by Rhys Ford
“I THINK this is a bad idea,” Kawika asserted, a low groaning sigh accompanying his protest. “Like on the scale of bad ideas, this ranks up there with the fried-pickle-and-sardine sandwich my ex liked to have before dinner. Never ended well, and somehow I was the one who paid for it.”
“Told you not to date her,” Levi reminded him. “She had crazy eyes. And you should never trust a woman who files her long nails into points. That’s some Bathory shit right there. ’Sides, he’s a strega’s kin. He’s got a right to call out his attacker on Sanctuary ground. Might live a mundane life, but he’s got witch blood.”
“Only because she told him,” his friend grumbled. “He doesn’t need to be here for this. It’s not even the main event. Just a—”
“Los Lobos are sweating on this.” Levi began to arrange a few of the private dining room’s chairs at a round table set in the middle of the space. “Joe’s the one who was jumped. He’s got a say in this.”
“He bringing his grandmother?” Kawika stopped clearing the floor of excess chairs, pausing in midshuffle. “Because that’s not someone we need here.”
“She’s not,” he said, shaking his head. “The less in here the better.”
“I think you just let him in because you think he’s hot.” His friend waddled another table to the side of the room. “And maybe you feel bad because he got whacked on the head.”
“Considering you’re the one who whacked him, don’t know why I’d be the one who felt bad about it,” Levi pointed out.
“You know, I’m actually within hearing distance of you.” Carting in an ice-filled metal tub, Joe edged past Levi to get farther into the room, then set his load onto a small square table. “Here or somewhere else?”
“There’s good. There’s soda cans and bottled water in the kitchen if you want to stock it. I was debating chips or something, but this isn’t us getting together to watch a game.” Levi counted the chairs. “They should have three. Told Reilly he should bring Charlie to show proof of life.”
“Would he really kill the guy?” The cop stopped in midstride, a serious storm brewing over his expression. “What the hell kind of rules do you all have?”
“A lot I don’t agree with,” Levi countered. “But I can only do so much, and I’m biased. I’m coming at things from my canid-centric point of view.”
“Don’t get him started on leash laws,” Kawika muttered to Joe, earning himself a hiss from Levi. “Hey, I love this guy. He took you running. Keep him around so I don’t have to. This body wasn’t built for marathons.”
“Yeah, I told him.” Levi leaned his hip against the table. “One of the hardest things about being a Peacekeeper is learning how to juggle everyone’s quirks and lines. It’s why it takes years before you even hit junior status. Kawika here wants to freeload off of me until he’s ready to retire, but most step up into their own space after three or four years.”
“Eh, the first round standing in front of those guys was bad,” the kahuna protested weakly. “Scary as hell. Could have heard my knees knocking from outside. I’ve got to get ready for doing that again. Maybe next year. Then I’ve got to find my own place to mark Sanctuary, and you know how high rent is. What am I going to do? Knock over liquor stores until I can pay rent on some place?”
“Like I said,” Levi quipped. “Freeloader.”
“Any guys like me become Peacekeepers? I mean, without any animal form or whatever you and Nana can do, because I’m still not too clear about what that is yet.” The cop glanced at Kawika, sizing him up, then over to Levi. “I get that they’d be at a disadvantage. How much of it is power versus respect and, well, knowing someone’s going to back you up if it comes down to a fight?”
“You thinking of becoming a Peacekeeper?” Levi shot a look over to Kawika, who snorted. “The human part isn’t the problem. It’s the time and coming up with solutions not colored by a bias. You’ve got to remember, we don’t deal with the law. We’re keeping the peace by coming up with compromises.”
“Not saying me, but just any human,” Joe countered. “And there’s not much difference between keeping the law and keeping the peace. Sometimes people do things, and the person wearing that star has to decide if what they’re doing is actually criminal intent or desperation. A lot of my time on the job is spent talking to people and trying to understand how they see things. I was just… wondering.”
