Every Man a Menace

by Patrick Hoffman

  Semion kept the circle of dealers he sold to small. He never met them in person—Orlov took care of that—never communicated with them, and gave them a fair price. They always wanted more. After two years, Semion and Isaak were splitting almost a quarter million dollars every month.

  All of this worked smoothly until, on a cold day in November, members of Belgium’s federal police unit stormed the mobile trailer where Semion’s Flemish chemist had set up shop. David Eban narrowly avoided arrest by fleeing Europe. They needed a new source.

  It was Isaak who came up with the Southeast Asian connection. One of his oldest friends, Moisey Segal, lived in Bangkok. The picture Isaak painted of the man hinted at deep criminal connections. When Semion wondered if Moisey could be trusted, Isaak dropped his head, raised his hand like he was under oath, and swore that Moisey was their man.

  “I know this guy,” he said. “I’ve known him since we were schoolboys. You can trust Moisey Segal with your life.”

  Semion and Isaak flew together to Bangkok. Moisey—handsome, skinny, tattooed, with a shaved head—looked more like the drummer of a punk band than a member of a criminal gang. Semion was prepared to not like him. He expected Moisey to be a blowhard, but—almost against his will—he found himself charmed.

  They stayed for nine days at a hotel near Sukhumvit. Moisey seemed genuinely curious about Semion; he asked question after question and listened to the answers like each one might offer a valuable lesson. Underneath this curiosity, Semion sensed a simmering core of discontent: it only made him like the man more. Every time Isaak would ask when the meeting with Moisey’s connection would occur, his friend would first wave him off, as if the question was unreasonable, and then nod his head, as if it made perfect sense. After looking at his phone for missed messages—there never were any—he would wipe his nose, sniff, shrug, and say, “So, we wait.”

  They drank every day. Moisey took them to underground bars, rooftop bars, riverfront bars. On the fourth night, in Isaak’s hotel room, he made them smoke yaba—little red amphetamine pills that tasted like chocolate. Moisey crushed one with his lighter, cooked the powder on chewing gum foil, and sucked the smoke in with a straw. When they’d all had enough, Moisey crumpled up the foil, threw the straw under the bed, and shouted at them: “No gear! It’s fucking genius!”

  That same night, he brought them to a dance club populated with Thai prostitutes. Before they entered the place, they sniffed bumps of crushed Viagra off one of Moisey’s keys. Semion knew his hangover would be hell, but for some reason he couldn’t say no. Isaak, for his part, didn’t appear to be bothered by any of it. He kept talking and laughing as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

  They brought a group of Thai girls back to the hotel that night. Semion ended up alone with one of them; he had sex for what felt like far too long, and when they finally finished, he couldn’t sleep. Gray light from outside leaked through the blinds. Semion sat in a chair and watched television and drank. The Thai woman slept on the bed.

  They spent the next day recovering. The day after that, Moisey calmly told them that his connection was finally coming. In two days, they’d meet him at a restaurant in a small industrial city to the east: Chachoengsao.

  “Burmese,” Moisey said. “These motherfuckers don’t play.”

  They took a taxi all the way and paid the driver to wait. The restaurant was a dirty open-air place, with chickens roasting on a spit and flies buzzing. It seemed impossible that anything of value could be found there, and for a moment Semion was sure they’d been set up. He was cursing Moisey in his head when a waitress pointed them toward a handsome man sitting alone at a table.

  The first thing Semion noticed was that his hair was cut perfectly. He was in his forties, Semion guessed, and wore a light sweater over a collared shirt. The man looked rich. He smiled, stood, and shook hands with each of them.

  “Nana,” he said, nodding. “My name is Mr. Eugene Nana.”

  Semion had half expected to be met by a group of men, to be searched, maybe even blindfolded, and brought to another location. It was nothing like that. They made small talk in English for a while, noted the weather, ordered food—Nana swore that despite the place’s atmosphere the restaurant had the best soup in the region—and generally enjoyed a quiet afternoon. When Isaak asked Nana if he was Burmese, the man winced, shook his head, and told them, “We are in Thailand. I am Thai.” After tapping on the table as if he were transmitting a message in Morse code, he said, “No, sorry. You will never meet the Burmese.”

