Snowing in Bali (10 page)

– Rafael

This night they'd been out to Zanzibar Restaurant on the beachfront in Legian and picked up an English porn star. She was perfect, as she wouldn't mind Tota filming the orgy. When they got back to his hotel, the Swede refused to start without Tota's hot friend Rafael. Tota called him. He was at home with his wife and kids, but as soon as they were asleep, he raced over to Tota's hotel room.

I come, knock on the door, and fuck, it was very crazy already, coke on the table, two bottles of champagne. Cigarette smoke everywhere, loud music. It was like big shit, a big orgy.

– Rafael

As soon as he stepped inside, the girls ripped off his clothes, pre-directed by Tota to do so. Fabio and Tota stood watching and laughing, then Tota interrupted, shouting, ‘Wait, wait, wait, I'm gonna film it.' Tota was a frustrated porn director and loved making his explicit dirty films. But he was baiting Rafael, aware his friend was always happy to join in the orgies, even be directed into crude, kinky positions, but point blank refused to be filmed.

Tota was such a pervert! He had it all planned. He knows exactly how he is going to do it.

– Rafael

The orgy went for a couple of hours, with the girls sporadically running to the table to use some of the left-over 2 kilos of bad quality blow. With his nose hypersensitive from overuse, Rafael couldn't touch it; so he gulped champagne between the hot and weird sex scenes that Tota was manipulating him into. ‘Lift that leg, you go here, spread your legs, bend over,' he'd direct brusquely, actually moving body parts, sometimes touching Rafael where he wanted no man to touch. One of Tota's favourite scenes was his sex sandwich, where he got the girls to lie on top of each other with their legs spread, and Rafael to alternate between them.

Fabio, in his usual night attire of black shirt with black jeans, wasn't interested in joining in, and spent his time sniffing coke, laughing and making quips. ‘Hey, Rafael, you're doing good, man.' Now and then Tota tore off his sarong and joined in, using his penis pump to make himself huge. Mostly he preferred slapping the girls' backsides, yelling, ‘
Rebola rebola,
shake, shake, move your hips,' and using his bag of tricks, like a black vibrating dildo and a small vibrating metal egg.

I don't know how he has the imagination to make this sort of scenario.

– Rafael

The night finished with Rafael pulling on his clothes, exhausted, and staggering out into the street with Tota's voice fading into the distance, ‘Come back, we've still got two bottles of champagne, come on,
bencong,
come back.'

Tota was known for his irrepressible energy for sex, gambling, partying and crazy antics. Rumour had it that in Brazil he'd once arranged to surprise his girlfriend. She was sunbaking with a bunch of friends on Rio's popular Ipanema Beach, when a chopper landed nearby on the sand. Below the rotating blades, two waiters in black tie climbed out and ran over to her, balancing plates of sushi, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a bunch of flowers and a short note, ‘From your love, Tota.' As the chopper flew off, it rained flower petals down on her. The master of spectacle had done it again, although the relationship didn't last.

There were times when Rafael would arrive at Tota's Bali hotel room, knock and, after hearing Tota yelling, ‘Come in, it's open', walk in to find him in the middle of sex. Rafael would quickly turn to leave, calling, ‘I'll come back later', with Tota singing out, ‘No, stay, come on,
bencong,
come in here, it's no worries, we can play together.'

‘No, no, no.'

The two often went out to clubs together, with Tota getting a kick out of pushing his hot friend Rafael to pick up girls; not that he needed persuasion or help. Tota would create stories, like Rafael was a famous TV star in Brazil, endlessly urging him to go for this hot Australian girl, or that French babe. Rafael usually liked Tota's taste in eye candy and played along. Tota's plan was always to get an orgy going back in his hotel room, and with his crew often got their prey to acquiesce to almost anything. One night, Tota was pushing Rafael to talk to an Italian girl.

Tota says to me, ‘Her tits point to the moon.' She was beautiful – dark hair, green eyes, beautiful, beautiful. Tota makes all these jokes and he was so dirty, the way he talks, he says like, ‘You already have sex with two guys at the same time? I can do very good performance – me and Rafael, it's the best.'

I say, ‘Shut up, man', and he says, ‘You like to have sex with Rafael in front of us?', and she was like, ‘Come on.' He says, ‘I'm just joking, I just want to test you. Because all the Italian girls play like the angel but they have the devil inside.' She says, ‘I already have sex with two guys, it was very good,' and he says, ‘You like girls?' and she says, ‘Yes.' Whoa . . . Tota was happy.

