The market maker

by Ridpath, Michael

  We were beginning to get used to the slow tempo of the negotiations. But on Tuesday, day eight, all that changed.

  20

  Nelson arrived in the morning for breakfast. He seemed excited. "I have some nev^s."

  Luis looked up from the tiny roll on his plate. He wasn't eating much. ''About Isabel?"

  "Yes. The police have received a tip that they're taking seriously. You know the Disque Deniincia?"

  Luis nodded.

  Nelson explained for my benefit. "It's an anonymous phone line the public can use to tip the police off about criminal activity. Apparently, about a week ago, a blindfolded woman was seen being led from a car to a small shed in the middle of the night. The shed is in Iraja, in the north of the city. The police are going to check it out this morning."

  A look of hope flashed across Luis's face, and then disappeared. "They will be careful, won't they? They're not going to storm the place or anything?"

  "Da Silva assured me they won't. If they find Zico and his friends, they'll just watch them, and arrest them after Isabel is released."

  "Are you sure?" Luis looked at Nelson suspiciously.

  "I've known Da Silva for fifteen years. He's given me his word."

  Luis looked worried, and I shared his unease. Nelson was an ex-cop, so he would say we could trust the police, wouldn't he? But on the other hand, they would be more likely not to lie to him. We would see. In any case, there was no doubt in my mind that a dramatic rescue attempt was not the best way to release Isabel. My anxiety grew the more I thought about it.

  Nelson could see Luis's reaction as well.

  "The shed will be under surveillance now," he said. "Da Silva said he would telephone us here this morning."

  The detective was as good as his word. The police had found the shed empty. It had a basement, and there were plenty of signs that this had been used to hold a kidnap victim. There were marks where a tent had been erected in the middle of the floor. This was apparently a common way of holding kidnap victims so that they couldn't see their captors. There were food wrappers, empty plastic bottles of mineral water, and some scraps of bread that were quite fresh. There were no signs of blood.

  Someone had been held there and recently been moved.

  A half hour later the phone rang. But it wasn't Da Silva. It was Zico.

  This time the conversation became quite heated. I could follow very little of it, but Luis was as angry as I had seen him. After a couple of minutes he slammed down the phone and turned on Nelson, eyes blazing.

  They exchanged some sharp words of Portuguese, and Luis stormed out of the sitting room into the garden. I glanced at Nelson. For the first time he looked flustered and angry. I followed Luis.

  He stood, staring out at the garden, breathing heavily. A cloud was gathering above the hill at the head of the valley, threatening to roll rain down toward us.

  ''What happened?'' I asked.

  "Merda," he muttered. Then "Merdal Merdal Merdal"

  more loudly.

  I waited.

  "Zico wanted to know why we had told the police. I said that we hadn't, that they had just received a tip. He didn't believe me." He sucked in his breath. "Zico said I was lucky Isabel wasn't dead. He said he would give me just one more chance. I should pay ten million dollars tomorrow night or Isabel will die. He said now the police are on to him, he can't afford to wait. He's going to call me back in two hours. He sounded serious." Luis jerked his head back toward the house. " told that idiot that the police should have checked with me first before going to the hideout. I should never have trusted him!"

  I let Luis stew for a minute. "What are you going

  to do?"

  "I don't know. Pay the ransom, I suppose. I can't risk

  Isabel's life hirther."

  "Can you get ten million dollars by tomorrow?"

  "I don't know. It'll be difficult."

  'What does Nelson say?"

  'I don't give a shit what Nelson says."

  We walked along the path toward the lake. A tree burned orange in front of us. The clouds at the head of the valley were darkening, although the garden itself was still in sunshine.

  I took a deep breath. "It looks like the police made a mistake. Maybe Nelson made a mistake in trusting them. But his advice has been good so far. He's objective, and he's seen all this before. Maybe we should listen to him. Then we can decide what to do."

  We walked on in silence. I was scared about Isabel.

