I think my voice sounded steady. I was just glad he couldn't see my face.
"Good." He sounded relieved. "It was great to see you again. Keep in touch, OK,"
"OK, Wojtek. See you soon."
I slammed the phone down, and took a deep breath. I looked up and saw Ricardo coming toward me.
"Well done, Nick," he said. "We're all set up now. I just hope you're right."
I'm right," I said. But I felt very wrong indeed.
H'>.
"Oh, we're taking some clients out tonight. Very important clients. Would you like to come along?"
Oh, God. More drinking. The last thing I felt like was being nice to people I didn't know. I wanted to go to bed early. Very early.
But it was clear that I should feel flattered to be asked. So I summoned up a smile and said, "Great."
I grabbed a cup of coffee from the machine, and reached for the paper. I laid it out on my own desk away from the square. I had earned myself some peace and quiet. The coffee didn't really seem to help. My head still hurt, and my stomach was queasy. I felt hot. I was sweating gently. Vodka was an occupational hazard of studying Russian. I could see that it would become a problem in this job too, once I became seriously involved with Eastern Europe.
I glanced at Isabel. She was reading through a pile of papers, her hair hanging down and hiding most of her face. God, she was attractive. Since our drink the previous Friday, we had exchanged a few friendly words but nothing more.
"Nick, what is it?"
"What?"
"You're staring."
My eyes came back into focus. Isabel was looking at me with an amused smile on her face.
I could feel myself reddening. "Oh, I'm sorry. My eyes and brain aren't well connected this morning. I was out drinking for Dekker last night."
"Such loyalty is touching," said Isabel.
Embarrassed, I cast my eyes down to the paper in front of me. I leafed through to the arts pages. I had to admit that the film reviews in the Financial Times were pretty good. There was a new Polish film out by
THE MARKET MAKER 169 :
Krzysztof Kieslowski. It sounded interesting. Td try •
and see it if I got the time. i
Oh, damn! I hated having to lie to Wojtek. I had be |
trayed his trust. Of course it was partly his fault. Mostly i
his fault. I had gone there telling him who I was and i
what I wanted. He had been stupidly indiscreet. He :
knew it, that's why he had just rimg me in a panic. It j
was his fault. His fault that I had betrayed his trust.
No. It didn't work. Wojtek would be seriously upset j
with me if he ever foimd out what I had done. I would
just have to hope that he never did. ;
Stephen's words echoed to me, in that pompous ac
cent of his. "Qw/fe honestly, it's hard to go too far in this ;
business. As long as you don't get caught."
After a couple of glasses of wine, my brain began to i clear, or at least the pain softened. We were in Vongs, ; a smart New York restaurant that had migrated to | Knightsbridge. There were seven of us and five of them. Ricardo was there, with Eduardo, Jamie, Miguel, and a couple of others. Our guests were officials of a ; Central Bank. This trip to London had become some- ; thing of an annual event, a thank you from Dekker for 1 business done in the past and to be done in the future.
I had to admit that for civil servants these people were . quite fun. The food was deUcious, the drink flowed, and with it the laughter.
I was sitting next to Eduardo, but we spoke little, un-: til toward the end of the meal he leaned over to me. i "You'll learn a little about how business is done to-; night," he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes.
"Oh, yes?"
"Yes. It's important to give your customers what; they want. And that's not just the best prices or the best, deal. Ricardo can do all that. But someone has to look at;
the broader relationship. That's my speciality. Do you know what I mean?"
He looked at me closely, his lips parted in a smile.
"I'm not sure/' I said.
"Well, you have to know what your customers like. Now, I happen to know that this group all like women. That's easy. Except for that man at the end of the table." He pointed to a good-looking balding man listening with great interest to a story Jamie was telling. "1 happen to know he prefers boys. His colleagues don't know that, nor does Jamie, but I'm sure he will appreciate being seated next to the prettiest one among us."
