No Place in the Sun (28 page)

‘After you’ve put the price up beforehand?’

She laughed. No, I’ve just asked Juan to leave out the kitchen units; we can do them as an extra later. Now, am I not a clever girl?’

Tom couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of you, Tania Sherry.’

She was serious for a moment. ‘I just had an idea about the Budapest project.’

‘Careful, don’t stress that blonde brain.’

She threw a pencil at him. ‘Stop messing, I really have an idea about this. If we’re selling places with a rental guarantee, we should insist on a good standard of furnishing.’

It was Tom’s turn to look puzzled. ‘The whole point is that there won’t be any tenants, so it doesn’t matter about the furniture.’

‘It does if we’re supplying it. I’m sure we could easily pull an extra five grand profit off each apartment on a furniture package. I have a friend in Barcelona in the furniture business, he imports into Spain from Eastern Europe all the time, I’ll find out who makes his stuff. I reckon that there’s another half million there for the taking.’

Tom wondered at his boss; every time he thought he had her figured, she came up with another surprise. It took a very clever head to think that far ahead and see the possibilities in a proposal that he had pitched to her just twenty minutes earlier. He resolved never to underestimate her; she might have a mad streak, but this was a very shrewd woman indeed.

The exhibition was billed as an international property show, and Andrew had excelled himself with the displays and the layout. The papers had reacted well to the guaranteed rentals on offer in Budapest, and coverage had extended well beyond the usual stuff that Tom wrote for them every Monday morning. Boosted by his promised weekend in Paris, Murtagh had devoted the entire front page to Kover Ember Haz and the Renaissance Quarter of Budapest. Tom had written a feature on his newly invented Renaissance Quarter, including some inside information from the local town hall about future spending on the public spaces in the area. Apart from some small detail that he had got from Amir Mamzer, the entire piece was a work of fiction, but who was going to check? Already other newspapers were talking about the Renaissance Quarter as a matter of fact, and nobody was querying the story.

Amir Mamzer wasn’t too happy when he saw the prices that Scorpio intended to charge for the project. He ranted at Tom and Tania in a half hour conference call, alternately demanding and pleading for a bigger slice of the pie, but they stood firm.

‘Look, you were happy enough to sign up for the prices we suggested, and we’re giving you the administration of the rental scheme as well as any rents you can get from the apartments. How much better does it get?’ Tom wasn’t going to give an inch; he had a watertight contract.

Tania wasn’t for turning either. ‘We are spending a fortune on advertising, and taking huge risks, but we fully expect to sell this project in less than a month. That’s better than anything you ever did with your Israeli clients, and you have no marketing or agency costs. I’m sorry, Mr. Mamzer, a deal is a deal, but maybe we can make a concession on the next project if this one works well for us all.’

Reluctantly the Israeli agreed to the package. ‘Ok, let’s all get to work and move this project off the desk, we all got to make a living.’

The publicity was working; suddenly everyone was talking about Budapest. Tom had done several radio interviews in the past few days; this was a new approach by Scorpio. He explained the rental guarantee by claiming that they had done advanced deals with a number of multinational firms that were planning to open in Hungary, and if anyone questioned him further he invoked a confidentiality clause; nobody pushed it, and it quickly became accepted lore.

Amir Mamzer arrived for the weekend, curious to see how his project would be received; it was clear that he was impressed.

‘My project, is all over your newspapers, everybody talks about this Renaissance Quarter. Do you think we will sell many apartment this weekend?’

Tom was confident; the publicity had been incredible and he already had telephone reservations on nearly twenty apartments ahead of the show. Small investors were excited at the possibility of getting a guaranteed return on their purchase, and there was something of a stampede to grab the best apartments. He didn’t want to appear too confident to the Israeli, but he wasn’t going to downplay things either.

‘I think we’ll easily sell half the project, maybe more. We’ve invested a lot of time and money in the marketing side, so hopefully it will all come together this afternoon.’

Tom called his salesmen to a final meeting before the doors opened. He wanted the Hungarian project to move well, but he didn’t want them to lose focus on the core business, the project in Spain. Hungary was a gamble that might pay off hugely, but Spain was where the steady income was coming from and he didn’t want them to forget that.

‘Andrew, your role is key today. Try to separate the buyers at first point of contact and push most of the Hungarian ones to me; I know the project better than the lads and I’ll be able to sell it faster. We’re going to be stretched with doing two countries, but we’ll get used to it after a couple of hours and it’ll all go smoothly. Lads, don’t get carried away with the excitement of a new destination; keep selling Spain the way you have been, don’t lose your focus. Now, let’s go earn some serious money.’

Amir Mamzer called Tom aside. ‘Is looking good, Tom, I think you guys will do the business.’

‘Don’t worry, Amir, we’ll give it our best shot.’

‘Something else, Tom, your friend Andrew, is he Arab?’

‘Arab?’

‘You know, Homokos?’

‘Oh Andy’s gay, sure, but he’s still very good at his job, Amir.’

The Israeli shook his head. ‘I am not used to work with Arab, Homokos. In my country we do not have such persons.’

‘You have a problem with Andrew?’

‘No, no problem, he seems nice guy, but I just not used to being near to Homokos. I don’t know how to talk to him, what do I say to him?’

‘Say nothing, I don’t know, if you get into conversation, I don’t know, tell him a joke maybe. Just act normal, no big deal.’

