Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [132]
“I don’t know that we are.”
“That’s the problem,” James said. “You don’t know. We should have someone there working on this who does.”
“Rita knows what she’s doing.”
“She certainly didn’t on the building,” James said.
“She’ll be working with her brother who’s a general contractor. He’s very knowledgeable.”
“Wait, wait,” Henry said. “Who said she could hire her brother? We own the building. We should be the ones who decide who she can hire. I would think hiring her brother is a very bad idea. Then we won’t be able to control anything.”
“In Brazil, it’s better to work with close friends; relatives are best. You can trust relatives much more than you can others. And her brother is a very competent person.”
“But we don’t know that,” Henry said. “I think at this point we need to get an outsider, someone who is credible, who has done projects that have a name that we can research. Then we hire them. That person would need to check all the finances before we release any more money.”
“Actually, Margaret is right. In Brazil, the closer the relationship with a person working with you, the better.” Almuht said. “Rita’s brother is probably a decent choice.”
“Liability is a big issue here,” Henry said. “We owe money on this building. The loan is our responsibility as board members. We are legally responsible if all our meetings are not conducted correctly. Have we done everything in formal procedures here? No. I can answer that. I’m a lawyer. You don’t understand the danger you have put yourselves in. We could be sued for thousands of dollars if something goes wrong on the building—we would all be legally responsible.”
“Surely not,” Mo said.
“I don’t consider myself responsible for this loan,” James said. “I will try to contribute, but I’m not going to make promises.”
“And what about the lien I suggested we get?” Henry asked. “You never did that, did you, Margaret? You said it was too complicated to do internationally. Well, I consulted with a lawyer in São Paulo and he tells me that we can definitely do it. It would cost us about two or three thousand, but we can do it. And you never told us that. Also, remember that months ago I suggested one of my contacts, a middle-class Brazilian who lives here in the States, could check out the building. But you said no, Rita was director and she could handle it. Well, clearly she couldn’t. If you hadn’t ignored my suggestion, we wouldn’t be having this problem.”
“A middle-class outsider would not have understood the situation,” I said. “They would not respect Rita. For them to be in Bahia, a person not of her choosing, would have undermined her standing. They would have been looking for a snappy, middle-class building. And that is not what Bahia Street is, nor what Bahia Street would build.”
“All these idealist notions of yours, Margaret, are very nice, leaving control to the people in Brazil, but it doesn’t work,” James said. “We have final responsibility. We control the money. Rita may be fine for looking after little girls, but this is a much bigger project. She clearly doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“I’m responsible for all this,” Henry said. “I understand the legal ramifications. As a lawyer, I am actually in more legal danger than the rest of you if we are not seen to be doing things correctly. I could be sued or worse.” He paused. “So, my main concern is that Rita is just going ahead with the project right now, without our knowledge or control. We need to make clear to her that she can do nothing until we give the permission.”
“The money for the reconstruction is actually coming from England,” I said. “And the main concern they have is that it gets spent in a timely manner.”
“But we own the building,” James said.
“You seriously think we are liable?” Mo asked Henry. “Perhaps we could just ask Rita to give us a business plan. To itemize