Mr Nice

  ‘I think I might have to, Ernie. What is it?’

  ‘Did Bill ever mention to you a guy called Fred?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Well, Fred is dead, and so’s our load.’

  Fred Hilliard had died of a heart attack while the wooden crates of dope were heading to Alameda on the American President Line. Only Fred had been capable of clearing the load, which was now about to be discovered and cause one almighty scandal. The United States Navy was not meant to be smuggling top-quality hash through its shipyards. Questions would be asked. Governments might topple. Bill had fled on hearing the news of Fred’s death. He was in some Brazilian jungle. Ernie had sent guys out to look for him. If Bill could not be found, Ernie was going to put Tom and Carl on the case. He was running out of reliable government agents. When this was over, he was going to have a long vacation.

  Again, Malik was incredibly understanding. He suggested we give the mother-business a rest and concentrate on paper-mills and other legitimate businesses in Pakistan.

  Malik’s advice was on my mind when Judy and I attended the wedding of her brother George to Assumpta O’Brien. The wedding took place in Belfast and was attended by crowds of people all sounding like Jim McCann. I wondered how he was doing. It had been a while since I’d heard any news of him.

  George and Assumpta had spent the last few years teaching English for the British Council in Beirut. 1984 had been an eventful year in the Lebanon. The US Marines had finally given up and left the country to its own devices. The ensuing battle for control of Beirut was bloody and complicated. Buildings exploded and people were kidnapped and murdered. Befuddled newspaper readers in the West tried to distinguish Shi’ite, PLO, Druze, and Maronite from each other, as those who could afford to left Beirut in droves. George and Assumpta had been sad to leave. They loved the Middle East and loved teaching English. They were at a loose end. If I paid for them to set up a school in Pakistan, would they do it? Of course they would.

  And so began the International Language Centre, Karachi (ILCK). Within weeks, an impressive start had been made. The old American consulate in Karachi was available for rent. We turned it into a school. Hobbs was given a break from his marriage-counselling activities in Hong Kong and flown to Karachi to be the school caretaker. English teachers were interviewed in London, and a few were given the honour of a post in Karachi.

  Real English taught by real British teachers went down well in Pakistan. Success beckoned. Malik was very pleased. I made him a director of ILCK. He made me a director of Mehar Paper Mills, a business he owned in Lahore.

  Japan and all things Japanese had fascinated me since my childhood. I had played its national game, Go, for decades; I loved raw fish; and I was constantly buying Japanese electronic and optical products for my amusement. I found stories of samurai intriguing and was particularly impressed with the philosophy of doing away with oneself when one had reached one’s prime. I wasn’t suicidal: I had passed my prime, so it didn’t apply to me. But the idea of a constantly improving life with none of the worries of old age had a curious appeal. Constantly visiting Hong Kong, a few hours from Japan, and never seeming to have the time to catch a flight to Tokyo was frustrating me.

  ‘You fancy coming to Tokyo, love?’

  Judy smiled.

  ‘You know I’d love to. The kids will adore it. There’s a Disneyland there.’

  There are several night-life areas in Tokyo. One of them is called Roppongi. It’s a city of discothèques. At 6 p.m., hordes of immaculately dressed middle-aged businessmen pour from their offices, check their briefcases into the discothèque’s cloakroom, and rave on the dance floor, studying their gesticulations in the mirrors on the wall. Judy and I were making a tour of the clubs. We came across a twelve-foot high-rise with a discothèque on each floor. Each discothèque had a different theme. Reggae, Country and Western, Doo-wop, and other themes were advertised. On the fifth floor was a club called the Cavern. There was a picture of John and Yoko. We paid our admission fees.

  The rooms had been done up to look like those of the original Cavern in Liverpool, a club I had actually visited over twenty years ago. On the stage four Japanese were dressed in Beatle suits. They looked identical to the Beatles. Each either had the appropriate high-tech skin mask or had undergone plastic surgery to achieve the total resemblance. They played exclusively Beatle songs, word-perfect and note-perfect. They were the Beatles. It was uncanny.

