Snowing in Bali (29 page)

– Rafael

Five days later, it was Rafael's 45th birthday, and he was having a low-key celebration in his Bali house with half a dozen friends, their kids, some beers and a small cake. His phone rang. It was Anna, so he took it outside. ‘Happy birthday, your present's come,' she whooped. It was the news Rafael so desperately wanted to hear. ‘I was like, “Thank you, the shit arrived. I can pay my loan, we're not going to lose the house. We're rich again. Goal.” '

Rafael went back to his friends, keeping his good news quiet but feeling great relief. It didn't last. His phone rang ten minutes later. It was Anna again. ‘What the fuck, it's baking powder,' she yelled down the phone. ‘Fuck, you asshole, your friend sent us baking powder.'

In ten minutes, Rafael's world had gone from bright to very dark. He called his friend in Peru, who instantly took the blame, saying his packer had done this once before – stolen the coke and sent baking powder. ‘Sorry, Rafael,' he said.

There was nothing Rafael could do. Anna phoned back and he relayed the Peruvian's response. ‘Okay, fuck you, fuck you,' she screamed, then hung up. Rafael went back inside to his guests, hiding his emotions until his not-so-happy birthday finished.

Everybody goes home, I try to sleep, and then I start to think, ‘Fuck, what's happened?' I try to call Anna. She doesn't answer. And then I fall to sleep. Wake up the next day, try to call, no answer. I don't know what's happened.

For ten days I don't know. I was thinking she fuck up, she start taking coke, get crazy, high like hell inside some apartment, paranoid to call, maybe dead from overdose. I think many things. Maybe somebody killed her to take the stuff. I keep trying to call, nobody answer, nobody answer, nobody answer.

I call all the friends. They go to the apartment where she was – it was locked, nobody there – and then they find the key with friends, go there and the police come: ‘What are you doing here?' Then I suspect she's busted.

I contacted my friend – a Swedish buyer, he's supposed to buy the shit – and say, ‘Please help me, Anna is there.' After ten days, he calls and says, ‘She's inside,' because he has some police connection who tells him. He says, ‘Be careful, they're gonna come to you. Be careful with all the evidence.'

*

When I know she's inside, I panic much more. I say, ‘Fuck, they come for me now. She's bust.' Panic, crying, depression, you know . . . the kids by myself. What am I going to do with all these kids? I had no money. I have to clean the house, take my computer out of here. I think Interpol is going to come here and take me too. Cry, cry, depression . . . was the worst time. I cannot go out to eat – I call for the pizza. I don't shave. I don't shower. I don't even go to the first floor. I stay in the second floor, lay down, sleep, you know . . . and cry. Three days. I was in bad shape. Just waiting for somebody to break my door and catch me too.

And then Emily, the mother of my daughter's best friend, comes to pick up her daughter. She asks my son, ‘Where's papa?' He says, ‘Papa's upstairs.' And then I was there, like . . . not crying, but bad shape. And she was, ‘Hey, Rafael, hello, how are you? Are you all right?' ‘No.' ‘What's happened?'

And then I say, ‘I'm in deep shit. Anna's in jail.' She goes, ‘What?' Then we started have a better conversation and then she says, ‘Why do you look like this? I've never seen you like this with a beard. Why don't you shave anymore?' I was like, ‘I don't give a shit.' I think I'm gonna go to jail, get a problem too.

Did she know you were a drug dealer?

She knew, because her husband was an addict. He bought a lot with me. Certain times she hated me, because I give coke to him.

– Rafael

Rafael found out the details of the bust. The 1.3 kilos of coke had been discovered in the DHL parcel in Leipzig, Germany, despite being well hidden in a transformer for an electric guitar. The cops switched the cocaine for baking powder, lined the transformer with a fluorescent agent, then sent it on to Anna in Stockholm, where she'd used her real name. Undercover cops watched her accept the parcel, then spied on the apartment for five hours, before bursting in and arresting Anna and her friend, who both had the fluorescent agent all over their hands.

She's stupid . . . she told me she had somebody to take it. It was bull­shit, it was her. Very dangerous . . . you pay somebody to receive, like a horse.

