I got another bit of Arnold in action early the next morning, when I was in the rough outhouse behind the trekkers’ teahouses, very hung over, crouched over the unhealthy damp hole in the floor. I had just completed my business in there when I looked up to see the big glass eye of a zoom lens, staring over the top of the wooden door at me.

“No, Arnold!” I cried, struggling to put my hand over the lens while I pulled up my pants.

“Hey, just getting some local color,” Arnold said, backing away. “You know, people like to see what it’s really like, the details and all, and these outhouses are really something else. Exotic.”

I growled at him. “You should have trekked in from Jiri, then. The lowland villages don’t have outhouses at all.”

His eyes got round, and he shifted an unlit cigar to the other side of his mouth. “What do you do, then?”

“Well, you just go outside and have a look around. Pick a spot. They usually have a shitting field down by the river. Real exotic.”

He laughed. “You mean, turds everywhere?”

“Well, something like that.”

“That sounds great! Maybe I’d better walk back out instead of flying.”

I stared at him, wrinkling my nose. “Serious filmmaker, eh Arnold?”

“Oh, yeah. Haven’t you heard of me? Arnold McConnell? I make adventure films for PBS. And sometimes for the ski resort circuit, video rentals, that kind of thing. Skiing, hang gliding, kayaking, parachuting, climbing, skateboarding—I’ve done them all. Didn’t you ever see The Man Who Swam Down the Zambesi? No? Ah, that’s a bit of a classic, now. One of my best.”