The Yakuza Path: Better Than Suicide

by Amy Tasukada

  “Mur—”

  “I didn’t tell you to stop,” Nao whispered.

  Another moan and Nao’s ears grew hot. He couldn’t look at Aki anymore with his half-lidded eyes and the tempting way his neck arched.

  “You want it right now, don’t you?” Nao said to the door. “Moan for me and show me how much you want my big, hard cock.”

  Aki’s murmurs filled the room, and Nao joined with a grunt here or there. Aki’s crotch burned Nao’s knee, but he knew the more vulgar he talked, the more Kurosawa would stay away. Nao listened. Then, a heavy sigh came from the other side of the door. He could even imagine Kurosawa shaking his head in shame.

  Nao pulled away from Aki’s delicious heat. There was a distinct tent in the front of Aki’s jumpsuit. Nao tried not to stare to save Aki some embarrassment. Yet even parted from Nao, Aki stayed pinned against the wall as if begging Nao to finish what he’d started.

  Perhaps he should’ve warned Aki about the plan to disgust Kurosawa enough to leave him alone. Aki didn’t need to get caught up in the mess Nao had created for himself.

  “I need your help,” Nao said. “Keep up the act until I come back later tonight.”

  “You want me to keep pretending we’re…” Aki’s cheeks reddened as he tugged the front of his jumpsuit.

  “I need to go out alone, and if Kurosawa thinks I’m in here with you, he won’t go looking for me.”

  “As you wish, Father Murata.”

  “We might have to do this again, depending on what I find tonight.” Nao smiled. “If you can’t do this for me, then I can’t trust you to do anything for the Matsukawa.”

  Aki let out another loud moan, which made Nao chuckle. He knew Aki was eager to please but was unsure if he could act the way Nao needed. He had looked too sweet to even moan out. Perhaps he wasn’t as innocent as Nao had presumed.

  With a flood of Aki’s gasps behind him, Nao opened the window and climbed out as best he could with his arm in a sling. The damp grass soaked through his socks as he snuck his way to the front of the house. He pulled on Kohta’s shoes and walked to the train station without notice. After all, the security was designed to keep people from coming in, not going out.

  ♦●♦

  Nao left the train station and walked the rest of the way to Shima. He used to think of the trains as allowing people to visit the wondrous sites Kyoto offered, but since finding the Matsukawa’s contingency plan, they only reminded him of the drugs poisoning the streets.

  Most of the afternoon had been wasted. A fog had filled his head, and he hadn’t been able to think of any questions to trap the potential traitors. He still possessed Miko’s key, which Sakai didn’t know. If Sakai followed orders about dumping the drugs, then in the next few days he would say he couldn’t find the key.

  Miko’s stash was a single facet to Nao’s plan since there were still the drugs cut with bleach somewhere on the street. If those were being sold by the Korean mob, then the person heading it all would be Taejin. Nabbing the godfather of all the Korean syndicates in Japan would be impossible, but perhaps Nao could find the head of Taejin’s drug deals and turn him in as the Matsukawa traitor.

  Nao turned the corner onto the street where Kohta’s brothel stood. Two suited men hid in the alleyway between the buildings. A guy in a floppy scarlet hat was held by his collar while a third guy in a blazer yelled at him about time being up. As a teen, Nao’s job had required doing the same debt collecting for the family.

  “Pay up!”

  “I get paid next week.”

  “You said that last week.”

  Blazer punched him in the nose, and the hat tumbled off the man’s head. It was Kohta. Nao would recognize that wavy blond hair anywhere.

  “What’s going on here?” Nao asked, distracting Blazer from kicking Kohta’s side as he lay on the ground.

  Blazer glanced up. “You want some, too, cripple!”

  Deep within the alley, Nao doubted that Blazer could see who he was because no Matsukawa would address their godfather as a cripple.

  Nao swayed out of Blazer’s punch and ducked down. Then he shot up, butting Blazer’s jaw with the top of his head. He stumbled back into the other guy’s arms before his eyes widened. They both fell to their knees, bowing so low their heads touched the dirty concrete.

  “I’m so sorry.” Blazer shook. “I didn’t realize it was you, Father Murata. Y-you’re not a cripple.”

