Trying the drawers on either side of the desk, he found various writing utensils, desk supplies and envelopes. And one locked drawer on the bottom of either side. Benjiro searched for a key. He slid his hands around under the center because there was no drawer, but he found a lip, forming a narrow shelf right above his lap, harboring a single flat key. The key unlocked first one side, then the other.
One side held business reports, one from a week ago, of a large mining conglomeration. He knew of it and even remembered why. A little more than a year ago the company had stunned many in Japan by announcing that the new CEO would be a woman, an unpopular and uncommon choice, not to mention extremely challenging for that CEO.
The other side held more business reports but of a much less formal nature. There were ledgers, personal names, clippings, and hand-written summaries all jumbled together. And tucked in a plastic sleeve, partway down the pile, was a half-dozen Hong Kong five hundred dollar bills, accompanied by a copy of a note praising the quality of the design and printing.
Benjiro had done a pretty acceptable job of neutralizing the vat of acid that spilled into his guts when he’d discovered what looked like a Triad symbol on his lover’s photograph. He was having a bit more trouble rearranging the conclusions his discoveries were pressing upon him. He couldn’t quite get his arms around the mixture of military, corporate and criminal related items he’d found, but it was enough for him to know he wanted out.
#
After the stunning surprises he’d found upon opening the first door, Benjiro felt less need to continue exploring and considerably more trepidation, but he’d gone ahead and opened the only other smooth wall space in the library. Not too surprising, it was a bedroom suite. It was large and luxurious, but again, it was much more traditional than the rest of the house. There was a beautiful fireplace and the entire space was lit subtly with electric lights hidden behind what looked like traditional, working, paraffin lanterns. The lanterns were decorated with what had to be hand-painted scenes from all over Japan on the bases and on the delicate chimneys above.
The large chest of drawers Tomakita had been standing in front of for the snapshot he’d given Benjiro was centered on one wall. On it, next to another hand-painted paraffin lamp, was the framed picture with the medallion hanging over it. And there was the obvious Triad symbol, so very clear now that he held it in his hand. There was an inscription around the edge that was too small to be noticed in the photograph. To Koitamta, Dragon Head Mountain Master. Benjiro’d read enough about Triads to know this was impressive. It signified an elite leadership role. Why Tomakita would have a medallion made out to Koitamta was not clear to him though. Was it his father?
As he stood in front of the dresser pondering this question, the wall opposite him slid open and Tomakita looked in at him. He stepped through the panel and it slid smoothly shut behind him.
“Am I back earlier than you expected?” Tomakita asked.
Benjiro skipped the answer and asked his own question instead. “Who is Koitamta?”
Tomakita smiled and answered, “Without sin, thou wins it.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“An obvious answer for a smart man,” Tomakita answered, the smile gone.
God, it was an anagram. Koitamta was Tomakita. It was all him. The war criminal yet to be found, the dragon head of a Triad family, maybe even the puppet master behind a major Japanese corporation. Glancing around, Benjiro grabbed a fireplace poker from a beautiful set next to him and swiped at a switch next to him, hoping it was the light switch. He heard a whoosh and saw the fireplace come to life as Tomakita pulled a gun out of the bedside table.
“I really am sorry about this,” Tomakita said, raising the pistol to point at Benjiro’s head.
As the shot rang out in the small room, Benjiro dove for the table lamp, praying to any god he’d ever heard of that it was full of paraffin and not just a decoration, and pitched it just above the new roaring gas fireplace with the hand not holding the poker. It was heavy, full of fuel, and sprayed the front room, as well as Tomakita. His adversary took another shot and when he missed again, Benjiro flung the poker at him, bouncing it off Tomakita’s head where it continued to fly to the wall behind him, breaking the base of yet another lamp full of fuel.
Benjiro turned and ran for the door, getting to it just as one of the drivers opened it from the other side. He drove his palm into the driver’s chin hard enough to see teeth break and send the man back out the door to the opposite wall, then he charged back toward the garage, hoping it wasn’t full of ninja house staff. Looking around, he launched himself over to the row of Kawasakis and looked at the midnight blue bike, hoping for a key. It was there in the ignition.
He jumped on and kicked it to life as the door from the kitchen opened and the other two staff members came to a halt, mouths hanging open. There was smoke billowing from the open hall door where the driver lay moaning, holding his likely broken chin, and their house guest was looking like he was going to steal a motorcycle. As Benjiro gave the machine gas and his tire started squealing, he heard two muffled explosions from the area of Tomakita’s private quarters and a third, higher, clearer set of pops from the kitchen door area. He felt the impact, more than any sort of pain, in his left arm and he raced the bike toward the silent door, praying to the same gods as before that it was activated by a vehicle approaching it somehow.
