The Ninja's Blade

by Tori Eldridge

  As cars left, I moved out of the red zone and parked, shouldered my pack, and set out on foot. The exodus had thinned, and only a few dozen students remained at the front of the school. My last chance to find the girls was on campus.

  I found Dolla sitting at a table chatting with another unlikely friend. This girl was young, black, and outweighed Dolla by at least a hundred pounds. She had draped her bulk in an orange tunic and basketball shorts. A ponytail at the top of her head pulled her hair tight at the scalp. Neon clips secured the flyaways while the rest of her hair shot out in all directions like a busted sprinkler head. Beside her, Dolla lounged—styled and beautiful in her mid-drift tank and tight denim capris.

  “This school’s lame,” Dolla said. “I’m outta here. You coming, Sharelle?”

  “Me? Yeah.”

  Sharelle grabbed her book bag and trailed Dolla like an eager pup, checking this way and that as if hoping to be noticed leaving the campus with the coolest girl in school. I followed at a distance. If I needed to catch up, I could. Unless these girls hopped in a car, they wouldn’t shake me. If they did have a car, mine was just across the street. But this time, Dolla stayed on foot.

  She led Sharelle into a neighborhood, past graffiti painted fences and dried up yards with billowing clothes lines. Dogs barked. Children squealed. Mommas yelled. A few blocks in, Dolla walked through the gate of a faded blue house. A high metal fence surrounded the property and enclosed the plastic orange play equipment in the yard.

  She opened the screen door and glanced back at Sharelle. “You want a soda?”

  “Sure.”

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  She returned with three cans of RC Cola and a disgruntled man. “Where you going with those, Brianna?”

  Dolla held them up high. “That ain’t your concern, Eddie.” She laid into the name like a dig.

  “The hell it isn’t. I paid for that soda.”

  “Mama paid. Not you. Besides, you know sugar ain’t good for training.”

  A sheen of sweat covered the man’s skin, and his muscles looked pumped as if he’d just been lifting. He stared at Dolla with cruel eyes and smiled. “That’s right, girl.” He flexed an arm. “A temple like this, you know, deserves respect.”

  Dolla grunted with disgust and handed Sharelle a can.

  “Don’t you grunt at me.”

  “Bye, Eddie.”

  “Hey. That’s Daddy to you, Brianna.”

  Dolla scowled and muttered something I couldn’t hear. “Come on, Sharelle. We got better places to be.”

  As Sharelle followed, I heard her ask, “I thought your name was Dolla.”

  “It is. Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know shit.”

  I gave the girls a head start then trailed behind, past narrow houses and shops so small their wares spilled onto the sidewalk. Dolla—or was it Brianna? —had two names, one she used with her friends and one, apparently, used by her family. Why?

  A police station appeared, nested between the neighborhood church and bakery, followed by tiny markets and office windows jammed with storage boxes. Then the streets widened and dumped into the busy thoroughfare named for Martin Luther King Jr.

  I waited until Dolla and Sharelle turned a corner then sprinted after them in time to catch them entering a brown stucco building with the words Cut & Ink painted in black across the top. Black security gates bunched to the sides like pressed accordions, bookending two tinted windows and a black wooden door. Words painted vertically on the glass showed the barber on the left, and tattoo artist on the right.

  The artist paused in his work as I entered. “Need help?”

  “Just looking for now.”

  He nodded and resumed shooting black ink into an oak-brown arm.

  I drifted right and perused the tattoo designs on display. The artist had surrounded his work station with curtains, which at the moment, were open on three sides and bunched in the corners. This provided ample cover for me to spy on Dolla and Sharelle as they visited with a middle-aged black man, lounging in the rear barber’s chair, chugging a can of RC cola.

  “That’s how RC got his name,” Dolla said, plopping into the nearer barber’s chair and swiveling it to face RC. “He loves his cola more than my daddy loved his beer.”

