back to what he knew bestâdrug dealing.
His arrest in October, 1971, had slowed the momentum of the entrepreneur from Palos Verdes. But soon after Judge Miller gave him probation, he went back to work trying to enlarge his business. And for a while he did very well indeed: by the summer of 1973, a year after he left Whittier, Daulton had a drug business that was grossing $1,000 to $2,000 a week. Daulton had always had a streak of generosity, and now that he had really big money he was no different; most weeks, he spent hundreds of dollars throwing parties for friends at which he bought the drugs, and he could be counted on to pick up the tab for expensive dinners. One night he took three girls to a mosquelike Moroccan restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, seated them all around him on pillows resting on the floor and joked that he felt as if he had a harem. The bill for the night was almost $250.
He slept until eleven or so most mornings, showered, made a few phone calls to his runners and then played handball or tennis for an hour or two. Thereâd be a few sales in the afternoon, then dinner at a restaurant near the Peninsula, and a party at night, and at three or four heâd get to bed. Every few weeks there was a trip to Mexico or San Diego, just across the border from Mexico, to replenish his inventory. It was a period that Daulton would recall later with the kind of affectionate nostalgia that people reserve for recounting the best years of their lives:
âIt was before the era of the rip-off; I sold marijuana and hashish that was the finest in the worldâhashish from Afghanistan, the finest flower tops from Mexico. I was selling weed at the time for a hundred and fifty dollars a pound when you could buy a kilo [2.2 pounds] for that much. People were telling me, Youâre out of your mind, youâre overpriced. But within six months everybody was coming after me; they said they were willing to pay because I had the best product.
âI had a clientele you wouldnât believe: older, more sophisticated people. I had the best product, and the best, cleanest highs. And in those days you could trust the people you were dealing with. The way it was then, we were into getting high first, making a profit second. Later, the whole thing got out of proportion. It became cutthroat, rip-offs, anything goes. When I first got into it, well, it broke down to a very legitimate business; it was illegal, but it was a very legitimate kind of business.â
Eventually, Daulton was admitted to The Brotherhood, a measure of social acceptance in his milieu at least equal to his parentsâ acceptance by the Palos Verdes Country Club. The Brotherhood was a drug cult founded by Dr. Timothy Leary, the onetime Harvard lecturer who in the late nineteen-sixties became an advocate of LSD and other drugs. Daulton would describe his association with The Brotherhood later as almost a religious experience, with drugs as its god: âWe were just a tightly knit group of people who were aligned in the distribution of a high quality of drug. We werenât talking about the overthrowing of governments; we were just talking about a different awareness, of viewing things from a different perspective. We didnât want to hurt anybody.â
Except for Chris, Daulton was by now spurning former classmates who had opted to lead conventional lives. âIt was hard to find anything in common with people who worked all day,â he would explain. âThey were all hooked to the grind of working eight to four, coming home, getting drunk every night, waking up with a hangover and going to work. I was sleeping late, playing handball, traveling; I had money, women when I wanted them; you couldnât ask for a better life.â
Early in 1973, Daulton moved out of his parentsâ home into an apartment in Torrance, a city on the flatlands north of the Peninsula, with Aaron Johnson, another product of The Hill whose
His arrest in October, 1971, had slowed the momentum of the entrepreneur from Palos Verdes. But soon after Judge Miller gave him probation, he went back to work trying to enlarge his business. And for a while he did very well indeed: by the summer of 1973, a year after he left Whittier, Daulton had a drug business that was grossing $1,000 to $2,000 a week. Daulton had always had a streak of generosity, and now that he had really big money he was no different; most weeks, he spent hundreds of dollars throwing parties for friends at which he bought the drugs, and he could be counted on to pick up the tab for expensive dinners. One night he took three girls to a mosquelike Moroccan restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, seated them all around him on pillows resting on the floor and joked that he felt as if he had a harem. The bill for the night was almost $250.
He slept until eleven or so most mornings, showered, made a few phone calls to his runners and then played handball or tennis for an hour or two. Thereâd be a few sales in the afternoon, then dinner at a restaurant near the Peninsula, and a party at night, and at three or four heâd get to bed. Every few weeks there was a trip to Mexico or San Diego, just across the border from Mexico, to replenish his inventory. It was a period that Daulton would recall later with the kind of affectionate nostalgia that people reserve for recounting the best years of their lives:
âIt was before the era of the rip-off; I sold marijuana and hashish that was the finest in the worldâhashish from Afghanistan, the finest flower tops from Mexico. I was selling weed at the time for a hundred and fifty dollars a pound when you could buy a kilo [2.2 pounds] for that much. People were telling me, Youâre out of your mind, youâre overpriced. But within six months everybody was coming after me; they said they were willing to pay because I had the best product.
âI had a clientele you wouldnât believe: older, more sophisticated people. I had the best product, and the best, cleanest highs. And in those days you could trust the people you were dealing with. The way it was then, we were into getting high first, making a profit second. Later, the whole thing got out of proportion. It became cutthroat, rip-offs, anything goes. When I first got into it, well, it broke down to a very legitimate business; it was illegal, but it was a very legitimate kind of business.â
Eventually, Daulton was admitted to The Brotherhood, a measure of social acceptance in his milieu at least equal to his parentsâ acceptance by the Palos Verdes Country Club. The Brotherhood was a drug cult founded by Dr. Timothy Leary, the onetime Harvard lecturer who in the late nineteen-sixties became an advocate of LSD and other drugs. Daulton would describe his association with The Brotherhood later as almost a religious experience, with drugs as its god: âWe were just a tightly knit group of people who were aligned in the distribution of a high quality of drug. We werenât talking about the overthrowing of governments; we were just talking about a different awareness, of viewing things from a different perspective. We didnât want to hurt anybody.â
Except for Chris, Daulton was by now spurning former classmates who had opted to lead conventional lives. âIt was hard to find anything in common with people who worked all day,â he would explain. âThey were all hooked to the grind of working eight to four, coming home, getting drunk every night, waking up with a hangover and going to work. I was sleeping late, playing handball, traveling; I had money, women when I wanted them; you couldnât ask for a better life.â
Early in 1973, Daulton moved out of his parentsâ home into an apartment in Torrance, a city on the flatlands north of the Peninsula, with Aaron Johnson, another product of The Hill whose
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