Culundis walked onto the eleventh green, and smiled with satisfaction when he saw his ball was a mere six inches from the hole. He stood and watched the Viscomte take three shots to extricate his ball from between the roots of the fir tree and then, with his next shot, drop it neatly onto the green, about eight feet from the pin. He walked up to Culundis.
‘I give you the hole.’
The Greek grinned and pulled the cigar out of his mouth. ‘Two up!’ he said.
‘You’re playing well, Jimmy,’ said the Viscomte. ‘You don’t give me a chance.’
‘I can’t make any profit out of doing business with you, Claude — this is the only way I get to eat!’
‘If you can’t make a profit out of the prices I let you have goods at,’ grinned the Viscomte, ‘then you are in the wrong business.’
The Greek shrugged his shoulders, and stopped by the twelfth tee. He looked with more than a little envy at the Viscomte, the chief executive of Lasserre Mondiale, one of the largest private companies in the world. Claude Lasserre had it cushy, he thought. Straight in at the top. Not for him those early days of battling to build up a business from scratch. Sailing blacked-out boats into pitch dark bays in the middle of the night, never knowing when a battery of searchlights might blaze into life, floodlighting them in the empty sea as the guns pounded at them until they had sunk. Lasserre had never had to do a bloody thing, he thought. Ever since the Fourth Viscomte had bought his family’s safety through the French Revolution by supplying arms to the revolutionaries, the Lasserre empire had flourished without a hiccup. Today it had many tentacles, all to do with the business of killing: Lasserre Aerospatiale, which manufactured military specification jet helicopters and short-range strike jets; Lasserre Nautique, which manufactured gunboats and navy-specification submersibles; and Lasserre Industriel, which manufactured a vast range of pistols, machine guns, mortars and artillery guns, bullets, shells, grenades, land and sea mines, and also was one of the French Government’s principal nuclear weapons contractors.
In spite of the vast amounts of money the Lasserre empire earned him, the Viscomte was not a man for stashing his bundle idly away in the coffers. He liked to see his money work; he liked to see it multiply. Lasserre was a great believer in commodities as a way to make money grow, and there was one commodity-broking firm in whose abilities he had particular confidence, both in the boss and the calibre of those beneath him. The man was Sir Monty Elleck, and the firm was Globalex. Although based in London, he had always found that the performance of the firm more than made up for the nuisance of having always to deal at a distance.
‘I received a telephone call last night,’ said Culundis, bending down to push his tee into the grass and lay his Titleist ball on top; he grunted as he stood up again. ‘From no less than Prince Abr Qu’Ih Missh of Uram Al Amnah.’
The Viscomte froze for a moment, and his face went white. He stared at Culundis. ‘From Umm Al Amnah?’
Culundis nodded. He stepped back, removed his driver, took one short practice swing, then hit the ball badly; it travelled only a short distance, hooking sharply to the left, and fell into the rough.
‘What was he calling about? The mines? Jimmy — was he calling about the mines?’
‘No, no. Relax, Claude, it wasn’t the mines.’
The Viscomte played a two-hundred-and-forty-yard drive straight down the centre of the fairway; it went over the centre marker pin and fell down, out of sight in the dip, into the perfect text-book position. He put his club head on the ground, and leaned on it. ‘What did he want?’
‘He thinks there is trouble brewing; he wants to make sure his family stays in power.’
‘What sort of trouble? A coup?’ Lasserre went even paler.
‘He seems to think so.’
‘That would destroy everything.’
‘So we have to make sure there is no coup.’
‘And how do we do that?’
‘I’m flying there tomorrow for the weekend.’
‘I can think of places I’d prefer to spend my weekends.’
Culundis shook his head. ‘You’d be hard pushed. That man has got the best crumpet in the world, and I mean that. In the world!’
‘Maybe he should spend more time thinking about his neck and less about his genitals.’
‘That’s what I am going to discuss with him.’
‘Well, I hope you remember to.’
