Free Every Man a Menace by Patrick Hoffman Page B

introduced him to a Flemish group that cooked drugs in a lab outside of Ghent. Eban agreed to sign on as a courier, and began to move the product across the Dutch border, to Rotterdam. Isaak had a cousin who worked as a second mate on an Israeli freighter that operated a line from Rotterdam to the Port of Virginia. He could walk right onto the ship with fifteen pounds of pure MDMA stashed in the false bottom of a duffel bag. Another Israeli, Mark Orlov, would meet the ship in Virginia. The cousin’s cut—7.5 percent—was a ridiculously high price for a mule, but Semion and Isaak were not running a typical operation. There were less than ten men involved, no amateurs.
    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 redamphetamine 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