women, and Larry indulged himself, but nobody else wanted anything to do with them. It became awkward. So Larry left early and took the women home. Later, Paul called to say that he had taken the sheets off the bed they had used and burned them.

The episode just confirmed Larry’s suspicion that he was more ballsy than most guys. They might get together at a bachelor party and watch stag movies and boast about going out to poke a few whores, but they faded away fast when Larry delivered the hookers to their beds. Tyrone might be considered a tough “street nigger,” and Billy might be considered a member of the South Philly mob, but Larry could handle it. All it took was a little more nerve and a little more smarts. Actually, his dealings with Billy Motto were a pleasure—
Billy was charming and honorable and he looked up to Larry as an older brother. Larry knew that rumors about Billy’s Mafia ties were just that, rumors—
useful
rumors, in fact, because he noticed Billy had none of the bad-debt problems Larry faced continually. And Tyrone? Tyrone was a businessman just like him. Larry knew Tyrone was making money off their relationship. Why would he want to do anything to interfere with that?

Andy Mainardi had more reason than most to doubt Larry’s assurances in these matters. He was a full partner in the pot business, so he had a lot to lose if Larry did lose control of the situation. And ever since his arrest in Savannah, Andy was wary of the risks Larry took—wary because Larry’s risks had a way of becoming Andy’s risks. For instance, in May of 1978, in the spring of Larry’s freshman year at dental school, he had been sending Andy out to deliver bales of pot to a new customer at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster. After some months of dealing with this character, his debt began to accumulate unreasonably. So Larry, on his own, for once decided to try and get heavy. He phoned the guy and told him that he was sending out someone to collect the money. If the debt wasn’t paid now there would be trouble. Then he sent
Andy
to collect. Andy drove to Lancaster unaware of the threats Larry had made on the phone. He thought it was just a routine trip to collect some money from a customer. When he pulled up in the guy’s driveway, four big men strode out of the house to meet him. Andy muttered hasty apologies when he realized what was going on and quickly drove home. He and Larry had lost about ten thousand dollars, but Andy was grateful to have escaped unharmed. Back in Philadelphia, Larry laughed as if it were nothing and insisted that he thought he had worked things out beforehand with the guy on the phone.

This business with Tyrone was exactly like that. Andy wanted nothing to do with it.

“These people carry guns and knives, Larry!” he would say.

“I know what I’m doing,” Larry would say. “I can handle these people.”

And, in fact, Larry did manage to keep on collecting from these guys, and the numbers on Larry’s tally sheets kept growing—which meant money in Andy’s pocket. So Andy put up with it. He put up with it until May of 1979.

Just before a weekend when Larry and Marcia had planned to visit her parents in northern Jersey, Larry was called by a friend of Tyrone’s who wanted to buy a few pounds of pot right away. Larry said fine, anything for a friend of my man Tyrone, but said, since he was going to be out, that they would have to meet with his partner Andy. Then Larry phoned Andy.

“These people are going to show up at your door in about a half hour,” Larry told Andy.

“You gave them my name and address!” Andy shouted. He had never been so angry at Larry. Andy said he didn’t want anything to do with these people.

“Come on, Andy. You’re the one who gives me shit about having these people over to my place with Marcia here,” Larry said. “I’d do it myself, but I promised Marcia. . . .”

Andy knew how much trouble Marcia had been giving Larry about dealing, so he gave in. Before the half hour was up, Larry’s contact was at the door. He made his buy, and then told Andy that he had a friend who wanted to buy more—a lot more. He asked if Andy could sell this guy forty pounds.

“But not at my house,” said Andy. “You tell them to meet me at the Roy Rogers at Forty-first and Walnut.”

Andy ordered a burger at the Roy Rogers but was too nervous to eat it. At the appointed time, three young men walked in and approached his table. They frightened Andy. They were younger than him, with black skin and fearless eyes. The one who spoke to him had a gold front tooth.

“You Andv?”

“Yes. Do you have the money?”

“Yeah. Let’s go,” said Andy. “Follow me.” He walked out to his car, started it, and drove to a dark parking lot behind a fraternity house on Penn’s campus. The car with the three black guys pulled up alongside.

Andy got out and walked back to the trunk. The three men got out and opened the trunk of their car. Andy hesitated just before opening his.

