Chapter 88: That Time I Built a Casino in South America (3)

TL: Skye

Once the residents had withdrawn, only the sound of the waves remained on the beach once more.

Only then did Lucio bring forward his cousin, Antonio Carvalho, who had been waiting behind the car, and lead him before Yu-jin.

"Your Excellency, this is the Antonio Carvalho I mentioned."

Yu-jin turned his head to look at him.

Hair slicked straight back and drenched in pomade, a gleaming gold Rolex, and a lavish silk suit that looked like it had been stitched together one careful thread at a time by an Italian master craftsman.

At this walking advertisement for "I am a successful businessman", Yu-jin flashed a gentle smile and extended his hand.

"A pleasure. Mr. Antonio. I'm Choi Yu-jin, President of San Marcos. Thank you for making the long trip."

"It, it's an honor! Your Excellency!"

Antonio's reaction was bizarre.

He cupped Yu-jin's offered handshake reverently in both of his own hands, and then dropped to his knees.

It was an attitude of the utmost piety, like a devotee about to kiss the ring of the Pope.

The cause, of course, was that just moments earlier he'd witnessed the miracle of several hundred residents wailing and prostrating themselves before Yu-jin.

'This man... is the real deal.'

Antonio had lived a proud, high-nosed life in Florida, seen it all and been through it all, but before Yu-jin's overwhelming popular support and authority, he had no choice but to become a meek little lamb.

Yu-jin, for his part, was inwardly thrown off guard by Antonio's excessively deferential posture.

'What the hell? They told me this guy was a mafia godfather, so why is he so terrified?'

He wondered if Lucio had shot the man some kind of warning look on the side, but either way, it couldn't hurt.

Seizing the initiative going in was always an advantage in a negotiation.

"Let's move somewhere else. There's something I want to show you."

Yu-jin and Antonio got into the car and drove up to a high vantage point overlooking the entire coastline.

Beneath the wide-open view, an endless cobalt Pacific and a golden white-sand beach spread out like something from a painting.

Yu-jin lifted his personal presidential longsword and pointed it at the shoreline.

"Well? Isn't the scenery something else?"

"...Hoo. Magnificent. The water's clearer than Miami Beach, and the beach is far wider."

Antonio flinched slightly as he answered.

"I intend to build a second Las Vegas here."

At Yu-jin's words, Antonio drank in the landscape.

Then, soon enough, the sharp-eyed gaze unique to a businessman returned, and he opened his mouth.

"So Your Excellency means to build a city of gambling in San Marcos."

"Precisely. That's exactly why I brought in Mr. Antonio, a native son of San Marcos who understands how that world works better than anyone."

Antonio answered with a slight furrow of his brow.

"To get to the point, gambling alone isn't enough to succeed anymore. With the boom in online gambling, casino revenues across the United States are dropping noticeably. Sands, that storied Las Vegas company, slipped into operating losses a long time ago."

"...Is that so?"

Yu-jin, who had assumed that simply throwing up a casino would set the money pouring in, flinched.

"But a complex tourism city that leverages its natural conditions is a different story entirely. It could become a world-class tourist destination, like Dubai or Hawaii. The casino would just be an accessory."

"You have a remarkable eye."

Even at Yu-jin's praise, Antonio didn't get carried away. He coolly ran the numbers in his head.

"In that case, the issue is investment... and to cut to the chase, there is no shortage of potential investors. There are quite a few big players sitting on piles of cash with nowhere to put it."

Antonio explained, counting on his fingers.

"The geography checks out too. Close to Miami, and the scenery's fantastic. Once the infrastructure is in place, the odds are more than good enough. But..."

Antonio let the pause hang.

"The problem is how to create a competitive edge unique to San Marcos."

"An edge, huh..."

"Tourism isn't the sort of thing where you just plant a flag and it's done."

Antonio studied Yu-jin's expression and added cautiously,

"You need plenty of attractions, and only once those draw the tourists in do the hotels start circling and testing the waters before they move in. In other words, it means twenty, maybe thirty years. Can Your Excellency afford to wait that long?"

"No. I can't wait."

"......"

Despite the blunt answer, Yu-jin was privately impressed.

'This guy really does know how to read the board.'

When he'd first drawn up the plan, the thing he'd worried about most was time.

If it took at least a year and a half to build a single hotel, how much time would it take to build an entire city?

Sure, he could expand it step by step, but the sheer physical time it would eat up was too painful to stomach.

"I want to see results within three years."

"In that case... you'll need a game-changing weapon to skip past the time."

"What kind of weapon would that be?"

"The first that comes to mind is scrapping regulations. There's also the option of cutting corporate taxes. Any other weapons beyond that, I'd need to think on a bit before they come to me."

"Fine. I'll give you full authority, so draw up the strategy."

"M, me? You mean me?"

Antonio was surprised and asked again at Yu-jin's words.

"Your Excellency, with respect, I'm not a public official of San Marcos. For someone like me to take part in running the state would be..."

"Then you can just take up a public post from here on. I'll appoint you as an advisor to San Marcos's New City Project. Director Lucio will fill you in on the details of your salary and position."

"...I'm sorry?"

When Antonio just stood there blankly at the unprecedented appointment, Lucio gave his calf a light nudge.

Only then did Antonio grasp the situation and cry out,

"I, I'll stake my life on it! Your Excellency!"

"...No need to go staking your life on anything."

Yu-jin gave a small nod as he spoke.

"Drump has picked out a plot of land here. The spot with the best view on this whole coast, in fact."

In that instant, Antonio's eyes bulged as if they might pop out of his head.

"D, Drump...? You mean the President of the United States?"