  When we got back to our hotel, the Keo Plaza, there was a message to call Stanley Rosenthal. High Time had been published. Reviews were awful. The Inland Revenue had read it and freaked out. They could not be seen to be treating me as someone who wasn’t a dope smuggler if I was publicly confessing to actually being one. They had withdrawn their offer of settlement and wanted to see me as soon as possible. I flew back to London. Stanley and I went to the Inland Revenue. The English prick Spencer had been taken off the case. We saw Price, the polite Welshman. I explained that much of what I’d told Leigh was mere empty bragging with no basis in fact. These lies and exaggerations had been included in the book just to enhance its commercial potential. I had been aware of possible repercussions, I said, which was why I had recorded my interviews with David Leigh. Mr Price, I offered, was welcome to listen to the actual cassette recordings, if David Leigh and Heinemann had no objections. Mr Price did not call the bluff and reiterated the original offer of paying £40,000 by the end of the year. The Chelsea flat was mortgaged, and he was paid.

  Although I enjoyed being a smuggler most of all, I was enjoying being a travel agent’s sales representative far more than being a wine importer, second-hand paper-mill salesman, bulk water transporter, or manager of a secretarial service. My hotel accommodation was often luxuriously upgraded, and airline personnel were more than polite to me.

  A careful scrutiny of my businesses revealed that they were actually losing money rather than making it. As a result of my money-laundering, the businesses’ accounts looked good, and they had from time to time provided some sort of cover; but I longed for a front that would actually make money rather than merely deplete my marijuana profits. The only legitimate profits I made these days were the commissions Balendo gave me for the airline tickets he sold to the odd customer I put his way.

  The chaotic regulations governing prices of scheduled flight tickets and the systematic breaching of those regulations enabled London travel agents to make their money in a variety of ways. A regular scheduled airline was required to sell its tickets at fixed minimum prices to a regular travel agent, i.e., one registered with IATA, the International Airline Transport Association, who would add a fixed percentage, about 10%, to the minimum price.

  An airline would much prefer to sell tickets at below minimum prices rather than fly a plane-load of empty seats. Consequently, illicit deals were set up between non-IATA-registered travel agents and the airlines, allowing cheap tickets to hit the streets and enabling travel agents to make a 25–30% mark-up, depending on their relationships with the airlines.

  An airline would often extend considerable credit to a productive travel agent, perhaps up to three months. The travel agent would tend to get its money from the customer long before it had to pay the airline. Accordingly, capital became available for short-term investment, yielding ancillary profits to the travel agent.

  Hong Kong International Travel Centre, through the painstaking hard work of Balendo and Orca, had established first-class relationships with several Far East airlines. Good mark-ups were being made on ticket sales. The turnover, however, was nothing special, primarily because of the back-street location of its offices. The business was unable to really take advantage of the credit available to them from the airlines.

  Balendo and Orca had often mentioned that once they had accumulated enough capital, their intentions were to open up a big office more centrally located and corner the Far East travel market by providing airline tickets cheaper than anyone else could. The positive cash flow generated woul
d then be invested on the Hong Kong stock market, where Balendo’s Hong Kong family had the right connections.

  I offered to invest £100,000 if I could be appointed a co-director of the company. I wanted to take an active part in the running of the business, but I promised not to get in the way.

  The offer was not refused. I closed down the businesses operating from 18, Carlisle Street, Soho. I moved out. Hong Kong International rented a massive shop-front and office in Denman Street, just off Piccadilly Circus. I moved in. Whenever I happened to be in London, which was getting less and less often as Palma was taking its hold, I would spend most of the working day there.

  Hong Kong International occasionally bought airline tickets from CAAC, the Chinese national airline. Balendo was convinced that a personal visit to Beijing would secure a better deal. He asked if I would come along.

  In the spring of 1985, Westerners in China were still thin on the ground, even in Beijing. Other than open her doors, China had done little to accommodate visitors from other lands. Beijing was a really weird place. It swarmed with bicycles. There were no birds in the air or dogs in the streets. There were no taxis for hire. Foreigners were segregated from Chinese at every conceivable opportunity. They had to use different shops and spend special Monopoly money called Foreign Exchange Certificates that were not available to the Chinese. Not surprisingly, black-market currency exchange flourished.

