The Guyana Contract

by Rosalind McLymont

  Nothing. Not about Theron St. Cyr; not about Trans-Global.

  She clicked on “Events” and scrolled down impatiently. She was pulling the cursor so fast that she shot right past the highlight before it registered that she had actually seen it.

  She scrolled back slowly until she came to it. There it was, highlighted in yellow. Trans-Global Solutions. Next to St. Cyr’s name, which was on a list of featured speakers for an upcoming seminar on “Doing Business with New York State and City Agencies.”

  There was nothing more. No link to anything else. No Internet address for Trans-Global Solutions. Not even a listing with a postal address.

  Keeping it low, you snake in the grass, Dru muttered.

  Frustrated, she logged off the Internet and propped her face in her hands. St. Cyr had built a wall of decency around himself.

  “Oh, but it’s soon coming down, Theron,” Dru whispered.

  A plan was already forming in her head.

  §

  Grant Featherhorn dialed a number in Caracas, Venezuela. Someone picked up on the first ring.

  “What news?” The man who spoke had a heavy Spanish accent. “There could be trouble in Guyana.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “The president could be swayed in a direction we do not like.”

  “By anyone in particular?”

  “Do the names Reginald MacPherson and Andrew Goodings mean anything to you?”

  “I have dealt with MacPherson. He’s the minister of transportation. But this Andrew Goodings I do not know. Who is he?”

  “Does it matter now?”

  There was a slight pause before the man replied. “No. It does not matter now. And Lawton Pilgrim?”

  “What about Lawton?”

  There was brief silence before the man spoke. “I see. He does not matter either. You are sure of this?”

  “I am sure of it.” Featherhorn hung up.

  11

  “Those friggin’ cheapskates! That’s the trouble with consulting for these small businesses. They want you to move heaven and earth for them, but they whine about paying you a retainer or how high it is! I tell you, Theron, we don’t need this aggravation any more. Those days are over, man. Over! Know what I told them? I told them to go to the Service Corps of Retired Executives. Let those guys take on that kind of headache for no pay. See if they could turn them into the next friggin’ Microsoft. And do you know what they said when I told them that? You want to hear what those jokers said, Theron?”

  St. Cyr was paying little attention to Faustin’s ranting. He wanted to focus on Drucilla Durane, come up with an explanation for her strange behavior. He already knew where Faustin’s argument was going. He had ridden many times with him on this high horse of indignation. As far as St. Cyr was concerned, trying to hook the accounts of small businesses with big potential was what most consulting firms did while they waited for the big accounts to bite. It’s what kept the cash flow flowing.

  But Faustin, always the impatient one, did not see it that way. It was a waste of time, he would remonstrate. Too little money for way too much work and way too much frustration. Better to suck wind until the real clients came in than to deal with these jerks, he’d grumble.

  “What did they say?” St. Cyr asked absently.

  “Those jokers had the nerve to say—I swear to God they said this, Theron—they had the nerve to say, ‘Oh, we’ve been to SCORE already. They’re good business technocrats but they can’t do anything for us at our level. They don’t have the market savvy and the contacts you guys at Trans-Global have. Besides, everybody says you guys are the best.’ That’s what they said. How do you like that?”

  St. Cyr laughed. “They said that?”

  “As God is my witness. Barodi himself came on the line and gave me the spiel. The guy’s a friggin’ nutcase.”

  “So what do you want to do, Faustin? Drop them altogether? Seems to me you’ve got them right where you want them. They as much as admitted they can’t do without us.”

  Faustin did not reply aloud. Instead, he dropped his eyes to the floor and muttered something about being “sick and tired of having to fight for a decent retainer from people who want to suck the life out of you.”

  At least, that’s what St. Cyr thought he heard.

  “Tell you what, then. Let’s ditch them.” St. Cyr said with finality. Faustin’s head jerked up. “Naaah! I think I can bring them in.”

  “With your soft touch, no doubt.”

  Faustin ignored him. “Did you ever call the Durane girl?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Did you get her?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Merde, Theron! What did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything.”

  “What do you mean she didn’t say anything? C’est pas possible! After all this time? She must have said something. Good, bad or indifferent.”

  “Why are you so—” St. Cyr broke off petulantly as the phone on his desk buzzed. He rammed a finger at the speaker button. “Oui, Celine. Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”

  There was a pause before the voice replied. St. Cyr knew that what that pause meant. It was his secretary’s way of letting him know that she did not appreciate his tone.

  “A Mr. Andrew Goodings in Guyana is on the line for you, Mr. St. Cyr,” Celine said coolly in English.

  Mr. St. Cyr. Not Theron. She was mad all right. St. Cyr softened his tone. “Thank you, Celine. Tell him I’ll be with him in a second.”

  He looked at Faustin. “Sorry, mon cher. This might take a while.” Faustin held up his hands. “No problem. Catch you later.”

  St. Cyr waited until the door closed behind Faustin, then settled himself more comfortably in his chair and picked up the phone. This had to be a very serious call. His relationship with Goodings was not the thinking-ofyou-so-I-called-to-say-hello kind.

