Trash - Andy Mulligan [31]
The pain had passed, and he was relaxing.
‘The reason I am in this jail is that I brought corruption charges against Senator Regis Zapanta thirty-five years ago. Do you know Senator Zapanta?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘He’s a big man in this country – our trusted vice-president. He is always in the papers for one thing or another. You are a tourist and you’re passing through – you would not know these names. Gardo here will know the name and even the face – is that true, Gardo?’
Gardo was nodding. ‘Everyone knows him.’
‘In this city he is a very big man. You don’t read the papers?’
I shook my head.
‘Nor do I any more. Once a month if I am lucky – they starve me of the news, and perhaps it’s for the best. Waiting for change has exhausted me: it’s probably best I hear so little! I was never important, Olivia – I served as a small officer only, in the east quarter of the city – humble ranks. You won’t know the system, so I won’t … Oh, it doesn’t even matter. What matters is that forty years ago I came upon information that Senator Zapanta had spirited away thirty million dollars of international aid money. It was a package of grants, with the United Nations leading, and it was to build hospitals and schools. They called it “seed-corn” money. Now, “seed-corn” money is very important in the way these things work. When a country receives such money, it is a condition that a proportion of the money is matched by the government, and by other donor countries too. In this case, that thirty million was going to be added to, by our government here and by, oh … private investment – the big banks were involved. So that thirty would, we hoped, turn to sixty or seventy. Seventy million would have changed the city, Miss Olivia – at that time. But no schools or hospitals were ever built, and the city stayed poor. Senator Zapanta stole it, and I tried to prove he stole it. It never went to court, because the senator quickly counter-sued. It seemed he had many more friends than I, and infinitely more power. I ended up charged and prosecuted. I was convicted – my appeals were laughed at. Life imprisonment, I got, and …’
He paused again, and winced with pain.
‘I think the sentence is nearly over.’
6
Gardo again – just something short from me. Just to say to Sister Olivia that I am so sorry for what I did. We talked about it, the three of us, and we decided it was the only way – Rat said maybe we could tell you part of it, but I said no. I was the one who said we should trust nobody but ourselves.
I am sorry for that.
You must remember, please, that it was I who read the letter from José Angelico, over and over and over. We all knew – all of us – that we were so close, and what Raphael went through in the police station … Sister, I do not know how he went through that. I thought he was soft before that, just a little boy who would break, but I was wrong. Please understand, we could not tell you. It was just the three of us: Raphael, Rat and me, and already we knew that soon we would be leaving – that it was not possible to stay much longer in Behala. So we did not want anyone to know anything.
Please forgive me for that, and I hope I see you again sometime. I am sorry how it ended for you.
7
Gabriel Olondriz smiled at me.
This is Olivia again.
‘I will tell you a little more,’ he said. ‘It will make sense, in time, and then this boy will tell us what he wants.’
I said, ‘How can a man steal thirty million dollars?’
‘How?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is done so often. It is done so easily – not in a suitcase: it is not like robbing a bank. In the government’s case it is usually done through bogus contracts: everybody siphons a little bit here, a little bit there. It is done through clever accounting and paying off the people who should be watching. In the case