by Amy Faye
"I might have portrayed myself as, well, a normal girl. But that's not really the case."
She was really struggling with this, he thought, but he kept quiet.
"My father is the head of a big Yakuza clan back in Japan. Like. One of the biggest. I'm his only child, so even though it's a little unusual, I'm more-or-less heir to the family. If I were to get married to someone who wanted the role, then my husband would be in control of our family. Maybe not chairman of the whole clan, but our family isn't small."
"I see."
"You don't… hate me, do you?"
"No," he said, honestly. He didn't add that he already knew most of that, and the parts he hadn't weren't nearly as important as the ones he had.
"I'm sorry that I lied to you."
"It's fine. I get you have secrets. Hell, I have secrets. Stuff I don't like to talk to people about, right? Same thing. I get it."
"I was worried," she said softly. The water had taken on a nice black color, so Wes dipped a cup in to fill it up.
"You want coffee?"
"I shouldn't."
Wes shrugged and took the pot off the hot stove eye, then shut the stove off and moved to the couch.
"So is that what you came here to tell me?"
"Not really." She looked almost sad when she said it, as if she was still trying to decide if she was going to tell him whatever it was.
"Okay, what is it, then?"
"I don't know where to start."
"Then start at the beginning."
"It's not really like that."
"Okay, well, just spit it out—"
"I'm pregnant, Wes."
Wes took a sip of coffee, and the heat burned his mouth, but he swallowed it down without showing a response.
"Are you sure? Or just guessing?"
"Three positive tests."
"Okay."
"What? You're thinking something. Tell me what you're thinking."
"I'm not thinking anything."
"Don't lie to me, Wes."
"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess—"
"Yes, it's definitely yours. Unless it's a miraculous conception."
"That does seem unlikely, doesn't it?"
Wes couldn't figure out how he felt, never mind how he was supposed to react. Did she want him to be happy about it? He wasn't. Did she want him to be upset and worried about it? To his surprise, he wasn't.
All in all, he wasn't sure what he was.
"Do you intend to keep it?"
She looked at her hands. "I do."
"Then we're going to have to get something straightened out with your family. I'm not going to have a child I can't visit without getting my ass kicked by a bunch of Yakuza goons."
"That won't be a problem," she said. She didn't say it in a way that meant there were no problems. Rather, he got the distinct feeling that she meant that things wouldn't get that far.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"My father's going to have you killed."
"Oh." Between the coffee keeping him awake and the stillness of fatigue, Wes was surprised how clear his head was on the whole thing. Like he knew exactly what to do, only he didn't have a plan. Not really.
"You should leave. He won't chase you."
"If you'll come with me."
Minami shook her head. "Then he'd chase you to the ends of the earth."
"Then I'm not leaving," Wes said, taking another scalding sip of coffee.
"You have to, Wes. This isn't a time to be stubborn. This is your life we're talking about."
Wes let a breath out through his nose.
"Remember a minute ago? I mentioned I had things I don't like talking about?"
"Yes," Minami started.
"I'm not from here, not originally. I'm from New York City. Born and raised there. I didn't come out west until I was twenty-five years old."
"Okay."
"I still have family back there. Not much family, and not close. But family, nonetheless. I have a sister. She's a dope fiend. Can't stay straight more than a few hours. I don't know how she keeps getting the stuff, and I don't really want to know."
"I don't understand why you're telling me this."
"I'm telling you because I need you to understand. She got mixed up with a crime family back there. Some fuckin' Russians. I got mixed up with them, too, to support her little girls. They're ten years old, now, I think. No father. Never in the picture for them. I don't even know who it was, to tell you the truth."
Wes paused for a minute and looked at Minami significantly. She didn't have a response.
"I shouldn't have run off. I might have gotten a hero's reception with the family when I got out of prison, but I didn't want one. I wanted to be out of that life."
"What did you do?"
"I robbed a jeweler's."
"You don't seem the type," Minami said, her eyebrows furrowing.
"You don't know what you're capable of until you do it. I was convicted in a court of law, served five years, and that's all that counts. As far as the court is concerned, 'the type' or not, I did it."
"So…"
"So the point is, I abandoned those girls. They didn't have a father, and then they lost an uncle. A phone call every few weeks isn't the same damned thing. A few bucks in a trust fund isn't the same damned thing. A child shouldn't—"
Wes broke off. He could feel himself getting too hot for the conversation, but he couldn't stop himself, so the best thing to do was shut the hell up.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"So what are we going to do?"
"I don't know," Minami confessed.
"Fine. Then we'll go with my idea. We'll go talk to your old man. Face to face."
"That's not a good idea," Minami answered.
"It's fine, and that's how it's going to be."
"I don't want you to get hurt."
"Then I won't."
Thirty-One
Minami
Minami had never heard a worse plan. Which only made it that much worse that she was here supporting it. She should have been trying to convince him to leave. Maybe he'd eventually listen to reason.
Granted that Minami had never been given even the slightest indication that Wes ever did anything reasonably, or ever listened to anyone talking sense to him, but the hope was always there, and she just had to keep trying.
