Lee L

One day, a couple of years after Bobby Mountain took off for points west, I get a call from him asking me if I want to meet a friend of his from Idaho. I say sure and about a week later, a guy pull in driving an old beat-up pick-up with a cap. The guy gets out and introduces himself as Lee. Now Lee stood about 5'6" with a mountaineer's face and an attitude to match. The guy had served the country in Vietnam driving supply trucks on the front lines, watched a lot of guys bite the bullet, and had an impossible time re-adjusting when he got back. He was a fly fisherman, deer hunter, back-woodsman type of guy and despite his hick town image, was a pretty savvy guy. Being recommended by Bobby was all I needed to have a level of trust that justified giving Lee whatever he wanted (within reason) and wait for however long it took him to move it and get back with the cash. Also, I was very aware that a pick-up truck had a much larger capacity than a car. Another motivating factor was that Lee could move most anything and I had found those types of distributors to be invaluable in securing the bigger loads.

Lee would show up about once every six weeks and you never knew what he was bringing with him. Once he showed up with a crazy beautiful German Shepherd puppy that he had brought as a gift for us. Another time he gifted a spectacular piece of scrimshaw that I still have today. Not only was he moving things back out west, but he had a solid circle down in Kentucky and another one in the Dakotas. This added another dimension to the possibilities since he'd show up from places that nobody had a clue about, take on major projects, and be gone until the deal was done.

On top of that, a few years into the relationship, I got connected out on the coast and was able to call on Lee to drive major weight coast to coast with the promise of him getting a decent chunk. He did it quite a few times and did it flawlessly. It was easy to see why too... After driving army trucks under fire, there wasn't much that would rattle Lee. He was as solid as they came.

Unfortunately, as was sometimes the case, he took on a big load that was just too lousy to get sold and we spent almost 18 months getting him enough decent shit to mix it with. In the end, I had to lower the price to just about anything the market would bear just to recoup anything at all. I think he actually buried some of it just to make it go away...

After a few years, Lee bought a convenience store in his small town and seemed to be on the road to a mellow retirement. That never happened because his Kentucky friends got in trouble, implicated him and he spent some time in a serious facility. When he got out, his business was shot and he didn't have many skills to do much else so he started all over again. This one time, he showed up unexpectedly during a drought and instead of wanting stuff, he's got a file drawer of Lebanese sacks. When I brought them around to my people, I was something of a hero since nobody had anything whatsoever and this stuff was both high-quality and priced low. The usual connections were all over me to find out where the shit had come from but I kept Lee as a secret and there was no way I was getting cut out.

Sadly, when I was beset by misfortune, Lee never paid me the hundred fifty grand that I'm figuring he owed me. On one hand, I was hot as a firecracker and on the other hand, Lee was probably driven by a combination of fear and greed when he didn't finish the deal. At least as sad was what happened to him back around 2002 when his whole scene collapsed and they found a million in cash buried on his Idaho property. He fought long and hard but ended up getting a stiff sentence under the guidelines. By the way, the sentencing guidelines changed the entire picture for those in the business... In November of 1987, sentencing flexibility was taken out of the hands of the judges and was reduced to a mathematical formula. Instead of serving 20% of the sentence, most convictions were mathematically stupidly stiff. Even with good behavior, there was no way around having to serve 85% of the sentence. And the sentence itself was predetermined by more mathematical formulas. Unfortunately, the formula meant that you could go away for life if you got nailed with enough weight. Up till then, nobody went away for 30 years for a load of pot. It was just unthinkable. Thank you Ronald Reagan.

http://www.famm.org/UnderstandSentencing/WhatAreMandatoryMinimums.aspx

http://www.famm.org/UnderstandSentencing/WhatAreMandatoryMinimums/HistoryofMandatoryMinimums/HistoryTimeline/The1986AntiDrugAbuseAct.aspx

I looked last night and it appears that Lee became pretty popular with the feds over the last few years...

http://www.justice.gov/usao/id/public_info/pr09/may/jones05152009.html

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/seattle091306.html

http://www.lakeoswegoreview.com/news/story.php?story_id=115818201930926500