by Carrie Asai
Hugging him felt pretty good.
We broke apart and I laughed. But Hiro kept staring at me with his one good eye. It was…it was completely magical. I thought again of my kissing dream. The tingly feeling inside turned up to high volume.
Then the door opened and Karen burst through. “Hey, guys,” she said in a low voice, in case we were still talking.
We shot apart quickly. I’m not sure why exactly—I guess I just felt guilty being that close to Hiro in Karen’s presence.
“Hey,” Hiro said, lying back down. “You’re back a little early.”
“Well, it started raining, so I just went and picked up some lunch. I’m sorry I’m back so soon. Is everything okay?” Karen asked. She walked over to Hiro and began stroking his hair. I immediately deflated.
Karen produced a couple of cartons of something steaming. “I picked you up some udon,” she said to Hiro. “When was the last time you ate anything?”
“Thanks,” Hiro said. “That’s so thoughtful.” He touched her hand and squeezed it. She gave him a little kiss. I pretended to be fascinated with the picture of Mount Fuji on Hiro’s wall. I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
Karen walked into the other room to get their lunch ready. I noticed that she hadn’t said anything to me. Was she still mad that I left her apartment without saying anything? Was she upset that Hiro had to talk about something with me in private? Or did she feel like we were competing for Hiro’s time now? I wondered what I could do to remedy the situation. But in a way, I didn’t quite feel like remedying it. Hiro had needed to tell me something. I had a right to my privacy. If Karen knew anything, she could put herself in danger. But how to explain that to her without divulging any information? I hoped that Hiro was smart enough not to get her involved.
I turned to Hiro. “Well, I think I’m going to go now.”
“Okay,” Hiro said. My heart dropped. I’d thought Hiro might tell me not to, but to stay and take care of him. To hear more about his run-in with Teddy. But I guessed now that Karen was back, I wasn’t necessary. I wondered how he’d explained the situation to her. A bike wreck? A stupid argument?
“What are you going to do about all this?” Hiro asked me, his voice quiet.
I tilted my head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, please don’t do anything without talking to me about it first, okay? I think you should continue to lay low. We should try to get information out of Teddy, but we need to think of a safe way. We need to get him in a public place. And we need to be on guard at all times. Be careful when you’re leaving here.”
“I know,” I said. Then I remembered something. “I still have your jacket,” I said. “It’s at home.”
Hiro shifted position. “Oh, right.”
I looked at his other jacket, the one I’d left him with, crumpled in the corner. It was covered in blood. He wouldn’t be able to wear it again. “I’ll bring it back tonight,” I said.
“Oh, Heaven, you don’t have to,” Hiro started. A little part of me wondered whether he just wanted me out of his hair so he could have the whole evening with Karen. So they can have crazy wild sex. I felt my face flush bright red as that thought crept into my brain. I thought of Hiro’s bedroom, where I had slept my first night at his house. It was nice. Clean and peaceful. It could definitely be romantic. Stop it, Heaven! I scolded myself. Be a grown-up! You have to get a grip!
“It’s no problem,” I said. “Your other jacket is a mess. I’ll come back tonight and give it to you. Maybe around six or seven?”
“Call me from one of those cell phones you got,” Hiro said. I nodded and shut the door. All right, enough lovebirds for now. I had bigger things to think about, anyway.
I was starting to hatch a plan about how to deal with Teddy. I didn’t want to talk to Hiro about it because it was dangerous and I knew he would be against it. But I had faith in myself to pull it off. I really thought it could work.
As I stealthily walked home, I thought about my theories. Say the wedding really was a Yukemura-Kogo link for yakuza purposes. Maybe for money, maybe for business, who knew. So then…who had planned the wedding attack? It wasn’t as if the ninja had been after my father or Yoji. Or even Teddy, for that matter. Honestly, he was after…me.
