The Clayton Account (15 page)

‘How much?’ he interrupted.

‘Eighty thousand square metres of construction, Don Carlos! Costing thirty-five and a half million dollars total. Right down to the last detail!’

Morales was pleased. It worked out at around four-fifty a metre.

His own house had cost ten times that amount. Morales stood up and walked to a sideboard, collected a pocket file that lay on its top and returned to the table. He extracted some documents and passed them to De la Cruz.

‘Constructora de Malaga,’ he said. ‘These are its statutes and certificates, issued by the Government of Andalucia in Spain.’ He paused whilst the lawyer looked at the papers. Then he continued: ‘That will be the main contractor. All the local firms will act as subcontractors to Malaga.’

‘I foresee no problems there, Don Carlos. This company?’ he said, looking at the Mayor. ‘Malaga? It will need a commercial licence to operate in Medellín –’

Romualdes raised his hand with characteristic pomposity. It went without saying that the necessary permits would be issued that very day.

‘You will draw up agreements between Malaga and all the builders, Aristides,’ Morales continued. ‘Usual terms. Staged payments and so forth. I leave the details to you. Now, the Morales Foundation? Have you drawn up the papers?’

‘I have everything here,’ replied the lawyer, pulling them out of his case.

Morales looked through the documents and nodded approvingly. Since the three trustees were present, he said,
they
would sign the statutes today. De la Cruz asked tentatively how the project would be funded. Morales looked at him with that casual pride that only very wealthy men exhibit.

‘Tomorrow you will go to the Bank of Antioquia and open two accounts. One for Malaga – you will find a power of attorney there,’ he said pointing at the document that Speer had drafted. ‘And one for the Foundation. Next week, Malaga will remit fifty million dollars to that account. It will advance the money for the entire project.’

Morales looked at the Mayor, watching the man digest the figure that had so easily issued from his lips. ‘In time Malaga shall want to be paid back. I shall make donations to the Foundation and I sincerely hope,’ he looked piercingly at the Mayor, ‘that the business community of Medellín shall not be found wanting in making their own contributions.’

‘I assure you my citizens shall support you, Don Carlos,’ stated Romualdes impulsively. ‘I shall see to it in person.’

‘Good. And as soon as you have been to the bank, let me have the account details and I shall pass them on to Malaga’s attorneys.’

Morales clapped his hands and ordered a round of drinks, then took out a gold-capped pen and handed it to each man in turn, before adding his own signature to the statutes of the Morales Foundation. As of that moment, Medellín’s most notable institution was in business.

He then stood up and asked his visitors to follow him into his study. As they stood watching, he opened a wall cabinet and let them gaze at its contents. Two whole shelves were piled high with US currency and the bottom, larger tier was stuffed with well-worn Colombian notes. The guests could not help noticing that the cabinet was not even locked, such was Morales’ self-assurance within his
private
fiefdom. He picked out some neat bundles and placed them on his desk.

‘There’s two hundred and fifty thousand there,’ he said to De la Cruz. ‘Use that as my initial donation to the Foundation. Put it in the bank. Then use it to pay for the land.’

The lawyer started pushing the notes into his case. Morales took a smaller envelope from the cabinet and handed it to Romualdes, who eyed it with glee, but resisted the urge to open it before pocketing it.

‘Aristides, you will no doubt render me an account for your admirably performed services.’ He emphasized the ‘you’ to differentiate the lawyer’s fees from the Mayor’s bribes, then added, for Romualdes’ benefit: ‘I always believe in paying my supporters well. That way,’ he chuckled at the preposterous idea, ‘they never need think they should go into business for themselves.’

He walked the two men affably to their car and waited until it had disappeared into the woods. Then he wandered off to look for his putter.

It was indeed a splendid evening on the hills of Medellín.