  “The man at your house?” Sharelle asked.

  “Eddie? Hell no. He ain’t my daddy. He just married my mama.”

  RC finished his soda, crumpled the can like a piece paper, and tossed it in the trash. He wasn’t so much huge as he was dense, as if he’d sink to the bottom of the pool no matter how hard he swam. Punching a man like him would be akin to shooing a dog with a feather.

  “So, Dolla…who’s this gorgeous creature you brung into my shop?”

  “This here’s Sharelle.”

  “Is that right? How you doing, Miss Sharelle?”

  “Um…fine.”

  “Yes, you are, big girl like you.” He sat forward and looked her up and down. “But these clothes… It’s a damn shame. Girl like you outta be wearing something sleek to show off them curves.”

  Sharelle giggled.

  “Don’t you laugh about yourself. Own that beautiful body and walk with pride. Ain’t that right, Dolla?”

  “Straight up.”

  “Come over here, and let me feel that hair. Who did that to you? It’s sorrier than a chained dog in the rain. A girl like you needs sexy bangs and satin hair not this ratted mess and little girl clips.”

  “I can’t afford nothing like that.”

  “No? Damn shame. With the right hair and clothes, why, you’d be a million bucks.” He winked at Dolla. “Way prettier than a dollar.”

  Was that where Dolla got her name?

  Sharelle snorted, but I could tell by her posture and the way she rubbed her cheek demurely against her shoulder that she desperately wanted to believe.

  RC rubbed his lips as if in thought. “You know, I could ask my niece to set you up. I don’t have the patience to work on the sistahs, myself. But I seen my niece work wonders. She like a horse whisperer for black hair. You want I should ask?”

  “Um…”

  “No charge. She either do or she don’t.”

  Dolla ran her fingers through her own smooth hair. “She did mine.”

  “Really?”

  The hope in Sharelle’s voice broke my heart. As much as I wanted good things for this girl, I feared that wasn’t what they were offering.

  Dolla touched Sharelle with the toe of her slippered foot. “Don’t you want to be beautiful?”

  Sharelle bit her lip and nodded.

  RC smiled. “A’ight then. I’ll let you know.” He shoved himself off the chair and grabbed a broom. “So, what happen at school today? Learn anything good?”

  I squatted in front of a display case where I could ponder in privacy. Were RC and Dolla doing a solid for a poor lonely girl? Or were they buying her trust? My conversation with Ms. Ruiz made me suspect the latter.

  As I considered the options, a white man entered the shop—mid-forties, pressed slacks, white collar shirt. His neatly groomed hair appeared recently trimmed, and he didn’t have any tattoos that I could see. He didn’t belong. And yet, he waltzed in with purpose, as if he’d been here before.

  I rose from my hiding spot and saw RC wave the man toward a rear door at the back of the shop. When the man disappeared, the conversation resumed. “You girls keeping up with school work? Because you don’t want to fall behind. Back in my day, the teachers…”

  As RC continued his story, I snuck out the front.

  Cut & Ink had parking on the side of the building sandwiched between it and the duplex apartment on the left. A black Cadillac filled the space. I squeezed past it and saw room in the alley for another car. The Cut & Ink building extended at least fifteen feet beyond what I had seen inside the shop, which made the area behind the rear door roughly two hundred and fifty square feet—more than enough
room for trouble.

  The metal door on the side of the building was locked. I made note of the brand for future reference, climbed the wooden fence in the back, and jumped into the narrow space that ran behind. As expected, I found windows. The first was tiny and high off the ground, but the other two were larger with curtains, one drawn tight and the other with a sliver of a view. I could see a bare wall and the edge of what might have been a bed with a navy cover. No under-aged girl. No mid-forties man in pressed slacks and a white-collar shirt.

