Mr Wong Goes West Read Free Page A

banana design. In total we have fifteen thousand packages, twelve units each, four different fruity designs, making one hundred and eighty thousand units in total. All at quality and prices unbeatable anywhere else on the planet.’
    Cecily Crumley smiled, comforted by seeing the product. ‘It looks fine,’ she said. ‘So I guess I just need to hand this over, then.’ She started fishing in her expensive-looking, but politically correct, faux-leather briefcase for the plastic file containing the cheque.
    Wong stood up and waved at Daswani to rise to his feet. He had been told by a businessman friend that that was the right thing to do to show respect when payment was being made—and to acknowledge that the meeting had come to its climactic moment.
    ‘Sit down, sit down,’ she said. ‘No need to stand on ceremony.’ She handed Wong a white envelope, which he immediately started to tear open. He needed to make absolutely sure there was no chance of error.
    She turned to Daswani. ‘By the way, Cindy, how did you solve the ink problem?’
    Wong paused, his finger deep inside the half-ripped envelope. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Ink problem?’
    Daswani, smiling just a little too much, said: ‘I told Ms Crumley a couple of weeks ago that we had temporary trouble sourcing fluorescent yellow ink.’
    She nodded. ‘So you did a different colour first?’
    ‘Right. And we’ll get the yellow ones to you before you know it.’
    ‘So what colour ink is in this batch?’
    ‘Hmm?’ the contractor replied, as if he hadn’t quite heard the question.
    ‘What colour ink is this batch? Neon green?’
    Daswani glanced nervously at her eyes and then looked away. ‘We used a different colour for this batch. You’ll have the yellow ink versions very soon.’
    ‘But
which
colour? Pink? Blue?’
    He picked up the highlighter. ‘Er. Actually, we had trouble sourcing those colours too.’
    The buyer froze. ‘You had trouble sourcing those colours too? So what colour ink did you use?’
    Daswani bit his lower lip. ‘We used a very high quality ink obtained from a factory owned by a friend of my cousin. Highest quality, best possible flow, good value, special price for us, due to our connections. So please don’t worry about the ink, Ms Crumley. It’ll be fine. You have Mr Wong’s personal guarantee.’
    She was becoming impatient. ‘But what colour is it?’
    ‘Er, neutral,’ he said, his voice betraying nervousness.
    ‘Neutral. Meaning…?’
    When the contractor didn’t answer immediately, she reached for the plastic banana. He reached for it at the same time. Wong watched aghast, frozen to the spot.
    She got to it first, pulled open the lid and with a violent sweep of her arm, slashed a mark across the table. All three of them stared at it—a jet black scar on the pale pine surface.
    Ms Crumley spoke first. ‘Black. You put
black
ink into the highlighters.’
    ‘The very finest ink on the market today, Ms Crumley. None better.’ Daswani wrung his hands and smiled unhappily.
    ‘You can’t put black ink into highlighters.’
    ‘The ink was the finest quality, and flowed into the products’ ink chambers very smoothly indeed. And it flows out equally smoothly. A pure, flowing, er, smooth line.’
    ‘But…I mean…you can’t have highlighters with black ink.’ She looked at Wong and then at Daswani. ‘Tell him. You just can’t.’
    ‘Some small problem?’ Wong asked, now panicking inside.
    Daswani slowly interlaced his fingers, trying to send ‘keep calm’ signals to her. ‘May I remind you that when I phoned you two weeks ago and said that we were having trouble finding yellow ink for the first batch, you said we could use other colours.’
    ‘Yes, but I meant other
highlighter
colours. I meant neon green or baby pink or sky blue. Not
black
.’
    ‘Be reasonable, Ms Crumley. You didn’t specifically say that we could not use black.’
    For a moment, she couldn’t speak. She took several deep breaths