Green Ice

by Gerald A. Browne

  He dug into Arias’ past, bought the memories of certain people, pieced them into a lead, paid well to follow it. All the way to a pharmaceutical firm in Cali. No longer in business. Pacífico Pharmaceutical had in the late 1950s specialized in producing painkillers. Such as cocaine. For medicinal purposes—and otherwise. It had produced much more for otherwise. Arias had been an active partner in that firm only to the extent of getting his cut of the profits. But he had been instrumental in setting up the business. At the time he was an upper-echelon administrator with the Ministry of Agriculture. The growing of coca bushes for commercial purposes was under the control of his office. Such strict control, in fact, that it was a simple thing for Arias to alter the figures of the legal allotment of coca leaves for Pacífico Pharmaceutical: Make 1000 kilos read 11,000 kilos and then later change it back to 1000 kilos. It all appeared neat and legitimate. Pacífico Pharmaceutical went out of business in 1960, shortly after Arias was appointed Minister of Mines, and no longer had anything to do with coca.

  A sensitive fellow, Javier Arias. The minute he met Argenti he sensed Argenti knew. Confirmed by the two words Argenti said to him at the first discreet opportunity: “Pacifico Pharmaceutical.”

  Thus, Argenti made his enlistments.

  He put them to test separately with some minor corruption. Requested something just illegitimate enough so that each could easily deliver. He overpayed them promptly.

  They each looked forward to doing more business with this money-minded Italian.

  Argenti soon obliged with an invitation to dinner. The General, the Senator and the two Ministers assembled for the first time. Their guarded respectability in one another’s presence was quickly dispelled by Argenti’s candor.

  They each stood to make four million plus a year, he said.

  Dollars.

  Four million plus a year?

  As long as they held their positions in the government.

  Senator Robayo had three years left in his term, and an excellent chance of being reelected with that kind of money behind him.

  Both Minister Arias and Minister Vega also had at least three years and probable reappointment.

  General Botero would always be a General.

  Four million a year. Plus five percent of the take.

  Without ever touching the money. It would be deposited automatically in separate Swiss accounts that Argenti, as a show of faith, had already opened for them with an initial deposit of a million in each.

  They didn’t even wait to hear the entire proposition before agreeing.

  First move, General Botero, with the cooperation of Minister of Defense Vega, saw to it that weapons and ammunition from the national reserve arsenal were delivered into the hands of the men Argenti designated—the esmeralderos.

  It went even better than Argenti had planned, took only fourteen months.

  Argenti relieved the Colombian government of its losses in emeralds. On behalf of La Concesion de Gemas, because he was La Concesión de Gemas. It was he who had signed the irrevocable lease that gave him exclusive control over all emerald exploration in Colombia.

  The System had the corner on diamonds.

  Argenti now had the corner on emeralds.

  Argenti considered structuring his operation after that of The System. He was familiar with the way that diamond monopoly regulated its market. Each month The System summoned certain diamond dealers to London to attend sights—to examine the uncut diamonds The System offered them (a mere formality), and to pick up their packets. The System determined in advance the amount and the quality of stones each dealer’s packet contained, more or fewer carats, poorer or better quality, according to what The System knew of the dealer, his business and, often, his personal affairs. A dealer had to accept a packet, pay up on the spot. If he refused, or even quibbled, he was not asked back. Thus, The System maintained absolute world control of the distribution of diamonds.

  Argenti would enjoy the same sort of monopolistic advantages. Actually, he had a tighter monopoly than The System. So few emeralds were found outside his territory. Only a scattered five percent of the world supply turned up in Egypt, India and Russia. Those from Egypt came from Cleopatra’s ancient mines, were pale, weak-green stones, inferior. India’s and especially Russia’s yields contained some fairly fine quality every so often, but couldn’t be counted on.

