Buying Brazil (Buying Brazil Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Skip told him … Daddy’s little boy was keeping him informed. I will have to watch Skip and not because his father asked me to but because if he screws things up I’ll take the hit. He would have to be kept away from anything important. Maybe the best thing would be to let him go to Rio and play and forget about him. Sure, it would work fine if he left his big mouth behind in São Paulo.

  By the end of the day we had hired one of the big international accounting firms and worked out a consulting arrangement with Pedro Rossi that was separate from the deal we made regarding his law firm’s help with due diligence and deal documents. Naturally, the accountants were not from the same firm we used in the U.S. Watson liked to use different firms on significant pieces of Laser so he would be able to use the threat of consolidating the account with one firm or another to get the technical answers he wanted.

  “Thank you for staying Pedro. I know you were told we would only need an hour or so.”

  Dressed in a blue sport jacket, grey trousers and a red club tie, fifty-eight-year-old Rossi was trim and tanned. He would easily fit into any sophisticated circle of friends in New York, London or Paris. He is active with the bar association and the courts, our research said he serves on committees involved with admitting lawyers to the bar and appointing judges to the courts. He would know the other lawyers involved in any BrasTel talks and it was likely they would be indebted to him in one way or another. It was ‘jeitinho Brasiliero’, the Brazilian way.

  “I am delighted to stay. My office is close by on Consolacão above Centró.”

  “More coffee …?”

  “You have become very Brasilian in a short time. Coffee is our constant companion.”

  “Coffee is always with us in New York.” Handing him a tiny cup of jet black coffee, “The difference is Brazilian coffee is much better.”

  “Thank you … we are proud of our coffee. Before the military years Brasilian coffee had ninety percent of your market. Then we stopped exports and Columbia now enjoys our place.”

  “Yes and it’s unfortunate for both of us. You know we have done a lot of background work on BrasTel.”

  “Naturally …”

  “I hope you can help us fill in the blanks … things we do not know are always dangerous in a deal.”

  Rossi’s eyes were level, his face closed, “I will try but there are things we may never be allowed … be able to learn.”

  Rossi’s English had been flawless throughout an hour of conversation. I took his self-correction as a signal. “I understand, still, we have to know what we are buying.”

  “Beautiful women and large businesses both guard their secrets. In time we can learn most things but never everything. I have friends who may know things I do not and naturally they will help but here in Brasil things can be different.”

  The word ‘different’ stopped my thoughts as a fire alarm stopped people in their tracks. There was a momentary sense of threat, almost fear before reason took hold. “I’ve heard that before. Perhaps you can help me understand the difference.”

  Rossi rubbed his chin, “It is not a simple answer. In many ways we are caught in the middle. Our country is two times as old as the United States but very young compared to Portugal or Spain. We are a very big country but have little real power in a world dominated by the powerful. We have many people of all kinds, from all places and they have created a mixed national identity uniquely Brasilian. Our government is neither left nor right. Brasil has great riches but our people are not rich. There are many contradictions that shape the difference.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “There is a new book ‘The Indian in the Mirror’. It is a Brasilian book that explores the arrival of Europeans here. The newcomers’ minds were closed to what their eyes really found. No, in their minds they saw what they expected to find, the reflection of their own ideas and prejudices. People still come to Brasil and see what they want to believe and not our reality. The real Brasil is different from what outsiders believe and because of this they do not understand and make costly mistakes.”

  “I am an outsider. Are you saying I am destined to make a mistake?”

  “Certainly not … What I am trying to say is to avoid mistakes you must first understand Brasil as a Brasileiro does.”

  “That would take a lifetime and my business can’t wait that long.”

  “Then surround yourself with advisors who will make sure you listen carefully to them. Do not see or hear only what you want.”

  “Sound advice but how does all this relate to a BrasTel deal? BrasTel is the only reason I’m here in Brazil. After the deal is done the people who have to worry about operations can worry about the psychology of the Brazilian people.”

