They’d even found a young cadet to pose as a jumper. Everything was set…except Kono worried about Shiro. He tried not to think about something happening to him. He’d picked up his message about his grandma but the Loo had nixed the idea of having an officer call the old lady.
This had happened because they’d lost track of Shiro. At least he’d spoken to her. I still did the right thing losing the trace on his phone.
He turned over, facing the wall. If the old lady was in trouble, she’d have to help herself...for now. Too many other variables put the whole operation in jeopardy. He believed Shiro when he said something was wrong, but there wasn’t much he could do.
Jerrell called, interrupting his thoughts. Kono reached to the floor for his cell phone and sat up to talk.
Never one to mince words, Jerrell said, “I organised money for a hotel and food for two. Just make sure you watch your expenses, though. No two-room suites and all that. You’ll stay in touch with me, only. No more calls to grandma. If the old lady is in trouble, we can’t have cops swarming her house. I’ll have someone swing by her house after we do the kill. I’m the only one who will know your location. We’ll assure her that her grandson is in custody unharmed. She can’t know it’s a sting. Old ladies talk. We have to maintain tight operational security on this one.”
“Gotcha.” Kono paused. “How’s the date going?”
He could hear the smile in Jerrell’s voice. “I’m about to get lucky, guy. She went to slip on something more comfortable. When will women learn comfortable to us is a warm, naked breast in one hand, the TV remote in the other?”
He ended the call before Kono could give him his opinion on the topic. He got a sudden, swift and tantalising image of Shiro’s dick in one hand, a remote in the other. Only, in his mind, the remote was an optional extra.
* * * *
“What’s in this tea?” the second man asked, smacking his lips.
“Why? You don’t like it?”
“No…no. It’s very good. It’s sweet.”
Alia smiled. “It’s my special blend. I grow all my own herbs and flowers. You know, you never did tell me your name.”
“You may call me Nobuo-san. I am a good friend of Shiro’s.”
She smiled. “You don’t say? My Shiro is a lovely boy. Do you know his mother?”
“Siono?” Nobuo paused and the old lady topped up his tea. He was on his second cup. The first man who’d helped her with her groceries was flicking through TV channels. They’d told her they’d be staying the night. She wasn’t very happy about that. She watched some woman on TV hand a giant clack spider to some chubby guy who started eating it. She turned her face away.
“What have you got to eat?” the first guy asked.
“I have some chicken and vegetables.”
The two men looked at her. She hastened to the kitchen. She wished they would just leave, but they’d be gone soon enough. She took the chicken out of the fridge.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” a voice said, startling her and making her drop the package.
“It’s just chicken,” she said, picking it up.
She saw the dangerous look in Nobuo-san’s eyes. She took the chicken to the sink and he watched her. She rinsed it, removing the bag of giblets from the cavity, stuffing it with a selection of herbs.
“You’re putting flowers in there?” he asked. “You’re an artist.”
She shrugged. “I try.”
“What are the red bells?”
“Small peppers. Very sweet.”
She dressed the top and sides with herbs from a glass on the windowsill. Nobuo either grew bored or tired, and sat on one of the two chairs in the breakfast nook. Forty years she’d owned this house. She’d never had a home invasion before, unless you counted some of the goofy guys Sino dated before and after her too-brief marriage.
Alia chopped vegetables and arranged them around the chicken, which she drizzled with homemade shoyu sauce. Her neighbours next door were having a barbecue. She could see them from here. They were oblivious to her predicament.
“Thirty minutes in the oven and it will be ono,” she said.
Nobuo scratched his chin. “Ono means what?”
“Delicious.”
“Yeah, well, I’m too hungry to wait for delicious. You have something I can eat now while we wait?”
“I have pastries.”
“That sounds good.”
Nobuo reached across the table and she saw the gun peeking out of the gap in his suit jacket. For the first time, she was frightened. She watched him open one of the grocery bags and extract a box of Twinkies.
“Western crap,” he said, eagerly tearing into the package.
The first man strolled in, yawning.
He sat on the other side of the table. They each demolished a few of the cakes. She offered them more tea, but they declined.
Nobuo helped himself to some sodas at the bottom of the fridge. He passed one to the first guy. She pulled the chicken out of the oven and she split it in two, heaping the vegetables around the meat. The two men ate in silence.
“May I go to the bathroom?” she asked.
Nobuo waved her away. She darted out of the room. This time she really did need to pee. For the first time in her life, she knew the truth of the expression I almost peed my pants. She washed her hands and returned to the kitchen, where the two men were heartily tucking into their food. Nobuo’s cell phone rang. It sounded like a woman screaming. It was chilling. He took the call and spoke rapid-fire Japanese into the phone. He pushed himself away from the table and she heard him in the hallway.
She knew her mother tongue well. She heard the words, “Yes, we made contact…no. I didn’t speak to him. I let the old lady talk. He said he would carry out his mission.” She heard something garbled. Then the chilling words, “Yes, I will kill her.” She worked hard to make sure her fear and revulsion didn’t show as she offered the other man some tea. She hoped he had no clue she’d heard the conversation.
He gave her a sympathetic glance.
