Dirty White Read online

  “You were dealing,” accused Farr. “Setting up a buy with $100,000. Where the hell did you get $100,000?”

  “Friend,” said the boy.

  “Liar!” said Farr, despite the earlier determination. “You’re a trafficker, infecting other kids like you’re infected.”

  “No!” said Howard, defiantly. “Didn’t sell to anyone who didn’t know what they were doing.”

  “Is that your defense, your justification!” demanded Farr, disgusted.

  “If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have.”

  “Jesus!” said Farr. How much, he wondered, was he responsible?

  Howard released his legs, carefully, as if he feared any different position might cause him pain. He turned to look more directly at his father, and he did it leaning forward, urgently. “Help me!” came the sudden plea. “Tell them I hurt … that I need something. Just to get me over today. Just for today.”

  Farr wanted physically to hit him. He’d rarely struck him, not even when as a tiny kid, he’d done stupid, irritating things. Maybe he should have. He said, “I’m going to help you. But not by trying to get you any drugs. I’m going to get you better.”

  “I can get better, if you get me something. Fix me up, just for today.” He smiled, conspiratorially. “I’ll tell you where to go. Say you’ve got an appointment but that you want to come back to see me later. Didn’t search you when you came in, did they …?”

  “Stop it!” said Farr. “For Christ’s sake, stop it! Don’t you realize what’s happened! Where you are? What could happen to you? You’ve destroyed everything. Your schooling. Your future. Everything. You could go to jail, for years. And all you can think about is a fix!”

  “Need help,” insisted the boy, looking away, his mind blocked by a single thought.

  Farr had not expected this. He had not necessarily disbelieved the FBI men, but he’d thought that when he got to the boy there would be some reasonable explanation, an excuse or mitigation. But not this—not this shaking, smelly whining thing who was supposed to be his son, who wasn’t sorry or contrite about what he’d done, but interested only in sticking something in his arm or up his nose. Farr’s revulsion was physical, an acid sourness at the back of his throat, and he knew he easily could have been sick and added to the stink in the room. “You thought about what’s going to happen?”

  There was another uninterested shrug. “Busted,” said the boy, in apathetic acceptance. “Court, I guess. Jail, like you said.”

  “Doesn’t that mean anything?” demanded Farr, incredulously.

  “Haven’t thought about it.”

  It was pointless, decided Farr. Howard was beyond reason; beyond reach. He needed treatment—long, professional treatment—and then maybe they’d be able to reestablish something between them, although at the moment Farr didn’t know what that something was.

  But he’d do anything—everything—to get Howard better and to keep him better. He stared across the room at the boy, who had returned to his fetal position and was rocking back and forth once more. What, Farr wondered, would be involved in that commitment? He stood abruptly, and said, “I meant what I said, about helping you.”

  For the first time, there was something like an animated reaction from his son. Howard unfolded himself and came up from the bed in a single movement, reaching out for his father’s arm. “Knew you’d do it!” he said excitedly. “There is a bar, on Hanover, near the Paul Revere statue … red awning … Guy’s always in the third booth … Knows me. Just say you’re from me … it’s called …”

  “Shut up!” shouted Farr, jerking himself uncomfortably from his son’s grip. “That’s not what I meant. I meant proper help.”

  “Bastard!” Howard shouted back. “Fucking bastard!”

  Farr tensed, the fist already made, positively straining against hitting out. The commitment was going to take a lot; he hoped he would be able to sustain it. He knocked against the door, not feeling any personal embarrassment at his anxiety to get away. Brennan must have been waiting directly outside because it opened at once. Farr walked out without saying anything to his son, hurrying some way along the corridor before coming abruptly to a stop. He inhaled deeply, taking the first full breath for a long time.

  “Difficult, isn’t it?”

  Farr was aware of Seymour beside him. “Yes,” he said shortly.

  “We arranged a meeting while you were in there,” said the FBI man. “District attorney in charge of the case. And the doctor I told you about earlier.”

  “Thanks,” said the broker sincerely.

  When Brennan came up from the detention area, Farr walked between the two men to an elevator which took them up three floors. Here the offices were less boxlike and didn’t conform to the beehive pattern. Brennan led the way into a spacious suite where two men were already waiting, making the introductions as Farr entered. The district attorney was a balding, rotund man named Alvin Schuster. The doctor, who wore a sagged tweed sports jacket and shapeless trousers, was introduced as William Silver.

  “The Bureau is proposing an unusual course of action,” said Schuster at once.

  “Yes,” said Farr.

  “And one in which I understand you’re prepared to cooperate?”

  “Yes,” said the broker again.

  “This comes down to plea bargaining, I suppose,” said the lawyer. “I don’t like plea bargaining. Never have. I think criminals should be prosecuted for the crimes they’ve committed and properly punished. From the evidence I’ve considered, your son is a criminal, Mr. Farr. I could make a case against him and I’m quite sure I could get a conviction, a jail sentence for a number of years. What I’m being asked to agree to means your son is going to get off—go free, instead of being properly punished for a crime of which I believe he’s as guilty as hell …”

  “I understand all this,” said Farr, unhappy with the lecture.

