The Ninja's Blade

by Tori Eldridge

  Dolla snapped her fingers in my face. “Don’t be eyeballing my kid.”

  “I’m not eyeballing anybody, but stick your fingers in my face again and I’ll break them.”

  She must have seen the truth in my eyes because she lowered her hand. “I don’t know what you’re doing around here, but you ain’t got no business with me.”

  I smirked. “But you see, Brianna, that’s not exactly true.”

  Dolla leaned in so Angel wouldn’t overhear. “You don’t get to call me Brianna. And whatever you think you know is bullshit.”

  “Really? I know you attend Jefferson High School, that you eat burritos at Paco’s Tacos, and that you, apparently, have a secret daughter. How’s that for a start?”

  “Show’s how much you know—I graduated last year.”

  I had assumed Dolla was a student because of the company she kept, the topics she’d discussed, and the fact that I’d found her on school campus hanging with Sharelle. Then again, no one had asked to see my guest pass or identification. I had breezed onto campus without a glance from anyone, despite my age and uncommon ethnicity. Dolla, on the other hand, blended perfectly. She could go where she pleased and, if recognized, could always claim to need a few more credits for her diploma.

  “Do your new friends know what you do?” I asked. “Ana Lucía. Sharelle. Whoever else you’re conning. How about Manolo? Does he know you’re double timing him with RC?”

  Dolla’s face tensed. “I don’t know any RC.”

  “Sure you do. Big guy, barber, in the hospital with a knife wound up his groin.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, you hadn’t heard? Some badass raided his brothel and stopped Sharelle from getting raped.”

  Dolla’s mouth opened in shock then clenched it a sneer. “You?”

  I threw up my hands in frustration. “Why is that so hard to believe? Don’t answer that. My point is, I know enough of your secrets to get you into a whole lot of trouble.” I glanced at Angel, still petting the puppy. “Who all knows about her?”

  Dolla lunged forward, but I deflected her shove with a calming press of my hand.

  “Relax. I need your help.”

  “For what?”

  “Finding Emma.”

  “Who?”

  “Tall redhead from Marymount High? Don’t pretend you don’t know her.”

  “You mean Cin?”

  “Do I?”

  Dolla shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”

  “Hey. Stop swearing around your daughter.”

  “I’ll do whatever the f—” Dolla shut her mouth then smiled at Angel, who had stopped petting the dog to stare at her. “It’s okay, baby. Try throwing a stick. Puppies likes to fetch.”

  When Angel skipped to the nearest tree to hunt for a puppy-sized branch, Dolla turned back to me. “Look, I only know one redhead, and that’s Cin. Manolo called her that because of her hair, but the johns say she’s so good it’s sinful. In any case, I ain’t seen her.”

  “Since when?”

  Dolla thought about it for a moment. “Three weeks?”

  Three weeks would have been before Emma had sought refuge with Aleisha.

  “What about Manolo, when did you last see him?”

  “Last night.”

  If Dolla had seen Manolo last night but hadn’t seen Emma in three weeks, my theory about a lovers’ holiday seemed unlikely.

  Dolla snapped her fingers. “Hey, if you know so much, why you asking all these questions?”

  “Emma’s in trouble. Manolo’s the key.”

  “Oh, yeah? What you want me to do about it?”

  “Recruit me.”

  She stared at me in surprise then burst out laughing. “Girl, you tripping.”

  “I mean it.

  She waved a hand in front of her face and stared at the ground. “I can’t do that.” Then she glanced at Angel, giggling as the puppy raced between the fence and the stick she had thrown.

  “Are you afraid he’ll find out about Angel? Because I won’t tell him.”

  She laughed. “You think I do what I do because I like it? Manolo conned me like he cons everyone. Now that I’m his, he won’t ever let me go.”

  “Is he Angel’s father?”

  She snorted out a laugh. “No. But he knows who is.”

  I looked up the street toward Dolla’s house and thought of Eddie, smiling from the porch. Then I looked at Angel smiling at the puppy—not Dolla’s smile, Eddie’s.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Dolla looked away in shame. “Yeah.”

