I awoke in my bed amid unwashed sheets. Outside, it was still raining; the only light came from the sausage factory, where the old men were already busy with their barrels of paste and rolls of tubing. Like an angry snake, the joint venture bolted up in my mind when my feet fell to the laundry-covered floor. I seized my watch: 6:30am - plenty of time to meet Axewell, as scheduled, by nine.

Crossing the living room, I reflected (not for the first time) that my flat mates’ decision to sell drugs full time did have some advantages beyond allowing me to score easily. Back in our Queenly Commodities days, the three of us had fought a daily arms race to be the first in the shower: our hot water heater, a small steel tank bolted above the fridge, took hours to produce enough water for a scalding five minute shower at low pressure. The morning’s second shower was worse: thirty seconds of boiling water followed by cold water directly from the pipes – tolerable in summer, miserable in winter. But their career change had secured my victory; never again did I find the bathroom occupied in the early morning; when I shaved there were no more knocks followed by "I fancy a turd;" or "Open up then, you’ve watched a bloke have a slash;" or "I’m about to dump shite all over the living room," etc.

Shaved and suited, I walked out into a steady rain. I’d forgotten my umbrella, but I couldn’t be bothered hiking back up to get it so I set out along the row of rice merchants on Connaught Road West. To the left were idling flat bed trucks, to the right were dimly lit shops where sacks towered to the high ceilings. Walking along, dashing from cover to cover, I was constantly dodging shirtless, tattooed Chinese men lugging heavy sacks into the shops, where they slammed them down before jogging out for more.

At the office the green printouts Axewell had been perusing covered my desk. I crushed them into a ball and stuffed it into the wastebasket. My email contained a number of messages from Janie Chandler and one from Kit Matthews, the joint venture’s CEO, with the header "All Asia News Base." I opened it immediately:

The Ebbers bit made me shudder; that was something I didn’t need a corporate psycho like Matthews fixated on. But then again, perhaps the MBA thing was something I could use - leverage, Matthews might say - to stick around long enough to realize my $250,000 payday from United American Bank.

Aside from all the email, Dickie and Carsolita (but not Orson) had left several voicemails. The previous day they’d arrived at All Asia to find the place locked, with Orson answering neither his mobile or home phone.

I called his mobile so I could explain things to him, but it went straight to voicemail, and his house phone rang and rang without picking up. I regretted not calling him the day before, when all I could manage was to return home, swallow two valiums, and collapse exhausted.

I had more luck calling Imelda. "Hello," she answered.

"It’s me."

"Jake! How are you, darling?"

"I’ve been better."

"Oh?" she said, after a pause.

"God, I don’t know where to start…how’s your boyfriend?"

"He’s not my boyfriend. He’s a colleague."

"Hey, hey…relax, what’s wrong? We haven’t spoken for days."

"What can I do for you?"

Something in her tone made my breath come up short. "Why didn’t you call me back Friday?" I said. "I mean, you’re getting on a plane with some fucking guy and you don’t even call me back?"

"Jake, we don’t own each other."

"What’s that supposed to mean? Why are you talking to me like this?"

"Jake, I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"You’re acting a bit fucking weird, don’t you think?"

"Sorry, I have to go. I’ll call you later." She hung up. I sat frozen for a moment before calling her again, smashing the keypad with my finger, but her phone was off. I tried again twice, voicemail both times. I slammed the phone down. "Fuck!" I shouted.

Gripping the edge of my desk, I thought back to the day she’d first told me she loved me. I’d blown off work for the week and flown down to the Philippines, my fifth or maybe sixth trip to see her. We’d spent the first few days in a chalet in Borokay, fucking each other senseless, and left on Friday to spend the weekend in Manila. We had a large room in an old colonial hotel within the ancient stone walls of Intramuros. Sitting on our balcony, sipping champagne, looking out across the rooftops of the old Spanish quarter to the bright lights of Makati in the distance, we’d decided to commit to each other and that I should one day move to the Philippines.

I’d screwed dozens of women since, naturally, but I’d been careful to keep it from her, and unless she’d hired a private eye she had nothing on me on that score. Somehow, however, it seemed impossible that she could actually be cheating on me. Who you talking to, luv? Her airport companion grated in my mind. It can’t be anything, I told myself.

Perplexed as hell, I set off to meet Axewell for the long ride out to Hootens.