Interpol was involved in the case. They hack all the phones. They have eyes on her since she stepped in the airport, follow her, record her phone calls. She was hot because we'd been doing there for the last two years before this happened. I was Bali-Stockholm-Amsterdam, Stockholm-Amsterdam, Stockholm-Bali . . . she was too. They record everything on the phones. That's why I've never been there after she got caught. Because I'm 100 per cent sure they're going to catch me.

– Rafael

In Bali, Rafael quickly organised a buyer for his house, selling it much more cheaply than its real value, because the bank was calling in its loan. He was sure he'd feel better when he had the cash and could pay his bills, the kids' school fees, their Bali visas. Weeks after Anna's bust, he got the $30,000 deposit and put it in his safe. He thought it would be a good feeling. It wasn't. He collapsed on the floor in front of the safe with the door open, just looking at the stash that once seemed so important.

I think, when I sell the house, I get the money, everything is going to be good. But it was not. I get worse paranoia, worse frustration. I realise, fuck, I sold my property. I'm never going to buy something like this again. I don't have a house. Where am I going to live? Shit. I want it back. I feel like shit. Depression. Once the money looked like it was never going to finish. Now that looks like a dream. How did I lose everything? Before I have a house, land, motorbike, everything. Then I realise, I don't have anything, not even the house. I sold everything. The house was the last thing I had. I thought, ah, at least I have a house. I don't need to pay rent. And then it's gone.

I look at the money in the safety deposit box and start to cry. I think, ‘Fuck, what am I going to do with this money? Fuck, poor Anna's in the jail.' I was really crying. Tears. Cry cry cry cry. Sobbing. Very uncontrolled. I lost my wife. I was scared, I think they're gonna catch me. I was worried what's gonna happen with my kids. Who they gonna live with? Where I'm going to send them? In my mind, I was very sure that soon somebody was going to come and catch me, Interpol or some special police.

Did you take cocaine?

No, no. I don't take. If I take, I feel good.

– Rafael

Anna was sentenced to five years jail after using the defence that she'd expected a delivery of marijuana, not cocaine, from a South American man, Pedro, whom she'd met in Bali. She claimed Pedro had promised her €5000 to collect and hold the package. She denied Rafael had any involvement.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SLEEPING LIKE AN ANGEL

At a New Year's Eve party in Bali, almost two months after Anna's arrest, Rafael took his last line of cocaine. He'd just begun a new relationship and a new life as a surf coach.

‘I don't have anything. I have to sell lunch to buy dinner.' He was broke but felt happier than he could remember, free from a sense of constant paranoia and foreboding, no longer looking over his shoulder. He'd quit the game and his wild ways, and even if the police still sometimes watched him, he had nothing to fear. A dark cloud had lifted. He was back to surfing every day, living the life he'd come to the island for all those years ago.

When his son won a surf competition, he instinctively felt like ducking out of the shot, then realised that, actually, now he could be photographed.

I was in the podium with him, my son – very happy. And when I look to the public there was like 100 cameras shooting us, and I have this kind of drug dealer feeling . . . But at the same time I was proud, I am not a drug dealer, I can show my face, come, take a picture. Then when I go down, two guys come, ‘Hey, Rafael, remember me?' I look. ‘Sorry, no.' ‘I bought something from you.' I say, ‘Shush, I have my son.' My son says, ‘Papa, what did the guy buy from you?'

– Rafael

No longer using coke also opened his eyes to the fact that it had been the glue that kept him and Anna together in a fraught relationship. Being free of it also meant he was content to have sex with one woman – his new girlfriend, Emily.

Even when she'd found him that night at his lowest ebb there'd been sexual chemistry – ‘I remember I touch her hand. We started to have feeling with each other. But we say “Cannot, no, cannot.” ' Their feelings were conflicted by the fact that Emily was Anna's friend and her estranged husband, Julio, was Rafael's friend and customer. The two couples had socialised together, but for the past six months Julio had been in a clinic in Brazil for coke addiction. It was complicated, so breaking the news of his new relationship to Anna in jail wasn't easy for Rafael. It went as badly as he'd expected – ‘Fuck, she wanted to kill me.'