  I stepped back and leaned against the fence, wondering if I should bang on the window to disrupt a crime I suspected but couldn’t see, or enter through the front and finagle my way into the back rooms. Neither option seemed likely to succeed. I could always call the cops, but what would I tell them? That the Cut & Ink barber encouraged local teens to keep up with school and welcomed white men into his black neighborhood shop? Right.

  I pressed my ear to the wall, straining to hear the slightest indication of a crime, and heard nothing.

  That’s all I had—a big fat nothing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By the time I got back to Culver City, the sun had set, and I was so frustrated I could spit. I had learned ugly truths from a weary social worker, dumped my grandparents on my mother’s doorstep, met a Hollywood teen who should have been raising hell instead of turning tricks, and still didn’t know what was going on with Dolla and her unlikely friends.

  I pulled up to the curb across the street from Baba’s restaurant and checked the signboard. It covered the entire second floor and hid the patio of my apartment. It looked pretty clean from here. The twin golden dragons sparkled under the spot lights, and the LED letters of Wong’s Hong Kong Inn shone clearly—good enough to pass inspection on the slim chance Gung-Gung and Po-Po decided to visit.

  I drove around back, pulled into Baba’s parking spot and killed the engine. I hated driving in Los Angeles. I’d rather run ten miles or cycle thirty than stop-and-jerk my way in a car. At least with rideshares, I had interesting conversations. And if that fell through, I could always bail. But with a car? They were like little prisons that didn’t release you until your time had been served.

  I shoved open the door and took my first breath of free air—scented with spiced oil and roasted meats. It made me want to sit down for a proper meal in the dining room, surrounded by happy guests.

  I jogged around the block to the front entrance and checked the appearance from the sidewalk, as if I were Gung-Gung and Po-Po emerging from a car. Everything—glass, paint, cement—looked crisp and clean. I walked through the doors and smiled. The tables were filled with families, talking about their day, taking an interest in each other’s lives. Ma needn’t worry. Gung-Gung would be impressed.

  Since all the tables were occupied, I gave up on the sit-down-meal idea and headed up the side of the dining room through the door that separated public from private space. I started up the stairs to my apartment and Baba’s office, where I could drop off his keys, then changed my mind and headed for the kitchen. Hours had passed since my deli-chicken-wrap lunch with Josie. I needed to refuel.

  “Yo, Lily, I thought you went out.” DeAndre said.

  “I did.”

  “Then why didn’t you come in the back door?”

  “Had to check the dragons.”

  “The what?”

  “Never mind. Hey, let me ask you something. You have sisters, right?”

  “Yeah. Two of ‘em.”

  “Do they stress about how they look?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t all girls? I mean, except for you,” he added, with a laugh.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, please. Like you don’t know?” He picked up my hand. “I mean, look at these sorry things. Could your nails get any stubbier?”

  I yanked my hand and punched him in the arm, using a Boshi fist to stab him with my thumbnail. “They’re long enough.”

  “Ow, girl. Why you gotta be so mean?”

  “You started it.”

  “Maybe. But that’s no way to get information.”

  He had a point. But it was fun.

  “Why you asking about my sisters, anyway?”

  “Because I don’t have one of my own to ask.”

  “Right. Sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay. It’s just that Rose would know. She always understood fashion and hair and makeup and nails and…all of that. Me?” I grabbed my hair and flipped up the ends. “Trim it straight, comb it through, and I’m done.”

  “Yeah? Well, you don’t know how lucky you are. The hours. The tears. The fights with our mama.”

  “Does she still do their hair?”

  “Hell no. They do it themselves or blow their money on a stylist.”

  “Why not keep it simple?”

  DeAndre laughed. “Girl, there ain’t no simple when it comes to black hair. You acquire the skills or pay the pros.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  “You have no idea.” His eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Do you have a date?”

  “What?”

  “Why else are you asking all these beauty questions. Come on, girl, spill it. Who’s the guy?”

  “There’s no guy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay. Well, maybe there’s a guy. But that’s not why I’m asking.”