I couldn't help myself smiling at this. It was true that Jamie's good looks could attract interest from either sex, a fact that caused him intense irritation. He would go spare if he knew Eduardo was using him in this way.
Eduardo smiled. "You won't tell him will you?'
"I will one day," I said. "I won't be able to resist it.
"OK, but not tonight. Tonight you will see why these people always deal with us, and never with Bloomfield Weiss."
At about eleven, we left the restaurant, amid cries of "Eduardo!"
"What happens now?" I asked Jamie.
"We go back to Eduardo's flat for more entertainment."
I was intrigued. I had caught a second wind, and the exuberance of the crowd was infectious. I bundled into one of the three cabs we commandeered outside the restaurant.
Eduardo's flat was in Mayfair, not more than a half mile away. He had a large living room, with plenty of chairs and sofas, and heavy expensive curtains and carpets. The light was dim. We piled in, taking off jackets and loosening ties. There were bottles of champagne
11
waiting on a sideboard, guarded over by a very attractive blond waitress. I accepted a glass, and slumped into a sofa.
The man next to me, Felipe, was talking about a notorious conference that Dekker had set up in Acapulco two years before. I had difficulty following all of it, because he was speaking fast, he had a thick accent, and in his excitement he didn't make much sense. But the others around him were nodding and laughing at the memories.
The champagne was excellent, the flat was warm, the chair very comfortable, and I sat back in a relaxed fug. I stopped trying to focus on the noise around me. This was really rather nice.
A light flashed in my eye and startled me. I looked over to its source. It was a small mirror Eduardo and two of our guests were hunched over it arranging some lines of white powder.
I smiled at the irony of the situation. Having spent the last ten years of my life in universities, I was used to seeing drugs around me, and avoiding them. Things were obviously not much different here.
The mirror attracted most of the men in the room, including Jamie. He caught my eye and shrugged. I knew Jamie wasn't a coke user. This was probably another one of those things he did to fit in.
I looked around for Ricardo. He had slipped away. Everyone else had stayed. Piis privilege, I supposed.
Just then the doorbell rang. Eduardo stood up and made an announcement to the group of expectant central bankers. ''These are some friends of mine. They all work in the modeling business." He winked. "I'm sure you'll like them."
He opened the door to a procession of about a dozen stunning women, all with different colors of hair and
skin, and all wearing revealing but expensive cocktail dresses. Immediately the men stood up, the noise level rose, champagne corks were popped. The excitement in the room was almost palpable.
I stayed stuck in my chair. Eduardo put his arm around the waist of a tall girl with red hair and extremely long legs, and steered her toward me.
''Nick, Melanie, Melanie, Nick,'' he said. "She's a beautiful woman, Nick, I'm sure you will like her." Then he left us, much to my relief.
"Hi," she said.
"Hallo," I replied, smiled politely, and ignored her. She sipped champagne, making small talk in an upper-middle class accent, which I didn't respond to. I was very tired, and I wanted to go home. N
one of these women interested me like Isabel did, and the artificiality of the situation made me queasy. I looked around at the smartly dressed, wealthy men, all with wives and girlfriends, talking animatedly to these women whom they had never met before. Two couples, they were couples already, began to dance, slow and close.
I stood up, smiled politely at the redhead next to me, retrieved my jacket, and headed for the door.
"Nick!"
Jamie extricated himself from a blonde, and rushed up to the door. I waited.
"Nick, where are you going?"
"Home."
"Look. Stay here. Eduardo won't like it if you go now. Come on. You're not even married."
"Maybe that's why I don't want to stay," I said. "And screw Eduardo."
I reached my desk just before seven the next morning. I nodded to Isabel.
"Have a good night, did you, last night?" she said coolly.
"No, actually. I found it pretty unpleasant. I left early."
"Oh, I see," she said, and returned to her work. She didn't believe me of course. I was just telling the same sort of lie that people at Dekker always did. That made me angry.
