* * *
THAT EVENING, VAL, my running partner and girlfriend, flies in from Aspen. When I pick her up at Logan Airport, she has more bad news. “Fucking Fred, your asshole friend,” she says.
“What?”
“He drove Judy to the airport. On his way home, he fell asleep at the wheel driving his truck and ran head-on into another car. Killed the driver and a fourteen-year-old kid.”
“Oh, Jesus, no.”
“Yes!”
“Where is he?”
“He’s okay. They took him to the hospital and let him go. The cops were there like immediately.” She glares at me. “What’re you doing with that guy anyway? You know he’s a fucking Heat score.”
All I can do is shake my head.
Val takes my face in her hands, looks me in the eye. “Listen, pal,” she tells me. “You’ve got to get out of town. This isn’t going away.”
“What about you?”
“Me? Honey—I’m already gone.”
And she is. She has been a fugitive for as long as I have known her. We had been doing business together for two years and been lovers for half that time before I knew her real name. Val is a founding member of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the original hippie mafia family based in Laguna Beach, California. The Brotherhood made their name importing fine black Afghani hash. Later they became the biggest manufacturers and distributors of Orange Sunshine LSD. Acid guru Timothy Leary was the Brotherhood’s nominal godfather. After a massive bust in the mid-seventies, the Brotherhood scattered to the far corners of four continents. Dope-smuggling families took root all across North America. The Feds inadvertently created what became known as the hippie mafia. By this time the entire soft drug distribution network was controlled by half a dozen hippie mafia families. We were essentially nonviolent. Our motto was peace, love, and brotherhood—and, of course, money. No one carried weapons. If you didn’t pay your bill, we just stopped doing business with you. We believed in karma: A good product delivered for a righteous price would only bring good fortune. All that began to change once the avalanche of Colombian blow buried the nation.
“Really, guy,” Val says. “You think you can trust Fred?” And she answers her own question. “No way. You need to split. Pronto.”
4
TOP OF THE WORLD
JIMMY CHAGRA WEARS a huge, gaudy, diamond-studded gold cross and gold chain around his neck. He’s dressed all in black, black shirt open to mid-chest to expose the cross nestled in his hairy chest, handmade cowboy boots that probably cost ten grand, the de rigueur gold Rolex Presidential with a diamond-encrusted bezel. Gold and diamond rings and bracelets. He must be wearing a hundred grand worth of jewelry. He’s a walking advertisement for the excesses of too much money made too fast. He might as well just hang a diamond-studded sign around his neck that says: DOPE DEALER.
He is with three other men when we meet at a restaurant on Boston’s North Shore. Chagra introduces John and Gerry Grillo. The third man introduces himself.
“Hi. Mike Capuana.” He offers me a limp handshake and a bland smile. “Rhymes with marijuana.”
Capuana has an open, expressive, and soft, good-looking face. He’s in his thirties, trim, not as ostentatious as Chagra but probably not as rich, either. He is a man on the make. Ambition lives in the quick of his movements.
The men are seated at a table in a rear room of the restaurant. The Grillo brothers don’t say much. John is skinny, ferret-like, around the same age as Capuana. He exudes furtive malevolence. I make him for a killer, the kind of guy who would lurk in the bushes outside your home and shoot you in the back of the head as you unlocked your door. Gerry is older, better dressed, with minimal jewelry, and has a managerial air. Capuana is clearly in charge. Even Chagra, to a degree, defers to him, though this is Chagra’s meeting. I’m wondering what these guys are doing here, not who they are. That’s obvious.
As if he reads my thoughts, Capuana says, “We know about your deal at the airport.” He gestures to Gerry Grillo. “Gerry is from Revere. The guy at the airport, Dominick, he’s with Gerry.” His voice takes on a more commanding tone. “You’re not supposed to be doing nothing like that at Logan without Gerry’s say so.” And then he smiles. “Understand?”
