Keith needed heroin. Tony Sanchez described one way they got it. He and Keith ran into Count Jean de Breteuil, who introduced himself as a friend of William Burroughs. De Breteuil's fashion signature was red suspenders, leading Keith and Sanchez to refer to him as Johnny Braces. Learning that Keith was looking for a connection, de Breteuil returned, at the wheel of a Bentley, with heroin that Sanchez describes as looking and smelling "like pink talcum powder. Pure Thai heroin."
Impressed with the quality of the goods, Keith expressed interest in a steady supply. When de Breteuil got back to London he called his dealer, a Corsican based in Marseilles, and asked him to arrange regular deliveries to Nellcôte. Tony Sanchez describes the arrival of the first batch: "They were two burly Corsicans, perspiring heavily in their Daks lightweight suits and carrying identical black fiberglass executive attaché cases. After a brief exchange of pleasantries the stouter of the two clicked open his case to reveal a polyethylene bag approximately as large as a two-pound sack of sugar....Keith cautiously snorted the mixture and after a few minutes lapsed into unconsciousness. When he came to, he said, 'Okay, I'll take the lot.'"
David Meyer, Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music, p.348