  Argenti’s situation was similar to The System’s in many ways. However, The System did not have to hand over a stiff percentage of its take to the government. Nor did it have to slice its profits with four bought partners. Twenty-two percent royalty to the government. Twenty percent due the partners. Nevertheless, Argenti could conduct his business aboveboard and make a healthy profit.

  Instead, he decided to convert his handicaps into opportunity.

  He wouldn’t have dealers come to The Concession in Bogotá for packets. That would make him too accountable. He would deliver the goods to them. To their places of business anywhere in the world, or, if that was too much trouble, wherever he designated. It required a more complex organization, what with the various customs regulations, more bribing and kicking back, but it would be well worth it.

  Soon after Argenti’s lease was signed, the established mines at Muzo, Chivor and elsewhere were again in production. All did not suddenly go smoothly, however. Argenti saw to that. There were still violent incidents up in mine country, thievery and killing enough to maintain the impression that the government had dealt wisely.

  In the lease a stipulation by Argenti was that the government would provide military protection during the takeover period. General Botero was consulted on that point. For the sake of appearance, he argued against it, cooperated grudgingly. Since then, however, the number of troops assigned to guard and police the mines had not been reduced.

  Each year for the past six years The Concession had paid the Colombian government its twelve-million rent right on time. How much the government’s twenty-two percent royalty came to depended upon how many carats The Concession said it took in.

  In 1972, for example, the annual report of The Concession showed a gross yield valued at 42.7 million dollars.

  In 1973 it was 56.3 million.

  The following year, 48.3 million.

  Rather disappointing figures considering the potential, based upon when the mines were formerly producing to capacity.

  The Concession’s explanation seemed plausible. The mines, as the government well knew, were almost impossible to manage when there was so much violence and underhanded dealing. The esmeralderos were even more formidable now, organized under a sort of Mafialike code. For the time being at least, The Concession and the government would have to be satisfied with making what they could.

  A separate accounting was known only to Argenti and his four conspirators. It was never recorded, based only on Argenti’s word.

  The Concession was actually doing 200 million a year, give or take 10 or 20 million.

  That much skim—about 150 million dollars worth of emeralds, some half million carats—was being taken off the top and out of the country via The Concession’s confidential network. Its couriers went out and came back on regular schedules. Air force pilots served The Concession on routine flights. There was so little risk it hardly qualified as smuggling. When someone got caught, whoever did the catching wanted more than anything else to be included in the setup. There was risk in that. Often such a person, for instance, an ambitious customs officer, was merely eliminated.

  Panama, the island of San Andrés, Acapulco and other resorts along the Mexican Riviera became regular rendezvous for doing business in emeralds. It was not nearly as formal as the way The System conducted its diamond transactions, but it accomplished the same thing. Dealers from Tokyo, Beirut, Paris, New York, all over had to take deliveries when and where The Concession stipulated. And pay per carat whatever The Concession asked.

  Or else do without.

  14

  Wiley’s first morning in Bogotá.r />
  Seated on the main terrace at the rear of Argenti’s villa. There alone, except for a half dozen white-jacketed male servants who stood ready at their stations, self-conscious about having nothing to do. Wiley’s presence held them at attention.

  Twenty persons were expected for breakfast. At least, so it seemed. Beneath a blue canopy a long table was set for that many. Beige linen, pure silver, Rosenthal, Baccarat and two abundant arrangements of ranunculus. Another table nearby held silver dishes heated from underneath by burners with blue flames.

  Wiley had already eaten.

  Rather than sit at the table, which seemed too perfect for him alone to disturb, he had asked to be served on the top step of the wide stone stairway that led down to the grounds. He was now finishing his coffee, had never tasted better. He signaled with his cup. A full one was brought by a servant with almost grateful agreeability.

  The shade of a tall cypress had grown over Wiley. He moved across the step to where the ten o’clock sun was hitting. It was a minor comfort, through his trousers, to his buttocks. He used the stub of his fifth cigarette of the day to light his next.

  Never. She could never get him to stop smoking.

  Look out. Don’t look in.

  He tried the view for distraction.

