Ramen Assassin

by Rhys Ford

  But then again, silence was only possible if Eugene Aoki wasn’t there, because no matter how still Kuro’s second-in-command sat, he was surrounded by a sea of white noise.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t love Aoki. He did. Mostly. He owed the man a lot. Aoki had pulled his ass out of many a tight mission, cutting in with information and escape holes Kuro couldn’t have found on the fly. More than a few times, other operatives tried to lure Aoki away, promising him a higher profile or greater pay. Kuro’s department head always countered the pay offers, then surreptitiously shared recordings of Aoki working an extraction. Normally that was enough for the headhunters to quietly wither up and drop off.

  Because the man never shut up.

  The leg bouncing was usually a sign Aoki was about to burst into a rattle of noise, and right now if Kuro attached a tub of heavy cream to Aoki’s knee, he’d have butter in about ten minutes. Then came the shifting on the barstool, an ominous creaking and swaying broad enough to stress the screws holding its metal legs to its stabilizing base. They’d already had to replace two of the wooden stools, and Kuro’d hoped the metal-and-vinyl one would be able to hold up under Aoki’s fidgeting, but from the sounds of it, the poor seat wouldn’t make it another day.

  A slightly plump man with a moon face, Aoki was the picture of a happy soul, with a broad smile and cold-reddened cheeks. Wearing khaki cargo shorts and one of the shop’s T-shirts stretched across his thick torso, he shimmied in place for another minute, shattering Kuro’s concentration, and not for the first time since he’d opened the shop, Kuro wondered if he’d added enough eggs to his dough, having lost count after a particularly loud throat-clearing behind him.

  “Just say it,” Kuro finally muttered, folding a piece of wrap around a ball of dough.

  “I’m fine! Don’t need to say anything!” Aoki burbled, his tongue tripping over his words. The rocking began anew and the stool groaned, tired of the abuse. “You work. I’m just watching!”

  “You’re holding something in, and if you don’t get it out soon, your head’s going to explode.” He glanced over his shoulder, shooting his former communications liaison a skeptical look. “I don’t want to have to wipe your brains off the walls or equipment. You know how Tanaka gets if you spoil his vegetable prep time.”

  “Tanaka can go—” Aoki gulped when Kuro narrowed his eyes. “Sorry. Look, that guy you saved yesterday—”

  “Trey Bishop,” Kuro cut in. “His name is Trey Bishop.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve read up on him.” Once Aoki got started, there was no stopping him, and from the fiery light in his beady black eyes, he was about to roll out every bit of information he’d scraped together. “Honestly, I know you live under a rock, but I can’t believe you didn’t know who he was. Trey Freaking Bishop. He’s like the poster child of how not to be a human being.”

  This time, the look Kuro shot Aoki was as cold as the stone in the pit of his stomach. The man he’d observed in the parking lot was shaken but resolved. Even from a distance, Kuro understood Bishop was struggling to be heard, to be believed, and the few probing asides he’d been able to slip into his conversation with Bishop’s detective sister hadn’t reaped much. The woman was more close-lipped about her brother than she’d been about the case, willing to share information about the alleged van he’d missed seeing and the possibility the men shooting at Trey Bishop were drug dealers he’d crossed.

  “His sister thought he’d fallen off the wagon. Said he was using again.” Kuro wrapped the last of the dough, tucking it in tight.

  “Makes sense. Bookies in Vegas have pretty good odds on him crashing again. He’s been on the Dead Pool for at least two years. I’ve got fifty bucks on him and a couple of others not making it to Christmas.”

  “You bet on people dying?” He cocked an eyebrow at his friend.

  “Hey, I also bet on what kind of dog wins Westminster,” Aoki protested. “Not like I’m paying someone to go out and kill them. Hell, you know that kind of thing costs more than I’d make playing penny bets.”

  “I worry about you, Aoki,” Kuro sighed. “Do me and Tanaka a favor, if you’re going to sit here and talk, go clean the green onions. I’m going to make up a batch of char siu. We’re running low.”