  As guests of CAAC, Balendo and I visited the Forbidden City and Tianamen Square. As guests of the China Railway Service, we were taken to the Ming tombs and clambered over the Great Wall into Outer Mongolia.

  Several meetings in incomprehensible tongues took place at the offices of CAAC. I understood very little, but Balendo emerged from the final meeting with a broad smile. CAAC agreed to sell us tickets at rock-bottom prices. They had also agreed to give us the exclusive authority in Britain to issue and charge for Chinese visas and to be the first foreign agency allowed to sell outside of China tickets for purely domestic flights within China. Balendo was evasive about how he’d achieved this. Was this some heavy Chinese gangster stuff? I hoped so. But it was far more likely that some money, presumably part of my £100,000, either had been or was about to be paid.

  On the way back from Beijing, I stopped off at Bangkok. Phil presented me with a new business proposition. He wanted us to open up a massage parlour. This was hardly an innovation in Bangkok. The city was flooded with them: on street corners, in hotels, and next to public car parks. Some specialised in blow-job orgies. Others actually provided a massage. The most popular ones administered body massages, in which the client is placed on a lilo, smothered with hot oil or soapy water, and scrubbed clean with a pussy instead of a scouring pad. Further interaction was optional. First-class hotels provided only straight, or almost straight, massages. They were losing a lot of money by failing to offer body massages.

  The largest hotel/shopping complex in Asia is that housing the Hyatt Central Plaza, midway between Bangkok city centre and Don Muang International Airport. The Hyatt is a five-star luxury hotel, the first one encountered between the airport and Bangkok. Its clientele comprised mainly airline pilots relaxing between flights and businessmen on short stays. There was little reason for a hotel guest to make the sometimes inordinately long journey to the city centre. The hotel had first-class restaurants and sports facilities. Endless brand-new shopping malls, all mirrors, escalators, and water fountains, were adjacent. One could get whatever one wanted. Except body massages. The Hyatt had agreed to let Phil open up a body-massage parlour in its basement. To keep up appearances it would also provide straight massages, haircutting, and manicures. About thirty body-massage professionals were to be employed full-time. Customers could charge all services to their hotel bill. The hotel would then pay Phil. The word ‘body massage’ would never appear on the customer’s hotel bill, of course. And it would be ‘blow-dry’ rather than ‘blow-job’. Some wives and expense-footing company bosses might eventually raise their eyebrows at the frequency of grooming and toenail-cutting charges, but much would pass through unnoticed. The customer would even be able to bring his masseuse to his bedroom. The Hyatt would be the first luxury hotel in Bangkok to have a brothel on its premises and hookers on room service. Phil wanted me to come in with him fifty-fifty.

  I never really had any desire to be a glorified pimp, but I couldn’t resist it. Telling people I was a travel agent was useful and safe. Telling them I owned a Bangkok massage parlour was a lot more fun. I could offer a free body-massage membership card to anyone I needed to impress.

  ‘I’m in. How did you swing it, Phil?’

  ‘Through that guy I told you about, Lord Moynihan. He owns massage parlours in loads of hotels in the Philippines, including all the Hyatts. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could chuck him, but he’s useful and has got some amazing contacts. He knows everyone in the Philippines, from Marcos down. And he can do what he likes in the airport in Manila.’

  ‘How did you meet him?’

  ‘Through Jack the Fibber, Jack Warren. Remember his son Barrie, the one who died in 1979?’

  ‘Is Moynihan a real lord?’

  ‘Definitely. I checked him out. He’s Lord Moynihan of Leeds. His half-brother is Colin Moynihan, the Minister for Sport in the British Government. He was a pretty controversial member of the House of Lords, taking Spain’s side over the Gibraltar issue. He got busted for some petty fraud, with overtones of murder, and scarpered to Spain. Franco took care of him and made him a Spanish knight or something. Then he set up in the Philippines. He’s as bent as arseholes. Went to the same university you did, Oxford, but he’s a good bit older than you. I told him about you, just said that I knew another crook from Oxford. He wants to meet you. We should go to Manila some day. You’d like it.’

