by Bill Mason
The amount of money involved in the drug trade was truly staggering. Freighters were going up and down the coast at night, off-loading their cargo onto smaller boats that would ferry it in to various points along the shore. The coastline was too big to be patrolled effectively, and you had to laugh every time the police would display a seized shipment on television, always claiming it was the biggest haul ever, anyone with half a brain knowing it represented an absurdly small percentage of the stuff that was being brought in. The popular line was that all the DEA was doing was raising prices, but the fact is they weren’t even doing that. They really weren’t making any difference at all. The money my “renter” had paid me would barely be a rounding error compared to how much a single shipment of quality dope would net him, and every shipment that got intercepted by the police was just the cost—and a modest cost, at that—of doing business. Every time the feds trot out a table full of seized dope and claim to have made a significant dent in the drug trade, it’s pure deception. If it weren’t, it’d be difficult to find dope on the streets, and there’s nothing difficult about it at all.
The truly incredible money to be made in the cocaine trade turned a lot of otherwise ordinary people into monsters. The muscle side of the Colombian cartels thought nothing of shooting up crowded public places and killing innocent bystanders when they got in the way of business, and it wasn’t just about murdering people who’d crossed them up in deals. They’d kill competitors, aggressive law enforcers, judges, D.A.s, anybody who threatened to come between them and the free flow of dope and money.
I ran another ad in the paper and showed the house to a nice young couple who liked it immediately. They looked pretty straight, even though they gave me the up-front money in cash. I stopped by a couple of times to see how they were doing. They’d wasted no time in filling the house with top-of-the-line furniture and electronics, including sophisticated stereos and the biggest televisions you could buy at the time. They seemed like a very pleasant, down-to-earth couple, and I started to relax a little.
One morning a few weeks later my phone rang. It was the old lady next door, telling me that the cops had been swarming over the house all night. She said they’d missed the couple but were convinced a big load had come in before they’d split. I got out there right away, but by that time the police had left. The house was perfectly intact, including all the furniture, electronics and closets full of very expensive clothing. While I was going from room to room, two detectives showed up and started questioning me, but I couldn’t give them much. I wouldn’t have, anyway, but they didn’t seem to know who I was, so I acted cooperative. I’d never asked the renters for I.D., since they’d paid me in cash, and they doubtless hadn’t used their real names. I asked the detectives if they were going to stake the place out in case the couple came back, but these were two experienced guys who weren’t about to waste their time. “They’re gone,” one of them said. “You might as well look for new tenants.”
I would do just that but not before I returned that afternoon with Barb, the kids and a truck. We loaded up all the toys and clothes and some of the furniture, and by that evening Mark was happily fiddling with the best stereo rig a teenage kid ever had.
I ran an ad again and, sure enough, rented the house to another couple who paid cash up front and then disappeared. So far I’d rented it three times, pocketed a year and a half’s worth of rent, in cash, and still the house was empty. I was starting to like this setup. The fourth tenant was a very nice guy who told me he was in the process of moving his business over from Plant City, Florida, which is about twenty miles east of Tampa. When he moved in, he had another nice couple with him, and I was starting to think maybe I had a straight tenant this time, although I hoped not so I could rent the house yet again. For the next two months he paid the rent right on time and I assumed the gravy train had come to an end, but then I got “the call” again.
This time the cops did a little better. I don’t know if they nabbed the original renter, but they got the couple who’d been with him and a few other houseguests. They found over three million dollars in marijuana, most of it in the house and some on a boat docked in the back. One of the houseguests had an even million in cash in the trunk of his car that was parked in the driveway.
The police confiscated the drugs, cash, boat and two cars, and took seven people into custody. I hung around as they went over the house from top to bottom. Interestingly, they hadn’t bothered to take a panel van that was in the garage, and also left all the expensive stereos and televisions. They’d also missed a half kilo of cocaine under one of the beds.
The next day a detective called me at home and wanted information about the man from Plant City. He was gruff and insistent, and it got my hackles up. I refused to tell him anything, and he said, “Some of us are starting to think maybe you’re involved.”
I asked him how stupid somebody would have to be to purposely rent the same house to drug smugglers when the police had already busted the place twice. I also told him I couldn’t be expected to run criminal background checks on everybody who wanted to rent the house. The detective and I weren’t getting along at all, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from angering him.
Meanwhile, I once again had a house full of expensive electronics, and the detectives never mentioned the van still in the garage. I let two weeks go by before assuming they’d just forgotten about it, then did a title search based on the plates and vehicle identification number. It was in the name of a company in Plant City, which it took me only a couple of phone calls to find out didn’t exist any longer, if it ever had. I had a locksmith make up a new set of keys, and then I made myself president of the company by ordering up some business cards. I also “moved” the company to Cleveland the same way, then filed for new title using that address. Any cop who stopped me and radioed in to the station for “wants and warrants” on the vehicle would find that everything matched up and was completely legit. Another week without hearing from the police, and I drove the van a few miles south to Hollywood and parked it at Barb’s aunt’s house.