Had Teddy really not known about the attack at the wedding? He told me he hadn’t. Maybe Teddy was lying. Why did he need to marry me immediately? Why did he need money so desperately if he was now a paid captain of the yakuza? It didn’t add up. But maybe the marriage money was more than I was imagining. Like millions or billions. Or maybe he’d be paid out in drugs. He’d probably love to get his hands on some more. But that didn’t make total sense, either. You could only smoke or snort or inject so much—I assumed.
“Why?” I whispered to myself.
It was strange: Part of me had really wanted to believe that the Yukemuras orchestrated the murder at my wedding. But that didn’t make sense now. It seemed they needed me alive.
Or maybe it was a trap.
At home I decided to try to calm myself down by doing some of Hiro’s meditation exercises. I sat on the floor on my mat and adjusted my spine so that it was lined up correctly from my head to my coccyx. I put my hands on my knees and breathed in and out, thinking of only the word calm.
In and out, in and out. Calm, calm, calm.
My breathing was steady, refined. I felt vaporous. I felt light. But suddenly the image of Teddy floated into my mind. Teddy beating up Hiro. Teddy looking blank and frightened when that ninja dropped down from the ceiling at the wedding. My eyes popped open.
“I’ve got to find something out,” I said to myself. “Something. Anything.”
My mind was clear enough, but I knew I must be crazy to think I could pull this plan off. Who did I think I was, Commando? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Those sexy girl spies in the James Bond movies? But it just felt right. My heart pounded as I stood up and walked over to my desk.
I opened the paper bag Farnsworth had given me and rummaged around at the bottom. I pulled out one of the traceless phones. I rifled through some things on my floor until I found the pair of jeans I was wearing when I’d seen Teddy. I pulled out the little piece of paper.
I took a look at the address and then at some bus maps. Different stops, different routes. Timetables. I stared at everything long and hard. My plan began to fall into place.
I dialed the traceless phone.
He picked up. “Hello?”
I quickly hung up. Good, he was home. I slid on my sweatshirt and dark glasses, stuffing a tanto, or dagger, into my pocket, and did some warm-up, psych-myself-up exercises. I did neck circles and a little running in place to try and get the jitters out of my head. I went through the steps I’d take and tried to think of pitfalls. I had to time the bus correctly. I had to get in and out quickly. Okay. You can do this. But my stomach still churned with apprehension.
Finally I crept into the night. I was heading to a fairly commercial neighborhood on the other side of Hollywood, not too far from here. A bit of a walk, but I was feeling clearer, determined. I knew what I had to do. I was not about to get caught.
The house was easy enough to find. It was on Sixth Street, right next to the central bus route through downtown Los Angeles. It was a rambling, huge old thing, staked out by a couple of big beefy guys. Bodyguards. Human attack dogs. I could see the television flickering in the front room. I slowly made my way around the house, learning where the exits were. The back door led to a little yard that looked like you could cut through and get straight to Central Avenue. Okay, I thought. This is it. Here I come.
Concentrating with all my might, I managed to slip past the bouncer at the front door. He was reading the paper and paying no attention at all. The door was open; it didn’t make a creak to get through. I used the stealthy footsteps Hiro and I had reviewed. Keep your feet silent on the ground, I remembered him saying. You are light. You are soundless.
I saw him, slumped in front of the television, wea
ring a T-shirt and sweatpants. I checked around to see if any weapons were within his reach. Nothing. And the sweatpants were pocketless. Good. I’d caught him completely off guard.
I put the tanto to his throat. He jumped but made no sound. “Don’t move,” I said, holding his arms down. The sharp blade dug into his skin a little. I was shaking inside but managed to stand up. “We’re just going for a little bus ride,” I said.
And so, with the tanto pressed to his neck, I guided Teddy Yukemura to the unguarded back door.
10
We walked quickly and quietly to the curb. I disguised the tanto with my hand. No one was looking at us—yet.
A number-sixteen bus rolled up. I switched my position with the tanto and held it at Teddy’s back instead. His back against mine felt powerful, terrifying. I couldn’t imagine having the kind of bulk Teddy carried around. I tried not to think about it. I draped my jacket over the tanto so that it looked like I was just leisurely guiding him to the bus.
