“Can I take your order, sir?” the waiter asks me.
“Oh, yeah. I’ll have—just a second.”
I nudge Val’s leg with my knee and nod toward the agents, who aren’t even trying to hide that they are watching our gathering.
“The salmon, please. And another martini,” I tell the waiter. Might as well go down with a good buzz on.
Val nods, excuses herself. I was only trying to clue her in, but she goes over to the bar, elbows her way between Wolfshein and blue-eyes, and in a moment engages them in animated conversation.
She looks a little like a young Ava Gardner tonight—the high cheekbones and oval-shaped face, dark olive complexion, large brown sloe eyes, thin dimpled chin, and her long auburn hair wound up in a French twist. She’s elegant, has a kind of affluent hippie style all her own. She’s wearing a dress, her skin deeply tanned from the Hawaiian sun. I can’t help admiring her even as I wonder what the hell she could be talking about to these dope cops.
Soon Wolfshein and blue-eyes are laughing, Val has charmed them. She takes some money from her purse and lays it on the bar. The agents drink up, Wolfshein glances over at the table, smiles, and then all three of them walk outside. Mailer and the others at the table look at me perplexed. Did Rick’s date just ditch him? How bizarre! Does she know those guys? I am as baffled as they are.
In a moment she is back. She sits down, smiles and says, “They didn’t really want to be here.” Later I ask her how she got rid of them. “I lied,” she tells me. “Told them it was Norman’s birthday and they were spoiling everything. The one guy, the dude with the glasses—”
“That’s Wolfshein. The guy’s all over me.”
“He knew I was lying. He said Norman’s birthday is in January.”
“That’s right. Aquarius. He knows way too much.”
“Anyway, then I said I’d tell them what was going on if they let me buy them a drink and we could step outside. Outside I told them, ‘You wanna know what’s going on? Nothing. Not a damn thing illegal. We’re just having dinner like normal people. Now please, leave us alone,’ I said, ‘or I’ll make a really ugly scene and you’ll be sorry.’”
TWO NIGHTS LATER, Mailer’s home in Brooklyn Heights is broken into. Nothing is missing, but the bag of pot I slipped him under the table at Nicola’s was removed from his dresser drawer and placed in the middle of the bed in the master bedroom. Norman sees this as a message. He tells me this while we stand on his balcony and look out at the huge monoliths that make up the Lower Manhattan skyline.
“The Feds are all over me,” I say. “Those guys at the restaurant the other night, they’re DEA agents.” And I explain about the bust in Maine, putting the farm up as security for my bail. “I may have to jump, Norman. Get lost until things settle down.”
Earlier in the day I received a disquieting call from Hef, my lawyer in Boston. He suspects that Fearless Fred Barnswallow is, in Hef’s words, “off the reservation.” Realizing the evidence against him was overwhelming, Fred had said he wanted to flee the country. We arranged for my nephew, Carlos, who has worked with me since he was a teenager, and the Captain, a former Delta Force member and part of an elite black-ops group known as Army Support Intelligence Activity, or ASIA, to sequester Freddy until we could get him some new ID, and then carry him off to Brazil and parts unknown. The Captain begged me to let him disappear Fred.
“This guy is a waste of clothing,” the Captain told me. “No way he’s going to hold up.”
But I wouldn’t hear of it. Murder was not part of what I signed on for—or so I believed. They got as far as South Florida. Val, using some of her Brotherhood contacts, got Fred new ID. The Captain left him and my nephew in a hotel in Pompano Beach and returned to his base at Fort Hood, Texas. After a few days waiting around for the boat to take Fred first to the Bahamas, from where he would catch a flight and continue on to Rio, Fred told my nephew he was going out to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returned. Now the lawyers believe he defected to the government’s camp.
“Well, that place is pretty much yours,” Mailer says, speaking of the farm in Maine. Over the years I bought out Godfried and Mailer, though his name remained on the deed. “By the way, how’s Biff doing?” he asks after a moment. “He seemed a little subdued the other night, though he did say you had something big for him.”
