by Howard Marks
‘That’s nice. That’s bloody charming,’ commented the voice. ‘It’s my first time abroad and I ask some arsehole for a bit of advice . . .’ He blushed. ‘You’re a jerk,’ he finished lamely.
‘What did I do?’ thought Tate. ‘He was only some pimply salesman and I pretended he was Pinkerton personified.’ Tate had hopped in and out of taxis all over Amsterdam in case he was being followed. He had too much to lose through carelessness. ‘I’m too old for this game.’ It used to be fun but now it was business and he was tired of looking over his shoulder. However, a chance encounter wouldn’t force him into retirement. He was at the pinnacle of his career. Even the smallest deal made a hundred thousand; and he wouldn’t lift a finger for less. As the governments cracked down on drugs, the street prices soared to reflect the risks. At the same time the middlemen demanded lower prices from the producers to reflect the marketing risks. The margins widened and the profits escalated. Things had never been better. So long as he didn’t take chances there was no reason why it should ever end.
It had been stupid telling an innocent stranger to fuck himself. However, it wasn’t surprising if he overreacted sometimes. He was under pressure; and it wasn’t helped by ill-informed drugs campaigns in England. They’d once advised the public that people with runny noses were cocaine addicts, and not suffering from flu. It was bad enough enduring inflamed sinuses half the year without that sort of insanity being broadcast. Now, depositing a grand in cash at the bank meant giving explanations in triplicate. Soon they’d be saying that anyone paying with cash was a drug pusher. It was ridiculous.
The Scam, 1995
Brian Barritt
Bust
THE BOEING HOVERS in the void above London airport, watching the tail lights of cars stream like red tracer across a revolving, neon Mondrian. It settles its long silver body on the glossy runway, opens a concave door in its side and ejects us, dazzled and disorientated, into a small square bus full of windows and reflected light – in the centre of a flawless diamond, beneath the lens of the customs. A zoom-eyed official probes our sordid belongings and retrieves two packets of Aura Vedic dysentery powder – folded like ten-bob deals of grass. He looks at this dubious yellow powder, tastes it with his forefinger, looks me straight in the eye and asks me what it is.
‘Aura Vedic dysentery powder.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but I shall have to have this analysed.’ BOOM! Suddenly we are associated with dope. Ravening customs hyenas run from all corners of the airport and rummage through our possessions. Solid British policemen search our emaciated bodies and find the waistcoats . . . Fin.
CHANCE.
GO TO JAIL
MOVE DIRECTLY TO JAIL
DO NOT PASS ‘GO’
DO NOT COLLECT £200
Unknown to us, Edward and Felicity have been waiting for our arrival at the airport – the Embassy informed them, after all. Checking to see if we are on the scheduled flight, Edward is jumped on by the customs officials and a ‘Welcome home’ joint is discovered in his top pocket.
Felicity, seeing the arrest from the airport crowd, drives home through the manic night, trying to get to her house near Chelmsford and stash the pound of Edward’s ‘homegrown’ before the police arrive. She drives at superspeed, crouched over certain disaster, car scuttling across the width of the road like a crab. As she takes the last bend her fanatical headlights, tunnelling through the night, are erased by the blast of electricity pouring from every window in her home. Too late . . . the ‘Force’, emanating malice and restrained violence, are already scavenging, carrying away the pot as if it’s nitroglycerine – without a thought for themselves.
While the fuzz are burrowing they come up with some incriminating letters from a student called Rupert, who I put up for a while in my flat in north London prior to migrating to India. Rupert has been writing letters to his friends about what good times we all had when Brian was dealing hash and distributing psychedelics. When his letters are unearthed the police hit his place as well, find a little bit of hash, make him a deal, and he promptly turns Queen’s evidence.