  “Well, that’s for sure. I could beat you and not even need to use my good arm,” Nao said.

  Kohta grabbed his hat and wiped his bloody nose, which drew a glistening line down his hand. Nao stepped between Kohta and his attackers. They both remained on the ground, Blazer mumbling out more apologies.

  Nao cleared his throat. “I asked you a question, and I don’t like repeating myself.”

  The non-attacker Matsukawa looked up and said, “He owes the family over a million yen.”

  “Really?” Nao glance back to Kohta. “Is that so?”

  Kohta huffed. “When there’s ten percent interest every ten days, it adds up fast.”

  “Gambling habit?”

  “He buys too much designer crap,” the attacker said.

  Nao glanced down to Kohta. “I can believe that. Get out of here and look for any leftovers from the Korean mob. Don’t worry about him anymore. I can find ways he can repay his debt.”

  The two hesitated a moment but bowed a good-bye and left the alleyway.

  “Like hell you got this,” Kohta said, a small trickle of blood dripping on his upper lip. “I’d rather get the weekly beating than be your fucktoy. Yesterday, I purposely tried to get you drunk so you would pass out before you wanted to head to the back.”

  Nao had to admit, seeing Kohta on his knees was a nice sight. Perhaps Kohta knew Nao better than he thought. Nao shook the image out of his head. He couldn’t let some prostitute get switched up with Shinya, especially on the first night of Obon.

  “Look, I have a proposition for you,” Nao said.

  “I’m not going to be your personal whore.”

  “Will you let me finish?”

  Kohta sniffed. “Sorry.”

  “I’ll clear your debt, but you’ve got to work for me.”

  “You want me to join the mob?”

  Nao shook his head. “No, you’ll answer only to me. I want you to be my spy in Shima.”

  Kohta laughed.

  “You think it’s funny?”

  “There were two spies beating the shit out of me you could’ve used.”

  “Then they can keep beating you until you pay.”

  Nao turned and walked away. He got a few steps away before Kohta grabbed Nao’s hand. Kohta grinned and gave the hand a gentle stroke.

  “I’ll be your spy, but there’s one thing,” Kohta said.

  “And what is that?”

  “No more coming to the club thinking I’m going to go down on you.”

  “When I found out you were straight, I didn’t make you finish me off.”

  Kohta crossed his arms. “With the way you looked at me yesterday, I thought you were ready to screw me in front of your bodyguard.”

  “Look, do we have a deal, or do I need to call my men back?”

  Blood trickled down Kohta’s lip. Underneath the flashy clothes and sly smiles, Kohta had no choice. The beatings would interfere with his job, and while Nao looked past black eyes, he doubted many women would. Yet he made Nao wait.

  “We’ve got a deal,” Kohta said. “Who do you want me to spy on?”

  “I’m looking for any drugs dealers. Take their picture, then tell me where they are.”

  “Wouldn’t that get me another black eye, but from the dealer this time? Or maybe worse! With you guys I know you wouldn’t kill me because you wanted money.”

  “Just do what I say or I’ll smack you myself.”

  Nao pulled out his phone and poked at it. He wanted to find the picture of everyone from the beer garden, but when he clicked the cam
era, it showed his face. Nao groaned.

  “What are you doing?” Kohta asked. “Do you even know how to use your phone?”

  “The last time I used one, the best feature was slamming it shut when you were mad.”

  Kohta laughed. “Here, let me do it before you break your finger.”

  Nao handed the phone over, and with two clicks, Kohta pulled up the only photo in Nao’s phone.

  “If you ever see anyone from this photo, call me right away. What’s your number? So I know to pick up the phone,” Nao said.

  “You’re not getting my number. I still don’t trust you not to send me a dick pic.”

  “A what?”

  Kohta laughed. “Have you been trapped in a well?”

  Nao sighed, but he could trust Kohta. His face was what made him money, so getting out of the weekly beatings would benefit him more than ditching walking around Shima. Kohta took out his phone and copied Nao’s numbers. Then he clicked away at Nao’s phone some more before handing it back.