The Swedish girl was talking bullshit too, because they hunt together, because they have a prey – a beautiful duck. Then we go to a small club, was loud music, and Tota and the Swedish girl do a sexy dance. She pretends to give him a blow job. And he's like a Carioca dancer from Rio – all the Carioca guys they know how to Samba – and he does the moves.

He says, ‘You want a drink?' And the Italian says, ‘Oh, I'm starting to get drunk.' And I say, ‘Oh, drunk is no problem, I have some medicine.' And then she was like, ‘What?' ‘Oh, you wanna have some coke?' She says, ‘Oh, I really need just a little bit. I can give you some money.' ‘No, keep your money.'

Tota looks at me, winks, time to go . . . he says, ‘Let's go to my home, I don't bring coke here because I'm afraid of the cops, because Bali's very dangerous, but we can go, take a couple of lines and then come back.' But bullshit, he just wants to take the girl.

– Rafael

Once back at Tota's rooms – with French champagne, copious coke and Carioca dancing – his harem of girls stripped to their G-strings, saying, ‘Oh, I'm too hot.' Tota ripped his shirt off, telling Rafael, ‘Take your shirt off, man, show her your muscles.' He replied, ‘Leave me be', but soon Tota's dirty dancing and talking, generous lines of coke, and his naked harem, worked like magic. The new girl was looking at Rafael with hungry eyes and the room erupted into a heaving orgy, with Tota directing and Rafael taking time out sometimes to just watch the girls together. This was a typical night out with Tota.

Rafael realised it was the cocaine that was mostly responsible for these girls participating in the kinky sex scenes; their behaviour was largely a product of being on holiday in Bali and they were not like that at home.

Sometimes I get their number, and when I'm in Holland or somewhere for business, I meet them and they are totally different. They are snobby. They don't even give attention to me. In Bali it was, ‘Wow, Rafael, you are the man' – they do anything to be with me.

When I come to their country, they have normal life, they work, sometimes have a husband. I call, they say, ‘Oh, where are you?' ‘Amsterdam.' ‘Oh my god! Let's meet in the coffee shop . . . oh, Rafael, I have to tell you something. I am married.'

‘Oh, no problem . . . me too.' But I never lie when I meet a girl, I say straight away, ‘I am married with kids', because I just wanna fuck, I don't want a relationship or romance. And I say, ‘I have a wife, kids.' And if they continue they know I'm just gonna jiggy jig and ciao.

Sometimes I think of lying . . . ‘Oh, I'm single,' but that's not the way I prefer.

– Rafael

In Bali, Rafael would pick up girls, meeting them at bars, clubs, or private parties, and whisk them away, sometimes to a villa in Ubud for a couple of nights, or to his favourite Nikko Bali Resort. The staff were so familiar with him there they'd call out, ‘Hello, Mr Rafael', sometimes putting their foot in it, saying, ‘Oh, where's your girlfriend?' when he'd already moved to the next girl.

Mostly the girls were European . . . French, Italian or Swedish a lot, Finnish, Norwegian, the Nordic girls . . . They come here to spend one week, they want to fuck. I go to the party, take the girl, go to the Nikko, check in, spend the night, I always have some coke on me, and we have some wild sex, drink, use drugs and the day after I put her in her hotel and go home.

Big shit at home, my wife, ‘Where you been?' ‘I was at party, shut up.' Or, ‘I've been doing some business in a hotel' . . . make some story you know . . . was easy for me.

Did your wife suspect you were seeing other women?

Little bit . . . she was very jealous. She never caught me. Sometimes I would have my secret girlfriend too . . . just for fucking, nothing else. Brazilian, Australian, you know, sometimes Swedish.

It was a dream life; and then all the other guys see me doing this, they were jealous. ‘Fuck, Rafael, I saw you yesterday with a blonde girl . . . my god, where is she from? How did you get this girl?' They were curious why it was so easy for me to change the girls every night like this.

Sometimes I'm busy with one girl and then some other beautiful girl comes looking for me, asking my friends, ‘Are you Brazilian? Do you know Rafael with long hair? Where is he, I'm looking for him, you know him?' And then they say, ‘No . . . Rafael's not here,' but I am already with another girl and she come too late.

So there was a queue waiting for you?

Exactly. Sometimes I get in trouble, because I have two or three girls . . . Rafael, Rafael, Rafael. Shit, which one am I gonna take? I always choose one, you know, and say, ‘Please can you go and wait for me in the corner of Circle K. I will pick you up in five minutes because my girlfriend is here . . . we're finished but still, it's better if you go there.' ‘Okay,' they go. I say shit easy, you know. And then she walks out by herself. I go to the toilet, and then pick up the girl on the bike, escape.