  The drug dealer thing lined up with what Aoki was spooling out. It was a classic tale of a spoiled young man with too much money and too little to do. Burdened with no personal responsibilities, Trey Bishop crashed and burned before he’d even truly taken off. Or at least that’s what it sounded like.

  Kuro wasn’t so sure.

  He’d seen a lot of failures in his life. Hell, he’d stood over many of them much like he’d done for Trey Bishop, straddling their prone bodies while firing off shots at people intent on getting blood on their hands. Most of the time, those people cowered, shaking in their shallow trenches, but not Bishop. Not Trey. He’d dropped without questioning Kuro’s order, but he’d been firm, keeping an eye on the situation, and his head was down.

  Except when he looked up and caught Kuro glancing down at him.

  Kuro couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen such hopelessness in a man’s eyes. He’d stared down the barrel of a gun with a dying man holding firm, ready to take Kuro with him, but nothing compared to Trey Bishop’s resignation. He’d accepted a fate being handed to him with a clear awareness of the danger they’d been in, but put enough faith in Kuro to drop to the ground. Death was simply another obstacle put in Trey’s way, something else for him to climb over to get to the other side.

  In hindsight—and with unwilling assuredness—Kuro knew he should have killed the men chasing after Trey. If only to bring a sense of peace to the handsome man who’d placed his life and trust in Kuro’s hands without so much as a whimper.

  “So, the latest is that he’s broke and living on his dad’s handouts, but a lot of people think he’s turning tricks,” Aoki rattled on. “Or at least keeping company with some high-powered Hollywood people in exchange for goodies, you know?”

  “Where are you getting all of this?” They were running low on hoisin, so Kuro marked off the resupply sheet plastered to the whiteboard listing the specials for the week. “And why are you pulling intel on Trey Bishop?”

  “Not intel. You can read all of this stuff online. Just hit up any gossip site. A few clicks and you can find out everything you want to know about the guy,” Aoki remarked, shaking his head. Holding up a withered bunch of green stalks, he shook them at Kuro. “This one isn’t good. Whoever did intake should have rejected them.”

  “Put them aside. I’ll take them up and use them in a pancake.” He nodded toward a brown paper bag he’d left open on the counter. “Toss them in there, but be careful. I’ve got some eggs and stuff in there.”

  “They’re green onions. Not grenades. Sheesh, blow up one duffel bag and no one lets you forget it.” His friend shuffled over to the counter, grumbling under his breath. “Anyway, you’re better off seeing the last of him. That kind of trouble you don’t need. It’s why you retired. So you wouldn’t have to babysit idiots anymore.”

  “I retired because my cover was burned by an international corps of photographers and I was shot up with more holes than swiss cheese.” He rolled his left shoulder, feeling the bones ache and rub. The cold got to him now, and there was a suspicious hitch in his side when he worked out too long. The breaks and fractures he’d logged over the years were catching up to him, the scar tissue running down into his healed-over muscles pulling and contracting when he least needed it. “That and I was sick of babysitting idiots. Don’t think Trey Bishop’s one. His sister was damned insistent the dead man he’d seen was made up to throw the cops off of him, but I don’t know. He didn’t smell like a liar. Seems to me, he was used to being shoved aside, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t make her listen.”

  “And you got all that from a couple of minutes of listening to him talk to his sister?” Aoki frowned.

  “No, I got that just by watching him talk
to his sister. She wouldn’t let him near me long enough to talk to him. Shuttled him right off into a cop car and took him away from scene.” Kuro measured out a few cups of brown sugar, mentally calculating how much he needed to marinate the pork shoulders in the fridge. “My gut tells me something’s going on and I don’t have the full picture yet.”

  “Just remember one thing, Kuro,” his friend tsked from across the kitchen, elbow-deep in water as he rinsed out a bunch of green onions. “The last time your gut told you something, you ended up with a handful of kids, a bullet-ridden van, and a retirement package. Just make sure this time, your gut doesn’t get you killed.”