  “There. Now I have the photo. I’ll call you if I see them,” Kohta said.

  “Our deal is off if you don’t find anything.”

  “You didn’t say that when we made the deal,” Kohta said.

  Nao wasn’t going to allow Kohta to only pretend to search for dealers. They were out there eating away at the city. It was like Kyoto wanted Nao to suffer because he couldn’t keep the streets clean.

  “First you borrow money from the Matsukawa and don’t pay it back by the agreed time. It’s not like a bank would’ve loaned you any money to buy expensive clothes. Now you’re trying to get out of the deal because it doesn’t entail you getting to drink champagne and flirt with women.”

  Kohta rolled his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t want to drink champagne and flirt with men for a living, or do you enjoy beating people up?”

  “So we have a deal. And—” Nao pointed to Kohta’s shoes, which weren’t Nao’s boots like Nao had expected. “Next time we meet, I want my shoes back. I assumed you’d wear them until I came back to trade.”

  Kohta scrunched his nose, which must’ve hurt from the way he winced. “I’m not going to wear the same pair of shoes two days in a row.”

  “I want my boots back.”

  “I’ll give them back to you, boss. I wasn’t trying to steal them. You’re the godfather. Don’t you have more than one pair of shoes?”

  Nao pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to Kohta, who dabbed at the blood under his nose.

  “Those are my favorite shoes,” Nao said.

  Kohta rolled his eyes. “Fine, we’ll trade them next time.”

  WITHOUT KUROSAWA THERE to hold up an umbrella, the light rain dampened Nao’s face. He smiled at the mild relief from the heat of the night. If only his body didn’t feel like a tea bag that had been steeped one too many times. The lack of sleep and food made even walking the streets a struggle.

  Hopefully Kohta would have more luck finding the dealers during the night than he’d had at the beer garden festival. If anyone connected the drugs to the Matsukawa, it would be yet another stone cast at them from the citizens. He had to contain the issue for his freedom as well as the city’s.

  Turning the corner to the street with the Shima safe house, Nao took out his phone. Kohta hadn’t called, but it had only been a few hours since they’d made their deal. Aki apparently knew how to act better than Nao had imagined since Kurosawa hadn’t called either. If he could make it a while longer, he could take the last train home and be back before Kurosawa ate breakfast. He only needed to keep his body upright for two more hours.

  Chen’s safe house was lit up like an Obon fire in the night. With the blinds up, Nao could see straight inside. All the recruits were on their hands and knees, cleaning the floor or scrubbing the windows. Nao couldn’t help but smile to himself. Chen could follow instructions.

  Heels clicked off in the distance, and Nao ducked into the alleyway. He didn’t want to expose his midnight outing if the woman stopped. The woman stopped in front of the gate and waited. She must’ve been one of the women who’d been in Chen’s bed.

  Tilting his head to get a better view, Nao recognized the woman as Sakai’s wife, Kayako. She couldn’t be there to see Chen. The gate buzzed open, and she was let in. The voices of the recruits greeting her told Nao more than his obscured view from the other side of the gate did.

  Kayako popped back into view thanks to a recruit opening the blinds on the second-story window to clean. Chen greeted her and led her to his office. Nao cocked an eyebrow. He could see Chen leading her to the office, but Kayako had never joined the Matsukawa and had no right to be going into the office of a ward leader.

  The nerve in Nao’s neck pinched his arm as he strained to see inside the open office window, but with the sounds of cleaning and the street noise, Nao couldn’t hear. A few steps deeper into the alley, the utility pole with metal rungs sticking out of it stood as Nao’s beacon of hope to hear the conversation. It was about a meter outside the safe-house gates, but the dark alley between it and the next building made it perfect.

  “You got this,” Nao said to himself.

  He licked his lips and slid the sling over his head. A stack of cardboard ready for recycling lay beside the pole. Nao threw his sling on top of the flattened boxes and then stripped off his jacket. His boots would’ve given him better traction on the metal hooks, but he was stuck with Kohta’s foreign, oil-slicked monstrosities.

  Reaching with his good arm, he grabbed the first rung and pulled himself up. Then he wrapped his legs around the pole and stared at the next rung. Shooting pain electrified through him as he pulled his damaged arm around the pole.