  II ^

  But I thought our best chance lay in behaving calmly and following the rules. Zico was prepared to release Isabel alive; Luis was prepared to pay a ransom. As long as we kept our nerve, that's what would happen.

  ''OK, let's talk to him," said Luis.

  "Good," I said, and we hurried back to the house, just as the sky went dark and raindrops began to fall.

  "Keep negotiating," said Nelson. "He has lowered his price so fast because he knows you are worried about the police. He hopes to close the deal quickly. Well, that's fine with us, but not at ten million. We were raising our offer by a half million at a time. We should reduce that, let him know we're getting close to our ceiling. Offer two million two hundred thousand."

  "No!" said Luis. "I can pay more than that! Why don't I offer three?"

  "Because he will think there is a lot further to go!" said Nelson, who was beginning to lose his patience. "Don't you see that if your offer goes up in larger amounts, the whole negotiation will take longer?"

  I saw what Nelson meant. So in the end did Luis.

  Zico called back when he said he would. Luis gave him his offer of two point two million dollars. The conversation was short. Luis went pale but stood his ground.

  "What did he say?" I asked as soon as Luis had hung up.

  "He asked for five million," said Luis. "And he said Isabel would definitely be dead tomorrow night if I didn't pay up. I think I believe him. He'll call back in another two hours."

  I turned to Nelson, who looked thoughtful. "He's coming down too quickly," he said. "I've never seen a demand drop so fast before. And he seems genuinely eager to get the payment through fast."

  "He thinks the police are on to him/' Luis muttered.

  Nelson shook his head. "I don't think that would bother him too much. Kidnappers expect the police to investigate them."

  We watched him. His face clouded over into a frown.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  He sighed. "I think we should ask for proof of life again."

  Luis exploded. "You heard him! He's not going to stand for that now. There's no time!"

  I was silent. I felt sick. I knew what Nelson was thinking.

  Luis saw my expression. "What?"

  I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

  "What is it?" demanded Luis.

  "Nelson thinks she might be dead," I said quietly. "That's why the kidnappers are so eager to be paid now."

  "No!" shouted Luis. "We have no reason to think so. I won't accept that!"

  Nelson held up his hands. "You may be right. I hope you're right. But we should just be sure."

  "And I suppose you want me to make a tiny increase in my offer again?"

  Nelson nodded.

  "Well I won't! I'm accepting their five million, and I'll have Isabel back here tomorrow night."

  I glanced at Nelson who was watching Luis closely. He shrugged. "I can offer my advice, nothing more."

  "Good."

  "Luis?" I said, hesitantly.

  He frowned toward me.

  "I know you can pay five million dollars, and you want to. That's fine. I'd like to see Isabel back soon too. But Nelson's right, we should just check to see that she

  is alive. So why don't you agree to five million provided they come back with proof of life? If they have her, and they know they will get their five million, then there's no reason for them to delay in replying, is there?"

  I looked over to Nelson for support. He nodded.

  "OK," said Luis
. ''But you think up the question."

  The question was, "Which town does Dave come from?" Luis never got a chance to ask it.

  When he suggested proof of life, Zico refused. Luis stuck to his demand, with no luck. Eventually the phone call ended, with Zico swearing he would kill Isabel.

  Luis put down the phone. His face was fixed. Cold.

  "You know what this means? She might be dead already," said Nelson quietly.

  Luis stood before me, tall and gaunt. The events of the last few days, and especially the last few minutes, had aged him. He nodded slowly.

  "I'm just going to her room," he said.

  I pounded up the track, the trees and undergrowth of the Atlantic rain forest on either side a mass of dark murky green. But I hardly noticed the profusion of life around me; my eyes were focused on the dirt under my feet. My brain was focused on Isabel.

  My feelings were a swirl of contradictions. I hardly knew her, yet I felt as though I knew her better than any other human being in the world. The conversations we had had together played over and over again in my mind. I saw parts of her—now her huge eyes, now her shy smile behind a strand of black hair. I remembered the time I had first seen her, leaning against a desk in the Dekker Ward trading room, sexy, instantly attractive.

