The Man from Lisbon, page 43
Maria smiled at the faces watching her. “Yes, Alves seems to have become a great man.”
“And it isn’t only your friends!” the editor exclaimed. “It’s even the people you rubbed the wrong way—the fact is they feel the strength of will you’ve brought to developing the potential wealth of the colony.”
Over the amiable chuckles Terreira tugged at a mustache and said, “The thing is, man, nobody thinks of you as an impractical dreamer! By God, you’ve promised and you’ve delivered. You’ve put money into this country! You can’t beat that for making them sit up and take notice. …” He grabbed his glass, splashing wine on the table, raised it. “To Alves and Maria,” he cried, “may their fate and the fate of Angola be forever intertwined!”
“Hear, hear,” Chaves bellowed.
“I can only say I wish it was my newspaper you’d bought!” the editor grinned. “Whoops, I’m drunk … don’t tell the owner I said that. But read what I have to say tomorrow. All of you … you’ll see how I feel about our guest of honor.”
In the early hours of the morning Maria whispered, “Her breasts are bigger than before. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.” She laughed against the pillow.
“Yes, I noticed. … I’m only human. …”
“She’d give anything to have you in bed. …”
“Maria, you shock me!”
“Would you like to make love now?”
“It’s been a long time.”
“I doubt if you’ve forgotten how. You know what they say, it’s like riding a bicycle. You never forget. …”
“Is this the way people talk in Carlsbad?”
“I’m afraid so.”
An hour later she lay on her back, the bedclothes damp with their sweat, her hair plastered wetly across her forehead.
“Alves, this still doesn’t mean we’ve decided what to do.”
“I understand that. We’ll wait and see what happens.”
“I was right, though, wasn’t I? Just like riding a bicycle. …”
They laughed and then they went to sleep.
The next morning over breakfast they read A Provincia de Angola, the editor’s paper:
There is no need to introduce Engineer Alves Reis. Angola has for long time owed him signal service, whether as a competent public servant with a magnificent record, whether as an enterprising colonialist, having set up, among others, the South Angola Mining Company to exploit the rich gold and copper deposits in the Mossamedes interior. He is a man of action, with unusual vision, full of decision and initiative. He has unshakable faith in the great future that is in store for Angola, provided that the vast resources it contains are fully exploited.
Speaking for Alves Reis, Hennies announced that Engineer Reis, as the Angolans still liked to think of him, and his bank were interested in buying local properties for hard foreign currencies.
“My God, they’ll lay siege to the hotel,” Chaves growled happily. “The Banco Ultramarino has no facilities for transferring money abroad. My own lawyer tells me he’s got half of his family in Lisbon—and they’re starving because he can’t get any money to them!” He shook his head in amazement at the predicaments people find themselves in, having managed it once or twice himself. “Why, you’ll be able to buy as much of Angola as you wish. …” Alves smiled.
For days the lines of desperate businessmen and plantation owners clogged the lobby of the hotel. The electric fans revolved slowly overhead; damp handkerchiefs fluttered like flags of surrender before dripping, worried, hopeful faces. Smoke filled the air, the restaurant was always full, flies buzzed. Men in dark dustcovered suits arrived from the back country.
Alves and Hennies saw whom they could, offering welcome ice water, a shade-darkened room, brandy and cigars, fair offers for what they found suitable. Money changed hands, notes were signed, colonialists made ready to return to Lisbon with more money for the economy there, while Angola found itself being propped up as never before by one man.
Alves bought two enormous sugar plantations located on the right bank of the Quanza River, below Luanda. He was piecing together great parcels of land, building his own empire. Working on a map of Angola that covered an entire tabletop, he shaded in the areas he was acquiring. He used a pink pencil. “My own rose-colored map.” Hennies blinked. “Never mind.” Alves laughed. “Only a Portuguese would understand.”
