A Quiver Full of Arrows

“Don’t bandy words with me, Mr. Heath. What you are suggesting is that I should bribe a government official. I have never been involved in that sort of thing in thirty years of business.”

“And I wouldn’t want you to start now,” replied Heath. “The Mexicans are far too experienced in business etiquette for anything as clumsy as that to be suggested, but while the law

requires that you appoint a Mexican agent, it must make sense to try and sign up the minister’s man, who in the end is the one person who can ensure that you will be awarded the contract. The system seems to work well, and as long as a minister deals only with reputable international firms and doesn’t become greedy, no one complains. Fail to observe either of those two golden rules and the whole house of cards collapses. The minister ends up in Le Cumberri for thirty years and the company concerned has all its assets expropriated and is banned from any future business dealings in Mexico.”

“I really cannot become involved in such shenanigans,” said Sir Hamish. “I still have my shareholders to consider.”

“You don’t have to become involved,” Heath rejoined. “After we have tendered for the contract you wait and see if the company has been shortlisted and then, if we have, you wait again to find out if the minister’s man approaches us. I know the man, so if he does make contact we have a deal. After all, Graham Construction is a respectable international company.”

“Precisely, and that’s why it’s against my principles,” said Sir Hamish with hauteur.

“I do hope, Sir Hamish, it’s also against your principles to allow the Germans and the Americans to steal the contract from under our noses.”

Sir Hamish glared back at his project manager but remained silent.

“And I feel I must add, sir,” said David Heath, moving restlessly from foot to foot, “that the pickings in Scotland haven’t exactly yielded a harvest lately.”

“All right, all right, go ahead,” said Sir Hamish reluctantly. “Put in a tender figure for the Mexico City ring road and be warned if I find bribery is involved, on your head be it,” he added, banging his closed fist on the table.

“What tender figure have you settled on, sir?” asked the project manager. “I believe, as I stressed in my report, that we should keep the amount under forty million dollars.”

“Agreed,” said Sir Hamish, who paused for a moment and smiled to himself before saying: “Make it $39,121,110.”

“Why that particular figure, sir?”

“Sentimental reasons,” said Sir Hamish, without further explanation.

David Heath left, pleased that he had convinced his boss to go ahead, but he feared it might in the end prove harder to overcome Sir Hamish’s principles than the entire Mexican government. Nevertheless he filled in the bottom line of the tender as instructed and then had the document signed by three directors including his chairman, as required by Mexican law. He sent the tender by special messenger to be delivered at the Ministry of Buildings in Paseo de la Reforma: when tendering for a contract for over thirty-nine million dollars, one does not send the document by first-class post.

Several weeks passed before the Mexican Embassy in London contacted Sir Hamish, requesting that he travel to Mexico City for a meeting with Manuel Unichurtu, the minister concerned with the city’s ring road project. Sir Hamish remained skeptical, but David Heath was jubilant, because he had already learned through another source that Graham Construction was the only tender being seriously considered at that moment, although there were one or two outstanding items still to be agreed on. David Heath knew exactly what that meant.

A week later Sir Hamish, traveling first class, and David Heath, traveling economy, flew out of Heathrow bound for Mexico’s international airport. On arrival they took an hour to clear customs and another thirty minutes to find a taxi to take them to the city, and then only after the driver had bargained with them for an outrageous fare. They covered the fifteen-mile journey from the airport to their hotel in just over an hour and Sir Hamish was able to observe at first hand why the Mexicans were so desperate to build a ring road. Even with the windows down, the ten-year-old car was like an oven that had been left on high all night, but during the journey Sir Hamish never once loosened his collar or tie. The two men checked into their rooms, phoned the minister’s secretary to inform her of their arrival, and then waited.

For two days, nothing happened.

David Heath assured his chairman that such a hold-up was not an unusual course of events in Mexico, as the minister was undoubtedly in meetings most of the day, and after all wasn’t “mañana” the one Spanish word every foreigner understood?

On the afternoon of the third day, only just before Sir Hamish was threatening to return home, David Heath received a call from the minister’s man, who accepted an invitation to join them both for dinner in Sir Hamish’s suite that evening.

Sir Hamish put on evening dress for the occasion, despite David Heath’s counseling against the idea. He even had a bottle of Fina La Ina sherry sent up in case the minister’s man required some refreshment. The dinner table was set and the hosts were ready for seven-thirty. The minister’s man did not appear at seven-thirty, or seven forty-five, or eight o’clock or eight-fifteen, or eight-thirty. At eight forty-nine there was a loud rap on the door, and Sir Hamish muttered an inaudible reproach as David Heath went to open it and find his contact standing there.

“Good evening, Mr. Heath, I’m sorry to be late. Held up with the minister, you understand.”

“Yes, of course,” said David Heath. “How good of you to come, Señor Perez. May I introduce my chairman, Sir Hamish Graham?”

“How do you do, Sir Hamish? Victor Perez at your service.”

Sir Hamish was dumbfounded. He simply stood and stared at the little middle-aged Mexican who had arrived for dinner dressed in a grubby white T-shirt and Western jeans. Perez looked as if he hadn’t shaved for three days and reminded Sir Hamish of those bandits he had seen in B-movies when he was a schoolboy. He wore a heavy gold bracelet around his wrist that could have come from Cartier’s and a tiger’s tooth on a platinum chain around his neck that looked as if it had come from Woolworth’s. Perez grinned from ear to ear, pleased with the effect he was having on the chairman of Graham Construction.

“Good evening,” replied Sir Hamish stiffly, taking a step backward. “Would you care for a sherry?”

“No, thank you, Sir Hamish. I’ve grown into the habit of liking your whiskey, on the rocks with a little soda.”

“I’m sorry, I only have…”

“Don’t worry, sir, I have some in my room,” said David Heath, and rushed away to retrieve a bottle of Johnnie Walker he had hidden under the shirts in his top drawer. Despite this Scottish aid, the conversation before dinner among the three men was somewhat stilted, but David Heath had not come five thousand miles for an inferior hotel meal with Victor Perez, and Victor Perez in any other circumstances would not have crossed the road to meet Sir Hamish Graham even if he’d built it. Their conversation ranged from the recent visit to Mexico of Her Majesty the Queen—as Sir Hamish referred to her—to the proposed return trip of President Portillo to Britain. Dinner might have gone more smoothly if Mr. Perez hadn’t eaten most of the food with his hands and then proceeded to clean his fingers on the side of his jeans. The more Sir Hamish stared at him in disbelief the more the little Mexican would grin from ear to ear. After dinner David Heath thought the time had come to steer the conversation toward the real purpose of the meeting, but not before Sir Hamish had reluctantly had to call for a bottle of brandy and a box of cigars.

“We are looking for an agent to represent the Graham Construction Company in Mexico, Mr. Perez, and you have been highly recommended,” said Sir Hamish, sounding unconvinced by his own statement.