by Judy Clemons
“Right. Who wants to talk about their troubles?”
“Do you know about Andrea Parker’s?”
“You mean other than that she’s dead?”
Death snorted. “I guess you could call that trouble.”
“Yes, like what made her dead.”
“I don’t really know anything about her. I’d see her from time to time—as I saw you the past couple of days—but we never had what you’d call a conversation.”
“You never attended the early morning aerobics class?”
“I go to my dojo in the mornings. I don’t usually attend any classes. The only reason I came to the one today was to check you out.” She smiled and sipped her tea.
“And what did you think?”
“We’re here, aren’t we?”
Voices came from outside the room, and Tamille set down her cup and stood, facing the doorway.
“What’s going on?” Casey asked, looking at Death.
Death shrugged.
The bead curtain parted and the hostess ushered in a man who was just as little as she, just as Asian, and just as old. He wore a wrap-around shirt and loose pants, a skinny mustache, and a graying ponytail. Tamille bowed and said something to him in another language. The hostess backed out of the room, her head lowered.
“Oh, great,” Death said. “If I would’ve known, I would’ve brushed up on my Japanese.”
Casey knew instinctively who this was, and stood, her palms flat against her hips. When the man turned to her, she gave a little bow. “I apologize for not speaking your language, sensei.”
Tamille gave Casey a little smile. “May I introduce my teacher, Sensei Asuhara. Sensei, this is Ms. Daisy Gray.” She cleared her throat. “Aerobics instructor.”
The man lifted his chin and regarded Casey through dark, steady eyes. Casey willed herself not to fidget, but felt suddenly wanting. All those years she’d studied hapkido, all those medals she’d won, the men she’d beaten…he would know none of that. And he wouldn’t care. All he would see was what was before him at that moment. A woman in a strange place, with basically nothing to make her stand out. A vagrant. A poseur. She kept her eyes on his, but stayed slightly bent, out of respect. She wished she could talk with him, to try to explain herself, but Japanese was not something she’d ever studied. She was ashamed.
Asuhara finally blinked, breaking the spell and waving his fingers. “Eh, don’t worry about the Japanese. I never was very good at it. My mother despaired over me.” He smiled brightly, clapping his hands. “I’m starving. Did you order yet, Tami? I’ve been thinking about tempura all afternoon. ”
Death let out a screeching laugh, and Casey’s mouth fell open. This was Tamille’s teacher? No, not Tamille. Tami. Casey stifled a chuckle.
Tamille glared at her good-naturedly. “I did order the tempura, sensei. And some inagi and shrimp Ebi. I hope that is acceptable.”
“Whatever you want, my girl. Whatever you want. Pour me some tea, will you?”
Casey took a seat on her cushion, trying not to break into laughter. Sensei Asuhara was not exactly what one would expect from a karate master. He was so…cute.
Tamille poured his tea, and he dumped four teaspoons of sugar into it. Like he needed more nervous energy.
“So,” Asuhara said. “Tami tells me you are quite the fighter.” He leaned over and elbowed Casey. “I’d like to see that. Someone beating my Tami? Takes a special person. I’ve seen multitudes go down under her fists.”
Tami scoffed at that. “Multitudes?”
“I do not lie.” He turned back to Casey. “You are new here, Tami tells me. Just moved in?”
“That’s right.”
“Coming from?”
Casey wracked her brain. Where had Daisy last been?
“Tallahassee,” Death said.
Right. “Tallahassee.”
“And why the move to Raceda? Men troubles? Money troubles? A strong urge for a good tan?”
Tamille watched Casey with amusement. You don’t refuse to answer a sensei’s questions, even if they are more personal than he should be asking at first meeting.
“I needed a change. Staying in Florida sounded good, and the job at the Flamingo came up.”
“Ah.” He speared a piece of sushi on a chopstick and stuck it in his mouth.
