The 2084 Precept (71 page)

"Great, Pedro," I said. "Fantastic. I
appreciate your efforts. Many thanks. I would be grateful if you
would review the quotes and give me your recommendations as to
which ones we should accept."

"Will do. I can discuss them today with
Agustín. But I might need until tomorrow morning to give you
conclusions that I am personally comfortable with, bearing in mind
that 99% sure means not sure. Would that be alright?"

Now how about that? Have I found a Spaniard
who understands and appreciates cynical humor? It looks like it, in
which case we are going to have a
very
good working
relationship. "I am 99% sure," I smiled, "that your conclusions
will be at least 99% correct. Thanks again, Pedro."

* * * * *

At around half past one, Conchita knocked on
the open door to my office—my office doors are permanently open to
all and sundry unless there is a need for confidentiality—and I
waved her in. The name Conchita is a shortened version of María de
la Concepción. This name actually celebrates the date of conception
of Jesus Christ's mother, although I am uncertain as to whether the
date was recorded somehow and is therefore a factual one, or
whether it was simply guessed at using the average length of time
until the birth. Anyway, Conchita was a junior administration
assistant who had until now reported to María del Carmen. She was
around thirty years old, jet black hair, neither attractive nor
ugly, and the single mother of a young daughter.

Pedro had told me that she relied heavily on
her employment with us and that she did her best to keep it. She
was a good and conscientious worker. Well, if she were as good and
conscientious as Pedro seemed to think, she would not only get to
keep her job but, with María gone, I would be handing her some
additional responsibilities. And if she dealt with those
acceptably, she would also receive an interesting salary hike. Good
and conscientious are not attributes you find on every street
corner and, in any case, such attributes should be appropriately
rewarded. Also, in the interests of fairness, justice and honesty,
let us admit that salary raises also reduce the risk of losing such
people.

Pedro had already made my day, and here was
Conchita about to make it for me all over again. She had just
returned from a visit to our bank and she informed me—wide-eyed she
was, and not metaphorically so—that our current account had been
credited with the impressive amount of €3.4 million. Was it correct
or was it an error, she asked. It was quite correct, I told her,
just one of our outstanding problems which by chance we had been
able to fix quite quickly.

I asked her to kindly arrange for the
transfer of €3 million to our deposit account for the moment. I
didn't believe, I said, that my password authorization was
necessary for internal transfers between two of our own accounts,
but if so, she should please let me know.

She looked at me as if I were Superman, or
maybe Batman or Spiderman—I personally am toying with the idea of
one day creating Snakeman, a cold-blooded limbless hero who would
experience truly bizarre adventures, perhaps including an on-off
affair with Lizardwoman—and she went out half-backwards and sat
down at her desk in the open office area.

In the afternoon I didn't do much. But one
thing I did do was check my personal on-line account. And there was
Jeremy's €400,000 snuggling nicely in among the more minor items
and for the time being I transferred it together with the €300,000
into my interest-earning account. I would have to think about what
to do with it all next week. Or maybe it didn't exist, maybe it was
all a hallucination, maybe I was suffering from a delusion, I had
caught a virus from Jeremy. Bullshit. But I would still check that
bank balance again tomorrow—just to make sure, you understand.

I celebrated by ending my workday promptly.
I loaded the suitcase into a taxi and was back in my Illetas hotel
at a time when plenty of Spanish businessmen were still returning
to their offices after a long lunch hour.

I hadn't forgotten to collect the tuna fish
from the office refrigerator and the hotel chef was pleasantly
surprised when I handed him the gift and told him how fresh it was.
I'll have to get approval from the manager, he said, there are
rules about accepting gifts, especially edible ones. Of course you
would have to do that, I replied, but the rules do not apply to a
personal gift from me to you and your family. How to make friends,
even in a kitchen.

I spent an hour floating around in the sea
and for the remainder of the evening I ruminated on recent events,
ate some
dorada
for dinner and continued my ruminations over
a coffee, a cigarette and a simple Hennessey; followed by another
cigarette and another simple Hennessey.

