[PDF]Easy Money

Y





aon
ai


E


I


Also by Donald Goddard
* Donald Goddard


Blimey! Another Book About London
EASY MONEY





Joey Er
The Last Days of Dietrich Bonhoeffer


PANTHER
GRANADA PUBLISHING
London Toronto Sydney New York





Published by Granada Publishing Limited To Natalie
in Panther Books 1980


ISBN O 586 04919 3


First published in Great Britain by Granada Publishing
in Hart-Davis, MacGibbon Ltd 1979
Copyright © Donald Goddard 1978 5


Granada Publishing Limited
Frogmore, St Albans, Herts AL2 2NF
and


3 Upper James Street, London WıR 4BP

866 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA

117 York Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

100 Skyway Avenue, Rexdale, Ontario, M9W 3A6, Canada
PO Box 84165, Greenside, 2034 Johannesburg, South Africa
CML Centre, Queen & Wyndham, Auckland 1, New Zealand


Made and printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd
Bungay, Suffolk.

Set in Linotype Pilgrim


This book is sold subject to the condition that it
shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent
re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.


Granada ®
Granada Publishing ®








More significant, perhaps, is the inside view it affords of
a social revolution. In the past ten years, the so-called Black
Mafia and its ee coun rts have largely
taken over the inner-city street rackets the Mob, up-
setting a balance of power unchallenged since the thirties,
when the original Luciano first organized crime into a
mainly Italian cartel,

In telling the story, I have tried to skirt the statistical
wrangle about the extent of drug misuse. In 1977, Edward

y Epstein argued, in Agency of Fear, that Richard Nixon

or political reasons had deliberately overstated the prob-
lems of narcotics addiction. In 1975, George C, Richardson
argued, in Get Up, You're Not Dead, that Richard Nixon for
political reasons had deliberately understated the problems
of narcotics addiction.

As each supported his contention with a wealth of per-
suasive evidence, I am —— to believe that Nixon
did both. He was not the first politician to abuse statistics
for private, even sinister, purposes, and drug misuse is by no
means the first social issue to be used as a political football.
No one can possibly deny, however, that the illegal drug
traffic is an issue, and | am here concerned more with the
nature of it than with the size of it (although the figures
mentioned are often astoundin

My chief ‘connection’ fos the book: ek dea Ca
Ramos himself, who came to know Frank Matthews well


7





a Se -. e
> 7 = < ..


>


while planning the $100 million deal = so well, in fact, that
the ‘Black — pos cre (The most
— — Dillinger, Matthews is still a fugi-
tive, haying comfortably eluded an international manhunt
for five years.) As George is rarely at a loss for words, I have
let him tell his own part of the story, breaking it off at
intervals to fit each —— Cha AAA
context.

I am also deeply indebted to William P. Callahan, presi-
dent and director of United Intelligence, Inc. (Unitel), the
Een en
special in ‘white-collar’ crime. New York
Regional . Criminal Division, of the U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice, he ran the federal grand jury that un-
ravelled the Matthews affair, and with great kindness and
patience steered me through the tangles of a case involving
some two hundred city, county, state, and federal law-
enforcement agencies across the nation and overseas.

My thanks are also due to Assistant U.S. Attorney David
De Petris, Eastern District, New York, and Special U.S. At-
torney Charles Jaffee, Southern District, Florida, who were
both as helpful as the circumstances of a continuing in-
vestigation allowed them to be.

For the rest, I am grateful to those many former govern-


ment attorneys, agents, witnesses, and police officers who _


gave freely of their time and recollections but prefer to
remain anonymous for reasons that are readily understand-
able with Matthews still at large.

They will forgive me, | hope, for not matching their dis-
cretion in the text. No names have been changed to protect
the innocent, because no one is innocent,


D.G.
January 1978


—


1


oe ————
?’

"Yeah. We had breakfast at Isabelita's.'

I could tell from his face he was already into something,
but I didn't say nothing.

‘So like I asked him what's happening, and you know


‘For Christ's sake, Orlando,’ I said. ‘How many times do
we got to go through this? Hang out with him? Sure. Do
business with him? No. Not with his connections.’
eee ee NO en See Se

I looked at him. Orlando had been a cop in Cuba before —


Castro, and liked to think of himself as a patriot. Morales
was no Flagler Street commando either. He worked for the
CIA


Political?’

*Yeah,' said Orlando. ‘Some guys showed up. Ricardo says
they're here to make trouble.'