  Angel giggled as the puppy licked her face through the fence. How could such a happy child have come from such a miserable home?

  “Maybe I can help.”

  “You got any money? Because I need to get Angel out of that house before Eddie starts looking at her the way he did me.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what? You didn’t bring that child molester into my house. You didn’t choose your man over your kid. What you got to feel sorry for?”

  I thought of all my misconceptions and judgments. I hated what Dolla had done, but I also hated what had been done to her. She wasn’t the ruthless predator I had assumed her to be. She was a prostituted child and a victim of domestic rape. Dolla’s life and identity had been built on a foundation of violence, betrayal, and lies.

  “I have friends who can help.”

  Dolla shook her head. “The ones who helped Cin? No, thank you. I’ll do it on my own. I just need to pull in enough money to make it work.”

  “How, by selling out other girls? Don’t you care about the lives you’re ruining? Sharelle, Princesa, Cheeks? What about that sweet Guatemalan girl I saw you with at Paco’s Tacos. Have you pulled Ana Lucía into this?”

  “How you know about…” Dolla held up a hand. “Doesn’t matter. And I didn’t recruit Cheeks, so don’t put her misery on me. I got my own to care for.”

  “Then why don’t you turn in Eddie? A paternity test would convict him. Even if he claimed you were willing, he’d still get put away for statutory rape.”

  “Don’t you think I haven’t thought of that? I’d nail that bastard to the wall if I could.”

  “Then what’s keeping you?”

  “Manolo. He wants me desperate and afraid. The worse things are at home, the more I need him. If I turn in Eddie, he’ll take Angel away and hide her somewhere I can’t find, use her as leverage to make me do even worse things than I already done.” She shook her head. “I can’t take that chance.”

  Dolla held out her arms for Angel. “Come ’ere, baby. Time for the park.”

  Angel jumped into Dolla’s arms, children both, no more than fifteen years apart.

  “You see this girl?” Dolla said. “She’s my everything. Ain’t nobody in the world matter to me more than her.”

  Chapter

  Thirty-Six

  Instead of following Dolla and Angel to the park, I returned to the faded blue house where Dolla’s mother lived with her pedophile husband. I hadn’t formulated a plan, but I’d come up with something. First, I needed to pare the situation down to its core objective: protect Angel from abuse and kidnapping, stop Dolla from snaring girls into prostitution.

  The problem I faced was that every possible move would sacrifice another piece.

  If I turned Dolla over to the cops, which was the quickest solution, Angel would remain in danger at home with Eddie. If I told the cops about Eddie, Manolo would kidnap Angel. If I could somehow protect Angel from Manolo, Eddie would implicate Dolla and her mother out of spite, and social services would take Angel out of the house. I had heard too many grim stories about the foster care system to willingly subject a child to that fate, especially since I hadn’t seen anything but love for Angel coming from Dolla and her mother. The only solution I could see was to eliminate Eddie.

  I sagged over my bike and coasted to a stop. Could I do that? Could I exact justic
e on a pedophile on the word of his victim without any substantiating proof?

  No.

  Even if I had concrete evidence, I couldn’t execute someone. I wasn’t an assassin like Tran. I had to find another way, preferably without breaking the law, destroying Dolla’s already fractured relationship with her mother, or causing Eddie to retaliate against his daughters.

  Daughters.

  Bile rose in my throat. Eddie was stepfather to Dolla and birth-father to Angel. He should be locked away, not roaming the community inflicting misery on children. But that wouldn’t happen unless Dolla pressed charges, and she’d never do that as long as Manolo was a threat.

  There was also the problem of Dolla’s age. Having graduated from high school, she was most likely eighteen and therefore subject to adult laws concerning prostitution. And since she acted as Manolo’s second in command, the state might even prosecute her for trafficking. It wouldn’t matter that she’d been victimized and coerced into this life as a minor: According to the law, she was an adult.

