The Last Tycoon

Seen from afar, Don Antonio Maria? Alvarez Hinojosa seemed a vegetable. Wheelchair, his body lean almost entirely covered with a plaid of halftime, head cocked and a trickle of drool slipping intermittently by the right corner of your lips, did not offer a human aspect. At least, that of a human life with the constant running. Up close, however, noted that her body was ravaged by the years he lived an old man living wickedly. His lively and restless eyes gave him away. Showed a being who was still alive, who was engaged in and intended to continue doing the other had suffered. He opened his mouth and his breath and his words threw the nurse that his feet looked at him suspiciously. -Your name is Manolo, right? Asked the old man. 'Yes,' said the health worker to patient. He crouched beside her, better accommodating the blanket had slipped a bit on the legs of Don Antonio. - Do you like your job? He kept asking this, with perfect diction and modulated that it seemed impossible to come out of that body deteriorated and her mouth hanging and skewed to the right.

'Yes,' replied the other, with a slight hesitation that indicated the unlikelihood of his assertion. -It is too early to make statements that are happily certain, 'said the old man with an incredible clarity, given their appearance and condition. 'But I'm not complaining,' said Manolo. His patient, rather, his employer regarded him intently: 'Take care of me just two days, right? The attendant was unsure whether it was a question or a statement. The truth is that the old man carrying a little and, worse, made him uneasy. Would you be so sick as I was saying? Do not you have confused the doctors? As if reading his thoughts directly, without which nothing could velarlos, the old man said: 'I've got a few weeks of life. But you do not worry, 'he added, seeing that the other was to make a gesture-deterrent that will not be your fault, just me the time has come. -There is created. Sometimes doctors are wrong, 'said the nurse mechanically, without conviction. -Is an incontrovertible fact, my son. So I am giving this national tribute happy with the coming of the minister and all those assholes who want to decorate and drop campaign speeches at my expense.

The worst thing she sighed I have no strength to resist. The nurse began to move his wheelchair, looking for a sunny place in the gallery of the huge house. 'Leave, leave, I'm fine here,' said the nobleman. What I'm going to ask you is to grab a notepad and pen any there at that table. As the young man, surprised, obeyed the instructions you gave unusual former editor - why do I want that crock a pad and pen, if he could barely hold in their hands? -, He continued: 'You know, like everyone else, who never gives interviews, I am what you would call a shy type and misanthropic, I do not like people that do not go around explaining myself to anyone .. . Manolo knew. As the old man had said, his oddities and his unrepentant lonely misanthropy were known around the world. What no one had yet succeeded was an interview in which the billionaire count less public aspects of his life. Again the old man seemed to lance the other's mind as a stiletto, 'Well, now I'm going to ask you about an exclusive interview, where to look.

Manolo, who was sitting beside his patient, he fell on his knee pad printing received. The old man laughed, 'Heh, heh, heh. Do not say I would believe him if he does not care to know anything about my life. It would be the only person in this country to pass him that. -No. Not at all. No. Of course I'm interested in your life. Of course, the nurse said with astonishment. 'Well let there. Write, write. The first thing I say is that I have been a scoundrel, a perfect amoral. Don Antonio Maria? Alvarez Hinojosa, the next day he was to receive the Gold Medal for Merit in Work, the task of Isabel la Catolica and various other decorations and favors, in a competition against the various authorities to prevent die before receiving it, it was not a sexual pervert or anything. His amorality, he said, had referred to the business affairs, "money?, As he preferred to call them. He had begun his career as a representative of the new artists that invariably cheated. The inexperience of his constituents and his desire to succeed in show business make things easier.

Their natural tendency to not have any paper signed by completing the simplicity of the fraud. The most delicate moment what happened to a singer who began to emerge and had even been shortlisted to perform at the Festival of Benidorm, but had fallen into the qualifying rounds. - Oh, no! Carmina said that it was called the aspiring star of the stage-I do not act if they do not charge now. The operator of the theater that had hired the artist was stunned. Was five minutes before the performance and there were three: the singer, his agent and him in the dressing room Antonito, that is, Don Antonio Maria future? Alvarez Hinojosa knew well, because not in vain was the sixth time leading to some of their constituents to act in that room. Antonito took the right pocket of his jacket had the money paid for the performance that was to take place as follows: - Here you go! -And showed it to Carmina with melodramatic gesture Where did you save? What the tits? The girl was taken aback at the attitude of its representative unpredictable. It took the artist's hesitation to go to the employer: - Do not have a place to make sure the money during the performance of my star?

Is there not here a safe in which to save a few minutes? He asked, knowing full well that there was such a box. 'Yes,' said, sweaty, businessman, who wanted and what he had just come out and the girl to the stage where murmurs began to arise among the audience impatient. After that there is a safe box. -More-talk not settled the issue Antonito. Give me the key of the box. The other obeyed the order like an automaton. The future editor put the money in the chest wall mounted, locked it and gave it to the girl. - Are you happy now? There's your money pretty sure as long as your performance. And here's the key to safe, that yes you can put between the breasts without being deformed. Carmina, visibly moved, gave him a kiss before skedaddle to the stage. When he left the dressing room, he turned to Antonito and still had time to say, 'You are the sun, honey. It was necessary to keep the money, but anyway, thank you.

