Howard Marks' Book of Dope Stories (46 page)

I was then ‘interviewed’ by a federal probation officer to ‘get my side of the story,’ find out my background assets, etc., to make what’s called a Presentence Report (PSR). Strangely enough, what I said and [blank] said pretty well matched, though she had really low-balled the estimate of MDMA I made (bless her!). Another part of the PSR is what the production capacity of the lab was according to the DEA chemist. The chemicals they considered were:

10.9kg safrole

900g isosafrole

1.8kg hexamine (equiv. To 3.5kg methylamine HCI).

This gave them a yield, based loosely on my ‘notes’, of between 4.8 and 6.0kg. They, of course, made some critical mistakes like not considering other necessary reagents involved, nor the fact that three moles of methylamine must be present for every one mole of MDP-2-P for the reductive amination to have a fighting chance of working. So the big argument at my sentencing, then, will be pitting my calculations against theirs. For this, I have to hire an expert witness (i.e. a chemistry professor) to do the talking for me and to lend ‘credibility’ to the whole deal (an expert witness is also necessary if you wish to appeal). Unfortunately, none of the professors I have attempted to contact thus far wish to speak to me (gee, what a surprise!).

Now what does all this mean, and what does it all entail?

Federal drug cases are prosecuted according to the ‘level’ you are at. The base offense level is determined by either:

a) the amount of drugs you made

b) the amount of drugs you could have made with the chemicals on hand

c) the amount of drugs you made + the amount of precursors you had.

We can derive a) by calculating backwards from the amount of hexamine I had consumed from the brand-new container found, which gives an amount of 766g. We can derive b) as above, which based on methylamine would be 1.8kg and based on formic acid would be 377g. The offense level for c) is then based on the amount of precursors like safrole, isosafrole and methylamine on hand plus a two-level increase for drugs actually having been made.

The base offense level for a) is 18, b) is either 21 or 16, respectively, and c), the worst, is 22. Level 22 is forty-one to fifty-one months in jail, 21 is thirty-three to forty-one, 18 is twenty-seven to thirty three and 16 is twenty-one to twenty-seven. Take three levels off for acceptance of responsibility and the possible range of time is ten months (level 13) to thirty-three months (level 19).

So that is where I am right now: somewhere between ten and thirty-three months. And what if the judge completely ignores my arguments and sentences me for the maximum quantity estimated (6kg)? Sixty-three to seventy-eight months.

My lawyer and I are not quite sure which of the above routes (a, b, or c) is appropriate because of the PSR, which only considered the amount of drugs I could have made with the chemicals on hand. I suppose I will find out when I am sentenced on Feb. 20, 1998.

What can be learned from my experience, and what are the ramifications?

Good questions, and I’ll give my best guesses.

First, it is rather apparent from my interrogation and the investigation thus far that the DEA either
does not know about a.d.c
. or they ‘do not care.’ Yes, friends, hard as it may be to believe, outside of the ‘did you get the recipe off the Internet’ question, they didn’t ask me jack shit about the Net.

Second, I think it is rather obvious from my tale that shipping chemicals via UPS is not a bright thing to do, but why did I do it in the first place? Because I shipped all sorts of crap through Fed-Ex all the time (what an appropriate name) so I figured because of the volume of shipments both places did that UPS wouldn’t bother opening up a package unless it was leaking or stunk. Wrong.

Third, chemical supply houses
will
ask you some fairly detailed and probing questions about what you are up to. If you don’t look straight-up, white-bread (not white as in race, white as in bland), Middle America then don’t even
think
about showing up somewhere in person. If you want to play the ‘fake company ordering chemicals’ game, be aware that they will expect a company check (what, no bank account for the business? Sorry). Also be aware that should you get caught and you were using a fake business to order chemicals that can be considered ‘obstruction of justice’ and will merit you a two-level upward adjustment should you be found guilty. As well, don’t buy all of your chemicals and glassware from one place, and never ever even
ask
about compounds that are heavily watched, scheduled or listed.

