When I arrived at Hootens Monday I was neither drunk nor hungover. I’d told Ai Lin about my troubles at work before getting off the ship, and she’d insisted I not drink after the cruise: "Think of the money, Jake. Think of the money!" In addition, I wore a new suit complete with a fresh blue shirt and a red Armani tie - Ai Lin said new clothes would improve my general outlook and impress Kit Matthews.

In the JV area I was surprised to find jackets hung over chairs, laptops open atop desks, and on Simon’s desk a Styrofoam container of the slimy yellow noodles he typically ate for breakfast. In Axewell’s office I spotted his flight-attendants suitcase. Two jackets were slung over chairs – one of them Axewell’s, the other, no doubt, belonged to Matthews.

After a frantic search I found them in the Angkor Wat room, the best conference room in Hootens, and not, thank God, the room graced with my management theories. Standing outside I could hear Kit speaking. The words were muffled but the tone reminded me of my high school gym coach’s pep talks. I almost turned back, but the thought of the money at stake got me through the door.

"Thanks for coming!" said Kit Matthews. "Glad you could make it!" He stood at the front of the room. Everyone else – Alicia and Axewell were there, but Kok Heng wasn’t – sat in leather chairs around an aircraft carrier of a table. Judas ran her hand over her spiky head: the last time they’d seen me I’d had hair. Matthews was exactly as I remembered, stocky with neat gray hair and glasses made entirely of clear plastic. His suit was impeccably tailored, his shoes impeccably shined, and glinting in his pale green eyes were those most prized of traits, greed and aggression.

"Been looking forward to seeing you again, Jake," he pumped my hand. "I want to hear all about how you’ve applied Ebbers theory in Asia. You’re late! What happened?"

I winced at the Ebbers bit. "Caught in the rain - sorry."

"Grab a seat and have a coffee, I was just telling the team how excited I am to be in Hong Kong, and how excited I am about the joint venture."

I sat down next to Judas. Axewell smiled thinly at me - I gave him a nervous thumbs up, which was more for Matthews’s benefit than his. Alicia, beside Axewell, stifled a giggle. I tasted a bitterness in the back of my throat – cocaine from the cruise lodged in my congested sinuses. Perhaps it would get me high, help me cope with things.

Matthews continued his talk. No sentence of his seemed complete without some form of excite: "Product development is putting together some really exciting solutions to help enterprise customers leverage their IT architecture." "The proliferation of PDAs and mobile phones is an incredibly exciting opportunity for knowledge-based companies like ours." "I’m excited to see salespeople evolving into value-added consultants who address real business needs. The salesperson who thinks he can still just glad hand over martinis should find another job, because sales just isn’t about drinking with customers anymore, and that’s really exciting."

What’s wrong with martinis? I wondered.

After quite a bit more talk which I didn’t listen to, Matthews glanced at his watch. "We’re running out of time. Questions?"

Alicia piped up: "We find that our competitors" – she glanced at me – "are cutting prices indiscriminately to win sales. We try not to, but we cut prices also, and…"

To my delight, Matthews exploded at her: "I never, never want to hear about salespeople competing on price! Is that clear? We don’t provide some fucking commodity but the most exciting value-added solution in the market. If you people were doing your jobs, prospects wouldn’t even ask about price until after they’ve decided to buy. If our competitors devalue their brand, that’s their problem."

Bewilderment crossed everyone’s face. In every sales call I’d been in it was always price, price, price. Even supposedly-loyal customers made renewals conditional on price cuts. "Why should I pay for your service when I can get it free on the Internet?" customers asked.

"What Kit is saying," said Axewell around his pen, "is that the joint venture competes on value, not price. This should be no surprise since this has always been my policy."

Alicia, cowed and embarrassed, shook her head.

"I’m sure Jake agrees," said Matthews.

"One-hundred and ten percent, Kit. It’s the most basic rule of business: never compete on price."

"Well said," replied Matthews, punching his fist into his palm twice and pointing at me.

