The chapter opens with a conversation between the protagonist and his employer. The protagonist tells his employer that he has been fired from his job as a head chef at the company's audit department. The new manager of the department is due to arrive in a few days, and the protagonist is eager to meet him. He tells the new manager that he is already in his thirties, and that he wants to expose his "dark history" out loud. The boss tells the protagonist that the manager does not eat very much, but that the protagonist should try to be friends with him, as he is popular with men in the company. He asks the protagonist if he knows a reliable distributor of tap ice cream, and when the protagonist says that he does, the boss tells him that the company is sending false invoices for food. He accuses the protagonist of being a distributor of false invoices, and says that if the protagonist had not been so interested in the food, the company would have been exposed as a fraudster. When the protagonist tries to defend himself by saying that he was not siding with the manager, he is interrupted by the boss, who tells him to stop throwing food at him, and to walk for five minutes instead of running away.