After a short nap I left Mid-Nite KTV.

"You pay me?" said Oy.

"No, my friend pay."

"You no gooood. You fuck me in ass and you no pay."

"My friend pay. He very rich," I walked out.

At home Thomas and Inksy were huddled over a laptop on the coffee table tinkering with their website. They offered me a bong hit, but to minimize my already considerable paranoia about the JV I turned them down; besides, my asthma was still bothering me and my spare inhaler was at work. Instead I took a valium and retired to a restless, nightmare-ridden sleep. I woke up at 7am and went straight to the office.

It was true. On the CardWainright.com site one press release after another touted the Joint Venture. They were replete with phrases such as "synergistic business models," "complementary core competencies," "client centric information solutions," "multi-tier enterprise level customers, " etc.

I read on: only 10% of CardWainright.com’s revenue was outside the US, but 90% of Hootens.com’s was; on the other hand, 90% of CardWainright.com’s revenue was in the US, but only 10% of Hootens.com’s was. CardWainright.com had better US content, but Hootens.com had better international content.

In one article, Kit Matthews, managing director of CardWainright.com and CEO-apparent of the JV, called it "synergistically, a total no brainer…this JV is a brilliant value multiplier for our enterprise clients." I shuddered, recalling the one time I’d met him, a brief, anxious encounter years previously at a global sales meeting in Chicago.

Tough, short, and aggressively homosexual (it was clear he’d been bullied as a kid), Matthews cornered me during the final evening’s cocktail reception. The entire delegation was in the bar on top of the John Hancock Tower, admiring the sunset out over the Great Plains. I’d been avoiding him the entire week. Just when I thought I was safely away, I found myself face to face with him.

"So you’re the Hong Kong guy," Kit said.

"That’s right…terrific sunset, no?"

"You been drinking a while? You look pretty rough."

"No, not at all. It’s the jet lag. I don’t like drinking all that much. One or two beers a night max."

"I feel the same way. Drinking gets in the way of business – the only thing alcoholics deserve is to be fired. We haven’t had a chance to talk yet."

"Yeah, Kit, I’ve been trying to catch up with you all week. God it’s been busy though – ha ha."

He frowned. "In one minute or less, tell me you’re sales strategy for Hong Kong."

This stumped me, but even though I’d been dreadfully hungover during the long, dull meetings I’d bothered to attend that week – Chicago has some delightful bars, and the drinks are much cheaper than in Hong Kong, not to mention the complimentary cocktails every night – my brain had absorbed sufficient jargon to save me.

"Kit, my good man, the key in Hong Kong is, first of all, to compete on value, not price. My intention is to leverage our premium content to get into the investment banks and the big corporations out there. Big stuff – enterprise deals."

He nodded approvingly. "It’s a pity you’re not under the US sales organization. It doesn’t make any sense to have the international sales team reporting to a journalist like Caz. I mean, we could provide you with much better support. What school did you go to?"

"Undergrad at FSU, MBA at Ebbers."

"Ebbers!" he seized my hand. "Me too! What year?"

"Ninety four."

"Really? They’d introduced the Six Sigma workshop by then. That must have knocked your socks off! What did you think of it?"

Fuck. "Fundamentally it was quite interesting, even fascinating, but I…"

"Excuse me," said a beefy marketing guy who joined us. "Kit, you said in the last meeting you wanted to take that discussion about the South Seas Company road show off-line. You got a minute?"

"Absolutely. Hey, our Hong Kong guy has an Ebbers MBA too."

The marketing guy, who had ignored me all week, looked at me with admiration "Really?" he said. "You went to Ebbers?"

I nodded, but then, thank God, more of his colleagues (at any given moment there were bound to be five or six people worshiping Kit) came up and started a big pow wow about the bloody South Seas Company road show. I said nothing, but when Kit talked he mostly addressed me, so I nodded a lot and hoped I wouldn’t be asked to say anything – thankfully the others, and especially Kit, were quite happy hearing themselves talk. As soon as I finished my beer (which didn’t take long) I excused myself and took great pains to avoid Matthews the rest of the evening.

The sound of the door opening startled me. Looking out of my cubicle I half expected to see Matthews himself bearing down, suited retinue in tow, but it was only one of the techies, surprised to see me in so early. For the time being, at least, the JV existed only in the electrons of my computer.

Almost every email was about the JV. I scrolled down and found what I was looking for, an email with "JV Organization" in the subject field. Fearing the worst, I opened it. A PowerPoint pyramid appeared; at the pinnacle was Kit Matthews – The Chief Executive Officer.