  Finally, he asked them what they were looking for. When Semion told him they were in the market for ecstasy, he looked disappointed.

  “Not crystal meth?” he asked.

  Semion shook his head. He noticed Nana glance at Moisey, noticed Moisey shrug. They’ve been talking, thought Semion. Maybe Moisey led him on.

  Nana sat silent and blinking for a long moment. Then he said, “The price today is eight thousand American dollars for a kilo of crystalized MDMA. Good stuff—one hundred percent pure. Tell me,” he said, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at his nose, “how much would you gentlemen be hoping for?”

  Semion did the math in his head. They’d been paying nearly twice that price in Belgium. A kilo was more than two pounds, and they could sell a pound in the US for ten to fifteen thousand dollars. His face become warm.

  “We would be looking for …”

  He had to force himself not to stammer as he mentally doubled then tripled the amount he’d been planning on asking for.

  “We’d be looking for something around sixty pounds. Something like thirty kilos a month.”

  “Not more?” asked Nana.

  Semion glanced at Isaak. His partner nodded his head eagerly.

  “No,” Semion said. “That’s it. Perhaps, if it’s too small, you’re not the group for us.”

  “No, no, we can do it, no problem,” Nana said. “Don’t worry. You get settled, make a lot of money, then you can decide if you need more. More money, more paradise, more vacation, more beautiful women. Everything in life will be perfect.”

  “Sure,” said Semion, feeling proud of the way he’d handled the conversation.

  “Why not take time now?” Nana said. “Take a few days, think.”

  “We need to figure a new shipping route,” Semion said.

  Nana shook his head. Not my business. “When you are ready, have your friend contact me.” He pointed at Moisey. “He knows how to get in touch. We have a man in Miami, as well. He’s called Mr. Hong. Very safe man, trustworthy. The best kind of man.” He tapped his chest. “He will communicate with you there. He will accept all payment. He will tell you when order is ready. You pay him in cash. He will be the only one for you to talk to. As for us, gentlemen, we will never communicate again, unless you come back to Thailand, and we eat more soup.” He pointed at Moisey again. “Also, once everything is underway, I advise you to cease communications with him. You need complete—what is English word? Complete compartmentalization.”

  On the drive back to Bangkok, when Semion expressed surprise that Nana hadn’t wanted to perform any kind of background check, any kind of due diligence, Moisey explained that he already had.

  “I had to tell them who you were,” he said. “They wouldn’t meet otherwise. They have people that’ll make a whole file on you; they probably know the name of every man in your old unit. If you got a traffic ticket in New York, they know which cop wrote it. These fuckers are thorough, man.”

  Semion thought about this and felt a small wash of fear.

  Two days after meeting Eugene Nana, Moisey introduced them to a Malaysian man named Fariq. Fariq owned a fish export company outside Bangkok, in Laem Chabang. He met them in his warehouse, during business hours. Workers in white jackets were busy unloading frozen squid—vacuum sealed in plastic—from a truck outside. Fariq led them upstairs into a cramped, fluorescent-lit office. Unlike Nana, Fariq looked like a criminal. He was a huge man, over three hundred
pounds, and he had tattoos on his neck and hands. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a gold chain, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His skin was gray from smoking too many cigarettes. As soon as he had them in his office, he closed the door, pointed at Moisey, and asked in heavily accented English if either of them had experienced the pleasure of having Moisey give them a massage. After that, he poured them plastic cups of cheap whiskey, and they drank.

  Fariq, like Nana, expressed some surprise that the men wanted to move ecstasy rather than crystal. “More money in meth,” he said.

  “Yes, but with meth, more headaches,” said Semion. “Hells Angels, Mexicans, fucking DEA, everything bad. Besides, we’re simple club owners. You know, disco, house music.”

  “Fuck,” said Fariq, nodding at Moisey. “Like this one, gay.”

  The price he proposed was disappointing. First, he asked what they were paying, and, in an unprofessional moment, Semion told him. Then, after making a pained face, Fariq said, “You’ll pay me one thousand US, a kilo.” They tried to talk him down, but he wouldn’t budge.