  Phil and I caught a Philippine Airlines flight from Bangkok to Manila. The plane doors opened, and Jack the Fibber and Lord Moynihan walked on to the plane. I was impressed. Jack and I hugged each other.

  ‘Sorry to hear about Barrie, Jack.’

  ‘Ain’t a day goes by I don’t think about it, Howard. You’re looking good.’

  Phil introduced me to Moynihan.

  ‘Call me Tony. Delighted to meet you, old boy. We’d better get off this plane. Much baggage?’

  ‘None, Tony, just what we’re carrying.’

  ‘Oh! I needn’t have brought my porter. Never mind. Shall I take your passports?’

  Marching off the plane and in front of long queues of arriving passengers, Moynihan gave our passports to an Immigration Officer, who smiled and stamped them. Immediately outside, surrounded by a small ring of armed police, was Moynihan’s Cadillac stretch-limousine. We all climbed in.

  ‘You’re welcome to stay with us, of course, but we do have slightly more than our usual quota of house guests. I’ve taken the precaution of booking you into VIP accommodation at the Manila Mandarin in Makati. Phil and Howard, please be my guests for Sunday lunch tomorrow. I’ll send this car round to pick you up at 1 p.m. Jack, I know you have other things to do tomorrow.’

  Jack was not one of Moynihan’s house guests. He was also staying in the Manila Mandarin. Phil went off to see his Manila girl-friend. Jack and I went out drinking.

  Although Jack was in his late sixties and had suffered the appalling tragedy of his son dying in a Bangkok gutter from a heroin overdose, he had not lost his ability to make anyone weep with laughter with his Australian wit and his incessant mischief. He had tales to tell. He had shared a cell with Mick Jagger when they busted him in the 1960s. He had thieved from most of the world’s top jewellery stores. First we went to Del Pilar, the main night-life area. It was much the same as Bangkok’s Patpong – lots of bikini-clad girls dancing on bars and tabletops – but it was considerably cheaper, and the music was a lot better. The dancing girls’ company could be bought for a pittance paid to the, usually American or Australian, bar owner. The hotels never objected to extra overnight guests. Some of the bars were quite outrage
ous, in particular one named Blow Job on the Rocks, where, if so minded, one could stick one’s dick into a mouthful of crushed ice.

  Wherever he went, Jack would accumulate a gathering of beggar children. He gave them loads of money. Five young beggars were hanging on to us when Jack suggested going somewhere a bit more off the wall. We all piled into a jeepney, the Philippines’ most popular means of transport for short journeys. Jeepneys are reconstructed from Jeeps left in the Philippines by the US Army after World War II. Their outsides are covered with multicoloured paintwork, hundreds of mirrors, and statuettes of horses. Their insides are Aladdin’s caves of Roman Catholic bric-à-brac and blaring sound equipment.

  Our jeepney stopped outside a bar called The Pearly Gates, whose main difference from any other bar in Manila was in the service: it was performed wholly and exclusively by nuns. Nuns showed customers to their tables, took their orders, and served the drinks. Nuns introduced the raunchy entertainment. Jack and I drank beer. The beggars drank Coca-Cola.

  The nuns introduced a ladies’ excuse me. Various couples took the floor. A few nuns barged between couples, excused themselves and danced with the bemused male partners. Jack went up to a dancing American couple, tapped the lady on the shoulder, said ‘Excuse me’, and began trying to dance with her partner, who did not find it amusing. A scuffle broke out. A few of the beggars pulled out knives. If they’d kill for anyone, they’d kill for Jack. The scuffle died down.

  ‘Are these real nuns, Jack?’

  ‘Often wondered the same myself. There’s one sure way to find out.’

  ‘What’s that, Jack?’

  ‘Try to buy a couple of them out for the evening. I’ll go and ask the Mother Superior there behind the bar.’

  Jack and the senior nun had a discussion at the bar. Jack paid her some money and returned, all smiles.

  ‘We got two of them until midnight.’

  Back in the jeepney, they certainly seemed like nuns and answered all questions as if they were nuns. They were not the least bit shy and did not bat an eyelid when I lit up a Thai grass joint I’d smuggled in from Bangkok.