Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues

by Michael Crichton

  I reached into my Manila bag and got out my cigarettes. But no matches. I shook out a cigarette and looked over at the pig, who was still fumbling in the desk. I hoped he was going to produce a light.

  Instead he whipped out a plastic Baggie full of grass and stuck it in my face. That was supposed to scare me shitless. I turned to Crew Cut and said, “Got a match?”

  “I don’t smoke,” he said.

  I looked at the second guy, who just shook his head slowly, like he could hardly be bothered shaking his head at me.

  So I reached into my Manila envelope and pulled out my belt and put it on. Then I put in my shoelaces, and wound my wristwatch, and put my pen in my pocket. Silence until the head pig said, “There are some questions we’d like to ask you.”

  I turned to face him. “You got a light?”

  “I don’t smoke,” he said. Nicotine stains all over his fingers.

  “There are some questions we’d like to ask you,” Crew Cut said.

  “Before you go,” Deskman speaking, significant tone. It was good to know that I’d been right about getting out, and I got a heady adrenalin rush of anticipation. “Tell us about your friend.”

  “My friend?”

  “Now let’s not waste each other’s time, fella,” Crew Cut said. “We’ve been through all this before.”

  “We know all about you,” Deskman said. I noticed how thick his glasses were.

  There was nothing to say. I still wanted a smoke.

  “We got your friend, he’s in the other room if you want to speak to him,” Crew Cut said. Sure you do, chum. “And we’ve got your marijuana here”—Deskman lifted the bag in the air and gazed at it—“so you might as well play ball. Now are you going to tell us about it or not?”

  “About what?”

  They didn’t blink. “About the whole thing.”

  “There isn’t any whole thing,” I said. “I’ve never been to Berkeley before—I’m a student in Boston and I happen to be on vacation, which is almost over now, thanks to you gentlemen—and I met the girl I was with when you picked me up on Telegraph that afternoon. And we got along, so she offered to put me up.” Smirks all around. “And this guy, Lou, whoever he is, needed a car, and she knew him and said he was all right, and I lent him my car. Now the fact that he was busted with an ounce of marijuana in my car may be legal grounds for hassling me, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to know what it’s all about. I haven’t got the slightest idea what he was doing with the dope, or where he got it from. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “We have. He said it was yours.”

  “Mine? I don’t even smoke marijuana. I haven’t touched dope for years. There’s a lot of things you can try and pin on me, but a possession rap isn’t one of them.”

  “You’ve got one on you right now, buddy boy.”

  “Did you by any chance do any fingerprints off this bag of marijuana? Did you by any chance find any of my prints? Or did you simply take his word for it, that ’cause it was my car it was my bag of dope? Isn’t it usually the case that where there’s a lid, there’s a pound, or a kilo, or a number of kilos? And did you find any dope in the young lady’s room that night, or on my person at that time? And have you found any since then?” I was getting worked up and I remembered suddenly the tracks on Lou’s arms and decided to take a new tack. “In other words are you doing anything except hassling me on the word of a paranoid speed freak who borrowed my car and then laid a bum rap on me?”

  “Relax, Harkness,” said Deskman. “Yeah, we did all those things, and we ain’t got much on you. But the fact remains that it was your car, and the dope was in it, and we can make things pretty uncomfortable for you on your, ah …” he paused, savoring his own thoughts “… vacation. Unless you come around and talk dirt with us.”

  “Talk to you. I have been talking to you. And so far it hasn’t gotten me anywhere.” I was doing the indignant-citizen number now and enjoying it immensely, after doing time for what even they admitted was a pretty thin hustle. “I want a cigarette. I haven’t had one for three days. Don’t any of you guys have a match?”

  Deskman nodded to Crew Cut, who grudgingly reached in his coat and pulled out some matches. Handed them to me. As if on signal, all three of them pulled out their butts. I lit mine, looked around at all of them, and blew the match out. Threw it on the floor, put the book in my pocket. Crew Cut was staring at me. Deskman again, suddenly, intensely:

  “You a good friend of O’Shaugnessy’s?”

