Snowing in Bali

by Kathryn Bonella

  If friends or regular customers rang asking for drugs, he’d tell them he’d bring them that night, but to be quiet: ‘Be careful, don’t tell anyone . . . I’m hot.’ Other nights he’d ride one of his ostentatious bikes, because it could outrun anyone if he had to. ‘Nobody can catch me. I am a very good driver too, nobody can follow me, impossible.’ If there was no off-street parking where he could stash his bike under a piece of fabric, he didn’t go. Or he’d park his car a kilometre from the party and walk from there.

  As the months passed, the paranoia subsided, but he often sensed lurking shadows and kept playing strictly by the rules. Fabio one day came to him, shaken. The day before he’d been standing on Legian beach in front of his restaurant, watching the waves, when undercover police snatched him off the beach, piling him into a car – essentially kidnapping him. They drove him past Rafael’s house with a gun to his knee, demanding information. He kept repeating, ‘Rafael’s a family man, a surfer.’ After a few hours of interrogation, they let him go, but Fabio was freaked out, now anxiously talking about selling up and ditching paradise.

  Rafael wasn’t sure whether to believe Fabio’s story – he didn’t want to believe it.

  There was more bad news when a horse carrying for Rafael and Poca was busted after arriving in Bali with 2 kilos of coke. Poca dealt with it, quickly and quietly paying $30,000 to police to have the horse released and sent home after two weeks in the police cells, with the arrest kept low-key and out of the media. But Rafael was still edgy, because he didn’t know whether the horse had spilled his name. He reverted to a quiet lifestyle, doing a clean sweep of his house, again soaking the floors in water, and tightening up his habits.

  When I get the news, ‘Oh shit’ . . . I threw my phone, second time, this time from the cliff at Padang, then all the procedure again; quiet, not using. I was so afraid, I just quit everything for a couple of months, I disappear. I hid myself; I stay in my house, surf and sleep, surf and sleep. Very worried. After that I stopped doing the small things, like selling 1 gram here, 1 gram there and focused on selling kilos. Much safer.

  Rafael was now using only horses who didn’t live in Bali, so as soon as they cleared customs and made the drop, he could turn them around and send them back home. Protecting his freedom was his priority, but it was getting harder.

  Out of the blue one day Rafael got a call from Alberto, telling him about a drug dealer’s nightmare, literally.

  Alberto called me and says, ‘I’m so afraid. I had a dream last night where I got caught, and then someone was looking for you too.’ I say, ‘Alberto, forget it, man, be clear. Now is August, time to be quiet, so if you feel like that, follow your feeling, go to Lombok.’

  But Alberto was busy dealing for the parties. It was high season and Andre had just hit the island with a horse bringing 3 kilos of coke and 2000 ecstasy pills from Amsterdam, and he’d given some pills to Alberto to sell. It was a dry patch in Alberto’s big business deals, so he was taking risks, not only selling lots of small amounts, but also dealing with the small-time locals, which all the westerners knew could be lethal.

  Indonesians, when they are small players – everybody gets real edgy about it, because they are the ones who are really dangerous; everybody knows they talk to police. The big players nobody is worried about, the small players everyone is worried about. They won’t think twice before giving some names up; they are not strong.

  – Alberto

  Two days after his nightmare, Alberto was delivering pills to an Indonesian he’d done two deals with previously. They’d set up a time around lunch, but Alberto was delayed. The Indonesian kept calling, asking for his new arrival time. When finally close, Alberto phoned letting him know he’d be there in a few minutes. Alberto was wary about dealing with a local, but was focused on what else he had to do that night, because he still had another three people lined up for deliveries – one at 10 pm in a restaurant, another at 11 pm in a supermarket and another after that – but only ever taking the drugs for one deal at a time. It had been a busy day. He parked his bike and walked towards the shop.

  When I was walking inside this guy’s place, I had a funny feeling – just my instinct. I look to the side and there was some guys, like three or four, sitting on the stairs right next door to his shop and talking, all Indonesians. I had one split second of eye contact with one of those guys; he looked right into my eyes with an evil look. Right then I had an electric shock all through my whole body like I’d just been hit by lightning. Right then, I knew, that’s it, something is really wrong. It gave me chicken skin, goose bumps. I had the feeling.

