Pornopsychedelica

by Chris Johnson

  'They're worth a lot,' she said.

  'You can't use them. You need a special drive.' His fork stabbed a rubbery green leaf. 'But I guess that's what you're planning to do.'

  'You're clever, Martin.'

  'There could be nothing of any importance on these discs. Could be Yang's grocery list. Yang's gonna skin you alive.'

  'He's got to catch me first.'

  'That shouldn't be too hard.'

  During the last couple of hours he'd calmed down and he no longer wanted to add more bruises to her face, but he still didn't trust her. He didn't like how she'd played him like a piece on a board game. He watched Jessica across the table looking at Tomoko Iwamoto, all wide-eyed, getting tactile and whispering to each other.

  Martin didn't know why he said he'd go with Tomoko to see what was on those discs. He couldn't even figure why he was still in this country and not on a H-TOL skimming the Earth's atmosphere, taking himself and Jess to somewhere safe.

  'I know someone,' she said, carefully sliding those mantis sunglasses onto her face. 'His office can read the discs. It'll be safe.'

  'Fair enough,' said Martin. He was thinking if he knew what was so special about those discs it might give him an edge. 'I don't wanna take Jess.'

  'I never said you could go with me.'

  'I'm not letting you out of my sight. I want some payback from whatever's on those discs, failing that I'm gonna hand you over to Yang and see if this can get squared away.'

  14

  Office Etiquette

  Jimmy Ho had a cottage hidden in the suburbs. There was a narrow path leading to the front door with overhanging branches and stuff, making you wonder if bugs were going to drop onto your head.

  Tomoko made three sharp knocks on the aluminium door. No answer. Martin pounded his fist against a panel.

  A man appeared from a side path. He looked about sixty. Hair in a ponytail. He made a grumbling sound. 'Why so loud? Why not tell the whole world you're here.'

  'Sorry, Jimmy,' said Tomoko.

  The man had turned and gone before any introductions could be made. Jess had wandered from Martin's side to peek through a window. He grabbed her wrist and they followed the man to the back of the house.

  There was a long, high-walled garden, fruit trees and a kidney-shaped pond. They made their way onto a porch, where two Chinese men sat at a table, dipping chopsticks into small bowls. One of them raised his hand to Martin, who made a curt nod in return.

  Jimmy moved to sit on a wicker chair and pulled a cigarette from a pack. 'So, this is your new friend.' He looked at Martin and raised both arms above his head in a pumping motion. 'You like to work out?'

  'When I can. Not so much now.'

  'It's good to be strong. No room in this world for weaklings. This is your daughter?'

  Jess hadn't followed them onto the porch. She'd gone straight to the pond to look at the fish. She had a small bag, a few things she'd brought with her to entertain herself while Martin was away. A pocket inside with a phone and a gun.

  'How safe is this place?' Martin saw three more Chinese casually chatting on a bench at the back of the garden.

  Jimmy took a drag on his cigarette. 'As safe as any.' He looked at Tomoko for a moment, standing between the two men, helping herself to the food and playfully slapping away their hands when they tried to stop her.

  Martin wasn't sure about any of this, but he couldn't easily crawl his way back into Yang's favour, and right now the Japanese girl seemed to have all the contacts to get him and his daughter safely out of the country. What happened after that, he had no idea. She seemed to have a plan and he seemed to have unwillingly become part of it. He walked over to Jess, Tomoko kneeling next to her.

  'It'll be alright,' Tomoko told her. 'You'll be safe here. I'll be back with the old man in a few hours.'

  The women shared a hug. Jessica started rooting through her bag, said, 'I'll be fine.'

  'Yeah, okay,' said Martin softly. Then to Tomoko, 'Let's ride.'

  Jess waved to him from the pond.

  •

  Tomoko opened the rear door of the Mitsubishi and took a short-sleeved blouse from a bag. It was yellow with a red dragon on one sleeve, some Chinese writing underneath it. She started to pull her top from out of her pants.

  'If you're embarrassed you can turn around.'

  Martin leaned against an adjacent car and folded his arms.