He left feeling the dress over her breasts, and to ensure that the key still there, safe from the evil intentions of his representative, who knew all too well. I believed her, of course. If I had known something better would have known that at one time gave him the change had the key of the box and was carrying another in anticipation of that contingency, because he does that really knew the girl, to that already all were like her, they were running way from anywhere. He, however, took the money and ran to it safely. Your path to wealth if you were insured. - What do you think? Asked Don Antonio Maria? Alvarez Hinojosa your nurse, who wrote while sweating like a madman drops a big and thick like lumps of curdled milk. Up from the pad, said with sincere admiration: - This is the shit! 'Well, keep writing, that we have only just begun. What of the artists took it lasted. And Antonito went pretty well rid of it. Only split his face a couple of boyfriends jilted artists and scams.

He lost a tooth, but not a single hard drive that had labored dishonestly. Your next step in the escalation to a relevant social position was to become an entrepreneur. But the entertainment world, where his credit had diminished somewhat since the people are cursing and telling stories of which has only circumstantial evidence but unfairly dented honors of staff. What he did was to obtain a radio license. Rather, became an industrial partner to pork butcher he got the license itself, thanks to his political influence as "old shirt? past the Franco regime. 'We're going to line he said to his partner. He was half right. Which was lined him. A partner was not as bad as the starlets who had plucked at one time. What came out in cash payments for advertising production were generally in the pockets of Antonito. For example, in his travels to France to cover live the Tour. In fact, Antonito never traveled to France to follow the day-to-day Tour. Confined to home, a TV and accoutrements of a good radio that captured several French broadcasters.

With all this panoply gave information for twenty-odd hit consecutive days. Moreover, a growing number of listeners of the station swore it was the best broadcast of the Tour de France who had never heard. The announcer-producer-con was so vividly to his interventions, managed as communication skills and made some cuts so perfect on the background sound of the French broadcasters that no one would have thought that everything was done from an attic in the street Ibiza . Given the success, noted that the broadcasts were better not to go to any site that really make them live from the scene. - Do you know of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the novels Tarzan of the Apes? Asked Don Antonio, interrupting the narrative from which your nurse promptly noted. 'Well, no,' said he. -All of Tarzan novels are located in? Africa, where he never set foot author. 'Actually I did not know. -The best thing is not that added the old man. When Burroughs became famous and his novels have been translated to many languages ​​and a reporter wanted to know if she wanted to go to? Africa and see how it really was and how it looked or not the scenes of his novels .. .

The old man paused for a moment, waiting to see the effect of his words. His party finished asking, curious: - What say? -Not. His argument was simple: "I do not want to go because if the landscape? Africa is not like the fact that I have described will stay dust?. Before his clerk managed to recover from the surprise, the editor continued his story: 'I must make haste, lest I die here leaving half my story, and laughed with a sinister sense of humor. So from that time the industrial partner of the issuer, or what Antonio had been cast aside Antonito while the latter of which represented the tonadilleras that way so singular, was never anywhere , remaining diets lirondas Coins and displacement, the cost of hotels, the price of transport and any other he could think gabela add. The best part is that success with him forever. The most listened radio series in the country during those years was one that made the United States and which is entitled "America, from coast to coast?. It lasted two and a half years and over it was lost in the Mississippi Delta mangroves, walking up the steep canyon of the Colorado, was docked in New York's Harlem, participated in a rodeo in New Mexico, interviewed participants in the Indianapolis 500, and so on and so forth.

And best of all, without leaving your cache Ibiza street, though he was living in a comfortable house with garden in the resort of La Moraleja. When I was in Spain, that is, when emerging from his shelter or den of Madrid, was engaged in other types of scams: publishers. The procedure was as simple as radio, reinforcing their belief in the complementarity of the media and that which serves one serves also for others. -When I say I do not mean scam publishing a graphic journal collection entitled "A reporter in America?. At the end of the day was nothing more than the printed version of my radio adventures. That, at least, had a base-old said, almost convinced that he acted honestly at least once in their life. - Do you mean, then, when speaking of "editorial scam? -In the journal for bankruptcy. The process had already begun to explain, was very simple. Stemmed from his reputation as a skilled and fearless reached journalist's radio success and as author of the editorial series "A reporter in America? he had earned his first million.

Based on all these events to his credit as a perfect professional media, addressed the magazines were losing money and offered to keep all its liabilities: - Will meet all our debts? -I would ask the unbeliever editor on duty. 'Of course, answered the gentleman in the world of information. Then, when the magazine in question was already owned, was heading to his creditors, 'You know who I am told. Virtually everyone knew it. -In my hands, this magazine will be a gold mine. I just need your help. So I propose to convert their claims into shares of the Company or, better yet, make a medium-term moratorium to allow me the refloating of the publication. If they do not, you lose everything you are owed. If, however, accept my proposal all stand to gain a fortune. Almost everyone used to chop, forgiveness, accept. But only one made a fortune promised: he. Taking advantage of the moratorium, not having to pay for a while the paper, printing, distribution, whatever, the magazine did not cost him a hard and yet touches the copper tile sale of copies and insertion of advertising .

