I was born in Mesa, Arizona, but I had been living for years in Columbus, far from my old home. Times were getting tough, though, and I had to take a job in Surprise with a company called Fields Consulting Group. I wasn't looking forward to going back to Arizona. There were events in my life that transpired there that I did not care to think much about. There were people that I did not care to meet again. But I had to find something to do, and Columbus had nothing else to offer me.

Moving was easy, as I packed up only what would fit in my car. I didn't need much. I rented a place in Tolleson. The owners of the property had turned their garage into two apartments, and I took the one on top. It was quiet and isolated, and suited me just fine.

I met up with Keating the night I arrived in town. He was one of the few people around that I cared to talk to, though I still didn't like him all that much. He worked for a hedge fund that had managed to weather the economic storm pretty well, or at least that's what he told me over the phone. We met up at a bar in Glendale, near where he lived.

"What did you do with that house of yours?" he asked me after we got through the usual pleasantries.

"I found a buyer, " I told him. "I did all right, in my estimation. You know, considering the market."

"You should have called me earlier, " Keating said. "I know a guy in Ohio. He could have found a better offer."

"You don't even know how much I got, " I said.

"Trust me, " Keating said. "This guy knows all the ins and outs. He would have made life easy for you."

"Well, I'm here now, and that's that, " I said.

Keating signalled the waitress for another drink. "So you're with Fields Consulting now, " he then said.

"I start in a few days, " I told him.

"They're working with the J. D. Hayworth campaign, " he told me. "The radio guy running for Senator. Did you know that?"

"I didn't ask much about their clients, " I said.

"He's getting some people all worked up around here, " Keating told me. "You know, he's the upstart, or at least that's how he's trying to portray himself."

"I don't even know the name, " I said.

Keating paused for a moment. "We used to do some business with Fields, believe it or not, " the then said. "We had a help desk set up for our clients. This was something that one of my partners thought would be a good idea. You know, to make our customers feel like they had a connection with us 24/7. Of course the help desk people couldn't do much for them. Any information they could provide was available online. But some of these old guys, you know, they don't like to do the grunt work themselves. They want a concierge to do their bidding for them. It's part of the fun of being rich, at least for them."

I finished off the beer in front of me. "I've never even been to Surprise, I don't think, " I said.

"It's like here, " Keating said. "Everywhere around here looks the same."

"So what happened to your help desk?" I asked.

"Well, the crazy thing is that once the market started going sour, our customers wanted us to cut corners, " Keating told me. "Here we are doing fine, you know, but they're still complaining. 'Trim the fat, ' they would say. They used that phrase all the time. But the thing is that they're calling us more than ever now to check up on things. So they call us more and more, but want us to axe the call center."

"It's no fun working with the public, " I said.

"But how do you avoid it?" Keating asked.

"I had a writing job in Columbus for a while, " I told him. "I was doing manuals for a software company that went out of business. What I mean is that they were a small outfit and they only had a handful of customers left. The place was limping along. But they kept coming out with new versions of their products for the client base that they did have. So I was updating the manuals for them. They were online at this point, of course. Nobody prints anything anymore. But I didn't have to deal with the clients themselves. That was the best part. But the place got bought out by another local company, and they gutted our office. It was probably for the best, anyway. If you're thinking of the bigger picture, I mean. This new outfit could do things a whole lot better than we could."

The bar was full with the after-work crowd. Some of the guys at the bar were getting louder and rowdier, laughing about stuff that only they understood. The volume of the music they were playing inside was slowly getting louder. I got myself another drink, and then another.

"They weren't bad, as far as I remember, " Keating told me. "The Fields Consulting people, I mean. Maybe it's not the same people there anymore."

"They told me turnover was low, " I said. "That was one of their selling points."

"We had this guy Perkins that we always dealt with, " he told me. "He was the one that was setting up the office. You know, they had their agent that sold us on the deal. And then they turned us over to this Perkins fellow. Now he was a bit of a character. I can remember that now."

"I'm not expecting to like the people, " I said. "I just want to be able to tolerate the place."

"The thing about Perkins is that he wanted us to clarify everything, " Keating said. "I'm not saying this right. What I mean is that you would tell him something. Say that you would say, 'We'd like to have three staffers.' Because, you know, they want to know how many people you want on your call center staff. So say that you told him that you wanted three people. He would repeat that back to you. That was the thing. He would say, 'You want three staffers.' And he'd say it accusingly, as if you were making the biggest mistake of your life. I don't think that he meant to sound that way. But it would put you off-guard, you know? So you would say, 'Do you think that's a bad idea?' And you know what he would say in return? He'd say, 'You want three staffers.' Saying it like it's not even a question. And he's only repeating what you told him in the first place. We had so many conversations that went just like that one. It was crazy working with him. But we got everything set up all right, in the end."

We lingered for a couple of hours, drinking and talking about old times. Keating and I worked together for a couple of investment firms, years ago. We talked about the people we knew in those days, and wondered what happened to them. People disappear, you know? They vanish into thin air.

I took a walk after Keating and I parted ways. Glendale is not exactly a place you walk around. The sidewalks would disappear for long stretches, leaving you to stomp around on the front lawns of people's homes. I just needed to get some air.

I suddenly remembered a conversation I'd had with Chloe shortly before I'd left. I had my things packed, and she was getting ready to move out of our place as well. But we were both sitting in the middle of the floor of our living room, doing nothing. I don't know how we ended up that way. Probably both of us were tired of stuffing our belongings into boxes, and we didn't care that we were both taking a break within sight of one another. We hadn't spoken much for days. But there we were.

"There was one time when you went to Tucson, " she said to be, breaking the aching silence.

"I've been to Tucson a few times, " I told here.

"You and Keating both went, " she said. "This was a few years ago."

It took me a moment to remember what she was talking about. "There was a conference, " I finally said.

"That's what you told me, " she said.

"There was a conference, " I told her. "A bunch of horrible seminars given by guys who were just trying to sell us on their securities. Bit players."

"But I got a call from Keating in the middle of the night, " she said. "Did he ever tell you about this?"

"I don't know anything about this, " I said.

"He called me up, just like that, " Chloe said. "You know, how many times have Keating and I had an actual conversation? Maybe once or twice. But he calls me up and tells me that you're in big trouble."

"I wasn't in any trouble, " I said. "I told you. Boring seminars and a few drinks afterwards."

"That's the thing, though, " Chloe told me. "He said that he could see that you were in big trouble but that you didn't know it. He said that you were about ready to crack and had no idea."

"Keating did this, " I said.

"I told him that he was drunk, " Chloe said. "But he swore that he wasn't."

"Keating does strange things, " I said.

"He said that things weren't going to end well for you, " Chloe said. "He said that it was his job to predict the future. He said that both of you were paid to predict the future, but that he was better at it. And he told me that you were a bad bet. That's the term he used. 'A bad bet.'"

"Maybe he likes you, " I said. "You can call him after I leave and hook up."

Chloe picked up some trifling thing out of a box and threw it in my direction. "It wasn't anything like that. I could tell. He thought he was all smart, you know? The way that he acts when he thinks he knows better than you. He wanted to tell me so that I would know that he told me first, if and when it happened."

"So, was he right?" I asked Chloe. "Have I cracked? Is that why this is happening?"

"I don't think so, " said Chloe. "Definitely not. This is good. This is the best thing that we've ever done."