  She mumbled something in Japanese and pulled the top over her head, threw it into the back of the car, and slipped on the blouse. It was long enough to conceal the guns she carried.

  They left Tomoko's car at Jimmy Ho's hideout and took a small Nissan he had in a garage. She drove it fast, nipping through the traffic, barely missing the odd motorbike that tried to squeeze in front.

  Tomoko's long legs almost touched the steering wheel. Some music played from the radio that Tomoko called J-pop.

  'Japanese pop music,' she said, hanging a right. 'For teens and sad girls like myself who can't be bothered finding something more mature to listen to.'

  He looked over his shoulder, then watched a black BMW coast alongside them.

  'Relax. We're not being followed.'

  He turned the car's air conditioning higher.

  She tapped her finger to the beat of the music, checked the mirror, hitting the horn to make the slow car in front get out of the way. 'What happened to Jessica's mother? Were you married?'

  'You slipped that in kinda sudden.'

  'If you don't want to tell then don't.'

  He shrugged. 'She died when Jess was three. We were married. We got married in a military hospital in Borneo.'

  'You were wounded?'

  'Shot through the leg and the shoulder. Two months later I was back in service. Eight months later Jess came along.'

  They were going down a street lined with palm trees. They hit a red and three lanes of traffic cut across them. 'Where are we going?'

  'To see a man called Patterson.'

  'Where?'

  'His office.'

  'Aren't you concerned about some of Peter Yang's goons spotting you?'

  'He relies too much now on his reputation. Forty million people live in this city. It's not too hard to get lost in the crowd.'

  Road cleared. Lights flipped to green. She started the car moving forward, slowing at the intersection to cut across to another lane. She found a gap and spun the wheel.

  'So, what's the deal with this Jimmy Ho? Everybody talks about him like he and Yang used to be partners, but they had some sort of falling out.'

  She paused to check the mirrors. 'He's an old friend of the family.'

  'Whose family?'

  'Mine. Jimmy and my father were good friends. He used to come to my father's dōjō all the time.'

  'What about Jimmy Ho and Yang?'

  'Jimmy and Peter were two big triad bosses. They had a war and Peter won. Jimmy left China and moved to Japan, where he was taken in by his yakuza friends. They gave him a bar to run in Hiroshima, let him take care of their business interests from there. Collecting money, making sure no new gangs tried to take over the area. There were new gangs all the time. That's where my father came in.'

  They cut down a narrow street. A techno junkie jumped in front of the car. Tomoko didn't slow down. The man dived out of the way just in time.

  'Your father was in the yakuza?'

  'For the yakuza. He killed people.'

  'Just like you.'

  'Not like me. There's no honour in working for Peter. I'm just his pet, his conversation piece. Just like Jimmy, he wanted me where he could see me.'

  'And now you're breaking away.'

  'Yes.'

  Martin wondered if he should give Jess a call, check that she was okay.

  'When we see Patterson the intimidation factor has to be high,' she said. 'Do you understand?'

  'Yeah, sure.' At last she was talking about something that he actually understood.

  •

  Tomoko spoke
to the fat guy on reception. Her voice was all peaches and honey. He called Patterson's office. Then Tomoko was walking across the lobby to the glass elevators and motioning for Martin to follow.

  They reached Patterson's office. He seemed happy to see her when they walked in. He leapt out of his chair and put his arms out to embrace her. She took both of his hands and kissed him.

  Patterson's expression faltered slightly when he saw Martin, but he still kept hold of Tomoko's hands. Pulling her deeper into his office, toward his big black desk. Martin closed the door.

  Patterson squealed like a girl when Martin punched him. He stepped back, hit a cabinet, arms flailing the air like he was trying to fly.

  'Sorry,' Tomoko said. She pulled the discs out of a pocket. 'I need to run these. If you don't tell me, he's going to keep hitting you until you do.'

  Martin grabbed Patterson and threw him into his chair.

  He straightened his tie. 'They might not work on this drive.'

  Tomoko dropped the discs into his hand. 'They'll work. They're from your company. I want to know flight details. From which port? Who are they for? And unlock the discs so they can play on any drive.'