  He eyed me from my makeup-less face to my Flyknit athletic shoes. “Maybe not, but it’s a good thing you did. Do you even own a pair of heels?”

  “I might.”

  “You ever wear them?”

  “Sometimes…rarely.” I thought about the strappy heels I had almost worn on my first date with Daniel, still nestled in their shoebox in the back of my closet. “Okay, never.”

  DeAndre wiggled his brows. “Might want to give them a try. Guys are suckers for sexy legs.”

  “Seriously?”

  He held out his hands. “I’m just looking out.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I’m doing fine on my own.”

  “Not if you’re wearing that.”

  “DeAndre, if you want to be funny, go do stand up.”

  “Actually—”

  I turned toward the stairs. “Nope. Gotta run.”

  “I thought you were heading for the kitchen.”

  “No time. Places to be. Thanks for the tips.”

  “If you have a date, change your clothes.

  “Yep.”

  “And put on some makeup.”

  I waved.

  “And heels.”

  “Goodbye, DeAndre.”

  Cultural insights were one thing. Style critiques were another.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The wind felt good on my face as I rode my bike toward Hollywood. Rather than glam up as DeAndre and Ma might have wished, I had doubled down on my street-tough attire with black stretch jeans and sturdy boots. I wasn’t looking for trouble, but suspected I might find it.

  Although I had found Josie on the east side of Hollywood this morning, I began my evening search on the west, where neon lights attracted a festive crowd. Once I spotted white lights of the Hollywood and Highland entertainment complex, memories of my unexpected lunch date with Tran came rushing back: the devilish smile, the inexplicable fascination, the deadly game.

  I stopped at the curb.

  The cheery billboards, red double decker buses, and line of colorful taxis across the street mocked my darkening mood. How dare these people mill about in their happy ignorance? Couldn’t they feel the residue of Tran’s presence?

  Even gone, he remained. Tran permeated my city, stained it with darkness, and marked it as his own.

  I scanned the sidewalk in front of El Capitan Theater and the Roosevelt Hotel then stood on my pedals so I could search the people across the street in front of the Hard Rock Cafe, Dolby Theater, and the now-infamous Hollywood and Highland entertainment complex. No sig
n of Josie or her red beret.

  I darted in front of a coupe and joined the stream of Thursday night traffic. That spunky teenager had answers. I just needed to find her and ask the right questions.

  I pedaled a mile down the road, past the Wax Museum, the training center for Scientology, and the parking lot at Vine when I spotted a red beret on the sidewalk in front of an out-of-business store. Two figures—one large, one small—wrestled in the shadows of a recessed entry.

  I leaned my bike against the wall. A man had Josie pinned in a corner. From the way she struggled, he hadn’t paid for the privilege. I grabbed his hair, buckled his knees, and steered him face first into a parked car.

  “Beat it,” I said.

  When he didn’t move, I unclipped the karambit from my waistband and open the blade. His eyes grew wide. Even in this dim lighting he could see the black steel talon. In a capable hand, a two-and-a-quarter-inch blade could inflict a deadly amount of damage. A Fox 599 Emerson Wave was a helluva blade.

  He crawled to his feet and hobbled away, cursing under his breath.

  I glanced at Josie, trembling in the corner of the entry. “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.” I folded the knife, clipped it onto my waistband, and retrieved my bike. I didn’t want to leave my two-thousand-dollar Merida unattended for another second.

  “What are you doing here?” Josie asked.

  “I came looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to understand.”

  She laughed. “That’s a first.” She picked up her fallen beret and positioned it on her head. “Try the church. Maybe the padre can help you.”

  I rolled my bike along side of her as she limped down the sidewalk, hugging her ribs with one arm as the other hung carefully at her side. Josie seemed to be hurting a lot more than her encounter would suggest.

  “That’s not the kind of understanding I need,” I said.

  “Leave me alone, all right?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Just turn your bike around and ride.”

  “What happened to you?”