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SNOWING IN BALI

catching up after the endless debauched nights of sex, drugs and partying.

The next evening around 9 pm, his client, who was paying him to babysit the blow, phoned urgently wanting the coke. 'I found somebody who wants to buy the lot,' he said.

'Shit, I can't go and take it right now, it's night time,' Alberto replied. But the client had a hot deal that couldn't wait. He pushed.

'It's got to be now, right now.'

'I'll get it in the morning, it's not safe now.'

'No, it has to be now.'

Alberto capitulated, 'Okay, I'll go and get it,' aware it was a bad idea.

Alberto was no longer high, but his instinctive gut paranoia was kicking in. This time of night that beachfront area was notoriously swarming with Balinese drug dealers, fake drug dealers and Intel police skulking in the shadows with their nets, literally arresting dozens of locals some nights, mostly fake drug dealers who they released the next day. For Alberto, it was a huge risk.

I knew that the place was very, very dodgy to go at night, because a lot of Indo cops hang around there because a lot of drug dealers hang around at night. In the daytime it was full of families, night-time full of cops, so the safest time was like 10 am, 11 am. I had to go there 9 pm, 10 pm and grab it.

After calling the same friend who'd come the day before, they drove back to the spot, almost directly in front of Double Six, a nightclub renowned for its security guards, Laskar gang members, selling drugs with impunity. Alberto braced himself and walked across to the spot.

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