  I burst out of the forest into the sheep meadows above. Behind me, I knew, was a spectacular view of the fazenda and the outskirts of Petropolis. But I didn't look at it. My head was bent, my eyes down.

  I was angry, angry that Isabel might now be dead. Angry at myself for abandoning her, angry with Nelson for not preventing the police from disturbing her kidnappers, angry with Luis for not being more in control. But worst of all, and this was something I could hardly admit to myself, I was angry with Isabel. She knew she was a kidnap risk, so why hadn't she been more careful? Why had she gone and got herself killed just now, just when I realized how much she meant tome?

  Except I didn't know how much she meant to me. I was confused about that too. We were only at the beginning of a relationship. How would it have developed? Would it have come to anything? I found my imagination fast-forwarding to a whole life together. Would she have fitted in my small flat in Primrose Hill? It was difficult to imagine her there.

  It was absurd. It probably never would have worked. And now, because of Zico and his friends, I might never know what might have been.

  I phoned Ricardo.

  "Yes?"

  " I think they've killed Isabel."

  There was silence at the other end of the line. For a moment I thought we might have been cut off.

  "Ricardo?"

  "Yes. I'm here." His voice was dead. Empty. "Are you sure?"

  "Not entirely. But Nelson says it looks that way." I explained the events of the previous twenty-four

  hours. For once, Ricardo was at a loss for words. Isabel had been right; she meant something to him.

  "You'd better get back here, then," he said.

  "Yd like to stay longer. Just in case—"

  "I said get back here!" Ricardo snapped. "Or you're fired. It's as simple as that."

  I was tempted to argue further, but then realized there was little point in staying in Brazil. I had done all I could and it hadn't been enough. Time to go home.

  "She's still alive, you know."

  It was evening. Through the French windows behind us, the last red embers of the sun were crumbling behind the mountain at the head of the valley. In front of us was a roaring fire. We had been sitting staring at it in silence for a half hour, each holding a glass of Ballantine's.

  I nodded. "I know."

  "We have to believe that, no matter what Nelson or Zico or anyone else says."

  "I know."

  Silence.

  Then Luis stirred. "What was she like? At work?"

  "She was quiet. Serious. Very good at her job. I think people respected her."

  Luis shook his head. "I'm surprised she went into banking. Disappointed in a strange kind of way. She seemed so idealistic. Of course I disagreed with her, and we had arguments. But I respected her ideals. And then she went to the United States, and came back eager to prove to the world that she could be a better banker than me. Why?"

  "I don't know. But she certainly was driven. She did want to prove something, and I think it was to you."

  "But she didn't have to!" said Luis. "It was enough

  for me that she was my daughter. I didn't expect her to become a great financier as well!"

  I thought about this for a moment. "Perhaps it was the fact that you didn't expect anything of her that drove her on. I don't know. But don't blame yourself. You brought up a wonderful daughter. You should be proud."

  Luis just stared into the fire.

  "She hadn't lost her ideals," I said. "Thai favela deal was a brilliant idea. And she believed in it. For her it was a chance finally to use her skills to do some good."

  "It was good. It's a shame it didn't work."

  "That was only because Ricardo Ross destroyed it."

  "Oswaldo Bocci is scum. Ricardo is a fool to have anything to do with him. I know Dekker Ward is very good, but sometimes they go too far. I wish Isabel worked for someone else."

  "They have a bad name?"

  "Yes they do. They're not exactly corrupt, Ricardo isn't that stupid. But there is a"—^he searched for the word—"smell about them. They deal with people they shouldn't. Like Oswaldo Bocci. They bend the rules when they shouldn't."

  I wasn't surprised. "Presumably, Isabel knew this when she joined them? "

  "Yes," said Luis. "I tried to talk her out of it, but that probably ordy egged her on. She said that it was a great career opportunity for her, and that she would be completely honest. And I think she has been. She has a good reputation in Brazil."