That was different. I'm not political, and ordinarily 1
don't have time for ‘the cause’ and all that bullshit. Dealing
dope is a hard enough game as it is. But 1 was still vas
for my godfather to come up with another connection. It
had been a quiet summer. And 1 don't like terrorists,

‘So what's he want to do? Blow them away?’

smiled.


Orlando just
‘Okay,’ I said. "So he wants to blow away a couple of
9





E SENSO OA a > &


I'm not going on no


suicide mission. 1 want to know what
I'm getting into.”


That night, 1 dropped Anna off at her sister's and went on —


over to see Ricardo at Orlando's house,

Orlando had latched on to us a couple of months before
this. He was out on bond. The vice squad had busted him on
the corner of SW 8th Street and ı8th Avenue with a little
marijuana in his pocket. Every morning, nine o'clock, you
could find him there. They used to call him the ‘Mayor’. But
he was strictly a nickel-and-dime operator, and I think he'd
heard rumours of the multi-kilo deals my godfather and me
had been putting together in New York. Anyway, I liked the
guy, and as me and Anna were staying away from the cor-
ner, too, we teamed up to kill a little time, just riding around
and going to the movies.

I met his friend Ricardo soon after, although I knew him
already by reputation. Everybody in Little Havana knew
Ricardo Morales. If Orlando Lamadrid was the neighbour-
hood gorilla, Ricardo was the Man. One time he blew
some guy at the corner of Flagler and SW 7th Avenue wit
a submachine gun and silencer — it was the talk of the
neighbourhood. Just waited for the son of a bitch to come
down the steps from his apartment, and cut loose on his
arse in front of ten or twelve witnesses. Then he tossed the
gun in his car and drove off. And right behind him went
a green Plymouth with two guys in it, wearing suits and
ties.


They followed him around a lot, those guys — I saw them.
They looked like government issue, but nobody said noth-


ing, nobody knew nothing. Ricardo had a lot of shoot-outs —


like that in Miami, but the cops never bothered him, and I
never saw nothing about it in the newspapers. It was
cal. And that's what made him so powerful. Those -arse
ks who hung around on the corner were all afraid of
. ‘Oh, shit,’ they'd say. “Here comes Ricardo,’
He even looked like a cop. Strong. Stocky. Clean-shaven.


Short black hair. He'd stand there in his Cuban shirt, with _


that goddamn 9 mm Browning in his waistband bulging it
10


ER ee


9—


Tie (eee ke hee
scumbags. That's fine with me. Basically, I like the idea. But


out, and they'd sidle up to him with a chicken-shit grin:
"Wanna smoke, Ricardo? Wanna snort of coke, Ricardo?’
Anything to keep him on your side,

He loved coke. One reason he was over at Orlando's
house so much was because Orlando always gave him a
spoon when he had some. ‘Here, Ricardo. Here's a little
treat for you.’ And that son of a bitch would pull out his car
key, stand in front of the mirror, and take two big snorts,
Boom! Boom! Then wait a second and do it again. Jesus,
Me and Orlando told him one time, "You know, Ricardo,

"re a fucking savage.’ He'd be high as a dog — ready to
anybody with that goddamn cannon of his.

After I got to know him better, he offered to give me one
just like it. Fourteen shot. Nice weapon. But I didn't trust
him, not the way Orlando did. ‘Screw you,’ 1 said. “Why
would / want a piece like that? You probably blew some-
body away with it anyhow.’ He laughed.

Ricardo was always into something. Second or third time
we met, he told us about this guy he knew over in Miami
Beach who was in the jewellery business and who ran
around with about $40,000 worth of stuff in the trunk of
his car. Ricardo wanted me to hot-wire.the car while they
kept lookout, and take it some place quiet so we could take
our time busting it out. | had mixed feelings about the deal,
and in the end said no.

Another time, me and Anna were over at his house, and
he suddenly pulls out an ounce of cocaine wrapped up in a
plastic bag and gives it to Orlando.

‘Here,’ he says. ‘I want you to move it for me, | paid
three-fifty. We'll split whatever you make on it.’