Did you ever take more than one then?

Yes, sometimes it was funny because normally the Nordic girls like it. I come with two girls, and then I start to kiss one and then the other one wants to kiss together. I have one here and one there. All the Brazilian guys, my friends, were like, ‘Ah, Rafael, come here, introduce me.' And then I say please let's go somewhere and it was hard because the guys follow me on the bike. I have to stop, ‘Hey, go away.' Because the girls always say, ‘No, no, only you, we don't want anybody, only you.'

CHAPTER EIGHT

LEMON JUICE KING

Rafael's lifestyle sparked jealousy from others, even his so-called friends. Out of the blue one day, he got a call from Lemon Juice boss Marco with a business proposal. Marco explained he was in Amsterdam with the perfect horse, a 140-kilo Jiu-Jitsu prizefighter. The guy was flying to Tokyo to compete in the high-profile Pride Fighting Championships. There, Brazilian fighters were like gods and breezed unchecked through airports.

They love Brazilian fighters in Japan. At the airport, they put out the red carpet, they don't check anything.

– Rafael

Marco had decided to pack the fighter with 20,000 ecstasy pills, and despite the fighter wanting to buy them in Amsterdam, Marco knew Chino's were the best, and also that Bali customs was easier to penetrate than Dutch, and closer to Japan. As Chino wouldn't deal directly with Marco, he asked Rafael to arrange it, for a commission.

As soon as they flew into Bali, they met with Rafael at Marco's place in Bali Village. Rafael was a little dubious already, as Marco had a reputation for being unreliable and paying late.

‘Do you have ecstasy?' the fighter asked.

‘Yeah, but cash upfront.'

He didn't have it. He wanted to pay after the run, assuring Rafael it would work. ‘It's easy, they don't check me at all because I'm a fighter,' he said, macho-posturing slightly.

Rafael sensed the veiled threat, but chose to ignore it. ‘Thanks, but no deal,' he said, standing up to leave. ‘If they catch you, or if you die, who is going to pay Chino?'

Marco quickly interjected, desperate not to lose the deal. ‘Rafael, come on, please, man, I guarantee your money.' He knew Rafael could be a soft touch, as by now he'd invested in many of his dope runs. ‘I'll pay you $1 profit per pill – the easiest $20,000 in your life. Please, I guarantee, I guarantee.'

And then I was stupid. I say okay.

– Rafael

Rafael rang Chino, and told him the new play. ‘No problem,' Chino said, ‘you have credit with me anyway.' Awash with cash, Rafael had untypically left a kilo of coke on standby with Chino, and was waiting to be paid in two jet-skis. Chino asked who was organising this run.

‘Marco.'

‘The Lemon Juice guy?'

‘Yeah.'

Chino was well aware of the famous dope dealer's reckless reputation. ‘This guy is a bullshit man, I don't have a good feeling.'

Rafael told him he'd made up his mind. ‘I'm gonna help the guy, he's my friend.'

‘Okay, I'll give you the pills, but if they fuck it up, I'll take the cash out of your kilo here.' Chino couldn't lose, but Rafael could.

A couple of days later, one of Chino's soldiers met with Rafael on the busy beach esplanade in Legian. Surrounded by tourists, sunbaking and strolling, they did the exchange, quick and slick. Their bikes were side-by-side, engines still running, as Chino's man passed Rafael the benign-looking bag of 20,000 ecstasy pills. Rafael quickly slipped it into the storage space under his seat and tore off to Marco's room at Bali Village, just around the corner.

They didn't have long. The fighter was leaving that night and wanted to pack it himself. But his method was slapdash and dangerous. Rafael and Marco watched him haphazardly stuff the plastic bags of pills into his Lycra bike shorts, then pull a pair of shorts over the top. ‘I don't think it's good, do you?' the fighter asked.

Rafael jumped up, patting down the fighter's naturally big thighs, now resembling gigantic balloons. ‘You're right. You're going to go straight to jail.'

Drug dealer Andre soon arrived. He wasn't part of this deal, but offered to help. The fighter asked his opinion. ‘Are you crazy, man? You think this is a kid's game?' Andre knelt down, pulling down the fighter's pants, and quickly started repacking his legs. But the beefy prizefighter was now losing his nerve.

I start to tape the plastic bags of ecstasy on his leg and the guy starts to shake and sweat. Totally scared. Totally. Marco says to him, ‘Look, motherfucker, in the ring you look like a lion, now you look like a kid about to pee your pants, you are shaking like a chicken.'