The Road of Excess, 1998
Susan Nadler
The Butterfly Convention
ANYHOW, THE THREE of us conspirators – me doubling over in pain and tired from the debilitating heroin I had snorted last night; Andrew, trying to be cool, cool fool sitting on a hill; and Ted, wondering if his goddam ass is covered – we call Aero Cargo and discover that the package was indeed there, but we need 700 pesos or $56 to cover the taxes. For a minute I feel a huge, uncontrollable wave of paranoia overtake me and I want out – out of this bullshit riff of waiting and never knowing if we’re being watched – and you know the story – if you get busted overseas, you’re in for the hassle of your life – and Mexico, for all intents and purposes, is definitely overseas. And I want to run away and forget my $4,000, and my arms with track marks all over them, and the man I supposedly loved, who lived in a world of pipe dreams. But only for a minute because I knew I was in too far. So Ted scrapes together about 300 pesos and some French francs from Morocco and we all pile into the Safari and head for town to cash a check and I get the eeriest feeling that someone is watching me – but Andrew reassures me that it’s only paranoia creeping up – and to keep my disease to myself because paranoia is a disease – a communicable one – you have it and to get rid of it you pass it on, brother. And on the way into town Ted explains that the so-called package is, in reality, 250 kilos of hash built into an armoire. And it should weigh 500 pounds altogether; he was a few pounds short – and he sent it out himself and there is glass in the doors and intricate carvings all over. Well – we three ain’t dummies – and we know we can’t haul the armoire in a Safari jeep, so we hurriedly head for José Cortezar father’s mattress factory. There we find José passed out and green, nodded out under a tree. ‘Hey, brother,’ (brother my ass), ‘we need you for a leetle while.’ And Andrew and Teddy explain to José that a package has come in – they don’t need to explain what it is – he nods – and a smile slips on his face – he too gets turned on by the idea of smuggling – sure, man – he will get a truck and four of his father’s workers to help us unload it. Smuggling is like a drug in itself. The excitement and the fear get you as stoned, if not more so, as any drug. I always had the Mata Hari complex. Suddenly, I just don’t want to be around. I want to go to the beach and swim and lie in the sun – but Ted insists that I go – just to keep it in the family . . . again, paranoia, please, brother – ol’ misery sure ’nough loves its company.
So we meet José at the casa – me in a tiny top and cut-offs, Andrew in his hat and Ted in his pants and shirt – and we make tracks for the office of Aero Cargo in José’s truck. I really don’t want to be there, and I pray to whoever may be there listening to get me out of this. At Aero Cargo there is an overabundance of workers and hombres but we walk with our heads held high – no pun intended – I mean, we were on top of the world – temporarily, man, so temporarily. Everyone is staring so hard at us – and I know that Ted is trying to avoid being noticed – he keeps to the paneling of the office wall, leaving Andrew to pick up the package, which is in his name. Andrew pays the taxes – he is sweating so much now – and I take his hand, because I know that he is weak, and trying so hard not to show it.
And Ted is very businesslike as José and his four helpers lift up the extraordinarily heavy package and put it on the truck. Suddenly Ted panics and whispers to me, ‘Susan, it’s a goddam new crate it’s in – I packed the armoire and it wasn’t in that crate – it’s brand new, I never saw it before,’ as if I can come up with the answers. This debonair businessman, this big-time con artist turns absolutely beige and really, I mean this is no joke, I wish that I had a picture – his hair stands up and he really looks like a goddam chicken with his beaked nose. I say, ‘Hey, man, let’s pass on this deal and leave the friggin’ dope here until we can figure it out.’ But greed triumphs as usual as Ted decides, well, maybe the Mexicans
broke the crate and had to make a new one. Because, he assures me, sweat on the backs of his hands, the package never went through the US customs, but directly from Tangier to Mexico and after all, what can we do now?