After an uninspired morning meeting, Jamie joined me as I made my way back to my desk.
"Good night, last night, wasn't it?"
"The customers seemed to enjoy it," I replied.
He paused. "You know I normally don't do drugs," he said in a voice low enough for nobody else to hear. "Only when I have to. Like last night."
"I know," I said grimly.
"And those girls. 1 didn't do anything with any of them. Just talked, you know."
"I'm sure."
"You won't tell Kate, will you? I mean you should have stayed too."
I now realized why Jamie had been sorry to see me go. He wanted me to be an accomplice in crime. Then he would feel better about it.
I sighed. "I won't tell Kate," I said. And I wouldn't. Even in my current negative mood, I wouldn't stuff a friend like that.
Jamie seemed relieved. "Good. I'll see you later."
He had only been gone a few moments when Ricardo approached. He pulled up a chair next to my desk, and sat down.
"You saw the Poles have devalued?" He nodded to the Financial Times still unread on my desk.
"No, I hadn't."
"Well, good work. We'll make a buck or two this morning, I expect/'
I smiled thinly.
"It's about time you did some real work," he went on. "Isabel is going down to Brazil, and I'd like you to go with her."
"OK." I listened, my interest quickening.
"The City of Sao Paulo want to go ahead with its own favela deal. And it will be a good opportunity to persuade our friends in Brazil of the merits of Mexico. You've heard Jamie talk about the deal all week, so you should have the story down pat."
Go to Brazil. With Isabel. That seemed like quite an attractive idea.
"That is, if you're OK with that," Ricardo said. "After what happened last time, I'd understand if you were a bit reluctant."
I was nervous. But I'd be safe as long as I was careful.
"No, that's fine. When do we go?"
"Tonight."
"Tonight!"
"What's the matter? Stay up too late last night?"
He smiled and went back to his desk. I looked across to Isabel, who had been listening. "Is that OK with you?" I said it without thinking. I suspected she had been distancing herself from me for the last week, and she clearly was not impressed with my participation in the previous night's events.
But she smiled. "Of course it is. It makes a lot of sense. You know the details of the Rio deal, and Ri-cardo's right, you know a lot more about the wonders of Mexico than I do."
I caught the irony in her voice. "A fine investment opportunity," I said.
She gathered a pile of paper on her desk and handed
it to me. "Here, copy that. Read it. And Til see you at the Varig lounge at Heathrow, Terminal Three, at eight-thirty. The flight leaves at ten. Til have the tickets."
"OK," I said, and toddled off to the photocopier.
Later, on my way out of the office, I stopped at Jamie's desk.
"Tm off. Tm going to Brazil tonight."
"Really?" He frowned. "Be careful this time."
"Don't worry," I said. "I wiU be."
"Are you going with Isabel?"
"Yes."
"Well, have fun." He grinned.
I was about to answer, "I will," but I stopped, confused. "We'll see," I said in the end.
16
The plane began its descent to Sao Paulo. I looked out of the window at the second greatest metropolis on earth. Twenty million people live in Greater Sao Paulo. Low red-roofed houses sprawled as far as I could see. Sprouting out among them like the white shoots of early spring were hundreds of skyscrapers. They were grouped in clumps, as if handfuls of seed had fallen together from the hand of a careless sower. On the horizon, between the brown and red of the city, and the blue of the sky, stretched a thick dark gray band of smog. As we descended, the landscape was broken up by a gray ribbon of river, and dozens of industrial sites. We passed low over a lake of the most extraordinary lime green. God had created Rio in a fit of inspired imagination; man had created Sao Paulo with a total lack of it.
Sao Paulo is the business and financial center of Brazil. Paulistas proudly compare their city with New York, and indeed the long avenues flanked with skyscrapers did look impressively commercial. People in suits dashed back and forth, and the traffic moved urgently through the vast network of Sao Paulo's highways. There was money to be made and work to be
done, and although it was eighty-five degrees and humid, the paulistas would do it.