As usual, Biff’s been talking too much. “He acts like some of the things I ask him to do are beneath him,” I say. “And then, he can’t do the simple stuff, yet he wants more of the bigger action. Where’s that coming from?”
“He’s a man whose talents never measured up to his ambitions,” Mailer says, and I think he could be talking about me. “Listen, Rick. If it’s not working out with him, fuck it. Let him go. You don’t owe him, or me, anything. I was only trying to help him out.”
“I know. He needs the money.”
I feel for Biff. It can’t have been easy being so close to Mailer these many years, seeing him triumph while Biff wilted in the long shadow Mailer cast. I saw how Biff eyed Mailer’s new wife hungrily the other night, as if he were wondering why she was with Mailer and not with him. Norman goes on to tell me about a convict he’s been corresponding with as part of research for a book he’s begun work on about Gary Gilmore, a killer who demanded to be executed in Utah. “I think he’s going to be getting out soon,” he says of his convict correspondent, a guy named Jack Abbott. “Maybe you can use him.”
“Please, Norman. No more referrals,” I say with a smile, but I’m serious.
Mailer’s brilliance sometimes blinds his judgment. Biff could well be his Fred Barnswallow. As Mailer tells me more about Abbott and the vivid letters he’s been writing about prison violence that have been collected into a book titled In the Belly of the Beast, I’m thinking how curious it is that we are often better at recognizing other people’s shortsightedness than our own.
“My advice, stay away from this guy,” I tell Mailer. “He’s probably half full of shit.”
“No, Rick. His letters are extraordinary. He’s given me insight into how prison life shapes a man that I might never have had.”
“Fine. That doesn’t mean you need to get close to him. I run into guys like this all the time. He’s not operating from the same set of values.”
“You may be right,” Mailer admits. “That’s one of the things I like about our friendship, we don’t have to agree. But I’ve always believed that art is worth a little risk. In fact, I would go so far as to say, the more risk, the better the art.”
I don’t argue. I live for risk, hoping someday it might mature into depth of character and throttle my overbearing ego and pride.
“Look for the risk,” Mailer writes in Ancient Evenings. “We must obey it every time. There is no credit to be drawn from the virtue of one’s past.”
Or, I would add, from the iniquity of one’s past.
WHEN I LEAVE Mailer’s home and walk out onto Columbia Heights, I see them: two men sitting in a parked car watching the front of the brownstone. Something turns me from the street and draws me out to the promenade. I stand on the parapet above the desolate Brooklyn docks. A crescent moon and single bright star hang in the sky above Manhattan. The East River slides ponderously into the sea.
Almost as though conjured from my mood, Wolfshein sidles up beside me. “Rich…” he says. “Beautiful night.”
“Agent Wolfshein. Fancy meeting you here.”
“You kidding? This is home for me… maybe not Brooklyn Heights. More like Crown Heights. But when they told me, ‘Go to New York. See what Rich is up to,’ I thought, ‘Great, I’ll get to visit my mother.’”
“Like a good son. Have you seen her?”
“Not yet,” he says and smiles. He’s wearing a staid blue suit, no tie, and with his horn-rimmed glasses and curly, salt-and-pepper hair he looks more like an accountant or a harried mid-level corporate executive than a pistol-packing federal drug agent. “Your girl there, she’s funny. What’s her name?
”
I shake my head. “Who?”
“Your girlfriend. Val. I think that’s what you call her, though it’s probably not her real name.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever.” Wolfshein nods and pushes his glasses up over the bridge of his nose—a practiced gesture. “Have you ever heard of CENTAC?” he asks.
“No. What’s that?”
“Well, let me just say, you have stumbled into it. Or maybe stumbled is not the right word. Waltzed may be more like it.”
I love the way this guy talks, and his moves, every gesture suited to his routine.
“You know, I never was much of a believer in this whole hippie mafia peace, love, and brotherhood nonsense,” he goes on. “Some of the men you’re involved with—” He mentions Uncle George’s real name. “These guys are not playing by the same set of rules as your people. I tried to tell you that, didn’t I? During our little ride together. We talked about that.”