But she wasn't trying, and as strange as it was to admit, she wasn't about to start. If she was going to get out of the Yakuza life for good, then she was going to have to run up against a confrontation some time, and Wes was practically begging to go to her house and confront some people.
If things didn't get violent, then that would be good. But the odds of that happening were slim.
"I don't think this is a good idea." She wasn't sure how many times she'd said it during the drive, sitting beside Wes in that beat up old sports car.
He didn't respond, the same as he hadn't responded all those times before.
"There's still time," she said, but even she didn't believe he was going to listen to her. The chances were one in a million that she got through that hard head of his. And to be honest, she wasn't sure if she wanted him to listen. There was something comforting about having someone stand up to her father, for once in her life.
"Which way?"
"Right," she answered, trying to calm down and relegate herself to doing what he wanted. Trying not to start in again with the 'leave while you can' mess. It wasn't getting through to him, and in truth she wasn't entirely sure she wanted it to any more.
"Straight through… take the next left."
She pointed out the house. He drove a little ways past it, scanning the horizon. No doubt looking for anyone waiting outside to jump him, which Minami wouldn't have put past him.
Except that they were already out. Looking for Wes at his apartment by now, no doubt, and more than that, looking for Minami. There was no way that they had missed the fact that she had gotten out through her be
droom window, not for this long.
"Are you going to be okay?"
Wes shrugged and pushed the door open. "Wish me luck."
"You say that like you're going in alone."
"Isn't it a risk for you to even be seen with me?"
"That doesn't matter," Minami answered. "I'm going with you. You're not going to put yourself in danger without my being there."
Wes shrugged. "Stay a little behind me, then. Don't get yourself hurt on my account, you got that?"
Minami didn't argue with him. He didn't seem like he was in the mood to be argued with.
Minami keyed in the code for the front gate, and the doors swung open automatically. Wes stepped inside, apparently deciding not to pull his car up. Well, she couldn't entirely blame him.
"You comin', or what?"
Wes started to move again without finding out the answer to his question. If she wasn't going to come then he wasn't going to force her, she knew. She was the one who wanted to be there. He thought she should stay away.
That wasn't going to happen. She needed to be there. She needed to be able to let her father see exactly what he was doing to her, and if he could still do it knowing how bad it hurt his only daughter, she didn't care any more. She swallowed hard. Hopefully, though, it wouldn't come to that. She had to hold out some kind of hope that she could make him see sense before things went too far.
If not, then there was no way that she was ever going to get free of her father's life, no matter what. If he was that insistent, then she'd have to allow it, regardless of what she really wanted from her life. It was his decision, in a sense. The thought soured her mood.
Wes walked up to the front door, perhaps the single stupidest place he could have gone. Then, panic shooting through her, he knocked on the door. The old maid answered the door. In Japanese, no less.
Wes didn't miss a beat. "I'm Wesley Park. I'm here to see Mr. Shimizu."
The maid spoke English just fine. The Japanese was just to fuck with the American showing up at 3 A.M. To Minami's surprise, it hadn't particularly upset him. Maybe he missed the joke at his expense.
After a long moment, the maid nodded and guided him inside. Minami followed behind, the maid never acknowledging her presence. They were guided to the tatami room. Nobody waited, and as usual, there was no furniture to be found in the place. Wes sat with his back pressed against the wall and got ready to wait.
Minami wasn't sure how long he'd have to wait. It could be as little as a minute, or they could force a longer wait in spite of him. He didn't look like he was going to let it get to him either way.
Thirty-Two
Wes
Wes formed himself back up against the wall. The odds had always been in favor of his being made to wait. They might try to set up some kind of ambush, of course. Even if they didn't, it made it that much easier to get him on-edge.
So he wasn't going to let it get to him. Couldn't afford to let it get to him. Because if he did, then he'd be playing right into their hands. Rubashkin had pulled this shit all the time, and it usually worked. When it didn't, well, that didn't matter all that much.
He closed his eyes and listened close. The sleep that threatened to overtake him told him already that he shouldn't close his eyes. He forced them open. In the seconds that he'd had them closed, though, he could hear the steps outside. Apparently they'd waited long enough.
The door slid open. Very Japanese, Wes thought. Almost cute. The first man to enter was wearing a suit nicer than just about anything Wes had seen. Maybe Rubashkin had one that nice, for particularly honored guests, but there was a lot about Wes's memories of the man that he tacked up to mythology.
He was flanked on both sides by what must have been half a dozen men. Too many to fight, fair or not. The odds that they didn't have, at the very least, knives stashed somewhere seemed especially slim, where Wes had come unarmed. A gesture of goodwill, if you will.
"Mr. Shimizu?"
One of the goons' faces twisted up in anger. Apparently he'd used the wrong form of address. Oh, well.
The man at the head of the group gave a barely-perceptible bow.
"And you're Mr. Wesley Park?"
"I am."
