making the customer suborn him
one reason Pemulis takes such elaborate precautions in all extracurriculars—making a Substance-customer explicitly suborn him, etc.
Context
The dealer's legal tradecraft named: Pemulis, whose deepest dread is expulsion back down to blue-collar Allston, protects himself in the drug trade by "making a Substance-customer explicitly suborn him" — forcing the buyer to solicit the crime first, the procurement economy's self-defense built into every transaction. The paranoia is the business model.