To save money, Hootens had its office Tsuen Wan deep in Kowloon and far from town. Axewell was staying across the harbor in Tsim Sha Tsui, and at The Peninsula no less, which surprised me considering Hootens’s notorious frugality. After riding the Star Ferry across the swollen, rolling harbor - the wind blew so hard it took the ancient Chinese sailors five minutes to moor the rocking vessel in Tsim Sha Tsui - I shouldered my way through the umbrella-wielding crowds and into the vaulted marble lobby of Axewell’s old, famous, and dead-expensive hotel.

He was slouching over a coffee table with his flight attendants suitcase beside him. His bandaged left hand held his mobile to his ear. He was using his chewed pen to take notes in his leather organizer, which lay open before him.

"The Singapore help desk," he was saying, "is merely a historical legacy from – of course, all legacies are historical – the previous sales manager who…"

He paused to look up at me through grimy lenses.

"Our new Card Wainright sales manager just arrived one hour late," he said into the phone.

"But you said nine," I said.

"Eight!" he snapped. "Just go wait outside. You’ve wasted enough of my time already and I’ll join you when I’m ready."

Angered, I went out. Standing among the parked Mercedes and Roll Royces, watching cars deliver and collect passengers, I took my phone out and checked the day planner: no doubt about it, our meeting had been at nine. But could I have heard him wrong? Had we actually agreed on eight? No, I was sure he had said nine. But had he, really?

He kept me waiting 15 minutes. When, suitcase in tow, he finally appeared I glared at him as he approached. He opened his mouth to speak, but perhaps sensing my fury he turned instead to the doorman and requested a cab.

Driving in silence along Tsim Sha Tsui East, Axewell surprised me by apologizing for the length of his phone conversation. I was still angry and only nodded. We passed the snarl of traffic emitting from the old cross-harbor tunnel and mounted the elevated highway heading to Tsuen Wan. Tenement blocks towered on both sides, and polls loaded with sodden laundry seemed to jut from every window; through the windshield wipers I saw mist rising from the wheels of the cars ahead of us. How different from my sun-drenched days with Imelda in Borokay, I thought. I fantasized about stopping the cab, smashing Axewell in the face, and flying to Manila and thence to a sea-side life of leisure.

"Have you developed your sales strategy?" Axewell asked, disturbing my reverie.

"Of course."

"Would you detail it for me then?"

Pen ready, he sat with his organizer open on his lap.

"Yeah, we’ll go after all the major companies….big banks, brokerages, multinationals – that kind of thing."

The pen, which had descended intently when I started speaking, rose slowly to disappear in his mouth.

"The strategy is to make a ton of fucking money," I continued. "If there’s one thing I learned at school, it’s that all that matters is making a ton of fucking money. Right?"

Axewell gnawed and stared. I turned away and looked out my window; every second I caught a fleeting glimpse into some tiny apartment before the cab swept along to the next one and then instantly the one after that. It was like a movie reel in which every frame contained the same box-like room yet the insides constantly changed: there were children, old people, stacks of newspapers, and TVs; some contained tight ranks of steel bunk beds.

"Your Ebbers MBA won’t be much use if Fanny Ma’s investigation is successful," he said.

My jaw tightened at the mention of Ebbers.

"You’ll certainly remember that she gets a commission for conclusive proof of wrongdoing," he continued. "If it was up to me, we wouldn’t be in this bloody situation. Alicia Wemming-Smith, your deputy, would be sales manager and you would be her deputy."

I looked at him and said nothing. Beyond him, on the opposite side of the highway, it was odd to see no traffic at all, whereas a few minutes before cars, buses and trucks had sped past. We had also slowed considerably: the speedometer showed we were doing only 30kph; before we’d been doing over 100.

"See here that you do nothing, and I mean nothing, to run afoul of Alicia. She’s one of the best bloody managers in the JV, and if I find you’ve been lording it over her I’ll come down on you hard - very hard. And the same goes for the rest of the team, if you try lording yourself about you’ll find yourself in an even worse position than now. And if…"

Thankfully the driver interrupted: "Very bad accident! Very bad accident!" He said, pointing to the other side of the highway.

