you ever let this happen to you, not ever. Do you understand?”
“Sure, Mom. I’ll make up for it. I’ll make up for what he did.”
Webs
THE SUCCESSFUL CAPITALIST is successful because he has no love in his heart, Fitzhugh thought, returning to his hut from a volleyball game. He has only the love of success. He devotes himself to work work work instead of to a woman loved with all his soul. He attempts to fill the hollow in his heart with the accumulation of wealth and what it buys, whether things or power or both; but wealth, things, and power fill it only for the moment, as water does the belly of a hungry man. The heart is empty once again, and its cravings drive him to acquire more; yet he is never gratified.
These musings had not been prompted by a revival of Fitzhugh’s undergraduate philosophies; he was thinking about himself. Since the breakup with Diana, he’d dedicated all his energies to Knight Air and to the object of getting rich, modeling himself after those prime examples of homo capitalistensis, Douglas Braithwaite and Hassan Adid. There was no love in their lives (Adid’s wife and family were little more than furniture). Love would have distracted them from the project of “growing the company,” as Douglas phrased it, as if the airline were an orchard or a crop. The only difference between Fitzhugh and them was that “growing the company” distracted him from thinking about Diana and his lost happiness. Finding his assigned job of operations manager not demanding enough—he could do it with his eyes shut—he took on additional tasks, asking for, and getting, a raise in salary and in his share of net profits. With its fleet grown to twenty aircraft, Knight Air had the assets to expand its operations beyond Sudan and Somalia. Fitzhugh journeyed to the Congo and Rwanda with Timmerman to assist him in negotiating contracts to deliver aid to those markets. That was what those hearts of misery and African darkness were to an entrepreneur of humanitarian aid—markets. Watching his own fortunes rise with the company’s, he didn’t know at what point he would say he had enough and cash out. He soon learned that for the successful capitalist, there is no such thing as enough. His two models taught the lesson.
Two weeks ago, at Adid’s behest, Douglas convened a shareholders’ meeting in a Nairobi hotel. As Fitzhugh entered the conference room, Douglas took him aside and whispered, “You’re going to hear some bad news, but don’t worry. You’ll be all right.”
A vinyl-bound agenda was passed out to the participants, who included, in addition to small fry like Fitzhugh, big fry like Wesley Dare and still bigger fry like the Kenyan businessmen whom Adid had cajoled into investing in the airline. Douglas made a presentation, painting a gloomy picture of Knight Air’s financial condition with the aid of flip charts. The company had grossed eight and a half million dollars in the past year, but higher fuel and operating costs had devoured a greater portion of its profits than management had expected. Now the Kenyan government threatened to take a still bigger bite. Douglas asked the investors to turn to the appendix page in their agendas and note the letter he’d received from the Kenyan Revenue Authority. It stated that Knight Air owed thirty-five percent, or more than three million dollars, in income taxes for the year. As it had done in previous years, the company could reduce the burden by deducting capital expenditures, namely the purchase of new aircraft, but the bill would still come to over two million.
Knight Air would have to be recapitalized, Douglas continued, gracing the audience with his charming gaze. He called on each investor to contribute sixty thousand dollars to help meet the company’s tax obligations and its operating expenses. Without the money, management would be forced to dissolve the airline and auction it to the highest bidder, with the shareholders paid off out of the proceeds. This was more than bad news, this was shocking news. Douglas then asked for a vote on the issue of the additional investment. All in favor raise their hands. Only one went up—Wesley’s.
Douglas, standing at the head of the table, looked flustered. “I’m surprised, Wes,” he said. “I thought you were leaving soon.”
“Hell, in for a dime, in for a dollar—or sixty thousand dollars,” Wesley responded with a crooked grin.
“Not me,” Adid announced, and everyone turned to him, the man with the