“Wondering is how you end up drunk with a red star tattooed under your arm,” Kawika grumbled, pulling back his shirtsleeve to show a five-pointed crimson star inked into the sensitive skin under his arm. “Then you spend years getting stuff shoved into your head, and just when you think there’s no more room, they shove in even more. One star I can handle, the second or third? Dunno if there’s enough beer in the world to make me go through that again, brother.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Levi shot back, then caught himself before he rubbed at the same spot under his arm. “Okay, maybe a little, but can we just focus for, like, five minutes and get this done? They should be walking through the door soon, and I want this over and done with before St. Con’s has to open for the night.”
“I would like to know what this is before it even gets started,” a raspy voice, heavy and weary with age, called out from the doorway. “I want to know why the Lobos are meeting with the Peacekeeper the day before our arbitration and why I wasn’t told about it.”
Stocky and short, the elderly Chinese man shuffled in, using a dragon-headed cane to steady himself while a tall, handsome man wearing a younger version of the elder’s face kept up a slow pace behind him. Levi caught Joe stiffening his shoulders, coming up to stand closer to him. Dressed simply in cotton trousers and a button-up shirt, the old man looked as if he’d come in from an early-afternoon stroll, where the younger, taller version behind him looked harried and impatient in a lightweight sports coat, crumpled dress shirt, and slacks. A holster played peek-a-boo with the room when the young man slowly guided his elder in, his hands carefully hovering but not touching the old man. Looking up, the younger man appeared startled when he saw Joe, but the expression melted away into concern when the elderly man muttered something under his breath.
Levi was about to greet the head of the Zhao clan when Joe stepped in front of him, much like he’d done when facing down Charlie in the alley behind the pub.
“What the hell are you doing here, John?” Joe’s cop voice surfaced, hard-edged and cutting through the tension the two men brought into the room. “And why the hell are you with the guy who bankrolls the Vikings? Or better yet, why don’t you explain to me how you’re not a dirty cop and covering for them all this time?”
Nine
THE PUB’S noise level was high, especially for a school night, but Kawika squirreled Joe and Yang away into a back corner, cordoning off the area with a string of velvet ropes and a fierce look at a pair of heavyset construction workers with fistfuls of beer mugs. With his back against the banquette, Joe had a good view of the entire pub, including the closed door to the private room to the side of the long bar. Sounds from the kitchen broke through the bright chatter of the filled tables, metal to the sharp rap of words and periodic bursts of laughter. Not long after the old man and Yang walked in, a slender, goateed man with a firm expression on his sharp features strode into St. Con’s, the soft-bodied man named Charlie working hard to keep up with his fierce stride.
The discussion of what was going on came in slaps of polite anger and tightly pressed smiles, words lathered and whipped with secret meanings and coded in ways Joe couldn’t parse. A few terse curse words from the guy with the goatee who Joe assumed was Reilly, then Charlie turned on his heel to walk away, leaving the room without saying a word with a distinct impression of a tail tucked between his legs. A few seconds later, Joe found himself being hustled out along with Yang, a soft-voiced Kawika closing the door behind them. They worked in silence for about half an hour, straightening tables and prepping the bar while the kitchen staff walked in to beg
in their shifts. As soon as Kawika unlocked St. Con’s front door, he told them both to have a seat so he could get to work.
“I’m not even sure where to start with you,” Joe said, running his index finger over the rim of his glass of Guinness. “I handpicked you to take over the Task Force because I thought you would fight to keep gangs and motorcycle clubs out of the city, and instead, I find you walking in with one of the Vikings’ head honchos. Explain to me how that happens, Yang. Because I’m having a hard time understanding.”
“I would think you would know, considering you were in there with two Peacekeepers,” Yang replied, wiping a smear of beer froth from his lower lip with his thumb. “I was about to ask you the same thing. What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know how much of this is considered need-to-know, and since nobody told me not to talk about it, I’m going to lay all my cards on the table, and I can tell you, I don’t have too many of them.” Joe spent a few minutes telling Yang what happened and how he’d woken up to an entirely different world with a lump on the back of his head and his grandmother turning out to be a witch. He left out the part about ice cream and Frisbees but explained about the Los Lobos leader wanting to come in to discuss things with Levi. “The Los Lobos name doesn’t make sense, not with the whole Viking nickname and Chinese panda shifters, that wasn’t as important as me trying to get over feeling betrayed, because it seems like instead of putting the task group into good hands, it sounds like I handed it over to the enemy.”