  THE CHALLENGER hugged the curve in the road, eating up the asphalt strip winding through Laurel Canyon. Its V-8 engine growled through the pass, a deep-throated purr aching for more power. Having the car shop in Vegas restore its original 440 had been one of the best and worst decisions in Kuro’s life. He loved the power it gave the 1970 muscle car, pushing its heavy frame easily through tight turns and steep-angled streets, but it drank gas like it was cheap whiskey and suffering from a deep heartache.

  He’d grabbed the keys to the candy-apple-black Mopar and told Aoki he was done for the day, leaving Tanaka in charge. His mind wasn’t on the restaurant or its patrons, his thoughts wandering off toward where he’d put the memory of a long-legged dirty blond lying on his belly beneath him. Not exactly the best thing to be happening when ladling steaming-hot broths into shallow bowls and dredging noodles into boiling water baths to flash-cook.

  The last thing he needed to do was wield a knife. And since working in the back meant prepping for later in the day, Kuro opted for a drive.

  One of the greatest things about Los Angeles was it was built with cars in mind. Maybe not in the beginning. But a few hundred years afterward, its tangled ribbons of concrete and asphalt brought a sense of peace. There was something comforting about driving. Even in Los Angeles’s rush-hour traffic, Kuro could let his mind drift away from everything bothering him. He wasn’t sure if it was because he had to pay attention to the shifting patterns around him or that the monotony of driving kept his brain at a dull roar, but it was the closest thing to meditation he had.

  Or least it had been until the moment he’d laid eyes on Trey Bishop. He’d seen the man come into the shop a couple of times a month, forcing himself not to follow Trey’s progress through the narrow dining area. Traditionally, the table shoved up against the back corner was only for staff, a place for one or two people to eat in between shifts, bolting down their food. It was a sacrosanct place of sorts, a normally beat-up perch next to the kitchen door where a chef would sometimes sit a favored customer. Every restaurant had one. Either in the dining room or sometimes in the kitchen if the restaurant ran to that sort of pretension. The Tako Shop did not have a table in the kitchen. It was that corner table some people used only after a nod from Kuro or one of the staff.

  Trey had taken to walking to the table, glancing back at Kuro and giving a shy smile when he was given the nod. Tanaka teased him about it, the gruff Tokyo-born cook sniffing out Kuro’s sublimated attraction. Aoki hadn’t noticed. Or at least not before today. Now he would be looking for any scrap of attention Kuro threw Trey’s way.

  “I am never going to hear the end of it,” he muttered. “Might as well put a bullet in my brain right now.”

  Certain days felt like he needed the ocean, a silvery-blue embellishment to the black road he drove on. There was something about the salt in the air and the cries of gulls weaving through the wind, screaming their defiance at society’s insistence on locking down dumpsters to prevent their scavenging. And then there were days when he needed the smoky bite of overgrown sage in the dryness of the pale brown dust clinging to the hillsides above the city. He drove with no place in mind—no where in mind—letting his mind wander while searching out familiar landscapes.

  It was always in his confusion and uncertainty, Kuro ran for the hills, climbing its peaks to look out at the world around him, following the lines and noise of the city he’d claimed as his hometown. He liked Los Angeles. Sure, there were more beautiful places to visit and more stunning vistas with white, sparkling beaches or ancient buildings built by long-dead artists, but Los Angeles spoke to him. With its hammered metallic blue skies and gritty air, it had enough of an edge to keep him sharp but was mellow enough to let him relax.

  There weren’t too many places in the world Kuro could relax, and he treasured every second he could spend in the City of Angels.

  His problem was Trey Bishop. A man who now haunted Kuro’s shadows and thoughts.

  “It would be stupid to get involved. Everything Aoki says about the guy is trouble. Hell, even his own sister doesn’t believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth,” Kuro muttered to himself, listening to the automatic transmission downshift as he slowed. “Just… something’s not right.”

  It’d been forever and a year since he’d been to bed with somebody, and that had been mostly working off steam on the job. He didn’t even remember the guy’s name or most of his face. It was a Spanish operative he’d been stuck with in a villa while they waited for their target to surface. He’d gone in to grab the two hostages, only to find out the operative he’d slept with double-crossing all of them, standing with their target and shooting down the corridor while Kuro and his charges attempted to escape.

