by KJ Charles
“Oh, Joe-san,” I said as playfully as I could, stressing the last word. The shower went on again, and two of the gunmen crept forward. Their guns had long barrels screwed on the ends, and I realised that they must be silencers.
Was Chanko just responding to what he thought was me being silly? Had he understood what I’d meant? San is “three” as well as “Mr”—same sound, two different words—and my instinctive guess had been that if I said “three”, at least one goon would recognise the English word and realise it was a warning, but that they would disregard the Japanese word they heard fifty times a day.
As did Chanko. Why hadn’t I just said three? Why didn’t I just yell and warn him before he opened the door to their guns?
Because they would shoot me.
There was maybe a metre of clearance between the side of the bed and the bathroom door, just enough to get it open. One of the men edged past to stand on the far side, while the second, a peroxide blond with spiky hair, stayed nearer me, so that they flanked the door. The third, a thug with bright tattoos crawling up past his collar round his neck, stayed at the room door, and his gun stayed on me.
If I looked like I felt, I was white as a sheet. The room was chilly and my towels were damp, and I realised I was shaking. I turned pitiful eyes on Tattoo and pointed a wavering finger at Chanko’s jacket, then quickly mimed wrapping myself in it. Please, Mr. Yakuza, let me put it on?
He stared back. I let my eyes fill with ready tears. I’m cold and pathetic, Yakuza-san. Please take pity.
He flicked the gun barrel at me in contemptuous permission, and I carefully lifted up the enormous jacket. It was heavy.
Gloriously heavy, and much of the weight in one inner pocket. Chanko might be unreadable in so many ways, but if there’s one thing you can bet the farm on, it’s that men never empty their coat pockets. I shrugged it over my shoulders, being very, very careful not to let the hard metal swing against anything.
The shower was still running and I could hear splashing. Chanko was whistling a jaunty little tune, without a care in the world. Please please please, I thought, praying he’d heard, or would notice, or could sense something going on, that he wouldn’t just whistle himself into a trap.
I let my eyes roll and my mouth quiver pathetically, and I wrapped my arms round my torso inside the jacket and slid down onto the carpet, huddled against the table legs, and my hand closed around the butt of the gun. Tattoo wasn’t even looking at me now, and I gently started to free it from the cloth.
Tattoo made some hand gesture at the others, telling the man on the far side to open the bathroom door—it opened outwards, which would put him behind it. The blond lifted his gun.
I couldn’t see the bathroom from my position, but I saw Tattoo’s nod. I heard the rush of air and the increased shower noise as the door swung open, smashing into the guy behind it, and I heard a shockingly loud, wet thwack, and a yell of pain, and a heavy thump-slam, and I screamed in Japanese, “Don’t move!” with Chanko’s gun levelled directly at Tattoo’s stomach.
He stared at me, his arm outstretched and his gun pointing at the bathroom. I stared back, gun gripped in both hands, wrists trembling with the weight, fingers ready to squeeze the trigger, and in that second I realised that I had no idea if I could bring myself to kill someone.
“You’re dead if you move, you bastard,” I shrieked, over a thumping, crunching noise that shook the room. “Drop the gun. Drop it.”
Tattoo’s furious eyes were locked on mine. I could pick them out of a lineup in a second, even now, those eyes, their particular shade of mid-brown, their shape and angle. There was nothing but me and Tattoo in the world, the pair of us in a tiny, deadly circle, nothing outside mattering, even when I heard a muted “phut” from a gun, and a crack, and a dreadful, strangled scream.
And then it all happened, incredibly fast and glacially slow. Tattoo’s arm swung towards me. My fingers started to clench. Tattoo’s own grip whitened, and Chanko flung himself forward in a rugby tackle, and his movement brought him between me and the yakuza, so the muzzle of my gun was pointing directly at Chanko’s broad, bare back at the second that I pulled the trigger as hard as I could.
Chapter Six
“Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.”
“I said I was sorry,” I muttered.
