couldn’t touch Bangkok Commercial for pulling the bonds out from under their feet. So they clobbered you guys.”
“Who did Amsterdam Bank send in to see you guys.”
“I don’t know. I never saw or heard anything. I got it from the chairman and he had two of the directors with him. And they wouldn’t answer anything for me.”
“Why didn’t they keep you around rather than let you loose with the information?”
“They wanted to. That’s what the whole meeting was about. They wanted me to keep running with the deal. They wanted me to work with Amsterdam Bank. But I refused. So they fired me. The year’s severance is being paid in instalments, to keep a lid on me, but you and I both know there’s really not much I can do to hurt either BSA or Amsterdam Bank other than one or two embarrassing stories that they can make go away pretty easily.”
“If you refused out of loyalty, I appreciate it.”
“Well, partially out of loyalty to you and your firm. Mostly because, sooner or later, everything I do for the rest of my career in this business will come down to my reputation for keeping my word.”
“Thanks for that much anyway.”
“Sorry, Paris.”
“Will anybody at BSA give me more details?”
“They’ll have to. Or their attorneys will have to. Try Albert Quan, the chairman. You’ve met him before. Worst he can do is refuse to talk to you.”
“I guess so. Can I stay in touch with you at this number for a while or are you out to Hong Kong?”
“No, I’ll be here. They made sure I didn’t take anything out of my office. But I wiped my office computer clean into a couple of downloads, so they’ll be missing a few of the private memos we shot back and forth to each other. And I’ve already got all of the documentation for the deal on the computer here at the house. There’s a few internal memos on the Amsterdam angle, but nothing that will really stand up under light of day. I can always go through the files and see if I can find anything that might help.”
“Thanks.”
“Least I can do.”
We stuffed a few personal comments into the conversation to bring it to a rapid close, equally eager to cease feigning momentum that was no longer there, equally eager to flee the hovering stigma of personal failure. Then we hung up sharply.
Acid crept up my esophagus. I forced it back down in a smarting swallow. I drilled my eyes around my empty office. I was at first anxious, then confused as to why I was not more furious.
It was backwards.
My rage should have been absolute, my grip on it like my grip on a lethal weapon.
Instead, the more my rage compelled me to return to the ruthless facts from Singapore, the more I choked on my shame of failure.
There was no reassuring heat from the familiar surge of adrenaline that flowed invariably from a business crisis.
Instead, I had a sense of all of my other feelings going cold and watery. My vigour and confidence cowering. My hope hiding.
It left me with an aberrant sensation of being present in the passing moments, while also of living outside myself, of being detached and looking down on myself.
I crooked my toes compulsively within my shoes, searching for the solidity of the floor, my urge to flee so intense I sensed it would take no more than an uneven breath to send me into the corridor.
Was this what it was like for Judith? This absence of everything familiar?
Was this what made her do it?
I tried to move, pushing myself forward while keeping the brakes on so that I did not lurch or stumble.
To the door, to the corridor, to the elevator, to the street. I touched as little as possible with my fingers. I kept my eyes on my toes to prevent myself tripping. I arrived outside on the deserted flats of concrete in the dark cold air without any recollection of the stages of my passage, only a series of blurred images, like paint slopped on walls, sliding down.
I leaned into the chilled air for support.
Fever flared in the cavities of my brain, as if my blood was being scalded; it roared at my temples, straining to escape my skull.
Words bubbled up my throat and then flew off my lips like flushed birds before I could speak them.
I felt lost in my skin.
I craned my neck, looking up to the surrounding office towers, trying to see through the concrete and steel to the reassurance of lives continuing to be lived in those offices, but could only feel the immense weight of the money, indifferent to my plight. I was forced to peer farther out to the distant constellations in the night sky to situate myself so I would not be flung out by the dizzying rotation of the earth I felt coming up through the concrete beneath my shoes.
Bringing my eyes back to street level, one light beckoned: at the top of the block, a franchised coffee shop that stayed open twenty-four hours to pick up trade from the late-shift cabbies and office cleaning crews omnipresent throughout the mid-town and financial district during the night.
I shivered, tugged my coat tighter at my throat, pulled in a string of burly breaths in an attempt to settle my jumpy breathing, and headed up the block in a long looping jay-walk.
I was exhausted beyond any familiar limit. Feeling as if my emotions had been beaten with sticks. I began to picture myself arriving home, going from the front door straight to the couch in the fewest possible steps and dropping fully clothed, deadly tired, into sleep.
I knew I was facing a terrible night and that it would be worse in the morning.
I knew, in my life, there was now something irreparably wrong.
I knew I had been waiting for it to happen.
The pool of light leaking from the shop out onto the dark street reminded me of shallow water. I waded into it, watchful of deep spots. I pushed through the door, entering into the brightness and the smell of coffee and doughnut grease. The place was empty. A skinny black girl in a moss-green T-shirt presided over the counter, reading a spread newspaper to the accompaniment of a reggae radio station, her hips shifting with the beat.
Without looking up, she asked, “You want coffee?”
I sat at a stool. “Yeah. Please.”
She straightened from the counter and turned to the stewing carafes behind her. “Here or to go? Regular?”
“Here,” I told her. “Regular’s fine. Thanks.”
Clicking; clinking; and she slid the mug onto the counter in front of me.
I took a sip.
To stay away from my memories of Monday morning, vaguely stirred into the sweet creamy taste, I asked her, “Is your accent from Jamaica?”
“No,”