‘Ok, thank you, Tom, I am just not comfortable, you understand?’

Andrew came back into the room. ‘Showtime guys, they’re lining up outside, we better open the doors.’

‘Ok, Andy, let them in, let’s put some money on the meter.’

Nobody had ever seen a property show like it. At one point they had to close the doors for half an hour to allow the crowd get small enough to make it manageable. Andrew was playing a blinder, but even he was under serious pressure. By Sunday morning every apartment in Amir Mamzer’s building was sold, and they had started taking names for future projects with rental guarantees.

Tania was beside herself. ‘Tom, we’re making a fucking fortune, this is going like a dream. I need to send you away more often, that rental thing was a stroke of genius.’

Tom was exhausted; he just wanted to get home to bed. They had sold over a hundred apartments in Hungary and almost ninety villas in Spain. He had no idea exactly how much money he had made, but it was an awful lot, probably well over three quarters of a million euro in just three days. He felt a sudden surge of pride at what had been done; so much for his smartass bloody teacher who had joked that he would end up drawing the dole. So much for Mister Maurice Milton who had duped him out of his money back in the electrical store. He was making a lot more than his father with his lousy building business. Thomas Murphy had arrived, with no help from anyone, just using his wits and nothing more.

Amir Mamzer was as excited as a small boy in a toyshop. ‘We did it, we did it, we make one hundred percent selling; you guys are the best, the best.’

Tom smiled at the Israeli’s exuberance, and at the way he was hugging all the sales team, including Andrew. ‘Just doing what we do best, Amir; you build them, we sell them.’

‘Is amazing, never did I see such a thing, is amazing. I buy you all dinner, is on me, I insist.’

Tom was too tired to think of eating, and he knew that the rest of the lads must feel the same, but maybe it would be good for all the team to sit down together for a meal and a few drinks.

‘That’s kind of you, Amir, maybe we’ll do that, it would be good after such a weekend.’

The mood was muted in the restaurant at the beginning but the team soon got their second wind as the wine flowed. Tom was sitting beside Tania; he tried for a while to limit her intake of wine but it was a lost cause, his boss was determined to celebrate in style. Despite having made millions from the business over the weekend, she was delighted that Amir Mamzer was paying for the meal and the drinks, and she was doing her best to get her money’s worth. Tom would never understand her mentality; this woman would never be happy with having enough.

He thought about his own situation; he was now a rich man, and the business was showing no signs of slowing, although he knew that it would have a finite life as buyers became more discerning and as more and more players entered the field. He just needed to make hay while the sun shone so that he could withdraw quietly whenever the inevitable downturn arrived.

The wine was taking effect; Amir and Andrew were telling jokes and keeping everyone amused. Andrew’s voice tended to become shrill when he had a few drinks on board, and the Israeli’s strong accent and loud voice meant that he also could be heard above the din. Andrew had the floor; he was trying to explain the nuances of a joke to his new friend.

‘It’s a nursery rhyme, Amir, like they tell to children.’

‘Ok, say again slowly, I understand, child verses.’

’Little boy kneels at the foot of the stairs,

Clutched in his hand are a bunch of white hairs,

Oh dear, fancy that,

Christopher Robin castrated the cat.’

The others howled with laughter, as much at Andrew’s very camp delivery of the verse as at the vulgarisation of the old nursery rhyme. Amir laughed along, but he looked puzzled.

‘’Who this Christopher Robin?’

‘He’s a character in Children’s stories.’

‘Ok, I see, but what is castrated?’

Andrew leaned close to Amir and whispered in his ear. The Israeli spluttered with laughter.

‘Yes, yes, now I understand. The little boy remove the testikal from the cat, yes? Very good, I learn that one, very good.’

Andrew turned to his new friend. ‘Your turn now, Amir, you must have plenty of jokes, tell us one of yours.’

‘Ok, there is man, goes to doctor, tells him, doctor, I have problem, every night I peepee in the bed.’

Everyone at the table was now all ears.

‘So the doctor examine him and say, all is ok, all is working good, no reason why you peepee in the bed. Then the man say, no, doctor, problem is that when I go to sleep a doo-off come to me in the dream and say, Did you peepee? and I say, no, not yet, so the doo-off say, is ok, you can peepee now. You understand doo-off?’

Andrew nodded, ‘yes, a dwarf, a small man.’

Amir took a long swallow of his wine and continued. ‘The doctor say to the man, is no problem, when the doo-off come to you tonight and ask you if you peepee, you just say, thank you, I peepee already.’

‘So the man come back to the doctor and the doctor say, is ok, no? Did the doo-off come to you last night? And the man say, yes he come, but is not ok. Doctor say, but did he ask you if you peepee?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did you tell him, no, is ok, I peepee already.’

‘Yes, I say to the doo-off, is ok thank you, I peepee already. But then the doo-off say, but did you make shit?’

The whole table erupted in laughter. Amir was in hysterics at his own punchline, he was bent over the table and pounding on his thigh with his fist. Andrew was repeating the last line over and over, and the other salesmen were choking on their food and heaving with laughter. Tania’s laughter level had gone up a few decibels; Tom knew that it would be time to get her out of the place very soon.

Amir was still laughing, pounding his fist on the table and almost choking on his drink. He moved up the table to sit opposite Tom and Tania.