  Mountains, the Andes, on the clearest kind of day, mauve and gray to black and white-capped, like artwork.

  He hadn’t mentioned the so-called walking-around money to Lillian, the brand new hundreds she had doled out to him which, according to serial numbers, had been his own.

  Foothills with varicose gullies, bad complexions.

  She had all of it. Marianna, her secretary, had found the entire twelve thousand for her in the lamp base in Las Hadas.

  Not a cloud, plane or anything anywhere in the sky.

  Probably she had the pouch of emeralds too.

  A mile of lawn from here to there, the denser, taller-bladed kind that showed wherever breeze played on it.

  Lillian had lied. Outright.

  Like dabs of watercolors, yellow, blue, pink, Argenti’s niece and her two friends from school were chasing far out along the edge of the grounds, where there was a line of poplars.

  His first inclination had been to put it straight to Lillian. He had her cold. He imagined she would do some quick thinking, invent a simple explanation. Or claim it was merely caprice, a game thing. Or, embarrassed, cornered, might resort to silence, cut herself off and away. From him. What satisfaction in that?

  He leaned back on his elbows, gazed overhead at the nothing of sky for a moment. Then, stretching, arching his neck, he saw Argenti’s villa inverted.

  Three floors, forty-some rooms.

  Argenti had purchased three adjacent estates there in the affluent Chico district. He’d torn down the flanking two to provide more grounds for the other, which he had enlarged with north and south wings. The Spanish purity of the house, though architecturally akin to Italian, was not acceptable to him. Argenti constructed a spacious courtyard faced by double loggias with thirty Doric columns. An imposing sixteenth-century bronze wellhead in its center, which he had brought over from a Medici villa in Careggi. It was eight water nymphs, fascinated each with the next in some subtle physical way, and all held high by the graceful force of a wave.

  Any structural detail of the villa that could not be convincingly converted was replaced. Cornices, sills, borders, bannisters. Extensive additions were made to the exterior—many of them after the Renaissance artisan Marcello Sparzo as seen in the Palazzo Podesta in Genoa. Numerous arched recesses contained statues and obelisks. Life-size statues with one part or another missing stood at every corner and break of the roofline and along the tops of terrace walls. Gods and goddesses with weatherworn breasts and genitals. (Those not truly antique had been sandblasted to appear so in Naples.)

  Despite all these efforts, the Spanish flavor of the house showed through. Why hadn’t Argenti demolished it, ordered an Italian villa built from the ground up? Would have been easier. Perhaps once he’d begun remodeling, he didn’t want to admit the mistake. Or, more likely, it was a matter of defiance from the start, having to do with his resentment of exile.

  His longing for Italy.

  It was overstated throughout the interior of the villa, as well. Gold leaf, gesso, intricate plaster work and boiserie. Carrara fleuri, that rare, rich blue marble, and verde antico and Siena—the most beautiful that could be put underfoot. Some walls were covered with silk, reproductions of antique weaves executed by Scalamandre. Others were done in trompe l’oeil: vistas, objects, creatures painted hyperrealistically in perfect perspective.

  In the bedroom he occupied Wiley had noticed several classical sketches of female nudes tacked to the wall. The corners of the sketches were curled, edges frayed. Not in keeping with the fineness and order of everything else. He had tried to take a corner of a sketch between his fingers before he realized the illusion. And that morning, when passing through the ground-floor rooms, he had walked smack into a wall that offered an incredibly believable version of wide-open double doors and a terrace. Thus, he was groping before him when he came to the real way out.

  Feeling like a fool.

  He dragged long on his cigarette, didn’t inhale, let the smoke out plosively to put his own cloud in the sky.

  Why the fuck should she begrudge him his twelve thousand and the few emeralds he’d gotten shot for? Her with all her money. Did she have to be in such total control? Was that it? Maybe she got some sort of warped feminine amusement from playing lavish Lillian, keeping a man—not just any man, but him—with his hand out. How many others had been in her personal breadline? Or, it could be even more serious. This incident of deceit, uncovered only by circumstance, might be fair warning.

