We were back aboard the twin engine Otter, heading for Jimmy's hacienda in Jabali about 300 miles away. It was located directly under an active volcano, which we could see smouldering from the air as we approached. The ideal of building a great Hacienda under a volcano appealed to Jimmy.
The estate originally belonged to Antenor Patino, the Bolivian tin magnate. Forty years earlier, Jimmy had eloped with Patino's 18 year old daughter Isabel, and pursued by Patino's private detectives. Patino told Jimmy he had never expected his daughter to marry a jew, and Jimmy replied, he was equally surprised since he never expected to marry the daughter of a Bolivian Indian. After Isabel sadly died in child birth, Patino tried to get custody of their beloved daughter, leading to more bitterness. Patino had hoped to restore the 17th century estate, but died before he made much progress. Jimmy then bought it from estate and, in three years, completed the task.

When we landed we were met by Alix, his second eldest daughter. She has a real feel for Mexican culture, as well as superb taste, and supervised the furnishing and decorating of the 80 rooms in the hacienda. The architect, Robert Coutelier, was also there, as we set off to inspect the project. Jimmy, as always, was in the lead.

Laline noted:

"Seeing him leading his retinue through the ancient cloisters, standing at least half a head taller than anyone, and pausing to admire a painting or antique, this man was so emphatically the king of his castle. Later on in the tour, looking down into a courtyard where he stopped to talk to a servant, I saw all heads nodding with him, in unconscious affirmation."

We then returned to Cuixmala, I took Laline for a boat road tour of the lagoons in an electric boat. Although it had become a routine tour for visitors, Laline seem mesmerized. I had no idea what was on her mind She wrote:

"Ed and I went out on a boat to witness the spectacular sunset when all the lagoon birds came back to roost. We were ferried between the little islands, Cuixmala high up on the hill above us, a large crocodile basking in the water nearby. Soon after, we saw Jimmy, el padrone out on horseback, a figure from another age."

We had dinner that evening at the home of Alix's mother, Ginette Goldsmith. Even though Jimmy had divorced her in 1978, he told me that she he considered the only friend he could always count on. When he bought Cuixmala, he built a four bedroom house for her on the beach below his own palace. It was round, which made it aesthetically pleasing to the eye and afforded it spectacular views of the ocean.

Laline instantly bonded with Ginette. In retrospect, it was at least partly a reaction to Jimmy. Laline wrote: "Jimmy might have been the sun, the source and the center of all he surveyed, but my own sense of being surrounded was very strong; the sense of total control at Cuixmala was almost surreal.... I realized how much tension there was in the air everywhere around Jimmy. How everything seemed to be balanced on his pleasure and approval, and how I had unconsciously fallen in with that too." In contrast, she found Ginette sympathetic. "She was elegant and gracious," she wrote perceptively, " with a warmth that spoke of a tender heart." She readily accepted Ginette's invitation to go shipping with her in a local market before returning to London on Jimmy's plane.

"I watched the Bond movie Goldfinger in tribute to mine host," she wrote in her memoir. Laline would also write the screenplay for Zalmon King's "Business For Pleasure." The imaginary plot involved a peripatetic tycoon, traveling around the world in a private plane, offering to save failed businesses on condition that their female employees do his bidding.

Perhaps another tribute.