That rattled me. I figured Orlando had told him I'd moved
X amount of kilos in New York, and the son of a bitch was
trying to whet my appetite. But I didn't say a goddamn
word. I just stood there and looked at it. I couldn't show I
didn't trust him. 1 couldn't walk out or nothing, although
the stuff wasn't worth a damn anyway. It was all wet and


shitty. >
On the way home, I said to Orlando, “You know, you're a
little open with this guy. You want to be careful.’





| friend. I trust


‘Listen,’ he said.
E Mt igh him with life. Just
me out of it, okay? Don't even talk to him about


They're going to lose a good man because he
of coke? Shit. He's in tight with these people.’
Fine,” I said. “But he still works for the government. And


parachuted him into the Congo, and about what was
on in Chile under Allende. He travelled a lot in


| South America. At his house once, he showed us a bunch


of passports he had in different names from different coun-
tries — he was full of that James Bond bullshit, and I ate it
up, | admired the guy for what he stood for. Blow away
Communists? Terrorists? Hey, I'm a hundred per cent for
you. And I told him so that night when 1 went over to
Orlando's to hear what he had in mind.


make it look like some other group in the underground did
it. I got solid information on that. So I been asked to take


| care of it~ and quick, Before they make their move.’


That's it?’
That's it,’ he says, That's all I can tell you.”
I loved it. “You know these people? 1 mean, you know


| what they look like?’


' know them,’ he says. ‘But no names, okay?’
‘Okay. So what have we got to do?’


12


™ *


| trouble, They want to hit a few big people on our side and —


A wy
‘| know Ricardo thirteen years. He's my "on Ve. guess we'll have to take a run by and dust them


‘Fantastic, And how are we going to go about this?"

‘Oh, nothing fancy,’ he says. "We'll go look for them.
Orlando keeps me you're a great wheelman, so you
drive, and me and Orlando’ll cut loose on their arse. First
Sd, ain we'll dump them right there.’

Fan . I'm ready.’

‘How about you, Orlando?’ he says.

“You know me, Ricardo,’ he says, ‘Just show me where

re at.’
. Then what about a weapon? You got a prefer-

ence?"


‘How about an Armalite?’


‘I don't know,’ Ricardo says, ‘Depends what they got. If I
can't get that, how about an M-ı6?'
‘Sure.’


‘I'll bring something for you, too,’ he says, looking at me,
*Just in case.’
‘Fine.’ And now I got butterflies. "When are we going to


- do this?’


a


- —


Tl be in touch,’ he says, ‘In a couple of days.’

They were a long two days. If the hit had been in the line
of business, | wouldn't have thought nothing of it, but this
was political. If you're a Cuban in Miami, you're at war.
You got to be on one side or the other, and I'd just been
drafted, It's not every day you go out to shoot somebody
you don't even know, and Anna saw the tension building
up.


"What are you two so jumpy about?’ she said.
‘Nothing.’ I gave Orlando a warning look. “We're trying


to get a deal together. We been idle a long time. You know


how it is.’

That satisfied her. When we heard the hit was set for
Friday night and I told her we had to go out, she didn’t bat
an eye. She just asked me to drive her over to her sister's
first, :


I got to Orlando's house at about eight o'clock. He lived
on SW 27th Lane, in a real dark neighbourhood, and | stood


13





Zn. "e.


q


ee |


backed off now. There was no way 1 was going to do that, — dal kay badkor cor, and now I wind dowa
of course, but I'd broken a rule. I was sticking my neck out the window with it and wipe off the outside door handle. If
for no reason, | wasn't scared or - I liked feeling — there’s going to be a wreck, they may find my corpse in it,
dulging ont begin esse I was Just in- but they're not going to find any g fa oi
J ional. , still usi t
Orlando let me in, and we waited a few minutes, notsay- hve the same may, E mie *


much. When Ricardo arrived, he wasn't too talkative ‘Okay,’ I says. ‘Now I'm ready.’ I leave the handkerchief


‘Okay,’ ——— - in my lap, to wipe the wheel as | go. "Where to?’
y he-saya Teta ga Alt over to Flagler,’ Ricardo says. "And when you get


uptown on Flagler. Nobody's talking, and

I'm trying to look casual, like we're out for a ride. I'm also
staying in the middle of the street so nobody can look in
and maybe see all that goddamn
The steering wheel bothers me.


extras.
"You ride in the back,’ he tells Orlando. “Your piece ison artillery.

EEE EUR EN eos — Lente ee Se ae
own weapon was trans time Us just as suspicious as driving in gloves.
mission hump. An M-16. Until now, I'd only seen pictures - ¿o — says Ricardo, as we reach va Avenue.
>>>