Doctor Dealer (50 page)

Larry just laughed. Of all his friends, customers, and associates, he was convinced that the hustling street vendor from South Philly, the kid with a grade-school education whose up-from-the-streets palaver was so thick it made you laugh, the kid who hadn’t wanted to sell cocaine because his people could barely afford to buy their ounces of pot, was the one who had not only made the most money but appeared to be the one most likely to escape jail for it.

Billy asked Larry how much money he had for running away.

“About a million-six,” said Larry.

Billy was incredulous.

“After all those years?” he said.

“What can I say?”

They fell to talking about Frannie. Billy was furious with Frannie for cooperating with the government. No matter what kind of game Frannie claimed to be playing, to Billy’s way of thinking it just wasn’t done. He owed Frannie five hundred thousand, but he was refusing to pay until after seeing if his name came up at Frannie’s trial. Larry had agreed to intercede about the debt on Frannie’s behalf. For the last year, Larry had been in a ticklish position between Billy and Frannie. Billy was the biggest customer Frannie had inherited from Larry. So Frannie would ask Larry for advice on negotiating prices with Billy, and Billy would call asking for advice on how to deal with Frannie. Larry’s main loyalties were with Billy, but the more money Frannie made, the faster Larry would collect the money he was owed. This conversation ended with Billy agreeing to turn over half the five hundred thousand to Larry for safekeeping.

For this trip Larry had called his favorite whore, Janice. She had arranged for women to join the other men in the casino, and she joined Larry and his friends for dinner. All ten dined together in the restaurant at Resorts, a final feast with their old irreplaceable friend. They took turns making toasts: To Larry . . . with whom they had
shared so much fun . . . from whom they had learned so much . . . to whom they all owed so much . . . who was going away . . . forever. It was an emotional night for Larry.

He was back in Atlantic City a few nights later, again with Janice, to meet one last time with Billy and collect the money owed Burns. He had arranged through a complex sequence of beeper relays and phone calls to meet Billy in the lobby of a hotel, but Billy hadn’t showed up. In his hotel suite later, Janice was having a serious talk with him. “I saw your picture in the paper and on TV,” she said. “I know who you are. If you want you can stay at my house for any amount of time you need.”

They were talking when someone knocked on the door to say that Billy was on his way over. Billy and Janice had gotten in a fight at a previous bachelor party. Janice had shoved Billy, and Billy, enraged to be insulted by a slut, had slapped her hard. She was afraid of him. Larry knew this might be the last time he would ever see Billy, and he didn’t want the moment spoiled by having Janice in the room. So he hid her in the closet.

Billy entered a few minutes later, carrying a duffel bag filled with $250,000. He was nervous. Billy didn’t like to be present when money or drugs were exchanged, especially in the present climate of surveillance and arrests. He set down the bag on the floor.

“Goodbye, Billy,” said Larry. He was choked up.

They embraced.

“Good luck,” said Billy. He gave Larry a number to call if he ever needed to get in touch.

Before leaving the room, Billy turned as he always had, dating back to their first days of working together in the apartment on Osage Avenue, and said, “Tell me it will be all right, Larry.”

Larry said, “It will be all right, Billy.”

When he left, Larry let Janice out of the closet, threw her on the bed, and dumped the $250,000 all over her.

On Wednesday, October 24, Larry met with Ken Weidler’s lawyer, Ron Kidd. Tom Bergstrom still had hopes that Larry would come around when the reality of what faced him was at hand. He felt he could negotiate something less than seven years. If not, he had devised some cunning pretrial motions that just might suppress some key evidence. So Larry had told Ken and others that there was a chance he could get off with less than seven years. When Ken told that to Kidd, the veteran criminal lawyer scoffed. So Ken had urged Larry to get a second opinion.

Kidd was blunt. He told Larry that he should expect to be sentenced to anywhere from twenty to sixty years, most likely forty years.

“Everyone is going to cooperate; I know you don’t believe it, but everyone including their brother is going to cooperate against each other and you,” said Kidd. “In every drug case I’ve ever heard about, that’s what happened. I know it’s hard for you to believe that, but it will happen.”

Kidd saw Larry’s face turn ashen. On the notes Kidd was taking of their conversation he jotted, “Visibly shaken.” By the time Larry left the meeting, his last lingering doubt was gone.

