by Carrie Asai
The paint on the stairs was peeling off to reveal a rainbow of layers underneath. In the hallways lingered the stink of stale cooking, mixed with the smell of old cigarette smoke and a pinch of the dank sea scent I’d caught on the air outside. We climbed up to the third floor and headed down the dark hallway. I smelled pee and something else—puke? Somewhere a baby was crying. I made a mental note of the emergency door at the far end of the hallway—the exit sign wasn’t lighted anymore, but I could make out the shape of the red letters hanging crookedly above the heavy metal door.
“Who’s there?” came a muffled voice from inside. I looked at Hiro, and he touched my shoulder in support. I couldn’t tell if the voice belonged to Shigeto or not.
“Heaven Kogo,” I announced. From inside the apartment came the sound of scuffling, and then, without warning, the door opened with a sharp crack. Shigeto’s eyes peered at me from behind the chain, but it was so dark, I couldn’t make out his face.
“What do you want?” he demanded, his voice raspy and harsh.
“It’s me, Heaven. I need to talk to you.”
Shigeto’s eyes darted from Hiro to me and back again, glowing like minnows in the half-light.
“Who’s that?” he said, with a nod in Hiro’s direction.
“This is my friend Hiro,” I answered. Shigeto stared at him, unmoving. “He’s okay,” I added.
The door slammed. I stepped back, surprised.
“Ooo-kaaaay,” Hiro said under his breath. A second later the door swung open.
“Come in, then,” Shigeto mumbled, “and lock the door behind you.”
Hiro and I stepped into a room so dark that it took my eyes a moment to adjust. The only light filtered in from the streetlamps outside. Shigeto stood with his back to the window, his shape making an eerie silhouette.
“Welcome to my little castle,” he said. “It’s not much, but it’s safe.” He flopped down onto one of several futons that filled up most of the floor space in the room, and when he leaned forward to grab a pack of cigarettes, his face came into the light for a moment.
I gasped. Shigeto, always a slender guy, had lost maybe thirty pounds since the last time I’d seen him. His face looked cavernous, and he’d grown a smattering of bedraggled facial hair. His microshort techno haircut had been replaced by a shaggy, dirty mane that he pushed agitatedly back behind his ears. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what had happened to him.
“You got your hair cut,” Shigeto said without interest, inhaling deeply on his cigarette.
“Looks like you let yours grow out,” I answered.
“Yep,” Shigeto said. I waited for him to continue.
“Well, now that we’ve dispensed with the formalities, why don’t you tell me what the hell you want?”
Where was the slick, fun-loving DJ type I’d met at Life Bytes? That Shigeto had worn oversized jeans and told me he never touched anything more toxic than a glow stick when he went to dance clubs. The man sitting in front of me was a wreck—I watched as he stubbed out his cigarette in a half-crushed Schlitz can and lit another one.
“Would you mind if I opened a window?” Hiro asked. The room was smoky and far too warm. I was desperate for some of that cool California night air, even if it did smell like rotting seaweed. Shigeto’s place smelled like—animals. As though he hadn’t left for weeks.
Shigeto shrugged. “Whatever gets your groove on, man. I aim to please.” He stared at me. “So, you gonna talk, or did you just come over to chill out in my phat pad?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Hiro stood up and slid open one of the dirty windows. I breathed the cool air in deeply.
“I need some information and I thought you could help me,” I said simply. Something told me it was wiser not to tell Shigeto what I was after until I’d figured out where we stood and what had happened since I’d last seen him.
“What kind of information could a Kogo possibly need from me?” Shigeto spit out my name like he’d just eaten a fly or something. I was tongue-tied for a moment. I hadn’t expected such venom from Shigeto. I studied his face just as I had studied Farnsworth’s—his eyes were narrowed, lips curled. I allowed my eyes to slide from his face and scanned the little room, so dirty and decrepit, so unsuitable for any human being to be living in—and suddenly I just knew: not only did he know everything about me and my family, but he hated us.
