“Take some acid with him. Get off the surface of things.”
“Maybe it’s just because I’m tired. We’ve been traveling for days.”
“Good morning, ladies.” Richard entered the kitchen with a flourish. “Let’s have some music.”
He opened the bedroom door and put down Marcie’s things. The radio was already tuned to KMPX, San Francisco’s underground radio station. Turning up the volume so they would hear it in the kitchen, he laughed when he heard the DJ’s voice. “Ah! Tom Donahue walks on the airwaves. The Pied Piper has come for your daughters,” and he grabbed Marcie with familiarity. “Kathy, you mentioned you saw hundreds of white tabs last night. At Kevin’s.”
“I saw a lot of things in the different houses we visited. Grass. Hash. Acid. Speed. People having a good time, playing music. What’s speed anyway? Is it like coke?”
“Speed’s an amphetamine. Some of it comes in tabs. Some of it’s a powder, a white crystal. It speeds up your body, reduces your appetite, and helps you eat out the insides of your mouth and grind down your teeth. People shoot the powder like heroin. It’s bad news. I know. I only had to try it once. What did you think of Kevin?”
“He’s cool. I’m meeting his lady this afternoon at the Drogstore.”
“I’d really like an introduction.”
“I was going to invite Marcie. Why don’t you come along?”
The Drogstore Cafe, at the corner of Haight and Masonic, was always crowded, and today was no exception. Richard found a corner table and had just moved a fourth chair to it when Debbie came through the door, long red skirt swirling about her legs, brown sandals finding their way to the table.
“Hi,” she said, sliding in next to Kathy, the thick smell of patchouli coming into the corner with her.
Debbie was of medium height, about five feet four, with long brown hair, and brown eyes that were filled with sparkle. The denim jacket she wore was a collage of bright, embroidered symbols across the yoke, a sun, a moon, a scale, the astrological symbol for Libra, flowers—all beautifully entwined.
“Debbie, this is my friend, Marcie. And this is Richard, her old man.”
“Old man? Didn’t you just get here yesterday?”
Marcie giggled and looked dreamily at Richard. “A lifetime ago.”
Debbie giggled with her. “So it’s that way, huh? I’ve lived a few lifetimes myself.”
“Something to drink, anyone—sodas?” Marcie asked.
“Thank you, but not for me,” Debbie said. “I’d rather have juice. Soda’s not really good for your body. We’re into organic food. And we’re vegetarians.”
Richard passed a twenty-dollar bill to Marcie. “Juice then,” she agreed. “I’ll be right back.”
Debbie turned to Richard and gently asked, “Know anyone named Alex?”
It’s the softness, he thought, remembering his earlier conversation with Alex about the women friends who’d turned them on to good connections. That’s how they know so much. Every man is a threat to me, to Alex, to other men we know. But we trust our women to be around all our secrets.
“Alex is the male half of my partnership,” he told her.
“Is there a female half?”
Richard looked toward where Marcie was collecting drinks. “Actually, there are two women in my life. Marcie … and my business.”
Debbie smiled without answering, and in the way her gaze shifted to the floor, Richard could see she understood the truth of what he was telling her—dealing was an intimate courtship—the pursuing, wooing, and time-consuming stroking, the sweat of paranoia and the lustful excitement in the moment of transaction, erotic power in the forbidden act, the sweet smell of money in the calm aftermath.
“How’d you get out to California, Debbie?” Kathy asked.
“I came out from Boston last summer to visit a girlfriend I’d met at school. One night, we went to a lecture Tim Leary was supposed to give at the Longshoreman’s Hall. Man, what a scene! Ken Kesey was there with the Merry Pranksters giving out ice cream cones laced with LSD. Talk about crazy! None of us knew we were getting dosed!”
“Here we go,” Marcie said, putting down a tray. “Did I hear you mention Ken Kesey?”