Casey used his chewing time as a reprieve, to prepare herself for what he might ask next. Who knew, with this guy? He was a live wire. He swallowed, and Casey braced herself.
“And how do you find the Flamingo?”
Casey shot a quick look at Tamille, who innocently picked up a fried noodle and ate it, watching Casey all the while.
“The Flamingo is…challenging.”
He laughed. No. Giggled. “That’s exactly what Tami says. It’s why she stays there, even without anyone to hang out with.” He shook his head, giggling some more. “Challenging.” He tried to spear another piece of shrimp, but his chopstick slipped, and the shrimp flew across the tray, landing on the floor. Tamille picked it up without comment and set it aside, wrapped in a napkin.
Asuhara waved his chopsticks at Casey. “So tell me a story.”
“About what?”
“Something at the Flamingo.”
“That I find challenging?”
He considered. “No. Something you find disturbing.”
Well, that was easy. “A woman was murdered on Tuesday.”
“Tami told me all about that, and of course it is very disturbing. But I want to hear about something else.”
Casey sat back on her pillow. What could be more disturbing than a murder?
“Oh, please,” Death said. “Like there aren’t a million things at the Flamingo that make you wonder why God ever made people to begin with.”
“Hair dye,” Casey said.
“Hair dye?” Death shrieked. “You can pick anything you want and you pick hair dye?”
“Not…hair dye itself, though, I guess,” Casey said. “But what it represents.”
Asuhara nodded, as if he’d heard it all before, and gestured for her to go on.
“No one there is what they seem, because they’re all dyed, plucked, tanned, whitened, buffed, muscled, or who knows what all. They’re squeezed into expensive clothes, or easing the awkwardness with alcohol, or sleeping with everybody who asks, or pretending they’re younger than they are. It’s like high school all over again, except for then people try to act older than they are.”
Tamille and Asuhara exchanged a glance.
“What?” Casey said.
“Your response sounds just like the complaints I hear every week from Tami.” Asuhara took a sip of tea, and Casey used the opportunity to eat something.
He set down his cup and searched the tray, his chopsticks hovering in the air. “No one there is what they seem?”
“Well, I certainly don’t know everybody, so I can’t say for certain. But just about everyone I’ve come into contact with. Except Tamille here, maybe.” She smiled, and Tamille acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “Oh, and Jack, the bartender. If I had to say, I’d guess he’s just who he seems to be, with ordinary clothes and only the hair God gave him. Talking to him after a day with the others is…a relief.”
“I see.” Asuhara set down his chopsticks. “Tami, dear, will you please go ask for a fork? I’m about to starve to death looking at all this wonderful food.”
“Of course, sensei.” She rose, gave a little bow, and left the room.
“Now,” Asuhara said. “I want you to tell me another story.”
“Uh-oh,” Death said.
“I want you to tell me your story.”
Casey stared at Asuhara, whose face suddenly held the seriousness and gravity she would expect from a sensei.
“Quickly, now,” he said, “before Tami comes back. Unless, of course, you want her to hear the story, too?”
Casey looked at Death, who shrugged. “It’s up to you. Spill or split. I think those are your choices.”
> “Our friend puts it very succinctly,” Asuhara said. “Spill or split evokes just the right spirit.”
Casey choked. “You can see…that?”
“That?” Death said. “Have a little respect.”
Sensei Asuhara rose, and bowed deeply. “You are most welcome in this room, Shinigami. I was not sure, when I first arrived, whether or not you were here for me, but I see now you travel with this lost soul.”
Death acknowledged the bow with a slight nod. “I seek to ease her path, sensei, although most often she does not view it that way. Now please, sit.”
Asuhara sat back down on his pillow, turning again to Casey. “Please, my dear, explain to me how you come to be in this place, with such an exalted companion.”
Again she looked to Death, who nodded gently. “Tell your story, love. Go on.”
Casey’s chin shook, and she pressed her lips together. “I…lost my family in an accident. I wished to follow them, but Death…won’t take me.”
