Mr Nice (film tie-in) by Howard Marks

Copyright © Howard Marks 2011. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, storedin a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HOWARD MARKS

Mr Nice

Copyright © Howard Marks 2011. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, storedin a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Vintage 1998

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Introduction

I was running out of passports, ones I could use. In a fewweeks I intended to visit San Francisco to pick up severalhundred thousand dollars from someone keen to exploit hisconnections, both with me and with a bent US CustomsOfficer working in the imports section of San FranciscoInternational Airport.A few years earlier, I had been declared the most wanted

man in Great Britain, a hashish smuggler with documentedlinks to the Italian Mafia, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love,the IRA, and the British Secret Service. A new identity wasvital. I’d already gone through about twenty differentidentities, most of which had been backed up by a passport,driving licence, or other indicators of documented existence,but they’d all either been discovered by friends/enemies orcompromised by featuring in some suspicious trail mean-dering through a recent scam.We drove to Norwich. After a couple of awkward

meetings with go-betweens, I was introduced to a gentle guynamed Donald. I couldn’t tell if he was a drinker, a stoner,or a straighter. His kitchen gave no clues. He looked normal,except that his eyes danced like those of a villain.

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‘We can talk privately out here,’ he said and took me to agarden shed.‘I need a passport, Don, one that’ll stand up to all checks.’‘You can have mine. I won’t be needing one. But there’s

one problem.’‘What’s that?’‘I’ve just done twelve years of a life sentence for murder.’Convicted murderers, although clearly people with a

criminal record, would rarely be declared as unwelcome ata country’s borders. They were regarded as mere menaces toindividuals rather than threats to the fabric of society. Thelatter attribute tended to be restricted to dope dealers andterrorists.‘I’ll give you a grand for it,’ I said, ‘and a few hundred

quid from time to time when I need more back-up.’I was thinking of a driving licence, medical card, local

library card. Just a passport with no supporting identificationis suspicious. A membership card to the local billiards club,obtainable cheaply and without proof of identity, is enoughto give the required credibility.‘That’s the best deal I’ve ever been offered for anything.’‘What’s your last name, Don?’ I asked. I’d been lumbered

with some terrible ones in the past.‘Neece.’‘How do you spell it?’‘N-I-C-E, just like the place on the Riviera.’It was up to Don how he pronounced his name. But I

knew I would pronounce it differently. I was about tobecome Mr Nice.

2 Mr Nice

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One

BRITISH

‘Marks!’ yelled the guard. ‘What’s your number?’‘41526-004,’ I mumbled, still in a really deep sleep. My

number was used more often than my name, and I knew itjust as well.‘Get all your shit together,’ he ordered. ‘You’re leaving.’Slowly I woke up. ‘Yeah, I’m leaving.’ I was leaving El

Reno.El Reno, Oklahoma, houses the Federal Bureau of

Prisons’ transit facilities and is host to between one and twothousand federal prisoners, who are cajoled, bossed, andbullied by a few hundred guards. Every prisoner who isrequired to be moved from one US federal prison to anotherpasses through El Reno. Even if the prisoner is being trans-ported from North Dakota to South Dakota, he still has togo via El Reno. I had been through there five times. Somehad been through more than fifty times. Expensive illogi-calities and inefficiencies do not worry the monsters ofAmerican bureaucracy, and the taxpayers are enthusiasticand eager to spend fortunes in the name of fighting crime.Prison places cost the US taxpayer more than universityplaces. The American belief that prisons are the best way to

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combat crime has led to an incarceration rate that is at leastfive times that of almost any other industrialised nation.Overcrowding is endemic. Conditions are appalling, varyingfrom windowless, sensory-deprived isolation to barren andfutile brutality.Mostly, prisoners are taken to El Reno in aeroplanes con-

fiscated by the US Government from the Colombiancocaine cartels, who have made billions of dollars out ofAmerica’s War on Drugs. There are at least two largeairliners, each seating well over one hundred prisoners, andnumerous smaller planes carrying up to thirty passengers.Every day, between three and six hundred prisoners arriveand leave. Arrivals take place in the late afternoon and even-ing; departures take place in the early morning. Flyingcourtesy of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is a gruellingbusiness. The only consolation was that this would be mylast of over a dozen flights on this airline, known as Conair.I was going to be released in three weeks. My release datewas the same as that of Mike Tyson. I had been continuouslyin prison for the last six and a half years for transportingbeneficial herbs from one place to another, while he haddone three years for rape.‘Getting my shit together’ meant putting my dirty

bedclothes in a pillow case. No personal possessions of anykind are allowed in El Reno. I got my shit together.Along with about sixty or seventy others, I was herded into

a holding cell to await processing. Our names, numbers,fingerprints, and photographs were carefully scrutinised toensure we were who we said we were. Our medical recordswere perused to ensure that if anyone had AIDS, TB, orsome other dreadfully contagious disease, the right space onthe form was filled in. One by one we were stripped nakedand minutely examined during the ritual known as‘shakedown’. In full view of, and in sickeningly close prox-imity to, three Oklahoma rednecks, I ran my fingers throughmy hair, shook my head, tugged my ears to show the wax,

