‘What’s wrong?’ asked Monika. She peered across at the screen.
‘You have a problem,’ noted Bocca.
‘Yeah, thanks for pointing that out.’
‘Guy,’ warned Yves.
‘I hope it is not the destructive variant,’ said Bocca.
Guy could feel himself slipping into panic. This was supposed to have been sorted. This was supposed to be over. ‘Shit,’ he said, stabbing the power switch with his finger. ‘Shit.’
‘Did you see in the news?’ Monika asked Yves. ‘The man has gone on television. He is some kind of stalker for this actress.’
‘Calm down, Guy,’ said Yves. ‘You have other copies of this data, yes?’
Guy tried to regain some control over himself. This should not have been happening. Not when things were going so well. ‘Yes,’ he croaked.
‘So, you can phone your office.’
‘This bloody machine. I swear it’s a conspiracy.’
‘Maybe we should get some coffee,’ suggested Yves.
Monika looked sympathetic. ‘Guy, don’t worry. The meeting is not until two tomorrow. You can get this film by then.’
Guy looked from one face to the next. They were all smiling, sympathetic. They wanted him to succeed. He felt like a cable that had been stretched too far. He wanted to shout at them, tell them how everything depended on this pitch. His business, his home, his relationship — everything. He wanted to cry. Instead he muttered an excuse and went to the toilet, where he splashed water on his face and locked himself in a cubicle. He sat there for a few minutes, trying to regain some kind of command over himself. Why didn’t he have any more coke? That would have helped. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck. It.
He punched the cubicle door, as hard as he could.
The pain was excruciating. He thought he might have broken something. Clamping his throbbing hand with his armpit, he swore repeatedly under his breath. When it had receded to the point where he could concentrate on the outside world, he pushed his way out of the cubicle and ran cold water over the injury.
When he got back to the table, Yves caught his eye and made the thumbs-up sign. Someone had powered down the computer and put it away.
‘Signor Swift,’ Bocca told him, with expansive courtliness, ‘please don’t worry. These technical things are not important. It is the quality of the ideas that interests us.’
‘We have both been most impressed by your presentation,’ added Becker. ‘You communicate very clearly.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Of course,’ added Bocca, ‘it still has to go through a formal procedure, but informally I can say that we have seen several presentations and the quality has been, ah — variable. In my opinion you do not have serious competition.’
‘You mean —’
Yves grinned.
‘We mean nothing,’ said Director Becker. ‘This was an informal conversation, and these are private opinions. You should not think a promise has been made.’
‘But I loved the keys,’ put in Bocca.
‘And the logo is super-good.’ Becker gave Guy an unambiguous look. ‘You are a cool fellow, Mr Guy Swift. Here is my card, if you have any questions before the meeting.’
‘Shall we get some coffee?’ asked Yves.
‘Yeah,’ said Guy, surreptitiously massaging his knuckles. ‘Coffee. Great.’
Half an hour later they were saying their goodbyes on the street outside the Séraphim. Bocca slapped Guy on the back and promised to lend him a document on the workings of the SIS which he was sure to find fascinating. Director Becker let him know that if there was anything he needed in the short term, she would be up for a few more hours working on some papers.
Feeling drained, he fell into the passenger seat of Yves’s car.
‘My friend,’ said Yves, running a comb through his hair in the rear-view mirror, ‘we need a drink.’
Guy looked over at him uncertainly. ‘I don’t know, Yves. I think I should try to sleep.’
Yves pantomimed incomprehension. ‘Don’t be stupid. The meeting is not until the afternoon, and the contract is already in your hand. Come on, Guy. Don’t be so serious. I know these people. They have to pretend to be cautious, but they love you. That woman wanted you to go with her, I don’t know, into a cupboard. Anywhere. She would do whatever you say.’
Guy managed a wan smile. Yves playfully punched him on the shoulder. ‘You need to relax. If you feel so tired, look in the glove box. There is something to help.’
‘Really?’ Guy opened the car’s glove compartment. Inside was a small leather-bound case, which unzipped to reveal an antique men’s grooming kit and a screwtop phial of white powder. Attached to the cap was a tiny silver spoon. He found himself reappraising Yves.
Ten minutes later the idea of going on for a drink seemed like the best possible idea, the only feasible response to such an outstanding business success. Yves, who had done some reappraising of his own, was of the opinion that an ordinary drink would not suffice for men as world-beating as they. The future rulers of the earth needed a real drink. He gunned the engine and lurched out into the traffic, accelerating past a taxi and heading in the direction of the city centre.
‘Relax,’ he told Guy again, once they were under way. ‘I know a good place.’
The good place was called the New Morning, a club with a frontage of discreet Ionic columns and a red plush entrance hall where they paid a cover charge to enter a large gloomy room with a brightly lit stage at the centre. They took seats at a sunken oval bar which put them at eye level with the crotch of a young dancer, naked but for a pair of shiny PVC boots and a garter into which was tucked a number of neatly folded banknotes. Yves ordered a bottle of vodka which they drank over ice, watching the girl perform an athletic routine, hanging upside down from a pole, sliding on her back across the floor and scissoring her legs in the air.
Yves talked in a constant stream. The business opportunities stemming from the PEBA deal could, he maintained, be enormous. ‘Guy,’ he urged, ‘think about it. The Community has so many activities, so many things that need good presentation. The whole look and feel of immigration, customs, border police — all these things are so old-fashioned at the moment. The uniforms! My God, it’s like some twentieth-century bad dream. If you could make it more — more funky, instantly it would be so much better, more acceptable to modern people. All the protest they get, all the negativity, most of it is about the feel of these things. People don’t give a shit about power, not really, not if it looks cool.’
Guy was only half listening. He felt ethereal, light-headed, drugs and alcohol and stress and lack of sleep prising him loose from his body and the place where it sat, propped up on its elbows in front of a glass. A new stripper had come on. She was jerking her body about like a whip, an elevated, almost manic smile on her face. She twirled round the pole in a kind of spastic dance, then threw off her leather jacket and bra to reveal a small but perfect pair of breasts. Her body glowed blue-white under the lights, and he thought, fuck Gabriella. Fuck that bitch. This is a woman. The real thing.
The dancer noticed the way he was looking at her and dipped low, crawling towards him on all fours. Yves laughed, urging him to give her some money He fumbled in his wallet and pulled out a banknote, which he tucked into the top of one of her boots. In response she kicked her legs and ground her hips and licked her tongue round her mouth like a cat. Guy watched the crease of skin where her thighs met her buttocks, the outline of her ribs as she put her arms over her head. At last she unclipped her knickers and he held his breath at the sight of the little vee of pale skin that framed her cunt.
‘Come on.’ Yves was tugging at him. ‘Time for more.’ Guy half fell off the stool and followed him in the direction of the toilets. A doorman barged after them into the Gents’, but Yves palmed him €500 and instead of throwing them out he stood guard while they wedged themselves into a cubicle and did hits of Yves’s coke.