Fourth, if you are caught, try to find out what the agents know/don’t know before you start spilling the beans. In my case I played very innocent with them until I found out that [blank] was arrested with fifty capsules of my product (they told her that they already had me in custody and that I said blah-blah-blah, they do that sort of thing, btw). If it does seem like they’ve got a pretty solid lock on you, ‘be cooperative’ – tell them the truth but don’t get too detailed, all of the details will be debated during sentencing anyway, but being consistent from the moment you are arrested to the moment you are sentenced looks very good indeed. As well, plead guilty but don’t sign the plea agreement unless you are getting a good deal out of it (and you’ll only be getting something good if you turn in other people, in which case you deserve to spend eternity in Cocytus (cf. Dante’s
Inferno
).

Fifth, never, I repeat,
never
throw out empty bottles, reaction by-products, documentation, etc., in the trash where you live. Take it to a dumpster far away, burn it, shred it, or whatever, but don’t leave it in your trash.
I
didn’t get caught because of this, but I
could have
. As well, assume your phones are tapped from day one so don’t even talk ‘in code’ about transactions with your ‘dealer[s]’. Always meet in public, and I don’t mean in someone else’s car, rather at a restaurant, café or bar.

Sixth,
where
you do it isn’t so important as
how
you do it. I didn’t get busted because my neighbors ‘smelled something funny’ but then again, neither did I make methylamine (or MDMA, or MDP-2-P) in the middle of the day.

Seventh, don’t tell anyone you wouldn’t trust with your life what you are up to. I imagine the dumbest thing one could do would be to make a whole bunch of X and then invite some ‘friends’ over to ‘try it out’ while glassware and chemicals are everywhere, but I did just that several times and no one ever made the connection. Maybe my friends were dumb, and maybe yours are too, but that’s tempting fate with a little too much surety.

Eighth, make sure you have a lawyer ahead of time that is familiar with federal and state drug cases. It is unreasonable to expect to find a lawyer who has handled drug-
manufacturing
cases, but if you let them ‘know’ ahead of time what you are interested in, and pay the requisite (and hefty) retainer, you’ll be good to go if (when) the Man comes bustin’ in. Your legal expenses for defending against a DEA-levied manufacturing charge will be $15,000 plus, so keep that in mind.

Ninth, have someone else order the chemicals, if possible, but realize that they will be the ones that get the third-degree if caught. If you don’t trust them with your life, and they haven’t got nerves of steel, both of you will go down. Incidentally, I didn’t have anyone else order the chemicals because I didn’t feel I should place that sort of responsibility/burden on any of my friends (would you do that to one of yours? If so, maybe
you
aren’t such a good friend).

And finally . . .

Tenth. My biggest mistake wasn’t me sending that package through UPS, nor starting the product back up after it never made it, nor even deciding to make X in the first place. My mistake was not taking the time to make a huge amount quickly and then destroying everything afterwards. I should have blew out a kilogram or so then quit. One kilogram is worth up $100k and that should be enough to make anyone quite self-sufficient with proper investing and money management. Instead, I wanted to experiment with the process and find other ways of doing things as well as posting everything I found to a.d.c. I should have quit as soon as I succeeded but I couldn’t resist the temptation to tweak. I can say ‘should have’ about a lot of things in this game, but that’s the one I truly regret. The song of the Sirens is irresistible. Those who hear it and have not been tied to the mast like Odysseus will perish among the rocks (cf.
The Odyssey
).

Found on the Internet on
www.lycaeum.org
, 1998

W
ITH HIS FINE
nine tucked between his leg and the front seat of his Lincoln, Dwayne and Julie drove up the Henry Hudson Parkway.

‘I thought we were going to Brooklyn,’ she said.

‘How it is, before these gentlemen used to operate out of the Greenpoint area, see,’ said Dwayne. ‘But then one of ’em got, you know, got busted, so they moved to a different hood in Harlem. You got the stuff? ‘Cause they know we’re coming and if you don’t got the stuff—’

‘I got the stuff.’

Internally she was chanting,
the aesthetics of love, the morality of business
, over and over again. It had become her mantra. It helped calm her. She was wearing a pair of green hospital orderly pants with a pull tie, an oldie from a guy even before Asher and a black T-shirt that said
CAT POWER
. Between her legs was the largest handbag she could find on sale at Bloomingdale’s. It held five kilos of heroin.

