WATER WORKS: 13) SANTA FE
Sunday Funnies: Intrigue, Lunacy & H20
14.
US Airways wings me westward. As we dip into a final approach over Albuquerque, I get my first gape at the southwest. One word sums it up: brown. If you feel a need to throw a couple more words at it, they'd be: wide open. And, sailing through the airport to my rented Jeep Cherokee, an additional word comes to mind: simplicity.
The sun radiates a super-natural glow over Interstate 85, reflecting why artists gravitate to the Southwest. And then the swank Eldorado Hotel welcomes me with a warmth unknown in the Northeast.
"Take it easy to start," advises a bellhop. "We're 7,0000 feet up, so the air has a third less oxygen. Alcohol gets straight to the point."
In other words, my kind of place.
I plunk myself on a barstool at the back end of El Dorado's vast lounge and order a Beefeater martini, three olives.
A man the high-end of middle age arrives with the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on, about half her escort's age. They, like everyone else around me, are clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots. Except for a cluster of Caucasian Sikhs sporting bejeweled turbans. Am I suffering altitude hallucinations?
I guzzle liquid crystal, awaiting Stefan.
Five minutes later, the beautiful woman rises from a table and approaches me. "Are you Jay?"
I would have been whoever she desired. "Yup."
"I'm Zorya. Zorya Zagora. We're together." She points at the man sitting nearby.
I follow Zorya to Stefan, who is standing now, eyes smiling. Stefan has big apple cheeks and a thick ginger-colored handlebar moustache. Around his neck he wears a silver and turquoises bolo tie.
"Stefan Zagora," he says with a hearty ham hock of a hand. "You like Santa Fe?"
"I haven't really seen it yet, but what I have seen," I glance at Zorya, "I love."
"This is Zorya, my daughter," says Stefan.
I smile. "A dreamy name. Where does it come from?"
"Zorya's mother is Russian," replied Stefan. "In Russian mythology, Zorya is a trinity of goddesses who guard the universe."
"And Zagora?" I asked.
"I am American citizen, but I come from Bulgaria—from Stara Zagora."
"With a name like that, it must be a beautiful place."
"Ha!" Stefan scoffs. "It is very ugly. Home to Bulgaria's most notorious gulag. I prefer New Mexico." Stefan laughs from his belly. "My friend Emil tells me you are interested in treatment of water?"
"That's right."
"You ask me questions. I will answer. Or my daughter."
"Zorya works with you?"
"Aquatech is family business. Zorya learning."
"Emil didn’t tell me much about you,” I say. “Only that you knew one another at Los Alamos. Could you give me an overview of what you do?"
Stefan explains that he’d started Aquatech six years earlier after winning a contract to build a water-treatment plant in Albuquerque. It had been a successful venture, so he’d since expanded out of New Mexico, into Arizona and southern Colorado, building prefabricated units with interchangeable parts.
“The demand,” says Stefan, “outpaces supply. America truly is land of opportunity,” he adds with a twinkle in his eye.
A large silver and gold belt buckle conveys Stefan's new prosperity after years of laboring on government pay.
"What I'm hoping to learn," I say, "is the spectrum of technology that exists to clean water. Everything from sewage treatment to desalination of sea water. The different ways it can be done and costs involved."
"If you visit our office tomorrow, Zorya explains you all kinds of technology." Are you doing this study for Strategic Study Center?"
"No. I work with Morton Levi. We're looking at water for investment purposes."
Stefan folds his arms and the twinkle in his eyes turns to ice. "Aquatech is not for sale."
"No, I'm not suggesting..."
"They come here, tell me I must sell. I don't sell."
"Who?"
"Dulci Acqua."
I don’t blink, though I could have fallen out of my chair, as much from a high-altitude martinis as Stefan's response.
"Dulci who?"
"The Dulci Acqua Consortium,” Stefan spits.
"Who are they?"
"They are bandidos," he hisses.
"What do they do?"
"They steal companies like mine."
"Let's go back a few notches,” I say. “Where is Dulci Acqua Consortium?"
"Jersey."
I’m getting mixed up. And I guess that is Dulci Acqua's intent. "New Jersey?"
"No, not New Jersey. Jersey—in the Channel Islands."
Monaco, Liechtenstein, Jersey—this is becoming a geography lesson in micro-Europe.
"Who runs Dulci Acqua?" I ask.
"I tell you—bandits!" Stefan's face swells with rage.
"Do these bandits have names?"
"I don't want to know names. I don't care! I tell them, go away, but in words I do not use in front of Zorya. I know their tricks. My friend sells water treatment company to Dulci Acqua. They do not give him money. They give him equity." Stefan spits the word equity as if it were dirty. "Equity in Dulci Acqua. Only it turns out, not equity in Dulci Acqua Consortium, but equity in subsidiary that loses money. My friend loses everything—and now they sue him for liability, company debts! Bandits!"
"Dulci Acqua wants to buy your company, too?"
"Dulci Acqua wants to buy all companies. They want to have monopoly. You know what happens? They put up prices."
"It's against the law," I say. "Anti-trust."
"Ha! They use my friend's company to compete with me in Colorado. They give bids they cannot make money on—they lose money—but it pays when I have no more business."
"Did they leave their card?" I ask.
He shrugs.
"Maybe you can help me, Stefan." I’m thinking aloud.
"Help you?"
"Help me turn the tables on Dulci Acqua."
Stefan listens while I whip up a plan out of truly thin air.
Rat-fuck comes natural to me, especially after two martinis and one-third less oxygen.
By the time I’m finished yakking, Stefan's icy eyes have thawed.