  The question caught me completely by surprise and I was glad I had the cigarette. Took a long drag. It tasted unbelievably good. Meanwhile, my thoughts not at all under control. Had they busted Musty that night, after I’d gone, and were they now keeping it from me? Had they been watching him the whole time, and me, and known why I was in the house? Had they seen my car at the first house that afternoon and followed it, hoping to catch me with something? (It didn’t seem like Hertz to have no tail lights.) Had they planted the dope on Lou just so they could run me in? The last made the most sense, ’cause it would explain their letting him off with a few questions, and “taking his word” that it was my dope. Just how much did these pigs know? It was all happening very fast. I decided the least I could do was make them work for it.

  “O’Shaugnessy?” I said.

  “Yeah, Harkness, you know Padraic J. O’Shaugnessy? Big pusher, long black hair and a moustache? Ring any bells?”

  “No, I don’t know any O’Shaugnessy. Is this another one of Lou’s ideas?” I had to find out.

  “No, your friend Lou didn’t have anything to do with it. So you don’t know any O’Shaugnessy, huh, kid? Fred”—to Crew Cut—“What’s the name he uses on the street—what do the creeps call him?”

  “Musty,” said Crew Cut, with the expression of a man who’s blown lunch and missed the bowl.

  “Know anybody by the name of Musty?” Deskman asked, leaning forward.

  “Musty,” I said, trying to sound as if I was mulling it over. “Yeah, I met a cat named Musty. He was with Lou when I met Lou at the house that night. When Lou asked me for the car. Wears his hair in a ponytail, is that the guy you mean?” Said in a tone of intense distrust, as if that were just the kind of weirdo a nice clean-cut Harvard boy like myself could never forget.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Seems that you have an excellent memory, Harkness, when you feel like it.”

  “I do have an excellent memory,” I said, “but not for people’s last names when I only know their first.”

  “Okay, wise-ass,” said Crew Cut. “Didn’t learn nothing in the cooler, huh? That kinda talk’s gonna get you nowhere around here. We don’t wanna know how smart you are. We know all about you and this O’Shaugnessy. So let’s have it. Is he the one who gets you the shit? Where does he get it? Where’d you meet him? Who do you deal the shit to? C’mon, Harkness, let’s have it. Now!”

  The vibrations in the room were getting a bit tense. They were going through the kind of verbal foreplay that cops do when they’re deciding whether or not to really hassle you. But Crew Cut had blown the scene, I could see that from the way Deskman was glaring at him. He’d given it all away. They knew I was connected with Musty, but they didn’t know how, or why, or when, or where. And probably they didn’t even really know, they just had a damned good hunch.

  Deskman shifted position, took his glasses off and looked through them. Put them back on his nose, and said, “Now, Harkness, you got a trial coming up, a hearing tomorrow. You play ball with us and things could go very smoothly. You don’t, and your vacation’s going to be something of a financial disaster.”

  Blew it again, Deskman. Trial. Hearing. That meant everything was all right.

  “I’m not saying another thing till I see a lawyer,” I said.

  “You could’a spoke to your lawyer anytime,” Crew Cut exploded.

  “Not after you thugs took all my money, I couldn’t.”

  “You didn’t have any money, Mr. Excellent Memory,”
Fats said, breaking his silence. “I seen you sign the sheet.”

  “I had twenty bucks, goddammit, and you saw me tell the guy that, too. And you saw how he hustled me out of it, and you played along with him and dragged me up here. Sign the sheet, my ass.”

  “You wanna go back down and talk it over with him?”

  “I want to get out of here, right now,” I said. “I know damn well somebody’s paid my bail, or you wouldn’t have me up here, and you’ve got no right to hold me any longer. I’m not saying another thing till I see a lawyer. I don’t care if it’s just one of your crummy P.D.s. You wanna try and make those phony charges stick, go ahead.”

  Deskman looked at me, sizing me up. He knew that I knew that it was all over and he had to let me go. But it wasn’t over yet. He held the bag up to the light, swung his chair around to face me and shoved it under my nose. “How long you been smoking this shit?” he said.