I traced down from Kit: North America, South America, Europe and finally the box for General Manager/Asia Pacific: glowering there was a certain Hootens.com guy, Peter Axewell - Tokyo Office. I followed the lines down from Axewell: Australia, Southeast Asia, and finally Hong Kong. In the box titled "Sales Manager/Hong Kong" stood, amazingly, Jake Stratton, and below me were seven boxes: four contained women’s names, and two contained men’s. Best of all, though, was the box directly below mine, the one for Assistant Sales Manager/Hong Kong, for in it was Alicia Wemming Smith – formerly my nemesis, now, apparently, my bitch.

Victory. My luck had held out yet again. I was to run Hong Kong after all, with my boss faraway in Tokyo, and with Alicia, that stunner, reporting to me. I got up and strode to the window. The sun was out, but a haze hung over Kowloon. Ferries rushed about the harbor delivering people to their cold, germ-infested offices; cars and buses snarled in the street below; but looking out on this tableau of capitalism I felt great sense of relief: with luck I’d get a raise, keep embezzling CardWainright.com revenue, perhaps embezzle some Hootens.com revenue, and even sleep with Alicia – after all, she’d never had a chance to discover what a great guy I am.

I went back to my desk and flitted through e-mails for some minutes, but I couldn’t decide what to do. Call my new staff? Time for that later. Review sales numbers? Why bother, I knew perfectly well how much I had down in the Philippines. Call this Peter Axewell guy? It would make a poor impression were I to call him immediately: a good salesman should be too busy selling to make telephone calls on short notice. And who was this Peter Axewell, anyway? It didn’t matter, of course: he was an ocean away, in Tokyo.

At last I decided. I made a call. The line rang for a long time, but was finally answered.

"Halloo."

"It’s me. Great news, man. I’ve been promoted."

Static.

"Thomas?" I asked.

"Why are you calling so bloody early. It’s not even nine."

"I’ve been promoted."

"Hurrah hurrah, I want to go back to sleep."

"Sure, but I want to place an order. Can you score some of that, ah, talcum?"

"Talcum?"

"Yeah, you know."

"Wot on earth you on about?"

I made sure nobody was in earshot, and whispered: "Coke, man…cocaine. Can you score some?"

"Piece of piss, how much?"

My mobile rang. I snatched it up, saw it was Carsolita, and turned it off.

"Eight thousand dollars," I said.

"Eight ball!" he said, more awake. "Yeah, yeah…no problem, mate."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"Why so long?"

"Tomorrow will be better, mate. Debbie’s dumped Inksy, and one of Inksy’s ex-girlfriends and her mates will be visiting Hong Kong for a few nights. The two of us are supposed to take them out. Want to join?"

"Why’d Debbie dump Inksy?"

"She wasn’t too happy with his little birthday party. Never mind, she was a bloody nuisance. I just hope the silly cow doesn’t say something stupid to get us busted. Tomorrow night should be good, though, there’ll be five girls and just the three of us."

"I’m in. But don’t you have to deal? Tomorrow’s Saturday."

"We’ll work in the afternoon, but we need a Saturday night off for a change. I’ll score that gear and see you tonight. Don’t forget the dosh."

"Don’t worry. Could you print a receipt so I can expense it?"

"Sure, mate, what shall I put?"

"Professional services rendered."

We said goodbye and hung up. With my first objective as JV sales manager completed, I searched the paper-strewn desk for some good, solid work to delve into. Since none of it looked that compelling I ended up going over to Wanchai for a sauna and massage.

When I returned 2 hours later I was angered to find another email from Janie Chandler:

I almost deleted it, but instead hit reply:

I hit send. When the send confirmation popped up I saw that the email had also gone to Peter Axewell and somebody named Fanny Ma. Janie must have copied the original to them, which was a bit annoying; I couldn’t remember ever having copied Caz on any of my correspondence.

To regain my good spirits I reopened the Organization chart. This time, however, I realized there was no box for All Asia News Base. My office phone rang.

"Jake Stratton."

"Jakey, me lad, it’s Orson."

"Hey, good job with those girls yesterday. Mine was great."

"Heh heh, glad you enjoyed. Me and Cockie had fun too. We even swapped girls after round one."

"Cool…what’s up?"

After a moment, he said: "Thing is, mate, I’m bloody worried about this bleeding joint venture. Despite the girls tiring me out and everything I still couldn’t get any sleep last night. Ye have any more news?"

"I’ll be in charge of Hong Kong."

"But what of me bloody company? These accounts are me livelihood ye know."

"I know, I know. You keep telling me that. Look, let’s go for a beer and talk. Beer Keller in thirty?"

"Done."

I was well into a pint of Heineken when Orson arrived. He stood for a moment blinking into the darkness, his legs protruding fat and pale from plaid shorts. A tight, red rugby shirt struggled to contain his paunch. A beautiful Filipina in jeans and a low cut shirt was with him. I recognized her from a girlie bar we sometimes visited. They sat down and ordered drinks – she a coke, he a Boddingtons.

