The Financial Lives Of the Poets

His bammy business

The Regional Drug Task Force office turns out to be within walking distance of the coffee shop, behind a door marked “R. Thomas-Clinical Social Worker/Therapist, MSS, LICSW,” on the first floor of a nondescript downtown office building overlooking the river, across the hall from an insurance company. We sit in a conference room that looks like it recently hosted a corporate brainstorming retreat, a white board covered in various numbers in columns below the phrases “Potential Funding” and “FY ’09-’10,” and I think this white board could be from any business strategy session, but of course, it’s not. It’s a task force set up to arrest drug dealers.

Like me. My coy strategy gone now, I spill it all…how I’ve been under financial stress, how I found myself getting high for the first time in years, bought a little, then realized I knew other people who would buy weed, how I went out and visited the farm and gave Monte nine thousand dollars, but didn’t get my pot, how Monte tried to sell me the whole operation. The cops don’t say much, but nod approvingly a few times. Then I open my backpack and-hands shaking-remove the three ounces of bud and hand it to Randy, who goes off to weigh and photograph it. I watch him take a small sample, which he seals in a Ziploc baggie; then he puts the rest of my weed back in my messenger bag. During this, Lt. Reese has me initial some sort of requisition form that I probably should read before signing.

“So much paperwork,” I mutter.

“I suppose that shithead had you sign his stupid contracts,” Reese says. “He knows we’re closing in. More nervous he gets, the more worthless contracts he prints up. That’s probably why you only got three ounces yesterday, because Eddie was there.”

I think: who’s Eddie?

Randy says, “He’s doing everything he can to keep this in state court, keep the feds out.”

I shrug. No idea what any of this means.

Lt. Reese is getting tired of explaining things to me. “Three ounces? Well within the state limit for medicinal use? See, you’ll never get weight with Eddie around. The medicinal dodge is bullshit, but it’ll give his lawyer something to argue.”

“Who…is Eddie?” I finally ask. “Do you mean Dave?”

Lt. Reese spews contempt. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you, fuck-nuts?” From another file, he hands me a photocopy that includes a mug-shot of Drug Dealer Dave, identifying him as “Edmund David Waller Jr.,” AKA “Eddie Waller” AKA “Dave Waller.”

My mouth goes dry. Dave is an Also Known As? I tend not

to have a lot of dealings with aliases. “He…he said he was a lawyer.”

“He was a lawyer. For about an hour. Worked for an old hippie firm defending drug dealers. But the bar tends to look down on psychopaths with multiple convictions.”

Psychopath? Multiple convictions? My eyes drift toward the Arrests and Convictions part of this rap sheet. Indeed, Eddie-Dave has two convictions-misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance almost a decade ago and misdemeanor assault-but he’s been charged two other times, once for intimidation seven years ago, a charge that was dropped, and another charge that, according to this sheet, is still pending-vehicular manslaughter?

Drug Dealer Dave? Assault? Intimidation? Manslaughter?

Lt. Reese sees me swallow. “You think this is the fucking PTA you’re dealing with?”

I say, weakly, “He did ask to look up my ass.”

Randy and Lt. Reese make uncomfortable eye contact.

Lt. Reese takes the file from me. “The assault charge was on a twenty-two-year-old female. The intimidation came about when he tried to…convince someone…not to testify against him.”

“And the manslaughter charge?”

Lt. Reese hands me a black-and-white photograph…a roadside somewhere…with a lump of clothes…or-

“Is that…a dead body?”

“It ain’t a pile of leaves. Dave doesn’t like leaving anyone around to testify.”

I think I’m going to be sick. “Wait. He ran over this person to keep them from testifying? Is that what you’re saying? Why…why wasn’t he charged with murder?”

Lt. Reese rips the photo from my hands. “Eddie’s a lot of things, but he ain’t stupid.”

My head’s swimming. “What about Monte?”

“Oh, he’s stupid,” says Randy.

“No, I mean, is he dangerous?”

Lt. Reese leans in. “Wake up, fuck-stick! Who do you think these people are?”

“Come on, Lieu,” Randy interrupts. Then to me: “Monte has no violent priors.”

After a second, Lt. Reese sits back and nods. “Yeah, Monte’s a tool. Mildly autistic. Does whatever Eddie tells him to. Parents died in a car wreck when he was fifteen, lived with his crazy old grandfather, raised that dipshit little brother of his. This whole deal is really Eddie’s; he uses poor Monte like a shield. That’s what Eddie looks for- people to insulate him. Everything’s in Monte’s name. Monte does all the work, takes all the risk. But now he wants out. That’s why Eddie wants you in. ’Cause he needs a new shield.”

Randy steps in. “When we finally arrest him, Eddie will try to pull out his contracts and claim he never was around more than the medicinal amount…that he never had it in his possession, that he simply worked as Monte’s lawyer.”

I look back at Eddie-Dave’s rap sheet. “I had no idea.”

“See, this is what pisses me off!” Lt. Reese stands up, his face red. “You old pot-head baby-boomer shit-bags thinking, it’s just marijuana. No one gets hurt. Let’s smoke a reefer and go bomb the ROTC building! Well, fuck you!”

I start to say that I wasn’t going to bomb anything, but before I can-

Lt. Reese waves me off and stands. “I gotta get some air.” He storms out of the room, although something about his eruption seems vaguely Arthur Miller-ish.

“Okay,” says Randy quietly. He leans forward, and I think maybe his smile means no more than a dog’s does. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to get you out of this.”

Wait. I know this: Mark Akenside, the salesman at the Nissan lot! Lisa and I had gone in to buy the more modest Altima but Mark kept glancing over at the sleek, gunmetal Maxima, with its sunroof, spoiler and heated seats. We can’t afford that, I said. Sure, Mark said, and why should you spend more…after all, the Altima’s a great little car…but what if I could get you the top-of-the-line Maxima for virtually the same price? Then Mark wrote a number on a sheet of paper that was definitely not the same price as the Altima. But, I said, that’s a much higher price and Mark turned the paper toward himself and wrote a slightly smaller figure, and he kept doing this, coming down a few hundred bucks each time, saying, Work with me here and I’m doing all I can for you here until here was only two thousand higher than the Altima and Lisa and I would have confessed to being domestic terrorists to get out of that room. I said, Fine, we’ll take it, and Mark dragged us into a room with his manager, whose job was to close the deal as Mark went out for some air, just like Lt. Reese did- though less angrily-and the manager did everything he could to pump that number back up (thus my redundant service contract and winter floor mats) and we left having paid more for the Maxima than the first number Mark wrote down.

Randy slides a piece of paper in front of me. It has a seal and a chart and what appears to be a mission statement on it.

“We are a federally funded task force working in conjunction with the DEA,” Randy says in perfect loan-closing voice. He takes the page back before I can read it. He replaces it with a page that has a graph with FEDERAL SENTENCING GUIDELINES. “Because of that, our mandate is a little different than, say, your local drug unit. We’re about big fish, so our focus is on intelligence-gathering as much as enforcement and prosecution. But that doesn’t mean we turn our backs on dime-bag buyers. Make no mistake about it; we will take down the little fish. Like you?” He runs his finger past the steeper crimes and sentences until he arrives

at mine. “Three ounces? Intent to deliver? You’re looking at a year and a fifty-thousand-dollar fine. But sometimes…” He pretends to look up to make sure Lt. Reese isn’t in the room. “We can let a little fish wiggle off a hook if it means getting a bigger one. Now, you’re probably thinking…what constitutes a big fish?”

I nod as if that’s what I was thinking.