  “Understand something else,” said Schuster. “I’ve been told, assured, that letting him go will be worthwhile because, as a result, an operation will be mounted that’s going to hurt and punish criminals far bigger than him. If that happens, maybe I can see the justification for what I’m being asked to allow. But I want to hear it from you: I want you to tell me that you can set up and front this operation, and that at the end of it I’m going to see the sort of convictions I want.”

  Frowning, Farr looked away from the district attorney, toward Brennan. Then he turned back to the lawyer and said, “I can’t give you that undertaking! How can you expect me to? I can set up an investment company and run it to make people a lot of money, but there’s no way I can guarantee that those people will be drug dealers whom at some stage you’ll be able to arrest and charge.”

  “We’ve got some people,” came in Brennan, hurriedly. “People in Colombia and here in America that these organized-crime guys trust. Once things are properly set up, we can guide them to Farr.”

  “You sure of that?” asked Schuster, still doubtful.

  “Absolutely,” replied the FBI man. “How else could we make it work?”

  Schuster gazed down at a dossier lying before him on his desk. Farr supposed it was the file on Howard. After several moments, the attorney raised his eyes again and said, “There’s a lot of uncertainty; too much uncertainty.”

  Farr was confused by the encounter. From the New York approach, he’d imagined everything arranged. Now it didn’t look that way at all—which meant that, if Schuster did not agree, there would be the prosecution and the public humiliation and Howard really would be destroyed, further destroyed than he was at present. As quickly as Brennan before him, Farr said, “If the Bureau can guide them to me, I can do the rest. I can guarantee that.”

  Schuster remained doubtful. “If I proceed now, I get a conviction. Your way, I’m gambling.”

  “For a hell of a prize,” said Seymour, entering the debate. “Prosecutions of people like Howard Farr are so commonplace they rate a paragraph in the newspapers. And they�
�ve been replaced on the streets before the first arraignment: they don’t matter a damn. We’re going for the important people.”

  Maybe the argument to him in New York had been a rehearsal for this meeting, thought Farr.

  Schuster said dogmatically, “The law’s the law.”

  “To be used to the best effect to protect the public,” pounced Brennan. “If we get this operation right, we’ll be safeguarding hundreds more than we would be by taking Howard Farr off the streets.”

  The man nodded sideways, indicating Farr. “And he’s off the streets anyway. His father knows the score now and can get him into care. There’s no risk of his setting up again if you agree not to prosecute.”

  “Want me to tell you something?” said the district attorney rhetorically. “There were two ‘ifs’ in what you just said, and the first was the more important: if you get the operation right.”

  “We won’t be able to try unless you let us,” said Seymour.

  Schuster looked directly at Farr. “He addicted?”

  “Badly so, from what little I’ve seen downstairs in the detention rooms,” agreed Farr.

  “You want to put him through some form of detoxification?”

  “Yes.”

  Schuster went back to the unopened dossier. “I just talked about gambling,” he said. “I’m not a gambler. I like black and white, with a clear, definable line drawn down the middle. I’m not going to gamble. I’ll hedge my bet. I’ll agree not to proceed at the moment, to enable the kid to undergo some treatment course. That’ll give you time to set up the sort of operation you’ve been talking about—and time, too, for me to be convinced you’re getting the bigtime clients into the net. But I’m going to sit as tight as hell upon everything, and if I’m not satisfied after a reasonable period that it’s working, I’ll press charges against him …” Confirming Farr’s earlier impression, Schuster tapped the document folder in front of him. “I’m leaving this file open. I’m marking it pending, for possible prosecution, and I’ll make that prosecution the moment I decide you’ve fouled up …” The lawyer paused again, looking toward the physician, who had so far remained silent. “How long, for a detoxification?”

  “There’s no established period,” said Silver. “I’ve seen him and I’ve made a preliminary examination. The urine samples show a high level of toxicity. With any cure—and cure isn’t a word I like using because I don’t think an addictively inclined person is ever cured of his habit, any more than an alcoholic ever ceases to be an alcoholic—it comes down to the motivation of the person concerned. If he wants to be taken off, then it’s possible. If he doesn’t, then forget it.”

  “I’ll not let it run forever,” insisted Schuster. “I’m prepared to give it six months, which I think is damned generous. If you haven’t anything positive to show me in six months, then Howard Farr gets taken to court …” He looked carefully from Brennan to Seymour and then to Farr. “Understand?”

  “Perfectly,” accepted Brennan.

  Farr had lost immediate interest in the dispute, concentrating instead on the doctor. “You saying that Howard might never be cured?”

  “Yes,” said Silver. “You get the impression down there this afternoon that he wanted to be?”

  “No,” answered Farr honestly. “All he wanted was for me to arrange some sort of fix for him.”

  “Then he’s got a long way to go,” said the doctor. He allowed the pause. “You both have, if you’re going to stand by him.”

  “Of course I’m going to stand by him!” said Farr, experiencing the same indignation he’d felt at the attitude from his son immediately after he entered the detention room.

  “Let me tell you something,” said Silver. “Drug addiction isn’t like any other illness—not something for which you can feel the sort of sympathy you might for any other sickness. Drug addicts will cheat and lie and deceive and steal and promise not to do it again when they get caught—and the moment you blink they’ll do it all over again.”

