Free Cocaine Confidential by Wensley Clarkson Page A

both armed all the time. If the other dealers thought we were not, then they’d shoot us down and steal our coke before we’d even left the
favela
.’
    Carlos then revealed that his own father had been shot dead in a feud between drug dealers when he was just nine years old. ‘It was a heavy time, especially for my mother. We all knew what my father did but we never talked openly about the risks he was taking every day of his life. I found his body outside our front door because his enemies had decided to make an example of him. I remember looking down at his corpse and shrugging my shoulders. It was just part of life for me.’
    After the murder of his own father, Carlos said hepromised his mother he would not work in the drug trade. He explained: ‘My mother begged me not to do this job because she’s convinced that I will end up dead like my father. Maybe she’s right? But the way I look at it is that he made a big mistake and paid for it with his life. I don’t intend making the same sort of errors as he did. In any case, I plan to make a lot of money and then quit before I have a wife and family. I would never want my children to see my shot-up body.’
    Up to this point, Jose had barely uttered a word. Suddenly, he became talkative. ‘Carlos and me are like brothers. We watch each other’s back very carefully. He knows that if anyone hurts him I would hunt them down and I know he would do the same for me.’
    Jose paused and then looked across at Carlos. ‘We have chosen this path in life because it is the only way to get enough money together to leave the slums. Out here in the rich man’s world, I’d be told to get a proper job like everyone else but who is going to give a couple of slum kids a real job when there aren’t even enough jobs to go round for the people outside the
favelas
?’
    This time it is Carlos’s turn to nod in agreement with his partner’s words. ‘He’s right. We’re here now supplying coke to the rich folk because it is our only escape route.’
    But what about their safety?
    â€˜Safety doesn’t exist. We just hope we stay lucky. Listen, the other day we supplied a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine to two fitness fanatics who own a gym next tothe beach. They also run the doors at a couple of Rio nightclubs. So you could say they were well connected. Anyway, we turned up with the coke at their gym and they both pulled out guns and tried to steal all of our cocaine.’
    Jose interrupts his friend: ‘They thought they could get away with it because we were just a couple of kids. They thought they could scare us but we are always prepared for situations like this.’
    So what happened?
I asked.
    Carlos laughs and slaps his friend on the back. ‘Jose was real clever. We acted scared and started to hand over the coke to them. Then one of them tried to come on to Jose. That’s when they dropped their guard and
wham!
I shot one of them in the balls and we ran for our lives but at least we still grabbed back the coke. Those guys won’t fuck with us again.’
    Carlos explained that
no one
would be foolish enough to chase them up into the
favela
. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? It’s scary up there but it’s also our safety zone. If those guys had come after us, they’d have been gunned by our friends. No one can touch us from the outside, although the biggest dangers come from the people inside the
favela
.’
    My next question returned to the subject of the turf wars that always seem to accompany the sale of coke on the streets of any big city.
What happens if someone starts trying to sell coke on your turf?
I ask.
    Carlos laughed and said that even younger
favela
kids try to push them off their turf at least once a month. ‘It’s no big deal but these younger kids are pretty trigger happy, so youhave to be careful not to upset them too