Luckily it was, but he was traveling significantly faster than the exiting car he’d observed earlier and just barely made it through as the door slid silently opened to reveal the black of night.
Retreat
Benjiro knew exactly where to leave the midnight blue bike. Contacts and memories from his life before sobriety could still come in handy, he guessed. He didn’t even leave the key, but he knew the bike would be gone within the hour, and parts in a day. Even though all he had was his wallet with passport, he could navigate Tokyo with ease, and he decided to retreat to his father’s condo to regroup. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, his arm hurt like hell. Blood had soaked his sleeve, but the shot had only grazed him and there was nothing broken and nothing that needed to be extracted, as far as he could tell.
Shinjuku station was never really quiet, but it was very early on a Sunday morning so Benjiro found an empty washroom and cleaned up as best he could. The arm of his black hoodie had a tear in it from the bullet, but it just looked damp, and if he kept it zipped, no one would realize he’d torn his tee shirt into strips and wrapped his arm. By the time he’d ridden the four stops and walked the last five blocks to his father’s place he felt, and probably looked, exhausted.
As luck would have it his father was away, but his father’s mother was home.
“Benjiro, you look like hell!” she said, slapping his bandaged arm through the hoodie.
“OW! Granny, what the hell! It’s nice to see you, too!” he said, nearly passing out from the pain.
“It’s been five years since I’ve seen you and now you come in just like you used to, dirty and messed up,” the old lady said with disgust. “Your dad’s not here and you better be glad he isn’t. He would beat the color back into your face.”
“Gran, for god’s sake, I’m not drunk and there’s nothing wrong with me. I had a bike accident on my way to see you guys, that’s all,” Benjiro insisted.
“Well go clean up then, make yourself decent when you greet your elders,” she said, turning her back to him and heading to the kitchen.
His father’s mother, who lived with him since before he’d married Benjiro’s mother, was a tough old lady. Benjiro sympathized, though. It couldn’t be easy living with his father, who treated her more like a live-in maid than his mother. The best times in her life were undoubtedly those when his father was traveling. Benjiro hadn’t always been a joy to live with either, he guessed.
He stripped down, putting all his clothes into a plastic garbage bag in the bathroom, and stepped into the biting spray of a hot shower. Fifteen minute
s later he stepped back out, the color back in his face at least, but his wound was bleeding profusely again. He doused it liberally with the bottle of peroxide in the cabinet, nearly blacking out again more from the look of it than the pain, bandaged it up as best he could, and wrapped it with a clean, white handkerchief. He was planning on leaving Japan as soon as possible and hoped it would at least hold him till he got wherever he was going.
Taking a travel bag he hoped his father wouldn’t miss much, he threw in a few clothes, whatever there was for bandage changes and a toothbrush, and went back out to his grandmother.
While they watched television, which his grandmother kept on news stations constantly as companionship, he drank the tea and ate the cakes she brought out for the two of them. He told her lies about the last five years of his life and she told him the truth about hers, both stories making him even sadder.
“There was a huge fire on TV this morning,” she told him. “It was at the home of the past CEO of one of the country’s largest mining conglomerates. It seems the place burned almost to the ground, with him in it, in the middle of the night. They’re saying he was at home all by himself and that some antique kerosene lamps might have started the blaze. People are never careful enough, tsk, tsk, tsk.”
“All alone?” Benjiro asked, surprised.
“Yes,” his grandmother answered. “Don’t be so surprised. Not everyone in this world has boatloads of friends they can gallivant off to see all the time. And not everyone has a kind-hearted companion that will watch over them as they age alone, either.”
Years had passed since he’d last been there and it’d been longer than that since he’d seen his father, but this he needed clarification on. “Dad? Kind-hearted companion?”
“Ha! No, I meant me, of course,” she said. “Where do you think that poor man would be without me?”
“Um, yeah, I guess I really don’t know,” Benjiro answered.
Zambales Return
When he left his grandmother, Benjiro thought hard about where he should go for the days left before his cruise departed. It seemed he was down again to a small circle of chosen family.
When he landed in Manila he called to confirm Bettina was working. She was, and even though her shift was about over, she agreed to stay until he showed up.
“Just meet me in the main lobby,” she told him.
When he walked in eighty minutes later, he ducked out of her greeting hug, kissing her lightly on the cheek. “Any chance you could fix up a little boo-boo for me?” he asked her.