  Were you tempted to run?

  No, I was already walking inside, so I couldn’t just turn and run. If I ran out of there they would shoot me, or run after me and bash me, and if I run I’m accepting guilt; you don’t run if you’re not guilty. I knew there was nothing I could do. There was no way out. I didn’t have time to think. This happened in three seconds. We are talking about a four or five-second situation.

  So I walked in and he was waiting for me. Instead of shaking hands and, ‘Okay, let me see the money,’ and counting the money first like we did, I put my hand in my underwear and I was like, ‘Here, here, here,’ and gave him the bag of pills, and he gave me the money. I wanted to get rid of it quick. I didn’t want it on me. Without thinking – it was instinctive. I was feeling really weird. I just wanted to check the money, I wasn’t even going to count one by one, just to see like if the amount looked correct; it was a US$1500 deal, tiny deal. Then I would go and jump on the bike and count it at home. I was like, ‘Okay, that’s it,’ and I put it in my pocket.

  Suddenly, all those guys who were sitting outside came running in. One guy grabbed me by the shirt and put a gun to my head, says, ‘Police, don’t move.’ And I was like, fuck, this was the shit. The whole thing took less than five seconds.

  Another guy came and put his hand on my heart, just to see my heart beat and it was chchchchch, and he smiles, an evil smile, like, ‘Ah, we got you.’ Fuck, it was evil as can be. I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ They search me and they couldn’t find anything, and they couldn’t believe it. They thought I had something in my pocket, but I just had the money.

  They were real angry, pissed off, like they are doing arrest, they are all like fucking angry. I remember seeing two guns on that scene, one at my head, another in another guy’s hand.

  They ask, ‘What’s this money for?’ and I say, ‘This is my money. What’s the problem? It’s not against the law.’ They were like, ‘Okay, search the other guy.’ They couldn’t believe it was on him, because it was supposed to be on me. I was the one, but because I was that quick, I’d just walked in and given the stuff to him.

  So they search the guy and find the stuff in his pocket, and they were like, ‘Who did you buy it from?’ And I look him in the face, like fuck, don’t fucking snitch . . . it’s not me, it’s not mine and then he points his finger at my face and says, ‘Him, I just bought it from this guy now.’

  I just thought fucking motherfucker, not strong, like little bitch giving me up. I say, ‘Bullshit, I’ve never seen you in my life,’ and then the guy holding the gun to my head hit me in the face. ‘Shut up’ . . . boom . . . ‘Bullshit.’

  After that, they put me in the back of a car and, while we were driving, they were like, ‘We got you.’ I say, ‘No, that wasn’t my stuff.’ The guy slapped me and says, ‘We know it’s your stuff. You think we’re stupid?’ They stop the car and park in this quiet place, a car park, and they turn the light on inside the car and the guy in the front seat starts interrogating me. ‘Who was this from blah blah blah?’

  There were four or five guys in the car and I was still thinking I could buy my way out. I was like, ‘Okay, how can I solve this, can I give you some money and get out of this?’ They were like, ‘How much money you want to give? ‘Okay, I give you $20,000 cash to get out; just let me go, I can arrange the money in one day.’ That’s w
hat I heard was the standard price. Then the guy in front just comes out of the blue and – bam – punches me in the forehead.

  That’s a weird place to punch you?

  It doesn’t break your nose; it doesn’t bleed or give you marks. He says, ‘You think we’re stupid? You think you’re just going to pay $20,000 and walk away? It’s not that easy. We’ve been watching you for a long time, we know you are doing this business. We need names.’ Oh fuck.

  And that’s where it all started. They say, ‘Okay, where do you stay?’ And we went to my place, then they start searching in the garden with flashlights, checking, checking everywhere. Then we all went into the house. I think there were five cops. They say, ‘Sit down and don’t move,’ and one guy sat next to me. They were all pissed off and angry. I was just sitting down with my mouth shut. They went through my wardrobes, through every pocket of all my clothes, through my bags, all the cabinets, everything. They kept on asking me, ‘Where is it?’ and I say, ‘Please, be my guest, bring dogs here if you want, I don’t have anything.’ Every five or ten minutes, they would say, ‘So, where is it? Come on, tell us’ – screaming, pissed off, angry, never being gentle or nice.