"Yes. He said, personally, that he'd build a Drump International Casino Hotel."

Antonio's pupils shook as if an earthquake had struck.

'Drump is coming in?'

Drump's name had always carried tremendous weight in real estate to begin with.

And now, serving his second term as president, it had become incomparable to anything else.

'Drump bought the land.'

Well, he hadn't bought it so much as been handed it, but if Drump was investing, the promotion was already half done.

Nobody was going to think the President of the United States had made a bad investment, after all.

'This... is a sure thing, no matter what.'

A jubilation charged with certainty rose to Antonio's face.

A president who counted the single most powerful being in the world as a friend.

Antonio understood, then, why Yu-jin had become the god of San Marcos.

"Would that be of some help?"

"Not just 'some help'. It could play a decisive role."

"Good. Then here's my proposal for you, Mr. Antonio."

Yu-jin fixed his gaze squarely on Antonio.

"Draw up the strategy and gather the investors who'll come in here. If you succeed..." Yu-jin played his card.

"I'll give you operating rights to the Tortilla Casino Hotel that's built here. The tax breaks come free on top of that."

It was an enormous offer.

It was as good as telling him he'd be sitting on a mountain of money.

Because it meant being let into a deal that couldn't fail.

But Antonio fell into thought for a moment, and then gave an unexpected answer. "Your Excellency, I hope this isn't out of line, but..."

Antonio looked up at Yu-jin with a gaze full of resolve.

He had already made all the money he needed.

He had amassed a fortune he couldn't spend in a lifetime in Florida.

But there was one thing he didn't have.

The thing he, an immigrant risen from the very bottom, had always thirsted for.

Namely, honor and power.

And the desire to be recognized by the living god before his eyes, to leave his name in the history of San Marcos, stirred him.

"More than money... I want to take part in Your Excellency's undertaking. Rather than operating rights, I'd like to receive a public office for the sake of San Marcos."

"A public office?"

Yu-jin arched an eyebrow, as if surprised.

'Wait, why would he want a thing like that?'

Because to him, Antonio's proposal sounded like nothing so much as volunteering to buy himself grief.

But.

'No reason to turn him down, either.'

If the man wanted to work, there was no reason to refuse him, was there.

Nobody knew the workings of this world better than Antonio, after all.

Putting him in a seat might even make him easier to manage.

And judging by how he was acting now, he seemed to have some genuine love for the country too.

"Fine. Is there a position you have in mind?"

"This new city... I'd like to manage it with my own hands."

Yu-jin nodded readily.

"Approved."

"...I'm sorry?"

"When the city is complete, I'll appoint you as its first Mayor."

Mayor!

Antonio's chest swelled.

He would become the administrator responsible for an entire city.

And as the closest confidant of His Excellency, who had saved the fatherland, no less.

"Y, Your Excellency...! I'll serve you with my life!"

Antonio, overcome with emotion, welled up with tears, and,

"...I'll say it again, there's no need to stake your life. Just do your best."

Yu-jin let out a sigh.

***

Starting the next day, Antonio began working with Resa, the Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, to devise a strategy for luring in investors.

"Madam Secretary, take another look at the map, please."

"We need to scatter more bait. Bait so sweet and so lethal that investors couldn't refuse it if they tried."

"What sort of things would those be?"

"First, taxes. Your Excellency mentioned a five-year corporate tax exemption followed by five years of reductions, but I'd like to propose something a bit bolder."

"Bolder how?"

"Yes. We lock in a fifty-percent corporate tax cut for five years, but on top of that, Tortilla Bank lends out a portion of the initial investment capital and we credit that amount against their taxes over ten years. That way, fewer investors will balk at the upfront costs."

"The Senior Secretary for Finance is going to foam at the mouth over something like that."

"So he foams at the mouth a little, what of it? Either way, it'll all be covered later by the money the tourists come and spread around."

"Is there another strategy?"

Antonio's eyes gleamed.

"The second thing to secure is accessibility. No matter how fine the hotel, if it's a pain to get to, it's a bust."

"So...?"

"New York, LA, Chicago. We have to open direct routes to the three biggest cities in America. Whether we code-share with American carriers or whatever it takes, we absolutely have to make direct flights happen. Rich Americans hate layovers with a passion."

Resa nodded and jotted it down.

"And one more thing. Let's launch a regular cruise line running between Florida and San Marcos."

"A cruise?"

"Yes. We have them sipping champagne all the way from Florida. And for tourists staying at the hotels, we cut the fare in half."

"That's certainly... an attractive package."

"The last thing to secure is the entertainment."

"Isn't the theme already the pinnacle of amusement?"

"It's not enough."

Antonio pointed at the marshland beside the shore.

"First, the golf course Your Excellency mentioned. A plain golf course won't do. We need to build a world-class course fit for a PGA Tour."

"I'll put in a special order to Tortilla Construction for that."

"And on the beach, let's build a surf park and a yacht marina. Several clubs, too. Even setting the casino aside, we create a cycle, golf, surfing, parties and the like, that pulls in your everyday tourists."

As Antonio's impassioned speech went on, Resa gradually found herself swept up in it too.

The blueprint for a tourist city, once nothing but a vague notion, was transforming through Antonio's mouth into a concrete, achievable business model.

"You're really something. At this rate, investors from all over the world will be lining up, won't they?"

At Resa's praise, Antonio grinned.

In his mind's eye, he could already picture himself, champagne glass in hand, dazzling a roomful of investors.

"Madam Secretary, please report to Your Excellency. Tomorrow I'll fly out and meet with the investors myself."

"Understood."

The two of them clasped hands.

*****

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