Madam Moonbeam leans forward, places a hand on the ephemeris, and looks Diogenes Fernando in the eye. Well, she says, it could be worse. Not much worse, frankly, but you will probably live to tell the tale.
However, knowing what I know about your past misadventures, preparing this horoscope was … challenging, and liable to change at a moment’s notice. Because from what The Man tells me, you may be facing a few challenges yourself in the near future!
Nevertheless, she says, the astral signs are clear—as one door closes, another opens, and what happens after you walk through it is down to you. In short, your fate is in your own hands…
Diogenes sighs. This is not what he wanted to hear. He had hoped for something more, well, hopeful, something to dispel the gloom. Anything, in fact, to take the sting out of his present predicament.
Which is: to either stay and take the rap if or when their now-defunct CatAstrophe asset-relocation fund’s former clients are busted for corruption; or be banished by The Man to Caracas for the foreseeable future. Out of sight, out of mind, and out of reach.
So just in case, last week he began the tricky task of putting his affairs in order, as doctors are wont to advise terminally ill patients whose time is running out.
First on the list was loan-shark Boris ‘The Bite’ Fernando’s Uncle Jango, a noted Hikkaduwa-born flamenco guitarist now living above a bordello on Spain’s Costa del Sol.
Some years ago, he and Diogenes were guests of ‘Fernandos Del Mundo Unidos’ for the annual ‘¡Vivo Flamenco Venezolano!’ festival at La Cuba Libre taverna in downtown Caracas, tucked away between Crucecita and St Ramón on Avenida Fuerzas Armadas.
The trip had actually been cover for the relocation of a $250,000 bearer bond to the Banco de Servicios Financieros Agrícolas in San Cristobal, close by the Colombian border, for a certain CatAstrophe client interested in ‘local investment opportunities’.
Diogenes wants to know if Jango has kept in touch with any of the underworld friends they made. This despite The Man’s dire warning to remain strictly under the radar and have nothing whatever to do with said local miscreants. Yeh, right, dream on, thinks Diogenes…
Next up was what passes for close family, namely Uncle Testosterone and Aunts Harmonium and Euphonium, three of CatAstrophe’s former trustees who might also be in the firing line if the worst comes to the worst.
My advice if the shit hits the fan is to play dumb, Diogenes tells them, which shouldn’t be hard. As far as you were concerned, CatAstrophe was an animal rescue charity, and you’re shocked and appalled to learn otherwise. OK?
Meanwhile, The Man has been approaching fellow MP’s who are also lawyers, his story being that CatAstrophe was innocently helping trusted well-connected individuals relocate assets abroad for investment or family purposes.
So far, the reactions have been mixed—some strictly legal, others a more worldly-wise nudge and wink. For the legal eagles it’s a case of mens rea and actus reus, yes or no; for the others it’s down to no-one wanting to open this particular can of worms, so don’t worry, nothing to see here. But that could change, depending on how the political wind blows…
To be continued.