"Thanks, Kit."

Matthews stared at me. "Well?"

"Never compete on price, no way," I said.

He snorted, punched his palm twice, and pointed again.

I shrugged.

"And you went to Ebbers?" he said.

"Yep, I went to Ebbers."

Matthews frowned and shook his head. I realized his punching gesture was some sort of Ebbers thing. The room was very silent, waiting, it seemed, for a stream of unanswerable questions: Did you have professor so-and-so? What was the school fountain called? What was the nearest strip club? Etc. But Matthews asked none of these. Instead, he asked: "What’s our strategy at PLP?"

"PLP?" I said, very nervous.

"Pok Lee Poultry, we have a ten-thirty there. The guy who’s sick today set it up."

"Ah! Of course. First we’ll listen and determine their needs, then we’ll tailor a solution. Pretty routine, really."

"But most important?"

"We won’t compete on price."

"Yes!" Matthews wagged his finger at the staff. "We...won’t…compete…on… price!"

The meeting finished at 9:55, just 35 minutes before Pok Lee. Since Kok Heng was out sick I would have to take Matthews myself. While Axewell and Alicia took him for a tour of the building and the staff connived in the canteen, I frantically searched the loose papers and old food containers on Kok Heng’s desk for details about Pok Lee and whoever it was we were supposed to meet. Under a half-empty box of condoms I found a card for a certain Desmond Kong, Managing Director of Pok Lee Poultry. Kok Heng had scribbled some illegible notes on it, but I was too alarmed by Pok Lee’s Tuen Mun address to try and decipher them – a lack of effort that would lead to unfortunate consequences.

Tuen Mun was real Indian country; it would take an hour to get there, which meant far too much exposure to Matthews, and what kind of dog-shit company was Pok Lee anyway? I’d certainly never heard of them. I considered canceling, but that would likely mean spending a few hours with Axewell and Matthews – possibly the only thing worse than being alone with Matthews - so I had reception call for a taxi. As I hung up the phone Alicia, Axewell, and Matthews returned. Matthews punched my shoulder playfully. "Ready to roll? We have a lot to talk about. I’ll grab my briefcase."

"Yeah, let’s do it."

Matthews walked off.

When he was gone, Axewell said, "You should use this opportunity to step down."

"You should listen to Peter, it’s your only chance," Alicia said.

"What about you?" I said to her. "You haven’t done fuck all for a month."

Alicia shrugged at Axewell as if to say "I told you so," tossed her silken hair, and walked off.

"Jake, this will get us nowhere," said Axewell. "Fanny Ma…"

Axewell stopped as he saw Matthews coming, but before he came within earshot Axewell hissed, "Fanny Ma’s red folder contains some very damning evidence. If I were you I’d be very concerned, very concerned indeed. I urge you – step down!"

"Teaching Pete some Ebbers tricks?" said Matthews.

"Always," I replied.

Axewell’s jaw tightened and he turned to Matthews. "You remember our meeting when you return?"

"Sure, with that accountant woman?"

"Exactly," Axewell looked at me.

I couldn’t take his gaze so I turned to Matthews, who wore a puzzled expression. "Ready to go?"

"Sure, Jake."

In the elevator, Matthews asked, "What is this accounting meeting about? Peter mentioned something about accounting irregularities before the joint venture was formed."

"Can’t be anything too serious."

"He seems pretty upset."

"Has he told you much about it?"

"Very little, I was hoping another Ebbers guy could fill me in on things. You know how these non-MBA types are – they don’t know fuck all about accounting."

"You can say that again," I said. "Problem is, Peter doesn’t tell me all that much. And he’s quite threatened by me, although I have no idea why."

Matthews nodded. " He’s a typical Brit. And who can blame him for envying your Ebbers MBA?"