"I think this JV could work out well for us," I said.

"How’s that? Eh?"

A note of sarcasm I detected gave me pause.

"Maybe we can get some Hootens revenue," I said.

Orson looked skeptical. "Ye must be bloody joking, Jakey. It’s not bloody likely they’ll transfer their accounts to All Asia. Hootens is big bloody accounting and consulting company from Europe. If you steal a pencil from those Nazis they’ll be wise to it. And then there’s that bloody Janie Chandler woman."

"I should be able to fob her off for a bit, but listen, since I’ll be in charge of Hong Kong perhaps I can work something out. I don’t think we have that much to worry about."

But my words did nothing to dissipate the gnawing discomfort the whole JV business had set to work in my guts. A discomfort little helped by Orson, sitting with his elbows propped on the table staring darkly across with bloodshot eyes. I caught a whiff of the curry he’d eaten the previous night.

"Jakey, me lad, they’ve got a great bloody building in Kowloon with accountants and secretaries running about doing god knows what. Why on earth would they bother with All Asia News Base? Who’s your boss?"

"Some guy named Peter Axewell."

"From Hootens?"

"Yeah, but he’s based in Tokyo. We should be able to keep him in the dark."

"And what of that Alicia wench?"

"She works for me now, so no worries on that front."

"Eh? Excellent. Give her a good nine inches for me, okay?"

"Twelve inches," I laughed.

The girl giggled and punched Orson playfully in the ribs.

"Maybe it’s not as bad as I feared," said Orson, slightly more relaxed. "But we’ve got to watch ourselves, Jakey. We’ll stick together, eh?"

"Of course."

"I can’t imagine they’ll be bloody chuffed with our way of doing things."

"I’m sure we can work it out."

"So where does All Asia officially stand?" Orson asked, his arm stroking the girl’s bare stomach, the sword on his forearm, all but hidden under white hair, looking especially leprous.

"I haven’t had a chance to look through all the emails."

"But is there any mention of All Asia?"

"I’m sure there must be, but if not perhaps we can make some sort of arrangement."

"Some sort of bloody arrangement? What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean? Eh? Me wives, me children, and me bloody livelihood depend on these bloody accounts."

"Orson don’t angry," said the girl, rubbing his pate. "Orson no angry."

But Orson, ignoring her, glared across the table, the varicose veins in his face thick and purple. "What kind of bloody arrangement do you mean, Stratton? I support two families with this job and also me bloody lifestyle and I don’t need some sort of bloody arrangement. I need things to stay the way they are. Don’t forget I’ve made you a lot of money."

I nodded slowly. His sudden anger made me wish I was elsewhere.

"You know I’ll always look out for you," I said. "If you can’t trust me, who can you trust?"

A group of gweilos came in. Their short hair, pale skin and backpacks marked them as American sailors on R&R. Orson’s girlfriend stared over at them; some returned lingering glances.

"Bloody yanks," grunted Orson.

"C’mon, dude," I said, happy for the distraction. "At least they don’t start fights like the fucking British garrison used to."

"Ye can’t fight wars if ye don’t fight on the piss."

The girl jabbed her tongue into his hairy ear, making him jump slightly.

"Look, Orson, I don’t want things to change either, but if they do decide to drop All Asia they may be obliged to offer you a compensation package after all your years of service, but we shouldn’t worry now, because we’ll know what their plans are months in advance." I took a sip from my beer. "I’m a corporate guy, I know how these things work. Trust me, you’ll be taken care of no matter what."

"Compensation, eh? How much? When? Eh?"

"Well…I’m not too sure about that.".

"How much?" He insisted. "Because if there’s enough dosh I could take the compensation and leave Hong Kong – provided there’s enough for me families and to support me lifestyle in Bangkok or Manila."

This evinced a squeal from the girl, who pinched his gut.

"I’m not sure how much it will be," I said.

"But ye just said ye know how these things work. How much do ye think? Eh? Eh? Guess for me."

I broke his stare to look over at some sailors pumping coins into the juke box. I regretted the compensation remark, which had sprung mainly from alcohol and a desire to be accommodating; I hadn’t the vaguest idea how much, if anything, Orson could expect under the agreement he’d signed long, long ago with Card Wainright. I probably had a copy somewhere, but I’d never read it, likely having stuffed it haphazardly into one my office cupboards.

"I’m not sure," I said, "but we’ll have a lot of warning and you know I’ll fight for you. I’ve made a lot of money with you, bud."

I raised my glass. Slowly he raised his.

"I know ye will take care of me, Jakey," he said. "We make a great team, you and me….here’s to being best mates."

We touched glasses. For the last time - ever.

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