“Yes,” Debbie said, the voice gentle, still smiling. “LSD-laced ice cream cones. I wound up sitting in a circle, holding hands with about three hundred others, chanting om. The person next to me turned out to be Kevin. We’ve been best friends ever since. Divine intervention, Kevin calls it.”
“What about school? Isn’t that important to you?” Kathy asked.
Debbie laughed gaily. “Take some acid and then tell me if you think school’s really important. Besides, I have a small business. Designing clothes and sewing embroidery. I smoke, and the patterns just come right out of my needle.”
Marcie was picking up snatches of conversations at other tables—prices, quantities, and the availability of one product or another. Every few minutes, a man or woman would jump up from one table and run across the room to another with a new price.
“All they’re missing is the board with rotating prices,” she whispered to Richard.
He nodded. “They call this the West Coast Dope Exchange. People from all over the world come here to cop.”
“Hey!” someone called loudly at the door of the restaurant, drawing everyone’s attention. A man stood there wearing an army surplus jacket and hiking boots. He held up a small square package wrapped in neon green plastic. “I have to leave town today. I’ve got one kilo left in my stash. Thirty-five dollars,” he called into the shocked silence. “If anyone’s interested, I’ll be outside around the corner.”
The Drogstore’s patrons broke into applause.
Richard recognized Kevin immediately. He’d seen him on the street many times, wearing a denim jacket with an outrageous embroidered scene on the back—a large peace symbol and a dove entwined with a Cannabis plant. Circling his wrists were two bracelets of heavy silver inlaid with turquoise and coral. Around his neck, he wore a large turquoise stone on a silver chain, the stone a vibrant blue with a matrix of reddish brown copper. Richard had the feeling that Kevin probably got lost in that matrix a good bit while tripping.
Kevin was somewhat older than either he or Alex, and the brown hair he wore to the middle of his back suggested he’d been in the scene for a while. No, Kevin was not an adventurer who’d come into the Haight for the Summer of Love, but a longtime resident, a painter who was clearly part of the artist community, one of the founding fathers who had made the Haight the center of a new renaissance—of innovations in art, light and music, clothing, and underground newspapers—all speaking to new ways of seeing the world. Richard looked around the front room, stunned at the color bouncing off the walls—bright canvases, random political posters, and the new psychedelic newspaper art. Not only did Kevin have style, Richard mused, regarding his vibrant and innovative paintings, Kevin most assuredly had vision.
“Kevin, you remember Kathy from last night,” Debbie told him. “She came over with Felix.”
“Yeah. How you doin’, Kathy?” But his gaze was intent on Richard.
“And this is Marcie and Richard, her good friends. Richard and his partner, Alex, have been around for a while.”
“Richard,” Kevin mused. “Yeah. Sit down. I’ll roll a joint.” Kevin opened a wooden box that sat on the low table in the front room and began crushing a handful of marijuana leaves. Gallantly, he turned to Marcie. “What flavor rolling papers? I’ve got banana and chocolate.”
Marcie giggled and looked at Richard. “Banana?” she asked.
Sitting comfortably in a circle on the floor, everyone’s eyes turned to Kevin’s fingers, watching as he finished his rolling job by licking the edge of the cigarette paper.
“So,” he said, bringing a lighter to the tip of the cigarette, “what’s going on?”
“I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while,” Richard told him, taking the offering from his hand. “You’ve got a good
reputation on the street. And these days, you’ve got to know who you’re dealing with. Last night, a couple of friends of ours got ripped off for their entire wad—thought they were dealing with some Angels. As it turns out, these guys were kicked out of the club some time back.”
“No shit,” Kevin said. “Thanks for the warnin’.”
“Alex and I are interested in some white tabs. I took one last night. Outrageous stuff. Might be the best I’ve ever had.”
Kevin nodded. “They’re calling it White Lightning. You’re right. It’s good L. It’s comin’ out of Owsley’s lab.”
“I’m interested in buying. You got a price?”