4 Mr Nice

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opened my mouth, pulled out my Bureau of Prisons dentureplate, stretched my arms above my head to showmy armpits,pulled up my balls, pulled back the foreskin of my dick,turned round to display the soles of my feet, and finally bentdown, pulling the cheeks of my bum apart, so that therednecks could treat my anus as a telescope. A federalprisoner has to perform this series of indignities before andafter each time he is visited by his family, friend, religiouscounsellor, or lawyer, and each time he enters or leaves anyprison. I had performed it thousands of times. The threePeeping-Tom rednecks made the same jokes that prisonguards never tire of making when shaking down: ‘I recognisethat hole. Didn’t you come through here three years ago?’During the course of this departure process, I checked

among the other prisoners where they were expecting to betransported to. It was important to establish that I was notabout to be sent somewhere in error – a most commonoccurrence. Sometimes the error was deliberate – part of apractice known as ‘diesel therapy’. This punishment ofkeeping one on the move and out of contact was frequentlyadministered to troublesome prisoners. The ‘treatment’could last up to two years. I was meant to be going toOakdale, Louisiana, where criminal aliens (the word ‘alien’is preferred to the word ‘foreigner’) nearing the expiry oftheir sentences began the gleeful process of being removedfrom the US and sent back to civilisation. I began to panicwhen some of my shaken-down companions mentioned theywere going to Pennsylvania; others thought they were goingto Michigan. Security reasons always prevent prisoners fromknowing where (and sometimes when) they are going.Eventually I met someone who was also expecting to go toOakdale. He was a gentle, bright marijuana smuggler,longing to finish his ten-year sentence and get back to hisloved and longed-for native country of New Zealand. Hetold me that he knew it was just an hour’s flight from ElReno to Oakdale.

British 5

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We caught a glimpse of the time – 2 a.m. We were thenoutfitted with our travelling clothes: a sleeveless shirt with nopockets, a pair of trousers without pockets, socks, under-wear, and a pair of very thin, beach-type shoes, which weremade in China. Next came the part that everyone hates, evenmore than the shakedown: the adorning of heavy metal:handcuffs around the wrists, chains around the waist, chainsfrom the chains around the waist to the handcuffs, shacklesaround the legs, and, if like me one is described as having apropensity for escape or violence, a ‘black box’. This lastlump of heavy metal is like a portable pillory without the holefor the head and renders the handcuffs completely rigid,preventing any independent hand movement. It is chainedand padlocked to the chains around the waist. I have neverattempted to escape from anywhere and have never physi-cally harmed or threatened anyone. Nevertheless, accordingto information furnished to the US Federal Bureau ofPrisons by Special Agent Craig Lovato of the US DrugEnforcement Administration, I’m an Oxford graduate and aBritish Secret Service operative, and, apparently, I can getout of places that Houdini couldn’t even get into.We were then placed in another holding cell. Two or three

hours had passed since our awakening; two or three morewould have to pass before we would leave by bus forOklahoma City Airport. We sat around talking to each other,comparing conditions in different prisons in much the sameway as I once discussed the pros and cons of various first-class hotels. Dog-ends that had been miraculously smuggledthrough the shakedown process were produced and foughtover. At times like this I felt very glad I had given up smokingtobacco (after thirty-five years of fairly constant use).Prisoners clanked and jingled their chains as they shuffled tothe solitary toilet bowl and performed the acrobaticsnecessary to unzip and undo.Federal regulations require prisoners to be fed at least

once every fourteen hours. Each prisoner was provided with

6 Mr Nice

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a brown paper bag containing two hard-boiled eggs, a cartonof ‘Jungle Juice’, an apple, and a Granola bar. People beganto trade food items furiously.The gates to the holding cell were opened, and we were

led out into the sub-zero temperature in our sleeveless shirtsand were counted and checked again against copies ofphotographs. We were then patted, as opposed to shaken,down and guided into a mercifully heated bus. A radioblared the two kinds of music with which Oklahomarednecks are familiar: country and western.The icy roads made for a slow journey to the airport.