‘How much you step on it? I hope you didn’t step on it
too
much ’cause these gentlemen are the ones who do the stepping, you know what I’m saying.’

‘It’ll be worth their while,’ she said.

The math had been very simple. She’d gone to a stupid head shop in SoHo and bought a scale. Then she’d taken Asher’s three kilos and turned it into five with cornstarch. Her deal with Dwayne was 10 percent and silence. With the lights of the George Washington Bridge in sight, they turned off the highway and found themselves heading east on 157th Street. Marks of weariness, marks of woe, thought Julie. Blake. Now there was a man who understood the hallucinatory horrors of a city. Lonely black men with bagged bottles wandered the streets. The sun had set and dusk was quickly handing itself over to the night.

‘So, how is this going to go down, Dwayne?’

‘Very simple. I go in with the stuff. They check it out. We get the money. We leave.’

‘No, that is not how it will go down. If that were to be the scenario, you’d leave and I’m left with your criminal car while you fly to Cabo.’

‘What the fuck is Cabo?’

‘Cabo San Lucas. You know, where O.J. Simpson used to hang out. You know O.J., right?’

Dwayne didn’t say anything. He was wondering how the Haitians would take to a white lady. He looked over at her.

‘So you want to come in.’

‘No, I don’t want to come in. I will come. See, I’m the principal in this deal.’

‘Baby, you’re white as milk and these gentlemen are Haitians. Like, they don’t
know you
.’

‘Where do they live?’

‘Off St. Nicholas.’

St. Nicholas. Julie decided not to linger on the irony. She was too scared.

‘Yeah, few years back, the area got busted so many times the cops, they forgot about it now. The place is old school.’

‘Great. We’re going to hang out with a bunch of Baby Doc Duvaliers at St. Nicholas. They better have the money.’

When she first moved to New York, she’d had an affair with a Haitian. It hadn’t lasted long but he’d been a wonderful man, a bag handler for Aristide when Aristide was in New York, a great cook. She’d admired his oscillations between maudlin introspection and brutal passion. Haitians, they turned on a dime.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t it be better if there were two of us? You could, you know, cover me, watch my back, so to speak.’

‘Okay, baby,’ said Dwayne, backing into a parking space on 158th Street. ‘But you better be cool.’

They got out of the car. St. Nicholas Place was a small, V-shaped concrete construct. They walked south on it for two blocks.

‘Okay,’ said Dwayne. ‘Here it is.’

Julie breathed out and looked up at the sky. The stars were out. The stars of Harlem. Please, she said to herself, please, stars, please behave yourself tonight. They walked up a tenement stoop and Dwayne pressed an intercom button.

‘It’s D,’ said Dwayne.

The buzzer rang.

The stairwell was not unlike many others she’d seen in the city, not unlike that of a building she’d lived in in the East Village. It was just a ratty municipal stairwell, narrow with sharp turns at each landing. As they climbed, the bag began to feel heavy and Julie light-headed. She hadn’t eaten anything all day. On the fifth floor a door was cracked open and a man with dreadlocks was sticking his head out at them.

‘Who is the lady, D?’

‘The lady is who it is, she cool.’

‘Lady, you a cop?’

‘No,’ said Julie. ‘Not at all. Law enforcement has never been my bag.’

‘Then what is your bag?’

‘Weight.’

‘I like that,’ said the man with dreadlocks. He had terrifying whites to his eyes. ‘Step on it. We been waiting on you.’

The place reeked of grass, which at once comforted and terrified her. The Hassassini; she’d once been fascinated with that particular cult of men. Eventually the H for
hashish
had been dropped. They were Middle Eastern assassins imported to Venice and elsewhere. They killed on hash. They smoked and killed in alleyways and the occasional oasis. These guys looked to be some atavistic mutation of the Assassini. There was a shotgun on a table next to what used to be referred to as a Q-P, or quarter-pound of pot. There were two other men sitting on a couch, their backs to a window with the shade drawn. Julie couldn’t quite make them out. The only light was coming sideways from what looked to be a kitchen. She dropped her bag between her legs and rested her hands on the edge of the table. There was the distinct possibility she might faint.