SOMETHING NEW

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just back in the Jamaican cyber cafe...

Acephale, acephalos, akephalos, akephale... akefalh, -fali... you name it, we went through all the combinations. The lady helping me was laughing by now, as if we were never going to find it. But we just tried all the possibilities, until we got to AKEFALO.

“There we are!” she said, as if she was pleased for me. “How do you say that?” and she swung the PC monitor around so that I could read it.

AKEFALO LTD.
DATE OF INCORPORATION 1962

She went off to find the file. A few minutes later I saw her head appear at the back of the room. She was talking to someone else, and from time to time both of them glanced at me, then quickly looked away (I may have been imagining this; it SEEMED like that to me). Around me people were getting ready to leave. Workers were switching off their terminals and collecting their things. It was five o’clock. The security guard on the door started pacing around the public area, as if he was impatient to be gone. I realized I was the only member of the public still there.

Finally she returned, without the file.
“You’ll have to come back tomorrow,” she said.
“My flight’s tomorrow!” I said.
“Well...” she said, as if there was nothing we could do about it.

But there is something I can do about it. Tonight I’m having dinner with the former director of an offshore bank and his wife, who is an offshore lawyer. They’ll know what to do. And my flight’s not until tomorrow evening.

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