*

Late one night about a year later, Rafael got a surprise phone call. It was Andre, who'd just flown back to Bali after his third jailbreak, asking to stay at the beach house. Rafael told him he'd sold it but he'd be waiting outside the Canggu Club. Andre arrived looking like an unlikely escapee, dapper in a buttoned shirt, long pants and leather shoes, with his gap-toothed smile. When they got into the car, Andre ripped from behind his ears the glue which had kept them pinned back to look more like the photo in his false passport.

I run away with the fake passport and the picture is totally different to me. I travelled all the countries, and nobody stopped me. It's crazy.

– Andre

I remember he has the glue behind the ear. He took out, tuff, tuff. And his ears come back again like this, stick out.

– Rafael

Andre had escaped from a semi-open prison, a farm. He was able to literally walk out, and the guards discovered him missing only at roll call. In total, he'd now spent four years in jail, and thrown a million dollars at his cause: to make jail life easier, to be moved to less secure prisons in order to escape, and also to appeal his 37-year sentence. Now it had been cut to 12 years, which was why they'd put him on the farm.

On day one, he'd escaped. Again he went to Laguna Beach, surfing for 15 days until his new false passport was ready. The photo was of a younger, fat guy with black hair and a wide jaw. Andre had dyed his hair black and planned to say he'd got sick and lost weight if anyone asked. He took a bus from Laguna to Argentina, where he stayed for a couple of days, then boarded a flight, transiting back into São Paulo, then on to Doha and Singapore on Qatar Airlines.

Always on his toes and ready to tap-dance, he had a plan to reduce his risk. He started chatting to a Chinese girl in the seat next to him. ‘How are you? I'm Rodrigo, what's your name?' During the transit in Singapore he grabbed her hand. ‘What are you doing?' she asked.

He was ready with a slick reply: ‘You're so beautiful, I'd like to walk with you. Let's have fun.' They strolled around the airport like a romantic couple. It was the perfect camouflage.

When I come to take the plane again, the Chinese girl comes with me. I take the passport from her hand and give it together with my passport. And the guy says, ‘Oh, okay, going to Bali . . . nice.' She would never ever imagine what I'm doing. Every time I do something different, because I know what I need to do for no suspicion. If I go with somebody, especially a girl who has the eyes like that, it's fucking normal, you know an Asian travelling in Asia. When I arrive in Bali, I do the same with her.

– Andre

He breezed into Bali on his false passport, audaciously carrying in his checked-in luggage a tripod loaded with 150 grams of cocaine – 50 grams in each aluminium leg – which he'd sell for $15,000, and a couple of joints.

Were you nervous?

As nervous as if I'm bringing a phone in my pocket. For me it's easy. I don't think about that. I believe in myself, I believe in my job, I know really, really well how that works. I did this so many times here already. I know how to do it. I'm so confident with that.

What did it feel like to arrive back in Bali?

I'm fucking really happy, you know, happy again. But after you do it many times, it feels really normal also. I was prepared, maybe I get arrested on the way, maybe São Paulo, maybe somewhere. I was prepared for that also.

– Andre

Andre stayed at Rafael's modest rented house but their now different worlds quickly collided.

He was so used to being in jail, he talk all the time about kilos of coke. Was very hard, because I don't belong to this anymore, and sometimes in front of the kids, like, ‘Oh, somebody got busted for this, for that, he take some lines.' The kids say, ‘What?' ‘Andre, come on.' ‘Oh, sorry, sorry.' Not because he want to fuck me, but he just came from jail.

He says, ‘Oh, let's do like this. I'm gonna have new connections.' I say, ‘Uh-uh, I don't want to do anymore, man. When you left here I was another guy. Now I have my business, start in the surf school, I don't do anything wrong. I even have a Facebook.'

I was very happy I bring him to my house, but Emily was a little bit afraid. She says, ‘Fuck, I want to live with you because you promised me you were going to stop this shit.' She's totally against drugs. She says, ‘I don't feel safe living together in the same house with Andre here. Any time the police could break the door to catch him.' Then she says, ‘Oh, Andre, it's better you find another place to go.' He felt a little bit sad with me.

