Smuggler's Blues: The Saga of a Marijuana Importer (8 page)

I joined the party and spent most of my time in the kitchen with the guys while the girls sat in the living room doing their own thing. Ryan was there with his wife. Robby was there with Paula. Jean Paul’s brother-in-law, Rene Lemieux was also there. At one point during his birthday celebration, Jean Paul separated the guys from the girls and sat us down in a little back den of his three-bedroom split level, where he treated the guys to some opium and jailhouse wisdom.

“Don’t worry about going to jail,” he said to the five of us with a wolfish grin. “Jail will be just like this. We’ll sit around and play cards. We’ll get high the same way we are now. And we’ll shoot the shit the same way, too. It will be like hanging out in a men’s club.”

Jean Paul’s comments reminded me of Bishop’s comparison between the New York Detention Center and boarding school, but I curbed my impulse to make anything out of it. Jean Paul went on to say that he was going to jail soon. His lawyer had strung out his beef as long as he could and the end was in sight. Jean Paul was facing prison time for doing what he called a favour for some well-connected people. It was insinuated that the favour involved a murder but he was not going to jail for that. Jean Paul was taking the fall for a stock fraud conspiracy, and he treated his pending jail sentence as nothing more than
payment for a cause, like going to college or apprenticing for a trade. He passed around a metal pipe filled with red opium to enhance the mood for some more of his jailhouse rhetoric. The only other insight into Jean Paul’s character that I picked up that night was his penchant for fresh sheets and bedding every night, which Barbara thought excessive. I felt that Jean Paul was compensating for guilt, and no amount of fresh bedding would wipe his conscience clean.

Jean Paul told us the story of an undercover female agent who came onto him and became his girlfriend and what he did to her when he found out she was a cop. He told us that he beat her to a pulp, and when he was finished beating her, he washed her face with a damp cloth and then threw her from his car onto a street in front of the hospital. After Jean Paul’s surprise party ended, I collected my wife and drove home wondering why I was associating with people that I so despised.

From time to time I played golf and poker with Ryan and Jean Paul, who both continued to be part of the mix of friends and associates I hung out with. You might wonder why someone would continue to hang out with the people who had screwed him. This type of Gemini behaviour is common in the underworld, where you can’t just change jobs when you are pissed off with your associates or your working conditions. You either get out of the business completely or you put up with the working conditions and wait for an opportunity for payback. In the underworld, there are often undercurrents of unresolved conflict lurking just beneath the surface in many social interactions. Old animosities and unresolved insults die hard sometimes. Add to this an absence of legal recourse, and then factor in the usual petty human jealousies, and it’s no surprise that double crosses and rip-offs occur all the time in the world of crime. Never mind honour among thieves, a thief’s corrupted view of honour is like his corrupted view of respect. Respect equals fear in criminal circles and if you respect someone in the underworld, you must kill them if there is a disagreement. A murder like that is often called a settling of accounts by the local newspapers and broadcast media. The expression sanitizes and
legitimizes the most heinous of crimes. In my opinion murder should be called what it is: murder.

When I first started in the smuggling business, there was no violence to speak of. It was just me and my buddies, a bunch of college dropouts and frustrated job seekers who became semi-organized in a joint endeavor to make money. When Jean Paul was brought into the scene, the game changed completely and became more serious. As the profits became larger and larger, there was a greater need for people like Jean Paul to keep some semblance of order in the drug dealing community. There were several criminal groups like ours working around Montreal who had heavies like him on the payroll. From time to time, these groups would divide and mutate into other cells or criminal groups which would often interact with each other on projects. For example, one criminal cell might be smuggling weed into the country while another cell would be selling it at street level to the local market. Or one cell might be printing fake documents which other criminal cells and groups would trade for drugs or unregistered guns.