He was right, it was very bad, and the crawl we slowed to afforded an excellent view. An eighteen-wheeler had flipped onto its side, and the hundred or so pigs it carried had poured out into a pile. Some of the beasts lay struggling and writhing in the rain, some lay still, but all were covered in blood. One more unfortunate pig had ended up with its front legs over the divider on our side of the road, where a speeding vehicle had be-headed it - the neck stump sprayed blood in a 5-foot scarlet plume. After the truck were a dozen or so cars smashed together; some were in flames; in many people slumped forward in their seats, motionless. After this came cars that had stopped in time; people were climbing out and standing around, unsure of what to do.

"Disgraceful how this place has gone downhill under the Chinese," said Axewell.

"Truck go too fast in rain," said the driver, shaking his head. "Too fast, no good."

"We know that already. Please stop disturbing us, we’re having a discussion."

"Very bad, very bad. Too fast no good!"

Axewell continued as before. He assured me that my position as sales manager had nothing to do with my qualifications or work record, but was purely an arbitrary decision calculated to make the JV seem more bilateral. Also, he said, Kit Matthews seemed impressed with my Ebbers MBA. In any case, Hootens managers were heading most of Europe and Asia under the JV. "So you can imagine Alicia’s resentment at being demoted to accommodate a token nigger," he concluded.

Aside from Alicia, my team comprised two account managers, two account service reps, a technical guy, and a telemarketer. The account managers were Kok Heng and Simon: Kok Heng had transferred up from Hootens’s Singapore office to learn about the Hong Kong market; Simon was from Hong Kong - Axewell called him "a lazy git who should have been made redundant long ago." The account service reps were Sharon and Sheena, and the telemarketer was a woman called Judas. "They are a close-knit team. I’ll come down on you hard if you do anything to affect that," he said. "And they can make life miserable for you too…so watch your step."

"Why would they do that?"

"What kind of question is that?" In the Hong Kong-bound lane, the traffic sat motionless.

"The other thing I want to warn you about is staff wages," he continued. "At Hootens our policy is to keep them cheap and keep them low, and this is the policy we’ll use at the joint venture. Mark my words: keep them cheap, keep them low. Don’t be surprised if Kok Heng hits you up for increased compensation, but under no circumstances are you to entertain him. In all actuality, there may be a company-wide pay cut – times are hard – but mention this to nobody."

As I digested this, the cab shot down an exit ramp into a light industrial area. Mini-vans and trucks clogged the streets. The buildings were nothing but featureless blocks of concrete: there were no shops, no restaurants, no cafes and certainly no bars; nothing but blank walls and empty sidewalks. I felt a very long way from Central. Indeed, a very long way from civilization.

Considering Axewell’s obvious contempt of me, it struck me as odd that he chose to offer some advice: "Jake, the important thing about being a manager is listening. Not talking, but listening. Listening. Do you understand? Listening."

I could only nod. As he blabbered on I thought back to an article I’d read about Hootens early in my Card Wainright career when I considered it worth a damn to learn about competitors. Hootens was, supposedly, Europe’s biggest accounting and management consulting firm. As such, it churned out countless shit-boring reports about management theory, accounting law, and God knows what else. Companies could subscribe to Hootens.com to get access to these reports, in addition to an archive of hundreds of news publications. Hootens.com and CWInteractive.com would eventually be merged into one product.

We turned a corner, the rain picked up, and there, squat and ugly, between two big multi-level warehouses, stood the Hootens Building. Its three floors of brown marble were punctuated only by slit windows that seemed to begrudge the admission of light. Four large pillars held a portico roof above the building’s entrance; from each jutted a horizontal poll bearing the sodden Hootens flag - a twisted black cross in a white circle on a red field. The story went that when the British governor arrived for the ribbon-cutting, he had looked up, frowned, and remarked that the building looked "like a bloody mausoleum."

Axewell paid the driver while I waited beneath the portico. There were a dozen or so silently smoking gweilos there who regarded me with narrowed eyes. Axewell emerged from the cab, nodded grimly to one of them, and we entered the lobby, a vaulting space containing nothing but a big marble counter manned by two dour Chinese women. The lobby was cold as hell, as if, indeed, to preserve the corpse of some long-dead leader.

After checking our IDs, one of the women passed over two plastic visitor badges.

"Ah! Excellent!" Axewell said, looking at his badge. "Has C. Network been implemented?"

The woman shook her head.

"How long then?"

The woman held up two fingers.

"Two weeks?"

The woman frowned. "Munth," she said, again showing two fingers.