  Kayako’s voice along with Chen’s came through the window, but with Nao being so close to the ground, he couldn’t decipher anything. Kayako might be teaming up with Sakai to pit all the ward leaders against Nao. He wouldn’t doubt it from him.

  Sweat dampened his skin, and his collared shirt suffocated him. He stretched out the fingers of his left hand to grasp the metal hook but his fingers slid off. Kyoto depended on him, and if he didn’t want to end up in jail in five days, he needed to follow every connection that sprung up.

  He wiped his hand on his pants and tried again. His fingers curled into a fist around the footing. Pain pulsed through his head, pounding like the heart of the city. He clenched his teeth, kept a tight enough grasp with his injured arm, and pulled himself up. He needed to endure the agony.

  Another heave and his foot caught onto the next metal rung. He wasn’t worried about being spotted since the pole blocked most of the view from the office. Chen and Sakai’s wife were talking, but the cars on the wet road made it hard to make out everything being said.

  “Money… Murata… everyone…” Kayako said.

  Nao’s eyes narrowed.

  “Is everyone doing this?” Chen asked.

  “Everyone.”

  “Okay, then I’m in, too.”

  Would Sakai pull his wife into the Matsukawa to be the one to convince the ward leaders to deal drugs? Chen dug through his desk, and Kayako said something else, but Nao couldn’t hear. He leaned closer and saw that Chen was giving her an envelope. Nao’s eyes widened.

  “Does Father Murata know?” Chen asked.

  “No, we’re keeping it secret.”

  Nao’s phone rang, quietly at first, but then it grew louder with each passing second. He groped his pant pocket in a frantic attempt to turn the damn thing off, but it only grew louder.

  “Do you hear that?” Chen said.

  Shit.

  Nao reached into his pocket to silence the phone, but his weaker arm quivered. His foot lost its grip on the metal rod, and his inner thigh smacked against the metal rungs.

  Everything grew hot. Between the sharp pain and the sweat dampening his clothes, Nao fell. He bit back a startled scream and tried to brace his injured arm for the landing.

  The ringing phone stopped, but the ringing continued in his ears as he smac
ked into the cardboard boxes.

  He sank into a gunpowder-black world.

  NAO BLINKED, RUBBING OFF the cold sweat dampening his face. He wiped his hands on his pants and stumbled off the cardboard boxes. The world spun, but he closed his eyes and concentrated on settling his stomach.

  The blinds in Chen’s safe house were closed, and the lights were off. The recruits must’ve finished the scrub down and started their usual shifts. Sakai’s wife was nowhere to be seen, which eliminated any idea of following her. They must’ve not found him, or else he’d be inside.

  Maybe it was best to go home. Instead of taking the train home he could hail a cab and get a quick nap in. Even a stuffed cab would be better than old pizza boxes.

  Nao mentally kicked himself for being stupid enough to not silence his phone. A quick check of his pockets revealed the device had slipped out. Nao pulled his jacket on along with his sling and searched for the phone.

  Nao found it underneath his shoe.

  His stiff bones creaked as he picked it up. A large crack ran along the center of the phone with small branching veins running off. The red light on top flashed his missed call. He chipped away the smaller pieces with his fingernail, but the screen still worked and he pulled up his voicemail.

  It was from Fujimoto, but he hadn’t left a message. Fujimoto might’ve assumed Nao was asleep when he didn’t pick up. Nao chipped away a few more screen shards. If it had been important enough to disturb him, Fujimoto should have had the gratitude to leave a message.

  Nao called.

  “Father Murata,” Fujimoto answered. “Don’t worry. Everything is under control now.”

  Nao narrowed his eyes. “What was so out of control that you had to call?”

  “Th-there were some members of the Blood Magnolias—”

  “In Kyoto?”

  Nao’s fingers curled into a fist. The Blood Magnolias were the trunk of the tree from which all the Korean mobs in Japan sprouted.

  “Damn it, Fujimoto!” Nao yelled. “I don’t care if the doctor declared you brain-dead; your ward is our weakest point. If you can’t handle taking care of it, I will find someone who can.”