The market maker (12 page)

"And what about all the money you make?"

"Oh, come on, Nick! you told me that was the reason you wanted to join us."

"Yes but..."

"But what?"

"I wanted money to do something. To buy myself freedom to do what I wanted with my life."

"And?"

"And," I hesitated, trying to find the right words. "I

just think that at places like Dekker, money seems to be an end in itself."

Ricardo rubbed his chin. "I know what you mean. But it's not quite what it seems. As I keep saying, I like people who are hungry; people who need to make money for themselves. Then they end up making it for the firm as well, and the firm grows. And that's good. But I don't think it's greed, exactly."

"What is it, then?"

"Money is the score. I suppose I just want to have the highest score when it's all over."

"And when's that?"

Ricardo smiled. "Good question. I'm not sure. I suppose for me it's a game without end."

We fell silent for a moment, thinking about what the other had said, and both surprised at how personal the conversation had suddenly become. I remembered the T-shirt I had seen in the favela. WJio dies with the most toys wins. Ricardo's game was played all over the world, by rich and poor.

He waved to an attendant and asked for a cognac. I ordered a whiskey. We both sat back in the huge first-class seats and sipped our drinks.

"My father played the game and lost," Ricardo said.

"Jamie said he's a businessman in Venezuela?"

"Was. He died about fifteen years ago."

"I'm sorry."

"He was a deal-doer himself, in the oil industry. He came to Caracas from Argentina in the fifties, and built up quite a portfolio of interests. But then he overstretched himself. It was 1980, just after the second big oil-price hike. He thought oil was going to forty dollars a barrel. It went down to six. He always used to drink, but after that he drank more. He died four years later.

//

Hi

104 Michael Ridpath

He left us with very little in the end, so we had to make our own way. Which I'm proud of."

"Did he teach you much?"

"The truthful answer is no. We didn't really see much of him. He was always away doing deals, and I was away at school in England. But I think I inherited his nose for a deal. I just hope I know when not to go too far."

"So you think you're competing against him?"

Ricardo thought this over for a moment. "In a way, yes. I would have liked him to have seen what I've achieved. He never gave me much praise when he was alive, perhaps he would now."

'And your mother?"

'Oh, I don't think my mother knows what I do nor cares. As long as I have enough money to keep her bank balance healthy."

"What about Eduardo? Does he take after your father too?"

Ricardo smiled ruefully. "Eduardo inherited a different set of characteristics from our father."

I desperately wanted to ask Ricardo what those were, but there was something in his tone that suggested I had already gone far enough.

Ricardo put down his glass and turned to me. "Look, I know you find what you've seen difficult to take. I know you're questioning the whole premise of what we're doing. And I respect that. Honestly. I would rather have people who question first principles than those who blindly do what everyone else does. So think about it. But don't pretend that you can work in finance, take the rewards, and avoid the tough decisions."

His blue eyes held mine. I knew he believed in what he was saying. And those eyes were inviting, persuasive, almost hypnotic. Join me, they said.

"I want you to work for Dekker. YouTl be right in the middle of the most exciting market in global finance today, and youTl have a hell of a lot of fun too. I think you can do a lot for us. But you need to be committed. If you don't buy in to what we're doing, then go back to your Russian books. You decide."

I swallowed. I remembered when I had originally taken the job at Dekker, I had played through this dilemma in my mind. Then I had decided that if I was to succeed in finance, I would have to accept the ethical system that came with it. And it wasn't immoral, just amoral. As Ricardo had said, the reason that Brazil was in such a mess was that the Brazilians had made it that way. The same could be said of Russia, that other great sprawling, chaotic country. Isabel's father had liked Tolstoy's story of the Master and Man, and its nobility was appealing. But the Master had been foolish to insist that he and his servant drive on in the snow instead of waiting at the inn for the storm to clear. And in the real world, masters just didn't give up their lives for their servants.

Then I thought of Cordelia, and the tense little boy with the big smile and the hard eyes, and I turned my back on Ricardo toward the dark mid-Atlantic sky.