  “I,” he said, pointing his huge finger at his chest, “I’m paying customs agents on both sides. I have to pay for the freighter, which stays fucking refrigerated. I pay the American Coast Guard. I pay everyone! I’ll barely make anything by the time they’re done. See that down there?” He pointed down the stairs. “You want a fish company? You want fish and freezers? Take it. Squid, and, and—let me explain to you: It’s not hard to find shit here in Thailand. It’s hard to move it. You know? Fucking Thai police? They throw me away. You know what they do when they catch you here? They give you a death sentence.” He raised one eyebrow. “They weld the leg irons on your leg,” he said. He nodded his head up and down, waited for a reaction, and when he didn’t get one, continued. “On your leg! You think this is fucking America? Fucking Israel? This is fucking Thailand!”

  The sound of beeping forklifts filled the silence. Semion pulled out his phone and did the math: $9,000 a kilo was almost $4,090 a pound. That, times sixty pounds, worked out to around $246,000 a load. They could sell it to one buyer for more than twice that price: half a million a load. It was good. A lot more than they’d been making, even with the higher price for the freighter. He held his hand out to Fariq, and they shook.

  That night, Moisey took them out to a fancy dinner at the top of a hotel in the Silom district. He insisted on paying. The food was excellent; they ate steaks and drank bottle after bottle of Bordeaux. Over dessert, they cemented their plans. Moisey was going to run everything for them on this end; they wouldn’t be able to communicate with him except by intermediary, at least not for a while, and so it was important to talk everything through now.

  “To Moisey,” Isaak said, lifting his glass. “Our little angel in Bangkok. This may be our last meeting for a time, but our hearts will stay connected.” Semion thought he saw his friend tearing up.

  Moisey grinned. “To new friends and money,” he said.

  Semion wanted to say: “To staying small.” But he didn’t. Instead he raised his glass and said, “L’chaim.”

  Two days later, Semion and Isaak flew back to Miami.

  They relocated David Eban, the man they’d been using in Belgium, to San Francisco. He’d be in charge of picking up the frozen squid. He was a good worker—quiet and sober. All he had to do was drive to a fish warehouse in Oakland, hand a slip of paper to a Chinese kid who worked for Fariq’s organization, and throw the squid into his van. From there, he’d take it to a place he’d rented in Fremont, put it on the ground, and come back the next day, when it had thawed. Then he’d open it up and pull out the vacuum-sealed loaves of drugs. I used to love squid, he told them later. I can’t eat it anymore.

  In those early days, Eban drove across the country once a month. He’d pack the drugs into a false compartment in the trunk of his SUV, hang a cross from his mirror, set the cruise control to just below the speed limit, and leave some toys gift wrapped on the backseat. San Francisco to Miami—four days of driving. After a while, though, these trips bothered Semion and Isaak—they were clearly the most exposed element of their plan. What they needed was a buyer in California.

  Eban suggested a man he knew in San Francisco, a Russian named Tyoma Chernov. Chernov had a history of moving drugs; he and Eban had met in Belgium, back when Eban lived there. As it turned out, he wasn’t interested—he’d gone clean—but he knew someone who would be willing to work with them.

  Chernov had served two years at DVI. He got a message to Arthur, and Arthur set Eban up with Gloria Ocampo. Eban and Gloria met face-to-face for the first time at a steak house on Van Ness Avenue. Afterward, he flew to Miami to speak with Semion and Isaak.

  “She looked like a Filipino cleaning lady,” he said. “But she’s legit. I checked. She’ll buy the whole thing. Chernov vouched for her.”

  “Can she be trusted?” Semion asked.

  “Of course not. But she has money.”

  “Gloria Ocampo,” said Semion. “How old is she?”

  “She’s older, fifty, sixty? She’s normal, a normal old Filipino lady, not like a druggie. What do you want, someone with tattoos and blue hair? Rides a fucking Harley? She’s good; she has money. She’ll buy it, come back, buy it again. You’ll never meet her. She’ll never know your name.”

  “Ten a pound?”

  David made a pained face, waved his hand. “No problem,” he said.

