works. I donât think we want to lose all that.â
I was writing âCONFIRMEDâ on the whiteboard when Max Visser stopped in my doorway.
âJust checking,â he said. âYouâre coming tonight, right? Itâll be a good insight into the kind of work we do. The non-boring part, anyway. And who knows what kind of blog material you could get? Oh God, the karaoke stories I could tell you from trips to Shanghai. I can just imagine Mister Park tonight putting his heart and soul into Iâve Never Been to Me or Wind Beneath My Wings. Itâs really not to be missed.â
He was keen, more than keen. He was my biggest and possibly only fan in the world. I couldnât remember him suggesting before that I might be part of dinner, but it wasnât an Asterix re-heat on a camp stove. I wasnât going to say no.
* * *
BEN WAS ALONE at Terroir when I got there. I had gone home to put in some more work on a blog, and arrived back in the city at close to seven-thirty.
âIâm just bagging the table,â he said, sitting there lazily, low in his seat with his legs stretched out. âMax and Vincent have gone to pick the Korean guys up in a cab at the Stamford Plaza.â He seemed to want to show me that he was blasé about the surroundings, about the whole occasion. He sat with his back to the windows â full of the lights of the Story Bridge â and ignored his water glass, which was frosted with condensation. I assumed Vincent was the client.
âBut thatâs only a few blocks away, the Stamford Plaza.â
âWell, itâs not as if we can make our guests walk . . .â There was sarcasm in the way he said it, though I wasnât sure if it was directed at the expectations of the guests or my ignorance of how they should be treated. âNot brilliant for our green credentials, is it? Maybe weâll get the cab company to plant a tree. Weâre so full of shit sometimes. Youâve probably noticed that already.â It wasnât a game I planned to be sucked into playing, not yet anyway. He smiled when I didnât respond.âHa. You have noticed, obviously. We should get you a drink. You are drinking, I assume? Iâm expecting the Koreans to get shit-faced on Scotch, but maybe thatâs a racist stereotype.â
He explained that this was the firmâs first Korean project, or at least the first time one of the firmâs clients had a real chance to do some serious business with Korea. The client created software for toll roads.
âI could explain how it works,â he said, âbut both of our lives are far too short for that, and Iâd be grateful if you didnât even pretend to give a shit.â
âI think I can manage that.â
âWeâd like to do something in Korea,â he said, making it sound as if he called the shots, and possibly from a jacuzzi somewhere amidships on the corporate jet. âWe can cover Japan and Max speaks passable Chinese, but we donât have a Korean speaker. Luckily, this time one of the Koreans, the junior one, speaks pretty good English.â
He had forgotten about my drink already, but I didnât need it.
I mentioned that Max had suggested karaoke was likely later, and he said, âMax is always hoping someoneâll suggest fucking karaoke.â Then, in a Japanese accent, he corrected himself. âKaraoke. Half my genes gave the world that artform.â
âOh, be proud. Itâs a great leveller, bringing down statesmen and businesspeople across Asia and beyond. I hope youâre up for it tonight.â
âYou know me. I couldnât carry a tune unless it was strapped to my back.â He was still lounging in the seat, like someone watching TV.
âAnd yet somehow you managed to have your own band. What possessed you to tell Max Visser about Tokyo Speed Ponies?â
âHe asked about our past.â Ben shrugged.