I dropped in two tokens for both of us. Teddy stopped dead at the bus driver. “Sit down,” I urged him. “If you just talk to me, you’ll be okay.”
The bus was full of people. We managed to find a seat at the back. I’d taken the number-sixteen bus before; I knew that it took a long route up to Century City. If need be, the full bus ride would last almost an hour. But I worried. What if I finished my conversation in an area that I didn’t know? I felt the pocket of my pants. I had money. I could take a cab if I had to, if I could find one. Otherwise I could take the subway back home; I knew where the stops were along this bus line. I was fine. I was strong. Breathe, Heaven. Do this.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” I said as we sat down, looking like two normal commuters. Teddy looked, actually, rather un-Teddylike. Usually he was decked out in Sean John or Ecko or Gucci or head-to-toe Nike, with souped-up-looking shoes and a lot of ridiculous gold jewelry—“bling bling,” he called it. But tonight he looked like a regular musclehead guy riding the bus, not a spoiled rich kid who laughed like a hyena. I liked the way he looked better this way. He looked more honest. Not like so much of an ass.
I spoke in Japanese so the other bus riders wouldn’t understand. An Asian woman sat up front who might know Japanese, but it seemed unlikely. Luckily, no one seemed to be paying attention. “I just want to find out a few things. So keep your voice down and let me ask my questions and then we’ll go our separate ways.”
Teddy frowned and looked straight ahead. I couldn’t tell if he felt threatened by me or just inconvenienced. “You’re something else,” he said. Then he smiled and tried to put his arm around me. Yuck. As if. Maybe he was not sufficiently impressed. I dug the tanto into his back.
“Ow!” Teddy cried. “Watch it.” He straightened up. “All right. What do you want to know?”
“Why are you following me? What do you want? Why do you still want to get married? And what was the plan for the attacks at wedding? Were the Kogos supposed to die?”
Teddy stared straight ahead. “Damn,” he said through clenched teeth. “All right. I’ve been looking for you because I need us to go through with the wedding ceremony.”
“Why?” I demanded.
He sighed. “To unite the two families, for strength and for business.”
For the yakuza, I thought bitterly.
Teddy continued. “If you and I married, I would move into the second spot at Konishi Industries, next to your father.” Right. This was nothing new. “The spot was meant to be Ohiko’s. But he didn’t want it. In a way, that was a blessing in disguise.”
So I was right about Ohiko. “Why?” I asked gruffly.
“Well, because your father wanted to get involved in some of the businesses my father deals with.”
Prostitution and drug running, I thought.
Teddy shifted a little in his seat. “Having me as the link was a great thing for the business. I could introduce your father to some of the…sectors…my father worked in. My father, in turn, wanted to be more involved in parts of your father’s business. So each had a reason for the wedding.”
Teddy sounded so textbook, so calm, so…legitimate. Then it hit me. He assumed that I had no idea about the yakuza. He was talking down to me just as my father did, trying to obscure the truth, to make everything sound innocent. I’d had enough of that! I glared at him. “Spare me,” I said. “I know about the yakuza. I know what ‘businesses’ you’re talking about. I’m not a child.”
Teddy opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
I continued. “I know about my father, too. I didn’t know before, but I know now. Nothing is legitimate for any of you. When did you become a part of this life? Back in Tokyo? Would you ever have told me if we were married? And the wedding was a yakuza trade, right?”
Teddy sighed. “Yes,” he said. He explained that he’d become part of the yakuza about a year ago. It was before the wedding plans had been made. His father had finally given the go-ahead for Teddy to join, to become the wakashu, or child, working not under his father directly, since he was the obayun to the whole clan, but with the saiko-komon, or one of Yoji’s advisers. Eventually Teddy would be able to move up the ladder, become an adviser himself, if he proved himself and earned his father’s trust. Teddy said that last part with a bit of disdain. He didn’t exactly look eager to impress his father.