The entire environment seemed designed to make him panic into doing something stupid, and he had to admit that the thought had gone through his head. Maybe they'd let him live if he begged for forgiveness.
Wes wasn't above begging, not when it was the only option he had available. But he knew better than to start with that. The minute he let anything slip, he had already lost. He'd be a dead man. So it was important that he didn't make that mistake, not as long as it could be avoided.
"I heard you wanted to see me."
"My daughter told you this?"
Wes looked up at him with the dead-eyed expression he'd learned in prison, and shrugged his shoulders. The jumpy guy looked about ready to take a club to his head, which in Wes's mind meant he was probably doing alright for himself.
"I just heard it through the grapevine. You had your men out looking for me. But you ought to know, all you had to do was ask. For such a great leader like yourself, I'd have to come running, don't you think?"
Wes could see on their faces that they didn't think he was serious about any of that, and they weren't too far wrong. But he wasn't being sarcastic, either. It was more than about what he thought. It was about respect. After all, wasn't that a real big thing with these types?
"So you say."
"I intend to marry your daughter. With your permission, of course."
Minami's eyes shot wide open and he could see that it took a real effort not to shout something out as he said it. Well, that was fine. His intentions weren't a decision she could make for him. If she didn't want to marry, then that would come later. But it wasn't because of his refusal.
If they thought that their association had been disrespectful, then marriage was the only answer Wes could see, and he had to admit that he didn't mind the idea one bit, either.
"I see… So you want to be my heir?" He let out a soft snort, one that was followed by cackling laughs from the men behind him. "It's a hundred years too soon for you, Mr. Wesley Park."
"Not particularly," he answered. The answer wasn't accurate enough. He wouldn't have taken up the mantle if they'd offered him Minami's hand in marriage and a hundred million dollars as a sort of signing bonus.
He wasn't a mobster any more. He wasn't going back to that life. Not in New York, and not in Japan.
"Oh, is that right? Why, then?"
"She's a fine woman. Who wouldn't want to marry her?"
The Shimizu head frowned at that. He was hoping for a provocation. Wes could see that now. It was only a matter of time until he found it.
"You're not in the consideration, Park."
"No?" Wes's gaze slid over to Minami. "Maybe you should ask your daughter's opinion on it."
Minami's father frowned and turned to his daughter. Said something in Japanese that Wes didn't understand. She looked from his face to Wes's, and then said something back to him. He was almost irritated that they'd done it, since he knew that her father spoke Japanese in large part to embarrass Wes and exclude him. He could say whatever he wanted now, and Wes had no way of knowing unless Minami spoke up.
And more and more, Wes was beginning to see the way things were, and they were that Minami wasn't going to stand up to her father any time soon.
The Shimizu chairman frowned at the response, and took a moment to compose himself before turning back to Wes. "You know how women are, Mr. Park. Fickle, and subject to baser whims."
Wes shut his eyes a moment, swallowing the words that had immediately jumped into his mouth.
"Still, don't you think that she should have some say in her husband?"
"And she has a say. But that doesn't mean I'll let her marry a spineless coward."
Wes thought that was a fun thought, given that his face still bore the faint remnants of his broken nose, and his ki
dneys still bore deep brown and purple bruising that he'd taken from one of Shimizu's own goons.
"Then why would you offer her to Takuya Higa?"
That was the only thing he needed to hear, it seemed. That was insult enough to get things moving. Well, Wes thought, as one of the Yakuza jumped to his feet, it was fun while it lasted.
The guy reached into his jacket and pulled a gun free. Shimizu looked at the guy, and then looked at Wes, and the gun pointed. The chairman didn't specifically tell him to, but Wes knew better than to assume that people like this regularly went off the reservation. If he was pulling out a gun, it was because Shimizu was letting him.
"Are you going to shoot me, then?"
"Yes."
"Then at least do it yourself. I'm spineless, you say—but you can't even dirty your own hands to kill one pitiful, spineless American?"
Wes locked him with the stare that he had gotten plenty of practice with over the years, and Shimizu met his gaze evenly.
"Alright," he said.
The man held out his hand, not bothering to look back, and the lackey handed the gun back. Almost reluctantly, but he did it without complaint. Shimizu's hand tightened around it and pointed, and Wes was fairly sure he was about to die. Only, to his great surprise, Minami started to move.
Thirty-Three
Minami
Minami moved before she knew what she was going to do. All she knew was, if she waited a split second to get her head clear, that would be a split-second too late for Wes. This had always been a bad idea. She'd told him. A terrible idea.
She still didn't know what she was doing until she realized she'd put her body between the gun and Wes. The Yakuza behind her father, the one pointing a gun that now would shoot straight through her belly, turned a bit green, now unsure what to do.
Her father spoke first. "Move!"
"No," she said.
"Move, I said!"
"I refuse."
"Why should I listen to the whims of a girl?"
She hadn't known he would phrase it quite like that, but that was the question she'd been asking herself since she realized the predicament she'd put herself into. Why would they want to listen to what she has to say? Because she really likes him a lot? Because it would hurt her feelings?
