to keep up, and the ships—under contract, paid for, two and a half years into the building process, and now extravagantly unnecessary—would be delivered from the South Korean shipyards in six months.
“I say we send them straight to the ghost fleet.” D’Ambrosio glanced at his watch. “Gentlemen, Miranda, I’m afraid we’re out of time. Let’s pick this up tomorrow. Wilhelm, if you could get us an analysis…”
The meeting finally unwound, the room breaking into small groups or rushing away to get to a conference session that had already started. Leon walked out alongside Daniel. “Are you going to the economic outlook panel?” Daniel asked.
“Skipping it, I think. I’ve been up to my neck in economic outlooks for the past four months.”
“Haven’t we all.” The corridor was several degrees colder than the conference room, the wintry chill of Las Vegas air-conditioning. Two young hotel employees were clearing dirty mugs from the coffee and pastry stations. “I’m going to go call my wife,” Daniel said. “Catch up with you at dinner?”
“Looking forward to it.”
It was a pleasure to be away from other people for a moment, with no one making obvious proclamations about economic collapse or pulling him into hysterical conversations about the chartering horizon. Leon poured himself a hazelnut coffee and stepped out into the atrium.
Miranda had left the meeting ahead of him and was sitting some distance away on an industrial sofa, writing something in her legal pad. No, not writing, sketching: the pad was angled away from him, but he watched the movements of her wrist with some interest as he approached. She’d started out at the company as his administrative assistant, which all these years later seemed like a faintly unbelievable rumor. He cleared his throat, and she flipped a page over as she set the pad on the marble coffee table, so that he couldn’t see whatever she’d been working on. He’d seen her perform this motion a hundred times, at least, and as always, he made a point of not asking. Leon held strong opinions about privacy.
“You’re skipping the economic outlook session too,” she said.
“This entire conference is an economic outlook session. I decided coffee was more important.”
“I like your priorities. That’s an interesting idea, by the way, parking ships off the coast of Malaysia.”
“Do you mind if we talk about literally anything other than the economic downturn?” he asked.
“Not at all. I’m thinking about making an excuse and leaving early tomorrow.”
“What, you’re not enjoying the atmosphere of barely suppressed panic?”
“There’s something almost tedious about disaster,” Miranda said. “Don’t you find? I mean, at first it’s all dramatic, ‘Oh my god, the economy’s collapsing, there was a run on my bank so my bank ceased to exist over the weekend and got swallowed up by JPMorgan Chase,’ but then that keeps happening, it just keeps collapsing, week after week, and at a certain point…”
“I know what you mean,” Leon said. “It’s the surprise that bothers me, personally, the way everyone I talk to seems shocked by the downturn in the industry.”
“Yeah, so, true story, one of our colleagues pulled me aside today, I’m not naming names, and he said, ‘I just can’t believe what’s happening to our industry, can you?’ And I’m trying to be patient with these people, I really am, but I had to ask him, which part is surprising to you? Let’s break this down. What is it you can’t believe, exactly? That people don’t want to buy goods when the economy collapses, or that people don’t want to ship goods that nobody’s buying?”
“Predictable outcomes, and all that.” Leon remembered at that moment that his accountant had called earlier and absently checked his phone. She’d called again, ten minutes ago. “Sorry,” he said, “I think I have to call this person.”
“If you don’t see me at dinner, it means I successfully escaped.”
“I’ll be silently cheering you on from the sidelines,” he said as he rose, and wandered away from her, toward the glass atrium wall, toward the phone call that would split his life neatly into a before and an after.
“I’m going to assume you haven’t heard the news,” his accountant said, “or you would’ve called me already.”
“What news? What’s going on?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“Obviously not.” He’d never liked her. Bit of a robot, he remembered Miranda telling him when he’d asked if she could recommend a good accountant, but the best I’ve ever worked with. She sees all the angles. Although what was the point of hiring the best accountant you’ve