So I finally got out of the tiny town out in Aichi-ken and managed to work my way to Tokyo. Okay, the town wasn't really that tiny – about 200,000 people - but in Japan, 200,000 people is a small town. After a couple of weeks of searching in the common areas that foreigners look for a job, I got one at "Dueces Wild", a hostess bar in Roppongi*- you know the one? It's the big one close to Roppongi station.

Well, y'know how I am always looking for stuff and being the floor manager in a big hostess club really helps when you're looking for stuff. I found a guy who knew a guy who could make a call to a guy who could turn me on to some coke. I was looking for grass, or rather hash cause it's hard to find grass if you're not Japanese, but coke was okay.  I knew lots of people who were always looking for coke. After a phone call or two, I was able to set up a buy in a nice house in Nishi-Azabu.

The price was 8000 yen for a gram but the buy was an ounce minimum. After I bagged and stepped a bit, I would turn it over for 20,000 yen a gram - I know, I know; the price is 15,000 yen, but you know the dumbshits in Roppongi- just got off a plane, don't know anything or anybody. Hell, the first time I bought hash in Tokyo I paid 8,000 yen a gram and I tipped the guy to be polite. I didn't know that I was paying for two grams; but honestly, if I did know, I wouldn't have cared. All I know is that I hadn't gotten high in eight months.

Now I am walking around with at least an 8-ball on me all the time--don't tell me, I know, stupid, stupid. But I would turn at least an 8-ball every night. It wasn't too long after a girl got a job at Dueces that she would find out that she could score from me, and she has friends she was traveling with, and you know how it works. So I could turn all this coke over in nothin' flat.

I'm working the floor, the girls come in with a smile and I would know what they would want. Hell, some of them would tip me in flesh and that was alright. Even better, the owners of Dueces opened up a sports bar next door and I could take a break from work and go there and make some connections. Dude, I was clearing so much K and you know how the cops are here; takes 'em forever to put 2 and 2 together, and who's going to rat on me?

This goes on for about six months and I'm clearing anywhere from 15 man* to 25 man a night. My connection is solid and doesn't want any of my action - I guess that's the nice thing about a Japanese connection—they don't care about your profit.

One night, I meet this guy Jack in the sports bar. Nice enough guy, no tie, but still dressed a little too salaryman for my tastes. We get to talking and he buys me an Old Speck, so of course I like him. Jack always spoke formal-like, kind of funny. Like he would never say "How's it going?", he'd say things like "And how are you this evening?" or "Are you having a wonderful evening?" Coupled with Jack's deep voice, it sounded like something in the movies.

Jack starts coming into the sports bar a couple of nights a week but never Dueces. We'd have a couple of beers and shoot the shit whenever he came in. After a few weeks he asks me about scoring. Caught me off-guard.  He didn't seem like the type. I told him I could take care of him if he wanted, and he said

"No, I think I could take care of you."

My ears pricked up at that and he said to meet him after I got off of work, around 3:30. Not a problem.

I punched out and unloaded all the stuff I was carrying to the girls and a couple of guests at the bar. Jack had a car parked out front—a Caddy, one of the small ones—and we took a ride to Shinjuku, to this danchi close to the Park Hyatt. When we got in his place, he tossed me a beer and said to wait a moment while he got the stuff. He had a nice place; a 3 LDK on the 15th floor. You could see all the hotels from his balcony- the Century, the Hilton—all of the biggies.

When Jack came out of his room he was carrying a ziplock filled with cocaine. Freaked me out. It wasn't a kilo brick nicely wrapped; it was a giant ziplock with the shit inside.

"Do you want few lines?"

"Fuck yeah." I said.

I cut some lines and did a bit of the blow. Shit was way better than the stuff I was dealing. Of course I had to ask.

"Where'd you get all this coke?"

"From a guy." he replied

Jack said that where the stuff came from is not important, but what is important is that he was looking for someone to turn a bunch of coke for him. He liked to do coke on occasion, but he didn't want to get into dealing grams here and there. He wanted someone to sell it to wholesale.

"How much do you want?"

"48 grams per buy, and the price for the merchandise is 250,000 yen. Can you handle quantities of that size?"

"Holy fuckin' shit" I thought. Cheaper and better. And I can stop dealing with the Yak.

"Right on" I told him "I've got 25 man right now; you want to weigh some out?"

The dude weighed me out a couple of o-z's- his scale didn't even do grams - and we did some business. He took me back to Roppongi and we drank and bullshitted until the morning.

Well now I was really making some money. You'd be surprised at how that extra 3000 yen per gram adds up . Do the math: if I turned ten grams a night, then I've got three extra man, after ten days, thirty man, thirty days, ninety man. Ninety extra man. Hell, my job just paid 400,000 yen. With just the hostesses, scouts and peelers, I was turning over more than ten grams a night. I had more K than the average bear.

This shit goes on for about six months. I'm buying pretty regular from Jack and I'm clearing loads of K. On my visa run, I took a two week vacation with two girls to Koh Samui and I paid for everything. Flew BC too. Life was pretty good.