“My Clan is not the enemy,” Yang protested softly. “Grandpa Zhou has been trying to get that part of the family out of the drug trade for decades. We used to run opium back in the day, and every time a new high cropped up, they expanded into it. My great-great-uncle Yang Xiying started a benevolent society about sixty years ago, and some guy thought it was funny to call him Viking because he couldn’t pronounce my uncle’s name. He took the nickname and turned it into the group’s name.
“Uncle wanted nothing to do with being Chinese. He got into the whole outlaw culture and pulled in some of his relatives—my relatives—and that’s how the gang got started,” he continued. “I became a cop because I saw how it was tearing my family apart and there was nothing I would be able to do inside of the Clan. Everything my uncle did violated human law, and that’s where I needed to take him down. And we did, but now Grandpa Zhou and the others are stuck with the motorcycle club’s legacy and reputation. Trying to clean up decades of criminal activity and familial shame is bad enough, but now we’ve got Los Lobos moving in, and everyone with half a brain is afraid it’s going to be Yang Xiying all over again.”
“But when I came to you about that guy on the motorcycle, you told me you didn’t know anything about the Lobos,” Joe pointed out. It was difficult to scratch away the suspicion edging in around his opinion of Yang. He thought he knew the guy, trusted Yang to have his back if ever they went through a door, guns drawn and vests on. They were brothers in blue, but now the connection between them was murky. “And I questioned you about Levi. Wondered if he was getting favors from someone in the department, and you told me no. How many lies have you told me lately, Yang?”
“I knew about Los Lobos being in the city because Reilly was supposed to meet up with Tom Wheeler, who is technically in charge of the remaining Vikings left over from my uncle’s days. But when we found out Los Lobos was meeting with Levi the day before the official talks, Grandfather decided to step in. Wheeler’s a good guy. He’s an old biker they respect, and he’s been clean and sober ever since everyone moved up north.” Yang spread his hands apart, extending a gentle supplication toward Joe. “The old gang is dying off, but they still command some respect, and we thought Los Lobos would prefer to talk to them about territory. It’s complicated. That group up there is stitched together with some pretty thin threads, and everyone tries to work hard to make things peaceful. I’m sorry I lied to you, but I couldn’t risk the cops coming down on them before they hammered things out. I knew the Vikings weren’t coming back into the city, and the Los Lobos gang isn’t either. Everyone attached to this will be gone by Monday, so I figured I would just try to minimize things and there wouldn’t be any harm.”
“And the thing with Levi?” Joe pressed, leaning forward when Kawika hustled by, hefting a keg into the kitchen in a graceful shifting dance learned from hours of getting past oblivious customers. He didn’t want the large Hawaiian man to hear him, wary of probing into Levi’s life and having his questions get back to the pub owner. They had something between them, something Joe wanted to explore, but he had to settle things with Yang if ever he was going to trust the man again. “All of that a lie? Is there someone in the department covering anything shitty that goes down here?”
“I don’t know.” Yang exhaled sharply, keeping an eye on the crowd as people moved around the tables. “Peacekeepers are a different breed. They’re outside of their Clan politics. They have to be neutral. Everything I know about Levi Keller is tied into him owning this place and it being a Sanctuary. I’ve never really dealt with him. I’ve haven’t needed to. He’s got a reputation for being fair and not someone to fuck with in a fight. But you can say that about most Peacekeepers.
“Look, they have their own structure and network. If there’s one in the department pulling strings for them, that’s outside of any group’s influence. You don’t mess with Peacekeepers, and you sure as hell don’t try shit at where they mark their areas. It’s a good way to get your ass handed to you.” Yang nodded his chin toward Kawika, who’d taken his place back behind the bar. But Joe noticed the large man glancing their way every once in a while. “From what I know, that one’s the gentlest we’ve got here in the city.”
