Doctor Dealer by Mark Bowden

Author:Mark Bowden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2001-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

It’ll Just Be a Tax Case

Mark’s handiwork was on the front page of the Inquirer metro page Sunday morning:

King Arena Damaged By Blaze

Homes evacuated near W. Phila. site

It gave Larry the creeps. Mark had blown even this. According to the newspaper account, there had been two alarms. The fire had started at about one in the morning and had burned for an hour and a half. Part of the roof had caved in and most of the Forty-fifth Street side had been destroyed. The damage would have been worse, but before an alarm was even sounded for it, the fire was noticed by a city fire fighter on a truck speeding to another blaze. Good luck or bad, depending on your point of view.

A few days later, Mark assured Larry that despite the city fire department’s alert and valiant effort, the building was a total loss for insurance purposes. The insurance payoff, $1.25 million, would enable Mark to more than pay off Larry’s investment.

So Mark immediately asked to borrow some of the settlement money in advance. He had this other project working, see, and with just the right push . . .

On New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1981, there was a long line of black, white, and silver limos in front of La Truffe, a trendy French restaurant on Front Street, the first street west of Penn’s Landing, the renovated waterfront area on the city’s oldest, easternmost edge. Suzanne thought it wasn’t a good idea to flaunt their youthful affluence with such display, but David was in an especially good mood.

They were engaged. David had invited more than twenty family members and friends to an extravagant banquet. His father and stepmother were there, and friends from the record company and the cocaine business. David wore a well-trimmed sparse brown beard and moustache, and dressed in a neat tailor-made black tux. Suzanne wore a strapless gown of black silk with flouncy billows of fabric across the chest and down one side. Her straight brown hair was cut in a shag, with straight bangs down to her eyebrows. There were three tall candles in between the floral arrangements that were spaced down the long table. In front of each plate were four crystal goblets, because tonight David’s friends were not just going to drink wine, they were going to sample a tableful of rare vintages, some of them more than thirty years old. La Truffe’s chefs had prepared an eight-course meal, each course a special gourmet creation. David wanted it to be, simply, the finest meal his friends and family had ever eaten. It was certainly the most expensive. The wines alone cost nearly ten thousand dollars.

An unspoken part of the celebration that New Year’s Eve involved Willie Harcourt, who sat at the opposite end of the long table from David. Of course, not all of those present knew that David’s largess came from cocaine dealing (although it was common knowledge among the restaurant staff). In the weeks of planning for this event, David and Willie had discussed a transfer of power.

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