– Andre

Marco's taunts only exacerbated the fighter's nerves. Now he didn't want to go. Trying to get him to man up, Andre blasted him. ‘Brother, you need to listen to me. You called us for this job. We didn't come here with 20,000 ecstasy pills for you to get scared. Now we have the Chinese mafia behind us and you don't want to go. Come on. You go.'

Rafael and Andre had already had a horse busted in Australia using Lycra bike shorts. They'd sent an English guy with coke in his pants to deliver to Rafael's famous surfer buyer in Sydney, who was continually asking for more stuff. The horse chose to fly to Brisbane then drive down to Sydney, to avoid the Harbour City's ostensibly more secure airport. But in Brisbane, sniffer dogs took him down.

On the plane, when he goes to piss, he smells the coke and thinks, ‘Oh my god, they're going to find it.'

Why didn't he flush it then?

He feels he will get a problem with us.

– Rafael

Andre had organised the English horse's run in Bali, down to taping his legs and sending him off. As planned, when the horse landed in Brisbane he phoned Andre, who was waiting in the Bali Subak Hotel room, where they'd packed. Andre trained his horses to use his self-created ‘step one, step two' method. After getting through customs, they were trained to call and say, ‘Step one okay' and after getting the cash, ‘Step two okay.' This time, he didn't say it. Warning lights lit up. Andre asked, ‘Step one okay?'

‘No.' It was a red alert; a drug boss's nightmare. Police would have been listening. Andre flew into crisis mode, slamming down the phone. Moving fast, he hurled everything onto a sheet on the floor, wrapped it up and ran out of there, with no time to spare. Police officers swooped into the room moments later. Andre's tried and trusted two-step method had saved him – just. But his horse went down.

A British man has been jailed for eight years for trying to smuggle more than $1 million worth of cocaine into Australia. The UK-born travel agent was caught with almost 3 kilos of cocaine stuffed between two pairs of bike pants he was wearing on a flight from Bali . . . The Brisbane Supreme Court has heard Mark Allan Stables was working in Bali when he agreed to smuggle the drugs for a group of Brazilians in a bid to get out of debt . . . Australian Federal Police are yet to find the Brazilian group which Stables claims was behind the smuggling attempt.

–
AAP,
1 October 2001

I remember this Mark got busted because it's a lot of money lost when somebody busts . . . was bad for business.

Did you lose contact after he was busted?

Lose contact totally. But two or three years afterwards, he knocked on my door. I remember it was Christmas time, I had Christmas in my house, and he came. When I see him, I think, ‘Fuck, maybe he's come here together with Interpol to catch me,' because he was out of jail early. I say, ‘Where is Interpol, they come with you, or are they coming later?' But he says, ‘No way. I need money.'

This guy is very skinny, my age, but he looked in so bad shape, like he's dying of cancer or something. The white skin, black eyes, we call him ‘Ja Morreu', means already dead, like we say, ‘Oh, where is the dead guy?' I remember I say, ‘What's your hardest time in jail in Australia?' ‘Fighting.' He says one time he was talking on the phone and one black guy broke his tooth and his nose.

– Rafael

He was asking for cash, but instead Rafael gave him a job, enlisting him to sell 50,000 ecstasy pills from Chino, and take a commission. Rafael rented a room for him to stay in to babysit the pills and make deliveries whenever he called. For Rafael, it was not only cash but insurance too.

I think now if he wants to fuck me he has a problem too. But he didn't, he did a good job, then he disappeared. I never heard from him again.

– Rafael

Back in Marco's room, Andre, Rafael and Marco knew a horse could get busted despite perfect packing, or being a revered prizefighter. Trafficking was always a risk, but it was minimised if you were a pro and used your skill. These three had vast experience and today they knew the frightened prizefighter was a dead cert to go to jail. A blind man could see his nerves. So, in a last-minute switch of plan, they decided to put the pills in a paraglider sail, so he could check that in, instead of wearing them. Andre had a spare in his room and ran to get it while Rafael raced off to buy carbon paper to wrap up the pills and make them invisible in an X-ray. It was frantic.

I was thinking, how's Andre going to pack this shit, and he just put carbon around, rolling it up, put in the bag. Fuck, it was very unprofessional packing, big hurry.

– Rafael

Within minutes of his flight closing, they got the fighter, more cool now, to Denpasar Airport. Despite his freak-out, he was a success.

But Rafael had been a patsy. A week later, everyone simply vanished; Marco didn't answer his phone and the prizefighter was gone, immediately after calling Rafael from Tokyo raving it was a success. Two months later, Rafael still hadn't been paid. He was fuming. Anna also stirred his anger by chiding him for being a fool to trust anyone in the first place.

