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WHITE CHRISTMAS

you can’t go to Brazil without money. You ask him, he says no, so let’s go get it,’ Julio urged, dead keen for a white Christmas.

Julio was putting a lot of pressure on me, and all day he was in Rafael’s house, a friend of Rafael’s — what a friend. If I was alone, I would not do it.

– Sparrow

About midnight, Julio raced to his nearby house, grabbed a sharp knife and silver tape, then met Sparrow at the bungalows.

Sparrow hacked into the boom. It wasn’t easy. Rafael had perfected a technique using a pipe-cutting tool to clamp around each tube and slice it cleanly. It prevented aluminium shavings from mixing in with the coke. Unsurprisingly, Sparrow’s method was slapdash. He sawed like a maniac, cutting his hand, while Julio sat like a panting puppy, holding a curled up restaurant menu, ready to catch the coke. But it didn’t just spill out. It was compacted like concrete. Sparrow scraped out about 10 grams – $1000 worth – into the cardboard menu. Julio took four grams, Sparrow six, tipping it into the plastic wrapper from his cigarette packet. Before leaving, Sparrow used the silver tape Julio had brought to try patching up the boom. Then he fled to his friend’s house in Uluwatu, aware Rafael wouldn’t be happy to discover it had snowed on Christmas night.

Rafael learnt of the theft early the next morning. After trying to call Sparrow, he walked across to the bungalows, unlocked the room with his spare key, checked the bag and saw the traces of snow and the destroyed boom. His temper blew.

I get crazy . . . I want to catch him and punch him very hard. But he escapes.

– Rafael

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