Yes, I am usually a very fast worker.
But—honesty to the fore as always or fairly often at least—the
results of the past few days in both the Naviera and my personal
finance areas were down purely and simply to Lady Luck. A couple of
mermaids if you will; young ones, washed by chance into my path on
an ebbing tide.

And so it was enjoyable to chew things over,
and that's what I continued to do. And then I typed and transmitted
two invoices for €200,000 each to Jeremy. And then I was tired and
climbed happily into a bed which wasn't a damp bunk in a ship
captain's cabin and fell asleep thinking about piles of money and
cranes and insurance companies and tuna fish, the latter for some
reason being neatly piled up on several Euro-sized pallets.

I decided to beat Pedro to the office today.
Not to set the tone, he didn't need that, but just to make sure he
knew he did not have a boss who had rules for himself and others
for those who work for him. At the same time it would not be
psychologically bad for the crew of the
Gerona Sol
to see me
already there when they arrived in port.

And so I got out of bed at 4 a.m. and was in
the office at shortly after five and was smoking my day's first
cigarette as I watched the
Gerona Sol
inching its way
through the harbor until it finally reached our wharf and docked.
And my neurons suddenly became very pleased with themselves again,
they had had another idea. Or at least they had thought of a
question which was well worth putting. Why did the ship need to
arrive so early, a considerable amount of time before unloading
would begin? Certainly, the sooner they were back on land, the
happier the ship's crew no doubt was. But an hour or two later
would mean they could travel at a slower speed and that would
translate into some additional significant fuel savings. I agreed
with my neurons that they could file the matter under 'Urgent' and
that I would discuss it with Pedro next week. After all, for all I
knew, there could be a very good reason for the ships to arrive
early. But even if…perhaps we could start the unloading and loading
operations earlier and the ships could then leave earlier and sail
at a slower speed in the other direction. Hah! Worth finding out
about anyway.

At around nine o'clock Conchita brought in
the few invoices which had arrived yesterday. One of the documents
contained the company's credit card costs for the past month and
judging by the size of some of Alfonso's travel and entertainment
expenditures on the mainland, the future cost savings were not to
be sniffed at. Minor ones, O.K., but all corn and malt—or grist as
some would have it—to the mill.

I called Conchita back and I handed her back
the invoices. I also asked her to cancel the company credit cards.
I explained to her that in future any expenditures on behalf of the
company by me or anybody else would be paid for by the persons
involved using, if they wished, their own credit cards. They would
be reimbursed via expense claims which would normally be paid
before their credit charges hit their accounts. All expense claims
would, for the moment, require my signatory approval. Except for
mine of course, I continued, mine would need to be approved by Sr.
Pujol and were
not
to be paid unless they had been signed by
him. Even if I ask you to, I smiled. We will put these and several
other procedures into writing next week, and then you will have
both the responsibility and the authority for ensuring they are
complied with.

She had a happy look on her face as she left
the room. I think that her Mr. Superman had also become her Mr.
Honestman and I think she was having some good vibes about the way
the company was going to be run from now on. And this is the way it
should be. A company with happy employees operates far more
efficiently than one without.

Later in the morning, Pedro came to see me,
quotes in hand. He recommended the second most expensive quote for
the crane and the most expensive one for the ship. He explained
that he had spoken with both Agustín and the crane operator, and
also with himself. His recommendations were based on two criteria,
he said. Firstly, both of his recommended companies were the ones
most renowned for their quality and reliability, and secondly,
their quotes were not crazily higher than any lower quotes,
something which might, admittedly, have complicated matters
somewhat. He stood fully behind his proposals.

I told him I was impressed. His criteria
were the correct ones, I didn't even need to think about it, I was
convinced and would he please go ahead and place the orders. No
need to attempt to negotiate a one or two percent reduction in
price on this occasion, I said. The priority is for quality work on
undertakings such as these, so let them make their profits. No
provoking them into looking for ways to cut corners on the job.