“I see. And how long has it been since you have been home, to those others who are left, who know and love you? Parents, perhaps? Siblings? Friends?”
“I don’t know. A long time.”
He studied her face. “And as you think back on this long time, what challenges can you recall?”
A rush of memory flooded Casey’s mind—seemingly endless cold nights alone; miles of unfamiliar roads; days turning into weeks, turning into months. But more recently, passion in the back of a theater; Pegasus, scouring the earth to find her; a mobster bleeding onto the street; a good-hearted group of teenagers; the smell of Omar’s knit cap; a trucker, dying in her arms; Andrea’s blood on her clothes…
She shuddered. “There have been too many challenges to name, sensei.”
“I see. And how were you able to overcome these challenges? To go on?”
She gave a small, painful smile. “By following my own advice.”
“Which is?”
She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, acknowledging the exhaustion in her body, in her mind. “To run. To always, forever run.”
“There was no other option?”
She pressed her hand against her mouth to stop the trembling. “I guess the other option would have been…to stay.” To turn herself in to the cops, to face Eric, to take the blame, to be with Ricky, to live in her own town, her own house, her own bed. To learn to live without Reuben.
“But of course you had your reasons to act as you did,” Asuhara said.
Of course she did. It was all about the pain. The pain of loss. Of living alone. Of realization. Of acceptance. And, ultimately, of moving on. That involved more pain than would be bearable.
Asuhara leaned across the table and cupped her chin in his hand. “And, tell me…” He looked at Death.
“Casey,” Death said.
Asuhara’s eyes softened. “Tell me, Casey, my dear, if you could, what things about this chapter of your life would you change? If you could go back to just after the accident?”
Casey’s chin trembled again, and her eyes filled. “I don’t know, sensei. I don’t know what I would change. If I should change it.”
The beads in the doorway clacked together, and Tamille swept in, holding a fork as if it were the Olympic torch. She bowed with a flourish, holding it out. “Your silverware, sensei.”
He let go of Casey’s chin, patting it gently. “Thank you, my dear. That should make things a little easier.”
Casey swiped at her face with her napkin, looking down at her lap.
“I’m sorry,” Tamille said, the fork dangling from her fingers. “Am I interrupting—”
“Not at all,” Asuhara said. “Come in and sit.”
Tamille returned to her pillow, and Casey could feel her eyes upon her. Casey forced herself to look up and attempt a smile. She could tell it didn’t fool Tamille.
A loud, tinny melody began playing in their small paper room, competing with the ambient Japanese music. Casey looked at the speakers, wondering why the restaurant would do such a thing. Tamille and Asuhara, however, were looking at her.
“Um, you gonna answer that?” Death said.
Casey blinked. “What?”
“Your phone,” Tamille said. “At least, that sound is coming from you, so I assume it’s a phone.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Casey scrabbled in her pocket to pull it out. “I just got this thing. I hadn’t even set a ring tone.”
The screen of the phone gave a number, but no name, seeing how Casey hadn’t actually identified anyone in her contact list yet. The only people who had her number—other than the phone company—were Detective Binns and Dylan, and she had no idea which one this was.
“Excuse me, please.” She rose, bowed to Asuhara, and left the room. “Hang on a minute,” she said into the phone. The paper walls would hide nothing, and her dinner mates would be able to hear everything she said, not that it would matter with Asuhara anymore. She walked briskly to the front of the restaurant, waggled her phone at the hostess, and went out to the sidewalk.
“Sorry. I’m here.”
“Somewhere far eastern, I take it?” It was Binns.
“Kyoto’s.”
“Ah. I know it well. Any chance you’re about finished with dinner?”
“I guess I could be, although we haven’t even gotten our main course.”
“I’m calling from the Flamingo. Ms. Parker’s folks are here, from Oregon, and they would like to speak with you.”
Casey sank against the brick wall. They would want her to talk about Andrea’s last moments. What she had said. How she’d been. What was Casey supposed to say to them? That their daughter had been gasping for breath? That she hadn’t sent them any last messages?