With his new acquisitions added to their heavy interests in the great Quissama plantation adjoining the Amboim Company estate, he owned a million and a quarter acres of the most fertile land on the planet. He was now free to build his own docks and ship on the Quanza, rather than depend entirely on the railway to Luanda.
In Mocamedes he received a hero’s welcome, which he was beginning to expect as his due, and received the news from Hennies that they were being kept under close surveillance.
“Why would anyone do that? We’re hardly sneaking about … parades, official dinners, announcements in the press.”
“No, I’m not joking. I noticed it early on and spoke with that old friend of yours, the police captain. He said I was right! Eagle-eye Hennies! He came to Mocamedes. We’re dining with him.”
Curious but not overly concerned, Alves brought it up early in the evening.
“I only tell you this because of our long-standing friendship,” explained the police captain, a slight, balding man who looked fragile but happened to be strong as two oxen. “Strictest confidence, Alves. … Officially I’ve said nothing. There are two detectives and they are under orders from the Colonial Ministry—”
“The Colonial Ministry? What in the world are they about?” Alves gestured expansively, full of innocence.
“I don’t know. But they have the authority to make copies of your cables.”
“All the cables are coded. They must be having quite a time!” Hennies observed.
There was, Alves decided, no cause for alarm. Obviously his vigor in pursuing Angolan financial power was threatening someone with government connections, quite possibly the Banco Ultramarino itself. It must surely have been an uncomfortable assignment, since the detectives weren’t among those invited to join the Reis party in the private railway car.
By mid-November they had returned from the countryside. Maria’s spirits were high; she felt a oneness with Angola. They had tracked back over paths they had taken years before, spent evenings with old friends. At times she thought of Alves less as a new Ivar Kreuger and more as the man she had married. Her great eyes seemed to be evaluating him, and he found he didn’t mind. He also found himself seeking her approval, making small jokes, flirting with her. Back in Luanda, there were a few press announcements he left to Hennies; the High Commissioner of Angola hosted a ceremonial farewell dinner on their last evening.
Flowers were everywhere, as were flags, men in white tie and ladies in their finest long gowns. Maria’s diamonds reflected the candlelight; she glowed like a captive star at the head table. There were speeches, of course. The High Commissioner introduced the guest of honor, laying it on a bit thick in Alves’ view, but then how often did the man have such a chance?
“It has been said of our old and dear friend that Engineer Reis is the savior of Angola,” he said in a slightly trembling voice. “And I am certainly not the man to gainsay the opinion of the multitudes!”
The cries of approval rang around the hall, echoes from the past. Alves smiled to himself; he’d heard it all before. This time he would try not to spill his glass when he spoke.
Finally Alves held up his hands to quiet them down.
“You are all much too kind, my friends,” he said. “After all, I am one of you, formed by Angola in my youth, now returned to repay my debt. … And how can I repay the debt? How I have wrestled with that question. With your help we undertake now nothing less than the creation of the Angola of tomorrow!”
That brought another tidal wave of applause and shouting. It occurred to him that he really should be running for something, but what was there? He had it all, more than any plebiscite could grant him.
“New communities will spring up and prosper. … Well-equipped ports will receive the ships that now despise and flee from Angolan waters … modern railroads will cut through virgin territory, bringing wealth to the interior of this vast land … jungles will be tamed to allow settlers to draw the maximum wealth from the rich land where healthy children will come with their parents to strengthen the name of Portugal in Angola!”
It was, he thought, a somewhat more polished piece of work than that other speech so long ago. The thrill he received from his audience, as they rose, their hands blurring with their faces as they applauded, was not quite so heady now, but it would do, yes, it would suffice. He put his arm around Maria’s shoulders, drew her to him. He felt—he had to admit it—he felt like a king; and he felt as if he deserved it.
As the party boarded the German steamer Adolf Woerman they were cheered by the largest crowd Luanda had ever produced. The docks were seething, the streets leading to the harbor clogged. The Hispano-Suiza was driven up a ramp leading into the hold. They cheered the car.