There was a long wait at the runway before we were finallyhanded over by the prison guards to the United StatesMarshals. None of them looked like Wyatt Earp. Theyhandle interstate transportation of federal property such asprisoners. Some of them are female, kind of. Soon I wouldsee real air hostesses – and then my wife.After an hour in the air, we landed at a military airfield.

Names were called, and some passengers left. My name wasomitted. I panicked until I realised the New Zealander wasstill on board, but he looked worried too. Some differentprisoners boarded and told us we were at Memphis. We tookoff again, and in an hour really did land at Oakdale airport. Abus took us to the prison, where we were dechained, shakendown, fed, and otherwise processed. I was beginning to lookforward to the various facilities that every federal prison tendsto have: tennis courts, jogging track, and library.Processing is an irritating and lengthy process, but most of

us had been through it dozens of times. Each newly arrivedprisoner has to be seen and checked by a PA (physician’sassistant) and a screening counsellor. Each prisoner also hasto be fed and given clothes that fit at least approximately.These seemingly straightforward activities take several hoursto complete.The screening counsellor’s function is to decide whether

or not the prisoner may be allowed to be accommodated in

British 7

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the general prison population. If not, the prisoner is lockedup in the prison’s ‘hole’, a very uncomfortable prison withina prison. There are a number of reasons why a prisonerwould be separated from the others. Occasionally, theprisoner would himself request segregation: he might havebeen warned that someone at this new prison was out to gethim to settle some old dope or gambling debt. He might beterrified of being raped, extorted, or discovered to be asnitch. Sometimes, particularly if release was imminent, theprisoner would wish to be isolated merely to diminish thechances of getting into any trouble inadvertently. One had todo one’s best to decrease the frequency of random cock-ups.Moreover, there is an obligation for prisoners to be gainfullyemployed, and one of the very few methods of avoiding workis to be locked up in the hole. Accommodation in the holecould always be requested: checking-in was easy, checking-out extremely difficult. More often than not, it’s thescreening counsellor who determines who goes where, andthe most scanty of reasons are used to justify placement inthe hole: a history of violence, escape, connections withgangs, and high profile would almost always ensure at leasta limited spell inside. My file was littered with absurd allega-tions of escape attempts, but I did not expect problems fromthat quarter because of the short time I had left to serve. Itwas March 3rd, and my parole release date was March 25th.Not a sensible time to attempt to leg it, but American lawenforcement is prohibited from making common-senseassumptions.Despite valiant attempts, I hadn’t pissed for over twelve

hours. The toilets in the holding cells are always crowded bysmokers, and I’ve never yet been able to piss covered inchains and sharing a pressurised airplane cabin with aredneck marshal whose job is to stare at my dick to ensure itdoesn’t turn into a dangerously offensive weapon or dopestash. I was bursting. My name was the first called. I wentinto the screener’s office and immediately noticed on his

8 Mr Nice

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desk a piece of paper referring to me with the word ESCAPEhighlighted in yellow.‘Oh no!’ I thought. ‘They can’t be that insane.’But I knew they could be.They didn’t use my so-called escape history against me,

but I was put into the hole anyway. The screening counsellorinformed me that as I had less than thirty days of mysentence left, it would be pointless for the prison to gothrough the time-consuming charade of admitting andorientating me. The screener didn’t care who I was. It waspolicy.‘How am I going to see Immigration and get deported?

How can I get my passport? How can I get the airline ticketthat will take me out of this horrible country if I can’ttelephone or write?’‘Don’t worry,’ said the screener. ‘They’ll come to you, tell

you what’s happening, and arrange for you to have all thecalls and stamps you need.’They lie so easily.The New Zealander saw my solemn face as I returned to

the holding cell.‘That’s too bad. Nice to have met you, British. Take care

of yourself.’I was so angry. I went to the toilet, now really crowded

with dick-staring smokers.‘Fuck them,’ I thought, and I let loose a stream of vile-

smelling dark green liquid.That was the last time I had any problem pissing. After a

few hours, I was called out of the holding cell, handcuffedbehind my back, and marched to the hole.The Oakdale hole contained about forty cells. Everyone

coming into the hole has to be showered under supervisionin a cage; submit to mouth, anus, and foreskin search; andbe given a pair of underpants, socks, fairy slippers (Chinesemade), and a sterilised, oversized jump-suit. Nothing elsecould be acquired without a struggle. I had long ago reached

