Exception Sequence

At breakfast the next morning, the fish was back. Head and all, regarding me with the same disappointment as the day before.

I had a piece of it halfway to my mouth when the teacups began to chatter on the table.

Then the shōji rattled.

Finally the whole room shook as a deep thudding vaulted up through the tatami and into my teeth. Candi’s chopsticks stopped. Mine didn’t. Grilled trout dropped into my miso with a small, reproachful plop.

“Earthquake?”

“Helicopter,” said Aura, already at the window.

It came in over the garden so low the lawn lay flat along its path. The pond shivered like a struck gong. The camellia thrashed. Somewhere in the main building a utility door banged, and kept on banging.

The machine hung there, beating the garden flat. For a long moment it seemed to be thinking about it.

Then it banked low over the roof and was gone, its thunder rolling away down the hill towards the riverbank at the edge of town.

Jacek set down his teacup. “Please tell me that isn’t—”

Candi was already on her feet, Fluffy scooped under one arm. “Blakey!”

Somewhere down on the hot-spring street, I imagined three old men sitting at a footbath, towels pressed to their chests, clenching every muscle in their pelvic floors as they wondered whether the world had finally gone to ruin.

I fished my grilled trout from the miso. It was the first thing I’d ever caught. By then Candi was already at the gate with Fluffy, craning down the hill. The rest of us drifted after her. The path from the town came up that way, and none of us was going to miss whatever climbed it next.

We heard him before we saw him. The whole valley did.

“—no balls! I offered him double, for fuck’s sake—”

The top of his head appeared over the rise, a Jabra earpiece blinking at his ear, and then the rest of him: a suitcase in each hand, his suit jacket draped over one arm and trailing along the ground. He came on puffing and blowing, straight across the raked gravel instead of round by the stepping stones, ploughing a trench through its careful ripples.

Candi had one foot through the gate when Aura caught her sleeve. “Let him come to you,” she murmured.

Candi bit her lip and stepped back. Just.

Under her arm, Fluffy barked with sustained outrage while Blake trudged the rest of the way up the hill.

“I tell him where to land and the wimp doesn’t listen. What’s the fucking point of giving me a headset if the guy won’t even listen? Japanese, English—might as well have been Greek. Ante gamisou, re malaka! Asshole. Yeah, I know fucking Greek too. Glorified bus driver with wings!”

Aura’s eyes went to the garden, then to me.

There was no way in hell a helicopter would have fit in that garden. The camellia would have been shredded. Probably the rest of the garden too. Blake Sinclair was a force of nature that even nature shrank from.

“—could have snuck in beside the fucking camellia. Easy-fucking-Japaneasy! Shut up, Fang!”

Already a small team of men had appeared, armed with rakes and bamboo brooms.

Blake stopped, dropped the cases, and jabbed a finger at the retreating dot in the sky. “Look at him! I hope you crash into the side of a hill, you no-balls shit-for-brains!” He picked up the cases again. “Wouldn’t even carry my bags up the hill. I’m getting calluses here. Been a long time since I’ve had calluses.”

“When did you have calluses, honey?” Candi called.

“Never!” Blake growled, launching himself the rest of the way up the hill.

When he reached the gate and set the cases down, he was breathing hard.

“I paid for a pilot with balls,” he told everyone, “and instead I got the one who wouldn’t land by the fucking camellia.”

The bantō, the ryokan’s driver, stepped forward and relieved him of both cases. The man was short and getting on in years, but he hefted Blake’s luggage with ease.

“Hang on.”

Blake peeled two notes from a gold money clip and pressed them into his hand.

The bantō looked at the money. Then at Blake. Then across at the okami, the landlady.

The okami looked at nothing at all.

“For your trouble,” Blake said.

The bantō bowed, still holding the notes as though they had somehow created a bigger problem than the suitcases.

Free of his bags, Blake turned at the gate and looked back down the hill. “Wow. It’s a pretty small place. Not even a taxi.” Then: “Oh shit. Tell me they’ve got cell coverage here … and internet!”

Candi launched herself at him, Fluffy cradled high against her, half-lost in her cleavage. Blake caught her around the waist and lifted her clear of the ground while she peppered his face with kisses. “Of course they have internet, hon!”

Fluffy, squashed between them, growled, then snapped at Blake’s chin.

“Jesus! Get that fucking mutt away from me!”

Candi held the dog out, looked around for somewhere to put him, and found me.

Fluffy and I regarded each other. I held him as far from me as my arms would go. He held my gaze with the intent of an animal choosing which finger to start with.

Aura took him and fawned over him. From her arms Fluffy went on eyeing me for a full ten seconds until, with a sigh, he surrendered to her completely.

Meanwhile, Candi was still in Blake’s arms, cooing into his collar while he struggled to carry her. I noticed Antigua giving Candi a look of disapproval with the slightest shake of her head. Aura, stroking Fluffy, did the same.

Candi caught it and, with reluctance, released Blake. She took a step back, folded her arms and made an attempt at appearing aloof.

She looked like a puppy doing an impression of a cat.

“So,” Jacek said. “Where have you been, Blakey?”

Blake ignored the jibe. “Shit-show. Hong Kong.” He waved a hand at the whole of Asia. “The principal has no idea what they want, my client has no idea what they’re doing, and nobody listens to solid advice. So they can all go to hell until they see sense. That’s why I’m here.”

Then he jabbed a finger at us. “Just you wait. Right when I’m soaking in some hot pool, a fat cigar in my teeth and a tumbler of real whisky in my hand, that’s when I’ll get the call. You know, the one begging me to come back. It always comes. And it’s always then. Just you wait.”