  “Perhaps … but here there will be more to closing a deal than you may find elsewhere. Here yesterday never ends and tomorrow never fully arrives. BrasTel is part of this reality.”

  Yesterday never ends … “I have to think about it Pedro. Maybe we can continue this conversation later in the week.”

  “Happily, … allow me to suggest something. I know you have reports on our recent history and the politics. They are just cold words. Spend some time with the Brasilian people and perhaps you will find life for the words. Find life and you will begin to understand.”

  That night I paid my outstanding bill at Café Antique. My thoughts were troubled. Both Aranni and Rossi seemed to be saying the same thing … be a tourist and find the real Brazil … perhaps only then would BrasTel’s secrets become more visible. I could make no sense of it. BrasTel was a state-owned company and both its history and current condition were a matter of public record. Yes, we could talk about it as a pretty girl with suitors but in the end it was no more than a regulated public utility company being put on the auction block for money.

  “You did not enjoy your dinner Senhor?”

  Lost in my own thoughts I hadn’t seen her come into the restaurant. “Alana, good evening, I didn’t see you. Have you been sent to deliver another invitation?”

  “No Senhor, you offered a drink to me last night.” Without waiting for a reply she slid into the chair across from me, “Tonight I would like to have it unless you prefer to be alone”.

  “Alone, no, I was just thinking about something. The Senator told me I should think about what he said.”

  Just the hint of a smile touched her lips, “Did he say you should think all the time?” Her smile widened as she reached across the table, her finger tips just touching mine, “I think he would want you to enjoy the night … it is the Brasilian way.”

  I hadn’t noticed how full her lips were. Bare, no lipstick, she wore no makeup at all because it wasn’t necessary. A tiny scar on her left check only called attention to the perfection of her face. I wondered whether the rest of her could be so perfect.

  “… your drink, what would you like?”

  “Caipirinha favor.”

  “Say again please.”

  Slowly with an intoxicatingly impish grin, “Caip-ir-in-ha. It is Brasilian made from cachaça and lime. It is sweet and tart.”

  “What’s casasha … I thought I knew all the drinks.”

  “Cachaça Querido.” Her eyes sparkling in the candle light, “you must say it like a Brasiliero before you can drink it.”

  “Did I say I wanted one?”

  She dropped her eyes then looking directly into mine. The softest pout accentuating her lips, “You do not want to share with me?”

  Like a teen with his first girl I didn’t know what to say. Her eyes remained fixed, open … not coy like Parisian women who always played and then disappeared into the night. No, they were filled with the coolness of confidence infused with the power of understanding. With silent elegance her eyes both offered and promised.

  Feeling the heat from her fingertips flow through me, “… I, yes I’d like to taste your … drink”.

  “Is that all you would like to taste?”

  Since Shelly left many women had
suggested they were available. In one way or another, their suggestions always seemed tied to the desire for something else, something more. Alana’s face was free of the questions usually accompanying the others’ suggestions. Her face was open and uncomplicated. It quietly extended an invitation accompanied only by natural, coolly smoldering desire.

  “Perhaps dinner …?”

  “I am sure we can find something you will like more. Your apartment is close. Should we go look?”

  “You’re very direct.”

  “A man and a woman should be. That way we make the most of our time together. It is the Brasilian way. Come Querido, I will teach about you being Brasilian.”

  “I have to pay … Ah yes, they will understand.”

  “See, you have begun to learn.”

  I stopped at the door. Though not wanting to believe it would be there, I expected to see the waiting Mercedes. The curbside was empty.

  Her arm out-stretched, “Querido …”

  “Are we walking?”

  “Am I right, it is less than a block?”

  Across the street lights from Margherita Pizza cut into the darkness along with laughter from tables packed with families and their friends. Uphill, beyond the corner Haddock Lobo was residential lined with high-rise and old low-rise condos surrounded by gated security walls. ‘Edificio Itamar’, my building, was one of the older low-rise ones a half a block above the corner and set in a well-tended garden.