Not far from the Morales estate, Andres Alberdi was debating a moral dilemma. Julio Robles wanted to see him again but what Alberdi had to tell him would not please him. The previous weekend Alicia had gone to Bogotá with the Mayor. She had returned to Medellín full of life, clutching a bag full of clothes bearing the kind of labels you only saw in foreign magazines. She had stayed at a place called Hilton. Twenty-three floors high, Alicia said. And from its top, at night, you could see the entire city sparkling as if all the stars had been laid between the mountains. Their room had been covered in carnations and they had drunk wines that had come all the way from
Chile
. She said Romualdes had promised that one day, soon, he would take her for a holiday in Disney World, which was in Florida.

‘So, your lover has come into some money, eh?’ her plain, pious, older sister had asked over dinner, refusing to be impressed. For in her eyes, whatever the extravagance, Alicia’s was still a sinful relationship.

‘He is building six hundred houses,’ Alicia retorted defiantly. ‘For the poor people of Colombia! And,’ she added with uncharacteristic vehemence, ‘two of them are for us! One for you and Andres, and one for me.’

They were stunned.

‘What are you saying?’ asked Ana Alberdi in disbelief.

‘He promised. He gave me his word of honour. He showed me the maps and he let me choose them. Two houses, side by side, just outside the city on the road to Bogotá. There!’

‘Ha!’ exclaimed the older sister. ‘And how do you suppose we shall be able to pay for your lovely houses, silly girl?’

‘We pay only what we can. Miguel explained it.’ She hesitated a little here for she had been unable to fathom the explanation she was given. So she just repeated his words:

‘Each according to their means. If you have no work, you pay nothing. If you are more fortunate, then you pay more. But always you keep your house.’

‘Sure, they say that. Then the landlord’s agents will come with their guns and collect the rent.’

‘Not this landlord,’ she said doggedly. ‘Miguel knows.
You
know nothing.’

‘Which landlord?’ asked Andres, who had remained silent throughout the exchange.

‘He is called the Morales Foundation, and Miguel is
what
they call the trustee. That means it does what he says. So there!’

‘Holy Mother of God, girl,’ wailed Andres’ wife in horror, ‘you don’t know what you are saying. Morales is an
evil
man.’

‘He is
not
,’ replied Alicia with conviction. ‘You don’t know the half of it. Nobody knows, only Miguel. He will also build a free hospital for us and two schools! Two schools for our children, also free!’

‘Whose children?’ asked Ana, her voice cracking with the trauma.

‘
My
children,’ Alicia replied, suddenly softening. ‘When all this is done, he will marry me.’

Ana Alberdi burst into tears and went to her room. Alicia cried too, but for different reasons. She knew that in time her sister would learn to respect her.

And Andres was left to ponder his moral dilemma.

Six hundred houses could only mean one thing: not one tree would be left standing. Julio Robles would want to know that. But
El BID
was powerful. If they wanted to, they could stop anything. And Andres believed Alicia’s story. He looked around his old house and stared at the tin roof that made you boil in summer and failed to keep the cold and damp out during the rainy season. Ana wanted a new house very badly. With a garden. Imagine growing your own flowers. He too had heard the rumours about Morales: he sold cocaine to the Yankees. But so what? Andres’ own people did not use cocaine. It was the stupid gringos’ problem.

He knew this because once, at the men’s club, Prats the barber, who had once worked in Sacramento, told him in subdued tones. Everybody had lots of money in America, and they only worked five days a week. They had several cars per household and a colour television in every room.
They
did not go to church and they could buy anything they wanted, whenever they wanted, and pay for it later. The problem, Prats explained conspiratorially as he flashed a gold tooth, was that they got bored. So they invented ways to pass the time. They bought sex over the telephone and paid fifty dollars for a tiny bit of coke. He had shown his disbelieving audience just how tiny, by taking a salt cellar from the bar and pouring the exact amount on the table.

And that was why Prats had not remained there. He had saved his dollars in America, and once he had enough to acquire his own shop he had returned to Medellín. California, he had stated with authority, was no place to bring up children.

Alberdi walked to the kitchen and returned to the front room with a bottle of aguardiente. He sat at the table and poured a generous shot. He had to concede he liked Robles. Admittedly he could be blunt and sometimes, when Andres tried to spin him a yarn, he became irritable. But he always paid, never quibbled. Once, when they first met, he had told Alberdi about the trees. Something called eco-systems. You chop the trees and the earth dies, Don Julio had explained. And as it dies it makes a hole in the atmosphere, up there in the sky. You cannot see it, but it is there, the scientists know that. It will not hurt
us
, Don Julio explained. We shall be long gone when the consequences are felt. But our children will not be able to grow a single vegetable.