“Kawika’s the one who nearly cracked my head open with his fist,” Joe snorted.
“Like I said, the gentlest one,” Yang shot back with a smirk. “I’m not a major player in my Clan’s stuff. I’m a cop, Zanetti, plain and simple. If one of us breaks the law, I run them in. I’m just here because my grandfather needed a ride and was worried Los Lobos was trying to pressure Keller into something. I just wish I knew what was going on behind that damned door. If the Lobos are kicked out of the area, they’ll be moving on to someplace else, and that worries me. I don’t want them coming down here any more than you would. They’re still loose cannons. I don’t know what they’d be bringing with them, but it could be trouble.”
The private room’s door opened and Yang fell silent, craning his neck to watch his grandfather, Levi, and the Los Lobos gang leader walk out. The old man came first, shoulders back and chin held high, his cane thumping on the floor to support his weight. Reilly followed, deferentially a few steps behind, but his eyes were everywhere except for the old man in front of him. Kawika made eye contact with the Los Lobos gang leader, then jerked his head toward the door. Bending his head down, the slender shifter said something to Yang’s grandfather, and they shared a smile between them about whatever he whispered. After a handshake with Levi, Reilly eased his way through the crowd, then slipped from the pub, disappearing into the fading sunlight of the early evening.
Yang stood up as his grandfather approached, unhooking the velvet ropes so the old man could sit down, but Zhou refused with a shake of his head.
“We have to go and speak to Wheeler. We have two hours before the Peacekeeper’s decision is posted. I would rather everyone hear it from me first,” the elderly man said. Turning, he held his hand out to Levi, his expression sobering when Levi took it. “I can only hope I’m not making a mistake. Can I count on your help if it goes poorly?”
“You can count on my help even if it goes well.” Levi chuckled. “I’m glad you all came to an agreement. Let’s see how this looks in six months. It will take work on both ends, but I have faith. Let me know how you’re doing.”
Levi stayed on his feet until Yang and his grandfather left the pub. The door had barely swung shut behind them when he slid into the banquette next to Joe. Sliding his hand aroun
d Joe’s beer when their shoulders touched, he sighed and brought the bottle up to his mouth for a long draught.
“I really needed this. The beer and, well, finding you here outside when I came out,” Levi said, inhaling sharply. “And now that this is all over, I kind of need something else. Like good food, great booze, and someone hot to share it with. So how about it, Zanetti? Feel like going on a date?”
“SO WHAT happened?” Joe plucked a piece of tofu out of the bowl sitting between them, the tip of his chopstick digging into the soft white cube. He dipped it back down again into the shoyu-and-green-onion pool, drenching the piece before biting into it. “Or is that something you can’t talk about?”
They’d had a spirited but amusing debate on what to eat and where to eat it. Eventually, they both decided they were dead tired, or at least too tired to go out hunting for food. Levi’s apartment was cool and inviting, and after a quick call to a delivery service, they started their date with an assortment of appetizers scattered about on a TV tray between them while they sat on the couch cradling bowls of ramen heaped high with char siu and soft-boiled eggs and speckled with hot-chili-and-black-garlic oil.
Barefoot and dressed in a pair of soft sweatpants and an old T-shirt, Levi knew he wasn’t exactly putting his best face forward on his first date with Joe, but he liked the comfort they knitted between them. He’d taken a quick shower, then came out to find Joe unpacking their food onto the coffee table. Levi drew close and discovered he liked the smell of his own soap on Joe’s skin, the slight citrus fragrance clinging to the man from the shower he’d taken after their run. It’d been nice to let Joe take care of him, ordering Levi to sit on the couch while he poured out noodles and creamy tonkatsu broth into low bowls. Amused at Joe’s exacting placement of each topping, Levi murmured a thank-you when the cop handed him the ramen bowl, following his words with a hot, slow kiss.
