9. Let’s Make a D...
They all heard it: the terrible popping sound of a joint being pulled from its socket. Clément kept pulling his body to the right until the arm had come completely away from the shoulder. It hung, useless, the skin stretched like a hammock between the yakuza’s grip and his torso. “Oh,...
9. Let’s Make a D...
It was immediately apparent that they were in a designer grotto. A high wall of bamboo ran around its perimeter and in the center was a series of natural pools the largest of which was fed by a vigorous waterfall. A wall of stone extended from the waterfall in this largest pool to the...
9. Let’s Make a D...
The sight that greeted Ryu when he entered the bath was as dramatic as a scene from any Kabuki play—a death scene shrouded in mist. The room into which he stepped was curtained in steam. Clouds of it rose from the floor and drifted up to the very high ceiling. On three sides of the room...
9. Let’s Make a D...
The hours in the car with ill-smelling Clément did not make Ryu feel any better. He was still nauseated when the limo pulled up to the inn and parked. Before them, the ryokan rose, a towering, multi-tiered structure. Its various floors floated, or seemed to, like the staggered branches...
9. Let’s Make a D...
Ryu squeezed his eyes closed, trying to shut out the babble and the image of the clerk’s smooth, thin, lightly tanned face, trying to squelch the frustration that he felt rising up inside him. Mostly he tried to shut out the unpleasant and all-too-familiar smell that had begun to wreathe...