Capuana is referring to my airfreight catch at Logan Airport. I understand the “we” does not refer just to the men at this table. Capuana is talking corporately. I had been wondering when I would be called to this meeting. “I just happened to mention to Jimmy that I needed to meet with you,” Capuana continues. “Jimmy says he knows you. You handled something for him in Maine?” A question and a statement in one.
“Yes.”
Jimmy leans into the conversation. “Red Beard is with Mike,” he says. Red Beard is the guy Jimmy sent to Maine to work with my crew coordinating the thirty-ton off-load of the Panamanian freighter. “Where’s the rest of the load, Richie?” Chagra asks. “We’re short ten tons.”
Now they are both looking at me as though I’ve got some explaining to do. I came to this meeting expecting to get paid. Chagra owes me somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000. He and Capuana act like I’m holding out on them.
“Let me explain something to you,” Capuana says, gesturing with his long, slim, and soft hands, hands that have never hefted a bale of marijuana. “Nothing happens between Rhode Island and Maine unless I okay it. I report directly to the Hill, in Providence.”
He uses the commonly accepted euphemism for the rule of Raymond L. S. Patriarca, don of the New England Cosa Nostra family and a member of the ruling Mafia commission. “The days of the independent operator in your business—which is now my business”—Capuana says and pats himself on the chest—“are over. I have permission from Providence to organize the whole East Coast. Under our protection.” He lets this sink in, still gazing at me with a bemused smile. “I was gonna tell you to get the fuck outta Logan, get outta New England, until I happened to mention your name to Jimmy. He tells me he knows you. He has a problem with the numbers on the thing you handled for him in Maine.”
For years I have been hearing that the mob is looking to muscle their way into the lucrative wholesale end of the marijuana trade. I know sons of organized crime people in New York and New Jersey who used their fathers’ connections to establish themselves as major players. The domestic distribution end of the business is controlled by three primary, loose-knit groups: the hippie mafia families that only deal pot, hash, and psychedelics, made up of mostly white, middle-class college kids who dropped out, turned on, and gathered small fortunes as they created the market—Val’s and my people; the returning Vietnam vets, full-on action junkies with skills and guns, like Father Flaherty and Jimmy D; and, finally, children of the mob. The foreign import end of the business—my area of expertise—is a free-for-all with adventurers of all ages, nationalities, and stripes vying for territory. The Colombians, with their huge mother ships off-loading in our waters, have come to dominate the commercial marijuana market. Mexican cartels compete with tractor-trailer loads coming up from the Southwest. Cubans, Jamaicans, groups operating out of the Bahamas have turned South Florida into a dope smuggler’s extravaganza. It is like Prohibition all over again. An avalanche of cocaine is changing the landscape. Extreme craziness, violence, and death have infected a way of life that was purported to be about peace, brotherhood, and money.
And now here is Mike Capuana-rhymes-with-marijuana smiling at me even as he threatens. My sense is that if I show the least bit of fear or intimidation, Capuana and Chagra will walk all over me. They will possess me. I will leave this meeting believing I owe them money instead of the other way around. The Grillo brothers are here so I get the message these guys are not fucking around. I am supposed to be scared—and I am, though I won’t show it. There is a mean, aggressive, nasty streak in me, honed in reform school and street fights, that turns vicious when I feel threatened. I’m like a cornered animal, ready to throw the table over on Capuana and Chagra, spill food all over the
m, slap that crocodile smile off Capuana’s fleshy face. Then grab Chagra by the chain around his neck and strangle him until he coughs up my money.
Instead, I lean in across the table and smile in Capuana’s face.
“Listen, Mike, nice to meet you,” I lie. “But my business is with Jimmy. I don’t even know you. Jimmy hired me to get thirty tons of weed off a ship that would still be sitting out in the Atlantic, or probably busted by the Coast Guard by now if we hadn’t stepped in and taken care of it. I did that for Jimmy. Not one bale was lost. Red Beard has all the numbers. There’s around eight to ten tons of weed sitting in a barn in Maine that is no good—soaked in diesel fuel and bilge water. It’s there for Jimmy or the Colombians or whoever to check it out and do whatever you want with it. I offered to let Red Beard see it, but he was too busy. I have another two tons I’m holding until I get paid. Or I’ll take the weed instead of payment. But I did what I was hired to do, and now I need to get paid.”
