Denial is a Very Strong Anesthetic

So it’s 1988... and things are happening in every which way... the scene is essentially out of hand. Quality is at an all time high and prices are as well. The business is clicking on all cylinders until... the unthinkable happens.

A courier for the hash smuggler goes to Switzerland and is picked up by Interpol. Whether he was on a list, had phony paperwork, said the wrong thing to the wrong banker... I never found out. What I did find out, though, was that he was interviewed by the US DEA and spilled his guts without seeing a lawyer. I didn’t know it at the time but when the smuggler met the courier at LaGuardia Airport that June afternoon, he was taken down by a horde of agents and carted off to a federal jail.

As soon as I heard the news, I realized this was some serious shit and there was a real possibility that I’d get drawn into this on some level. The attitude of people who knew what had happened ranged from disbelief to resignation to denial. Denial was a common reaction since having $40 million dollars makes one feel pretty damned insulated. “This can’t be serious...” and I specifically remember meeting his wife (while I was in a high state of paranoia) saying “Oh there’s nothing to worry about he’ll be out on Monday...” Me? I’m thinking there’s no way he’s getting out any time soon. First of all, he was a fugitive for over 15 years since he ran out on a court date in the early 1970s. Second, they had no idea who he was since he hadn’t ever been printed. Third, he wasn’t known under his real name. There was a fourth and fifth but the bottom line was the smuggler was not hitting the streets on Monday no matter what.  Hell, even I didn't know his real name.

And this was like a sharp knife plunged into the heart of the scene. Suddenly, all the people surrounding his schemes were vulnerable, the lawyers were circling like vultures and lots of people were in the wind. I felt a lot of anxiety but had hopes that nobody could prove my involvement. After all, I gave him the dough in person... no witnesses... and I kept this quiet at my end. I did know the courier as an acquaintance but only in passing at parties and the occasional hand-off. We weren’t tight and he didn’t know much about my business. I’m hoping that even if I’m drawn into the case, it’s as a dealer only.

Denial is a very strong anesthetic.

A few days after the LaGuardia arrest, I get a call to meet Nadamucho to ‘discuss things’. Now one thing about Nadamucho is that he never ‘discussed’ anything. That’s part of the back story of his name. He was so soft-spoken that you were never sure if he said anything you thought you heard. It was just Nadamucho's way. If you remember, he was the one who introduced me to this scene (as well as others) and he wasn’t a socializer. If he asked to see you, there was a good reason. Lots of people were taking long vacations around this disaster but I wasn’t in any position to just disappear. We owned the house, had a newborn child, had a mortgage, paid taxes, owned other houses, land in the Caribbean, commercial properties, etc. etc. We were citizens and if we were going to stand up to this, we couldn’t run.

So I agreed to meet him at a diner where Northern Boulevard overpasses the Cross Island Parkway in Queens. I get there about 45 minutes early and sit in my car in the diner parking lot, watching carefully (like all those smart guys I’d read about in books and seen in movies) to make sure he: a) isn’t setting me up; and b) isn’t being followed. Of course, this was insane because if he was setting me up, an early arrival would tell me nothing and if he was being followed, I was going to get screwed anyway. But hey... in for a dime in for a dollar and I sit there. Funny thing was I am sure I pinned several dope deals going down in the lot that morning. A good indication is when one guy drives a pickup into the lot and a different guy drives it away...

The time comes and Nadamucho pulls in alone and walks into the diner. I get out and join him, eyes everywhere and paranoia raging. We sit down at a booth and look at each other... After minimal small talk, ‘This is a big problem.’ I offer and he nods, mumbling something about he’s seen bigger but this was definitely up there. I’m straining to listen when he reaches in his jacket, takes out an envelope and sets it on the table. ‘We need to empty the big guy's boxes before the Feds get there.’ he says. ‘Boxes?’ I reply, not getting it at first. “3 Safety deposit boxes and the Zurich vault.” he explains adding patiently. I look at him, trying to absorb this information. Is he asking me to empty safe deposit boxes and a vault? Really? Me? A nice Jewish kid from Queens? He wants me to rob banks?

"What's in them?" I ask. "Everything." he answers. "If the Feds get this stuff we're all going away."

My heart is pounding and I’m trying to keep it together when he excuses himself to take a piss. Now I’m sitting there with this envelope on the table for about five minutes when it dawns on me that he isn’t coming back. I look out in the lot and his car is gone. It’s the last time I ever saw him.

 Still sitting there, I tried to absorb what just happened. To this point, I was mainly in a CYA mode... a mode I was fairly familiar with. On a handful of occasions, bad things had happened and I had escaped involvement even when things looked extraordinarily bleak. Even the dentist kept me in the clear during the Nuvia-Jamaica Bay episode. Loads had been fluke-busted and I managed to shoulder a burden but still avoided the attention of the enforcement folks. Nadamucho, however, had just put me in an awful position. How could ignore this? My mind was racing... weighing the options. If I did nothing, and the Feds got to whatever was in these boxes, I was clearly part of the ‘all’ in ‘we’re all going away.’ If I did something and things went really bad, I was probably going to be in deeper shit than I was already. Did he tell anyone else that he was giving me the envelope? And what was in the envelope anyway? I looked down at it... picked it up... felt its weight... clearly the contents were off balance and there was more than paper in it. I put it down, visualized myself opening it and knew right then that there was no way I could ignore this.

I had my own set of safe deposit boxes in various banks. What if he had a box in the same bank as me? Would they know me? Clearly, whatever I was going to do had to be done quickly. I knew the routine at the banks. You only need your key and to be a signatory. If they asked, you could show them an ID but they almost never looked at it. If you had the key and were on the paperwork, they simply opened the box-door and you pulled out your box. Some of the clerks would pull it out for you but you could circumvent that with “It’s okay, I’ll take it.” Then you’d bring it to a little closet-sized room with a desk, a chair and a lamp. Once the door was closed, you were basically good to go. The boxes came in all sizes and I remember designating them in the amount of cash you could stash in them. The smallest still would take close to $100,000. And the biggest? The big ones held close to a million dollars in hundreds. We rarely, if ever, got to that because so much of the dough was in smaller bills. But either way, in my mind, boxes meant cash and lots of it. The key thing was that Nadamucho obviously knew that there was more than cash at stake here.

As it turns out, the envelope had all the necessary information, complete with signature examples for each set of bank paperwork. The kicker was the vault... the big enchilada... at the Zurich Depository on Northern Boulevard. To get into this place, you not only had to have the key but there were also special ID documents and a secret password. I quickly conclude that this needs a quick plan that will get the job done and somehow, keep me from personally having to walk into the banks or the depository. It doesn’t take more than a few minute to figure out that there’s only one person I knew that could carry this off without freaking out. I knew someone with the balls, brains, brass and total insanity to make this happen.  I needed Pfeiffer!!