  I stretched up my arms and folded my hands on my head, my feet on the ground and the bike frame cradled between my legs. Less than an hour ago, I wanted Dolla prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Now, I wanted to free her from abuse. How quickly my perspective had changed. The more I learned, the more connected I felt.

  Was this what Sensei had meant when he told me separateness was a delusion?

  I hadn’t wanted to believe him at the time, not after mistaking the good Samaritans for criminals and helping the purse thieves escape. My brain had been muddled enough by doubt, it couldn’t handle the added confusion of empathy.

  Separateness fueled my anger and ignited my righteous commitment—or so I had thought. Sensei had cautioned me against that, as well.

  “Anger deceives. Fear alienates. Ego convinces us we are more, better, different. All of these are a trap to make us believe we have nothing in common with our enemy, and that the only way to win is to vanquish.”

  Although confounding at the time, Sensei’s lessons were beginning to make sense. Unfortunately, that didn’t make them any easier to apply.

  How was I supposed to fight for the innocent without anger? How could I empathize with abusers? And what difference would it have made if I had known Dolla’s secret before she took Sharelle to RC?

  Why was all of this so hard to understand?

  My arms fell to my sides as the effort to keep my fingers laced on my head became too great. Why shouldn’t I—or any other fundamentally good person—feel more, better, and different than a sexual predator?

  I thought of Dolla, fighting to protect her daughter and herself, doing what she thought she had to do to survive.

  Sensei had wanted to me to keep my emotions and ego in check so they wouldn’t distort my perception. He wanted me to see beneath the surface to the hidden truth. Omote and ura. Outside and in. Everything Sensei taught me—about wisdom, people, fighting, life—came back to the Eastern concept of what could be readily seen and understood versus the what was hidden beneath the surface.

  I could see Dolla’s house—play equipment on the dried lawn, cars parked on the cement, and the faded blue house with white bars on the windows. But I couldn’t see inside. Even if I could, I’d never fully understand the dynamics of Dolla’s family.

  As I wondered how to approach them, the screen door opened and Eddie marched out of the house. He carried a gym bag with the logo for South Park Boxing printed on the side. He tossed the bag in his SUV, unlocked the chain-link gate, scraping metal on cement as he dragged it open. He didn’t bother to close the gate after he left.

  “Excuse me,” a woman said, pointing at Dolla’s house across the street. “Is that the day care house, the one run by Regina Wilson?”

  She held the hand of a kindergarten-age girl with huge eyes and a timid demeanor. If Dolla was worried about three-year-old Angel attracting Eddie’s perverted attention, I didn’t want this five-year-old anywhere near him. But I also didn’t want to ruin Regina’s reputation. Dolla needed money to protect Angel. If Regina lost her livelihood, that would increase the financial strain and make the situation even more precarious. I needed to play this smart.

  “I think so. But most of the kids are boys. Rough and tumble. You know how it is. Is this your daughter? She’s so lovely.”

  The woman frowned. “Only boys?”

  I dismounted my bike so I could crouch beside the girl. “That’s a very pretty dress,” I said. Then I looked up at the mother. “You’ll probably want to send her in shorts or pants, though, because the boys love to wrestle.” I smiled at the girl. “Do you like to play in the mud? The boys think it’s great fun.” I glanced at the mom. “They’re usually in the yard when I ride by. They seem to have a great time.”

  The girl hid behind her mother’s leg. “I don’t want to play in the mud.”

  The woman stroked her daughter’s hair. “Thanks for letting me know. I don’t think this would be a good fit.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  I sighed with relief as they walked away then rolled the Merida across the street and into Dolla’s driveway. I closed the gate behind me in case there were kids inside. Dolla’s mother met me at the porch.

  “What you doing scraping my gate?”

  “I tried to lift it.”

  “You ain’t supposed to be trying nothing on my property. What you want, anyway?”

  “Are you Regina Wilson?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m here about your daughter.”

