by Terry Morgan
CHAPTER 50
As Jim, Tom, Jonathan and Jan continued their meeting in London, somewhere in Italy Guido was taking a bath. As he wallowed in deep, white foam listening to Pucchini's Tosca he heard his phone ringing. Turning the opera volume down with a remote, he leaned over to retrieve the phone. Then he lost his soap.
"Yah." There was a pause as Guido switched on the loudspeaker function and, still searching frantically for the lost soap with one hand, listened with the other short, white arm holding the phone above the thick layer of scented bubbles.
"So why has Mr Moses phoned you, Toni? And why do you phone me when I am in the bath? It is very inconvenient. The soap gets into my phone and it echoes like the Duomo di Milano in here. I can sing opera here - Puccini, Tosca, La Boheme - because the acoustics are like La Scala, but I cannot always hear the bloody phone.
"OK, wait. I am getting out of the bath. I feel very naked when I am in the bath and speaking on the telephone. Where is my towel? And my bottle of Sassicaia Yes, now I have it. Mmm. Now, what is the problem, my flower."
Guido was sitting, wrapped in a vast white towel with his short legs crossed on a stool next to the bath and a white table with his bottle of wine. First he sipped but then he spat.
"This, Toni, is gross incompetence. We cannot upset customers like Mr Moses. How has this happened? It was quite clear. Mr Moses was to receive the boxes of water purifiers, valued at a mere 34,300 dollars as part of his much larger contract with us. It was just a small shipment. Easy. Simple.
"Why is it that we can successfully ship pharmaceuticals and baby foods worth over 365,000 dollars to him that have cost us nothing except the cost of an invoice and on which he will make at least thirty percent when he sells it to Liberia and yet a few boxes of water purifiers.........fuck! It is a mess, Toni. And we must sort it quickly. I do not want to lose our water purifiers to bastard thieves at Freetown customs. The thieves are supposed to enjoy the fruits of their thieving by reading old copies of the Corriere della Sera. That was the plan. Someone is to blame, Toni. Mr Moses does not want old newspapers."
There was a pause as he listened, his spare hand playing with bubbles.
"Yes, Toni. You must sort it. Immediately. But do not go away, Toni. I have something else to ask you. What has happened with Cherry Picking? I have heard nothing from you............They are still not answering your calls? This is very bad. We must not lose this Sierra Leone project you understand? Guido hates failing. There is a stigma attached to failure. It is as if we are foolish and incompetent. We must not fail on this one, OK? And another thing. Silvester the investor. Have we made contact?...........Good. Well done, flower. Now fuck off and sort out Signor Moses."
Guido unravelled himself from the huge towel and stepped into the bath again.