chapter eight

Casa Branco



The cars screamed dust into the briefly dry air; two fat opalescent Cameros already muted and slowed by distance as their tyres dissolved into the haze hanging over the track that led to the forest. Iglesias dropped a heavy arm onto Frank’s shoulders and guided him into the courtyard.

“Now we are alone, Professor Kørner, I want to congratulate you on your excellent way of doing business. If you can convince those hijos de la gran chingada you can convince anyone. We are going to be doing a great deal more business together…. A great deal.”

Frank wondered what the fat Ecuadorian meant by alone. The presence of five slightly jumpy guards stroking Kalashnikovs was making him feel positively crowded. Iglesias seemed to read his mind.

“Hombre! Son Sordomudos! Ciegos! You can do anything and they see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, nada. You can shit in front of them, fuck even! You don’t believe me? Try it, I get you a nice muchacha. I think they make it kind of special.”

“Not just now Alejandro. I’m happy they’re around to protect my ass, not watch it bump up and down,” replied Frank, conjuring exactly the right blend of machismo and humour to see off safely the threat of public intimacy with a female minor. He followed Iglesias’s example and sat to a large wooden table. A maid who Frank believed he could otherwise have found himself performing with placed a decanter and two glasses before them.

“Ribera del Duero,” announced the big man. “I only celebrate with the best vinos de España. These Portuguese tíos would drink my piss and get drunk. How long until we can get another cargo out?”

“Patience, amigo,” said Frank, immediately regretting mimicking the habit of dropping Spanish into his sentences. Iglesias obviously did it as a way of affirming the superiority of his Spanish colonial roots over the Portuguese that provided the language of Brazil. He was surely aware that his own nationals were commonly regarded as the most degenerate of the continent, and for this reason he surrounded himself with tokens, such as this Vega Sicilia, emphasising the refinement possible only to one of a pure Spanish descent. Frank recognised the tang of racial supremacy, and as always it hid the truth that those who promoted such views, like the overweight drug baron before him, were themselves genetically infected by that which they despised. Iglesias’s mother was reputed to be a half-caste whore from somewhere in the mountains and his father a chemist from Sao Paolo who had self-medicated himself into a communal grave in the slums a few months before his son’s birth.

For a moment Frank thought of his own fierce Sami mother, but he had changed himself too much, or not enough, and once more he adopted the role of a lifetime.

“Remember Alejandro, we are not cutting the cocaine. That’s what they expected and they didn’t find it. This is genetic modification of the plant itself. These plants are producing coca at the same rate as normal, but I have increased the narcotic effects by a factor of about sixteen. You don’t cheat anyone, you run no risks apart from those inherent in the business, and yet you make sixteen times the money. Also my adapted plants are even more addictive than the normal. The dealers will listen to their customers and you, my friend, will be the supplier they will all want, so you charge, if you like, a premium rate.”

“You are a beautiful man, Professor Kørner,” said Iglesias, filling his antique glass to the brim. “Chiquita! Venga, taste some churro.” Frank watched the girl bend to her task and counted the days until he could liquidise the fat man’s brain.