Capuana looks at Chagra, then he looks at Gerry Grillo, and he laughs. “I like this kid!” he says. “This kid’s got balls!”
He flags the waiter and orders a bottle of wine. “The best bottle you got.”
Then, to me, “You’re okay, Richie. We’re gonna do big things together. Get rich and famous. We’ll send somebody up to check out the spoiled goods. As soon as we see what’s what, Jimmy’ll pay you. Or you’ll keep the weed you got. Work that out with Jimmy. Right, Jimmy?”
“You’re telling me eight fucking tons is no good?” Chagra says.
“That’s what I’m telling you. At least eight.”
“Fuck it,” Capuana says. “Let the Colombians eat it. That’s their problem.”
Capuana wants to know if I can get some of the weed up to Montreal. He says he has people up there. Family. I say yeah, no problem, though all my instincts are telling me to get away from these guys as fast and as far as I can. Wine is served. Food. Gerry Grillo says he likes me too. He’s impressed with the way we’ve wired Logan Airport. He wants to know if we can get heroin and cocaine in the same way.
“That’s not my business,” I tell him. “No junk. No coke.”
“That’s right,” Capuana explains like he knows what he’s talking about. “These guys just do the grass. They can move lots of grass. The other stuff, forget it. Too much Heat.” He goes on to tell me he was doing a bid on a bank burglary beef when he met a New England dope dealer who clued him in on how much money there was to be made smuggling weed. For a while, Capuana and the Grillos were considering going into the business of ripping off the hippie pot dealers, who are known to be unarmed and easy prey. But Capuana reasoned he could make more money if he joined forces and got everyone working together—for him. “You understand what I’m saying, Rich?”
I glance at John Grillo, who looks bored, like he’d rather have gone with the more exciting rip-off plan.
“Let me explain how this works,” Capuana continues. “You’re gonna pay me a million dollars. For protection. And for permission to keep working. Then you’re gonna give us half of everything you bring in through Logan.”
My guts wrench. My pulse accelerates. The wine turns sour in my mouth. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to leave this restaurant and get away from these guys without getting killed. “Protection from who?” I say. “You?”
The face smiles but the man is getting impatient. “Whoever. If you’re with me, nobody’s gonna bother you.”
“Mike, in the first place, I don’t have a million dollars—”
He holds up a hand. “You’ve got all that weed, Jimmy’s weed. So you’ll pay me out of that. You’ll move some of it up to Canada for us. You’ll work it off.”
I shake my head. “Look, I appreciate the offer. But I’m going to pass. My deal at the airport, I give the Arabs a third for fronting the loads. I pay the airfreight guys—”
“Thirty grand,” Gerry Grillo cuts in. “Peanuts.”
“No. Not for what they do. They’re happy with it. If I give you half, I’m losing money.”
“That’s not a good answer,” Capuana says. The smile is gone.
I shrug. “It’s the only answer I’ve got,” I tell him and wait a moment before I add, “I’ll speak to my friend. But I don’t think we can do business.”
Capuana hesitates, considering the way I said friend. He looks at Chagra, then at Gerry Grillo. To me he says, “Who’re you with?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Listen, kid,” he says, though we are around the same age. “This is not an offer. I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but if you don’t want no trouble—”
“I don’t want trouble. But you’ve got to understand my position. I can’t do anything, Mike—I can’t agree to anything until I speak to my friend. You know how that works. And you’ll know who he is. But I’m not—I can’t say anything until I clear it with him. Give me a number where I can reach you and you’ll get a call.”
I stand. John Grillo comes to attention. Capuana puts a hand on his arm. To Gerry Grillo, he says, “Give him the number at the store.” But he’s glaring at me. “I hope you know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he says.
I’m thinking: So do I.
Gerry writes a phone number on the back of a business card, hands it to me. “Just ask for me.”