  The fire crackled and spat. It was almost totally dark now, and the room was illuminated by the glow of the flames. We lapsed into silence again. Our thoughts drifted back to Isabel.

  ''We can save herfavela deal," Luis said at last.

  "How?"

  For the first time in days Luis smiled. It was a small smile. The way he twitched the comers of his mouth reminded me of Isabel. "Bocci is an upstart in the Rio media world. I have friends with bigger papers. We can turn Ricardo's strategy against him. It will hurt him. And it will be something we can do for Isabel. It may not do your career much good, though." He looked at me questioningly

  "I really don't care," I said.

  21

  I went into work on Monday morning. There were smiles and nods, sympathy, questions delicately put. In a way it felt as if I was returning home.

  I attacked the pile of papers that had accumulated while I had been away, occasionally glancing over to Isabel's desk. Empty. Tidy. Waiting for its next occupant.

  Ricardo drifted over, pulled up a chair, and sat next to me. It was quiet here, away from the square of traders and salesmen who were already hitting the phones.

  ''How are you feeling?"

  I just shrugged.

  "It shook us all badly here," Ricardo went on. "It's been tense this last couple of weeks. And then just as things were going so well, suddenly everything fell apart."

  I nodded.

  "It must be tough for her father. He meant a lot to her." Of course. Isabel must have told Ricardo all about herself and her family, much the same as she had told me. I wasn't sure I liked that idea.

  "It is hard for him. Not knowing whether she's aUve or dead."

  ''And this man Nelson Zarur thinks there's no chance that she's still alive?"

  "There's always a chance. But he's not optimistic. Neither are the police."

  We sat in silence. I didn't want to talk to Ricardo about all this. But once again, there was something beguiling about his frankness. "I liked her," said Ricardo. "And if I'm not mistaken, you did too."

  "I did," I said quietly "I mean I do." I hated to talk about Isabel in the past tense. To me she was still alive. She had to be alive.

  "Sorry
," said Ricardo. "You're right. I can't accept that she's ... not alive either." His voice held a gentleness I had never heard before.

  He shook him.self. "You need to take your mind off it. We all do. I>raw up a summary of how far you and Isabel had got on the Sao Paulo deal. Carlos will be talking to you about it later this morning."

  "OK."

  "I want that deal, Nick."

  With that, he was gone.

  With very little enthusiasm, I pulled out the pile of Sao Paulo papers. Luis had said that the revised favela story would come out early in the week, perhaps even that day. So far, I had put off thinking about the trouble that might create. I would soon find out.

  It was hard to concentrate on the Sao Paulo deal, and my eyes kept on drifting upward to the news. In a trading room this means looking at a screen as each new news headline is added to a constantly scrolling list. Most of these are pretty tedious, such as "Saint Gobain 3% up in difficult year," or "Ringgit under pressure following poor Malaysian trade figures for March."

  No one disturbed me, they all had too much else to do. Carlos was still absorbed in some other deal for a

  Chilean electricity company. By eleven I thought that the story wasn't going to make it. Then I saw the headline: ''Brazilian newspaper reports Rio finance scandal planted by Dekker Ward."

  I looked over my screen at the rest of the room guiltily No one had noticed it. Yet. The words "Dekker Ward" must leap out at them, surely.

  Two minutes later I saw Pedro beckon Ricardo over, and point to his screen. Some taps on a keyboard and the story filled the page. Ricardo leaned over Pedro as he made a phone call, obviously to his contacts in Rio to check the story. They spoke to each other quickly. Ricardo stood up, and rubbed his chin, thinking. Even from here I could see his fingers furiously playing with his wedding ring. My heart was beating fast. I swallowed.

  Then he glanced over to me, a puzzled look on his face. He caught my eye. Puzzlement turned to anger. He strode over to my desk.