“Sorry,” Chanko said, in the tone of voice usually reserved for words like mucus or Nazi. “Sorry. It’s not about being sorry, it’s about having enough sense to come in out of the goddamn rain!”
“Look, I’ve never even held a gun before, okay?”
“You’ve never read a thriller or seen a movie?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you think I carry around a gun in my coat with the damn safety off?”
“If it hadn’t been on I’d have shot you!” I yelled. “For God’s sake, I’d have thought you’d be pleased!”
“Yeah, yeah, you’d have shot me,” he said dismissively. “Or say that assclown with the tattoos had shot me, and you were facing him with a gun in your hand and no way to use it? You never point a goddamn gun at someone if you don’t mean to fire it!”
“Oh, I meant to,” I assured him.
“With the safety on. He’d have shot you point blank, or shot your damn arm off if he was any good—” He broke off, shaking his head. “You scare me, Butterfly, you really do.”
He wasn’t exactly making me feel safe himself.
Tattoo hadn’t even seen him coming till it was too late. As my trigger clicked uselessly, Chanko had knocked his arm sideways, sending a bullet into the wall, and had then delivered a series of vicious short-range punches that left Tattoo a crumpled heap. I’d forced myself to get up and seen the other two. Peroxide Boy was slumped face down on the bed with a twisted wet towel round his neck and his arm bent at an angle that made me feel like being sick. The third man lay on the floor with blood and plaster in his hair and a head-shaped hole in the plasterboard wall above him—the bathroom tiles on the other side of the wall had actually been cracked. There was a bullet hole in the ceiling on that side of the room. On the whole, it looked like Chanko had picked up my warning all right.
We’d dressed in silence and at speed, Chanko had taken the guns and SIM cards for his collection, and we’d got the hell out of there. The room was on the ground floor, so we went out through the window. I thought about leaving some money for the bolts that Chanko snapped off, but then I remembered someone had given the goons a key card, and decided the hotel could sue me.
I’d had a nasty moment when Chanko left me in a side street while he went to get the car, telling me to run like hell if he wasn’t back in ten minutes. The idea that they knew our car numberplate, that they might be waiting to jump us in the garage…but they weren’t.
Now we were on the road at an unsafe speed, and Chanko was still looking like a volcano with a hangover.
I ventured a glance at him. “Look, I’m sorry about the safety catch, I really am. I know it was stupid of me, but I was scared. And I am sort of glad I didn’t shoot you.”
I saw that register. “Sort of?”
“I’d be happier if you didn’t look like you were about to strangle me and leave the body in the trunk.”
He let out a very long breath. “Ah, hell. I’m not mad at you, Butterfly. You did good. You let me know they were there and how many, you got out of the way, and you kept the third assclown occupied. In fact, you were great, okay? Would have been better if you could use a goddamn gun, but that’s my fault, not yours.”
“How do you work that out?”
“Should have taught you. Should have checked you knew about safeties, given you a gun, even. Should have gotten you the hell out of Kanazawa earlier—”
“Where to? We were there because you got me out of Matsumoto, remember?”
“Yeah, and how’d they know we were in Kanazawa?”
Good question. “Either a blanket search or plain old bad luck, I guess. Every love hotel and bar and
restaurant in Chubu alerted, or just one guy recognising our descriptions and passing them back to the family. Considering they’d have done a lot better to visit before we woke up, I’d guess the latter, and it took a while for the message to get through. It was bad luck. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“Yeah, I can. You forget you told your friend we were in Kanazawa?”
“What?” I put a hand to my mouth. “I didn’t, did I?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t even realise—no, but hang on, Yukie wouldn’t do that. She called from another phone to talk safely. She wouldn’t do that to me.”
Chanko didn’t look convinced. “We should have gotten out of town the minute you said where we were. And no love-hotel clerk or sushi-shop guy was gonna recognise you on your own. It’s me that’s easy to spot, goddamn it.” He thumped the dashboard. “No more damn fool mistakes. We get you the hell out of the country, starting now.”