The joint had circled the group, and Kevin touched it with a dab of saliva to even out the burn. As he passed it on to Richard again, they looked directly into each other’s eyes. An important moment, because Richard wanted Kevin to trust him, to see he was no one to fear, he wasn’t hiding anything, and he wasn’t a narc.
“A dollar a hit,” Kevin finally said. “Ninety cents for lots of a thousand or more. They’re runnin’ between 200 and 250 mics.”
Richard tried not to show his excitement. He’d been paying $1.50 a tab. “Will you save me a thousand hits?” he asked. “I’ll eat one tomorrow.”
“Do you always try what you buy?” Kevin asked.
“Always. That way, I know exactly what I’m selling. If it grunges through my body, I can work through it, because I know acid. But I’d never pass it on. You have anything else I might be interested in?”
“As a matter of fact,” Kevin said, passing the joint along, “I know this dude in Berkeley who has some hash comin’ in soon. Good price. Probably about $1,200 a pound. If you want, I could save you five pounds to sell.”
“Sell? Shit, man, I could smoke five pounds myself.”
Kevin laughed, visibly loosening up. “Tell you what, when that hash comes in, we’ll see who can smoke who under the table. Listen, why don’t you come with us to the Straight Theater this evening? This friend of mine’s got some reg weed. I could get you some after the show. Not bad stuff—a little seedy maybe. Come on back to the bedroom and I’ll give you a sample.”
SUPERVISOR DOLPH BREMER, MYLES CORBET, AND WADE TILLICH
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
JULY 1967
“I’m not going with you,” Myles Corbet told Supervisor Bremer. “I’ll set them up, but I’m not going in there.”
Supervisor Bremer, State Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, stared at Myles, his lips set in a thin, straight line. The building at the Berkeley Police Department was quiet at six a.m., but now the silence in the room deepened, hung suspended around the challenge. No one ever told Dolph Bremer what he would or would not do.
“Listen, punk, you’ll do as you’re told. Now get ready to go.” Bremer motioned toward the door with his thumb and bent to study the diagram on his desk.
“No,” Myles answered, looking straight into Bremer’s startled face. “I’m not going.”
Bremer turned toward Lieutenant Frank Hanson from the Berkeley narcotics squad. Hanson motioned Bremer outside. The room began to stir again, men talking quietly, checking guns.
“Look,” Hanson began quickly, holding up his hands to stop Bremer before he could speak, “this is an exceptional case. He’s not your typical informant.”
“I want Tillich to see there’s no way out. I want him to spill his guts when he sees he’s trapped. One look at Corbet, and he’ll know it’s all over.”
And, Bremer thought, I need to rub my authority into Corbet’s face, until he stops fighting me.
“You knew when you busted him that he was different. The kid’s some kind of child genius. His father chairs the biology department at the university. This exercise this afternoon—it’s not his style.”
“His style, Hanson?”
“The physical part of it. Corbet uses his head—analyzes, puts things together. And he’s good. Unobtrusive, quiet. We’ve already had several busts from warrants issued on his affidavit. They’re sticking too.”
Bremer’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust him. And I don’t like it when he tries to give me orders.”
“The affidavits are the best way we can use him. Let him do what he does best. Right now, it’s an intellectual puzzle to him, a game with words and pieces. I don’t think he’s actually thought about what happens after someone gets hit.”
“What does happen?” Bremer asked with some sarcasm.
Hanson turned back to the office. “I’m going to tell the kid to go home. Everyone else is ready. Where do you want to rendezvous?”
Bremer caught his breath. Hanson meant it. He was letting Corbet off. With a tight mouth, he forced himself to concede. “Corner of Telegraph and Derby.”
Myles left the building satisfied he’d finally established the role he would play. For weeks now, he had been wrestling with Bremer, defying him. At first, subtly. Tiny things. Standing when he’d been told to sit down. Deliberately being five or ten minutes late for a meeting. Holding things up. Using the department’s time. Then, larger decisions. Picking and choosing his cases. Finally, this morning’s confrontation, his absolute insistence that he would not be part of the arresting team. Manipulating Hanson into supporting him.