  “Andrew! How good to hear from you. How is Guyana treating you? Or should I say how are you treating Guyana?”

  “Theron, my good brother. Glad I caught you. I half expected to hear you were off somewhere in Europe. Guyana’s a pisser but what can I say? Love her like a fool. That’s why I’m calling you.”

  “I always tell people that I’m the last person to come to for help with affairs of the heart, Andrew. But for you I’ll give it my best shot. What’s up?”

  “Got a big favor to ask, Theron. I can’t go into details on the phone. What you know of me is all that you’ll have to go on when you make your decision.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “I have a project I’m working on and I need the kind of help I can get only from you. I’d like you to come to Guyana to take a look at a few things. Won’t take more than a few days.”

  St. Cyr did not hesitate. Goodings had gotten him his first consulting contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s Construction Management Division under its minority vendor program. It was actually his first contract with such a large organization. After that, it was as if the floodgates had opened. There were many other contracts, not just with the Port Authority, but also with some of the Port Authority’s biggest corporate contractors.

  That’s the way it worked with these minority contracts, St. Cyr soon learned. Once you got in and proved you could deliver, you stayed in. Getting in was the hard part, for there was a clique of “approved” minority firms that always got the contracts. Approval rarely had anything to do with whether you paid the annual $300 fee to certify that you were indeed minority-owned and operated. It was who you knew. Government, private sector, it made no difference. With government contracts, everyone knew your company was a shoo-in if certain elected officials and people of influence (POIs) gave you the nod.

  Everyone knew who those elected officials were, just as they knew who the POIs were. Vendors sucked up to the elected officials shamelessl
y. Campaign contributions, birthday party donations, complimentary invitations to 250-, 300-, 350-dollar luncheons and dinners—with VIP seating, acknowledgement from the podium, and a photo-op for the press—jobs for a girlfriend, kid, and/or distant relative. Wives were off-limits.

  Hey, all’s fair in love and business, the vendors argued. “Besides, we’re the ones creating the jobs.”

  St. Cyr didn’t suck up. He had no idea why Goodings pushed so hard to get Trans-Global into the mix. He had never asked and Goodings had never volunteered an explanation. Neither of them had known the other before their first meeting.

  Not that Trans-Global wasn’t up to the job. But there were some well-established, well-connected firms in the running and Trans-Global was little more than a start-up at the time.

  After he got to know him, after he heard him mumble umpteen times that “the last shall be first and the first shall be last,” he suspected that Goodings simply took pleasure in shaking up the status quo.

  Whatever the reason for it, that first break with the Port Authority literally swooped Trans-Global up from anonymity. For the small, uncompromisingly efficient firm that knew far too many days of famine than feast, the proverbial ship had finally come in.

  Goodings had never asked them for a favor. Until now. “How soon do you want me there?” St. Cyr said.

  “This week, if you can get away. There’s a round-trip ticket waiting for you at BWIA. And you’ll be staying at my home.”

  St. Cyr chuckled. So did Goodings.

  “What can I tell you, Theron. My father was a Rosicrucian and from the time I was a little boy he taught me the importance and art of studying the character of every man, woman, and child who crossed your path for more than a fleeting moment. But I think you, too, have learned those lessons, Theron.”

  St. Cyr responded soberly. “I learned much later in life than you, Andrew, and I would venture to say under much more painful circumstances. If there is a flight on Wednesday, I will be on it.”

  “There is one. I will be at the airport to meet you. Thank you, Theron.”

  “Not at all. Gives me a chance to see a country I’ve heard a lot about.”

  “Well, I hope you won’t be disappointed. Guyana is not the place it used to be when I was growing up.” Goodings’s voice was suddenly heavy with hurt. “Yes, I can imagine. But, hey, new times, new challenges, new opportunities, right?”

  Goodings laughed.”Easy for a young man like you to say. I’m not sure how much more of these new times this old body can handle. Anyway, I won’t keep you. Call me only if you’re not traveling on Wednesday. There’s only one flight that day so I know when to be at the airport.”

  “Okay, Andrew. Want me to bring you anything from New York?”

  “Naaah! Ain’t nothin’ there I can’t live without. See you in a couple of days. Have a safe flight.” He hung up.

  St. Cyr sat forward, elbows on his desk. His intertwined fingers formed a tight fist under his chin. He had read enough in Andrew’s words to conclude that something big was about to go down in Guyana, something that had to do with the country itself. This wasn’t a private thing.

  Love her like a fool. That’s why I’m calling you, Andrew had said. The fact that Andrew had called on him meant American interests, possibly European as well, were involved.

  St. Cyr turned to his desktop and logged on to the Internet. A search on “Guyana” brought up the usual country site with links to “Latest News” and “Newspapers.” He clicked on “Latest News” and found only one item, from Reuters, about the latest hit in a six-month crime spree allegedly perpetrated by escaped convicts who were heavily armed. This time the gunmen had slain three antidrug enforcement officials, one at a time, in their own homes.