  Alana stopped on the terrace after security buzzed us through a wrought iron gate, “Muito bom Querido. My mother has a garden of flowers. When I was a girl I was happy in her garden.”

  “You’re her most beautiful flower.”

  “It is not true. I am plain compared to Brasil’s flowers. They are the most beautiful in the world.”

  Her expression, the sound of her voice, I believed she meant it. Was it possible she didn’t know her own beauty? “Plain is the last word I would pick to describe you.”

  “Men tell me I am beautiful. No, my sister and her two little girls, they are beautiful. Today I am pretty … tomorrow, who knows.”

  She turned and walked toward the elevator lobby knowing I would follow. “Qué andar Querido, what floor?”

  “The fourth …”

  When I unlocked the apartment she brushed past going to the front windows. Sliding open the shutters, “Is it not beautiful. I love São Paulo, it has life. My family is in Rio Prata and at night all we have is darkness. Here, look at the lights.”

  “Silver River … Where is Rio Prata?”

  “… south in Parana state. It is a good place for farmers. My family are all farmers. We grow coffee again on my grandfather’s fazenda.”

  “Again …?”

  “Yes, the military government told us to grow corn for the animals. They told my Grandfather Brasil could not sell its coffee to the foreigners. My Grandfather always said he would go back to coffee.” Turning from the window, “but that is not for tonight.”

  Silhouetted by the window’s glow, she took a step towards me reached down taking off one shoe, then the other. Another step and her right hand went to her left shoulder sliding off the strap from her loose fitting navy shirt-dress. Her other hand removed a right strap and for a moment she stood arms crossed trapping the dress in place. My breath caught as her arms dropped freeing the dress to fall away into a pile around her ankles. The perfect line of her body was unbroken by bra or panties.

  Another step closed the space between us, the heat from her body, the scent of her embracing me. The palm of her hand slowly moving down the front of my trousers, her cupped fingers pressing, caressing. Her other hand unzipped, reached inside and surrounded me with its heat.

  Squeezing gently with both hands, “Where is the bedroom?”

  Completely under her control, I pointed then started to turn but she held me in place. She opened my belt and unbuttoned my trousers with one hand still wrapped around me. Then, letting go, “You will not need these” she pulled down my trousers and shorts. “I will be in bed Querido”.

  Trousers, shorts, shoes, socks, shirt … they formed a trail into the bedroom as I hurried after her. I was erect, hard as a school boy with his first girl. Into bed, on top of her our lips met for the first time, “Alana, you’re a witch”. Still in control, she wrapped her legs around my hips and pulled me into her. Wet, soft she engulfed me, kneading me with her legs, pressing me on, time stopped then exploded … and she pressed on and I followed deeper into sensations I hadn’t felt for years. Still on top, I buried my face in her neck my ears pounding with my heart. A groan escaped followed by a sigh.

  Her nails lightly raking over my back, “Too much Querido?” Her arm went around my neck, one leg slid down next to mine and the other wrapped itself around me. With the precision of a wrestler she turned me onto my back holding me deep inside her.

  She leaned over, her lips on mine, her tongue exploring. Straightening up, slowly she began moving her hips forward and back pressing her weight hard against me, pressing the most sensitive part of her into me. My breathing matched the motion of her hips. Faster, harder, surrounded by her my heart beat against my ribs … don’t stop, God don’t stop. Harder, it hurts, faster … yes, God yes. She collapsed onto me our skin soaked, our breath ragged; with the last of my strength I held her, squeezed her close.

  “Querido, the sun is coming and I have to pee. I have to get up. Move your leg.”

  “No.”

  “… here in bed then.”

  Untangling my leg from hers, “Alright, go …”

  “… brigada, come in a few minutes and wash my back.”