It was big shit. My wife says, ‘You're stupid to give credit to these motherfuckers, they gonna fuck you.'

Tota told me this story afterwards: Marco says to him in Amsterdam, ‘Oh, I have one guy in Bali, he thinks he is something but he is a piece of shit. Let's make some money on him, easy, because he is too nice. He trusts whatever I say to him.'

Tota says, ‘Who is the guy?'

‘Rafael.'

Tota says, ‘Why do you want to fuck him? The guy is nice.' And then Tota asks him, ‘How do you want to fuck him?'

He says, ‘I have a guy who wants to buy 20,000 ecstasy pills and Rafael knows the guy in Bali with the best ones. Let's buy the ecstasy with Rafael, we take on credit, and we don't need to pay. He's already rich, he doesn't need money, motherfucker.' And then they come here.

Marco was jealous of my success. He became second with his Lemon Juice, doesn't make as much money as coke. He was jealous of all the girls, all my lifestyle, house, car, clothes, like VIP everywhere. I feel he was very unsatisfied. And then he tried to fuck me.

– Rafael

After learning he'd been played, Rafael knew he had to avenge himself, as much for his pride as to demonstrate he was nobody's fool. Marco had flown back to Amsterdam to set up another Lemon Juice run, straight after the Tokyo run, but Rafael heard he was now back in Bali, hiding out at their friend Fernando's house. Rafael called, asking, ‘Where's Marco?'

‘I don't know,' Fernando replied, in duet with Marco bellowing, ‘Tell the motherfucker I'm not here.'

Rafael abruptly cut the call, grabbed a knife and flew out the door.

I was like, ‘Fuck, I'm gonna kill him.'

He drove straight to Fernando's house. Another dealer, Paulo, answered the door. He was friendly, but saw the knife in Rafael's back pocket. ‘What's that, Rafael?'

‘You know what it is, my friend, it's a fucking knife and it's for putting in the neck of Marco. I know he's here. You're a motherfucker too, for hiding him,' Rafael said, striding through the house.

‘Rafael, calm down,' Paulo urged.

‘No, tell me where he is.'

Sick of pussyfooting around, Rafael grabbed Paulo around the neck, holding the knife to his throat. ‘Where is he?'

‘He's in Padang, he's gone to Padang.'

Rafael sped off to Padang Padang, a top surf spot that he knew intim­ately. From the bridge crossing high above the cove, he spotted Marco on the sand below. Rafael sprang down the steps that spiralled inside a canopy of trees and rock, giving him cover for a fast and stealthy entrance to the beach.

A bunch of Marco's horses sat on the sand, facing the water. Marco was a few metres further up the sand, with his head down in his rubber boat. Rafael crept behind them, then sprang at Marco, shouting, ‘Hey motherfucker, what do you think you're doing?' Marco shot bolt upright.

He looks like he's seen a ghost when he sees me. And then he tried to be arrogant. ‘Why did you come here? If you're gonna punch me, punch me.' I was so angry, I use all my power, I went straight to him, pow! My hand hurt for two days. Marco flies across to the other side of the boat. And then I take the knife to his neck . . . I say, ‘Now you gonna die, motherfucker.'

– Rafael

Rafael was kneeling on Marco's chest as the horses, now all on their feet, were circling threateningly. Rafael thought fast. He turned to look up at the high bridge, packed with locals leaning on the railings, and waved. Predictably, they all waved back. ‘You think I come here alone?' Rafael shouted at Marco's men, pointing to the bridge. ‘Those are Chino's guys and if you touch me, they're gonna kill you.' They all knew of Chino and immediately backed off. Rafael stood up and planted his foot on Marco's neck. ‘You guys want to try to touch me, come and touch me.'

Croakily, Marco pleaded, ‘Rafael, please.' Rafael slipped his knife back in his pocket as curious onlookers started coming in for a closer look. Fernando and another mutual friend came out of the surf. Looking down at Marco sprawled on the sand, Fernando said, ‘I told you, man, don't do that with Rafael, he's gonna fuck you. Now see what you do.'

Rafael ignored the chitchat, and crushing his foot harder into Marco's neck, shouted, ‘I want my money now, motherfucker.' He snatched a camera off the edge of Marco's boat and slung it around his neck. ‘Now, I'm gonna take everything you've got. What else? Give me your watch.' He ripped the Rolex off his wrist, saw it was a fake and stuffed it in his pocket anyway.

‘I have money, please don't kill me, please.'