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encourage him.
    I’d tell the guy at Lockwood that I was closing a huge deal, that’s why I couldn’t call him earlier. I didn’t want to lie to the guy, but I’d hint around about a rival five-star luxury hotel chain I couldn’t name that was also putting plasma-screen TVs in all their guest rooms. If I hinted right, maybe I could make him think it was the Four Seasons or something. Maybe that would light a fire under him. Then again, maybe not.
    “Exactly,” Ricky said. “It’s their sales force . They kick our ass. The boys in Tokyo are sitting on their tatami mats in the MegaTower rubbing their hands at the prospect of buying a sales force that’s more high-test than we are. So what does that mean? It means they get rid of all but the top ten percent, maybe, and move them to Dallas. Consolidate. Real estate in Dallas is a lot cheaper than Boston. They sell this building and throw the rest of us under a bus. It’s so totally obvious, Jason. Why do you think Crawford went to Sony, man?”
    Festino was so proud of his Machiavellian genius that I didn’t want to let him know I’d already come up with the same theory. So I nodded and looked intrigued.
    I noticed a slender Japanese man passing by my office, and I gave a casual wave. “Hey, Yoshi,” I said. Yoshi Tanaka, a personality-free guy with thick aviator-frame glasses, was a funin-sha, an expatriate Japanese, transferred to the U.S. to learn the ropes. But he was more than that. Officially, his title was Manager for Business Planning, but everyone knew he was actually an informer for the Entronics management in Tokyo who stayed at his office late into the night and reported back by phone and e-mail. He was Tokyo’s eyes and ears here. He spoke just about no English, though, which couldn’t have been good for his spying.
    He scared the shit out of everyone, but I didn’t mind him. I felt bad for him. Being posted in a country where you didn’t speak the language, without family—at least, I assumed he had family back in Tokyo—couldn’t be easy. I couldn’t imagine working in Japan and not speaking Japanese. Always being a beat behind. Never getting it. He was isolated, ostracized by his colleagues, all of whom distrusted him. Not an easy gig. A hardship posting, in fact. I never joined the others in Yoshi-bashing.
    Ricky turned, gave Yoshi a smile and a wave, and as soon as Yoshi was out of range, muttered, “Goddamned spy.”
    “You think he heard you?” I said.
    “Nah. Even if he did, he wouldn’t understand.”
    “Listen, Rick, I’m late calling Lockwood.”
    “The fun never stops. They still dicking you around?”
    I nodded ruefully.
    “It’s over, man. Forget it. Stop pursuing them.”
    “A forty-million-dollar deal, and you’re telling me to forget it?”
    “The guy just wants Super Bowl tickets. Any deal that takes this long is dead in the water.”
    I sighed. Festino was an expert on deals that were dead in the water. “I gotta call him.”
    “You’re like a hamster on a wheel, man. We’re all hamsters. Any second now the guy in the white lab coat’s gonna come and euthanize us, and you’re still running around the wheel. Forget it, man.”
    I stood up to encourage him to do the same. “You playing tonight?”
    He got up. “Yeah, sure. Carol’s already pissed at me for going out with clients last night. What’s one more night in the doghouse? Who’re we playing tonight, Charles River?”
    I nodded.
    “Gonna be another ignominious defeat for the Band of Brothers. We got no pitching. Trevor sucks.”
    I smiled, remembering the tow truck driver from last night. “I got a pitcher.”
    “You? You can’t pitch for shit either.”
    “Not me. A guy who almost went pro.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    I filled him in quickly.
    Rick’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time this morning, he smiled. “We tell the Charles River boys he’s the new stockboy or whatever?”
    I nodded.
    “A ringer,” Rick