  Eyes closed, I rolled over and didn’t hear the shower start, “Querido …”

  “Yes, in a minute.”

  The struggle to get out of bed was quickly forgotten. Standing under the shower like a forest nymph with arms provocatively crossed over her head, “I had only cold water when I was little. I adore hot water … rivers of it.”

  Stepping into the shower I slid an arm around her taking her breast into my hand. My other hand moved slowly down the curve of her back. Leaning against me she rested her cheek on my arm. Together motionless lost in steaming water running over our bodies, and lost in the accompanying soundless primal peace. A warm fog thickened engulfing us, sheltering us from the city outside and the rapidly multiplying unanswered questions.

  Chapter 4

  “You look like shit Carl. Didn’t you sleep last night?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Coffee?”

  “There’s still nothing to eat or drink in the damned apartment. There isn’t a coffee pot. I told José Carlos to have his sister go shopping.”

  “They’re Brazilians, nothing happens until the boss speaks. Then, it takes too much time. Did you give him money?”

  “I’m sure it was enough. I haven’t been in any food markets so I guessed what was enough and gave him a couple of hundred dollars. It should convert to about seven or eight-hundred Reals.”

  “I thought you were a banker. He’ll exchange the dollars on the black market and get over nine-hundred for them. That’s enough to feed a family of five very well for three months if they stay away from imports.”

  “Sure, but I don’t want to eat goat.”

  “Goat … I don’t think they have goats here. You know the French food chain Carrefour? There’s one of their smaller Brazilian stores not far from here. It’s where the better part of the local middle class shops. We’ll go there at lunchtime and maybe you’ll learn something useful.”

  “I know your theory, how a country shops tells you about its people.”

  “Never fails me. There’s lots of stuff you’ll never find in the numbers.”

  Not interested in her theories, “I’m still hungry.”

  “José Carlos is out getting stuff for the office. I’m sure there’s something that’ll hold you over till lunch. You should put a little weight on so you’d have some reserve.

  Escaping to
my office, “Yes doctor.”

  For most of the morning my thoughts were on Alana not BrasTel. The smell of her hair, the playful sound of her voice and the certainty she had appeared out of the night at Aranni’s direction. What eluded me was why, what was his message? What was he trying to learn? Naturally, vanity whispered she had come on her own but reason knew better. Aranni was smart enough to know she wouldn’t be enough of a distraction to affect the BrasTel deal. She had to be after information, what else. Women had loosened men’s tongues throughout history. Eventually BrasTel would become pillow talk if I continued to see her.

  If … who was I fooling? There was no chance I would turn her away the next time she appeared. Just the thought of her … If I knew her number I would have already tried to make plans.

  After our shower she dressed, blew me a kiss and left with just a simple “Tchau”. BrasTel research had taught me enough to know she had a cell phone. It must have been in the tiny Louis Vuitton hand bag she casually dropped on the table next to the door last night. I should have asked for her number then. If … I felt the memory of her presence brush against me. The heat of her caressed my skin, my pulse quickened … she pushed everything else away, far away, far beyond the reach of my thoughts.

  Then it all shattered, “Shopping time … let’s get going.”

  “Your timing’s great. How can shopping get you so excited?”

  “Why, did I wake you up?” Grinning like a spoiled high school girl, “Some like football. Shopping is my sport and believe me, it’s a damned blood sport.”

  São Paulo’s midday normality waited for us below on Av. Paulista. The lunch crowd carelessly overflowed wide sidewalks into the street completely immune to eight lanes clogged with traffic. Only horns from the endless line of buses struggling to maintain impossible schedules rose above the city’s energetic din.

  “Is this really necessary Robin?”

  “Patience, once we get across Paulista it’s only a few minutes.”

  “I was wondering, did the document search turn up anything about BrasTel during the military years? Did the Generals take over BrasTel and somehow separate it from the government or was BrasTel treated as a special case?”