Andrew is too busy helping José to notice the newness of the crate and Ted neglects to tell him. I mean, after all, who is Andrew except the flunky who will bear all the responsibility if anything happens, because the package is in his name? And we wave goodbye to all the people at the Aero Cargo office, not realizing that about one-quarter of them are police. The drive back to the apartment is very quiet – except for José who chatters all the way, stoned and ignorant of the situation. I guess ignorance might be bliss after all. Once we return to the apartment, all the workers and José and Andrew have the unenviable task of uncrating the armoire and bringing it up the steps. Ted and I run ahead – throw out all the grass in the apartment but two joints, which I hide in my make-up case along with two mandrax. We stash the cocaine and household heroin in silver foil high in the closet, where I imagine it still is. Then I make fruit salad for lunch and snort the cocaine we left out. The armoire finally comes into the apartment. Four tired Mexican peons, one now definitely exhausted José Cortezar, one pooped-out Andrew and the metadirector Ted deposit one of the most beautiful pieces of furniture I have ever seen in our living-room. I give tall glasses of lemonade to all the workers and thank José, who is leaving for Ensenada in two hours. He flies out the door, and finally Andrew and I collapse in the middle of the floor with Ted pacing up and down, looking suspiciously out the window.
The armoire is a fine example of the lost art of woodcarving. It’s about nine feet tall and five feet wide and the front of it is carved delicately with small figures, deer and goats. And I say to Ted, ‘Where the hell is the hash?’ And he smiles to himself and walks over to the armoire looking more calm and less like a scared rabbit, because he is back in his role of he-man-adventurer smuggler. We stand on a chair and I see that the whole top and bottom of the armoire are false, full of hidden shit – so to speak. Suddenly, Ted turns green again, his hair stands up like little blades of dried-out grass and he whispers, ‘Someone goddam opened this, I can tell – it’s not the finished color of the armoire. Now it all fits, the unfamiliar crating and the smiling Mexicans and I’m getting the fuck out of here.’ Filled with fear, he thinks only of himself – and gentle Andrew, poor soul, he is cool, man, and, not to be daunted in his hour of triumph, he says, ‘Hey, man, relax, we both know that the package never went through US customs, and if they had wanted to bust us we would never have received the package.’ And me, free me, I have to pee fast and remember the day, two years long gone, when Ivan and I were met by the FBI and I cry because as I try to put everything in context and remember, I have the electrifying realization that soon I will only remember. I stay in the bathroom a long time, feeling myself marooned. It’s June, and I feel another lousy riff coming on. And as I walk back into the other room I hear Ted droning on, ‘. . . and, man, I’ve seen too many TV shows and I know the trip get hip – if they want us, we are right now surrounded – they’re only waiting for us to open up the panels and remove the hash. So let’s get out of this place – maybe they’ll forget our faces. Also, remember, Andrew and Susan, they can’t get us for something that we didn’t do, for all we know the package was a gift to Andrew from a friend in Morocco and we’re cool (cool fool sitting on a hill) since we have no idea what’s in the armoire.’ And the chicken putters into the other room and says he wants to make reservations to leave that night – and I have the disease (paranoia) bad – I say to Andrew, ‘Honey, I’m scared that they have us. Let’s go to town and make reservations to leave (why the fuck aren’t I at the beach?) and stay away until we feel that the vibes are okay.’ And Andrew chuckles and languorously stretches out without a single doubt, like he’s home free, and says to me, ‘Baby, you and your paranoid buddy Ted (my buddy?), you two fly out of here tonight and I’ll stay here for a few days to make sure that everything is fine – go and get your passport and visa and open tickets – we’ll drive to town, make reservations, and you’ll be safe in LA tonight.’ I start to think, something here stinks, why wouldn’t he let me go yesterday. But at this point, ladies and gents, I went to collect my papers, follow my instincts and split. I was so nervous I never even put shoes on – I took one mandrax to cool myself down – pulled my hair back, and in cut-offs and a little top (as usual) headed for the car with Andrew and Ted. The mandrax was just starting to take its effect and the three of us walked to the jeep. Ted – almost visibly shaking, got in the back, Andrew got in the driver’s seat, and (did I remember to lock the door?) I was just climbing into my seat when I looked up and saw a huge Mexican, about six-two, with a mustache, a sombrero and a machine gun – and I looked at Andrew and he looked at me and I looked at him and he looked at me and I said out loud, ‘Do you believe this?’ And suddenly there were thirty Mexican police. It was hard to tell exactly how many since all of them were Federales not dressed in uniforms; and thirty machine guns and pistols and the heat, and I’m getting thrown against a car and being frisked (a little stoned by now, yelling ‘Hey, man, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’), but no one understood English and handcuffs on Señor Andrew – the package was in his name and someone in God’s name help me – keep it cool on the outside, Susan – I mean really, what is going on? And an older man, maybe forty-five or so with a mustache and a .38 revolver asks me (Jesus – it seemed like everyone in town had gathered around our apartment building and was watching – screaming) for the key – and I don’t want to go into my purse because I have grass there – keep cool – God help me to hold onto my purse – and it was like a goddam movie – the police acted like we were Bonnie and Clyde. And they break down the door – and all this Spanish talk and pandemonium and four of the big Federales push Ted (who has totally blown it and is hysterical by now and whispers to me ‘Don’t tell them a thing, cry, act innocent – ask them why are they here’), and I remember the joints in my purse; however, at this point I’m stoned on my downer and belligerent as hell – and two of the hombres identify themselves as American FBI men and casually say to me, ‘Congratulations, girlie – you are part of the first hash bust ever in the Baja – and you’re in for the longest and hottest summer of yer life.’ Andrew is handcuffed and crying, ‘Honey, I’m sorry, I know you’ve seen this movie before.’ I can’t cry, but as I watch the four Federales take hatchets and break into the armoire on the top and the bottom looking for the dope I maneuver my hand into my purse, unzip my makeup case – keeping my eyes on as many of the cops as I can – slip out the two joints and mandrax and stash the joints behind the pillows of the sofa. At least they can’t grab me for possession – so I thought! And no one sees me – only Andrew and he winks at me. The sweat is pouring off his face now, and since he is handcuffed and unable to wipe it off he asks me to. As I do, the older gentleman asks me if I know what is coming out of the armoire in kilo bags (only the best hash he’ll ever see) and I say no – and another man – this one older, less fluent in English, and definitely more belligerent-looking, is checking out Ted’s arms for needle marks. Ted never had the guts to shoot a B-B gun, let alone dope – and I wonder if this is it for me, with enough track marks on my arms to sponsor a roller derby, but he sees only deep tan and some rather large black-and-blue marks – and a man who identifies himself, amid all the noise of hatchets and yelling, as the district prosecutor of Baja – he looks at me rather softly and says, ‘Susan,’ (how the hell does he know my name unless they have been watching me?), ‘Susan, do you know how serious this is?’ And I hostilely spit out, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, what is this all about?’ (He’s now going through my clothes – at least the house is clean of drugs.) ‘I demand my rights.’ And he asks me why I don’t cry and I answer that I have nothing to fear, I am innocent. Meanwhile, the two American FBI motherfuckers are telling me that I have to give them the name of someone to call in the States for
me because I won’t be able to get near a phone, and anyway the lines are never working – and I say no – I don’t need help – I’m protected, my good karma will get me out – and one says to Andrew, ‘Okay, Buster, who should we call for her?’ and Andrew gives them my parents’ phone number and for the first time I feel fear well up because they can’t possibly go through this again. The apartment is now in a shambles – the drawers are on the floor – the clothes are everywhere – the music and books all over – I can’t bear the pain. The district prosecutor tells us to go to the car now – we are being taken to jail. So we are marched down the stairs and they try to handcuff me and (still hostile from my downer) I kick out – and they laugh – I see one of many police pocket my locket, given to me by my father on my sixth birthday and inscribed ‘To Susan-Beth’ – and I scream out at the thief but no one cares. I am just another prisoner without rights and there are hundreds of Mexicans looking for action gathered outside the house. I see Mr. Cortezar in the corner, shaking his head. Oh, the gossip now, and I wonder where Josh is, but my thoughts are interrupted by the friggin’ FBI man telling me that in Mexico you are guilty until proven innocent. Andrew, Ted and I are shown into a yellow VW, I can’t believe they put us together. Ted says, ‘Baby, keep your mouth tight. We’ll get you out of here – you just don’t know a thing.’ Andrew tells me not to worry, the brothers will get us out – and we do have such a good karma. This reality crashed down so quickly – goodbye, you dreamers – the realities sure do change. There is a great disparity between the dream and the fact.