  That was how it began. When the Burmese group had a batch, they sent Mr. Hong an e-mail. Coded in the message would be the weight and location of the pickup. Mr. Hong would then go and find Semion at one of his clubs, where the noise made any kind of audio recording difficult. Semion would relay the information to Orlov, who would use a public Wi-Fi connection at a Starbucks to send a coded message to an intermediary in Israel. The intermediary would find a Wi-Fi–enabled cafe (never the same one twice) to relay a second coded message to Moisey, in Bangkok. Semion used a similar system to communicate with David Eban in San Francisco. Their messages bounced from earth to space, from phone to satellite, meaningless to everyone but them.

  Every month, Mark Orlov delivered their payments to Mr. Hong’s lawyer’s office in Miami. Semion had no idea where their money went, but, if forced to guess, he would say he suspected it was laundered through several legitimate-seeming businesses or real estate purchases before being packaged and carried to Burma and China. Or maybe it was simply wired in nine-thousand-dollar increments by old Chinese women at different Western Unions all over the southern United States. Money, Semion knew, moves around like water. It fills open spaces and seeps through cracks.

  On normal days, Semion would wake up hungover in his apartment. If he’d brought a girl home, she would make him breakfast or convince him to take her out. After that, he’d clear his hangover by going to the gym. He had a female trainer with a pierced belly button who made him do squats and planks and laughed at his jokes. Then he might call Isaak, and they’d go out on the bay. They didn’t own boats themselves, but they had plenty of friends who did.

  For dinner, they’d go somewhere like Nobu. They’d order bluefin toro tartare with caviar, sashimi, beef kushiyaki, bottles of Billecart-Salmon or Hokusetsu. They’d bring girls with them—the type who didn’t act surprised at a four-thousand-dollar dinner. Then they’d get in Semion’s car, a simple white Range Rover—why draw attention?—and head to one of the clubs they owned. They always entered as though going to a club was the same as walking down the red carpet at Cannes.

  Their clubs, naturally, were outfitted with VIP rooms; there, out of sight, they’d snort cocaine, snort Molly, take pills. Women loved them. Men loved them. In the society pages of Miami magazines, they were called club owners or, even better, party promoters. They posed for pictures with DJs, basketball players, rappers, models, and the idle rich.

  When an apartment above Isaak’s opened up, Semion moved into the building. It was another tower, nicer, bigger, and still overlooking the bay. He bought the a
partment with cash. Miami was the new Switzerland: Russians were buying property all over the city, and nobody looked at the money. Banks welcomed new customers with champagne. Luxury stores were sprouting up constantly, and Ferraris no longer stood out on the street. The city was turning into a money-laundering mecca.

  Isaak had five siblings—two sisters, three brothers—and because he was born second to last, he developed a personality defined by a lack of neediness. He was the kind of person who would sit back, smile, and listen while others clamored for attention; as the Americans said, he was easygoing. Semion, on the other hand, was an only child; he was quiet, too, but he was arrogant. He was tall and wiry, with long arms and big hands, and he looked more Russian than Jewish. His face had already started to sag; he could picture a future where he looked like his saggy-faced uncles.

  Because they’d both been stationed in the south—Semion at Nahal Oz, Isaak nearby, at the Re’im base—they had often met to drink in the intense way of young soldiers. When they finished their service, Isaak had gone to South America for a few years. It wasn’t until Semion landed in Miami that they reconnected. They’d always liked each other, but they could just as easily have gone through life without ever seeing each other again. Semion was a child of immigrants, an immigrant himself. Isaak had been born in Israel, to an upper-middle-class family in Haifa. Semion had once summed it up by pointing out that Isaak, as a young teenage boy, had had a fucking scooter.

  Differences aside, the two men got along, and their partnership worked well. Isaak tended to the clubs—he was better suited to handle payroll, insurance, licenses, the staff, and all the day-to-day paperwork that came with running multiple businesses—and Semion took care of the drugs. Isaak let him handle things exactly as he wanted, and the clubs provided the perfect way to launder the money. On occasion Semion felt resentful for having to share his drug profits, but in those moments he reminded himself that it was Isaak who had first come up with the shipping company, Isaak who had known Moisey, and Moisey who had introduced them to Nana and Fariq.