Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and painted over the wounds to conceal them. Each case held nearly
three kilos of hashish oil.
'Two mules and four cases per trip,' he announced grandly. 'One
hundred and twenty grand. Not bad for a day's work.' The oil fetched
ten dollars per gram, wholesale.
'Don't customs people wonder why someone is carrying so many
typewriters?' I inquired.
'Nah! They don't really
look
like typewriters, do they? They could
be any old hand luggage.'
To me they looked like typewriters.
That night I wandered out into the pines to gaze up at the raging
inferno of stars above me. As he subsequently proved, money was
all Ray ever saw in Swat. When money could be made in Toronto
and New York, he never had the slightest urge to return to Shangla.
'Too fuckin'
boring
,' he explained years later on another continent.
He waved at the city skyline beyond his penthouse office windows.
'
That's
where the action is. I feel sorry for those poor assholes over
there, I really do. They
dream
of being here.'
Most of them did not dream of being in North America, I noticed.
They were fascinated with it, true, but they were happy where they
were. They saw no need to travel any farther than the Indus River.
Even as ruler of Swat, Ray would have been bored.
We left the next day, after Ray had inspected a dozen typewriter
cases ready for export. Gunther's wife would soon take them to
Lahore, where the mules would pick them up, either carrying them
back across the border and flying out of Delhi, or proceeding on to
catch an international flight from Islamabad or Karachi.
Hadji's Toyota drove us to Lahore. The next day we were back in
New Delhi. Lounging in a hotel bar, Ray pointed out a young couple
sitting with beers. Both looked unnaturally neat and tidy, as well as
drawn and tired.
'My mules,' he announced, with the pride of a horse breeder.
The two had apparently picked up four typewriter cases in Lahore,
and would be taking a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt the following
morning. Ray was taking the same flight.
'It's the best,' he explained. 'You stop overnight at Frankfurt but