Then, when the situation became untenable, addressed to creditors, who said in a rueful: - Too bad! It was not possible, despite all my efforts. Sorry. And left them stuck with unpaid twice when he had taken over the magazine. Meanwhile, he took all the money they had been able to carry off. The masterstroke of the operation, the icing on the cake, so to speak, what was your relationship with the best writers of the time. Before you continue with your story, Manolo, the nurse interrupted the old man to ask him something he had not been made clear: - Why did the world of radio, with the money that was taken out of it? My son, know that even the best mine exhausted its reefs. A good miner has to know when a streak is over and go then with his gold-digger implements elsewhere. This is what happened to me. Translated into more prosaic language, it meant that the years after his partner found the cake. It was the most stupid. It turns out that the continued and uninterrupted success in their chicanery Antonio made him more careless.

He dared to broadcast live the first sessions of the Parliament parliamentary democracy after Franco. His modus operandi was the usual stole the direct sound from another station and when the radio announcer would intervene rival down the volume and spoke it. With more grace and more intent than the other, of course. The first suspicion arose because Antonio was not accredited in the Cortes. The second, stronger, came because no one had seen him not in the Chamber, but also in the hallways or in the bar, sites frequented by journalists that his strict workplace. What is surprising is that the partner Antonio had taken so long to find his swindle. When he learned, was about to kill the scammer. This hardly deterred him: I do not know what you're complaining. Thanks to my imagination and my ability to romancing you have become rich. Not as much as I agree. But what you wanted? A conventional radio and clinics goofy little music for listeners? I have made you do the radio, so, in capital letters, one of the country and heard the most respected. That further respect to sulfur capitalist socio Antonio, emphasized his sense of shame and ridicule.

But it was precisely this sense of humiliation and disgrace that saved the scammer:-You do not want everyone to know about what has happened in your company ... -Argued. That saved Antonio, in effect, but gone forever with the station. - Where were we? Asked the old man, who had lost the thread with that digression. -In its relations with the writers' replied the nurse, reviewing his notes. - Ah, yes! One way to sink the magazines definitely needed out of the way the editor was to be awarded many years after the Medal of Merit in Work, the task of Isabel the Catholic and other distinctions was signing price gold great writers. They were delighted to sign contracts as they had not seen in your life. Their signatures, articles, helped to sell the magazine in collaborating and making more money to Antonio. But on the other hand, when the respective publication broke the writers were not paid. -I have the solution to your problem, the editor told each of them when they came to him made a basilisk. The authors, trapped by the expectation of an income bygone never have reached, we listened, eager to grasp at straws.

I have the plot for a novel, if you write a couple of months, I have to win a new prize for literature that I create. Well. Had to establish a precedence among the authors of your block, to use a horse racing terminology, since all simultaneously could not win the prize. In any case, not a writer left to accept the proposal as the only alternative was to stay composed and no income. With these rods, the prize became the most prestigious in the country and began selling novels like hotcakes. It was a simple matter of calculation, 'explained Don Antonio to the attentive historian wearing his white robe,: with the best writers had secured the reputation of the award and could pay very well, in turn, claim that prize was the best advertising and cheap as possible for my new literary collection. Thus, until today. - And you say that the arguments of the winning novels have always been of you? 'Of course, my son. What is it, that a man with boundless imagination reward my sixpenny arguments of authors timid and accommodating, with fewer neurons than a mosquito? No man, no!

They have been writing, pen, that's your thing. Imagination, ideas, arguments ... have been mine. If not, would have been worth a damn. The languid afternoon had yawned long time ago and was about to lie down in the shadows of the night. Manolo looked at his boss with undisguised admiration, as if expecting some other revelation, a slogan, whatever. But the old man was silent, adopting the same attitude and vegetative numb from the start. Carefully, as if afraid to leave him abruptly from his reverie, the nurse dared to ask you a question: - Why, if you have never told anyone about this, I now tells me? Don Antonio Maria? Alvarez Hinojosa remained silent, as if he had died suddenly. Only a slight tremor of his right hand indicating that the billionaire was still in this world. Suddenly he opened his eyes as lamps of a locomotive, grinned and asked in turn to the young man - I still do not know why I did? 'Well, no. 'Because you are so shameless and so amoral as I am. -No ... I do not understand. 'Of course I understand. You're not a nurse, but a journalist used that has sought to be near me to see what could wheedle.

Well, you see. I was never deceived anyone. Not you. What do you think? But I have explained everything. Only a scoundrel can fully understand another. That is why what I have told all my life. There was silence while the evening. Then the old man said to the young, as if handing the baton in a relay race murky: 'Now, please, take me to bed, I need rest.