I cocked my head at him. “Chanko, what do you normally do all day?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Well…is this something you do professionally? The damsel-in-distress thing?”
“Nope. Flat-out amateur. Pretty obvious, huh?”
“Afraid so,” I said. “I mean, you’ve only saved my life twice.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think it counts if I’m the one who put you in danger in the first place.”
“That was the yakuza. Look, now isn’t a great time for you to beat yourself up, okay? Not when there are so many other people to beat up.” I was trying for lightness, but I kept seeing that sickeningly bent elbow, the hole in the wall, the blood exploding from Tattoo’s mouth…
The perfect serenity on Chanko’s face. That was what I couldn’t put out of my mind.
Keep it together, Kerry. I cleared my throat. “We need to work out what to do. Where we’re going. Lying low isn’t really working, is it?”
“No.” Heavy exhalation. “Okay. I guess you better stay out of the cities till we can get you out of Japan—”
“Oh, God, no.”
“Hear me out. You can disappear in the countryside pretty easily till we find you a passport. I know a guy can help you. He ain’t on the phone, is the only problem, but if I give you a letter, you can—”
“Letter? Where will you be?”
“Somewhere a long way away with a Japanese girl your height. Decoy. We get Taka to send a local guy to look after you—”
“Hold on a minute. You’re not leaving me. You aren’t, are you? Chanko, you promised!”
“I’m no good outside a big city—”
“So let’s go to a big city!”
“—and even in a city, I’m liable to attract more attention than you need. Goddamn, Butterfly, this is serious. I don’t know what the hell Taka thought he was doing sending someone so easily spotted—”
“Taka’s mental. He managed to do the right thing for once in his life when he sent you. I’m not asking for someone else, he’d probably hire a Kabuki clown, and anyway I don’t want to go to some rural shithole. I want to go to a city. Somewhere nobody knows your name and people don’t look at you twice and nobody gives a damn if you live or die. Civilisation.”
He smiled for the first time since the love hotel. “You’re not a country girl, are you? I can tell.”
“In the country, nobody can hear you scream.”
“You got a point, at that.” He scowled. “Cities. Kyoto’s full of tourists, but Osaka’s closer, and there’s a lot of international trade there. They both got international airports, too, and good transport links. Okinawa, you get people who look like me, but they might be thinking that way too. I figure—”
My old phone shrilled. I jumped about a foot in my seat.
“Withheld number,” I whispered.
“Pulling over,” said Chanko briefly, doing so.
I clicked the button and licked my lips. “Moshi-moshi.”
“Good morning, Ekudaru-san.” An unfamiliar voice, smooth and controlled and under heavy restraint. “I hope you slept well.”
“Very well, thank you,” I said automatically.
“Have you had a pleasant morning so far?” said Voice through his teeth. “Relaxing?”
“Delightful, thank you. We had peppers for breakfast.”
Piman, bell pepper, is the Japanese equivalent of calling someone a vegetable. I caught Chanko’s expression when I said it, but I wasn’t just being provocative for the sake of it. I wanted to know if he’d heard back about his goons yet.
I guess he had.
“You fucking little bitch!” he roared, making me jerk in my seat. “Lying whore. What game are you gaijin sluts playing? How dare you attack the Mitsuyoshi-kai, you filth?”
“I’m not playing anything. You’re the ones attacking me!” I screamed back. “I never touched the old man and I never touched your bag, and I never did anything to you, so you’re trying to kill me for nothing. Why don’t you leave me alone?”
He sucked in a harsh breath. “Don’t play the innocent. You have attacked five of my men.”
“They attacked me first! For God’s sake, can’t you tell it wasn’t me? You have the guilty person. You’ve already done terrible things to my friend. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!”
Chanko gripped my shoulder warningly. I took a deep breath.
“No, I don’t think so,” said the voice. “No. You see, the American bitch is a very stupid woman. She can’t speak Japanese. She didn’t run away. She has nobody in this country. She is nobody. But you speak excellent Japanese, and you have eluded our people for several days, and you have very effective protection, and you want us to believe you are the one who was not involved? I don’t think so. Who are you, and where is the bag?”