British 9

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the point where degrading rituals ceased to matter. Had theytaken away my dignity, or was my dignity too formidable tobe dented or diminished?Most of the prison officers in Louisiana are Black. A Black

duty officer took downmy particulars. Custodians of the holehave no interest in why someone has been placed there.There was absolutely no point trying to explain that I hadcommitted no disciplinary infraction, that I was only in thispunishment block because I was almost free. They’d heard itall before. Sometimes it was true, sometimes not. Instead, Idid my usual trick of being excessively friendly and polite.This was the only way I could begin to get the essential books,stamps, paper, envelopes and pencil. The duty officer likedmy accent and did an almost recognisable imitation of JohnGielgud. I laid on my best Oxford inflection and called him‘Milord’. He loved it. Sure I could have some books to read.He locked me for one hour in the library cell. I rummaged

around and found Lord of the Flies, 1984, a Ken Follett novel,the inevitable Bible, a Graham Greene novel, and a textbookon calculus. These would last a few days, much longer if mycellmate turned out to be a jabbering Yank or loony. I gotsome paper, pencils, and envelopes. Stamps and phone callswere issued only by counsellors and lieutenants.I was taken to a fairly clean and mercifully unoccupied

cell, which contained the usual fixtures and fittings: steelbed, frayed and stained mattress, continuously flashing neonlight, and a filthy, malfunctioningWC and washbasin. It hadbeen an exhausting day. The time was almost 10 p.m. I readand slept.‘You’re in the jailhouse now,’ sang a tone-deaf Irish hack

as he passed coffee, cereal, and other quasi-edibles throughthree-inch slits in the cell doors.I knew it had to be 6 a.m. Breakfast in bed. If it wasn’t for

time zones, well over amillion American prison inmates wouldbe consuming the same fare at the same time. It was cold.

*

10 Mr Nice

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Special Housing Units, euphemism for holes, were alwaysdeliberately maintained at discomforting temperatures incase one or more of the prisoners were there to be punished.One of the hole’s inmates was assigned the job of orderly. Hecame round and took the breakfast waste back through theslits. The orderly’s other official duties included keepingthe areas outside the cells clean and supplying prisoners withtoilet requisites. Unofficial duties, ‘hustles’ that he couldmaybe make some money from, included distribution ofcontraband (non-generic coffee, stamps, and cigarettes) andliaising between buyers and sellers of the same.‘Got a stamp?’ I asked as he retrieved an empty box of

raisin bran.‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but I’ll need two back.’This was the standard prison loansharking rate for almost

everything.‘Give me two, and I’ll give you five back.’He looked as if he trusted me and nodded assent.The cells were patrolled every couple of hours. When

anyone other than the orderly passed by, I banged the doorand demanded to make a phone call, to contact my lawyer,to contact my family, and to contact the British Embassy.Chaplains (authorised to listen to prayers), psychiatrists(authorised to listen to everything else), and medicalofficers (authorised to distribute Tylenol) are required bylaw to make daily rounds of the hole. They cannot supplystamps or arrange phone calls, so one is kept insane,stressed, and in need of help from above. I would have to bepatient. Now that there was no one to watch my bumblingattempts to rescue my body from ugly deterioration, I couldresume my yoga and callisthenics. And I had my books.Someone would come sometime and let me make a call.The orderly would bring some stamps. Relax. There wasn’tlong to go until I became free. What was Special AgentCraig Lovato of the Drug Enforcement Administrationdoing? Was I in the hole again because of him?Was he going

British 11

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to be able to stop my release? He had ruined so much, sovery, very much.Craig Lovato’s ancestors were rich Spaniards. They emi-

grated to America from Spain about 250 years ago and weregiven 97,000 acres of what became New Mexico in a landgrant from the Spanish throne. By the time Craig Lovato wasborn, his family had lost most of their fortune, and he had towork for a living. He missed both the Vietnam War and theSixties movements which opposed it and joined the LasVegas Sheriff’s Department as a deputy. He learned aboutstreet life as a patrolman and ‘goon squad’ officer chasingundesirables out of town, about dope as a narcotics detec-tive, and about life and death as a homicide detective. In1979, he yearned for a new way of life and joined the DEA.The DEA has offices in sixty-seven of the world’s

countries. It has more power than the KGB ever had. One ofits offices is in the United States Embassy, Madrid. InAugust 1984, Craig Lovato went to work there. At the sametime I was living in Palma peacefully carrying on myinternational drug-smuggling business. Lovato found out Iwas not only smuggling dope but actually enjoying it. Godknows why, but this made him lose his marbles, and he hasbeen hounding and persecuting me ever since.The weather in Louisiana comprises rain, light or heavy,

and thunder, loud or very loud. Although quite early in theevening, it suddenly got very dark, and a torrential down-pour began. Four hours later, the rain was still tampingdown. I went to sleep. In a few hours, I was woken bythunderclaps and observed about three inches of water onthe floor. Strange creatures were swimming in the water, butI was too sleepy to be scared. I went back to sleep and wasvaguely aware of the rain ceasing.In the distance I heard, ‘You’re in the jailhouse now.’I looked at the floor. The water had disappeared, and in

its place was a writhing mass of hideous Louisiana insects:multicoloured spiders, grotesque underwater cockroaches,