“I gather that you understand something of what’s going on…,” I started.
Shigeto loudly blew out a stream of smoke. “I don’t know nothing, man. I don’t know nothing, and I don’t want to know nothing.”
Fear. I could sense it coming from him. He was worried. I wondered if he was afraid of what the Yukemuras might do to him—or of what they had done.
It occurred to me that maybe it was the Kogos he was worried about.
“It’s okay, Shigeto,” I soothed. “No one even knows I’m in L.A. We just need a few more minutes of your time and then we’ll go.”
“A few minutes of my time might be too much,” Shigeto said. He crawled over a few futons to a minirefrigerator propped clumsily against the wall and pulled out a can of Miller High Life. “The Champagne of Beers,” he said, twisting off the cap with a snort. He took a long pull off the bottle, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You Kogos are bad news. And I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“What are you talking about, exactly?” I asked, treading lightly.
“How can you ask me what I’m talking about? You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know that there’s a price on your head?” Shigeto’s voice was growing more agitated, and his eyes darted wildly around the room, the whites gleaming in the half-light from the street. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call Yoji Yukemura right now and tell him to send over some of his yakuza to pick you up. The money I’d make would get me out of this craphole, that’s for sure.” Shigeto held up his cell phone, his finger poised above the keypad.
I glanced at Hiro. The bounty being offered for my capture was news to me. Hiro raised his eyebrows but didn’t speak. He didn’t look too shocked, either.
“Why does Yoji Yukemura want me?” I asked. Maybe Shigeto knew more than I’d expected.
Shigeto rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding? Everyone who’s anyone knows about the Kogo-Yukemura feud. Sounds to me like your daddy grew himself a big ol’ swelled head—giant size. He thought if he could convince Yoji to let you marry his son, then he could stage a ninja attack and get rid of all the Yukemuras at once. Too bad things didn’t go the way he planned. First his son bought it, and now he’s halfway to dead himself.” Shigeto paused. “But you know all that.”
I clenched my fists. As sorry as I felt for Shigeto, hearing him accuse my father of those things filled me with rage. It was true I had once wondered about my father’s role in the ninja attack, but now I was almost certain he’d had nothing to do with it. Although they had their differences, he’d loved Ohiko, who was his only biological child.
“Who’s saying those things?” I demanded. “Is that what people really think?”
“What people?” Shigeto said, mocking me. “It’s not like it was in the L.A. Times or nothing. The people I know get that’s what happened. So the way I see it, old man Yoji’s got a pretty damn good reason for wanting to round you up.”
“Listen to me, Shigeto,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “That’s a lie. Yoji Yukemura knows who sent the ninjas to attack the wedding—and it wasn’t my father. That’s why I need to talk to him. Besides, if you know as much as you say you do about yakuza, then you know it’s my responsibility to go make peace. Ohiko can’t do it, and Konishi can’t do it, so that leaves me. I need to know where I can find him.”
Shigeto slurped at his beer and used his long, dirty fingernails to pick pieces of stuffing out of the futon on which he sprawled. He lit yet another cigarette. “Why should I tell you anything?” he asked sulkily. I sensed that his bravado was just that—a way for him
to play tough. He had nothing against me, and I doubted he even believed the stories he was telling about the Kogos. There was something else Shigeto wanted—I just couldn’t figure out what yet. I’d have to open up if I wanted to find out.
“Because Teddy Yukemura is dead,” I said. “We were there when he was killed. Whoever’s trying to kill me is the same person who killed my brother and put my father in a coma. Yoji’s going to want to know who’s responsible for his son’s death, don’t you think?” I paused for effect, then let loose with my wild card: “And I don’t think Yoji would be happy to hear that Heaven Kogo wasn’t able to deliver some very important news to him because some former DJ named Shigeto wouldn’t cough up a little information that a hundred people already know—where Yoji’s staying.”
That got his attention. Shigeto stood up and drew the curtains. “Tell me what happened,” he said, “and maybe I’ll have some information for you. Maybe.”