“Let me just see the cash,” he said.

The one who had spoken to him walked up close. “Okay,” he said. “Over here.” He led Andy over to their open trunk. As Andy turned to look inside, the man reached in his pocket and pulled out a gun.

“Here’s the cash,” he said.

“Take the pot,” said Andy. “Leave. Please don’t hurt me.”

The other men grabbed him, handcuffed him behind his back, and pushed him to the pavement. They kicked him and kicked him. Andy kept shouting, “Take the pot! Take the pot!”

When the man with the gun had thrown the contents from Andy’s trunk into his own, the other two ran back to the car, got in, and drove away.

Andy got up slowly. There was nothing for him to do but
walk the few blocks back to his house with his hands cuffed behind his back. One of his roommates located a bolt cutter to remove the handcuffs.

When Larry and Marcia returned Sunday afternoon, Andy was waiting. He had cooled down, but when he explained what had happened, Larry was furious. Andy had lost not only the forty pounds, but additional dope that he had been carrying around in his trunk. They were out nearly fifteen thousand dollars.

“How could you be so stupid!” Larry said. He blamed Andy for setting up a second deal with someone they had never met.

“You don’t go out and do business like that with somebody you don’t even know!” said Larry. “You could get killed! And you don’t take more product with you than you’re gonna sell!”

Andy was upset that Larry put all the blame on him—to say nothing about the fact that he seemed more disturbed about losing the money than about Andy’s close call. For his part, Andy suspected the only reason Larry had involved him in the first place was because he wanted to avoid taking the risk himself.

They parted angrily. Mulling it over the next day, Larry concluded that it was time to end his partnership with Andy. He felt he was working night and day while Andy treated the business as a hobby, staying stoned all the time and taking frequent trips out of town—Andy had recently booked himself on the Concorde and flown away to Paris for a few days. On his own, and for different reasons, Andy was reaching much the same conclusion. He felt that Larry was expanding the business off campus, which was foolhardy, as evidenced by the fifteen-thousand-dollar loss they had just sustained (not to mention the beating).

When Larry marched across the street the next day to confront Andy with his decision, he was suprised to encounter no resistance at all.

“Andy, I think I’m doing too much work here. This is, like, the final straw.”

“You’re right,” said Andy.

And they agreed immediately, without rancor, to part ways.

There was another reason for Andy’s decision to get out. In the early months of 1979, Larry had been pushing the business more and more away from pot, and more and more into cocaine. Two years after his discussion with Tom Finchley at Sears, Larry bowed to the inevitable. Cocaine was fast becoming the major drug of choice even in Larry’s own crowd. Pot use was still strong, but waning. It was getting harder to buy in Florida and it was taking longer and longer to move.

Cocaine had been just a novelty at Penn when Larry was an undergrad. Larry sometimes bought a few grams to use himself or share with his dealer friends. It was too expensive for most students and it was not the kind of high most students wanted. Marijuana is a passive drug. It offers the illusion of escape. It eases boredom and insecurity by making the commonplace seem less so and by temporarily suspending the pressures of daily life. Most college undergraduates manage to succeed with minimal effort, so they have a lot of free time and they are often bored. Couple boredom with the usual trials of adolescence—sexual anxiety, worries about choosing and starting a career, doubts about self-worth, etc.—and you have a large potential market for marijuana. Cocaine is an active drug. It offers the illusion of power. It is the preferred drug of a person in a hurry. Cocaine replaces insecurity with a feeling of omnipotence, imparting a fleeting visceral courage and sense of competence.

By 1979, Larry was finishing his second year of dental school, and his friends were pursuing other professional degrees, majoring in business administration or already holding down good jobs. Getting high had been fine for a boring lecture in cultural anthropology, or for cutting classes to goof off for an afternoon, but it was unthinkable for someone trying to maintain that competitive edge in the white-collar workplace or master a profession. How much more appropriate was a drug that imparted a feeling described as a “rush,” that made you feel smarter, stronger, sexier, and more successful, and that could be turned on or off within a matter of minutes? Cocaine helped you stay awake when you had more work to do. It picked you back up when you had a few drinks too many. It
intensified
everything that you did. Even the expense of cocaine had begun to work in its favor. If you could afford to lay out a few lines for friends on the coffee table after dinner, it was just another way of advertising success.