Doctor Dealer by Mark Bowden

shorter and had actually combed it. He looked to L.A. more like some kind of ROTC freak. But there was something almost inspiring in the cheerful gleam that came to Larry’s eyes when L.A. showed him the forty-pound bundle.
    “Thanks,” Larry said.
    Larry took the whole suitcase. He sold the contents in three days.
    When Mott came by L.A.’s apartment to collect the money from Larry, he said, “You and L.A. ought to start working together.”
    People were still coming to Dan Dill at Phi Delta Theta to buy dope, and when word got out that there was always good and plenty to be had at the corner of Thirty-seventh and Spruce, the crowds grew. L.A. introduced Larry to friends in New York City who were willing to loan him money at 10 percent interest, and soon he was buying up to hundred-pound bales at a time. Larry would recruit one of his fraternity brothers to help him break down the bale with his trusty machete into smaller portions.
    Word got out fast when a shipment was in. Soon after Larry started selling seriously he met Andy Mainardi, a freshman living in the Quad who had attended Lawrenceville School. Andy was short and chubby, with thin brown hair, a round face that made the lower part of his head seem larger than the upper, and glasses. He had been friends with Ricky Baratt at Lawrenceville and had done some dealing there, so Andy sought out Larry at Penn. He was a cheerful, energetic, and ambitious fellow, always ready with a story or a joke. He came from a well-to-do, prominent New Jersey family—his father was a judge—and planned eventually to go into business for himself. Andy, like L.A., loved pot. Larry viewed it primarily as merchandise. When Larry suggested cutting it with oregano to increase profits, L.A. and Andy reacted like outraged purists—it wasn’t just dishonest, it was
heresy!
Andy’s approach in particular was more that of a connoisseur than a retail merchant. If Larry was always looking for the most favorable profit margin, Andy was always looking for the best dope. One of the biggest attractions of dealing was that it gave him a chance to pick out for himself the choicest portions of each load as it came through. Andy preserved small samples of the best shipments the way a collector preserved bottles of rare vintage wine.
    Dan Dill had connections throughout his senior class, L.A. had his buyers among the juniors, Larry seemed to know everyone in the sophomore class, and Andy, being nearly as gregarious as Larry, was plugged into the ongoing party in the Quad. Dill’s bong would be fired up downstairs on the second floor, where he entertained customers by getting them high and playing music and making them laugh, and then, one by one, customers would go upstairs and collect their orders—anything from a few ounces to ten-pound bags. Within two or three hours the hundred-pound bale would be gone. There would be as much as five thousand dollars’ profit on a deal, an untidy mound of small bills that Larry enjoyed separating and stacking intopiles. L.A.’s instinct was to bank the money and lay low for a while, but Larry would hear none of it.
    “If you want to make money, you have to keep it rolling,” he said.
    So Larry would get right back on the phone to place another order with Chance or Mott or one of L.A.’s connections in Florida. Soon Larry had sources of his own. Through a fellow sophomore named Tom Finchley, Larry met a big dealer at Virginia Tech named Ralph, who worked with smugglers who flew the stuff in themselves. Larry spent a weekend in Blacksburg, Virginia, partying with Ralph, who took him out in the woods and showed him a barn that was a marijuana warehouse, with bales stacked and shelved awaiting delivery just like in the Converse factory in Haverhill. Larry opened another pipeline.
    Packaging was Larry’s specialty. When Larry and Marcia went on their weekly trip to the supermarket, Marcia would fill a cart with groceries while Larry filled one with an