The Fourth Hand

The list of participants went on and on, all highly accomplished professional women--with the probable exception of an American author and self-described radical feminist whom Wallingford had never heard of, and a lopsided number of participants from Japan who seemed to represent the arts.

Patrick was uncomfortable around female poets and sculptors. It was probably not correct to call them poetesses and sculptresses, although this is how Wallingford thought of them. (In Patrick's mind, most artists were frauds; they were peddling something unreal, something made up.)

So what would his welcoming speech be? He wasn't entirely at a loss--he'd not lived in New York for nothing. Wallingford had suffered through his share of black-tie occasions; he knew what bull-shitters most masters of ceremonies were--he knew how to bullshit, too. Therefore, Patrick decided his opening remarks should be nothing more or less than the fashionable and news-savvy blather of a master of ceremonies--the insincere, self-deprecating humor of someone who appears at ease while making a joke of himself. Boy, was he wrong.

How about this for an opening line? "I feel insecure addressing such a distinguished group as yourselves, given that my principal and, by comparison, lowly accomplishment was to illegally feed my left hand to a lion in India five years ago."

Surely that would break the ice. It had been good for a laugh at the last speech Wallingford had given, which was not really a speech but a toast at a dinner honoring Olympic athletes at the New York Athletic Club. The women in Tokyo would prove a tougher audience.

That the airline lost Wallingford's checked luggage,

an overstuffed garment bag, seemed to set a tone. The official for the airline told him: "Your luggage is on the way to the Philippines--back tomorrow!"

"You already know that my bag is going to the Philippines?"

"Most luridly, sir," the official said, or so Patrick thought; he'd really said, "Most assuredly, sir," but Wallingford had misheard him. (Patrick had a childish and offensive habit of mocking foreign accents, which was almost as unlikable as his compulsion to laugh when someone tripped or fell down.) For the sake of clarification, the airline official added: "The lost luggage on that flight from New York always goes to the Philippines."

"'Always'?" Wallingford asked.

"Always back tomorrow, too," the official replied.

There then followed the ride in the helicopter from the airport to the rooftop of his Tokyo hotel. Wallingford's Japanese hosts had arranged for the chopper.

"Ah, Tokyo at twilight--what can compare to it?" said a stern-looking woman seated next to Patrick on the helicopter. He hadn't noticed that she'd also been on the plane from New York--probably because she'd been wearing an unflattering pair of tortoiseshell glasses and Wallingford had given her no more than a passing look. (She was the American author and self-described radical feminist, of course.)

"You're being facetious, I trust," Patrick said to her.

"I'm always facetious, Mr. Wallingford," the woman replied. She introduced herself with a short, firm handshake. "I'm Evelyn Arbuthnot. I recognized you by your hand--the other one."

"Did they send your luggage to the Philippines, too?" Patrick asked Ms. Arbuthnot.

"Look at me, Mr. Wallingford," she instructed him. "I'm strictly a carry-on person. Airlines don't lose my luggage."

Perhaps he'd underestimated Evelyn Arbuthnot's abilities; maybe he should try to find, and even read, one of her books.

But below them was Tokyo. He could see that there were heliports on the rooftops of many hotels and office buildings, and that other helicopters were hovering to land. It was as if there were a military invasion of the huge, hazy city, which, in the twilight, was tinged by an array of improbable colors, from pink to blood-red, in the fading sunset. To Wallingford, the rooftop helipads looked like bull's-eyes; he tried to guess which bull's-eye their helicopter was aiming at.

"Japan," Evelyn Arbuthnot said despairingly.

"You don't like Japan?" Patrick asked her.

"I don't 'like' anyplace," she told Wallingford, "but the man-woman thing is especially onerous here."

"Oh," Patrick replied.

"You haven't been here before, have you?" she asked him. While he was still shaking his head, she told him: "You shouldn't have come, disaster man."

"Why did you come?" Wallingford asked her.

She was kind of growing on him with every negative word she spoke. He began to like her face, which was square with a high forehead and a broad jaw--her short gray hair sat on her head like a no-nonsense helmet. Her body was squat and sturdy-looking, and not at all revealed; she wore black jeans and a man's untucked denim shirt, which looked soft from a lot of laundering. Judging by what Wallingford could see, which was not much, she seemed to be small-breasted--she didn't bother to wear a bra. She had on a sensible, if dirty, pair of running shoes, which she rested on a large gym bag that only partially fit beneath her seat; the bag had a shoulder strap and looked heavy.

Ms. Arbuthnot appeared to be a woman in her late forties or early fifties who traveled with more books than clothes. She wore no makeup and no nail polish, and no rings or other jewelry. She had small fingers and very clean, small hands, and her nails were bitten to the quick.

"Why did I come here?" she asked, repeating Patrick's question. "I go where I'm invited, wherever it is, both because I'm not invited to many places and because I have a message. But you don't have a message, do you, Mr. Wallingford? I can't imagine what you would ever come to Tokyo for, least of all for a conference on 'The Future of Women.' Since when is 'The Future of Women' news? Or the lion guy's kind of news, anyway," she added.

The helicopter was landing now. Wallingford, watching the enlarging bull's-eye, was speechless.

"Why did I come here?" Patrick asked, repeating Ms. Arbuthnot's question. He was just trying to buy a little time while he thought of an answer.