‘Thirty floors,’ he said eventually, exhaling. ‘The body fell thirty floors and left a crater in the new lawn. We had to returf it. And change the glass. From over there,’ he pointed, ‘they saw it all. He did it on purpose. So everyone would see him.’
I followed the line traced by his finger. Sharp as a knife poised to slice it open, the straight edge of the silver tower seemed about to come down on top of us. If there’d been any people in there when Tamerlán Junior pushed his victim through the glass, they must have seen it as clearly as if they’d been watching it on TV in their living rooms.
He gestured disparagingly towards our neighbour.
‘The idea of the twin towers was my partner’s, may he rest in peace. He never got to see them started. He thought they’d symbolise our partnership; I’d get the silver one of course. In honour of his memory I respected that side of the original project, as it fitted in very nicely with my plans for my two sons, but, as it did on him, fate pulled a fast one on me: my eldest died before he could see them completed, and now it’s his contemptible brother — that was all we needed, him turning murderer — who’s going to walk off with the lot. Most of that tower’s been let, but we’ll get it back when the New Capital scheme’s complete. Have you seen the model?’
Yes or no, I was clearly going to now. I looked in the direction he was pointing. Like an oriental city, as shapely and meticulous as a Chinese sculpture carved out of an elephant tusk, a new Buenos Aires rose in a halo of light at the far end of the room. In the model, the structures of the new city radiated out from Tamerlán Towers to the four points of the compass: there was a layer of gardens as kempt as golf courses, out of which sprouted the various groups of buildings, dotted about here and there like polite obstacles to the game; towards what was left of the old City stood the ethereal and diaphanous structures of the new financial and business district, continuing north in convention centres and gated communities with their winding streets and barriers and guardhouses (you could even make out the snarling Dobermans and shotgun-girded guards inside, placed there for the subliminal peace-of-mind of potential buyers). The south contained what might be called the public area: four shopping malls with hanging gardens, connected to each other by aerial gangways, defying families to exhaust them in a single weekend — cinemas, museums, amphitheatres and public footpaths, a sea-world and an amusement park. Last, the marina, which occupied the space between the chain of docks and the riverside, included a polo field and a golf links, jetties bristling with white yachts accessed straight from the offices, artificial lakes and white sand beaches. You didn’t have to look very far to see what would become of the Ecological Reserve: its marshlands of snakes and toads transformed into princely gardens by a kiss from the lord of the realm. I caught sight of his reflection, as hieratic as a Byzantine emperor, in the mosaic of mirrors on the twin towers, driven into the heart of the model like the standards of a conquistador arriving on these shores to found the city anew.
‘You have no idea what’s happening,’ he assured me, raising his arms to look taller. ‘The bulldozers are paving the way. The Third Foundation of Buenos Aires. The city of the Third Millennium. I won’t allow twenty-five people who couldn’t look the other way at the right moment to jeopardise this dream. You will retrieve their names and any relevant data from the files in Intelligence and hand them over to me. In return …’
‘How do you know Intelligence has got them?’ I interrupted. ‘Your son …’ I hesitated, then changed tack. ‘If this is just an ordinary crime …’
‘We don’t commit ordinary crimes,’ he said, pursing his lips in contempt, ‘and it’s me they’re coming after. They’ll try and finish off the queen to check the king. I have enough influence to keep a lid on everything for now. But I know they’re trying to dig up something to use against me, or against him, when he succeeds me — they know he’s easier to bend.’
‘What are you going to do to them?’
He raised his arms to the heavens, tracing an arc of flickering ash.
‘What a question! What can you do? If I get rid of them, others will come. When you don’t do everything yourself, you end up depending on the servants. And they hoard up their secrets, making a voodoo doll out of the scraps they pick up off the floor, and then, with the doll, they think they can influence …’
‘I meant the witnesses,’ I clarified, walking back to his desk two steps behind him.
‘What about them?’
‘What do you want their names for?’
‘To bribe them. I’ll give them money, green cards for the good ol’ US of A, government posts … When my enemies need them, they’ll be nowhere to be found. I’ll find out who they are, what they need to be happy, and give it to them. Like Father Christmas. It’ll be cheap and easy. Only losers go to those meetings,’ he said, sitting down on his revolving throne.
‘Can I interrupt?’ I said, interrupting. ‘What meetings are you talking about?’
‘Aren’t you asking too many questions?’
‘If I’m going to take this job …’
‘If you’ve heard this much, you have no alternative. The meetings,’ he went on, ‘are for one of those pyramid sales scams. Small-time cons. They rent out the most luxurious offices in town for a few months, get a load of suckers to invest their pathetic life savings and shower them with all the useless, overpriced junk they can’t palm off on anyone else. Spanish Surprises I think this outfit call themselves. They’ve crossed the Atlantic for the Fifth Centenary Celebrations. A few days ago they started hammering away at that fucking caravel out there, for Expo América ’92.’ He faked a smile, blowing air through his closed lips. ‘How the mighty are fallen! But we still have to raise the money for the Third Foundation, and I think it’s only natural the Spaniards should chip in, like they did for the first two.’
I peered out. At the edge of the dock, as if, once complete, it was to be lowered into the outsized bath-tub beside it, sat the bowed ribs of a short, strangely squat wooden vessel, with several tiny figures clambering over it and covering it in planks. So this was the Santa María. What will it discover this time, I wondered, then turned to Sr Tamerlán, who was impatiently doodling what looked like erect pricks among the rocks of his Zen garden.
‘Computer graphics unnerve me. The day they manage to simulate stillness like this … I’ve fixed a price.’
‘On the garden?’
‘On you. A hundred thousand dollars.’
I’d been told on several occasions I might be worth that much in the States — maybe more. But this was the first time I’d been made a solid-gold offer. I tried to turn it into a piece of abstract data in my head, a simple six-digit figure on the screen of my bank account, something that could be erased at the touch of a key. Only because I felt that this figure was about to draw a yes from my lips as easily as a dermatologist pops a blackhead. Because the figure was more than the mind could ignore, more than my powers of decision-making could cope with. A hundred thousand dollars was enough to do my thinking for me.
‘There’s no need to answer now,’ my owner’s voice went on, ‘or later, because I know what you’re going to say.’
‘I wasn’t expecting so much,’ I said in all honesty.
‘You have no motivation in life,’ he said. ‘People like you can’t be tempted with the mere image of material goods or the security that money would temporarily buy you. Only the pure, brute presence of gold can make any impression on the likes of you. And money only acquires that kind of purity in large amounts.’