I told the story as quickly as possible, and occasionally Hiro jumped in to quietly clarify or add something I’d forgotten. We were quite a team. But during the entire story, Shigeto couldn’t keep still. He wandered around the tiny studio, pulling out candles from overflowing drawers, under piles of books, and between the cracks of the futons, and lit them one after the other. By the time I was done, the room was filled with an eerie, flickering light and the smell of burnt matches. For the first time I could see the tattered posters on the wall: Mulder and Scully, standing back to back, guns drawn, under a caption that said “The Truth Is Out There.” The little girl from Spirited Away surrounded by Miyazaki’s magical creatures. A pinup of Heidi Klum in a bikini. And the walls around them were filthy—yellowed from the smoke and stained brown with who knew what. I pictured the little studio as it must have been when Shigeto had first moved in—he was probably proud of his decorating back then.
It hurt too much to look at the posters—they were remnants of the Shigeto I’d met at Life Bytes, and that Shigeto was gone now. I gazed instead at the tiny flames of the flickering candles and waited for his response. As I looked at the bright points of light, I felt something sort of pop inside me, and with a rush I could suddenly feel all of Shigeto’s pent-up thoughts and feelings. The room was thick with them. It was as though my brain had finally allowed itself to compute all the facts I’d taken in since setting foot in the building and was finally ready to spit out the answers. I understood that Shigeto was using drugs and that he’d been beaten for something—what, exactly, I couldn’t tell, but the way he hunched over gingerly on his futon, the crusted bits of blood around his hairline, barely visible unless you really looked—they told the story as well as Shigeto could have. Drug debts? Something else? I knew that since I’d seen him at Life Bytes, he’d become involved with the yakuza (a hint of a tattoo peeked from the bottom of his sleeve), and I knew that he regretted it and was scared for his life.
“What’s your last name, Shigeto?” I asked quietly.
“Kimura,” he whispered, squirming a little on his futon.
“Your father’s name is Sadakuzo,” I said, pleased at the part of my brain that was bringing forth this long-forgotten knowledge, calmed by the feeling of my mind working with such precision and so little emotion. “I remember him visiting from America when I was young. Isn’t that right?”
Pain. I felt it when Shigeto’s eyes caught mine. “He’s dead. They killed him,” he said flatly.
I nodded.
“He wasn’t even yakuza!” Shigeto yelled in a high-pitched voice. “He was just a businessman! They convinced him to transfer some of their funds through his offshore accounts. Like, half a billion dollars or something. And he did it and they suckered him. They just freaking shot him after the money came through. Didn’t want to leave a trail—you people are devils!”
“I’m sorry, Shigeto,” I said. “I really am. Believe me, I don’t want anything more to do with these people than you do.”
“Once a Kogo, always a Kogo. You people just take whatever you want and don’t give a shit who dies along the way.” Shigeto was curled up against the wall and fighting back tears.
“You’re confused, Shigeto. You don’t know what to believe or who to turn to,” I intoned, not sure exactly where the words were coming from. I only knew that in that moment, I felt an intense connection with the sad man in front of me who’d been broken almost beyond recognition. “You think that maybe the Yukemuras will help you avenge your father’s death. But they could just as easily kill you.”
“What are you doing?” Shigeto gasped, his eyes wide. His fingers clutched wildly at his hair.
“Part of you wants us to get out of your apartment so you can shoot up some more, and the other part of you is glad to have someone around to witness what you’ve become. You want to tell us who did this to you, but you’re scared—”
“Stop! Stop!” screamed Shigeto.
“Heaven, that’s enough!” Hiro cautioned. “He’s not well.”
I clamped my mouth shut. The thing inside me that had popped open closed itself with a snap. What had I done?
“This is so messed up, so messed up,” repeated Shigeto, rocking back and forth. “You were totally in my head, man, in my head. That’s not right.”