Or else the parents would be watching Casey, looking for signs that she had been the one to end their daughter’s life. She wondered if they had already seen Krystal, and been poisoned by her hatred.
Casey sighed. “Do I have to see them?”
“No.”
“It’s just I’m not sure how helpful it would be.”
“I understand. You aren’t required to talk with them. They wanted to speak to the person who found her, and I told them I’d ask. They’ll be around for several days, you know, so you’ll probably run into them at some point. But you might want to just get it over with.”
Casey looked up at the sky, which was beginning to show signs of the night to come. The blue was now tinged with orange, and the clouds stood out in stark relief. A seagull sat on the branch of a palm tree, its head cocked to the side as it eyed her.
“All right,” Casey said. “I’ll be there soon.”
“You could wait until dinner is over. They’re not going anywhere.”
“What’s the point? I don’t have an appetite now, anyway.” She hesitated. “Are you going to be there?”
“I’m not going anywhere. Gomez and I will protect you.”
Gomez. Great. The way Casey’s brain addled when he was around, Binns would end up protecting Gomez from her.
Casey hung up the phone without saying anything else.
Back in the room, she grabbed her purse and made her apologies to the sensei and Tamille. “The police need me back at the Flamingo.”
Death crooked an eyebrow, obviously wondering if she was stretching the truth.
“Of course,” Asuhara said. “Then you must go.” He rose and met her at the door, taking her hands in his. “Go, with the strength of a sensei. And of those who travel with you.” He bowed, his hands warm on hers.
Casey bowed back, then nodded at Tamille. “I’ll see you later?”
“Count on it.”
Asuhara let go of her hands and focused his eyes just over Casey’s shoulder, where Death stood. “Until we meet again.”
“I will look forward to that day,” Death said. “But I hope, for your sake, that it will not be for some time.”
Asuhara bowed again, and Death swept through the beaded curtain, moving it ever s
o slightly, as if a draft had caught the strands.
Chapter Twenty-one
“You all right?” Death still wore the kimono, but had replaced the slippers with sneakers, since Casey was in a hurry to get back to the Flamingo. Casey herself was glad to be in her regular shoes, but still felt off-balance from the way Asuhara had read her. It was like he’d known she was hiding something. Like he’d known her. Behind his giggle and his bad Japanese he truly was a sensei, testing everything she thought she’d learned since Reuben and Omar’s deaths. Asking those questions her own Master had put to her so many times before, before Omar, before her marriage, before she’d even met Reuben. He’d asked them about hapkido. About life. About living. What were the challenges? How did you overcome them? What were your options? And perhaps, most importantly, what would you change if you had to do it again?
Oh, so many things.
Death jogged ahead and stopped in the sidewalk, hands up. “Um, I know you’re a bit freaked out and all about what just happened—”
Casey walked around. “I’m not freaked out.”
“Okay. Are you at least impressed that Asuhara saw me? And thought I was, well, something to be respected? Unlike some people I know?”
“Oh, L’Ankou, I respect you. I don’t always like you, but that’s different.”
Death jumped ahead and blocked the sidewalk this time, arms out. “How could you not like me? I’m so fun.”
Casey didn’t respond.
“Fine. Do you at least love me for my mind?”
Casey waited silently until Death got out of the way, and she could walk again.
“Well, you will after this. I’ve been thinking—”
“Scary.”
“—about the night of the murder. Something’s not right.”
Casey gave a short laugh. “A lot of things aren’t right. Andrea’s dead.”
“No, listen, it’s about the security.”
Casey perked up. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“Okay. Obviously the security at the Flamingo isn’t the best, but they should have known if a non-resident entered the building. Especially at that time of night. There wouldn’t be a lot of people going by the front desk or clogging up the video feed. You with me so far? But…someone had messed with the camera in the hallway. The killer is unrecognizable.”