He explained how in the initiation ceremony he was given his tattoo. “I have a huge one on my back,” he said. The tattoos were clan markings, a defiance of pain.
“What about Ohiko?” I asked.
Teddy stared straight ahead. “Ohiko did not want to be part of it. He betrayed your father that way. I don’t really know what happened, but I guess Ohiko and your father discussed it, and Ohiko refused to join the business. So your father, who needed a successor to Kogo Industries, was presented with the idea of the marriage. That was what was decided.”
Teddy cleared his throat. The bus stopped in a neighborhood called Westlake and several people got off, including the Asian woman up at the front. She looked at us strangely and stared at Teddy’s tattoo snaking up his arm. I wonder if she understood.
The bus started rolling again and Teddy spoke. “The Yukemuras intend to go through with the wedding,” he said. “We need you to comply.”
I gulped. Teddy hadn’t said, “Or else,” but he might as well have.
But it still seemed really flimsy. Teddy hadn’t told me about the money yet. From what he’d explained so far, it simply sounded like he needed to follow his father’s instructions. “There’s something else to this marriage,” I said to him knowingly. Teddy shook his head, as if to say no, there wasn’t. “What?” I said angrily, louder than I should have. Several people looked up.
“What?” I said again, more quietly.
Teddy sighed and twisted around a little. He didn’t seem eager to show it, but I was pretty sure I was hurting him with the knife. “All right. Since you must know, I need the money for a business deal I’m doing.”
“What is it?”
“It’s just this big deal that I’m doing with some brothers in Colombia. Huge money. I’ll be living large if this goes through. I just need some…well…up-front collateral in order to make it happen.”
I looked at him, confused. I wasn’t stupid—I knew he must be talking about drugs. I knew absolutely nothing about drugs and the drug trade. Talking about it made me feel seedy, as if I’d crawled into a different, dangerous dimension.
“This dude Angel contacted me a little while ago, right around when the wedding was happening,” Teddy said. “Said he knew who I was and who my father was and what we did back in Japan and did I want to get involved in this drug deal. They needed some money to be kicked in and knew that we had it. So I said, Cool, let’s do it, thinking my father would be all for it. I mean, money’s money, right? Plus it was gonna be my money that I got from the wedding. Your father was going to award me about ten million for the marriage. Kind of like a signing bonus into Kog
o Industries.”
I felt nauseous. My father was paying Teddy to marry me, and Teddy was planning to use it to plan some massive drug deal. I thought about the elaborate parties that were thrown the month before we were married that gave Teddy and me a chance to “get to know” each other. They were lavish, over the top. The first one was my father’s version of an “around the world” party. Each room was decorated like a different international city. In “New York,” for example, also known as our ballroom, decorators hauled in two hundred pounds of dirt to create a mini–Central Park, complete with walking paths and a minicarousel. In my room they’d built a mini–Times Square with billboards and neon lights spelling out TADEKA AND HEAVEN YUKEMURA. My father even hired a Liza Minelli impersonator to sing show tunes on a makeshift stage. Across the hall decorators created a mini–Rio de Janeiro at Carnival time. Hired dancers danced the samba in huge, colorful, sparkling costumes. There were even mini–candy-colored “floats” that drove around the room. It was like a whole parade, confined to one small space. There were four bands at this same party, each playing in a different room. There was every kind of food you could imagine or want, each cuisine appropriate to the setting of the room. The cream of the Tokyo crop attended. Teddy and I spent enough time together for photographers to snap photos of us. Then he ran back and wrestled with his friends, smoked cigarettes, did drugs, who knew what. I hung around Katie all night, miserable, wandering through New York, Rio, Paris, Beijing. I still couldn’t believe I’d have to marry Teddy. The brief glimpses of Teddy talking all gangsta with his hands and making obviously lewd comments about the women dancers and God knew what else had made me more and more desperate. When we stood together for one of the photos, he said, in all seriousness, “You’re going to cook me breakfast every morning, right?” I wondered if he remembered saying that. Things seemed so different now for both of us.
