35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘A FLAME OF FAITH’
with the manners of an ape. But what bothered Maria and the rest
most of all was the drugs. Ray flaunted his profession in front of
these people; his ego made him believe his loyal Goan retainers
would no more discuss what they saw in his villa than serfs would
have complained about their feudal baron to his monarch. It simply
didn’t occur to him.
Nor did it occur to him that discussing the ins and outs of his
business with me might not be such a good idea. He never asked
me what I was doing in the subcontinent. Yet before long he’d invited
me to see firsthand the whole process of narcotics smuggling
between India and the West.
In retrospect, as I consider it, Ray was the missing link between
the original hippies and the yuppies of the Reagan era. Drugs were
the catalyst, the same bridge to materialism that had once seen traffic
heading the other way. Ray, after all, had capital now, and had it in
Swiss banks, too. Today he owns a major stockbroking business
with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and New York. But it was a timehonoured
path he followed: the Kennedys, the Bronfmans, and
many more – all of them owed their seed capital to the smuggling
of illegal substances. This is not to say that Ray didn’t pay a price for
his easy money.
Velocity turned out to be a sort of bird-dog for mules, the runners
who actually took the drugs home, risking seven years in jail for
five grand and a plane ticket. She sniffed out likely prospects, hung
out with them long enough to ascertain that they were reasonably
reliable, and – this was most important – not cops. She groomed
them, got them inconspicuous clothes and neat haircuts, then told
Ray they were ready to go.
They never met Ray, or even heard his name mentioned, so if
they were caught there was little they could tell the authorities.
Velocity arranged for Ray to see them without being seen because
he would be travelling on the same plane with them, making sure
they got through customs without a hitch, and without being set
up by the drug squad to trap the person picking up their cargo.
Satisfied all had gone well, Ray would follow them to a hotel at
which his client had also booked a room. Then he’d wait until he
was convinced the coast was clear, have someone collect the bags
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