12 Mr Nice

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large worms, and giant beetles. All my carefully culturedBuddhist beliefs on the sanctity of all life quickly evaporated,and I set about systematically murdering the creatures of thenight by whacking them with my Chinese fairy slippersbefore accepting my breakfast. The corpses filled two emptycartons of raisin bran. The air-conditioning was on full. Itwas very cold. I did more yoga, callisthenics, and reading,but I couldn’t get my mind off the primitive life-forms. DidTibetans really ensure they killed no insects when buildingtheir temples?‘Put your hands behind your back and through the slit,’

ordered two hacks in unison from the other side of the celldoor.One of them was the Irish crooner. They slipped on the

handcuffs. I retrieved my hands. It was now safe for the hacksto open the door.‘The Immigration want to see you.’This sounded good.‘Can I wash, change, shit, shave, and shampoo?’‘No, they want you now.’The crooner and his buddy led me out into the blinding

sun, across several yards of squelching swamp, and into abuilding labelled INS. I sat down. The handcuffs wereremoved.I heard a voice in the background say, ‘Well, he was

extradited, so is he going to be excluded, deported, repatri-ated, expelled, or permitted to depart voluntarily?’Since at least 1982, I have been prohibited from entering

the United States. I did not have a visa, and in order to gainentry when I was extradited in October 1989 I was paroled(a strange use of the word) by the United States AttorneyGeneral to satisfy the public’s interest in prosecuting,convicting, sentencing, and incarcerating me. Paroling is notentering, and I was not to be considered as having enteredthe United States despite having been conspicuously presenthere for well over five years. Legally, I was to be treated as

British 13

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still just outside the border, and no decision regarding mydeportability or excludability could be made until the reasonfor my being paroled into the United States no longerapplied, i.e., until my release from incarceration. Given Iwas a felonious, criminal alien, I could not in any circum-stances be allowed to walk the streets of the Land of theFree. Given I had not applied for entry, I could not beexcluded. Given I had not entered in the way the lawunderstood the meaning of the word, I could not bedeported. Given I was soon to finish my sentence, I couldnot thereafter be held in prison.I had read all the relevant law in the law library of United

States Penitentiary, Terre Haute. As a consequence of theSixth Amendment to the US Constitution, freedom of accessto the courts had to be available to all prisoners. This wasachieved by putting law books and typewriters in every prisonand allowing prisoners to litigate to their hearts’ content. Foryears, articulating other prisoners’ legal presentations to theUS courts had been my ‘hustle’. I had achieved a fewsuccesses and was quite a respected jailhouse lawyer, but Ihad no idea what on earth the Immigration authorities couldor would do. I didn’t know of anyone else in the sameposition. I was very scared of law enforcement bureaucrats.Anything could happen. I could become a Cuban illegal.‘Come in, Marks. Can you get a passport and pay for your

own ticket? If so, you can avoid all court proceedings andleave the United States as soon as you finish your sentenceon March 25th.’What a very nice man.‘Sign this, Marks.’I had never signed anything so quickly. I read it later. I had

waived all court proceedings provided I got my passport andticket within thirty days. I knew Bob Gordon of the ChicagoBritish Consulate had already sent an emergency passport,and there were plenty of family and friends prepared to payfor my ticket.

14 Mr Nice

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‘Get yourself an open, one-way, full-fare ticket fromHouston to London on Continental 4.’‘I’m in the hole and not allowed to make telephone calls,’

I said, ‘and I can’t get any stamps.’‘Don’t worry. I’ll speak to the lieutenant of the hole.

Your phone calls will save the United States Governmentseveral thousand dollars. He’ll agree. Ask for him when youget back.’Since when were these people into saving money?‘Will you please take some passport photos?’ I asked.

Maybe the ones I’d sent Bob Gordon wouldn’t be suitable.Spares would always be handy.Armed with photographs and a signed waiver form and

feeling happier than I had for a good few days, I washandcuffed and marched back to the hole. I was greeted bythe lieutenant.‘Listen up, British. I don’t give a motherfucking fuck what

those motherfuckers at Immigration said. I run this mother-fucking place, not them. This is mymotherfucking hole. Youget one motherfucking call a week, and your first will be nextSunday. On Monday, you can ask the counsellor to give yousome stamps. I’m not authorised to. Now fuck off.’Angry and frustrated, but not really surprised, I returned

to my cell. The orderly gave me a couple of stamps. I wroteto the consul.After another two days of yoga, meditation, and