One day Jack calls me in the afternoon and says he wants to meet, that he needs a favor. I want to keep this guy happy so I meet him in a coffee shop in Omotesando.

Jack tells me that he's got some friends coming in but he's tied up with some other things and he can't get free. It's really simple he explained: two girls are coming in from Colombia; someone needs to pick them up from the airport and give them a place to stay until he gets free later on.

"I will, of course, compensate you for your time and effort."

"Not a problem" I told him "I'm your man."

Picking up the girls was easy, two hot Colombian women in Narita airport were pretty easy to spot.  Maria and Juanita.  Both tall, leggy, and hot as shit. They were both pretty genki and glad to get off the plane. The two-hour drive from the airport went pretty quick. I brought a couple of joints and we smoked them on the way back to Tokyo. Yeah I drove, no fucking way I'm riding the Narita Express.

When we got to my apartment, I called Jack and told him the girls were here and to page me when he got free. You heard me right, I said "page"; this was way before there were a jillion cell phones in Tokyo.

The girls were carrying half a pound of coke each stuffed in a condom up their ass. After I talked to Jack, Maria was able to drop her load and we did a few lines. I left for work and told the girls to hang there until I got back.

Work was the same - girls, booze, coke, skin- nothing different except when I checked my pager towards the end of the evening, my phone number was on there about six times.

"Fuck!" I thought, "Something's gone bad."

After my shift finished, I didn't dick around the bar like I normally did, I got my ass back home. When I got to the apartment, Maria was yammering at me non-stop in fuckin' Spanish an octave above what dogs hear and I heard some moaning coming from the bathroom.

Took me a while to piece it all together but I finally did. After I left, Juanita sat on the can to kick out the coke. After about an hour of trying, Maria tried to pull the shit out for her. She must have tried too hard because she ripped Juanita's asshole when she was reaching in. Now Juanita is sitting in my bath, in pain, and she's been bleeding for about six hours. Maria tried lots of stuff but the bleeding just wouldn't stop. Naturally we can't fuckin' go to a hospital. I didn't know what to do so I called Jack. He tells me to sit tight and that he'll be there in an hour.

The longest hour in the world passes before he gets to my apartment. He sums up the situation and asks me if I've got a phonebook. He looks up "veterinarians" and calls the first foreign name he finds. Tells the guy that he's got a problem with his dog and that the animal is in pain, "can he come over right way?"

Thirty minutes later the doorbell rings and we let the vet in. He asks to see the animal and Jack tells him to have a seat, that he wants to tell him something.

"Thank you for coming." Jack says softly. "I am afraid that I have deceived you. There is no dog and I have a different problem entirely. Inside the bathroom, there is a woman in pain. Stuffed inside her is a quantity of cocaine - she carried it on board an airplane and traveled here to Tokyo. In the attempt to get the product out, she was injured. I would like you, doctor, to retrieve my product and sew the woman up."

He pulled an envelope from his jacket and set it on the table.

"In that envelope is half a million yen. After you are finished, the envelope is yours."

The vet looked at Jack, myself, the envelope, and Jack again.

"I don't know what's going on here guys but I think I should leave you to your problems." Vet stood up. "I don't want any trouble or anything."

"Sit down." said Jack "You misunderstand me."

Jack then pulled a gun out of his jacket. A GUN.

Except for the cops, I hadn't ever SEEN a gun in Japan, even with the Yak guys. The vet had been in Japan for a while too, because the gun made his eyes go wide open.

"Doc, you will go into the bathroom. You will retrieve my product from the girl and then you will suture her up. You will take the money in the envelope, you will leave and you will speak of this to no one. If you do not begin now, I will put a bullet into your head and call another vet."

Talk about a tense moment. The gun had already freaked me, now Jack, -Jack, who's one of the nicest guys I've ever met—Jack had told this guy he was going to kill him - IN MY LIVINGROOM.

Couple of pregnant beats pass then the vet speaks.

"Can I have a couple of lines first?"

"Coming right up!" I say. I cut the doc up a couple of lines and he does them. Then the doc grabs his bag and goes off to the bathroom.

Forty minutes later it's all good; the coke is out, the girl is stitched and she feels better. The vet took the 50 man and left; he looked way relaxed when he left but he did do a few more lines with me. The girls stayed at my place an extra week so there was more time to heal. Maria was pretty fun to hang out with; never made it with a Colombian chick before.

Five months after that, Jack's phone stopped working. I went by his place and there was nothing there, his apartment was cleaned out. Never saw him again. I had to go back to my connection with the Yak but I stopped dealing so much after that; it felt like it was getting too hot.

I always wonder what happened to Jack.


* Roppongi - nightclub district in Tokyo
Man - pronounced "mahn", short for ichimaien, 10,000 yen.
Yak - short for Yakuza
Danchi - large apartment building
genki - usually translated as "healthy", but also vital.  Usually the first
word in Japanese that foreigners pick up.