For a fleeting moment I think he must have somehow bugged my conversation with Mailer. It is almost as though he is giving me back the same advice I gave Norman about Abbott, his convict correspondent. This guy, Wolfshein, is too much, I’m thinking. It’s as though he has moved body and soul into my consciousness.
When I don’t answer, Wolfshein shrugs, turns, and looks up at the balcony hanging from the front of Mailer’s flat. “You and your buddy there, Norman, you’re either kidding yourselves or you’re full of crap—maybe some combination of the two. You think this is a harmless game of spy versus spy you’re playing. Material for a novel.” He pauses, looks at me full on, squints. Shakes his head slowly from side to side.
“You are going down, Rich. Bet on it. It’s just a matter of time before we—maybe not me but whoever—are going to take you down. Hard. And your pal Mailer. His career will be ruined. All because of you and the business you are in. Then it will only be a matter of how much time you both wind up doing in prison. If you’re lucky, okay? There are worse things that could happen.” He nods, nudges his glasses back up his nose. “I think you know what I’m talking about.”
After a moment I ask, “What would you have me do?”
“Well, you could quit. Give it all up. But that won’t protect you from what you’re already into—the case in Maine and whatever else may come down as… inevitably, people will begin to roll over and cooperate.” He pauses, considers for a moment. “You’ve got a price to pay here, Rich. Listen to me.” He looks around conspiratorially. “Where do you think what’s his name is right now?” he asks, and then he mentions Fearless Fred’s real name.
I look at him and make no answer.
“Never mind. That’s not important,” Wolfshein continues. “You know how much value he is to us on a scale of one-to-ten?” He makes a zero sign with his thumb and forefinger. “Less than zero. Except if he can provide us with enough information, perhaps, and testimony, again, perhaps, to indict and ultimately convict you. So you go away. Ten, fifteen years, whatever. Maybe we arrest your wife and your girlfriend there—Valerie, as she calls herself these days. People in Canada. People on the West Coast. Texas. Guys like Capuana and Chagra. You get what I’m talking about, Rich? This is a big conspiracy, okay? You know that. You helped put it together. They have a name for this. Call it RICO. Racketeering. Organized crime. Whatever. We’re talking serious time. And Norman…” He breaks off, nods. “I think you know what I’m talkin’ about.”
Wolfshein holds up the zero with one hand and puts a finger from his other hand beside it. “Mailer on that scale is a ten,” he says. “You want to help your friend so he can continue writing books and stay out of prison? You want to survive in this arena? Learn to play the game. There’s a whole other level, a whole other dimension here is what I’m talking about.” He pauses. “You know your friend there in Boston?”
“What friend?”
“Don’t play stupid with me, please. We’re off the record here, Rich. I’m talking to you as—what? An advisor?” He laughs. “As your consigliore? Trying to help you out before it’s too late. Listen to me. I’m saying, the blond guy. Saved your ass, didn’t he? You know who I mean.”
“Even if I do, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. You’re a smart guy. Stubborn… but smart. I want you to think about this, Rich. Give it some serious thought. The way things stand now, the Maine case could go away. No one would be the wiser. Your lawyers will get it thrown out and even they’ll be patting themselves on the back.”
Again he turns and glances up at Mailer’s. “You’re at a very interesting point in your career. It’s like a fork in the road. It’s up to you, Rich, which way you go. And I don’t need to tell you, there are… a number of people whose futures are riding on the choice you make.” He holds up a hand. “Don’t decide anything now. I want you to think about this. You have time. Not much, but some. Think about it, and if you want to talk some more…” He hands me a business card. “That number.” He points to a handwritten number. “That’s my pager. Hit me on that number and I’ll get right back to you.” The knowing smile, a look of bemused yet keen understanding, like he’s on the verge of explaining some deep, new concept. “CENTAC,” he says. “Remember that word.” He looks around, furtively this time, like a crook. “And don’t say I didn’t warn you. Because you’re playing with the big boys now, Rich.”