callisthenics, I again heard from the other side of the door,‘Put your hands behind your back and through the slit.’‘Where am I going?’‘Oakdale Two.’‘Where am I now?’‘Oakdale One.’‘What’s the difference?’‘Oakdale Two is run by Immigration. That’s where you’ll

be deported from.’This news made me feel on top of the world. There were

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still two weeks of my sentence to go. Were they trying to getme out of the country as soon as possible?I was halfway through being handcuffed when the foul-

mouthed lieutenant came tearing along, yelling, ‘Put thatmotherfucker back in his motherfucking cell. The Warden’sExecutive Assistant wants him.’After a few minutes I spotted a human eye at the door’s

spyhole.‘Some journalists from an English newspaper want to

interview you. Yes or no?’ barked the Warden’s ExecutiveAssistant.‘Oh! No!’How did they know I was here? Did they know I was about

to be released? If they knew, who else knew? Would there bean international storm of protest from the DEA, HerMajesty’s Customs and Excise, Scotland Yard, and all theother law enforcement agencies that had struggled so hard toget me locked up for the rest of my life? The Warden’sExecutive Assistant pushed a piece of paper under the door.‘Sign this. It states you refuse to be interviewed.’I signed. I had to keep a low profile, but I felt bad about

it. On the whole, journalists had written sympatheticallyabout my incarceration in America. Their sympathy,however, might galvanise the authorities into preventing myrelease. I couldn’t risk it. I slid the paper back under thedoor. Footsteps receded.Two sets of footsteps returned.‘Put your hands behind your back and through the slit.’Handcuffed and chained, I was dumped in a holding cell

for six hours, taken to a van, and driven by two hackssporting automatic rifles to another prison a hundred yardsaway. There I was dumped in another holding cell for afurther four hours, but this time I shared it with eight otherdumpees: an Egyptian, a Ghanaian, four Mexicans, andtwo Hondurans. The Ghanaian and the Hondurans wereecstatic. Never again would they have to endure the brutality

16 Mr Nice

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of the United States Justice system. The Egyptian and theMexicans were subdued, as each had been deported fromthe United States at least once before and had re-enteredillegally. It was a way of life. Cross the border, get an illegaljob, get busted, spend a few weeks, months or years gettingfit and fed while incarcerated at the American taxpayer’sexpense, get deported, and start the cycle all over again. I’dforgotten. Most people don’t want to leave America.‘What’s it like here?’ I asked my fellow criminal aliens.‘Just like any other federal joint,’ replied one of the

Mexicans.‘I thought this was run by Immigration,’ I protested.‘No, it’s run by the Bureau of Prisons. You’re lucky if you

see an Immigration Officer. It’s just another joint, man.’Handcuffs were removed, dozens of forms filled in, photo-

graphs and fingerprints taken, medical examination given,body and orifices searched, prison clothes issued, and cellassigned. My roommate was a Pakistani, fighting deportationby seeking political asylum. There were almost a thousandinmates of all nationalities: Nigerians, Jamaicans, Nepalese,Pakistanis, Chinese, Indians, Sri Lankans, Vietnamese,Filipinos, Laotians, Spaniards, Italians, Israelis, Palestinians,Egyptians, Canadians, Central and South Americans. Mostwere convicted dope offenders and spent all their free timediscussing future dope deals. ‘We’re not bringing any morestuff to this country’ was often voiced. ‘Europe and Canadaare where it’s at. They don’t give you much time if you’rebusted. They’re not all snitches like Americans.’Many deals were hatched. Many, I’m sure, will come to

fruition.The Mexican was also right about the difficulty in seeing

an Immigration Officer. I tried relentlessly. We were able tophone, so I called the British Consul.‘Yes, Howard, your passport has been sent. Your parents,

who send you all their love, paid for your open ticket, andthat’s also been sent.’

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I finally found an Immigration Liaison Officer.‘Yes, we’ve received your passport and ticket, but they’ve

been mislaid. Don’t worry. We’re all on the case. We’ll findthem.’Apparently everyone’s ticket and passport got mislaid at

some stage. We just had to wait patiently. There was nothingwe could do.A Walkman was permitted. I bought one and spent every

day walking twenty miles around the jogging track listeningto the oldies’ station. During my years inside, my daughterFrancesca, now fourteen, had regularly written to me of herfondness for my record collection. Little Richard, ElvisPresley, Waylon Jennings, and Jimi Hendrix were among herfavourites. Soon we could listen to them together, and shecould educate me on the new music I’d missed. I becamesun-tanned, nostalgic, and bored. Three days before mysupposed release date of March 25th, I was pacing the tracklistening to a New Orleans disc jockey raving about the latestand greatest British band, the Super Furry Animals. Theywere from the Welsh valleys. I was listening to them callingme home when the prison loudspeaker cracked.‘Marks, 41526-004, report to the Immigration Office.’‘We’ve got your passport and your ticket,’ said the