“My friend will call you,” I say. And to Jimmy, “Thanks, Jimmy. See you later.”
We don’t shake hands. I walk away from the meeting feeling like a man who has just stepped into a minefield. As I get in the Suburban and start the engine, I fully expect to see John Grillo come running out of the restaurant with a gun in his hand. My hands are shaking, my mouth is dry, my stomach and bowels are in an uproar. No, no, no, I tell myself, they’re not going to kill me, not now. Because if they do, they’d have no way of getting their weed back, and they’ll have to answer to the Colombians and whoever I’m with. Yes, that’s their move. The meeting was supposed to scare the shit out of me—and it worked. But fuck it, and fuck them. Fuck Mike Capuana-rhymes-with-marijuana. And John beady-eyed Grillo with his scrawny neck. I’ll fuckin’ strangle him too. And Jimmy Scumbag Chagra. Fucking crooks.
I’m an idiot to get mixed up with these people. I see myself stepping deeper into shit. And half loving it, half hating myself at the same time.
“HOW WAS YOUR meeting?” Val asks when I see her back at the hotel in Cambridge. I don’t tell her, knowing what she’ll say: “That’s your karma, pal. For doing business with people like that.” How was I to know Jimmy is mobbed-up? Of course, I had to know. I was introduced to him through a known wiseguy lawyer. Willful ignorance. This is just me playing games with myself, pushing myself into ever more dangerous situations, upping the stakes, looking to get myself killed. Brilliant. It’s like that Neil Young song: Why do I keep fuckin’ up? Must be because I like it, or I get something out of it. But what?
There is the sweet solace of sex. Drugs, sex, and rock and roll—works every time. Smoke a little herb, drink some wine, put on Eric Clapton or Stevie Winwood, and fuck until you fall asleep. Fucking is never as good as when you think you could be dead in the morning. Yes, pussy, Val’s pussy in my face, and I feel like there is a safe place somewhere up in there for me if I could only crawl back inside and hide.
In the morning, I call my friend, arrange to meet with him at his golf club up near the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. He’s in his sixties. I call him Uncle George. Lebanese, though he was born here and has never even visited the mother country. He leaves that to his younger brother, who is tight with Amal, the militia wing of the Shi’a political movement in Lebanon. George is stocky, with a thick black mustache, fierce, bushy eyebrows, and penetrating, dark eyes.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” George says when we are alone, sitting in a sauna sweating our asses off. “He wants half? And a million up front? What is he, fucking nuts? Tell him to go fuck himself. Or I’ll tell him.”
“He says he’s with Raymond.�
�
George gives me a look. Shakes his head. After a moment he says, “We’ll see about that. Let me make a call.” He’s old school, Uncle George, everything by the unwritten book, the code of criminal conduct. Coming up in the rackets, George did his own work. He put on the boots, the trench coat, and stood out in the cold with a piece waiting—then he pulled the trigger. He did what he was told to do, and he got respect. As a Lebanese, he could never be made, never be a wiseguy, but he always maintained he wouldn’t have taken the button even if the Italians had offered it to him. “I don’t need that kind of Heat,” he told me. “I’m my own boss.” And he prospered. He bought land. He went into real estate and narrowly averted getting swept up in the mob wars and turf disputes that still divide the Boston underworld. Through his brother’s Amal connection, George cleared the way for our goods to leave Lebanon.
Now he lectures me about how to shower after the sauna. “Start with hot water,” he says, “then make it gradually cooler, then cold. Cool off slowly so you don’t catch cold.”
That’s the last thing I’m worried about. Still, George wants to be my mentor in all I do.
A DAY LATER I meet with George again, this time at the body shop we own in Lowell. He pulls up out front in his Caddy. I get in with him. “You’ve got to do it,” George says. “Pay the fucking guy the money. Give him what he wants.”
“What?”
Then he turns on me. “You heard me! What the fuck’re you, crazy? You stole from these people? This guy is with Raymond! You could get us both killed.”
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