Planted

Chapter 2 A Growing Discomfort

"Oh Mr Lok what a pleasant surprise! How did you find me?" I responded walking towards a rather nerdy, plump man with a rather pale earnest face. I had been avoiding him like plague since I learnt of the lawsuit. Apparently our Indonesian suppliers of timber for our furniture, had been dumping toxic waste in the river. They also claimed to have found timber in our factories from a protected, endangered forest.

"I hope you don't mind but I got my office to hunt for your father's phone number and he said I could find you here. Us, men know how to track down a woman. I have an offer you can't resist—an out of court settlement. You may have heard of our 100% win record?" He said quickly as I continued waving at taxis zooming by. Singapore was probably the only country in the world where at peak hour, the taxi drivers decided which passengers they would like to pick up.

"I'm so sorry, Mr Lok. I've been just so busy and I was meaning to call sometime this week but..." I explained. I turned to Mr Lok and paused for effect and stared into his eyes that were hidden behind thick glasses. I reached out and grasped his hand with my right hand and his elbow with my left, saying "I am so sorry to have inconvenienced you, Mr Lok." He took a step back and his whole demeanour softened and he nodded in a sympathetic way.

Yes, so I could turn up the charm too, but I did not like it. Unlike, Logan who saw it as a personal challenge to get people to like him the way some people kept track of the number of clicks on their blog, I resorted to sex appeal as a last resort. Instead, I got my kicks from winning contracts through the process of hard work, well-presented arguments and persuasive compromises. Most of all, I enjoyed negotiating contracts that lead to win-win settlements ...not using underhanded suggestive undertones. Logan's voice quickly drowned out my inner dialogue "Sandy, you are rationalizing. You could come across as suggestive even if you sneezed, coughed or farted, my sweet honey cakes."

My phone buzzed. Logan was really in trouble. His text was in capital letters with four exclamation marks. I turned to Mr Lok, gave him my pleading puppy-eyed look, and said "Mr Lok, I promise I will get back to you by the end of the week when I've read the files. I need to go now, my friend is in trouble."

Mr Lok smiled rather bashfully and nodded in reply, then he said rather menacingly, "Okay but I trust you to get in touch. Here's my card. Call me by Friday. It's really to your advantage. Oh and call me See Yew." I took his card and thanked him profusely, by which time he decided to drive me home instead.

Strangely, throughout the car journey he never mentioned the lawsuit. Instead he told me his life story and how he was a lonely bachelor but lived with his loving parents. He owned a Yorkie puppy and a car. "My mum says I should slow down and meet more girls. You see I work such long hours I really have no time to date, unless of course I meet someone at work," he said with raised eyebrows. He had very thick, untidy, expressive eyebrows.

"Well," I ventured cautiously steering the conversation off the personal, "I have heard some nasty rumours about how your legal team operates. It just makes me wonder if you are trying to catch environmentally deviant companies or trying to find any scapegoat to frighten the industry into compliance." 

I paused for effect.

"It is not me. It is my partner. We play the same roles in every lawsuit. I am always the good guy and he is always the bad. Us, men stick together. He looks more menacing. You know muscular, tall, tanned, imposing and aggressive. Hmm....let me think of a good example. Oh, once, this company set their security guards on me when I asked to see some documents. Of course, I had a legal right to but their guards were irrational and ready to pounce on me then my partner turned up. Shocked by his height, they turned into docile kittens. I was the brains behind...." on and on he went. His eyebrows were dancing in excitement as he told me story after story in an effort to impress me.