Immigration Officer. ‘Everything’s ready for you to leave.We can’t tell you precisely when, of course, in case youinitiate plans to prevent it. But it’ll be soon.’My release date came and went, and a week or so passed

by. ‘Lovato’s doing it,’ I thought. ‘He’s persuading hisbuddies in the DEA to stop me leaving.’On Thursday, April 7th, Komo, a Thai who’d been

fighting deportation for seven years and who’d not beenoutside of a prison for seventeen years, came runningtowards me.‘British, British, you’re on the list. Leaving tonight. About

1 a.m. Please leave me Walkman.’Komo’s prison job was cleaning and tidying the offices of

18 Mr Nice

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the administrative staff, so he had access to confidentialinformation. He also had about twenty Walkmans, which hewould attempt to sell to new arrivals. Every long-termprisoner has to have a solid hustle. But it was such good newsthat I immediately handed over my Walkman.‘Good luck, Komo. Maybe see you in Bangkok one day.’‘Me never go Bangkok, British. They kill me there. Me

American. Stay here.’‘They’ll kill you here, too, Komo,’ I said, ‘but much

slower and more painfully.’‘Slow is okay, British, and very slow is very good.’

I couldn’t risk telephoning anyone with the news. It mightnot be true, and besides, the phones were tapped. If theauthorities discovered that I was leaving, they just mightchange my travel plans.There were eight others leaving that night: an

Americanised Nigerian of British nationality and sevenSouth Americans.‘Is this all your property, Marks?’I had approximately one hundred dollars, a pair of shorts,

nail-clippers, comb, toothbrush, alarm clock, papersconfirming my ‘release’ date of two weeks ago, a credit cardI could use in prison vending-machines, and five books,including one written about me, Hunting Marco Polo.‘Yes, that’s it.’I put the money in my pocket. It felt strange. First time for

over six years. How often was I going to be thinking that?First time for over six years. Money, sex, wine, a joint ofmarijuana, a bath, an Indian curry. All around the corner.My other belongings were put into a cardboard box. I was

given a pair of blue jeans with legs about a foot too long andan extremely tight white tee-shirt. This was called being‘dressed out’, a gift from the United States Government forthose re-entering the free world.We were handcuffed, but not chained, and squeezed into

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a small van. Then we picked up two other guys from anotherprison exit. One seemed Hispanic, the other seemednorthern European. Everyone was silent, excited by his ownthoughts. The van’s engine made a terrible racket as itheaded towards Houston and the dawn, just beginning tobreak. By nine o’clock, it was like sitting on a rock in asardine can on fire. By ten o’clock, we were sitting in anenormous holding cell at Houston International Airport,along with over fifty other criminal aliens.The northern European asked the Nigerian, ‘Where do

you live?’ His accent was strong South Welsh. I had nevermet a Welshman in an American prison, nor heard of one.I’d met very few Americans who’d heard of Wales.‘Are you Welsh?’ I interrupted.‘Aye,’ he said, looking at me with deep suspicion.‘So am I.’‘Oh yeah!’ Deeper suspicion.‘Which part are ’ew from?’ I asked, laying on the accent

a bit.‘Swansea,’ he said, ‘and ’ew?’‘Twenty-five miles away from ’ew in Kenfig Hill,’ I

answered.He started laughing.‘You’re not him, are you? God Almighty! Jesus wept!

Howard bloody Marks. Marco fucking Polo. They’re lettingyou go, are they? That’s bloody great. Good to meet you,boy. I’m Scoogsie.’We had a chat, a long one. Scoogsie explained how he,

too, had just finished a drug sentence, and he told me of hisearly days in the business.‘My wife has worked for a long time in a drug rehab-

ilitation centre in Swansea. Not a bad partnership, really. Iget them hooked; she gets them off. We keep each othergoing, like.’Memories of South Welsh humour had often helped me

through the bad times in prison. Now I was hearing it for

20 Mr Nice

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real. I was heading back towards my roots, and they werereaching out for me.Looking confused, the Nigerian belatedly replied to

Scoogsie’s original question.‘I live in London. I am being deported there. I am never

coming back here. They took away my money, my property,and my business. Just because someone I didn’t know sworein court that I sold him some drugs.’An all too familiar story.The number of deportees in the converted aeroplane

hangar was dwindling. ‘Anyone else going to London?’Scoogsie asked.No one.Soon, there were just the three of us left. We’d found out

that the Continental Airlines flight to London should beleaving in an hour. An Immigration Officer came in holdinga gun.‘This way, you three.’A small van took us to the gangway. With his gun, the

Immigration Officer indicated we should climb the steps.The Nigerian led the way. Scoogsie followed and spatdramatically on American soil.‘None of that!’ ordered the immigration man, waving the

gun.‘Don’t mess it up now, Scoogsie. You know what they’re

like.’‘I know what the fuckers are like, all right,’ said Scoogsie.

