“How do you keep your girlish figure if you eat like that?” she said, settling down at his table.

“Ah, that’s a professional matter,” he said. “And I make it a point never to discuss bizniz before I’ve had two cups of coffee.” He poured himself a cup of decaf. “This is number two.”

She picked her way through her cornflakes and fruit salad. “I always feel like I don’t get my money’s worth out of buffet breakfasts,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll make up for you.” He pounded his coffee and poured another cup. “Humanity returns,” he said, rubbing his thighs. “Marthter, the creature waketh!” he said in high Igor.

She laughed.

“You are really into, uh, substances, aren’t you?” she said.

“I am a firm believer in better living through chemistry,” he said. He pounded another coffee. “Ahhh. Coffee and modafinil are an amazing combo.”

She’d taken hers that morning when the alarm got her up. She’d been so tired that it actually made her feel nauseated to climb out of bed, but the modafinil was getting her going. She knew a little about the drug, and figured that if the TSA approved it for use by commercial pilots, it couldn’t be that bad for you.

“So, my girlish figure. I work for a firm that has partners here in Petersburg who work on cutting-edge pharma products, including some stuff the FDA is dragging its heels on, despite widespread acceptance in many nations, this one included. One of these is a pill that overclocks your metabolism. I’ve been on it for a year now, and even though I am a stone calorie freak and pack away five or six thousand calories a day, I don’t gain an ounce. I actually have to remember to eat enough so that my ribs don’t start showing.”

Suzanne watched him gobble another thousand calories. “Is it healthy?”

“Compared to what? Being fat? Yes. Running ten miles a day and eating a balanced diet of organic fruit and nuts? No. But when the average American gets the majority of her calories from soda-pop, ’healthy’ is a pretty loaded term.”

It reminded her of that talk with Lester, a lifetime ago in the IHOP. Slowly, she found herself telling him about Lester’s story.

“Wait a second, you’re Suzanne Church? New Work Church? San Jose Mercury News Church?”

She blushed. “You can’t possibly have heard of me,” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “Sure. I shoulder-surfed your name off the check-in form and did a background check on you last night just so I could chat you up over breakfast.”

It was a joke, but it gave her a funny, creeped-out feeling. “You’re kidding?”

“I’m kidding. I’ve been reading you for freaking years. I followed Lester’s story in detail. Professional interest. You’re the voice of our generation, woman. I’d be a philistine if I didn’t read your column.”

“You’re not making me any less embarrassed, you know.” It took an effort of will to keep from squirming.

He laughed hard enough to attract stares. “All right, I did spend the night googling you. Better?”

“If that’s the alternative, I’ll take famous, I suppose,” she said.

“You’re here writing about the weight loss clinics, then?”

“Yes,” she said. It wasn’t a secret, but she hadn’t actually gone out of her way to mention it. After all, there might not be any kind of story after all. And somewhere in the back of her mind was the idea that she didn’t want to tip off some well-funded newsroom to send out its own investigative team and get her scoop.

“That is fantastic,” he said. “That’s just, wow, that’s the best news I’ve had all year. You taking an interest in our stuff, it’s going to really push it over the edge. You’d think that selling weight-loss to Americans would be easy, but not if it involves any kind of travel: 80 percent of those lazy insular fucks don’t even have passports. Ha. Don’t quote that. Ha.”

“Ha,” she said. “Don’t worry, I won’t. Look, how about this, we’ll meet in the lobby around nine, after dinner, for a cup of coffee and an interview?” She had gone from intrigued to flattered to creeped-out with this guy, and besides, she had her first clinic visit scheduled for ten and it was coming up on nine and who knew what a Russian rush-hour looked like?

“Oh. OK. But you’ve got to let me schedule you for a visit to some of our clinics and plants—just to see what a professional shop we run here. No gold-teeth-shiny-suit places like you’d get if you just picked the top Google AdWord. Really American-standard places, better even, Scandinavian-standard, a lot of our doctors come over from Sweden and Denmark to get out from under the socialist medicine systems there. They run a tight ship, ya shore, you betcha,” he delivered this last in a broad Swedish bork-bork-bork.

“Um,” she said. “It all depends on scheduling. Let’s sort it out tonight, OK?”

“OK,” he said. “Can’t wait.” He stood up with her and gave her a long, two-handed handshake. “It’s a real honor to meet you, Suzanne. You’re one of my real heros, you know that?”

“Um,” she said again. “Thanks, Geoff.”

He seemed to sense that he’d come on too strong. He looked like he was about to apologize.

“That’s really kind of you to say,” she said. “It’ll be good to catch up tonight.”

He brightened. It was easy enough to be kind, after all.

She had the front desk call her a taxi—she’d been repeatedly warned off of gypsy cabs and any vehicle that one procured by means of a wandering tout. She got into the back, had the doorman repeat the directions to Lester’s clinic twice to the cabbie, watched him switch on the meter and checked the tariff, then settled in to watch St Petersburg go flying by.

She switched on her phone and watched it struggle to associate with a Russian network. They were on the road for all of five minutes—long enough to note the looming bulk of the Hermitage and the ripples left by official cars slicing through the traffic with their blue blinking lights—when her phone went nutso. She looked at it—she had ten texts, half a dozen voicemails, a dozen new clipped articles, and it was ringing with a number in New York.

She bumped the New York call to voicemail. She didn’t recognize the number. Besides, if the world had come to an end while she was asleep, she wanted to know some details before she talked to anyone about it. She paged back through the texts in reverse chronological—the last five were increasingly panicked messages from Lester and Perry. Then one from Tjan. Then one from Kettlebelly. They all wanted to discuss “the news” whatever that was. One from her old editor at the Merc asking if she was available for comment about “the news.” Tjan, too. The first one was from Rat-Toothed Freddy, that snake.

“Kodacell’s creditors calling in debts. Share price below one cent. Imminent NASDAQ de-listing. Comments?”

Her stomach went cold, her breakfast congealed into a hard lump. The clipped articles had quotes from Kettlewell (“We will see to it that all our employees are paid, our creditors are reimbursed, and our shareholders are well-done-by through an orderly wind-down”), Perry (“Fuck it—I was doing this shit before Kodacell, don’t expect to stop now”) and Lester (“It was too beautiful and cool to be real, I guess.”) Where she was mentioned, it was usually in a snide context that made her out to be a disgraced pitchwoman for a failed movement.

Which she was. Basically.

Her phone rang. Kettlewell.

“Hi, Kettlewell,” she said.

“Where have you been?” he said. He sounded really edgy. It was the middle of the night in California.

“I’m in St Petersburg,” she said. “In Russia. I only found out about ten seconds ago. What happened?”

“Oh Christ. Who knows? Cascading failure. Fell short of last quarter’s estimates, which started a slide. Then a couple lawsuits filed. Then some unfavorable press. The share price kept falling, and things got worse. Your basic clusterfuck.”