And the house was unoccupied once again. South Florida in the seventies was like a custom-tailored paradise for me. Or so I thought.
For a little over a year after I was released from jail, things went pretty smoothly. I was being a good boy, as the cheesed-off cops were still following me, although with nowhere near the intensity as before. It didn’t bother me much when I could see them, cruising slowly by the house in official prowl cars or following me when I was driving. It was much more disconcerting when I couldn’t see them, because then I didn’t know if I was being tailed or not. On the surface it wouldn’t seem to make much difference, since I wasn’t doing anything illegal, but you have no idea how uncomfortable it is when you simply don’t know.
Things were good at home. Once the shock of my incarceration and the events leading up to it had worn off, Barb figured I must have learned my lesson. Looking back over my account of that period, it seems I put a humorous spin on some parts, but I assure you there was very little funny about it. Maybe those cops and reporters who said I “didn’t like jail” were more insightful than I credited them for. There really were a lot of guys there who didn’t seem to mind it anywhere near as much as I did, and I just couldn’t understand that. Ninety days might not seem like much, but think for a second about what the date is right now, think of the date three months from now, and then imagine being locked up in a noisy, smelly, stultifying cell block until that date. Imagine having virtually nothing to occupy your mind and being utterly at the whim of other people with no way to say, “Okay, no more, I give up, make it stop.” I never wanted to go back there and, as Barb assumed, thought nothing was worth that risk.
Business was good, too. I’d resumed my regular trips to Cleveland, although nowhere near as often as before, since I wasn’t fencing any goods to Blute Tomba. I just went there to work on my properties, kept my nose clean and then returned to Florida.
&n
bsp; Out of the blue someone made a great offer on the building I owned. I’d put it in Barb’s name and we flew up there together to close the deal. We saw some old friends and had a wonderful few days, then returned with a very comfortable chunk of money in the bank in addition to the steady income I was earning. I was living the typical life of the typical suburban square, and all was well again.
One Saturday a few weeks after we closed on the building, I spent the morning cleaning the pool and washing the car, and the afternoon playing with the kids. Barb and I usually went out Saturday evenings, but Suzanne was out with friends and we were unable to get a baby-sitter for Mark and Laura, so that wasn’t in the cards. Long about nine o’clock I was feeling a little restless and decided to take a ride up to Oakland Park Boulevard, about five blocks north of our house, and have a drink. I parked behind a bar on the corner of Oakland and Bayview and went in, but there wasn’t anybody there I knew so I had only one drink and then left.
It was a beautiful night, so I didn’t bother with my car but walked about two blocks east to a nice place called Christopher’s, right on the Intracoastal Waterway. I went in and again didn’t see anybody I knew, so I left without even having a drink and walked back toward the first place, then past it and across Route 1 to a place called the Wooden Spoon. Since it looked like I wasn’t going to run into any friends, I figured I might as well hear some music, and the Wooden Spoon had a singer I really liked, a four-hundred-pound crooner named Big Mama Blue. I crossed the last street and was less than ten yards from the door, when I heard a crash from behind me. I turned, along with everybody else on the street, and saw two police cars that had just plowed into each other.
The doors popped open and two cops scrambled out of each car. They seemed to be in a big hurry, although it looked to me like there was little danger of a fire. Steam was coming out of one car’s radiator and there was a lot of crumpled metal, but it didn’t seem all that bad an accident.
The two cops who’d gotten out from the doors opposite me came around the car, and before I knew it, they were standing with feet apart and guns drawn. One of the other two had dropped to one knee, his piece also out, and the fourth was talking into a microphone in his hand. That was about the time I realized that all the guns were pointing directly at me. What the hell . . . ?
Then they were on me, spinning me around and pushing me up against a parked car. I got a thorough frisking and then I was handcuffed behind my back. By that time four more police cars had arrived—without running into one another this time—and I was thrown into the backseat of one of them. So far nobody had told me why I was being arrested, but they started asking questions, and not having any idea what in hell was going on, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even tell them my name, which they knew anyway. I was dying to ask some questions, to find out why I’d been taken, but bit my tongue.
At the Broward County Jail we were met by some detectives. They removed my handcuffs, sat me down and started peppering me with questions, but again I refused to say a word. One thing I remember clearly is that I fought the urge to rub my wrists when those cuffs were taken off. It’s an automatic reaction whenever anybody comes out of the cuffs, and I wasn’t about to give these guys the satisfaction of seeing me behave like every ordinary perp they’d ever brought into the house.
Then one detective I’d never seen before sat down across from me and said, “Mr. Mason, you’ve been arrested on suspicion of burglary, burglary of an inhabited dwelling, carrying a gun during the commission of a felony, fleeing a police officer . . .”