  He got up abruptly, as though to erase the possibility.

  Common birds were flittering about, anticipating breakfast crumbs.

  No matter what, Lillian had disappointed him. Just about enough for him to haul ass out of there. (Three thousand and his new wardrobe would go how far?) Until now Argenti had been the perfect host—away on business. If Wiley left that moment he might have the pleasure of avoiding Argenti. He would also be leaving Lillian to him.

  Someone appeared in the double doorway of the house. Out of scale with the doorway, too large a man, extraordinary, tall and thick, like one of those Russian Olympic weightlifters in the superheavyweight class.

  Luis Hurtado.

  Argenti’s man around.

  His white suit made him appear all the more gigantic. It must have been tailored for him. No store would stock such a size. Still, the fabric strained across the upper chest and rib cage. He had a big-boned face with ambiguous features and skin color. There was Pasto Indian in him and European and Negro but no telling how much of each because the bloodlines had been crossed and recrossed so many times over the past five centuries. Black hair. He tried to slick it down, but it brushed up, oily.

  Hurtado stood in the doorway, arms down in front, hands joined, fingers laced into a relaxed double fist. His eyes fixed on Wiley.

  Even at a distance of thirty feet Wiley took a step back.

  Argenti came out. With General Botero.

  The way they were dressed reminded Wiley of vintage movie directors. Boots and leather leggings, twill jodhpurs, short-sleeved cotton lisle shirts, knotted silk scarves. Dressed identically, for some reason.

  Argenti’s glance seemed to include Wiley only incidentally. He said good morning as though it were a description, and gestured for Wiley to join them at the table. Argenti mispronounced Wiley’s name, said something that sounded like “Wheeler” when he introduced the General. No handshakes.

  A servant poured wine.

  Another offered a woven-silver basket containing a linen-covered loaf of warm bread.

  Argenti tore away a piece, which he dipped into his wine goblet. He brought the bread sopping red to his mouth. The General did the same.

  “Worms,” Argenti told Wiley. �
�Wine first thing in the morning prevents worms.” He patted his stomach respectfully. “Is that something you already knew?”

  “No,” Wiley said.

  “Then you probably have worms,” Argenti said decidedly.

  Wiley agreed.

  So did the General.

  They went on with their wine sopping.

  It occurred to Wiley that they were dressed for polo.

  “Christ began each day with wine and bread,” Argenti commented mostly to himself.

  The General touched the sign of the cross on himself and kissed the knuckle of his thumb.

  Wiley wondered what extra significance there was in the thumb kiss. He thought about Argenti imitating Christ.

  Breakfast was brought: the mounded richness of eggs Benedict and a platter of thin, silvery fish sauteed whole to a crisp in butter and olive oil and herbs.

  “I was not surprised to hear about Ramsey,” Argenti said.

  “Exemplary record,” the General said.

  “The month before last, when I happened to run into him at the Hipódromo, he made me uneasy.”

  As abruptly as that, Wiley was excluded from the conversation. They were resuming a topic.

  Argenti said, “Overambition is something I can sense.”

  “Really?”

  “I have never been wrong, never. Ramsey definitely had it. I knew it merely from his being in my presence those few moments.”

  “You make it sound like an odor of the body.” The General was a trifle facetious. He grinned. Or did he? Upper lip thin, lower lip full, his natural expression was close to a grin or a superior sneer.

  “How much do they estimate Ramsey got away with all told?” Argenti asked.

  “Conduct Section is preparing its report.”

  “He was trying to side-deal five thousand carats.”

  “This time.”

  “We recovered those.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ramsey’s arrangement was with one of the new mine supervisors at Muzo, was it not?”

  “Since August.”

  “Four months. Probably they started out smaller, no more than a thousand carats. And increased the amount each month as they became more confident. I would say Ramsey managed to side-deal six thousand carats, perhaps even less.”