STRANGE ACTIONS AT A DISTANCE
“Shit,” Jordan said. He slammed the laptop and shoved it in his knapsack with the dirty clothes he had spread out in the pod to air out. His chest felt like someone was squeezing him hard and his pulse thudded in his ears. His mouth had gone sour. He scrabbled backward out of the capsule, dragging the bag. Suddenly strong hands grabbed him and jerked him out. His head slammed against the edge of the opening, filling his eyes momentarily with a bright yellow light. He had bitten down and tasted blood but felt no pain either from his tongue or the golf ball budding on the back of his head. The knapsack was ripped away and his head was slammed against the wall.
“That won’t be necessary, Dennis” came from behind him in a familiar, gentle, bemused voice. The hands let him go. Slowly Jordan turned around. His cheek still stung where it had pressed against the wall. Dennis stood a couple of steps away, his bulk filling the hallway, the knapsack still swinging in his hand. At the end of the hall on the other side Manny leaned against an open capsule, picking at his teeth with a grubby fingernail.
“I’m sorry about that, Jordan,” Sam said. He was sitting on the edge of the capsule opening on the lower level across from Jordan’s. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”
Outside Sam led the way and Dennis and Manny trailed several yards behind. “This hasn’t worked out entirely, has it?” Sam looked at him with an easy smile. Jordan didn’t say anything; his mind was racing a dozen directions at once but couldn’t seem to fix on any one thought. “You know,” Sam went on, “usually the change of venue works for people. It makes the idea of starting over more...I don’t know...more reasonable.” He raised his eyebrows as though it were a question.
“Not so much for you. I’ve thought about it a bit and my theory is that it’s because you had some ambivalence about leaving your past behind. As you can imagine that is not generally the case with our clients.” Here he gave Jordan a knowing smile. “In any case, that ambivalence has made it more difficult, no?”
Jordan tried to read the expression but Sam was inscrutable.
“Yes. We know about the Instagram account. And the unfortunate events of the other evening.”
Blood hammered in his ears.
“But don’t worry. As you know I have seen Dr. Parrish and the incident seems to have passed without undue notice.”
“You mean...” He didn’t dare say it, even hope it.
“I mean, she seems unaffected. I got the impression she’s not much of a social media person. There seemed to be no need to take any kind of, shall we say, corrective measures.”
They walked in silence for a minute. Sam wasn’t going to hurt his family. That was as much as Jordan could understand. He felt the panic fade away into a dull distant toothache of simple fear. He wrinkled up his nose as they walked over a subway grate.
Sam arched an eyebrow.
“How do you stand it?” Jordan asked. “It’s like rotting fish over raw sewage.”
Sam smiled. “Honestly, I never noticed. I’m anosmic.” Jordan looked at him blankly.
“No sense of smell. Silver lining, I guess.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
Sam smiled again. “We’re not going to do anything. We’re going to move you somewhere more pleasant, somewhere I think you’ll be much happier—at least, I hope so.” They had arrived at a tan Toyota sedan. Sam opened the front passenger door. Jordan got in as Manny and Dennis squeezed into the back. Sam drove effortlessly through the chaotic Tokyo afternoon traffic, eventually merging onto the Keiyo Toll Road toward Narita.