– Rafael

Andre was quickly immersed in Bali's drug world again, getting on his feet by selling Sumatran weed, but soon moving to quality imported grass, hashish and snow.

Through a Brazilian friend working in Australia, he'd organised an Australian Hells Angels boss to meet cop Claudio in Brazil, to buy 200 kilos of cocaine to send to Sydney. Andre's commission was $2000 per kilo. If it came off, he'd be making $400,000 and eagerly checked his emails for updates.

Meanwhile, he was waiting on a FedEx parcel of hashish from Amsterdam, interviewing an English girl to work as a horse, and meeting with an unlikely horse, a 55-year-old Englishwoman, to buy hashish which she trafficked from India. His phone ceaselessly beeped with messages like, ‘The choc is on the island!', or ‘Can I buy one surfboard?'

He was also soon trying to get Rafael back working with him, but Rafael started keeping his distance.

I don't approve of this shit anymore. And I think, ‘If I stay with him, he get problem, going to get for me too.' But I'm clear with him; I say, ‘Andre, I don't want to.' ‘Oh, let's make money together, it will help you.' I say, ‘No, man, I don't want to get involved in this shit.' He knew my view, but he kept trying to push me to make money. I think, ‘Are you my friend, or some evil person who wants to fuck me?'

– Rafael

Even seeing Andre's fast return to living in style didn't change his mind. Andre took out a three-year lease on a newly built, two storey house among rice paddies. The property comprised three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a swimming pool, and was just 200 metres from Canggu beach. He bought a new car, a fake Harley-Davidson, two scooters, a plasma TV and a bunch of new surfboards. He even got braces on his teeth to close a gap in the front that had widened in jail. He invested in a new restaurant on the beach and was living with a rich Indonesian girlfriend. The only thing Andre couldn't do was safely leave Bali.

I'm living now like a movie. I really had to make a choice about my life. Keep this life, or back to normal life. And I chose to keep my life like a movie. Day by day I party, crazy things on the phone, I chose this for my life.

I have already 25 years of really dream life, I can choose where I want to go . . . Now I cannot fly, but before I fly – like I get bored in Bali, so I go to Koh Samui for one week; get bored, I go to Europe for a couple of days. And this life for me is really, really pleasure life. Every day is new things, new feelings, new adventures. I pray to my gods every day, help me another day, another adventure in Bali.

Cos every day for me is a new adventure. Why? Because I don't know what's happening. If some police stop me in the street and ask for my passport, maybe I need to run, maybe I need to pay, maybe . . .

You know what I mean – I don't know what to expect in the next second. This is my day-by-day now. But this really really doesn't make me sad, this excites me. I don't know what new thing's going to happen tomorrow. Maybe I am here, maybe I need to run away – every day is different feeling. I believe so much the life just flows away.

– Andre

*

Although Rafael was out of the game, it hadn't stopped snowing in Bali. The Island of the Gods was still full of rich expats and tourists wanting the buzz of intoxication – the parties on the beaches or in the five-star hotels kept going, but discretion had replaced blatant, arrogant indulgence.

As long as there was a thriving market, there would be those ready to gamble their lives for a fast buck. A European guy sold snow to expats; Barbara, the Botox-faced woman, kept coke hidden in a hollowed-out Bible, and people still called Rafael sometimes, asking for his help to sell their kilos. For a while, there'd been a scarcity, but now it was snowing in Bali, with the price a sky-high $350 a gram. But Rafael refused to slip back.

He was reminded often of the life he'd left behind, as it still frenetically whirled around him. When 55-year-old Englishwoman Lindsay Sandiford was busted at Denpasar Airport with 4.7 kilos of coke in the lining of her suitcase, at least two of his friends had to flee overseas.

She give up so many people, she talk.

When I see the news last week, I was thinking, ‘Fuck, Andre must be panicking, because he buys hashish from this woman.' I don't give a shit. I go to sleep. Andre comes, ‘Oh, be careful, the island's hot,' and I say, ‘I have nothing to be afraid of.' I remember how I felt when it was my stuff that was bust; heart beat, no sleep. Now I sleep like an angel.

– Rafael