At that point he paused, then added “. . . and parole violation.”
He knew that would get my attention, and it did. Violation of parole, or VOP, was the scariest thing you could hurl at somebody, because there was no bail for it. In essence, you were out of prison not because you were legally entitled to it but because of the good graces of the court. As a convicted felon under a twenty-year suspended sentence and seven years’ probation, I had to keep my nose clean or that probation could be revoked. The criteria under which that could happen were very subjective, and the procedures for fighting it were much more limited than for the original charges. I don’t know all the legal nuances, but I think the basic theory is that a lot of the rights you have to defend yourself against a criminal charge go out the window once you’ve already been convicted, and the only question left is how you pay for it.
I was starting to smell an extremely large rat and had to struggle not to lose my resolve in front of these guys. I had a feeling they’d been following me all these months just praying for me to fuck up so they could arrest me and violate my parole. Was it possible that when they couldn’t do it legitimately because I’d stayed clean, they decided to set me up? The thought petrified me, but what else could it be? Burglary, possession of a gun, fleeing . . . I’d done nothing of the sort!
I waited a few seconds until I was sure I could steady my voice, then said, “I’d like a phone call.”
“A phone call? Absolutely!” the detective said expansively, and waved for a uniform to take me to the phone. I picked up the handset, then looked at him until he stepped back a few paces, and dialed my home number. When Barb answered, I said hello, but before I could get beyond that, she started talking.
“Where are you!” she said, anxiety lacing her voice. “The police are all over the place!” She told me that there’d been half a dozen uniforms camped out around the house since about ten-fifteen, but none of them had knocked on the door or spoken a word to her. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, and it was the truth. “I’ve been arrested and I have no idea why.” I could hear skepticism in her silence. “Barb, listen to me,” I insisted. “I’m telling you the truth.”
I told her exactly what had happened, and since there was nothing I was trying to hide, something in my voice must have made her believe me. “Call Dave Damore,” I said, “and get him down here.” That was the same David Damore who’d been the assistant D.A. prosecuting me two years before. Looked like the prospecting for new clients he’d done among people he’d prosecuted was about to pay off for him.
Since I’d been arrested on a Saturday night, the county had no obligation to arraign me until Monday morning, so I stewed in jail. When you know you did something wrong, you can use the time to strategize, to plan a little. You think about what they might have on you, where they might have made mistakes, assumptions they made that you can refute. If you ripped off a store or something but were cooperative when you were arrested, you can get all huffy about a charge of resisting arrest and plan how to counter it. Maybe you could subpoena onlookers, or depose the cops separately, and hope for discrepancies. You could do something. If nothing else, you at least know you really did fuck up, and let’s face it, your being in jail ain’t exactly a gross miscarriage of justice.
But when you didn’t do a damned thing, all you can do is worry yourself half to death trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I had nothing to latch on to, because I couldn’t even figure a starting point to think about all of this. All I’d done was walk down a street.
After all of that swirled around in my head for a few hours, I decided that the best way to drive myself really crazy was to focus on the VOP charge. Even if everything else went away, I could still get nailed for that. I was beginning to realize that giving the Fort Lauderdale police all that shit two years ago may have been the dumbest damned thing I’d ever done in my entire life.
Monday morning finally rolled around, and I was taken out of lockup to meet with Dave Damore. With his years of experience, he didn’t even greet me while we were still in earshot of the police, and I followed his lead. He’d probably had some incident where he’d offhandedly said, “How’re you doing?” to a client and the guy came back with something like “I’m looking at five to ten, how the hell do you think I’m doing?” which someone might have stretched into an admission of some kind. I did notice that
Damore was carrying some documents under his arm in addition to his briefcase. We were taken to a tiny room where we would have some privacy. My first words to him were “You got any idea what the fuck is going on?”
He looked at me in surprise. “I got a damned good idea,” he said, waving the documents in front of me. “And I’m your lawyer, remember? So let’s cut the bullshit.”
I’d seen a movie like this once, or maybe it was a Twilight Zone episode, in which some poor sap wakes up and he’s in some kind of parallel universe where everything is slightly different than it should be and everybody knows what’s going on except him. Without being aware of it, I’d been anticipating this meeting as the time when everything would become clear, and so far it was just getting murkier. But I didn’t want Damore to think I’d gone round the bend, so I just pointed to the papers he was holding and asked him what they were.
“Copies of the police reports that were filed in connection with your arrest,” he answered as he motioned for me to sit down. I doubt if anyone but a former assistant D.A. in the same county could have gotten them that fast. When I reached for them, he said, “You can read them later if you want. You probably pretty much already know what’s in there, so let’s just go through your version and see what kind of discrepancies we can come up with.” He opened his attaché and reached in for a pad of legal paper.