Axewell frowned and slouched over to a big wooden door, which he unlocked by swiping the C. network card across a reader. I followed him into an icy lift lobby.

"What’s C. network?" I asked.

"The cooperation network. It’s a superb management tool," he said, tearing the pen from his mouth and waving it at me. "When it’s fully implemented, senior managers like myself will have instant access to employees carrying C. Network cards, which will be mandatory for all staff. When I’m in Tokyo, for example, I can use my computer’s C. Network browser to locate, listen to, and observe any employee in any Hootens office worldwide. The card has a sensitive microphone, and all of Hootens’s global offices are being equipped with cameras."

"Wow."

"Managers can choose to monitor employees covertly, or reveal themselves through speakers spaced about the office. I’m very disappointed it won’t be implemented here for two months. There will even be cameras in the non-executive toilets. Of course males won’t have access to female toilets and vice versa. Managers will need to rely on colleagues of the opposite sex to acquire that degree of access if necessary. Just think of the efficiency gains to be had if employees know that it’s always possible to get caught skiving off!"

The lift arrived and we rode to the third floor; he led me through a maze of cubicles to a large conference room where I met my team for the first time. Three Chinese men, two tiny Chinese women, and a Alicia Wemming Smith sat together at the far end of a conference table. Alicia grimaced and looked away.

Without a word, Axewell sat exactly opposite, leaving six or seven empty seats between him and the group. I considered sitting with them to perhaps demonstrate I was part of the team, but I thought this might annoy Axewell. I ended up sitting between him and the team, with a few empty seats on either side, which instantly felt uncomfortable as I was with neither.

"Thanks for coming everybody," said Axewell. "Where is Judas?"

Alicia - recently demoted to accommodate Jake Stratton, token nigger - glanced over to the two Chinese girls, who whispered nervously to each other.

"Well?" said Axewell.

"On the way," one said nervously.

Upon learning this Axewell spent several seconds rolling his eyes and rocking in his chair. At last he threw his chewed pen to the table and began flipping through his diary. The team’s expressions ranged from indifference (the fat Chinese guy), avarice (the skinny Chinese guy), and hatred (Alicia Wemming Smith, whose green eyes glared up at the ceiling, resolutely avoiding my gaze).

They were a sorry, uninspiring bunch except for Alicia, whose jet-black hair framed an aristocratic, high cheek-boned face with full red lips. She caught me checking her out and glared back defiantly – God, you’d be a comer in bed, I thought. Unfortunately there was nothing going on with Sheena and Sharon: they were both skinny enough, but Sheena had a horse-face and buck teeth while Sharon had a square head and huge eyes that made her look constantly surprised.

"Let’s get started then," Axewell said. "Why don’t we go around the room and introduce ourselves. Let’s start with you, Jake."

"Sure Peter," I said, tearing my eyes from Alicia’s large tits. Despite the cold, she wore no jacket, and beneath the white silk of her blouse were the dark patches of her nipples.

"Well guys, I’m Jake Stratton, from the States. I think the joint venture is a great opportunity for all of us, and since you’ll be working for me…"

"Fine, that’s enough," said Axewell. "Sharon."

The small, square-headed Sharon sat sharply up and said, "My name Sharon, customer support;" and then Sheena, right next to her, said "My name Sheena, Customer support, like Sharon."

"I’m Alicia Wemming Smith, sales manager…"

"Deputy sales manager," said Axewell, interrupting.

Alicia glared at Axewell, who stared back from table-top level: he had sunk far down in his chair, and now sat much lower than the rest of us. "Kok Heng," he said.

The skinny Chinese guy rose, but just then entered a fat Chinese woman with dike-short hair wearing corduroy pants. Her black eyes swept the room before she shambled over to drop into a seat beside Axewell. "Glad you could make it, Judas," he said.

Judas leered at me and slouched insolently in her chair.

"I am Teo Kok Heng," said the skinny Chinese guy loudly, annoyed by the appearance of Judas. "I hail from the Singapore office, where I was account executive, before being promoted to account manager and accepting a transfer to Hong Kong. As account manager I’m responsible for large banks and prestigious blue chip companies, I…"

Awkwardly, he directed his entire speech at me: "I earned my accountancy degree at the National University of Singapore, and decided my career goal…"

As Axewell made no effort to interrupt him, I held Kok Heng’s gaze and nodded thoughtfully every few seconds. "And to conclude," Kok Heng said, "I wish to reiterate my determination, integrity, diligence and eagerness."