  I say, ‘You won’t find anything; you’re wasting your time.’ And they were real mad because they wanted me to say, ‘Okay, I have a stash.’ I was just thinking, ‘Okay, how can I get out of this now?’ I didn’t know what to do. But I was expecting it to be okay, think­ing this is going to end soon, like tomorrow I will be free. I was thinking maybe they’re going to settle for US$20,000 when they don’t find anything.

  They searched for one and a half, two hours, and didn’t find anything. And then they took my phone and said, ‘Okay, call someone now, organise a deal and you walk free.’ I was like, ‘Fuck, I don’t know what you are talking about, I don’t do this business.’ They say, ‘Bullshit, we’re not stupid. If you want to do this the hard way, we do it the hard way.’

  – Alberto

  The cops blindfolded him, cuffed his hands behind his back and made him sit in the back of the black Kijang. As the back door slammed shut, Alberto knew this was very bad. These cops weren’t going to take him to the police station like this; his fate was to be far darker. This was it – his years of paranoid thoughts and nightmares exploding in his face. The game was up.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DARK PARADISE

  Bali can be heaven one minute and hell in the next. You live the fantasy, you live the dream, but one day you wake up. And that day you wake up, you don’t know where you will wake up, what sort of hell.

  – Alberto

  People come here and think it’s a paradise for sure, but it becomes hell, really, really quickly.

  – Andre

  With his eyes covered, Alberto crouched in the car, scared and vulnerable, desperately trying to focus on every zig and zag to keep track of where they were taking him. But it was futile. He quickly lost his bearings and when they stopped about 45 minutes later, he had a vague sense they were near Ubud – renowned as the peaceful, hippy heart of Bali, ironic consider­ing what he was about to experience.

  As they yanked him out of the back of the car, below the blindfold he could see lights directly ahead and dirt underfoot. The night was eerily quiet, but in the far distance he could hear the drone of a busy road. Here, darkness surrounded him and he imagined vast rice paddies, which tied in with stories he’d heard of people being taken by Bali police to isolated windowless houses, and bashed.

  They pushed him through a little iron gate into a house. Tipping his head back slightly, he glimpsed unpainted walls, raw brick and a bare concrete floor – an unfinished house. He saw five pairs of feet in leather sandals – each slightly different; soon the trait that he would use to distinguish his captors. The air was full of tension; the cops were angry and for Alberto, standing impotently blindfolded, cuffed and vulnerable, every sound and touch was magnified by fear and blindness.

  He flinched as the cops grabbed his arms and shoved him into a room, pushing him to sit down on the edge of a bed. A door slammed shut, then boom, it was on, fists raining brutal blows into his stomach, ribs and back, a hand slapping his face, as someone else used a plank of wood to slam into his head. He was helpless, the handcuffs preventing him from even lifting his arms to shield his face. It was against every human instinct, but he had to just surrender his body to the blows. Even gritting his teeth, he could not stop crying out in pain.

  After an hour or so, the cops slammed the door behind them, leaving him slumped on the bed, hurting badly and trembling. He knew that was only round one; that they would be back to hurt him again, until they broke him down into helping them set someone else up. Right now Andre, who owned the pills, and Rafael, whose name the cops had already tossed out, were blissfully unaware of his predicament, oblivious to how close they might be to falling into the same dark hole if their friend broke. As Alberto sat there, trying to slow his ragged breathing and pounding heart, he was praying that he had the grit to take whatever was coming without capitulating.

  The worst thing was the hits on the head with a wooden stick. They have this big piece of wood, solid, heavy. They hit like on the side of the ear, on the top of the head, close to my forehead, on the back of my head. One guy hitting and another guy punching on the ribs or slapping the face, together, two guys, at the same time. My hands handcuffed behind my back. They hit me for one hour, two hours, then they go out of the room, and lumps come up on my head, and then they come again two hours later, and hit the lumps. That’s fucking painful . . . You want to cry; they make you see stars. That was heavy. That’s the real pain, the real pain.

