by Dave Daren
“We should take you for a scan,” the woman remarked, unaffected by Sofia’s expression. “We need to be sure you don’t have a concussion.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said before Sofia could voice her own opinion. Sofia turned her scowl on me. “It’ll be safer than going home.”
“If you pass out at home, we may not reach you in time,” the EMT agreed. She clearly thought Sofia and I were talking about the head injury, and not the men who had just tried to turn Sofia into a punching bag.
“All right,” Sofia gave in. “But you have to clean up the mess they made in the office.”
“Deal,” I agreed.
Sofia was bundled into the back of the ambulance, and it pulled away from the parking lot with only a few short bursts from the siren. I answered more questions from the cops and repeated all my answers for a detective who arrived at the scene almost an hour later. He was there for ten minutes before he was called to another location. The cops and crime scene techs finally left, the crowd dispersed, and I returned to my office.
Mess didn’t quite capture the scene. Papers were scattered everywhere, Sofia’s computer had been tossed across the room, the phone had toppled into the garbage can, and blood was splattered across the wall behind Sofia’s desk. I stood in the doorway for a moment, undecided on where to start.
“Mr. Creed?” a voice asked behind me. I turned to find one of the busboys behind me. He had a mop and bucket, a large bottle of industrial cleaner, and a stack of rags.
“Tony,” I said as I searched my brain for his name. Muriel was forever yelling at the pair, and one was Tony, the other Mateo. I was pretty certain this was the one she always called Tony.
“Si,” Tony agreed with a shy smile. “Muriel thought you might need these.”
“Thank you,” I said as I took the cleaning equipment. I felt a tear form in the corner of my eye and tried to ignore it.
“Sofia, she’s very tough,” Tony added. “She was fighting those two muchachos, not just hiding in the corner, you know.”
“I know,” I replied.
Tony gave me another nod and then made his way to the stairs. I turned back to the office again and finally ventured inside. I found agua fresca soaking into the area rug Sofia kept under her chair and another blood smear on the edge of a filing cabinet. I took a peek into my own office and was surprised to see that it was untouched. I flung my tie and jacket over my chair and then set to work on the mess.
I gathered up all the paper first and split it into two piles, the can-be-saved and the can’t-be-saved. Then it was onto all the objects that had been tossed around the office. In addition to the computer and the phone, the printer was perched precariously on the edge of the counter, the guest chairs had been toppled, and the table had been overturned.
There were a lot of small objects scattered around as well. I found a bracelet of Sofia’s under her chair, a box of Kind bars under the computer, and the two halves of a powder compact under a stack of old law school books.
But the most interesting find sat by itself in the middle of the room. It looked like a standard playing card, with the axe-wielding King of Diamonds on one side. On the back, however, someone had covered the standard pattern with the image of a dragon wrapped around a sword.
The Mizuchi had made his move.
Chapter 9
With the office in a less disordered state, I turned my attention to the blood splatter. Blood can be notoriously difficult to get out, but the chemical from the burrito place combined with a little elbow grease worked well. Clearly, our neighbors had the right cleaning tools, so I had to wonder was else was going on in the kitchen to earn a ‘C’ rating.
“Hello?” a voice called tentatively.
I pulled myself out from under Sofia’s desk, where a large gob of blood had landed, and stood up. A beautiful woman stood just outside the open door, peering into the office, indecision clearly written on her fast.
She was Japanese, I was sure of that. Her black hair flowed freely down her back in one long, cascading wave. Her almond-shaped eyes perched atop a pair of high cheekbones that framed her delicate nose. And it was all tied together with a sensual pair of very full lips. I tensed and grasped the bottle of cleaning fluid tighter. This mystery woman didn’t look like she was about to launch an attack, but I wasn’t in the most trusting of moods at the moment either.
“May I help you?” I asked as I scowled at her.
“Um,” she hesitated as she took a step back. “I was looking for the attorney.”
“That’s me,” I replied. I sounded surly even to my own ears, but I was still unsure about her. I made a point of keeping the desk between us, and the bottle pointed in her direction.
“Oh,” she remarked as she took a step into the office and looked around. Her eyes grew wide as she took in the destruction, and she hugged her purse to her chest. She stared uncertainly at the bottle in my hand and then took a small step backwards.
“We had a small incident earlier,” I said. “But everything’s okay.”
“What happened?” she finally asked, as her curiosity won out. She was still holding her purse like a shield, and her voice trembled just the tiniest bit. If she was acting, she was really good.
“Someone wasn’t happy about a lawsuit I filed,” I told her.
“Does this happen often?” she asked. She seemed genuinely perplexed, though I wasn’t sure if it was because of the attack or my reaction to it.
“First time,” I laughed.
“You don’t seem concerned,” she said suspiciously. She stepped forward again, and I could see she was trying to make a decision. She kept her eyes locked on my face and waited for my reaction.
“Well,” I sighed. “I can’t let this kind of thing keep me from doing my job.”
“That’s good,” she said quietly. She slowly dropped her arms and took another step towards the desk. “That’s the kind of help I need.”