We boarded the taxi out front. The rain was lashing down, which made it even less likely we’d get to Pok Lee on time. Sitting across from me in the back, Matthews produced a box of business cards. Using the side of his briefcase as a desk he wrote carefully on each card. "Business cards are important out here," he said. "I’m not an Asian expert like you, but I know about the card thing."

"Yeah, cards are key. What are you writing?"

He handed me a card. He was using red ink (blood, a Chinese person would think) to neatly write "Hootens" after "Card Wainright." He had also crossed out "Managing Director" and replaced it with "Chief Executive Officer." "They haven’t issued new cards for the JV yet," he explained. As he wrote he talked loudly about sales targets, CRM integration, and other such nonsense. He punctuated his monologue with questions such as "You’d certainly agree, wouldn’t you?" and "Which I’m sure is apparent to you." I nodded and said things like "Definitely," "Absolutely," and "Yes, that makes sense."

"How far is it?" he asked after a while, squinting through the rain at gantries and containers down in the Kwai Chung container terminal.

"Thirty minutes or so. This rain will delay us."

"Then I’ll do some email." From his briefcase, he produced a PDA, a mobile phone, a silver box, and a thin computer cable. He used the cable to connect the phone to the PDA and unfolded the silver box to make a flat keyboard. He hooked it all up, laid the apparatus on his briefcase, and stared intently into the little screen.

"Isn’t wireless email exciting?" he said. "Imagine how awful it must have been doing business twenty, thirty years ago – no coordination, everyone just doing their own thing."

"Yeah, awful. No contact with headquarters."

"Fuck!" he punched the seat. "I can’t fucking believe this!"

"What?"

"Fucking idiots!"

The driver turned and muttered something in Chinese, but Matthews ignored him and, pistol-like, turned an accusing finger on me: "Heads will roll!"

I could only star at him, horrified. Was this it for me?

"Our CRM integration is going to be delayed another three weeks!" he spat. "Fucking idiots!" He began typing furiously. He didn’t touch type, but mashed the keys with his index fingers, as if this would make his writing more forcible. He muttered the entire time: "Fucking idiots!" "Morons!" "Can’t trust anybody!" etc.

Disconcerting as this was, it was not so bad because 1) I wasn’t the brunt of his anger, and 2) He wasn’t asking awkward questions about Orson Crane, Ebbers, and how I spent my days. Indeed, Matthews seemed quite happy with me – as happy, at least, as a corporate psycho can be with anybody - but Axewell’s accounting meeting later sounded like seriously bad news, and if Matthews could go ballistic about CRM, then what hope was there for me?

Matthews was still ranting when we arrived at Pok Lee, a 5-storey concrete block on a road occupied by grim, windowless factories. Pok Lee had done the impossible and found an even more god-forsaken location than Hootens, which, by comparison, was all but situated on the choicest land in Hong Kong. It was a horrible place: big diesel trucks roared about under leaden skies, and the buildings were all featureless hulks of concrete.

We disembarked at what looked like a lobby’s entrance dead center in the building’s front. There wasn’t a chicken in sight but they were close, for the air seemed to carry more chicken feces than oxygen. It came from the vents lining the wall; through them a cacophony of clucking and screeching emerged from the building’s foul interior.

"This is disgusting," said Matthews. "I can’t fucking believe this."

"Let’s get inside."

The glass door was locked. Pressing my face up against the dark glass – the lights were off inside – I made out an unmanned reception desk and a couch. Piled on both were dozens of boxes. It seemed somebody had fired the receptionist and converted the space to a storage room.

"At least we know they’re still in business," I said, tapping my nose.

"Now what? What kind of crap appointment is this?"

"I’m sure there’s another entrance."

We started off along the building. The rain had lightened to a drizzle, but the stench worsened as we progressed. We turned the corner and came upon a big open door for trucks, and an eighteen wheeler packed with crates of screeching chickens nearly killed us as it sped past In the dark interior, thousands of crates of live chickens stood one atop another. There must have been millions of birds; the smell was so overpowering it seemed as if Pok Lee were experimenting with some new sort of chemical warfare. There was a great deal of activity: forklifts rushed about, men in yellow uniforms tossed crates onto pallets, and big trucks trundled here and there. Everyone I could see wore a breathing mask.