  An idea occurred to Farr. “Do you know of any residential facility here, in Massachusetts …” He hesitated. “Secure residential facility?”

  “There’s a place in Eastham,” said Silver, at once.

  “I want him committed there, by force or by law if necessary,” said Farr, talking more to the district attorney than to Silver. “You’ve got an open file on him, so use it. I don’t care what the binding order is, so long as it is binding. And he knows it. If I’m going to meet your six-month deadline, I won’t have time personally to care for him, and I don’t know how to, anyway. If he hasn’t got the will to detoxify himself, then I want the will enforced upon him.”

  “You want a legal commitment?” asked Schuster.

  “Yes,” said Farr. “I want him better.”

  To the doctor, Schuster said, “Could you get him into Eastham?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll make all the legal arrangements,” promised Schuster, coming back to the investment broker. “But I meant what I said. Six months.”

  As they walked back toward the elevator, to leave the building, Farr said to Brennan, “There’s a bar on Hanover Street, near the Paul Revere statue. I don’t know its name but it’s got a red awning. There’s a trafficker who always sits in the third booth …”

  Brennan consulted his watch. “We should have hit it about two hours ago,” he said.

  Farr turned, to face the man. “You were listening!”

  “The room’s wired, Mr. Farr,” said Brennan. He nodded sideways, to his partner. “Like Jim told you in New York, we’ll cut corners and pull shitty tricks if it means we can win.”

  They reached the ground floor and started walking out toward the now darkened streets. “You set this up, didn’t you?” said Farr, remembering something else about the New York meeting and the extent of the detail they appeared to know about him. “You said there’d been previous surveillance. You knew where he got the $100,000 from because you’d seen him pull previous deals. You just let him run while you worked out a scheme where I’d be useful to you, and when you were ready, you pulled him in. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  At the exit Brennan stopped, to meet the accusation. “Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly it. Like I said. Any shitty trick that’s necessary.”

  * * *

  There had not been many meetings between Farr and the Dean of Admissions, just information occasions, for the future, so Farr hardly knew Wilbur Jennings. The academic was a dried-out, aloof man with thinning white hair who’d developed the mannerism of repeatedly lowering his head in apparent reproof to stare out over his half-moon spectacles at whomever he was addressing. Farr thought that the funereal black of his suit was the only color in which he could imagine the man.

  Farr rehearsed the story, wanting to minimize as much as possible any action the school might consider taking against his son. Sure—for six months at least—of there being no publicly announced charges, he omitted completely any mention of Howard’s trafficking and dealing, limiting himself to the disclosure of the boy’s addiction and the need for treatment.

  Showing neither surprise nor shock, Jennings did not speak for several minutes after Farr had finished.

  “You’ve my sympathy,” he said at last.

  Farr wondered what the man’s reaction would be to discovering his sin of omission. “Thank you.”

  “Drugs seem to be the scourge of modern society.” Jennings delivered the platitude in a sonorous, unmodulated voice.

  “It’s always easy to imagine it happening to someone else’s child, never one’s own,” said Farr, in matching platitude.

  “You said you sought my help and understanding?”

  “I want to reduce as much as possible the harm that might be done to Howard’s schooling.”

  “This is the final term at St. Marks,” reminded Jennings. “He has to graduate to be able to enter here.”

  “He’s in treatment,” said Farr. “The final examinations will be impo
ssible this semester.”

  “Then it’s impossible,” insisted the dean.

  “The doctors say he could be cured in six months,” exaggerated Farr.

  Jennings pursed his lips, “If he could cram a remedial course, obtain a General Education Certificate, he could possibly enter for the semester after the one that we anticipated.”

  Farr felt a surge of relief. “Thank you,” he said.

  “I’ve set out the possibilities,” qualified Jennings. “Howard has to be able to do it.”

  That, thought Farr, was the problem.

  5

  Howard Farr was formally charged with conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. After consultation with Alvin Schuster, his father signed the undertaking that he had no objection to a preliminary in-camera hearing and waived the right for legal representation.

  This meant that a closed hearing was possible in judge’s chambers, with only the district attorney, the arresting FBI agents, Farr and Howard present.

  Schuster gave the briefest outline of the alleged charge against the boy and said he was making a commitment request, with which Farr agreed, to a rehabilitation sanatorium to enable treatment and that he wanted a sine die adjournment of the case, which he nevertheless intended to pursue.

  There had been an earlier consultation between Schuster and the judge, a surprisingly motherly woman named Telford. At the hearing she made Howard stand before her and asked him if he understood what was being said; Farr sat hot with embarrassment at the stumbling, practically incoherent responses from a boy who had once been so intelligent. The judge then called Farr to ask if he was in agreement with the course being requested by the prosecution, and Farr said that he was. She returned to Howard, formally ordering the committal, and then, for a full five minutes—the time seemed much longer in the confined space of her chambers—she lectured Howard upon the penalties and of her reaction if he attempted to abscond. She stopped frequently, demanding confirmation that he understood. Each time, there was a mumble of words inaudible except to the woman.