No Place in the Sun (12 page)

‘So, you offloaded an expensive piece of real estate on a poor Paddy, have the English not stopped exploiting us yet?’

The Irishman laughed. ‘It might have been expensive at the time, but it looks cheap now. I’m very happy to be exploited if I can make gains like that, believe me.’

Henry stirred his coffee. ‘At least he didn’t end up in Pueblo Alto Blanco.’

‘True.’ Tom was able to laugh at himself. ‘That would have been a bad outcome all right.’

‘So, what’s Pueblo Blanco or whatever?’ The Irishman was curious.

‘It’s a timeshare caper in the hills; our Tom here has sold his soul to the devil and is making a fortune flogging it to innocent tourists.’ Henry was joking, but there was a little tinge of disapproval in his voice; he didn’t like the way Alan Merchant did business and he never made any secret of it.

‘It’s a holiday club.’ Tom shifted uncomfortably in the chair. The banter was light-hearted, but Henry’s comments had stung a little.

‘Club, timeshare, fractional ownership, it doesn’t matter what you call it, end result is still the same, people end up disappointed. Anyway, we have agreed to disagree on it, Tom; what do you want for breakfast, wave-ohs?’

They laughed at the memory of Tom’s early attempts at the language; he was a lot better now although his attempts to pronounce the ‘s’ at the end of words as a ‘th’ were still a source of amusement to his Spanish friends.

‘Tom is the best salesman ever to come out of Ireland, he has a natural talent for selling, but he doesn’t discriminate between good and bad, sells everything that comes along. I have to work my ass off to sell a few good properties; he seems to be able to sell absolutely anything, never lets one slip. Wish he’d come and work with us, but he never takes me up on my offer.’

‘You can’t afford me.’ Tom was smiling again, the ribbing about timeshares forgotten.

They breakfasted in the warm sun until Harry pushed back his chair. ‘I have to be heading off, have to drop off the car and catch my flight, back to the rain and wind.’ He reached for his wallet but Tom waved him away. ‘Breakfast is on me, you can get me back in Dublin sometime.’

They shook hands. ‘You can take me up on that, any time.’

Tom looked at the departing rental car as it headed down the slip road. ‘Nice guy, what does he do in Ireland?’

‘Not exactly sure, he has a small estate agency business but I think he makes most of his money from financial services, you know, mortgages and insurance and that kind of thing. Doesn’t talk too much about it, when he’s having a few days off he’s having a few days off, if you know what I mean. Good golfer though, I enjoy a game with him.’

Tom called the waitress and ordered two more coffees. ‘So, you think I shouldn’t be working for Alan?’

The older man shook his head. ‘It’s not for me to tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing; I just think that fellows like Alan Merchant are bad news. He’ll walk away if the shit hits the fan and your reputation will be on the floor. Has the building started on t he other three blocks up at Pueblo Alto?’

Tom nodded. ‘Yes, a contractor started at the beginning of last month, big crew on site now, looks like they mean business. It makes it a lot easier for us too; it wasn’t easy explaining away an empty site and big piles of rubble.’

‘So everyone will get their apartments, or at least their share of an apartment?’

‘No doubt about that now, but it looked dodgy for a while all right.’

‘And you still kept selling? Even when you thought that they might get nothing? Sometimes I worry about you Tom, do you not see the problem with operating like that?’

‘Henry, they’re all big people in a big world. It’s my job to sell; their job to buy. I can’t sit on both sides of the scales.’

‘Tom, between me and you, do you never think about the effect your actions might be having on the people you are selling to? A lot of those buyers can’t afford to lose that money.’

‘I used to worry about it Henry, but nowadays I try not to. If I started taking everyone else’s problems on board I wouldn’t sleep at night. The way I see it, I look after myself and they look after themselves. That’s the only way I can deal with it.’

‘It’s not as simple as that Tom, but there’s no point in us arguing about it, we’ll never agree on it anyway. Be careful whatever you do, don’t end up in jail for any bastard, look after your own hide.’

The aircraft descended through the thick cloud and rain, and suddenly the sea was visible, not far below. Tom peered through the murk and could just make out a line of yellow street lights that marked the coast. It was a miserable evening and he wasn’t sure of he had brought the right clothes with him; it looked cold and wet out there.

It seemed to take the pilot ages to put the plane down; it was buffeted by strong cross winds but the landing was reasonably smooth, and they taxied a long way to the end of the runway.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dublin. Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete stop and no smoking until you have passed through the terminal building.’ The announcer droned on through her little speech; Tom waited until the crowd had rushed for the exit before grabbing his bag from the overhead bin.

As soon as he had passed through the passport control area he turned on his mobile and checked his messages. Walter was still at work, but he would be home in an hour. Tom joined the long taxi queue and shivered in the cold wind; hard to believe it was summertime, he had forgotten how cold it could get when a bout of stormy weather came through.

The taxi driver was talkative; he seemed to have an opinion on everything. Tom kept his answers to monosyllables; the driver seemed content to listen to the sound of his own voice as he ranted on about traffic and the price of petrol and how expensive everything was getting. Tom hadn’t been paying too much attention to where they were going; the driver was making turns all over the place to avoid the rush hour traffic jams. Suddenly he realised that he was on familiar ground, they were on the street coming up to City Auto. He looked ahead to see what was happening with the yard, was Willie still in business or was it closed?

The streetscape had changed. The car park beside the pub was surrounded by a hoarding and a building was emerging from the ground, with a tower crane moving overhead and a lot of activity going on. City Auto was a bit of a shock; the portocabin was gone and the big shed demolished, and a hoarding surrounded the site as well; looked like the yard was going to be a building site soon.

‘That place there, used to be a car sales place wasn’t it?’