  “I told you, I don’t smoke marijuana.”

  “How long?” he said, like I better answer.

  “I smoked, maybe two years. Maybe more. Don’t any more.”

  “O’Shaugnessy turn you onto this shit, huh?”

  “No, he didn’t,” I said. Absurd questions.

  “LSD,” said Crew Cut, dragging on his cigarette fiercely, “what about that shit, you take that too?”

  “I don’t recall being busted for that,” I said.

  Deskman leaned forward, a strange gleam of satisfaction in his eye, as though he’d just destroyed the golden calf single-handed.

  “Tell me, Harkness,” he said, “is it good kicks?” I looked at him, astonished. So that was the problem. Well, there wasn’t anything I could do for his head. I shrugged and said, “Better than alcohol.”

  It was pointless to bait the pig, but I couldn’t help enjoying it when he suddenly began to sweat. His face got red and his lower lip twitched. “Only it’s not legal, is it, Harkness? And that doesn’t bother you, does it, Harkness? You don’t give a fuck for the law. You can’t be bothered with what’s legal and what isn’t. The whole fabric of society is a big joke to you, isn’t it? You’re just so smart you can do whatever you want, can’t you, Harkness?”

  “How do you figure that?” I said.

  “I don’t have to figure it, Harkness,” he shouted. “I know it. I know all about you.”

  “You know all about me?” I said, and looked at him. He was serious. “You should’ve considered the priesthood, Lieutenant. This isn’t a job for you, it’s a calling.”

  His eyes flashed when I said that. He rocked feverishly in his chair for a moment, and then said, “Okay. Okay, Harkness. You’re pretty funny, you’re a pretty funny guy. You got a lot of quick answers, a lot of smart-guy, know-it-all answers. And you go to your big Ivy League school and wear your English clothes and your old man buys you everything and you’re sick, you’re sicker than hell and all the bastards like you … But let me tell you something, punk.”

  His face was now very red. I waited for him to tell me something, seeing as how he knew all about me.

  “Tomorrow, punk,” he said, “tomorrow you’re going to be in front of a judge, and that judge is going to know you weren’t very helpful. And you’re gonna get a felony for all your efforts, see? A big fat felony.” He held an open hand out to me, and crushed the air, squeezing the felony, big and fat. “And you might even do some time for this one, Harkness, because society isn’t going to put up with your kind of liberal shit any more, you better believe that. We aren’t going to put up with it forever—your drugs and your sick life and your disrupting and your crime.”

  “Disrupting? Listen, I was trying to get some sleep when—”

  “Shut up,” the pig said. “You better learn to shut up, Harkness, and you better learn fast. Because when you get out of here all your cars and your money and your slick girl friends aren’t going to get this off your record, no matter how much you talk. You’re going to have to explain this one, Harkness, everywhere you go. Every time you try to get a job you’re going to have to do some explaining, and every time you apply for a loan. And no matter how much explaining you do, it’s never gonna go away.”

  He paused to catch his breath, and shook his head at me. “Sure, Harkness,” he said viciously. “I know. Sometimes it happens, a good boy like you. Good family, good education—you just slip up, and make one little mistake. But you’ve made your mistake this time, see, Harkness, and you’re gonna be explaining it for the rest of your life. The rest of your crummy life.”

  Deskman put out his cigarette in an ashtray next to me, and I could smell the fumes as I said, “Well, it seems that everybody gets their kicks somehow.”

  19

  WITH THAT HE STOOD up from behind the desk, and I saw again how small he was. Beware the Small Man. He waved to the other two.

  “All right, boys, get him out of here.” His face was strained; he was showing great forbearance. I stood up and he came over to me, until he was just a few inches away. I was half a head taller than he was, and he didn’t like that.

  “You’re a really funny guy, Harkness,” he said in a low voice. He began to speak slowly, but the words picked up as he went. “A real funny guy, a joker, a know-it-all. I bet all your friends think you’re a funny guy and a know-it-all, too.”

  And with that, suddenly, he kneed me in the groin. It was very quick, and I coughed and bent over, leaning on the desk.