“I’m just a hostess.” My voice was thin and reedy. “That’s all. You’re wrong.”
“Just a hostess,” he repeated. “Just a common bar slut, but you think you can fuck with the Mitsuyoshi-kai.”
“I’m not fucking with anyone. You started this. I did nothing. I’m just trying to stay out of your way until—”
He spoke over me. “Bring me the bag.”
“I don’t have the bag. I—do—not—have—it. Is there something wrong with my Japanese, perhaps, that I am not making myself clear? I don’t have your bag.”
“Then get it,” he said, very clearly. “You will bring me the bag. Today. Or we’ll put Toyoda Yoshikatsu in hospital, and Katori Noriko in the ground.”
I opened my mouth but nothing would come.
“The bag will be returned to the Mitsuyoshi-kai, intact, today,” he said, enunciating the order. “Or we will kill Katori. Slowly. Perhaps we will send the same men to her, hmm? That might wake her up. Then Toyoda. Maybe we will do to him what we did to Katori. He might enjoy that, wouldn’t you say? And that fat fucker, we’ll cut him up for whale meat.” His voice slowed, lingered. “And last of all, you. Many of us will enjoy meeting you.”
He went on and on, dwelling lovingly on details that my mind flinched from. I was trying to speak, but it was worse than a nightmare. My whole throat had closed up, my lungs were crumpling in my chest, my guts were liquid.
“I don’t have it,” I whispered. “I’m not in Tokyo. I can’t do it.”
“Then your friends are dead.”
“Wait. No. Stop. I’ll…I’ll get it, I’ll find it, but you have to give me time. I beg you, please, sir, please just give me more time, let me get to Tokyo, I swear I’ll find the bag if you want it, just please give me time!”
There was a silence that stretched out forever.
“Seventy-two hours. That’s all, bitch.” He rang off.
I didn’t even realise how hard I was gripping the phone till I felt Chanko prising it out of my locked fingers.
“Butterfly?”
“Drive. Just—just drive for a bit, okay?”
He pulled back into the sparse stream of traffic without comment, while I breathed deepl
y and tried to make the drumming in my head go away.
Chanko didn’t say a thing.
“They’re going to kill us,” I said at last.
“Gotta catch you first.”
“No. Us. Noriko and Yoshi and—and you, and me.”
“Me, huh?” He sounded mildly interested.
“Yeah. I think you annoyed them.”
“They have my name?”
“No. They just said…you know, the big guy.”
“Yeah?”
“That fat fucker, if you must know.”
He nodded, apparently satisfied. “They know who Noriko-san is, and who you are. You sure they know about your—about Yoshi-san?”
“Yeah. Oh, Jesus, I have to call him.”
“Tell me what they said first.”
I told him. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I didn’t want it to be real.
“So they think…”
“They think nobody could be as stupid as that stupid bitch Kelly. They actually think her stupid plan to frame me was so stupid that it must be me being clever framing her.”
“They might not,” said Chanko calmly. “They might be covering all the bases. It’s a possibility, so they’re acting to you like they think it’s for definite, but you don’t know they mean it. You can’t take shit at face value, not in this situation.”
I thought about this. “But do you think they meant it? About Noriko, and Yoshi?”
“Yeah, well, that’s the problem. We got to assume they did.”
“Shit. Chanko, what am I going to do?”
“Leave the country. Any means necessary. Hide out till Taka gets you a false passport and get the fuck out. This ain’t funny any more. Call your friends, tell them to pack a bag and go.”
“What about Noriko?” I said, and answered my own question. “Hospital flight or something. Okay. Alright, I have to call Yoshi, then I’ll ask Taka about passports, and…yeah. We’ll just go.”
Like it would be that easy.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Yoshi had interrupted me before I got to any of the important bits. “Are you joking? We can’t move Noriko and I’m not leaving her.”