Myles had determined early on that he would walk his own road. On occasion, he’d seen a couple of Bremer’s other informants and had promised himself that he would never be like them. A woman threatened with the loss of her child if she didn’t cooperate. A man looking at an enhanced charge until he fingered someone big, forced to slowly work his way into the scene, buying and selling, letting people know he could be trusted. Informants who had yielded everything to Bremer.
As Myles walked toward the university campus, he slowly shook his head. Never, he told himself, I will never give Bremer the satisfaction of thinking he has me controlled.
He’d been trapped into playing the game, too stunned to think clearly on that afternoon in the commandant’s office. But he’d had time to think since then.
It’s only a game of chess, he mused. Each time Bremer makes a move, I can make a better one.
Bremer was a huge bull, powerful, but without subtlety. Sure he could push and overpower with force, a group of agents at his back and a gun in his hand. But in the end, it would be the mental game that would be more powerful.
I’m going to follow my own inclinations, ones not dictated by Bremer and policies of bullying.
This morning’s contest on his exact role in the department was a huge move on his part. He’d taken out his queen. Myles grinned knowing that Bremer’s ire was in good part because he was beginning to realize that with Myles, he had a different kind of informant.
He’s starting to worry, Myles told himself. He doesn’t really know how I’ll use my wit and abilities.
In truth, at first, Myles had been fearful of the people he’d marked. Everything had been new—the social situations, his subtle questions, his disappearance from the scene after an arrest—all entirely foreign. He walked a delicate balance between being visible as a student and hidden as an undercover informant. Then at some point in the last months, he’d grown more confident, decided he might even like this game. Bremer had taken something from him, still held him on a leash. But he’d received something in return. Power.
Perhaps that was the most important thing he was learning about the job. Winner gets to decide someone else’s life. The thought was not only new but … intoxicating.
At a light, he stopped, waiting to cross the street to the university grounds. Across the lawn, he could see the beginning of a redwood grove and thought to walk the cool paths beneath the trees on his way to the Life Sciences Building.
Without warning, an image forced itself into his consciousness—all the times he and Jerry had walked those campus trails together. To his mortification, Jerry’s face often cropped up unexpectedly, and closing his eyes, Myles asked, What’s Jerry doing? Right now. In the prison.
His sto
mach gave an involuntary lurch. That first afternoon in the commandant’s office was the only time Bremer had bested him. Myles let the emotion of loss … of missing Jerry … pass through him.
I wasn’t thinking, he moaned for the thousandth time. The shock of it all.
Then the light changed to green, and he stepped off the curb, steeling himself to the present. The bottom line, he was certain, was that he was smarter than just about everyone around him, certainly smarter than Bremer. And one day … one day … Bremer would know.
It’s just a chess game, he reminded himself again, and at the game’s inevitable end, I’ll be the winner.
Wade Tillich sat naked on the edge of his bed just after seven a.m., soaked in sweat, the barrel of a .357 magnum revolver held steadily at his left ear. He was sitting on his hands as the man with the gun had ordered. From somewhere over the deadly click-click of the gun’s hammer being pulled back and forth were the sounds of agents emptying drawers and closets. Now and then, he heard a loud crash. Alison, his old lady, was trying to dress under the studied gaze of three men watching her naked body.
“Found it!” From a closet in the hallway, an agent stacked five kilos.
“Here we are!” another voice called. Ice trays hit the kitchen floor. A bag with five hundred hits of LSD was pulled from the freezer.
Thank God I sold the other five hundred doses yesterday, Wade thought. At least that much will get through.
His heart raced even faster with new alarm.
Has there been surveillance? Who else is in danger?
He closed his eyes, tried to remember who’d been by lately.
The guy in charge—Bremer, someone had called him—was smirking while he held the pistol to Wade’s head. The man was obviously enjoying himself.
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