9
Rocq arrived at work on the Monday morning late and exhausted, having dropped Theo Barbiero-Ruche at Heathrow airport at eight and subsequently been stuck two hours in a jam on the Hammersmith Flyover behind a jack-knifed lorry. His weekend had been spent playing golf with Theo, drinking and discussing coffee into the small hours of each night and lying awake, trying to avoid listening to the fat Italian copulating with the sparrow-like Deirdre until dawn.
He put his briefcase down under his desk, nodded at Henry Mozer and Gary Slivitz who were busy trying to extricate a large number of their clients out of a £20 drop in zinc over the weekend and into a rapidly improving silver market, ignored the frantically flashing lights on his own switchboard and went out, and down to the next floor, the Soft Commodities department.
From the way the brokers and other staff were sitting, idly chatting,it had been a quiet weekend for their business. He sat down in an empty chair next to his one chum in this department, the Honourable James Rice. ‘Morning Jimbo,’ he said.
‘Well, well, Rocky,’ said Rice. ‘What’s up? Metals finally gone through the floor?’ He guffawed at his own joke.
‘Might have you a client, Jimbo.’
‘Sensible, Rocky. This is the best place for any client — I mean, who the hell wants metal? Can’t eat the bloody stuff.’
In spite of his frivolous conversation, Rice was the most successful soft commodities broker in Globalex. He was the only other broker in the entire firm whose commissions nearly rivalled Rocq’s and, accordingly, just about the only other broker who was ever genuinely friendly towards Rocq.
‘What do you reckon on coffee at the moment, Jimbo?’
Rice looked at him. ‘Want a cup?’
Rocq grinned. ‘Bit more than that.’
Rice shrugged. ‘I’d go sugar at the moment. You can buy it at £160 — it’ll be £180 by the end of the week.’
Rocq shook his head. ‘I’ve heard that there might be a coffee shortage — coffee rust?’
Rice seemed cagey to Rocq. ‘Who’s your source?’
‘The man who punches the holes in tea bags.’
‘Maybe I should meet him; he’s got his snout in the right trough. There is talk of serious coffee rust in South America — could hit the crops badly in the next few weeks — but it’s very closely guarded talk. Problem is, coffee’s already very high — been high for two years now, and the high prices have hit the consumers. Result — demand’s gone down — and is still falling. I think the prices are due for a major tumble, and the rust’ll hold them upright — but no more.’
‘I think you’re bullshitting, Rice.’
Rice grinned.
‘I think you’ve got a fat one you’re keeping for your favourites, and you don’t want Uncle Rocky to get a look-in and set the market stampeding.’
‘Tell me your source, and I’ll flog you some beans.’
‘Up yours.’ Rocq stood up. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’ He began to walk out of the room.
‘Hey Rocky,’ shouted Rice, ‘cash only — no cheques.’
‘Relax — I’ve got American Express.’
‘I’m sure that will do nicely.’
Rocq had a 12.30 appointment with his own personal bank manager. The appointment was not in the bank, but in the Halls’ Well Dining Club. Somewhere between his fourth glass of Chateau Palmer ’62, and his third snifter of Hine ’47, the bank manager agreed to loan Alexander Rocq £110,000 for three months, at fifteen and one quarter per cent. This was to be secured by a charge on Rocq’s cottage at Clayton and on that part of his apartment in Redcliffe Square that the Bradford and Bingley Building Society did not own; and by a lien on his £32,000 worth of Porsche, and custody of the certificates for £10,000 worth of ordinary shares spread between Great Universal Stores, Valor, British National Oil Company, Foreign and Colonial Investment Trust, Moss Bros and Conrans, together with stock transfer forms. With the exception of two white gold crowns in his teeth, £300 of Piaget watch, five pairs of Gucci shoes, an assortment of Louis Feraud and Yves Saint Laurent suits, jackets and trousers, several dozen Turnbull and Asser shirts, twenty-six pairs of Henry Burton of Glasgow socks and a motley assortment of furniture, artefacts and inessential trappings, Alex Rocq had hocked his entire worldly goods.