Anytime two or more people were involved in a criminal enterprise, the local newspapers in Montreal lumped everyone together into a gang and then gave that gang a name. If you lived in the west end of Montreal you were part of the West End gang. If you lived in the east end, you were part of the East End gang. The Dupont brothers from Saint Henri had control of downtown Montreal and any trouble that occurred at the bars and night clubs was attributed to the Dupont gang. The Italians controlled Montreal North and criminal activity in that area was usually attributed to the Mafia. The South Shore and Laval both had their own local gangs. These groups would work together on occasion, but only when there was a mutual benefit. It’s not as though you might offend someone in the West End gang and suddenly have a hundred guys after you. You would only have the hundred guys after you if the party you offended was willing to pay a fee or offer some other benefit as a reward for that service.

In an effort to make a quasi-honest living, I stopped smuggling cannabis for a while and started selling cars from my home.
The business is called “curbing” in the trade and the first few cars I purchased for curbing were from Charlie the Weasel’s car lot on Decarie Boulevard. Charlie Wilson was a couple of years older than I was at the time and he was a hard-working man with simple tastes. He talked in the rough fashion of the east end, but he had a friendly face with slightly protruding front teeth that softened his features. He dressed in non-designer clothes and although they were not brand names, he always looked neat and I never saw him in jeans.

Charlie introduced me to his partner in the car lot, Irving Goldberg, who was fresh out of prison from a twelve-year bit for armed robbery. Irving was older than Charlie by ten years or so and Charlie often made reference to how dangerous Irving was. He did not look at all dangerous to me. I saw Irving as a clean-cut, slightly overweight man who looked like any other car salesman you might meet. He was of average height, with short curly hair and had a cherubic smile that projected a confident hospitality. I related well with Irving and with his partner Charlie, both of whom had criminal pasts that were more extensive than mine. My other friends from the West Island, who were mostly college and high school dropouts, were just playing at being gangsters and they were scared of Charlie. Charlie’s pals were actually career criminals. I felt that Charlie understood the seriousness of the games we were playing, while my co-conspirators from the West Island did not.

The Weasel was given that name because he sought out money like a ferret searches out food. Charlie used to drive around to the places where my friends and I hung out and he would sniff around in the hope that he might profit by overhearing some scam or deal. Charlie Wilson had made his bones in the underworld as a young man. While working in a carnival, he was approached by some members of the notorious West End gang. They came to Charlie with a plan that was simple, and together they pulled off a score that went down without a hitch. Big Tommy Moore and Ryan Robertson put a guard’s hat on Charlie’s head and had him knock on the back door of a Brink’s truck while the delivery courier was still collecting money bags
in the store. Charlie was a short guy and all that could be seen by the Brink’s driver was the top of his hat. When Charlie knocked on the bulletproof window, the driver saw the hat and opened the door. The rest is history. Charlie made over two hundred grand in less than a minute, and his reputation in the underworld became sealed and respected. The money Charlie made covered the inventory on his car lot and left a little extra cash for his other needs. As a result, Charlie Wilson, who quit school in grade ten, was well set up with a beautifully furnished apartment and a viable business, all before he reached the age of twenty-five. He drove a late model Porsche sports car, which made sense since he had no children. He was married to a lovely girl that he kept completely in the dark about his criminal activities. Unbeknownst to his criminal friends, who would have razzed him silly, Charlie had once been a teenage fashion model in the Eaton’s department store annual home shopping catalogue that was sent to every home in Montreal.

I purchased several cars from Charlie and sold them privately from my home. I also bought cars privately through the newspapers and placed them on Charlie’s lot to sell on consignment. I started hanging out at the car lot on a regular basis and when Charlie wasn’t there, I would spend my time talking to his partner Irving. I came by daily to check on the needs of my consignment cars, grabbing a hose when necessary and giving them a quick wash or filling a deflated tire with air. I liked Irving and got along well with him. He was a straight-talking man who had a charming exterior that did not fit well with his reputation as a violent person. Irving had a large barrel chest with skinny arms and legs and eyes that were a bright sparkling blue. He had a mannerism that saw him turning his hands backwards like an ape when he walked that I suspect was developed to cement his image as a tough guy in the can. If he wanted to discuss something private, he would take me outside and walk me around the car lot, taking short, little steps that were a remnant of his prison experience. When faced with an uncomfortable situation, Irving would plant his legs firmly and stand his ground, while his face would flush a deep red showing his desire to leave. He was well
mannered when he wanted to be, although that was often a ploy to get something he wanted.