  He’d shot the target first, then the man he’d been in bed with only a few hours before. It’d taken eight showers before he was clean, and no matter what his handler said, Kuro felt like he should’ve known something was off. It was a turning point. His head hadn’t been in the game, although he’d reacted well enough. He’d trusted that lover, considered him a friend. Counted on him to do the job and instead ended up betrayed and covered in an ex-lover’s blood. Although Kuro wasn’t sure how long of a time it took for a man to become an ex-lover or if being shot at took care of that situation by itself.

  “It’s just not right. He’s not lying. He saw a dead man. At least he thought he did,” Kuro grumbled at himself, rolling the window down all the way to let the soft afternoon breeze carry the scent of sagebrush through the car. “And even if it wasn’t a dead man he saw, why were they shooting at him? Not drugs. Don’t get drugs off of him. It’s got to be something else.”

  Ten minutes into his drive through the hills, Kuro felt a tickle at the back of his neck. A glance in his rearview mirror showed the road was empty, except for a white utility vehicle following behind him about twenty yards back. In the winding roads, it was easy to get lost, and the driveways off the main street were angled oddly, nearly hiding the mansions behind yards of hedges or canyon brush. Making the turn into Laurel Canyon, Kuro slowed the Challenger down, waiting to see if the truck followed.

  It did.

  “Doesn’t mean anything. A lot of people live up this way.” Another glance in his mirrors showed the truck’s distance was shortening rapidly. “Or I’ve picked up a tail.”

  Canyon roads were wide enough for two cars, but the drop-offs in places were steep. There were a few guardrails, usually by turnoff areas people used when they found themselves lost in the labyrinth of Los Angeles’s mesas and ridged hills. It’d been too long since someone followed him, but the sticky cloying feeling at the roof of his mouth was the same.

  Whoever it was didn’t know what they were doing. They kept behind him the entire way through Laurel Canyon, only dropping back when Kuro accelerated around curves, then slowed down to see if they followed. They matched him turn for turn, drifting into the other lane periodically, probably trying to keep him in sight when he disappeared around a bend.

  The driveways were now few and far between, larger estates eating up vast expanses of land, their far-reaching buildings buried in the crenulated hills and thoroughly hidden from view. He caught sight of the few house peaks and the occasional juniper stand poking up past a barricade of thick bushes. The people living in the hills valued their privacy, ringing their propertie
s with high walls, barbed-wire tops, and private security. So far from the center of the city meant police support was farther away, and that was too-little protection for the paranoid and rich.

  But lack of police coverage meant hitting Kuro along the canyon roads was the truck driver’s best chance to either run him off the road or worse, kill him.

  The truck sped up, and Kuro punched down the gas pedal. The ’70 Challenger was ecstatic to be let off its leash. It bolted forward, grabbing at the road and chewing up the distance toward the top of the peak. Kuro knew these roads like the back of his hand, and while he couldn’t depend upon the other driver’s unfamiliarity with the twists and turns rolling through the hills, he knew the utility truck wouldn’t be able to handle negotiating the hairpins at any top speed. Still, the driver gave it his best shot.

  With the window down, Kuro could hear the truck rattling and groaning. It strained with the ascent, falling behind the Challenger on the brief straightaways, catching up only when Kuro slowed to take a turn. The Challenger’s windows were too tinted to see much of anything other than the outline of the driver behind the truck’s wheel, but Kuro didn’t need to know what a man looked like when that man was trying to kill him. Revving the engine, he shot up the hill, watching the landscape for the breaks in the trees he used as markers for the upcoming turns.

  He’d raced up and down the canyons’ winding streets in everything from a powerful muscle car to a limping SUV. It was like running a pinball through a familiar machine, knowing where the bumpers were by feel and instinctively leaning the board to one side or the other when his silver sphere careened out of control. Taking a curve, he smiled with satisfaction when the truck’s right-side tires lifted momentarily off the pavement, slamming the vehicle back down in a hard thump when it straightened out.