I looked at Hiro, who was staring at me intensely. I didn’t know what to say. I had totally freaked Shigeto out—a stupid mistake. Just because I’d been able to use my perception to figure out the scenario didn’t mean I had to let the whole world know about it. And Shigeto was certainly not ready to be confronted with the truth of his situation. I prayed I hadn’t scared him too badly.
“Here,” he said, jumping up and scrabbling on a nearby table for paper and a pen. He scribbled for a moment and then threw the piece of paper at me. “You can find Yoji there. Just take it and get out.”
“Shigeto, I—”
“Get out!” he screamed, and turned his face toward the wall.
Hiro helped me up and I made my way shakily down the hallway. When we got to the stairwell, panic rose in my chest, and I felt that I would die if I had to spend one more second breathing the foul air of that building. I bolted down the stairs.
“Heaven! Wait!”
I burst out into the open, gasping for air, devouring it in delicious gulps. Hiro came up behind me and put his hand gently on my back.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“That was too intense,” I whispered.
“You opened a new door with your perception…. It was quite amazing, really. Normally it takes people years to get to that level.” Hiro put his arm around me. “It’s draining, isn’t it?” he asked sympathetically.
I nodded, cuddling against him. “That was not my idea of a good time.”
“Wasn’t it nice to see things so clearly, though?” Hiro said soothingly, his hand warm on my back.
“Yeeess,” I said slowly. “When all the wheels are turning together, it feels pretty amazing. But I think I went too far.”
“You’ll get the hang of it,” Hiro said, sounding every inch the proud sensei. “So where’s Yoji?”
I fished the paper out of my pocket. “Hotel Bel-Air. Presidential suite.” I stared at the paper. Next to the English writing was the word fire written in Japanese. What? I crumpled the paper. I couldn’t think about what the symbol might mean right now.
“What is it?” Hiro asked, opening the car door for me.
“I’m scared,” I said.
“Let’s get out of here,” Hiro said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek. He started the engine and soon we were driving away from Little Tokyo. “What do you say we head back to my place? We could take a nap, get cleaned up—I don’t think we should be confronting Yoji in this condition.”
“Sounds good,” I lied. As soon as Hiro mentioned his house on Lily Place, I had a strange feeling of unease. But he was right. We needed some rest or we’d be useless.
“Don’t worry, Heaven,” Hiro said gently. “New skills hurt at first—but when you master them,
you can’t imagine what it would have been like to live without them.”
5
As soon as I stepped out onto the pavement in front of Hiro’s house, I knew something was wrong. I stopped short at the foot of the walkway. Hiro looked back at me.
“You feel it?” he asked, concern flitting over his face.
“It’s weird—I do, but I don’t think there’s anyone else here. It’s more like I know something bad has happened.”
“How do you know?” Hiro grilled me.
I listened. All I could hear was the soft chirping of the crickets and the shush-shush of the neighborhood’s sprinklers. I shrugged. “Beats me. I’m just getting a bad vibe.”
“Maybe it’s this?” Hiro picked up a black glove from halfway down the walkway and gestured in the air with it.
“Oh. Yeah.” I grinned sheepishly.
“And do you smell the air? It smells like cigar smoke. Here…” Hiro leaned over and fished a cigar stub out of the grass that lined the path. “Someone was here recently.”
“Guess I missed that,” I said, blushing. So much for my triumphant career as a mind-reading machine.
“No, you didn’t. You caught it, and that’s why you got a ‘bad vibe.’ You just didn’t realize what you had seen and smelled. But you have to be able to know what signs you’re reading and read them the right way.” Hiro dropped the glove and the cigar butt and walked back toward me, wiping his hands on his jeans. “How do you feel?” he whispered. “I mean, are you rested enough to fight if we need to?”
“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t so sure.
“Good. Let’s go around the side.”
Hiro led the way around the side of the house, and we slunk behind the bushes and along the wall toward the back door. A magnolia tree bloomed in the neighbors’ yard—I inhaled deeply and prayed that my intuition was right and there wasn’t someone waiting inside to attack us.