  Martin watched her perch on the corner of the desk. 'I thought you didn't know what was on these discs.'

  'Do you think I'd take something from Peter without knowing what it was? These are Off World flight tickets.'

  Martin was making sense now of what Tomoko was up to. He still wasn't convinced of his own involvement, other than he might somehow be able to profit from it. 'Yang's never gonna let you use these tickets.'

  Tomoko prodded Patterson's keyboard. He started typing. 'He has to stop me first. And he has to be sure I'm going to try to use them.'

  'This ticket has five seats,' said Patterson, reading the data from the screen. 'I've not seen this before. There's one master ticket holder and then four places that are open. The seats will be allocated to, well, it looks like anybody the master ticket holder turns up with. It just says the Fernandez party. That can't be right.'

  Martin leaned toward the screen, pointed to a name. 'Who's that?'

  'Willard Shang works here. Looks like he set all this up. Flight goes from Kansai Airport. It's the one firing in five days. Peter Yang won't let you use these tickets.'

  Tomoko pressed her finger to his lips. 'Shhh . . . just read what you see. Don't look at me, look at the screen.' She played with his hair for a moment. 'Who is the principle ticket holder?'

  Patterson tapped more keys. The drive buzzed and hummed.

  'Fernandez Martinez-Perez.' Patterson huffed. 'Good luck trying to use that ticket.'

  Martin said, 'Who the fuck's he?'

  15

  Road Runner

  When Martin and Tomoko returned, Jimmy had gone. He'd left two of his men behind, the pair he'd seen Tomoko play-fighting with over the bowls of food. Martin found them sat on the floor, Jess between them, watching a goofy cartoon on TV. A slobbering purple dog chasing some racoon critters with a chainsaw.

  Tomoko nudged him and he followed her into the kitchen. There was a coffee machine next to a microwave. He found two mugs. She told him she liked hers black with no sugar.

  She leaned against one of the worktops, her long legs crossed in front of her. Shady was right, there was something weird about her. Something that Martin couldn't quite place. She was built like an athlete, wide shoulders, compact waist. The muscle on her arms was well defined. He'd watched her move, and when she did it was with the grace of a gymnast or a dancer.

  The two Chinese men appeared in the kitchen when Martin's coffee was about halfway down. One of them spoke to Tomoko in Mandarin, breaking the silence. Then they were embracing and talking excitedly. One said 'bye bye' before going through the door, the other following. A moment later he heard a car starting up, gravel spitting from its tyres.

  Tomoko pulled out one of the stools and sat at the counter. Martin did the same.

  'Now what?'

  'That's up to you,' she said. 'You can leave the country and get as far away from Peter as you can, or you can join me on that ship.'

  'You really are fucking nuts. What makes you think I'm interested in leaving all this behind?'

  'This Off World ship is the last one. Things are only going to get worse.'

  'You don't know that.'

  'It's an opportunity, Martin. To go somewhere.'

  'Suppose they went nowhere. Without this Fernandez guy these tickets are useless. What is he, some kind of artist?'

  'They're not useless if he's going.'

  'Kidnap him?'

  'Make him understand that we're his new assistants.'

  'And if he refuses?'

  'He won't refuse.'

  Jess came into the kitchen and leaned against Tomoko, their hands touching.

  Jess said, 'I'm tired.'

  Martin found her a room with a bed. He checked the window, making sure it could only open from the inside.

  'Everything'll be fine,' he said. He covered her with a cotton sheet, thinking she'd grown up too fast

  Martin wandered through the house and eventually stopped at the porch, sat down and absently picked up a pebble. He heard Tomoko behind him, though he didn't turn around until after she'd lit two lanterns and rubbed a cold beer across the back of his neck.

  'You have big hands,' she said.

  She leaned against one of the beams supporting the porch, watching him drink. She'd tied her top up so it showed her body, her legs and what might have been a bikini bottom visible through the thin material of a sarong.

  'Why are you wearing that?'

  'Why not? It's hot. Do you like it?'