“You don’t look so good, Benji,” she said in reply, leading him down the hall to an examination room. “Let’s hope no one bothers us,” she said, as she helped him out of the dark, long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. The wrapping he’d put around his arm was now soaked through with blood again.
“What happened, Benji?” Bettina asked, not expecting an answer.
“Can I tell you over dinner at your house, later?” he replied.
“Yes. Just be quiet for a few minutes so I can get this cleaned up.”
#
Benjiro explained the entire episode to Bettina the next day, after sleeping for nearly twelve hours. She agreed that, hopefully, that part of this story was over and that Tomakita, or maybe more so Koitamta, had in the end received his just rewards.
A week later the wound was almost healed and Benjiro was taking Konnor, the closest thing he’d ever had to a son, back and forth to school. Bettina and her mom, not to mention Konnor, were happy to have him for a couple more weeks.
Nothing more had come, officially anyway, from the fire that killed the Japanese corporation retired executive. As far as Benjiro could find in any news accounts, they still thought it was an accidental fire caused by the kerosene lanterns. The news reports had grabbed onto one piece of luck. The old man’s favorite car, the 1951 Rolls Royce Silver Dawn, had been parked at the end of the driveway when the house burned down, so it had been completely untouched.
Benjiro remembered jumping onto the Ninja ZX, which had been sitting right next to the Silver Dawn, using it for cover prior to speeding out of the garage. The shots had not been fired at him until after he came out from behind the beautiful auto. He didn’t know where the staff had disappeared to, but that they had disappeared was a gift he wasn’t going to question at this time. Wherever they were, he would count on staying out of their way from now on. The world was very large and he planned on chasing sunrises for many years to come.
#
Bettina in turn told Benjiro of her discovery of Orlando’s mother volunteering at the hospital. She learned through the grapevine that Lorraine’s husband, Luis Bautista, had committed suicide sometime after Julia’s death. Another coworker said it was because Luis had been devastated when his son was found dead in Shanghai. Bettina didn’t share her discovery with Steven before he left on his work trip, so it felt good to unburden herself to Benjiro. She considered the episode closed and didn’t want to renew the whispers he followed again.
<<<<>>>>
Author and Publisher Pages
Books by R. Scott Tyler
Smugglers in Paradise Series
Game of Wit and Chance: Beginnings (Book 1)
One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish: Silver Dawn (Book 2)
Available later in 2016:
Psychology of Choosing (Book 3)
Fanpage: www.facebook.com/RScottTyler
Goodreads Author Page
Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/R.-Scott-Tyler/
Blog: karthlake.com
Author Email: [email protected]
Published by Griffonneur Press 2016
First printing, June 2016 (USA)
Copyright © R. Scott Tyler 2016
All Rights Reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1533522146
ISBN-10: 1533522146
Cover by Roy Migabon
Publisher’s Note:
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, transmitted or circulated in any form other than its original.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance, real or imagined, to actual people, living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
I continue to dedicate my writing to the memory of my parents, who were supporters of my reading from an early age. My father was a voracious reader and loved to write limericks. My mother wrote journals constantly after being told they were good therapy. Together, the two of them walked for health and stress relief. Reading, writing and walking continue to be three pillars of my life today. Without them, who knows where I would be.
I would like to thank my family and friends for their continued support and encouragement during this often overwhelming process. Special thanks to Indie Minnesota for giving me the opportunity to be with others walking a similar road, and finally, thanks to Roy, the cover artist who helped make the book and the series look like something I would pick up and want to read.
Contents
Teaching the Eastern Ways
Taking Losses
War Horde
A Familiar Face from the Past
Dinner and a Story
Breakfast and Philosophy
India Palace
Tomakita Returns
Chasing a Phantom
Directive from a Mom
Summer Break
Cast Off
Ships Passing in the Night
Singapore Fling
Cecilia
Walk in the Park
Saying Goodbye
Hong Kong Meetup
Konnor Arrives in Hong Kong
Lost in Hong Kong
Headache
Wax Ride
Reunited
Everyman’s Burger
Cruising, After a Bruising
Taipei Wild West
Goodbye Forever, Taipei
Block Captain Station
/>
The Bund
Meeting Old Comrade Cho
Dong Mian
Road to Recovery
Association
Interrogation
Chance Encounter
Christmas Rocks
Suspicions
College Fund
Volunteer Appreciation
Reengagement
Retreat
Zambales Return
Author and Publisher Pages
* * *
[i] Japino – a term for an Asian of mixed Japanese/Filipino descent.
One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish_Silver Dawn Page 16