9

I received quite a welcome when I arrived at the office late on Friday morning. Dave, Miguel, Pedro, Charlotte, people whom I hardly knew, all came up to ask how I was. Although I had been at Dekker less than two weeks, and had spent barely three days in the office itself, they treated me as one of their own. I had to admit, it was a good feeling.

The plane had landed at lunchtime the previous day, and unlike Isabel and Ricardo, who had gone straight into work, I had returned to my flat. I saw my doctor first thing the next morning. She was impressed with the Brazilian surgeon's work, changed my dressing, and told me to take a week off work. There wasn't a chance of that, but in deference to her I took the tube and the Docklands Light Railway into Canary Wharf and left my bike at home. I hated it, vowing to cycle in on Monday, however much my chest hurt.

I was disappointed to see that the desk next to me was empty. Isabel was out somewhere.

But Jamie was in the office and it was good to see him.

"What a trip! Are you OK? Where did you get stabbed? Can I look?"

THE MARKET MAKER 107

"No, you can't!" I said. "I just got it wrapped up this morning and I'm not going to take it all off for you."

"OK." Janue feigned disappointment. "What happened?"

He of course had none of the reticence of the others about asking me that question, and I didn't mind answering him.

"Jesus!" He shook his head. "One inch one way or the other and that would have been that."

"I'm afraid so."

"So how are you feeling?"

"I'll be all right," I said. "Or at least the knife wound will be. But did you hear what Ricardo did?" 'About ihefavela deal? He kiUed it, didn't he?" 'Yes. I couldn't believe it. After everything that Isabel had done. I saw one of them, you know. Afavela. Someone's got to do something about them."

"I know," said Jamie. "It must be tough for her. This game gets rough sometimes."

"And there's something else." I reached down into my bottom drawer to dig out the fax to Martin Belde-cos. It wasn't there.

"That's funny" I said.

"What is?"

"I left a fax here just before I went to Brazil. I'm sure I did."

Jamie made as if to get up and go.

I held up my hand. "No, wait. It's important."

Jamie watched me as I ransacked my desk. Not there. Neither was the fax I had sent back to Winters, which I was sure I had put with it. I thought about whether I might have put them somewhere else, or taken them home, or to Brazil. I checked my in-box for a reply from Winters. Nothing.

No. The faxes had definitely been in that bottom drawer. And now they were gone.

" What was it? " asked Jamie.

I stopped my search and sat up. ''It was a fax from United Bank of Canada in the Bahamas to Martin Bel-decos. It said that the man behind one of the accounts he had been investigating was linked to a suspected money launderer."

"Really? Did it say which account?"

"Something about International Trading and Transport (Panama). Or at least they were the company that had paid the money into a numbered account at Dek-ker Trust in the Caymans."

"That makes sense/' Jamie said. "It would have been very difficult to trace."

"The fax mentioned someone at the DEA we could contact. I faxed United Bank of Canada for the details, but I haven't received anything back yet."

Jamie appeared thoughtful.

"What exactly is money laundering?" I asked.

"It's the washing of dirty money/' replied Jamie. "The money might come from drugs, or smuggling, or organized crime, but it's mostly drug-related. It's often easier for the police to trace the cash rather than the drugs, so criminals have become very sophisticated at hiding the source of the money, and then investing it anonymously. They usually use shell companies in offshore jurisdictions."

"Like the Cayman Islands?"

"Like the Cayman Islands. Or Panama, or Gibraltar, sometimes even the Channel Islands or Switzerland. There are dozens of possibilities. Some of the money trails get very complicated."

"I see," I said. "And Martin Beldecos discovered one of these money trails."

"Perhaps/'

"So what do you think?"

"About what?"

"What should I have done with the fax? Which has now disappeared, by the way Eduardo said if I received any more messages for Martin Beldecos I should give them to him personally I'm just not sure about giving him this one."

"Why not?"

Jamie's lack of concern unsettled me. Maybe I was imagining things. "Well, in case he already knows about it," I said uncertainly.