6
DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS
WHEN I ARRIVE at the airport in Austin, Herbert, the real estate agent who sold me the ranch in the Texas Hill Country town of San Saba, meets me at the arrivals terminal. I call him Herbert Humbert after the character in Lolita because he reminds me of a pedophile. Or maybe a flasher. Some guy who would pull out his johnson and wag it at schoolgirls. Herbert Humbert has sold me three ranches, all for cash, usually delivered in briefcases. He also sold me a florist shop in Austin—King’s Florist: The Poinsettia King. I’ve been there twice, maybe three times. It’s essentially a front to launder money.
He’s originally from Massachusetts, old Herb, but he has taken to wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat since relocating to Texas. He’s a slight, unhealthy-looking guy who chain-smokes Pall Malls, drives a big black Cadillac, and dresses in ill-fitting Western suits. Herb does business with me as Paul Quinlan, though I’m sure he suspects that is not my real name. I sense it in the way he says Paul and looks askance as if to say, “C’mon, who are we kidding here?” He’s complicit up to his droopy earlobes in my flagrant washing of money and drug-fueled hubris. The first place he sold me was a fifteen hundred-acre spread—a postage stamp by Texas standards—in a Hill Country town called Goldthwaite, a lovely, little town. The land out there is spectacular with hills and ponds, a pecan orchard, and frontage on the Colorado River. The house, though, was a wreck—no plumbing, no electricity. My ground crew and I slept in the Global Evangelism Television motor home or on bunks in the trashed ranch house like old-time desperados. Early one day, as I squatted for my morning constitutional behind a dilapidated old shed, I looked down and saw a fat diamondback rattler basking in the sun within bun-biting range.
While we waited for our trip to come in, I would take Karamazov for long walks around the property, pacing the boundary, living out my Jimmy Dean Giant fantasy. I sat in the early-morning light and meditated. We stocked the place with a few horses and some cattle for appearance’s sake. A rattlesnake bit one of the horses, a paint named Zapata I bought from the Mexicans who worked for me. The horse’s neck swelled up as though it had a giant goiter, and he staggered around like a drunk, but he recovered. One night, Jimmy D and I made a run into Brownsville to have a few drinks at a cowboy bar and use the pay phones. We were riding in an old pickup truck with a broken fuel gauge and ran out of gas on the way back to the ranch. I walked a half-mile down the farm road to the nearest house and rang the bell. It was about ten thirty in the evening. The door flew open and a totally nude young blond Texas honey stood
there with her arms outstretched and exclaimed, “Tadah!” Once she realized I wasn’t whom she was expecting, she blushed, went and grabbed a robe and apologized. “Not at all,” I said. “I love being greeted that way.”
Ah, yes—Texas. I couldn’t imagine that happening back in Wellesley.
We landed loads in the field alongside the Colorado and the pecan grove using a Maule, a single-engine tail dragger aircraft. Four, five hundred pounds of weed per trip, specialty strains of cannabis sativa coming out of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Michoacán: sinsemilla, pelo rojo, Acapulco Gold, foot-long colas we packaged in boxes like long-stem roses. I went to Mexico and purchased the weed, one of the pilots I work with flew down and picked up the load, JD and Father Flaherty transported it back east to market in the Global Evangelism Television machine, and Lord Toranaga sold it.
After half a dozen or so trips using the place in Goldthwaite, Herb sold it for me and we bought a bigger ranch with a livable home and good barns farther south, near San Antonio, outside a town called Blanco. The business ramped up. We began working the Mexican border with the Gulf Cartel, bringing in tractor trailers of commercial weed. A couple of different pilots would fly in the smaller loads of connoisseur product. One of the pilots, the guy I call Jonathan Livingston Seagull, is married to Avril, my wife Anaïs’s younger sister. It was on a bet with the Seagull that I got back into the outlaw life full time after a halfhearted attempt to quit smuggling dope and go straight. The Mexican trip is where it all began back in the sixties, and it is still a steady source of income supporting my ludicrous grandiose lifestyle and out-of-control empire-building while Toranaga and I plot the Lebanese hashish mega-smuggle.
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