“I’m not sure I can take on any more clients right now,” I replied as I looked around the office. As I took in the remnants of the attack, I realized that it wasn’t just the office that the yakuza could go after. Any of my clients could be a target as well.
“Please, Mr. Grogan said you were the best,” she pleaded. She was just on the other side of the desk now, and it would have been easy enough for either one of us to grab the other. She made no other moves, just waited for me to speak.
“You’re a friend of Neal Grogan?” I finally asked. Neal’s son had been arrested for vandalism and a few other charges after he and a group of friends smashed a few parking meters. They had some vague idea about stealing the coins, but mostly they were bored and strung out on too many Pepsis. I managed to get the charges reduced, so no time in juvenile detention would stain the son’s record.
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “Mr. Grogan is my neighbor. He said you were the man who could help me. I don’t know who else to go to.”
“I just--” I started to protest, but that beautifully sculpted face now looked very sad. There was even a teeny bit of quiver in the bottom lip. I had to admit, nothing about her screamed yakuza at the moment. And the fact that she knew Neal Grogan was in her favor as well. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to listen.”
“Oh, thank you,” she replied happily as relief flooded her eyes. The smile she gave me was radiant.
“This might be easier somewhere else,” I said as I vaguely pointed at the mess that still littered parts of the office. “There’s a froyo place just down the street that’s pretty good.”
“What about the place downstairs?” she suggested.
“Really?” I asked, my surprise evident in my tone.
“Really,” she replied with an enthusiastic nod. “I love Mexican food. Much better than yogurt.”
“Let me just grab my jacket,” I said. With most of my power suit back on, I returned to the burrito place with my visitor by my side. The crowd looked up when we stepped inside.
“How’s
Sofia?” Muriel asked immediately.
“She seems okay,” I replied. “They just wanted to do a scan to make sure.”
“Got to be careful with those head injuries,” one of the men sitting at the counter acknowledged. “You can be feeling fine one minute and then gone the next.”
“Listen, I just wanted to thank all of you for helping out today,” I said. “If you hadn’t gone to check in on her…”
“It’s all right,” Muriel assured me when I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. “We look out for each other.”
The patrons all nodded in agreement.
“Thank you,” I repeated.
“Hey, Vince, where’d you find the new wheels anyway?” someone called out.
The place roared with laughter, and the spell was broken. I grinned at the crowd as we took a seat in a booth.
“It sounds like it was really serious,” my potential client murmured. She’d stood quietly behind me during the exchange, and I hadn’t had a chance to watch her reaction. The crowd in the restaurant barely seemed to notice that she was even there.
“It could have been,” I said evasively. Muriel appeared and took our order for fish tacos and Mexican sodas. We sat quietly amid the usual noise of the restaurant, until Muriel deposited our drinks on the table.
“Nice,” my guest said after she took a sip.
“So, why don’t we start with your name,” I prodded.
“Miyo,” she replied. “Miyo Tatsuda.”
“How did you end up in Los Angeles, Miyo?” I asked.
“How do you know I wasn’t born here?” she asked. Her tone was curious rather than defensive.
“No one’s born in L.A.,” I replied with a smile. “People just move here from somewhere else.”
“Well, I guess that’s true,” she said as she smiled back. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who was actually born in LA. I’m from Sapporo originally. I came here on a student visa, and when that expired, I just stayed on.”
“ICE didn’t show up on your doorstep?”
“No,” she admitted. “But I’m not really the type they want to deport. I try to stay out of sight, though. It can make it hard to find a job.”
“I would imagine,” I agreed. I also had to admit that her story was pretty common. I didn’t know the exact numbers, but I knew thousands of students stayed on every year after their visas had expired.
“I’ve been working at a nail salon since my junior year,” Miyo continued. “We are paid a base rate plus tips. The owner is entitled to a share of the tips. When my customers leave a cash tip, it’s not a problem. I just give her the correct share. But when my customers pay with a credit card or leave the tip at the desk, I have to wait for her to pay me the tip.”
“Let me guess,” I said, “she’s taking more than her share.”
“Yes,” Miyo nodded. “It took me a few months to catch on, but I was afraid to say anything.”
“Because of the immigration issues,” I guessed.
“In part,” she replied. Miyo was interrupted by the arrival of the tacos. Miyo took a large bite and looked up in surprise. “These are excellent.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “We’re still trying to work out what the ‘C’ rating is for.”
“Americans are too picky,” Miyo said after she swallowed another bite of taco. “You should see some of the dives I’ve been to in Japan.”
We finished our tacos and the sodas. The crowd had thinned out, and Muriel was in back with the cook. Tony was slouched in a seat near the window, a far-away look in his eyes as he gazed outside.
“What was your other problem besides immigration?” I asked as we both slumped back.
“My boss, Melanie, has a real mean boyfriend named Kyle,” Miyo resumed. “He’s a total creep. He always tries to cop a feel whenever he can corner one of the girls in the shop. It doesn’t do any good to complain to Melanie because she just tells you to suck it up. He’s also pretty violent. One girl complained to the police about him, said she was being sexually harassed. She turned up with a black eye and broken tooth two days later. Melanie fired her on the spot, told her she couldn’t work in such a high-class salon looking like that.”