I gestured to a worker; he shambled over sullenly and removed his mask.

"We’re looking for Desmond Kong."

The man shrugged and muttered something in Chinese.

"Desmond Kong, the Managing Director," I raised my voice.

The man muttered and shook his head.

"What did he say?" said Matthews.

"I have no idea."

"What do you mean you have no idea? All the years you’ve spent in Asia and you don’t know Chinese?"

"I’m too busy with work to learn it."

"Didn’t you study Chinese at Ebbers?"

"Of course, but he speaks Cantonese, I only know Mandarin."

Matthews, scowling, cracked open his briefcase and brought out his PDA. He tapped the screen with the stylus and showed it to the worker, whose face lit up with delight. He pulled the mask back over his grin and gestured for us to follow. "Lucky one of us bothered to come prepared," said Matthews sarcastically. "One would think that you could take five minutes one day to download a translation program. Right?"

I nodded glumly and followed them into the huge place. We had to tread carefully as patches of chicken shit and blood covered the concrete floor and forklifts carrying crates of terrified chickens moved about in all directions. At last we reached a door at the far end, which opened onto a bright hallway. The man gestured us inside and left.

In the hallway the stench was blessedly cut off. We walked down it and found ourselves in an enormous marble lobby with a pretty receptionist. Non-shitting, non-screeching stuffed chickens stood on pedestals along the walls, and in a corner water trickled down a stone waterfall into a carp-filled pond. It was apparent we’d gone to the wrong lobby, walked half the length of the building to the truck entrance, and then retraced the entire length of the building to the main reception.

"We’re here for Desmond Kong," I told the receptionist.

Her eyes widened. "Who are you?"

"Jake Stratton from Card Wainright Hootens. We have a meeting at ten thirty. Sorry to be so late."

"Ah, Hootens. Please take a seat."

"Is he in?" asked Matthews.

"Please sit down, I call his secretary."

When we were seated, Matthews leaned toward me, "This is looking like a complete waste of time."

"We’re not exactly off to a good start," I said, "but I’m feeling optimistic." But I wasn’t, and wished I were somewhere, anywhere else. The receptionist’s quiet but urgent discussion over the phone did little for my anxiety. I couldn’t understand the Chinese, of course, but the tone was far from encouraging.

My mobile rang – somebody at Hootens according to CallerID.

"Jake Stratton, good morning."

"Jake, it’s Peter."

"Oh, hi Peter, we’re just about to meet Desmond Kong."

"You’ll have to wait a while, because Desmond Kong and several Pok Lee directors are just leaving Hootens. Alicia signed them up for a substantial flat fee. Didn’t you liaise with Kok Heng on this?"

"Well, no, I thought the meeting was in Tuen Mun."

"It’s obvious what you thought! Do you think you’ve wasted enough of Kit’s valuable time?"

"Who is that?" asked Matthews.

"Peter."

"What’s up? Let me speak to him."

"Put Matthews on the line," said Peter.

I stood up and hurled the mobile into the pool beneath the waterfall. "That fucking Kok Heng!"

Matthews, who had also risen, stared in shock. "What’s the matter?"

"Fucking Kok Heng screwed up the meeting! I called him this morning and he told me to come out here. Fucking idiot! But the fucking meeting was at Hootens. We’ve gotta fire that fucking idiot!"

"Let me get this straight, he told you the meeting was out here?"

"Yeah - that fuck! And now look." I pointed at my phone, which several white carp were nibbling at.

Matthews laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. "When I look at you I see myself, Jake. Just last year I threw a laptop out a sixth floor window – there’s nothing quite like losing your temper, really bad to let these things build up. Let’s go back and fire that son of a bitch. I know it’s not PC to say it, but I’d rather fire people than fuck."

All hope left me.

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