Pornopsychedelica

by Chris Johnson

'What kind of game?'

  'Something for you and a few of the bosses to gamble on.'

  'Would it be risky?'

  'Possibly.' Tomoko emptied the ashtray at Saigo's elbow into a metal box. 'How do you feel about putting your money on a fight? My dōjō against Yamamoto's. The fathead has been saying things I don't like, time he learned a lesson.'

  'Why don't you just go see him?'

  'It's not about me, it's about my students. If I lose face with them they won't train as hard. My students against his.'

  'Sounds good.'

  'I'll arrange it for next week.'

  Tomoko moved around the tables, emptying ashtrays as she went.

  Jimmy said, 'You ever think you push Tomoko too hard?'

  'Has she said that?'

  'You know she never would.'

  Saigo looked thoughtful for a moment, then he said, 'Let's get back to business.'

  Jimmy felt a shift in Saigo's mood, only slight, but enough to tell him that the friendly chat had finished. He gave a sign to Akeni, the barman who'd recently dyed his hair blond for some crazy reason, to start cashing up. The kid turned off the Sapporo sign.

  'Sato is satisfied with the way you handled the Germans. They're so scared now I doubt they'll even try selling black market goods.' Jimmy thought about having one more drink, then decided he'd had enough for tonight. He had business in the morning, negotiating a deal for 250 gold coins, and didn't want to be doing it with a sore head.

  Jimmy said, 'There's something we want you to take care of. Peter Yang is causing the bosses in Kumano and Kaita a lot of problems. He started out small, but now he's making more money than all of them put together. He's virtually taken over the smuggling in Kumano and the gambling all the way down to Tennō. All the big players are going to the games he runs on the riverside brothels.'

  Saigo didn't seem interested, although mentioning Peter Yang had straightened him on his bar stool. 'The bosses get their cut. What are they bellyaching for?'

  Jimmy, still thinking about that last drink, said, 'He's requested that Sato allow him to run the whole region, putting the bosses as sub bosses under him. Obviously no one is happy. They want to hang on to their territory and everything that goes on there. They are all loyal to Sato, he wants to keep the peace.'

  'I stopped hating Yang a long time ago.'

  'Sato is willing to pay you double. He wants him dead before the end of the week.'

  Saigo stretched again and slipped off the stool. 'Let me think about it.' Saigo smiled and patted him on the shoulder, pulling his pipe from his pocket and scratching at the stubble on his cheek. 'Tomoko. Drive me home, I've drunk too much.'

  •

  Back when he'd run the bar in Hiroshima, no one had given Jimmy a hard time. Sure he was Chinese, running a Japanese bar for the local yakuza, but everybody knew he had protection.

  The best days Jimmy ever had were running that little bar, just off Suga-cho and next to the Kyobashi River, close to the Hiroshima Station and the New Hiroden Hotel. He'd meet bosses and business men straight off the train, take them for some food and a drink at the bar, then take them to the hotel, where six young women, one Chinese, three Japanese, and two Western, had permanent rooms. If the guy was important enough he could take his pick of the girls, order anything he wanted from room service.

  He'd taken Peter Yang to the hotel twice, the first time had been purely business, straight to the conference room without stopping for a drink, the second time he'd turned up with his own girls, one white, one black.

  He'd done some scams there too, like the time he'd negotiated the sale of gold coins from two Italian mobsters. He remembered Renardo and Antonio swaggering through the hotel lobby like they owned the country, never mind the hotel, wearing leather jackets and smelling of cologne. They'd been set up under instructions from Sato, teach the bastards a lesson, he'd said. It was a message that the Japanese ran the underworld, and anyone else would be removed or financially ruined. Franco had said, it's ok, you can trust us, we're paisan. Saying it like it had been supposed to mean something.

  The money had been fake, though the scam had back-fired when it had turned out that only five of the coins were real. So in the end they had gained five gold coins, but lost a suitcase full of high-quality fake currency. Saigo had been given a small job three weeks later. Renardo's head had been posted first, Antonio's delivered in person by Sato, Peter Yang at his side as the new boss of Hiroshima-Ken. Why Sato had let him live and promoted him, Jimmy had never found out.