We met Humberto Alves's equivalent in the Sao Paulo Finance Department. The paulistas had a different approach to dealing with favelas, which they called the Cingapura Project. It was an idea that had supposedly been developed in Singapore, hence the name. It involved what they called "verticalization." That meant tearing down the temporary^ structures and replacing them with modem high-rise housing. It sounded to me more heavy-handed than the Rio project.
They were hot to trot. The Cingapura Project had been under way now^ for several years, but the city was having problems finding the funds for more construction. Isabel's ingenious trust idea was just the way to unlock the World Development Fund cash that was desperately needed to move onto the next stage. And now that Rio's deal had fallen through, Sao Paulo's would be the first out in the market, which made the whole idea even more attractive.
It was a Friday, and we had meetings planned for that day and Saturday, w^hich showed how eager they were. As the day wore on, Isabel and I became progressively more excited as we realized that a deal might actually happen. Bloomfield Weiss was nowhere to be seen; after their humiliating withdrawal from the Rio deal, Sao Paulo wouldn't take them seriously.
It was a hard day, but we worked well together. I had read through the pile of documents she had given me through the night on the plane. I was well prepared, and we operated brilliantly as a team. I quickly got the hang of how her mind worked, and she treated me like a valuable partner.
At last, at eight-thirty, we finished, with a promise to
] 178 Michael Ridpath i
be back in the municipal offices at nine the next mom- '■ ing. We flopped into a taxi, feeling both tired and ex- i cited at the same time.
''Did you know that Sao Paulo has the best Japanese , restaurants outside Japan? " Isabel said. j
"No, I didn't know that." !
" Would you like to try one? "
"Sure." j
She leaned forward to the taxi driver. "Liberdade."
We were dropped off next to a bustling street market. The smell of spices and fried food mixed in the warm | night air. Black, white, and brown Brazilians mingled i with the Japanese and Koreans. It was good to see peo- , pie wandering around on foot after driving from place I to place by car all the time. A statuesque bl
ack woman walked past with her little four-year-old son. She i caught me looking at them. "Hey, how are you?" she , said in English with a leer. I looked away, embarrassed i at my innocence in not realizing that a mother and a ; hooker could be the same thing.
Isabel led me down a street daubed with Japanese ; characters. Over a million Japanese are supposed to live in Sao Paulo. So do many people from the Middle | East. I noticed a sign for Habib's Fast Food, written in ! English and Japanese. Somehow it seemed typically I Brazilian. j
We came to a crooked wooden gateway, behind I which was a tiny Japanese garden. Inside was a restaurant, divided into cozy booths. A large Japanese man i was ostentatiously wielding huge knives. I winced as he twirled the blades around his hands, expecting any j moment to see a human finger added to the raw fish on | the slab in front of him. j
The place was bustling, but after a short wait we were ■ squeezed into a tight booth for two and ordered beer.
"Well, it looks like afavela deal is finally going to happen/' said Isabel.
''Yes. And so it should. You deserve it."
"Thank you. I like working with someone else on this. I normally do all this stuff by myself. But I think we make an excellent team."
She smiled at me, an innocent smile of encouragement.
"We do. Fm just not sure ITl be able to see it through with you."
"You won't? Why not?" I was pleased to see the disappointment in Isabel's face. Actually, I was disappointed too.
"I've been thinking about resigning."
"Really? Why?"
"You know. We've talked about it before. I just can't put up with Ricardo's way of doing things."
Isabel lowered her eyes. "I understand," she said.
A waitress came around for our order. After a minute's consideration of the menu, I ordered tempura, and Isabel sushi.
"How do you stick it out?" I asked.
She smiled. "That is a very uncomfortable question."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked it."
"No, that's OK. I guess I'm still trying to prove to myself that I can do this well. I don't want to give up. And every now and again, like on days like today, the job seems worthwhile."
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