Chaves and Terreira saw them on board. “You must return soon,” Chaves said. Promises were made, hands shaken. Chaves and Terreira scuttled down the gangplank at the last moment.
“Your subjects,” Adolf Hennies remarked. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Alves … not even Kaiser Bill.”
“I’ve done well by Angola,” Alves said. He saw the two men who had been following them clinging tiredly to the dockside railing.
“And by Portugal, by God. Who knows what kind of reception you’ll get in Lisbon. What you’ve done for Angola you’ve also done for Portugal,” Hennies barked emphatically. “This is just the beginning.”
The first night out Maria brought him a tiny leather bag with a drawstring pulled tight.
“A present,” she said, watching him pull it open.
“Why, it’s a gold chain.”
“For your thunderbolt,” she said. “The leather thong is frayed, almost worn through. Take it as a keepsake of your return to Angola.”
“Thank you,” he said. She came to him and he held her.
“Have we made any decisions about ourselves?” she asked, easing away. The ship’s power throbbed faintly in the bulkheads.
“I don’t know. Have we? It’s as much your decision as mine.” He fingered the chain, the gold warm to the touch.
“I’ve enjoyed being with you here, moving along through the past, remembering. But if you are in love with another woman …”
“I love you,” he said. “But you are even newer to me than Greta is. You’ve become someone else since I met Greta. …”
“Because, not since. She made me see what a dependent child I’ve been. I must continue to lead my own life. You’d have to accept that.”
“One of those ‘modern marriages’ people keep talking about?”
“I’ll still be your wife. And you can do as you wish about Greta. It will be no concern of mine.”
“That’s a little grim, isn’t it? For us? It’s not one thing or the other.”
“It’s quite common, I understand, among the very rich. Men with their mistresses, women with their lovers …”
“I’m not sure that will work for us.” He slipped the amulet over his head and snapped the leather with a quick jerk. He began threading the gold chain through the tiny hole. He wondered what his grandmother would have thought about modern marriages.
“Well, what other answer is there?”
“To go back the way we were.”
“You mean give away all the money, your newfound power, walk away from the house and come back to Angola and begin again?”
“No, of course I don’t mean all that. I mean go back just being happy the way we were … the two of us, the children, the way we were before it all got so complicated.” He slipped the chain back over his head and glanced at the amulet, remembering his grandmother.
“We’ll think of something.” Maria smiled as he tucked the chain inside his shirt. “It’s a long voyage home.”
Smythe-Hancock had spent the year watching the rise of Alves Reis from his dark, nasty little office in the Baixa. The higher Reis’s shooting star had climbed, the more of a worm’s-eye view he’d had. He hated his perspective and he loathed the triumph of Alves Reis. To make matters considerably worse and to save his job, he had given up trying to warn Sir William off his dealings with Reis’s syndicate. Many was the night he’d gone sleepless, sweating out his frustration in his narrow bed, wondering first how to save Waterlow the disaster and disgrace he was certain lurked ahead. … Then, he’d turned to thinking of Reis himself and the syndicate he headed—how might he bring it down, reveal it for the fraud it had to be. He had begun losing his hair early in the year; he noticed that his forehead seemed a good deal higher than it had ever been before. And he knew bloody damned well it was the fault of Alves Reis. In fact, almost everything in his life that wasn’t going well could be laid at Reis’s door.
Sir William had made it abundantly clear that he wanted to hear no more from his man in Lisbon. And without Sir William’s ear there was little hope for advancement, for the final transfer to London, which had been Smythe-Hancock’s ambition for years. He’d spent his years in the world’s backwaters, he’d put in his time, he’d done a good job. Sir William had sent him letters of congratulations, and Alves Reis had made them worthless. Asking for a promotion was hopeless, ridiculous. …
Alves Reis! For an Englishman to be brought low by such an insignificant little man, a Portuguese confidence man! It was too much. … He’d always seen through Reis, always, even back there in that African hellhole. An Oxford man! The idea would have been laughable if it weren’t so obscene. He could hear his hair falling out, strand after strand, floating through the air, clanking on the floor.