  He glanced away from her and threw the pebble into the blackness at the bottom of the garden. 'How'd you end up working for a fella like Peter Yang? It's not as if you couldn't do better.'

  'How would you know?'

  Rain started to patter against the porch roof. 'Tell me about Japan.'

  'China Sea on one side, Pacific on the other.'

  'That as good as it's gonna get?'

  'I just don't want to talk about Japan.'

  He emptied the bottle. 'Bad memories, huh?'

  'Not all of them.'

  She missed Japan, that was easy to tell. Everybody missed somewhere. He couldn't help watching her when she walked into the cottage, returning with Yang's bottle of Scotch and two glasses.

  'What about Jimmy Ho?' he asked her. 'How'd ya meet him?'

  'Nothing to tell,' she told him, cracking the seal on the Scotch as she twisted the top. She sat next to him and poured the whiskey into the glasses. 'He was my father's friend. I used to work in the bar that he ran in Japan.'

  'A yakuza bar?'

  'Most bars are yakuza. Kampai.'

  She was holding her glass up. He had no idea what she'd said, but clinked his glass against hers anyway and emptied it in one swallow. She refilled his glass.

  The rain started to come down heavier. A flash of sheet lightning lit up the sky in the distance. He took a sip of the Scotch, swilling it around his mouth so he felt it between his teeth and warm on his gums. He tried picturing those endless flat tracks of land in Texas, maybe a tree on the horizon and an old pickup rusting in a ditch.

  He turned to Tomoko, realising that he'd been silent for a while. She'd leaned back with her palms flat on the porch, the sarong open so he could see all the way up her legs.

  She made a noise in her throat. 'What are you looking at?'

  'I'm looking at you.' He drank some whiskey without taking his eyes from her. 'That a crime?'

  'What do you see?'

  'I see a manipulative bitch who's been planning a lot of shit for a long time.'

  'Maybe. Maybe I work fast when I need to.'

  'You killed Paul, then Shady and Dooley. Then you deliberately let Yang's people see you at my apartment.'

  'I'm not forcing you to stay, Martin.'

  'Where the fuck am I gonna go? The only people I know in this country are yo
u and Peter Yang. But we'll be seeing him tomorrow when we wake up and they're fifty of his men outside.'

  'There won't be.'

  He poured the rest of the Scotch into his mouth. She shuffled away from him and sat with her back resting against a post. The sarong fell away from her when she opened her legs wider.

  'What are you thinking now?' she asked.

  'You know what I'm thinking.'

  'Why don't you stop thinking and make your move.'

  He looked at his hand, rocking slightly, felt like he was back inside the personnel carrier, like the sudden impact of an explosive and the fumes that had burned his lungs was happening again. He could see Lucas, his masculinity blown away along with most of his legs, much like Martin's ability to help, to feel in control.

  He lunged for Tomoko Iwamoto, his hands reaching out for her throat. The scene had already played out in his head, getting his meaty hands around her slender neck and squeezing the life out of her. He was on his back, pain in his ribs, like he'd been hit by a car. She was standing over him.

  He got to his feet, put up his fists with his elbows tucked in tight to his stomach. She scratched the tip of her nose. He went into her and made a solid jab toward her head, made another where he thought she'd ducked, swung his fist into her body.

  She'd barely seemed to move, but he'd never touched her. Each blow had been brushed aside like it was nothing. He felt anger and frustration rising inside him, gritting his teeth. She had an expression of curiosity, then the hint of smile in the corner of her mouth. He approached her faster this time, tried a few punches that should have had her on her ass, then she hit him. He felt three blows into his face, so fast it was like he'd been punched by a machine. For a second he had hold of her arm, raised his fist to slam into the side of her head.

  She was a flash of sudden, explosive energy. She landed a sharp kick into his stomach that knocked the wind out of him. He collapsed to his knees. He had to stay there for a few seconds. He thought he was fast when he jumped to his feet, that his body weight would flatten her to the porch. He didn't even know how she'd hit him, he just felt the impact of blows delivered with such accuracy it was as if he was moving in slow motion.