"Hmm." Jamie was thinking. "I see what you mean. And anyway, he'll have a fit if you then tell him you've

lost it."

"I haven't lost it?"

"Then where is it?" asked Jamie.

"Jamie, 1 promise you I haven't lost it. Someone must have taken it while I was in Brazil."

That shut him up. He thought for quite a while.

"I thought I might contact the man in the DEA myself. Quietly"

"Don't do that!" Jamie replied. "That would be a very bad idea. If 1 were you I'd forget all about it."

"Why?"

Jamie sighed. "I fear you may be right. It wouldn't surprise me if Eduardo has some money-laundering business going on the side. It's common enough in our world. And the last thing he would want is for you to pop up and cause trouble for him. He would not be

very happy"

"But what if he doesn't have anything to do with it?"

"Then it won't do any harm to let things lie." Jamie

saw the doubt in my eyes. "Look, millions of dollars of

drug money is laundered through the banking system

every day. There's some in every bank everywhere. The only time there's a problem is when a bank gets found out. It's not like anyone's being hurt or anything. It's not even a fraud; no one's losing money. Just let it drop. This is going to bring nothing but trouble if you talk to anyone about it."

"But I don't want to cover anything up," I said doubtfully.

"What are you covering up?"

"The fax."

"What fax? You haven't got a fax. If there was a fax, it wasn't to you. Look, Nick, forget it. I'm going to." He stood up.

"Jamie?"

He paused.

I hesitated before putting words to the thought that was forming in my mind. "Martin Beldecos suspected that there was money laundering at Dekker. He was murdered in Caracas. Then I begin to suspect it, and I nearly get killed in Rio."

As the words came out, I felt stupid. Paranoid. And Jamie's scornful look made me feel worse. Then his face softened.

"Nick. After what happened to you, it's natural you'll feel nervous. I'm sure they'll understand if you don't want to travel to South America for a bit. And who knows, maybe there is some dirty money tucked away in a comer at Dekker somewhere. But don't blow it out of proportion. Calm down and do your job. You'll be OK."

With that he walked off, leaving me feeling uncertain, embarrassed, and a little silly.

10

Ricardo's house was a Georgian manor built of yellow \

ish stone. It stood on the brow of a small hill, with a ■.

cluster of cottages and a church bowing at its feet. I ]

wondered what the locals thought of the new people in '■

the big house. Jamie drove us up a long drive, which ; cut through a wide expanse of lawn. The gardens were

designed for ease of upkeep rather than beauty. There ;

were shrubs, and trees, but few flowers. Some of the ^

finest cars that Germany could produce fought for \

space on the gravel apron in front of the house, and j

Jamie nosed his British Jaguar in among them, next to ; the only other interloper, Eduardo's Ferrari.

Ricardo was having a party for everyone at the office. ;

These were apparently regular affairs, and this one had ;

been plarmed weeks in advance. Jamie told me it was a \

three-line whip, but I was happy to go anyway He and \ Kate had agreed to pick me up from a nearby station.

Inside, the house was furnished in the traditional \

way, but the walls of the hallway and drawing room \

were adorned with large brightly painted pictures of i

Brazilian scenes. Most of the flat surfaces supported i

weird and exotic sculptures, which seemed to combine i

Amerindian and modem abstract styles. It worked. ;

They filled and brightened what would otherwise have ! been large, cold English rooms. ■

It was the first warm weekend of the year, and most of the guests had spilled out of the drawing room into the back garden to get acquainted with the spring sunshine. The back of the house was much less austere | than the front, with a terrace and an arbor and tulips everywhere. A barbecue was going strong. Waiters in i white jackets dispensed champagne cocktails.

"I hate these things," Kate whispered to me. "I \ missed the last two because I said Oliver was ill, but Jamie insisted I come to this one." j

"Why don't you like them?" I asked. "The people \ seem nice. Friendly."

"Oh, they are. But they all work so much on top of each other, I always feel like an outsider." \

"There are other wives here, aren't there?" \