Call the lucky ones up, I continued, and
please ask Conchita to prepare the bank transfers for the initial
down payments. And now it was Pedro's turn to be impressed. His
recommendations had been accepted, his boss had trust in his views,
a decision had been taken fast, and major, major problems were
going to be resolved without delay.

So he also left my office with a happy look
on his face. Another contented employee, another guy who would be
giving his all to help make his company profitable.

I made myself a coffee and checked through
my emails. And among them was a message to boggle the mind, (boggle
being a fine four hundred year-old word for which one must praise
its creator, whoever he was, a word whose descriptive precision is
impeccably rivalled by its apposite resonance). There was only one
possible reaction to this message, and that was 'Praise be to
Ploutos', Ploutos being, as you probably know, the Greek God of
Wealth and Riches. He was also blind, blinded by Zeus—that god who
was more powerful than all of the other Greek gods put together—so
that he would have to distribute the wealth indiscriminately and
not only to the good, the virtuous, and any others who might have
deserved it. So no matter which category I fell into, my neurons
told me, I had no need to worry.

The email was from the shipping agency.
Their client had after all agreed to my offer, they wanted a
two-year contract with an option to prolong, and how soon would we
be able to start with the first shipment? Thanks to Ploutus, and I
shouldn't forget Zeus, this would wipe out our loss-making and slam
the company into healthy profitability, irrespective of anything
else that may or may not turn out to contribute.

It was a sunny day; pleasant, not too warm,
not too cold. I went down to the dock and invited Antonio to a
lunch of tapas and white wine.

"Antonio," I asked, "if I were to say that
we could pull one of our ships off the Barcelona-Palma run without
losing any business, and have it do a weekly run to Ceuta or
Melilla instead, which ship do you think would be the best?"

"Mine," he replied without hesitation.

"Why?"

"Because with only one ship for the
Barcelona-Palma route, it should be the most reliable one and that
is the
Mahon Star.
Irrespective of anything else, that ship,
and therefore its engine, is several years younger than the
Gerona Sol
."

"Good reasoning, Antonio," I said. "And are
there any other matters to consider in this connection?"

"Not exactly," he said. “Although three of
the crew on my ship are Moroccans, which might turn out to be
helpful one day. And,” he added with an ambiguous smile, “everybody
knows that Agustín has a girlfriend in Palma.”

And if we act on your suggestion that it be
the
Gerona Sol
, when do you think we could start?"

"Well…let's see…I think the
Mahon
Star
should stick to its routine, which means that it would
have its non-operating Sunday here in Palma. And we would have our
day off in Barcelona. If we could be loaded in Barcelona tomorrow
afternoon or on Sunday, we could sail for Morocco next Monday
already. Unless, of course, the cargo situation requires us to make
an additional run back here; we could then start with the Africa
route on, say, Thursday."

"Antonio, thank you very much," I said. "I
will talk to Pedro about this and get back to you as soon as I
can." And he thanked me for lunch and off he went in his jolly
manner, scratching his sandy hair, and I wondered at the apparent
ease with which seamen would happily sail anywhere you wanted them
to. A bit like airline pilots, I supposed.

Pedro couldn't believe the news. Here was
somebody else looking at me as if I were Superman and by now even I
was beginning to enjoy the undeserved aura of a fake genius, why
not? He agreed that the
Gerona Sol
was the best choice. He
said that there were no cargo problems and he saw no reason why
they shouldn't depart from Barcelona on the Monday as Antonio had
suggested. He would speak to Antonio, who would tell his crew, he
would contact Agustín who would do the same, he would speak with
Fernando in Barcelona who would contact the shipping agency and
start organizing the necessary loading and documentation
requirements, and he would inform our employees here in the office.
I asked him to arrange a small staff meeting for Monday
afternoon—the
Gerona Sol
would be on its way to Africa by
then and I would be talking
fait accompli
—so that I could
explain to them the change and the reasons for it in more
detail.