I waited five minutes past our appointment before I called.

“My directors were down for lunch and I was inevitably delayed,” I said over the phone, after the crackling monotone on the other end projected a more human voice. Wait for it, I thought.

“But you were supposed to be here at 2.00pm and it’s 2.10 already!” he said. His voice was pitched high but thick, carrying a certain timbre. The inflection of his words felt accusatory, and I smiled. “I know,” I said, “and I’ll be there in 5 minutes, I apologize”.

I heard no reply on the other side, and in seconds the line went dead. The repeated bleep felt like a Start button pushed full in, and the bells in my head went off. First part done, so far, and now for the flustered entrance, I thought. I ruffled my hair and winced; maybe I was playing this too much. It was just an interview, and not an interrogation. Another part of me, however, knew it would turn out to be the latter, whatever I told myself in the end.

The lift doors opened and I stepped in, pocketing my phone. A final run through my notes and within a few seconds, a bell sounded my arrival. The floor smelled like cheap, new carpeting. The domes of light depressed into the ceiling cast a soft yellow light, and I felt like I was back in my grandmother’s house in Cheras: incandescent lights everywhere, encouraging a familiar kind of lassitude.

I could barely hear my footfalls as I walked up to his office. He will be pissed off, I thought, and I’ll have to deal with that. And why shouldn’t he be pissed off?

“What are you doing?” my senior manager asked me as we headed back from lunch a little early.

“Sir?” I said, turning from my watch to look at him.

“Aren’t you going to be late?” he said.

“Yes,” I said, thumbing through my file absently.

“You’re going to antagonize him, you know,” he said, “are you sure you want him to fax our clients telling them you ended up fucking late? What if he decides not to meet you?”

“I want to antagonize him, and he’ll want to meet me,” I said.

“Don’t be cocksure, you fucker. Why do you think he’ll see you?”

“Because he’s in a position of power,” I said, and I couldn’t believe I said that, “and he’s an arrogant bastard. He will want to tell me I’m a stupid idiot, that I’m messy, careless and disorganized. And if he does, then at least my gut will tell me that he’s not lying about the whole situation”.

“Ya, but what if he doesn’t want to talk to you?”

“He will want to show the whole world he’s innocent, boss. He will talk to me, and then complain to our clients,” I said, shrugging.

I stood tapping my finger on the plastic surface patterned after dark marble, replaying my conversation with my senior manager. Jesus Christ, who was being the arrogant prick now? Cocksure? I began to sweat a little as the receptionist ushered me past her desk and into the office proper.

There were papers everywhere, in stacks, in bundles, in files. The ladies busying over those sheets of white paper ignored my entrance. Client X’s office was large, and he sat in front of a row of wall shelves filled with books: law, taxation, numbers, Acts, a litany of officious sounding titles. His large desk was a plot of reclaimed land crowded with papers, piles, stacks and file folders.

The mess gave me pause and I really began to sweat, like an animal in panic. I must’ve read him wrong. The disarray on his table, in his room, made my stomach churn and I wondered if I had read him right. There were no signs of control here, no tidy desk, no cheap table lamp in gold-chrome, no stern authoritarian sitting behind the desk.

He was corpulent, that’s the best word to describe it. His head sat athwart his shoulders like a round ball of meat lolling from one side to the next. He was bespectacled and he had beady eyes, reinforcing in my mind an image of a statistician calculating my every move. I almost didn’t hear him speak.

“You’re late,” he said and he frowned.

“Ah, haha, yes, yes, sorry about that, I couldn’t escape that lunch meeting-”

“What about your boss? I thought I was supposed to meet him,” he said.

“Ah, no, no, he’s with the directors, and I was sent instead, just to get some information from you,” I said, and smiled. I hoped I looked vague enough; I was, after all, a peon, a foot soldier, and I couldn’t possibly know what was at stake.

“Ok, ok, so what do you need?” he said, shuffling some papers to give me room. I promptly dumped my notes in some bare territory he had cleared. I opened my file and started spreading my notes around, giving him a good look at them.

“Just some information, sir,” I said, apologetically, or rather, hoped was in an apologetic tone.

Just some information, I thought, and began. I started feeding him. I talked about his children and I talked about the weather. I laughed with him and I expressed utmost dismay when he expressed the slightest dismay. I agreed with him, lots of nodding, lots of smiling. Intersperse your questions with agreements, I thought. And I talked alot, for about an hour and a half, I just talked.

Everytime he got close to what I was doing, I could see him frown. I could see his eyes glaze over, and I could see him thinking.

I felt panic return again: no, no, no dammit, keep talking to him, keep him off balance. You don’t want him to think my friend, you want him not to think!

“That’s the photo isn’t it?” I said, thrusting a printed piece of A4 paper under his chin.

“It looks like it,” he said, smiling.

“What about this other photo?” I said.

“I don’t know the difference lah, I’m not a technical man,” he said, laughing. And when he laughed, his body heaved in time with gasps and exhalations like an oversized squeeze-pump. I smiled but I screamed at his answer, I screamed because I felt twarted and my head began to throb.

“But did they change anything?” I asked after a lame comment about the shape of the clouds beyond his office window.

“Change what?” he said, amiably.

“Like change the tunings, the calibrations,” I said.

“No, no, it was done very fast, they changed nothing”.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing, not for all three of them, nothing,” he said, and I almost jumped for joy. Kiss my ass, motherfucker, I’ve got you, I thought. That was all I needed to hear. I dispensed with denouement and went for the exit. “Thanks, I appreciate what you’ve told me so far,” I said.

“Well, so, can it be resolved?” he asked.

“I don’t know sir,” I said, laughing nervously, shaking with excitement, “I have to tell my bosses and they’ll look into it”. That’s it, friend, I don’t know anything, I’m a plebe, a foot-soldier.

“Well, tell your boss to hurry it up lah, what’s the situation now?”

“I don’t know, sir… sir, between you and me, off the record?” I said, and leaned closer. He watched me carefully. I had the feeling he knew I got what I came for. His expression went blank as I leaned yet closer: “Off the record? I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m sure I’ll do everything to get this resolved”.

***

It was raining as I stepped out of the building foyer, but I didn’t care. I was in the rain with my file held overhead. It was a few minutes later before I heard a colleague toot his horn and stop alongside. I got in, grateful to be out of the rain, but still dazed. “So how was it?” he asked, as he signalled left.

“Fucking good,” I said.