How had the man fooled so many important people for so long? He’d watched Reis in the hotel bar the night the word had gotten out about the stress tables. The man hadn’t known a stress table from a road map. He’d seen that in Reis’s eyes, and he’d bet a packet that the bloody damned locomotive would never make it across that bridge. The real engineers had assured him that it was an impossibility.
Yet the High Bridge had held.
The man was some sort of magician, obviously. He surely wasn’t an Oxford man and he wasn’t an engineer, either. At best he was some sort of tinkerer—a man who could make the odd contraption work, nothing more.
But in Angola Reis had been simply an irritant. In Lisbon he’d been revealed as a minor swindler and packed off to the Oporto jail. That should have been an end to it. A blot on the man’s copybook that should have proved indelible. That was the English way, by God! When he thought about it his hands shook, his stomach hurt, his hair fell out, and he took the pills his doctor had prescribed.
The man had nine lives. How could he leave the Oporto jail, come back to Lisbon a known criminal and within a few weeks be an intimate business associate of men like Camacho Rodrigues and Mota Gomes? On the face of it, it was impossible.
Was there anyone in Portuguese financial circles more respected than Camacho? Hardly. But why would he have anything to do with a man like Alves Reis?
Yet, there it was. And he, Smythe-Hancock, Waterlow’s man in Lisbon—he was forbidden to discuss Reis’s enterprises with Camacho. Or with Sir William!
And the man’s success was apparently limitless. Everyone was mesmerized. … But why? He couldn’t pick up a newspaper without reading more pathetic drivel, praising Alves Reis and his new Bank of Angola and Metropole. The savior of Portugal, the hero of Angola. Madness!
But Smythe-Hancock had not let his personal feelings blunt his methodical intelligence. He had kept a file of newspaper clippings, rumors, his own random doubts, everything he could ferret out about Alves Reis. Friends in Angola kept him fortified with news from that end. Carefully piecing it all together, he reached several conclusions, two of which were that—incredible as it seemed—the presumptuous little bastard was out to buy control of both Angola and the Bank of Portugal.
Smythe-Hancock spent his days working out the best chances of bringing Portugal to its senses.
Finally, Smythe-Hancock was ready to act.
Alfredo da Silva was Portugal’s leading vegetable-oils entrepreneur and, like most self-made men, he was jealous of his wealth and power. Smythe-Hancock made an appointment, pressing the urgency and importance of the meeting.
“I come to alert you,” Smythe-Hancock said, sweating with the excitement of finally moving against Reis, “to warn you. Senhor Alves Reis and his Bank of Angola and Metropole are challenging your interests—buying up plantations in Angola. It’s all beneath the surface, but I’ve made a study of Reis and his bank … they’re acquiring the plantations through dummy companies they control. If you don’t act soon, it could be too late. …”
“This is all very interesting,” da Silva said, the leather chair beneath him creaking as he situated his great beefy backside, “but I must ask, what has it to do with you? You come to me with this urgent tip … but why? Long ago I gave up hope of ever finding the good Samaritan.”
“A natural question, of course, and easy to answer. Alves Reis is a convicted criminal, a known swindler, and he is making fools out of the government, the Bank of Portugal and everyone else who cares about Portugal! I’ve known him for years and he’ll never change. … May I confide in you, Senhor da Silva?”
“It seems to me you already have,” da Silva said, tapping a gold pencil on the blotter before him. “Please continue.”
“Reis, through his bank, is buying Angola. … Buying it!”
Da Silva’s pencil stopped in mid-air. “Perhaps you had better go through this with me again. And let me have my secretary take it down.” He pressed a button built into his desk. “If what you say is true, there are steps to be taken—the man is a menace. …”