  “You’re scum,” the pig said. “And we’re going to break you and your kind of scum, curb you like dogs so that decent people don’t have to step in your shit. So decent people don’t even have to look at you, see, Harkness? So that they won’t even have to know you’re there.”

  And he kicked again, and I coughed again and fell back into my chair, my pack of cigarettes falling out and spreading like white splinters over the floor. The pig gave a final snort and walked out, leaving me doubled-over in the chair, trying to get my breath. When I finally looked up I saw a cigarette being offered. Crew Cut held it out, looking sort of embarrassed to be offering me a smoke, but too embarrassed not to. The other cop was trying not to look at anything, peering out into the outer office.

  I took the butt and Crew Cut lit it. After a drag or two I felt a little better. The pain was sliding away. I wiped the tears from the sides of my eyes. “That’s a man the force can be proud of,” I said.

  Crew Cut looked pained, and swallowed a couple of times. “Murphy feels strongly about all this,” he said.

  “I noticed,” I said. “Is he always like that?”

  “Murphy feels strongly about these things,” Crew Cut said again. “He thought he could find out a lot more from you than he did. He couldn’t, so that’s that, and—”

  And then it hit me. “Murphy?” I said.

  Crew Cut and Fats exchanged glances.

  “Lieutenant Murphy, old FBI man, now a narc?”

  The two of them stood up. It was time to go.

  “Didn’t he used to work in Boston?” I asked.

  “He still does, kid. He’s out here following up a smack case. Now let’s go.”

  And I was out the door and through the office very fast. On the way downstairs I began to understand.

  20

  LIEUTENANT JOHN L. MURPHY WAS a familiar name in Boston, and a household word in Cambridge. Narc squads are usually distinguished only for their irritatingly obvious presence—you see a freaky guy wearing white socks, and you know he’s a narc—but Murphy had been doing his damnedest to change the image. He was tough, fast, and imaginative. He was also a screaming sadist and a crook.

  There were a lot of stories about him, but I’d never taken them too seriously. When somebody on the streets tells you about a narc who busts people single-handed, makes deals with them, takes their bread or their dope and then works them over and turns them in anyway—well, that’s a little hard to believe. I mean, the image is a bit too desirable to be true. Everybody wants a good reason to hate cops. They’re The Enemy.

 
; I was converted when Murphy busted Super Spade. Super Spade was a loping, agile, funky, beautiful, good-time dude, whose face had been glowing in Harvard Square for years, long before the college boys had even heard of dope. Super was sort of the grand old man of the street. Everybody liked him, and everybody was unhappy when he got busted.

  After he got out, he came over to see John to borrow some bread for a lawyer. And he blew our minds when he told us the story, because Murphy had busted him and the story was like all the other Murphy stories. Murphy had busted him alone; the warrant was in order, and Super had been caught holding eight bricks. So far so good. Then Murphy began talking about how much Super’s eight bricks were worth, and how much time he’d probably draw for that kind of quantity. And Super finally made the connection and suggested that perhaps he and Murphy could work something out.

  Which they proceeded to do. Super came up with three hundred bucks in cash and laid it on Murphy. Then Murphy, having already handcuffed him, beat the shit out of him—and then took him in. Next day Super found out he had three charges against him: possession of marijuana, resisting arrest, and attempting to bribe an officer. When he asked the judge how much the bribe had been, the judge told him fifty dollars.

  So far it seemed like Murphy was just another rough cop, playing it a rough way. But also in Super’s apartment was a glass jar with five hundred acid flats. Super hadn’t mentioned them to Murphy, but he found when he got home that the flats were all gone. And soon after that a friend in Roxbury told him about the sudden fast market in the midst of a dry season: all sorts of good acid around, and outasight smoking dope.

  Anyway people had been telling these stories for a long time, and it was getting harder to simply dismiss them as street jive. The street people were unanimously in favor of taking Murphy apart, of busting his ass good. Partly because he’d become something of a legend and something of a symbol, but mostly because he had crossed the line and was playing dirty.