He met again with Frannie that night in Fairmount Park. Frannie explained that he was going to Florida the next day. The FBI was prepared to spring the trap on Diego Arbelaez, Frannie’s supplier.

“You’re not going to leave while I’m away, are you?” asked Fran.

“No, no, don’t worry,” said Larry, smiling.

“God damn it, you are!” he said, stomping off a few feet in mock anger. “I’m not going to see you again, am I?”

“Would I do that to you, Frannie?”

“You fucker! You’re the only one who’s going to get away with this whole thing, you know that? If you go, I hope I never see you again. I want to know that at least somebody got away with this.”

On Friday, October 26, Larry was back in court. Wearing a gray pinstripe suit and a white shirt with a button down collar, with big Tom Bergstrom by his side, Larry faced Judge Louis C. Bechtle for scheduling of his trial on tax evasion charges. In addition to the five drug conspiracy charges, Larry had been indicted earlier in the month on five counts of tax fraud. The government estimated that he owed at least $545,000 in back taxes on his drug earnings. In addition to the possible life sentence for drug trafficking, he faced a potential twenty-five years of imprisonment on tax charges, five years for each violation. It was clear Larry would get little sympathy from Judge Bechtle, a judge known for his demanding courtroom standards and blunt demeanor.

“It’s obvious Dr. Lavin didn’t make this money doing root canals,” the judge commented.

With Larry and Tom in court that day were Mark Stewart and his attorney. Ever since late 1981, when Larry had refused to pump any more money into the Arena, his relationship with Mark had gradually deteriorated. In all, Larry believed he had lost about two million dollars on his investments with Mark. The record company had gone bankrupt, the Barclay Building project in Atlantic City was still tied up in litigation, there was a continuing probe of the Arena arson that had held up the anticipated insurance settlement, the limo
company was under investigation. Along the way there had been other, smaller ventures Larry had bankrolled for Mark. All of them had failed. Larry’s estimate was that he had lost several million dollars in all through his association with Mark. And he blamed his legal troubles on his former mentor. If it hadn’t been for the arson of the Arena, and forgetting to pay Frankie Smith’s royalties, Larry was convinced he would never have gotten caught.

Last summer, he had even decided to gather taped evidence against Mark. If there was one person in the world he would consider giving evidence against, it was Stewart. His plan was to lure Mark into an incriminating telephone conversation and capture it on tape. From a pay phone near his dental office, Larry had clapped a suction-cup microphone over the speaker end of the phone, and started the tape as Mark came on the phone making a pitch for more money. As Larry remembered the conversation later, he began by baiting Mark.

“Don’t you realize that you have caused this problem for everyone?” Larry said.

“Me!” said Mark.

“That’s how everyone perceives it,” said Larry. “Because of your not paying Frankie Smith a lousy thirty grand, all these people are going to go to jail.”

“Well, if that’s the way you see it,” said Mark, as if to say,
“What horseshit.”

“What other way is there to see it, Mark?”

And Mark had launched into Larry, arguing that if it weren’t for his continued drug dealing, there never would have been the kind of heat they were all experiencing. No one would have cared enough to look at things that hard.

Larry had become so agitated in this chicken-versus-egg dispute that he had knocked the suction cup loose from the phone. None of the conversation was recorded.

Now they were both in court together, facing the consequences of their combined mistakes, each feeling victimized by the other. They had not seen each other for many months. Larry knew that Mark had been financially ruined by the investigation and tax indictment. Still, as they rode down on the same elevator after the hearing, Mark was his usual optimistic self. He told Larry that none of what he had been charged with was illegal.

“I can beat this,” he said.

Larry whispered to Mark, “I know what I have to do now.”

“What?” Mark asked.

“You’ll see.”

Mark asked Larry if he had the original papers they had signed in 1980. Larrv said he didn’t.

Then Mark asked Larry for two hundred dollars.

Larry had about fifty dollars in his wallet, and his first instinct was to reach for it. Instead, he stopped himself.

“No,” said Larry. “Sorry, I didn’t bring my wallet.”

Later he congratulated himself. At last he had learned to say no to Mark Stewart.