Andres believed that – it made sense – and in any event he had noticed there were fewer flowers about today than all through his childhood.

So it was important to look after the trees.

He poured himself a second glass of aguardiente and it reminded him of the drink he had shared with Prats, when
Alberdi
tried to show off his knowledge of the eco-system. Prats had seemed impressed.

‘No doubt about it,’ he had agreed, which made Andres feel pretty good. ‘But also you could say: the gringos chopped down their own forests, and made themselves a fortune in the process. Right?’

Alberdi was in no position to disagree. Prats had lived in the North after all.

‘So now they tell us, in South America, we must not cut down
our
trees because it makes holes in the sky. Right?’

Alberdi agreed with that.

‘I say they should start new forests while we sell ours.’ Prats let that hang in the air long enough for Alberdi to work out that you didn’t create a rainforest overnight.

‘Alternatively, they should buy our forests from us, and leave them as they are. After all, they have the money.’

And Alberdi certainly could not argue with that. With the third and final glass of liquor he made up his mind. He heard his wife still sobbing in the bedroom as he took his hat from the peg. Quietly he left the house and walked down the lane towards the bus stop.

He would go into town and warn the Mayor.

In fact the information that Alberdi had decided to withhold was not of interest to Julio Robles. He already knew. In a city the size of Medellín it was impossible to keep the lid on a project of such magnitude. Robles wanted Alberdi to deliver something else and he was prepared to risk his cover if necessary by offering his informer a serious payment. For Alicia to obtain details of the project’s funding. That would give Red Harper the hard information he needed and perhaps a mandate to strike.

So Robles had been in his office all day, shredding papers
and
tidying up loose ends. He had to be ready to run for home at short notice if he was found out, but he would offer his informer up to five thousand dollars for the names of the companies and banks involved. Romualdes was bound to have the details in his office. All Alberdi had to do was teach Alicia what to look for. Julio had already established that the woman could read.

At eight, Robles drove along the road to Cartagena and stopped at the appointed place. He waited ten minutes, then left. For the first time his informer had failed to keep a meeting. There could, of course, be valid reasons for the absence, but Julio was trained to always consider the less palatable option. That way one tended to live longer. Perhaps Andres was unwell, perhaps he had family problems. Or maybe he had been found out. If so, that was bad news. If his cover was blown, he would leave Colombia in a hurry. So the best thing was to find out pronto. He turned the car around and headed towards the Alberdi home.

At that moment Andres Alberdi was sitting listening to Romualdes. He had sought him out at City Hall but the Mayor, he was told, had already gone home. No buses ran between the city centre and the best residential suburbs, so he checked the money in his pocket and took a taxi. As he stood outside the large villa, safely tucked behind six-foot iron gates, he was overcome by fear and almost fled. But then he recalled Alicia’s account of the Mayor’s promises. When he rang the bell, dogs barked and a light came on above the gate. A few minutes later a craggy-faced old servant questioned him through a sliding port. Gauging that Alberdi was not the type of person the civic leader received at home, he suggested the caller should seek an appointment during office hours. He emphasized the word ‘seek’.

‘Please,’ said Alberdi firmly, still drawing courage from the aguardiente. ‘Tell the Mayor it’s important, and that my name is Andres Alberdi.’

The servant shrugged and locked the viewport.

Alberdi heard his voice receding towards the house as he shouted at the dogs to be still. He hoped that Alicia would have mentioned his name. Hers, after all, was not Alberdi. But if Romualdes had promised her those two houses, surely he would know Alberdi’s name. A moment later the dogs resumed their barking and Andres heard the keys turn in the locks.

He was escorted into the house and ushered into the Mayor’s study. The obese man sat behind his desk, sporting a casual shirt with the top four buttons undone, revealing the links of three gold chains spilling from his neck. He motioned to the servant to shut the door.