  “That so?” She glanced at my tank top and shorts. “Who you pretending to be? Because you ain’t no teacher, and last I checked, social workers don’t come visiting on two wheels.”

  I opened my mouth to explain, then stopped. What could I tell her? That Eddie was a rapist? That her granddaughter was also her stepdaughter? She had no reason to believe me. She might not even believe Dolla.

  I settled on the truth. “My name’s Lily Wong, and I work for a refuge that shelters abused women and children.”

  “Ain’t no one abused in this house, so you best mind your own business.”

  “Well that’s just it, ma’am. When we get a tip, I have to check it out. So, in that sense, this is my business.”

  I kept my gaze steady and hoped she wouldn’t call me on my lies. Women’s shelters provided resources and services, they didn’t act on tips—there were other agencies for that. When Aleisha sent me into homes to rescue and extract, she did so at the request of the client. She never would have sent me to force action or unveil secrets.

  “Somebody talking smack about me? Because I ain’t never had any complaints. Never.”

  “How about your husband? Has anyone ever complained about him?”

  “What for? He don’t take care of those kids.”

  “But he’s in the house when they’re here. When Brianna and Angel are here.”

  I let the implication hang and studied the tension in Regina’s face for clues. Her left eye had begun to twitch and her bottom lip disappeared behind her teeth. Although I hadn’t revealed any of Dolla’s secrets, I’d said enough to cause alarm.

  “Time for you to leave.”

  “I can’t do that, ma’am, not with Angel living under the same roof as Eddie.”

  “What you expecting me to do? Throw my granddaughter in the street?”

  “No ma’am. I expect you to protect her.”

  Regina hadn’t denied my implied accusations, which meant, that on some level—conscious or unconscious—she’d always known. Dolla was right, her mother had chosen Eddie over them.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Seven

  The musk of sweat and leather greeted me as I opened the door to South Park Boxing. Even on a Sunday, the gym reverberated with thumps and thwacks. The teacher—young, female, and ripped—led her class in an escalating combination of strikes against hanging heavy bags. Jab-cross. Jab-cross-
hook. Jab-cross-hook-cross.

  “Switch!”

  The class, evenly distributed between men and women, switched feet and began the circuit again.

  Beyond the students and the field of hanging bags, a couple men worked out with the weights, one bench-pressing a heavily weighted bar and the other spotting. A treadmill, bike, and elliptical machine—all empty at the moment—formed a wall between the fitness side of the gym and the boxing ring where Eddie and another man sparred. I ambled over to watch.

  Eddie had good technique and power, but he was rash, attacking when he should cover and leaving himself open to brutal hits. The other man, who I assumed from his advanced age and skill to be Eddie’s trainer, landed a hooking uppercut into Eddie’s liver. The punch crumpled Eddie to his knees. Having trained at the boxing gym in my neighborhood, I knew all too well what that strike felt like. I also knew that if the trainer had meant for Eddie to stay down, he would have.

  The older man tapped Eddie’s shoulder with his glove. “All you want is my face. You got to mix it up. Keep those elbows down. Pay attention to what I’m doing.”

  As Eddie sucked air, he caught me leaning against a post. “What are you looking at?”

  “Never mind her,” the trainer said. “Pay attention to me.”

  He smacked his gloves together and advanced with a quick succession of shots. Although not as powerful as his previous attacks, the downpour of punches forced Eddie to stand up straight and get back in the game.

  “Elbows in. Protect the body.”

  As if to make a point, the trainer snuck a punch to Eddie’s gut then tagged him in the face.

  “Come on, Eddie. No rest until you land a decent shot.”

  Eddie held out a glove as if requesting a break and launched a sucker punch from his hip up into the trainer’s liver. Or rather, that’s where it would have landed if the trainer hadn’t followed his own advice and protected his body.

  The trainer laughed. “That’s enough for today. We still have a couple months to get you in shape. You teach tomorrow, right?” Eddie nodded. “Good. Come early. We’ll work some drills. And watch what you eat. Drop a couple pounds and you can fight in the super featherweight class.”