‘I hate them. I wouldn’t piss in their mouths if their throatswere on fire. I’m never going to eat another McDonalds. Nomore cornflakes for breakfast. And pity help any Yank whoasks me the way anywhere. Let anyone dare try to pay me indollars. God help him.’‘Take it easy, Scoogsie. Let’s get on board.’Walking into the aeroplane was like entering the starship

Enterprise. Passengers with spacey haircuts and clownclothes took out computers of all shapes and sizes. Had

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things really changed that much, or had I forgotten what itwas like? Lights flickered on and off. Glamorous and smilingwomen, the like of whom had existed only as photos on aprison cell wall, walked the aisles. One actually talked to me.‘Mr Marks, your seat number is 34H. It’s in the aisle. We

shall hold your passport until London. Then we’ll give it tothe British authorities.’I didn’t like the sound of that, but I was too mesmerised

to pay much attention. Scoogsie and the Nigerian wereplaced out of sight. I sat down, gloated over magazines andnewspapers and played with knobs adjusting seat positionand volume of canned entertainment, like a child on his firstflight. I had flown on commercial airlines thousands of timesbefore, but I remembered none of them. Take-off wasmagic. I saw Texas disappearing. Then, all of Americavanished. There is a God.‘Would you like a cocktail before your meal, Mr Marks?’I had drunk no alcohol and smoked nothing for three

years. I was proud of my self-discipline. Perhaps I shouldcarry on as a teetotaller.‘Just an orange juice, please.’A tray of food was placed in front of me. In the old days,

I would rarely eat while flying: apart from the caviare andfoie gras given to first-class passengers on long-haul flights,it was all fairly disgusting and well below the cordon bleustandard to which I had become accustomed. Prison farehad cured me of that bit of pompous pseudery. This mealwas the best I could remember, and I loved fiddling aroundwith the little packets of condiments. There was a very smallbottle of red wine on the tray. Surely, I could drink that. Itwas exquisite. I ordered six more.I began worrying about the remark made by the air

hostess. Which British authorities? There were so many I’dupset and so much they could still do me for. While I wasspending the last six years in prison, the British authoritieshad obtained evidence that I had been involved in countless

22 Mr Nice

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other marijuana and hashish importations to England, onesthat I hadn’t been charged with. They’d also found more ofmy false passports. There are no statutes of limitation inBritish law. They could bust me if they wanted to.Two books had been written about me, each making it

clear that I was an incorrigible rogue with nothing butcontempt for the forces of law enforcement. Fourteen weeksearlier, at the end of a high-profile, colourful, nine-weektrial, I had been acquitted of being the ringleader for thelargest-ever importation of marijuana into Europe – fifteentons of Colombia’s best. The charges had been brought byHer Majesty’s Customs and Excise. It had been theirbiggest-ever bust. They would never forget me.A chief inspector of police had committed suicide after

being blamed for leaking my involvement with the BritishSecret Service to the press. Scotland Yard had lost a goodman because of me. There wouldn’t be many friends there.MI6 weren’t too happy with me either, smuggling dope

with the IRA when I was supposed to be spying on them.Ten years ago, after assessing me as having earned two

million pounds from cannabis smuggling, the InlandRevenue reluctantly settled for a total tax liability of sixtythousand pounds. As a result of public proclamations by themost senior of DEA staff, it was now accepted as a matter offact that I had well over two hundred million pounds inEastern bloc bank accounts. The tax man would want some,no doubt.Even if the British felt I had been punished enough,

Special Agent Craig Lovato was bully enough to changetheir minds. During the mid-1980s, he’d almost single-handedly mobilised the law enforcement agencies offourteen different countries (United States, Great Britain,Spain, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand,Pakistan, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland,Austria, and Australia) to band together in unprecedentedinternational co-operation to get me locked up forever. He

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would be bound to take my premature release as a personalfailure and suffer extreme loss of face. He’d get the British toarrest me on arrival. He’d get tough with them and promisethem helicopter rides, computers, and days shopping inMiami malls. What was waiting for me at London’s Gatwickairport?A large-scale map appeared on the screen and indicated

we were descending over the Welsh mountains. Kenfig Hillseemed a long time ago.

24 Mr Nice

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