I let out a low whistle under my breath.
“That’s not all,” Miyo added. “He’s been arrested for assault before. One of those was the husband of a client. The wife wanted a refund because two of her acrylic nails had come off within a day. The husband came with her, and he was threatening a lawsuit. Kyle was in the salon that day, and he started punching the husband. He probably would have killed him if the police hadn’t shown up.”
“Wow,” I said. “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to get on Kyle’s bad side.”
“Yes, it’s been hard,” she said with a sigh.
“So why do you want to sue now?”
“Kyle is in jail,” she said triumphantly. “And he’s there for the next twenty-four months.”
“What will Melanie do?” I asked.
“She’ll fire me,” Miyo stated matter-of-factly. “But I have a new position lined up as of today. So, I will be leaving that hellhole anyway.”
“It sounds like a good case,” I grudgingly admitted. My knight in shining armor persona had taken over, despite my misgivings about our caseload, and Miyo’s timing. It didn’t help that Miyo had another dazzling smile on those luscious lips.
I really did have a weakness for beautiful women, but I supposed there were worse addictions.
“You will help,” she declared, as she watched my face. A good talent to have, as any lawyer knows.
“Do you have receipts or such that I could look through?” I asked in a last-ditch effort to avoid the inevitable.
“Yes,” Miyo replied with a vigorous nod. “I have kept all the paperwork.”
“I’ll need to look through that before I know if we really have a case,” I replied. I kept my voice stern and hoped she might be dissuaded by my sudden change.
“Yes, okay,” she bubbled. Clearly, my stern voice needed work.
“Let’s go back to the office,” I sighed. “I’ll take down your information and see if I can find a business card to give you.”
I made sure to leave a hefty tip on the table as we stood up. Tony stirred and waved goodbye as we stepped outside. I led the way back upstairs, on alert now for any uninvited guests. The walkway was empty and the door to the office was still locked. I stepped inside and scanned the room, but everything was exactly as I had left it. At least I thought it was. It was hard to tell with all the debris still littering the floor.
“Do you need some help?” Miyo asked as she picked up a folder and placed it neatly on the table. She regarded the destruction with curiosity now, rather than fear.
“No, that’s all right,” I replied. My phone rang at the moment, and I checked the number. It took me a moment to recognize it, since it wasn’t one that usually popped up on my phone.
“Hello,” I said.
“What happened?” Sofia’s mother demanded. “Why is my daughter calling me from the hospital?”
“Mrs. Calderon,” I stalled. “We, um, had a little incident. The EMT’s just wanted to run a scan and make sure everything was okay.”
“A little incident?” Mrs. Calderon shot back. “What kind of incident?”
“What did Sofia tell you?” I asked.
“I want to hear what you have to say,” she demanded.
“Um, well, we had a run in with, um, well….” I trailed off. Miyo was still here, and I wasn’t sure what Sofia had told her mother. “That is, someone broke in.”
“And where were you?” she continued with her interrogation.
“Uh, I had a meeting downtown,” I replied.
“I told Sofia to take that baseball bat with her to the office, but no,” Mrs. Calderon wailed. “She said she could take care of herself. She knew how to handle the bad guys.”
“Well, maybe she’ll bring the bat in now,” I said hope
fully.
Ms. Calderon started complaining loudly in Spanish and far too quickly for me to follow the entire conversation. I caught something about ‘listen to your mother’ and ‘my poor little girl’ and ‘wait until her father’. Then she unexpectedly switched back to English.
“We’re heading to the hospital as soon as Theo gets here,” Ms. Calderon said. “I’ll send you an update.”
“Thank you,” I replied, but she’d already hung up.
I turned around to find that Miyo had quietly moved around the office while I was on the phone. She had created neat little stacks of folders on Sofia’s desk and placed the monitor back in the center of the desk.
“I found a card,” she said as she held up a business card. She pointed to a box she’d placed next to the folders. “They were on the floor by the filing cabinet.”
“Here,” I said as I slipped the card from her fingers. “Let me give you my cell phone number.”
“I wrote down my address and phone number,” she explained as she handed me a sheet of paper.
“Thank you,” I replied. “I’ll call you to set up an appointment to go over your paperwork.”
“Take care,” she said quietly. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
She stepped carefully around a smashed vase and disappeared out the door. I took another look around the office and heaved a sigh. I didn’t feel much like cleaning at the moment, but leaving it until tomorrow was even less appealing. I pulled my jacket off again and grabbed the bottle of cleaner. Those bloodstains had to go.
Chapter 10
I had the worst of the mess cleaned up by the end of the day. As I sat in my office chair and stared out my tiny window, I debated what to do for the evening. Sofia’s mother had called to say that the scans were clear, but the doctor wanted her to stay overnight. Sofia had tried to decline but her mother had stepped in and insisted that she listen to the doctor. So Sofia was safe at least.
I figured a call to my pal Ari was in order. Ari was always a good sounding board, and could be relied on to come up with a few ideas I might have missed. Besides, I could probably at least get a dessert out of it.