He then walked around the table, shook my hand (his grip was extremely tight) and sat down beside me. What a cunt, I thought.

"Simon," said Axewell.

Simon, whose cheeks had flushed during Kok Heng’s monologue, looked back and forth between Kok Heng, Axewell and myself before simply saying, "I Simon, account manager."

"And you’ve met Judas," Axewell said, ignoring the techie beside Simon.

I nodded at Judas, she looked away down the table.

Axewell rose and walked to the whiteboard.

"Right-O, first I want to go over our standard operating procedure both for the benefit of Jake and yourselves. Incidentally, Jake has my full support, I trust he will do well with this new responsibility."

I wondered if they knew about Fanny Ma’s investigation into All Asia News Base.

Axewell turned to the whiteboard and tried to write something, but the marker was dry and no amount of pressing could get it flowing.

"This work," said Judas, holding up a marker.

"Splendid, Judas. You’re always prepared. Thank you."

As Axewell took the marker, Judas grinned smugly at me.

Axewell began writing in small, precise print. The lines were exactly parallel to the top of the board, the letters were all the same size; this combined with his hunched back and round glasses reminded me of a lecture scene in Thomas’s video about Germany’s WWII torture university: be sure to restrain patient and dampen testicles before running current. He wrote:

He finished writing and stepped back to regard his handiwork. "Of special importance," he said, "is this, the Kit Matthews visit in four weeks time." He drew a line underneath item 2.

"I want four client meetings a day during his three-day stay. Nobody lower than CEO-level decision makers. TOP LEVEL executives only, so that when he is here we can close business at the highest levels. Understood?"

Kok Heng, who had leaned forward as Axewell wrote, shot his hand up.

"Yes, Kok Heng."

"It will be excellent to have Kit Matthews on our sales calls. As the CEO, he’ll understand exactly how our prospects think."

"When I say top-level," Axewell continued, "I mean big companies…top household names."

"Yes, yes," said Kok Heng. "You can count on me, boss."

"Any questions about the rest? I shall visit every three weeks. During my visits I shall meet with each team member. In addition, I expect updated sales forecasts at the close of business every day. I will categorically disallow…"

My mobile rang. I struggled to remove it from my pocket, saw it was Carsolita, and turned it off.

"One other thing!" Axewell snapped. "I don’t want bloody portable phones ringing in these meetings. It’s a bloody distraction and I won’t have it! I won’t have it! Turn it off the next time we meet. If your phone is ringing in internal meetings, then God knows what is happening in client meetings."

"Sorry," I muttered.

Across the table, Judas stifled a laugh.

"Okay," said Axewell. "If nobody has questions you can all go. Jake, I want you to stay here."

The team filed out. Axewell returned to his seat and flipped through his organizer.

"As I mentioned," he said, "they’re a very close-knit team and I’ll come down on you hard if you do anything to harm that."

"I’m sure I’ll get along fine with them. They look like a great group."

He shook his head, "Fanny Ma tells me she’ll have court approval to break into All Asia News Base by the close of business next week. She’s also tried calling Orson Crane, but he seems to have pegged a runner."

I shrugged.

"What about the two staff?" he asked.

"Dickie and Carsolita? We should hire them."

Axewell grunted.

"Peter, Dickie’s got some big accounts he’s working on and Carsolita’s, well, pregnant."

"Hmm, interesting, then there might be some accommodation for this Dickie. Can you get me a full forecast for him by the close of business Tuesday?"

"Uh, sure."

"Good," Axewell made a note in his diary. "And this Carsolita?"

"She’s really good, but she’s totally freaking out because she’s pregnant – she also has no work permit."

"No work permit?"

"Orson said it was unnecessary. Thing is, if she tries to leave the country she’ll probably get fine, or even arrested. She’s not as good as Dickie, but clients like her, especially men."

"She won’t be much bloody use if she’s pregnant, will she? Besides, the idea of using sex appeal to sell something is ludicrous. Clients need sophisticated product analyses to make buying decisions, not tarted-up whores masquerading as salespeople – especially if she’s pregnant."

"But…"

"I don’t want to hear it," Axewell frowned and made another note. "Another thing, at my next visit I want the staff to be completely trained on the Card Wainright Interactive Internet service. I’ll have each one give me a personal demonstration. Then I want them out selling it."