The taxi man nodded. ‘All gone, the fellow that owned the place sold it to a developer six months ago. Got three million for it I heard.’

‘Three million! That’s a lot of money for a bit of ground around here.’ Tom was surprised at the turn of events. Willie had done well.

‘Same all over, any bit of land in the city is making big money. Apartments and shops, that’s what they put on them. I don’t know who’ll live in all these places, but they keep building them anyway.’

‘So, no more car sales around here?’ Tom probed to find out more.

‘No, and it’s a pity, that crowd weren’t the worst. You could get a cheap enough car from them, they weren’t bad at all. It was a Scottish fellow that owned it I heard, done a flit over tax or something, well gone. He was only renting it from a local fellow, best thing he ever did was to go maybe, the Irish fellow maybe didn’t know what he was sitting on all the time.’

Tom sat back in the seat. Who would have thought it, Willie a bloody multi millionaire? Funny how the world turns. He smiled to himself.

The taxi pulled up at Walter’s house; the meter read fifty euros.

‘Twenty five to you, skipper,’ the driver was apologetic. ‘I thought you were a foreigner when you got in, the colour of you and the foreign accent had me fooled. It’s only twenty five, don’t want you giving me a dig, you know yourself.’

Tom laughed and handed over thirty. ‘Keep the change, and watch that dodgy meter.’

Walter arrived as he walked up the drive. The new house was great, with a wide driveway and a new four by four parked in front of the garage.

‘Doing well in real estate by the look of things?’

‘Can’t complain.’

Walter was in his usual cheery mood. ‘Life is good, selling like crazy and no sign of an end to it. Are you thinking of coming back?’

‘I hadn’t thought of it, although I suppose I will some time. It’s always in your mind when you’re out there, but then you come back and it’s pissing down it all looks different.’

‘The weather is part of it I suppose, but life can be good here too.’

‘It’s good for you by the look of things, I like the new place.’

Walter looked around at his new home. ‘We love it, just about settled in now, got it at the right price, one of the perks of working in the game, you get to spot ones that come up that have been priced too low. Sometimes the owners put the price on them, they know better and all that, but they might be better leaving it to us to value them.’

‘You have it made, it’s a great spot.’ Tom envied Walter in a way, nice family, lovely home and doing well. Decent fellow though, and a good mate, deserved anything he had. He often thought that it would be good to settle down with a girl like Pamela and have a life that was a bit more stable than his own bachelor existence.

Dinner was a lively affair, Pamela had made a stew and they opened a couple of bottles of the wine that Tom had brought from Puerto Banus. The talk was of Miltons and of City Auto and of old times when they worked together to drive difficult sales through.

‘Willie did well.’ Tom wanted to know more about the sale of the yard.

‘You heard? You’re well up on all the news so. He got a great price for it, it was our lot that sold it, I meant to tell you at the time but it slipped my mind.

‘Did he get out of the trouble all right so?’

‘Ah yes, that blew over after a while, the fellow down at the test centre was in court only last week, just got a fine and the probation act. Lost his job though but he got off light. Willie just sang dumb through the whole thing, opened a main dealership out on the ring road, he’s in the big time now. We bought Pamela’s four by four off him, gave it to us wholesale. Same old Willie.’

Tom shook his head in disbelief. ‘I used to think Willie hadn’t a bob, working for wages for Kevin, but he seems to have come out of the whole thing very well, better than any of us.’

Pamela poured more wine. ‘You’ve done all right too by the look of you, fancy shirts and a Rolex no less, you must be making a lot of money in Spain.’

‘I can’t complain really.’ Tom put down his drink on the coffee table and sat back on the couch. ‘Made a few bob the last few months, mining a particularly rich seam lately.’

‘I hope it’s all legal.’

‘Of course, just well paid sales work.’ Tom decided against telling Walter about the details of the timeshare racket, he knew that his friend wouldn’t understand.

‘Ever think of buying a place here? I could look out for an apartment; get you one at a good deal if you weren’t in a hurry.’

Tom hadn’t thought about buying a place anywhere, but Walter’s idea made sense. After all, what was he going to do with all the money that was piling up in the bank in Gibraltar? He didn’t live too much of the high life, that all tended to wear a bit thin after a while in any case, and the money was just sitting there, not doing anything.

‘Ok, let’s do that, you find me the right place and just let me know how much to transfer.’

‘How much have you available, if that’s not too personal a question?’ Walter didn’t want to pry too much but he needed a guideline.

‘About three hundred grand in the bank in Gib, maybe a few more bob here and there, not too sure.’

Walter looked at him in astonishment. ‘You’ve gathered up that much money since you left? Bloody hell!’

‘Not all since I left, I made a right few bob working for Kevin as well. How much would a nice apartment cost me then? Something in a good area maybe?’

‘You could buy a couple of places for that kind of money. I’d suggest you buy something here and buy one in Spain as well; our strategy guys are looking at Spain for big gains over the next few years. I can’t believe you’re still paying rent with all that cash in the bank.’

Tom was starting to realise just how well he had been doing over the last year or so. He had been so busy working that he hadn’t really been looking at the end result, but when you converted the harvest into something tangible like bricks and mortar, you began to get a measure of the size of the pile. He was suddenly enthusiastic about the plan.

‘Let’s go for it so, you get me one here and I’ll go shopping in Spain, I have a friend in the business over there who won’t see me wrong, decent old skin.’

‘All you’re short now is a woman.’ Pamela was teasing him.

‘Do you want me to look around for a woman for you as well?’ Walter joined in the ribbing.

‘I can do that myself; don’t worry.’ Tom was able to laugh along with his friends. ‘Although I’d have to admit that you did well in that department yourself.’ He raised his glass in Pamela’s direction.