  Sitting in his wicker chair, Jimmy liked to close his eyes and let his mind drift, try not to think about today, but remember the good times that had been and gone. Tomoko walking around the bar, tall and pretty, the girl with the sexy feet, Billy Jade in his coffin in the backroom. Jimmy remembered the white guy who'd turned up with a banker's cheque, talking fast from the drugs he'd taken. The boys had loaded the coffin onto the back of a Mazda pickup, scrubbing their hands afterwards, fearful of eighty-four-year-old germs. An easy profit, twenty-percent just for keeping old Billy Jade in storage for a few days.

  He was thinking about that old rocker, seventy-two when he'd collapsed and died in front of thirty-thousand screaming fans. Heart failure. Brought on by drugs and trying to keep up with a nineteen-year-old model called Morveen. There was a knock on the aluminium door again, then Tomoko's voice. Jimmy opened his eyes.

  Tomoko's white top was stained with blood. Jimmy got to his feet, almost knocking over the bowls on the tray next to him. 'What happened?'

  Tomoko said, 'I changed my mind about Yang.'

  Hu and Jun, two men he liked to keep at the cottage, helped Tomoko into one of the wicker chairs, although it didn't seem that she needed much help. Jun, the oldest, knelt beside Tomoko while Hu said he'd get some things from the kitchen to clean her up. Jimmy sat down and picked up his cigarettes.

  'He knows?'

  Tomoko shook her head. Jun gave her his cotton handkerchief to hold against her mouth. She held his hand for a moment. Her blood on his white shirt.

  'No, not yet.'

  'Why did you let this happen?'

  She touched her cheek. 'I needed some motivation.'

  'Hell of a way to get it. Who did this?'

  'Two of Peter's men.'

  'You let them?'

  'It had to start somewhere.'

  Jimmy took a slow drag on a cigarette. 'Are you going to kill Peter tonight?'

  'It should end in Japan, where it started.'

  Jimmy nodded. He already knew what she'd say, but he thought he'd give it one more shot to convince her to do the job quickly. Give Peter less time to realise that he was involved, had knowledge of Tomoko's plan. 'How can you be sure he'll follow you?'

  Hu returned with a packet of painkillers, a small basin of water and a cloth. Jun carefully wiped away the blood from her chin.

  Tomoko winced. 'He will. I'll make sure he follows me. I'm the only living connection to Kameko. And I'm Saigo's daughter. He knows it's too dangerous not to know where I am.'

  'If you wanted a reason to betray Peter Yang I could have given you a thousand.'

  'Your reasons. I've got my own. He did kill my father. I don't believe he'd leave for an Off World colony without me. You know what happened, Jimmy, why won't you tell me?'

  He watched the blood slowly being wiped away. She was a lot younger when her father had disappeared, though the face behind those bruises had barely changed.

  'All I know is what Saigo told me,' Jimmy said. 'He had the money to leave, he'd made the reservation.'

  'You're lying. He wouldn't leave me behind. He pretended he didn't care because he thought one day I'd be taken away from him, the same as Kameko.' She took a drink from the glass of water Hu gave her. 'I can save her, I can set her free.'

  'Yang's wife is not your mother.'

  'No, but she makes Peter's world perfect. I'm going to take her away from him. Just like he took her away from my father.'

  'Keep still,' sa
id Jun. The cloth wiped congealed blood from around her nose.

  'You should kill him tonight,' said Jimmy.

  'I'm tired. I'll sleep here for a few hours.'

  'Don't play games with him.'

  'Can't make it too easy. Peter would take that as a personal insult, he'd expect more from me.'

  Jimmy groaned a curse in Chinese. 'What are you going to do?'

  'First, I'm going to find Paul and this new guy, then I'm going to send Peter a message.'

  'What about your friend?'

  'I'm taking her to the hospital. She'll be safe there.'

  26

  Benz on the Mend

  Feeling Lucy like that, with her naked ass pressed against him, made Jimmy wish he was twenty years younger. He'd met her at a bar in Klang, talking about nothing in particular, liking her short blonde hair and clear blue eyes.

