My father brushed thoughtfully at his moustache with a fingertip. “I see.”
“So let’s spread it around and do some good.”
Greg almost smiled. “But I think you will get more of the money than anyone else, won’t you?”
Sam gave him a rueful look. “Yeah, that’s right. And I’ll spend it faster than anybody else, too.”
So Greg and I returned to Ecuador. General Quintana reluctantly stepped aside and allowed elections. Democracy returned to Ecuador, although Greg claimed it arrived in our native land for the first time. Quintana retired gracefully, thanks to a huge bribe that Sam and my father provided.
Spence and Bonnie Jo eventually were divorced, but that happened years later. By that time I had married Greg and he was a rising young politician who would one day be president of Ecuador himself. The country was slowly growing richer, thanks to its investment in space industries. Sam’s orbital hotel was only the first step in the constantly-growing commerce in space.
I never saw Sam again. Not face-to-face. Naturally, we all saw him in the news broadcasts time and again. Just as he said, he spent every penny of the money he made on OrbHotel and went broke.
But that is another story. And gracias a Dios, it is a story that does not involve me.