"That shouldn’t be too hard. It’s real easy to use."

"Whether it’s hard or easy it will be your head if they don’t know it. Let me show you where you’ll be seated."

Before we walked out he erased everything on the whiteboard.

"I trust you’ve written this down."

I hadn’t, he knew it.

"I have a great memory, I never write things down."

He led me through acres of cubicles to a windowless corner where the team was located. Alicia sat at a desk behind the others; the only indication that it was a manager’s position were two guest chairs before it and a potted plant. Off to one side was a large glassed-in office with "Peter Axewell" prominently displayed on the door; from it, I noted, he would have a commanding view of the whole group.

"You were instructed to be moved by the close of business yesterday," Axewell said to Alicia.

"I was busy."

"You’re never too busy to follow my direct instructions. Do you understand? I want you moved by the close of business today. You’re a deputy sales manager now, and this is Jake’s desk for the time being."

"We need to talk…without him," she said with a nod in my direction.

Axewell shrugged and followed her to his office. After closing the door behind him, Axewell, gnawing his pen, slouched down in the large leather chair and stared at Alicia. Her back was to me, but her fierce arm movements betrayed her agitation. Every once in a while he would shake his head, which made Alicia gesture all the more fiercely.

Several cubicles away a gweilo on a ladder was putting a tinted plastic cover over a closed-circuit TV camera mounted to the ceiling. There were several such camera mounts around the office, including one over my desk. I walked over and looked up at him:

"Is this part of the C. network thing?"

Startled, he dropped the cover, which fell to the floor at my feet.

"What do you want?" Vat do you vant? "Of course it is part of cooperation network." Ov courze it iz part of coopervation netverk."

"Where you from?"

"The Netherlands. It’s a Dutch system."

"How hard would it be to tamper with this thing? I’m worried that my staff may try to sabotage it."

"Impossible. I’m busy so let me get back to work."

Fuck you too. I went back to Alicia’s desk and tried using her computer. It was a slow machine, and when I tried to open Internet explorer the screen remained blank.

"Hey!" I called over to the techie. "What’s wrong with the Internet?"

He came over to squint at my screen through his thick glasses.

"See," said I. "No Internet. What’s going on?"

"Uh, no have Internet."

"Why not? This isn’t the sixties you know."

"Company security policy. You can use Internet station."

"But I want it on my desk."

"Cannot."

"Fuck that."

He shrugged and walked back to his desk. As I fumed Axewell and Alicia exited his office and came over. She looked angry, Axewell followed, a thin smile twisted his lips. "Alicia will move by the close of business today," he said to me.

"Why don’t I take that office," I pointed to his glassed-in office. "You’re only here every three weeks."

"Don’t be bloody ridiculous. I want you to sit here and I want Alicia to move to a standard work station. You’re not managing director and you have some gall to suggest you take that office. Who do you think you are?"

"I just thought it would be easier on everyone if…"

"It’s bloody presumptuous of you. Alicia’s moving, and you’re moving to her desk. I will entertain no more discussion on the issue."

Alicia stormed off. The staff stared at their screens, pretending not to listen. Kok Heng, however, watched brazenly.

"Fine," I said. "The techie tells me there’s no Internet."

"Yes, it’s far too dangerous to have Internet. It’s a major security issue and we don’t need the staff wasting time looking at web sites."

"Then how am I supposed to teach them Card Wainright Interactive?"

"That’s not my problem. As a manager you must be entrepreneurial and creative. Don’t come whining to me with these problems. I’ve spent enough valuable time helping you get started here, and I’m late for my Malaysia flight. Do you have any last questions? Remember, sales forecasts updated by the close of business daily, and don’t forget the Kit Matthews visit."

I nodded and Axewell returned to his office for his little suitcase. Then, without a glance at me or the group, he disappeared through the cubicles.

Before going home, I remained at the desk for some minutes looking at the backs of my staff. What was this bullshit about sales forecasts? I knew such things existed, of course, but I’d never actually written one. And what of this Kit Matthews visit? Perhaps it didn’t matter, though, for as I sat shivering (our area was even colder than the lobby) I consoled myself with thoughts of the United American deal. Once Corbin came back and we signed Phil up I would be off to the sunny Philippines for good. But then my conversation with Imelda came back to me. I tried calling her again, but her phone was still off.

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