Free The Architect by Brendan Connell Page B

curing the blind in India. Conveniently however, only a small amount of money given for these causes managed to find its way through the infinite maze of bank accounts and routing numbers, financial rubrics and Byzantine computations, to the place where it had been destined. The secret holdings in the banks of Switzerland and Nassau grew ever fatter, while a truly minute amount was dribbled into those needy Third World countries where it was gobbled up in an instant by blind beggars and weeping mothers, indigence opening its parched lips, displaying its decayed and unappealing mouth.
    But, as wealthy as the Society was, it did not seem to be able to meet the needs of the structure. Huge sums had been spent on costly marble and exotic woods. Machinery had been purchased and millions expended on enormous stained glass windows which were being made in Murano. The building was indeed ravenous, swallowing down fortunes, drinking molten gold and dining off beefsteaks of silver.
    Carried away by a kind of infatuation, the Society seemed to have lost its bearings, and poured money into the Meeting Place without thought or discretion and went about emptying its coffers at a dizzying speed. The gun business was bought by a Russian multinational, the homeopathic product line by an entrepreneur from California. Funds were funnelled in from right and left, vaults once full were swept clean, so not even a coin remained.
    When Nesler reported to the architect that the Society had divested its portfolios of most of its holdings, the latter merely shrugged his shoulders. Due to his ambitions, the unannounced grandeur of the structure, more money would need to be found. Construction was expensive, and it was vital that the flow of cash continue unabated.
    And that accountant, that individual with eyeglasses and yellow skin whose clothes never seemed to fit, felt himself equal to the task.
    Nesler was swept away by his own enthusiasm. He had been the most resistant to the architect, but once converted, that black belt in financial jujitsu would have spilled the blood of his entrails for the man. He had become the most avid henchman, ready to go to almost any lengths for the cause, restlessly searching for funds—willing to dive to the bottom of the sea for a few coins and traverse deserts to lay hands on a soiled banknote or two. In almost constant motion, he went from place to place, travelling over the face of the earth at great speed. He scraped together rupees in India and filled his hat full of kronor in Sweden, shaking hands with others like an automaton, rattling off little speeches and then climbing into a taxi to make his way to the next destination—whether it were some great institution where he hoped to gain millions—or the house of some destitute widow that he might pillage of its silverware.
    He would beg five-franc pieces, convince welfare mothers to crack open the piggy banks of their youngsters, and elderly couples to donate their pensions. In Third World countries he stepped through lanes that abounded in itchy dogs, squeezed the last bits of copper out of peasants’ purses, emptied the begging bowls of lepers and then, come evening, could be seen at some dinner of important people, whispering into the ears of old women and pestering prominent men as they made their way to the toilet.
    He stayed in cut-price hotels, dined at street stands, filling his belly with the meanest viands so as to have a few more pennies to bring back to Switzerland—squeezing his thin lips around fly-blown pakora and inflating his paunch with lentils and other pulses—anything that would provide his frame with energy on the cheap.
    Bill by bill, coin by coin he gathered up funds, passing the cap at Körnosophical societies around Europe, browbeating members, frightening them with threats of cosmic retribution and promising lands of jewelled fruits as recompense for compliance. Like a good salesman, he would tell a person anything, as long as he