  Her parents were Swedish, although having been born in Malaysia she'd claimed she felt connection to that place. She'd said she was twenty-two, had an admin job in a small office. She'd laughed and taken hold of his hand, like they'd known each other for years.

  She'd lived in a two-room apartment with another girl. Jimmy asked her if she wanted to go home with him and she'd said yes without even pausing. That had been a year ago. He liked having Lucy around and the boys didn't seem to mind her.

  She moaned in her sleep whenever he had to move, if she was sleeping on his arm or the arthritis in his hip was keeping him awake. Tonight it was something else. He was lying on his side and she'd snuggled herself into his chest and groin. He couldn't sleep and everything in the room was something to keep him awake. Tomoko was out there somewhere, prowling the night.

  His phone on the bedside cabinet vibrated. He reached over and picked it up.

  'Boss,' said Jun.

  'Yeah, what is it?'

  'Tomoko tried to kill Peter Yang.'

  The clock said 5.30 a.m. Lucy rolled over to face him, her eyes still closed.

  'No, she didn't. I doubt she'd miss. What have you heard?'

  'She killed one of Yang's couriers. Cut his head off. Then she shot two of Yang's guards and an accountant as he left his house.'

  'When?'

  'Earlier tonight. I've only just found out. You need to get out of there.'

  He watched Lucy breathing, her small breasts just visible.

  'Yeah,' Jimmy said. 'Come and collect me in a few hours.'

  •

  Sat on his office chair at the factory, Jimmy rocked back and looked up at the ceiling, saw the cracks fanning out from the light fitting. It wasn't the best place to hide out, though if he kept a low profile, didn't have his boys around or employees looking over-protective, then he felt he should be able to stay out of the way for a few days.

  He closed his eyes, seeing himself as a young man driving down a desert highway in a convertible, Lucy in the passenger seat, wearing a pretty dress with flowers on. She was uncomplicated, that's what he liked about Lucy. She understood their relationship so they never needed to talk about it, never needed to get deep and meaningful, not like his ex-wife from thirty years ago who'd needed to talk about why they were together, where they were going.

  Lucy had immediately pleased and satisfied him, sexually and in every other way. Talking to him in Chinese in that funny accent of hers. She could get him hard and keep him hard long enough for them to make love. He'd always known she was using him for money and protection, same as any other any other mistress.

  'Are you okay, baby?' she'd asked him after he'd had the news from Jun. 'Sure,' he'd told her. 'Everything's fine. Feel like an early breakfast?' And she'd given the brightest smile. Pancakes and orange juice.

  He didn't think he'd see her again.

  Tomoko pulled up on her bike outside the office window. He'd been expecting her, though he didn't think she'd turn up until it got dark. When she reached his desk, she said, 'Hello, Jimmy.'

  She looked a lot better since yesterday, the bruises already starting to heal.

  'I heard,' he said. 'So now what?'

  She got herself a drink from the water cooler. 'Passage to Japan. Get me a plane, a boat, anything you can.'

  'You should have killed him.'

  'Just like he killed my father? Shot him in the back or poisoned him?'

  'Things were different then. You should stop guessing, let Saigo go.'

  'Is he dead?'

  'He left, or Peter made him leave, what does it matter? He had an opportunity to get off this shithole and he took it.'

  'Knowing what really happened is what matters.'

  He thought about what he could say, convince her that Saigo had simply left. Tell her anything except the truth. 'I know a guy who can fly you to Japan.'

  One of the factory workers knocked on the office window and pointed across the forecourt. Two men stood there talking to Yong, the foreman.

  'Who the hell are those guys?' said Jimmy. Tomoko moved to the window behind his desk and looked out. 'You know them?'

  'It's the cowboy.'

  'What do they want?'

  She looked down at him sat on the chair. 'They want you.'

  'We'd better hide in the warehouse.'

  Maybe nerves, maybe something he'd eaten, Jimmy felt like something was using a vital part of his gut as a punchbag. He opened his desk drawer where he kept a bottle of Dr. Shen's Stomach Cure, tablets he'd been relying on for twenty-something years. Preserve Harmony the label said. He popped one into his mouth and took a drink at the cooler before following Tomoko.