“This will all be over soon. Get some rest,” he said, as Nobuo-san returned and took his seat, finishing his meal.
“Sleep on the sofa,” Nobuo ordered. “We’ll all sit in the living room together. One big, happy family. Tomorrow, we do the dishes.”
She nodded. She left the kitchen, hurrying to the living room. She had no weapons in here. This better work, she thought, trembling as she covered her thin frame with a crocheted blanket and pretended to sleep.
* * * *
Shiro was offended when he was ordered to take a polygraph. He was so stressed out when loud knocking woke him at seven o’clock in the morning, followed by three men bursting into his room, that he felt sick and disoriented. He hadn’t been able to sleep all night and now some guy called Jerrell was here acting as if he didn’t trust Shiro.
“Where’s Kono?” he asked but nobody would answer him.
One guy was going through Shiro’s things. Shiro allowed them to administer the lie detector test saying he had nothing to hide.
As the investigator who was going to conduct the investigation put round tabs on various parts of his body and plastic clips on his fingertips, he felt Jerrell’s gaze on his face.
“Let me see your injuries.” Jerrell peeled back the sticky medical tape and saw the needle wounds. Only then did the guy relax.
“Did you call my grandma?”
“She’s fine,” Jerrell said.
Shiro was certain the man was lying. It was all anyone did. Tears splashed down his face. “My grandma is all I have.”
Jerrell acted a little more human then.
“Son, your grandma is fine.”
He was very kind when Shiro acted freaked out by all the electrical cords and waited outside as the guy did the lie detector test. He knew he’d passed it even before the man gave him the results. He kept thinking about Kono. This was a tough day for him, too.
“What if the Yaks send some
body else out to kill him?” he asked Jerrell.
The Lieutenant returned to the room and looked at the printout.
“The only thing you lied about was loving your mom,” Jerrell said, ignoring his question. “Don’t you love your mother?”
“I love her because she’s my mom…but not as a person. I didn’t mean to lie. It was a sort of…half-truth. I didn’t know how else to answer it.”
Jerrell seemed to consider this. “That makes sense. She got you into a world of hurt.”
“Yeah.” That’s the story of my life.
“I did a bit of homework on you, Shiro. I gather your mom is a real fuck-up…no, don’t look at me like that. She is. You’re hard working. You’re in college. I called your professor at the University of Hawaii. He says you’re a dedicated student. He’s a bit worried because he hasn’t heard from you. I said I was a guy you’re working for in New York. Lotsa kids have your…disadvantages in life but become total idiots. I’m impressed with you. I hope we can help get your life back on track.”
“Thanks. Me, too.”
Jerrell smiled then. It was disarming to say the least.
“I don’t think the Yaks will send somebody else after Kono since you haven’t told them your plans.” His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t tell anyone your plans, right?”
“No. Only my grandma. And all I said was what Kono told me to say. That I had a mission to complete. She didn’t ask questions—”
Jerrell cut him off. “They won’t send anyone out unless you fail and you won’t fail. We’ll make sure there’s plenty of news coverage. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He wondered why they put a Kevlar bulletproof vest on him and a sweater over it.
“Just a precaution,” Jerrell said. “It’s not a police-issue vest. If any of my men ask you about it, say you bought it at a swap meet.”
Somebody else shoved the gun he was to use in his pocket.
“Safety’s on,” the guy said.
They bundled him into a car. The guy who drove spent the whole time talking on his Bluetooth. Jerrell sat in back with him. Shiro was terrified now.
He said my mom’s a fuck-up. What if the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the fuck-up tree?
They arrived at the far end of a park.
Jerrell ran over the instructions again, telling him which way to walk, what to do.
“Kono will be trying to coax the guy down from the roof of the building. It’s a small building, not much room on the roof for him, but he will be getting ready to climb a ladder on the side of the building. You take your moment. You say, ‘This is for my mother.’ You shoot him in the back. There will be a lot of commotion. We’ll take you down. I’m sorry to say my men won’t be gentle. You’re killing a police officer. They will all think it’s real.
“I’ll have you taken to a holding cell and as soon as Kono is in the ambulance on his way to the hospital, we change his stats to DOA and we come get you. You’ll be able to join him. You’ll be safer with him than in jail. Unfortunately, you’re likely to meet with an unfortunate accident should I let you languish in a cell.”
“Where will you tell them that I’ve gone?” Shiro was totally petrified now.
“A secret location. It’ll be obvious that the Yakuza was behind the hit because we’ll make it obvious. There’ll be a lot of speculation. You can handle this, okay?”
“I’m glad you’re so sure. Why are you so sure when I’m not?”
“Because you’re a good man.” Jerrell pointed to the door. “Off you go.”
Shiro stepped out of the vehicle.
“Kono has good taste.” Jerrell grinned at him. “Now shut the door.”
The car sped away and Shiro felt his knees shaking. The morning was bright and sunny, a cool breeze on the air. He felt in his jacket pocket for the gun. There was a crowd at the end of the other side of the park. Everyone was held back by police barricades.