Tom was optimistic about the tax case. He explained that the dates on the IRS charges didn’t coincide with the dates on the drug charges, and that since the tax case depended on the drug case, there was a good chance that the discrepancies would topple it. Larry said that it seemed so strange and somehow unfair to him that he could be sent away to prison for twenty-five years for failing to report illegal earnings: If he had reported the money, he would have just been advertising his crime! Wasn’t it enough to catch and punish him for selling cocaine without throwing on additional charges for what amounted to not turning himself in? Tom asked Larry to set up a meeting with him on Wednesday so that he could more fully brief him on the purpose of his petitions and pretrial motions. There was much to be hopeful about. Larry said he would call.

Late in the following week, Chuck Reed got a tip that Larry Lavin was leaving. There was a moving truck out in front of his house on Timber Lane.

Swiftly, FBI agents descended on the neighborhood, parking cars at both ends of the block and staking out properties around Larry and Marcia’s big white house. Agents phoned the people next door and asked if they would turn on the lights over their garage. Since the garage was on the side of their house closest to the Lavins’ driveway, it would help the agents see what was going on.

The truck was in the driveway. Men were moving furniture out through the garage and loading it. Larry and Marcia were nowhere to be seen. Ken Weidler was supervising the loading.

So instead of closing in, the agents waited in the darkness as the work proceeded. When the truck was full, and Ken and another man got in and drove off, agents fell in behind. With any luck, the truck would lead them to Larry.

But instead, the truck led them straight to Ken Weidler’s house.

Agents watched the truck through the night, hoping that Ken would get back in and lead them to Larry. But the next morning, Ken and his friends began unloading the contents into his own house. So Chuck and Sid moved in.

“Larry’s gone,” Ken told Chuck. He did not know exactly when he had left, and he had no idea where he had gone.

Ken said his friend and dental partner had called and invited him to help himself to anything left in the house. There was no crime in that, was there?

When Larry didn’t show up for the appointment with his lawyer Wednesday, Tom called Larry’s dental office. The receptionist said that Dr. Lavin was not in, and asked if he would like to speak to Dr. Weidler. Tom said, “No, thanks, I’ll try him at home.”

There was no answer on Larry’s home phone.

So Tom called the dental office back and said he would like to speak to Dr. Weidler.

“Larry’s gone, but I think he plans to get back in touch with you,” said Ken. Larry had definitely moved out. Ken did not know where he and Marcia had gone.

Tom asked if Larry could be talked out of it.

Ken said he wasn’t sure, but that he thought it was possible. But he didn’t know how to reach Larry.

Tom urged Ken to have Larry contact him right away if he called again.

On Friday, Tom met with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Terry Batty and Dennis Wilson to discuss Larry’s case. Tom said he hoped to convince his client to consider negotiating a plea. He outlined a “best-case scenario” where Larry would plead guilty to the lesser drug conspiracy charges and agree to cooperate fully with the government in return for dropping the charge under Section 848, the “kingpin statute.” To his surprise, the government lawyers seemed interested. Tom was pleased. It meant Larry had a chance at the deal he had described as their best hope.

As the meeting ended, the prosecutors asked Tom if Larry had moved out of his house in Devon. Tom said that he had, but that he expected to be hearing from Larry soon, and he believed he would be able to deliver Larry to court for the next scheduled hearing. With news of the government’s interest in the proposed plea bargain, Tom believed he had good reason to hope that Larry could be coaxed out of hiding.

When he returned to his office, there was a letter on his desk. It had a Philadelphia postmark and no return address.

“Dear Tom,” the letter began, in a long sloping script in blue ballpoint on yellow lined paper. Tom recognized his client’s handwriting.

“I’m sorry to have to write you this letter. I’m on vacation; an opportunity presented itself which I could not pass up. Please realize that I have every bit of confidence in you and in Don. The motions which you filed and the ideas you had were all creative and sure to
have some merit. The problem being that even if the motions worked, the growing mound of testimony would have been overwhelming. I really felt that the best I could hope for without cooperating would be five to ten years in jail. If at all possible I would like you to continue handling my affairs. I will be in touch. I instructed my mother-in-law Agnes Osborn to call you if she has any problem. Please pass this on to Don. Again I
greatly appreciate
everything you and Don have done for me; unfortunately this is just a terrible predicament. The importance of being with my family compared to practicing dentistry heavily influenced my decision to take this vacation at this time.