  'Where’s a good place?' she asked him.

  They passed the windows in the main office, where the staff had left their computers to see what was going on.

  'Behind the loading bay, some boxes piled there so nobody knows you can get round. Look at these punks, think they can do what they like.'

  One of the strangers punched Yong in the face. Jimmy felt bad about that, Yong was a good man. He took Tomoko around the back of the offices, past the low wall where the staff liked to sit while they ate lunch.

  They'd dismantled a couple of freight carriages from KTM Berhad so there was plenty going on, forklifts moving metal panels and springs, welders with cutting tools arcing sparks. He wasn't making much money out of this, but looking busy helped to cover up smuggling and the money he managed to make from organised gambling.

  They slipped between a pile of railway sleepers. Jimmy lit a Hope Seven Light, the brand he'd switched to a few years ago after a doctor in Tokyo reminded him there still wasn't a magic cure for cancer. 'I can't see them staying long.' He blew smoke threw his nose. 'They'll sniff around for a while then leave. What was the point killing the courier? I understand the accountant. Parasites, just like lawyers. What did you take from him?'

  'Tickets.' Tomoko peered through the massive warehouse doors, open several inches. He could hear some of the employees shouting. 'Peter needs them for his Off World smuggling.'

  'They could be worth a lot. You been watching the news?'

  'I've seen it. Everybody wants off. Except Peter. Why be a prince on a new world when you can be an emperor here?'

  'Dead emperor,' said Jimmy.

  He thought about the bar in Hiroshima, when he used to watch her floating around the tables, serving food and drinks, always the short black skirt and the legs that got her more in tips than he paid her.

  'Tell me Peter killed my father.'

  He sucked hard on the cigarette. 'Will it make you feel any better, Little Kid?'

  'No, but at least I'd have an answer.'

  He wanted to say something, then Tomoko raised her hand and he heard footsteps and an American voice. Jimmy glimpsed the man who'd punched Yong in the face talking into a phone just before he stepped away from the gap between the doors.

  The man sounded stressed, pacing up and down barely a foot from where they were hiding.

  'I don't know what he's playing at, he's an asshole. He fucking attacked me. Are you listening? I don't care what you do with him,
Travis, he's holding me back.' He stopped talking for a moment and he kept pacing restlessly. 'He's in the office, seeing if Ho's been around.'

  Tomoko moved silently to the edge of the door, a gun in her hand.

  'If you think he could be working with her, what's he doing with me?' The man paused again, no doubt listening to what Travis had to say. Jimmy knew Travis, the man called on him whenever Yang wanted to convey a message, or just check up on him. Next to accountants and cancer, the only thing he hated more was lawyers, or ex-lawyers like Travis.

  'Yeah, I know where that is. You gonna meet me there? Yeah, he's got a gun. You gonna get rid of him? Good. I'll see you there.'

  Jimmy heard him saying, 'Fucker.' And then he was moving away.

  Tomoko slipped her gun back into her hip holster, walking back toward the office. He did his best to keep up with her. Outside the windows, Jimmy could see the two men meeting up on the forecourt and talking.

  'They're going to kill him,' said Tomoko.

  'Ha, better him than me,' said Jimmy. He watched them walking away, probably back to the car they'd arrived in.

  'I have to help him.'

  'What for? One less American to worry about.'

  He followed her outside, past the staff gathered at the doors.

  'I might have a use for him,' she said.

  She straddled the bike and thumbed the ignition. He watched her until she vanished, then rubbed his eyes and thought the money he'd left Lucy, deposited straight into her account first thing tomorrow morning. She'd be looked after, that's the way he liked to think about it, that he'd done something good for someone who deserved it.

  Travis would find him eventually, or sometime today he'd cross the street and there would be Peter Yang looking straight at him. He needed to feel alive again one last time.

  27

  Past Persistent

  'Tell me how this is going to work out,' Peter Yang had said, looking about the startled faces like he wasn't really expecting an answer. He was here to give a speech, to lay down his terms.

  He was wearing a pure wool black coat over his suit, red silk tie.