  – Alberto

  Whenever they left the room, Alberto slumped on the edge of the bed, feeling fainter and sicker, but his mind was trying to figure a way out. So far offering cash hadn’t worked. They wanted to create a domino effect because it meant far more cash in the end, as well as a bunch of high-profile arrests.

  Sometimes he just sat zombie-like, waiting for the door to burst open, the sandals to stride in and the next onslaught to begin. Listening in the quiet intervals, he sometimes heard faint cowbells in the distance, or a car horn, and always the constant drone of the motorway. The sounds of the normal world outside seemed surreal now that he’d been kidnapped to this place, which felt like a world spinning on a different axis, a parallel universe to the rice paddies and cowbells outside.

  He still thought he was somewhere near Ubud – where people very close by were probably finding inner peace, meditating and doing yoga classes, or relaxing by the infinity pool with a cocktail. They might as well have been on another planet. He thought of the irony of the Balinese image as being peaceful, gentle people, when these same people were sadistically bashing him with relish, trying to break him.

  During the beatings, every so often they’d pause and snarl, ‘Come on, use your tongue, give us names.’ They were pushing him to set up a sting so he could ‘change heads’ and walk free. They held his mobile phone under his nose, taunting, ‘You want to make a call? Look, here’s your phone,’ then dropped it in his lap. They spat names out. ‘You know the coke guy? Rafael?’ Alberto kept shaking his head. His phone was full of dealers’ numbers but he knew there was no chance of the cops deciphering the nicknames.

  The cops were randomly texting messages like: ‘Can I score some hash?’ But no one in the game ever used direct words, only euphemisms, so nobody was stupid enough to reply. Alberto kept singing the same tune, ‘I don’t do drugs business,’ aware his denials were perilous, but now sure – to the core of his being – that he would never snitch.

  Fucking rats. I don’t even share the same table, the same bar, with people like that. Will you be strong and quiet and eat your own shit or will you give your mother to get away from your problems? That’s what it boils down to, and that’s what matters the most.

  – Alberto

  He knew these brutal bashings would eventually end, but if he turned rat he knew his soul
would never recover. So he kept stoically denying and absorbing the pain, trying to figure out a way to end the torture as fast as possible.

  All the time I was sitting on the bed, handcuffed and blindfolded, just sitting thinking, ‘How am I going to get out of this?’ I would hear the door opening again, I would go, ‘Here we go again.’ I could see through the bottom of the blindfold the feet arriving, the leather sandals, so I knew if the same guys came back.

  Then they would start all over again, bang, hit me on the head, bam, slap on the face, bam punch in the ribs, saying, ‘Come on, use your tongue, say some names, help us to help you, come on,’ and just hit hit hit. Sometimes, they put a piece of wood on top of my bare toes, and one guy comes with a real strong kick, bam, and you see stars and always like screaming, ‘Ahhh fuck.’ ‘Come on, talk,’ and just keep on going and going like this.

  So in the end, after two days, they realised I wasn’t going to talk or set anyone up – I was already a fucking zombie – and they finally came in, saying, ‘Okay, let’s go. You’re not going to help us so you’re going to go to jail for 10, 15 years, is that what you want?’ I was like, ‘Okay, if that’s it, that’s it, but please take me to the police station. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.’ ‘Bullshit.’

  So you were polite to them?

  Very polite; they have you by the balls, the last thing you want to do is go, ‘Hey, go fuck yourself motherfucker pig,’ or something like that. I was already getting enough.

  In two days they’d never left me for more than two hours; I didn’t sleep one single minute, didn’t go to the toilet, not once, I didn’t eat once. Maybe I had one or two glasses of water when they played good cop, bad cop. One guy hits me, bam bam bam, and the other guy, ‘Hey, stop, get out.’ And then, ‘Hey, I really want to help, you talk to me.’ I say, ‘Please, can I get a glass of water?’ ‘Okay.’ They bring a glass of water and I still don’t talk . . . boom, the bad guy comes back in, starts bashing me again. Always two guys bashing me.