He walked past the throng, ignoring shouts and calls. Ahead of him was Kono standing at the foot of a ladder. Shiro felt everything happening so fast, his panic so acute he could feel bile rising in his throat. Kono turned and saw him. He waved him back, but Shiro kept moving. As Kono glanced up at the guy on the roof, Shiro stopped. He was utterly shocked to realise the crowd held back by the cops was yelling, “Jump! Jump! Jump!” to the man on the roof.
Who were these fucking people? Shiro felt a stillness in him. Thank God the bullets were blanks because he wanted to murder the crowd. He lifted the safety and took the gun out of his pocket.
And pointed it at Kono’s back.
* * * *
Alia woke up when she heard somebody saying Shiro’s name. She must have fallen asleep. She’d dozed fitfully, upset when she realised her plan wasn’t working. Now Nobuo and the other man were standing in front of the TV.
“He did it,” the first man said. What was his name?
“Shit. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
Nobuo took his cell phone out of his pocket and began jabbering in Japanese.
She understood his words. “The gay traitor is dead.”
Alia pushed the men aside, appalled when she saw that CNN had images of Shiro on the ground hog-tied, his face bloodied, being led away.
“…yes, David,” the TV news reporter said. “About half an hour ago, twenty-three year old student Shiro Kanake shot and killed a highly regarded New York homicide detective, Kono Takumi.”
Alia gasped, her trembling hand moving to her lips.
“No….oh…no. Shiro.”
“He has no history of violence…no problems. According to law enforcement in Honolulu where he is from, he’s never even had a traffic ticket. We have no motive for this unspeakable crime at this time.”
She turned to Nobuo-san. He grinned at the TV. How she hated him.
The first man excused himself. She heard a door close down the hallway and assumed it was the restroom.
“Why?” she asked Nobuo. “Why?”
“Retribution in blood is the honourable way.”
“You killed my daughter?”
“She made her own troubles.”
Alia would have asked him more except that blood had begun to trickle from his nose. He seemed oblivious until it splashed on his hand.
“What the…?” He swiped at his nose but the trickle grew stronger. Blood came out of the corner of his left eye. Suddenly, he grabbed his stomach.
“Kutabare!” he shouted, falling to his knees.
He stared at her. She was impressed with how fast the damned poison acted once it got going. He was a mess. She could smell his bowels evacuating in his elegant pants.
“Is my daughter dead or alive?” she asked.
He panted, falling to his side.
She darted to the bathroom, where the other man wept, kneeling with his head over the toilet bowl.
“Was it the tea?” he asked.
“No. The stuffing for the chicken.”
“Please…help me.”
“I’ll help you. Just tell me…my daughter…please…is she dead or alive?”
He vomited up blood. He didn’t have much time. Nobuo was screaming in the other room now.
The man kneeling before her wept and it wasn’t a pretty sight. He freaked when he realised blood ran down his cheeks.
“Son…what is your name?” she asked.
He began to moan and scream. He fell over and his shirt opened. She was shocked to see festering needle marks all over his torso.
“Keizo,” he sobbed. “Nobuo-san forced me to come here. My name is Keizo. Please tell Shiro…tell Shiro…”
He let out a blood-curdling yell and she decided death would bring him peace.
She held his hand until the end.
* * * *
It all went down the way they planned. Shiro tried not to be frightened when he saw the news crews and the crowd cheering him on. As they sped away from the cameras, the officers in the van began beating and kicking him. As the
y arrived at the holding cell in Far Rockaway, Inspector Jerrell asked them why they had kicked him in the face.
“Resisted arrest,” one said.
“Take him to cell number two.”
The officers who threw him in the cell spat in his face removing the cuffs. His whole body ached. He was petrified something had gone wrong and that he’d really hurt Kono. He was worried one of the cops would take it upon himself to come and finish him off. He paced the room for a while and finally sat down. He might be here for a while.
Two more officers arrived, screaming at him to get up. He got up. They dragged him out again and he was hauled to another room where he was finger printed, photographed and Jerrell asked him why he did it.
“To save my mom,” he said. “The Yakuza ordered the hit.”
In an interrogation room, Jerrell and another officer asked him the same questions over and over. He told them the same answers and started to worry that something had gone wrong. Jerrell acted as if he didn’t know him.
Then suddenly, another officer fitted leg shackles onto him, leading to a pair of handcuffs. He could barely walk in them. He was led to a van, a crowd of onlookers jeering and cheering him. The van peeled away with Jerrell in back with him. They stopped several blocks away.
Jerrell knocked on the metal grill. A man ran from between two buildings. He was dressed in a black jumpsuit and wore a knitted cap. He jumped into the back of the van as soon as the driver opened the rear door.
Shiro felt the sun exploding from inside his body.
Kono jumped beside him and sat down, grinning.
Chapter Seven
“Thank God almighty, Kono! Do you know what I’ve been through?”
“Ouch, your face looks bruised up. How did that happen?”
“Well, some of the boys got carried away, Kono, and he got some unintended street justice. He was taken in as a cop killer after all,” Jerrell said as the van sped off once more.
“A little bruised up? My entire body is bruised up! Your goons could have beaten me to death!”
My Yakuza Page 10