Irv and Charlie were both a bit intrusive, in that they were inclined to walk into your house and help themselves to whatever was in your fridge without asking. One time Barbara and I unexpectedly met Charlie in Jamaica and he insisted on taking us on a sightseeing trip to Negril. He took it upon himself to act as our chauffeur and guide, even though he had never been to the west end of Jamaica before. Barbara and I were concerned about eating something before we left Montego Bay on our journey, but Charlie was adamant that we did not have to worry about lunch.

“They’re all starving for company in Negril,” he said in his most convincing voice. “Don’t worry. Someone will feed us.” The someone he was referring to were the white expatriates living in and around Negril. I thought at first he was joking, but when we arrived at our destination about twelve noon, the first thing Charlie did was hail down a white guy walking along the side of the road. The hippie-looking character greeted us with a cheery “Irie” and stopped to talk to Charlie through the car window. His appearance was a mixture of styles and cultures, with a dreadlock Rasta-type hairdo and Tilley brand designer clothing. He was a slim man, somewhat short in stature, who wore a braided beard that complimented his long, braided hair. His feet were shod with sandals made from Jamaican leather that were stitched to rubber soles made from a car tire. The hippie appeared to have plenty of time to chat on a pleasant day that saw shafts of sunlight spearing through the surrounding foliage. Charlie asked the long-haired man where we could find some food, and after a few minutes of conversation, we found ourselves sitting in the hippie’s thatched home eating his food and smoking his homegrown weed. It was the first time I ever smoked a spliff wrapped in a pure, naturally grown tobacco leaf. The oversized joint was delicious and the tobacco leaf gave a much softer burn than regular rolling papers.

Negril is different from the rest of Jamaica both in topography and weather as well as in the attitudes of the people. Negril
is considered country to the rest of Jamaica. There is none of the pushing and pestering that goes on in Montego Bay and the other tourist resorts on the north coast. Fruit grows larger and tastes sweeter in Negril. Weed tastes better too. In keeping with the laid-back attitude of the region, Ma Brown’s famous mushroom tea shack carries on a prosperous business selling magic mushrooms. The shrooms are specially searched out in the surrounding jungle and pack a psilocybin wallop like nothing you have ever felt before.

The hippie’s thatched house that we were in was completely made by hand, using the materials that grew on his property. He told us of his dreams to clear the surrounding jungle and make a resort consisting of thatched roof houses like his own. If you visit the hippie today, his property is on the cliffs and is one of Negril’s most popular locations for the eco resort crowd. It is called Xtabi.

“How do you get along with the blacks?” Charlie asked the pleasantly stoned hippie.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The niggers. How do you get along with the niggers down here?”

“Fine. I have a Jamaican houseboy and a maid.”

“Don’t they steal your food?”

“They don’t have to. Most of my food is grown in the back yard. They can have whatever they want.”

“What about stealing your money and your cigarettes?”

“I grow my own marijuana and tobacco on the property which the staff are welcome to partake in. There is little need for money here in Negril. Everything comes from the land.”

“What about robberies?”

“It’s no worse than anywhere else.”

“As far as I am concerned, niggers are all thieves and they lie like a mattress.”

“Why come to Jamaica if you don’t like the people?”

“You know I have been asking myself that same question ever since I got here.”

Charlie was candid in his dislike of blacks, unlike many of the
tourists who refused to admit it, and his hippie host appeared to take no offense at that. Charlie hated blacks the way a junkyard dog dislikes trespassers. Sometime after our rendezvous in Jamaica, I saw him in a local supermarket in Montreal. “Tweet tweet,” he said out of the blue.