  St. Cyr closed that window and went back to the “Newspapers” link. He clicked on the first publication on the list, The Guyana Chronicle. It was that day’s edition. He scrolled through the page of general news. Only one item caught his attention.

  NO DECISION ON AIR TRANSPORT PROPOSAL

  President Sankar today told the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry that, contrary to rumors, the government had reached no decision on a proposal brought to it by the American consultancy Pilgrim Boone on behalf of a major American aerospace company, to establish an air transportation network throughout the country. The President said, however, that he expected to make a decision before the end of the month, “after we have exhausted consultations with the various representatives of the Guyanese citizenry.”

  Chamber members have publicly squabbled over the proposal, with opponents calling for the restoration of the national railroad before any consideration is given to instituting an air transport system. The opposition People’s Democratic Party also has come out against the proposal. PDP leader Raymond Cambridge has stated that an air transport system would benefit only American aircraft manufacturers and a few wealthy Guyanese at this time. He argues that rail would better serve the interests of the average Guyanese and the country as a whole.

  Meanwhile, sources in the transportation ministry say Pilgrim Boone is pushing for a quick decision and has engaged local Guyanese consultants Nelson Roopnaraine and Compton Dalrymple to help make its case to the government.

  In a related matter, The Chronicle has learned that two senior transportation officials from Venezuela arrived in Georgetown this week for meetings with Transportation Minister Reginald MacPherson. Venezuela has long advocated an interlinked air transport system serving all of South America.

  St. Cyr sat back in his chair when he finished reading the article, locked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. He knew instinctively that this was the “project” that Goodings wanted to discuss with him. Goodings was fascinated by the air, rail, road, and water networks of America and the rest of the developed world, and lamented the fact that developing countries seemed to pay little attention to such things. This St. Cyr knew.

  One of his biggest dreams, Goodings had told him once, was to visit Japan to see the magnetic levitation trains that “race the wind.” In his spare time he was learning everything he could about the history of transportation in America and about the evolution of ITS—intelligent transportation systems that combined precollected data and communication technology to seamlessly move vehicles from border to border, he had said.

  St. Cyr recalled the time when he and Goodings had run into each other at a Port Authority dinner. It had been their first encounter in months. After the dinner they had gone to a nearby bar to catch up and Andrew had spoken with quiet hurt about the number of times he had offered, when he was much younger, to contribute his knowledge and experience to Guyana, to help get the country started on an efficient, sustainable transportation system, he had said. One designed with vision.

  He had submitted paper upon paper to the ministry about ways to open up the interior of the country with rail and road, piece by piece, connecting it eventually to Brazil, Venezuela, and the rest of the continent. But he had never heard “so much as a peep from a single soul.”

  “I guess those boys didn’t want to deal with a small fry like me,” he had said, knocking back a vodka straight.

  The more St. Cyr thought of the article he had just read, the more he was convinced that something was bothering Goodings about the Pilgrim Boone proposal, which, he was sure, came straight out of Savoy Aerospace, one of Pilgrim Boone’s long-standing clients.

  And that visit by the Venezuelans. Was it mere coincidence?

  St. Cyr stood up abruptly and went to the door. Celine was at her desk. Her cubicle was just a few feet away from his office. He strolled over and stood beside her until she looked up.

  “Sorry I was so abrupt before, Celine. Would you reschedule those appointments I have on Wednesday for next Tuesday or Wednesday. I have to go to Guyana. There should be a ticket for me at BWIA. Check on it with the airline and confirm me for the Wednesday flight, returning Friday.”

  “Sure thing, Theron. Do
you need a hotel?” She was her old chirpy self again.

  Women! It took so little to keep them happy, St. Cyr mused.

  “No, I’ll be staying with Andrew Goodings in Georgetown. I assume you took his phone number when he called so you have that in case you need to reach me.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you, Celine.”

  St. Cyr returned to his desk and buzzed Faustin’s office. Faustin himself answered.

  “Sorry about that, old man. Looks like I have to go to Guyana on Wednesday for a couple of days. Let’s have a drink this evening.”

  “Sure thing, man. Theron, about Drucilla Durane—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Faustin, why are you so obsessed—”

  “That day I met her in Paris, she ran away during the night.” The words rushed out as if a dam had broken.

  “You met her in Paris? She ran away? I told Michel to pick her up. And what do you mean by ‘ran away’?”

  “She broke down the door and ran off before I got back the next morning. She must have thought she was in danger. You know how creepy that old studio was,” Faustin said defensively.

  “The old studio? Faustin, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “What do you mean what the hell am I talking about? Michel with his goddamn reports couldn’t pick her up at the station like you asked, so I went instead. I took her to the studio for the night the way we always did with the girls. I left her there, padlocked the door and everything. But when I got back in the morning, I found the door off its hinges and she was gone.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Theron?” Faustin’s voice was tentative. “What?”

  “She didn’t want to talk to you, did she?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Sorry, man. At least she made it out intact.” St. Cyr did not respond.