The Ninja's Blade

by Tori Eldridge

  I climbed up the rock wall, which Baba had affixed to the right side of my patio glass doors, and onto the roof. Kansas would pick me up in five minutes at the entrance to our alley. My evening had officially begun.

  Chapter

  Forty-Six

  “You sure about this?” Brianna asked. “Because once I hook you up with Manolo, there ain’t no guarantee he’ll let you go.”

  “I’m sure. And he won’t have to let me do anything. When the time comes, I’ll act and Lieutenant Payns will call in the cavalry.”

  Brianna shrugged. “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Either way, you’ll be in the shit with us. Things don’t always go like you hope.” She spat on the sidewalk. “Almost never do.”

  When an engine revved up the street, Brianna smoothed her hair and adjusted her breasts to their best advantage. “I’m Dolla now. Don’t forget it. Put on your game face, girl. You’re about to meet your new daddy.”

  A familiar gunmetal-gray Camaro coupe turned into the deserted parking lot behind us, the same color and model as the car Dolla and Ana Lucía had ridden away in after their lunch at Paco’s Tacos. Now that I saw Manolo up close, I understood the attraction. He had the whole bad boy package—dark, steamy looks, ripped model bod, dismissive attitude, cock-of-the-walk swagger. No wonder Dolla and the other girls had fallen for his scam. Hot car and a thick wallet only added to his appeal.

  “Who’s this?” he asked.

  “This here’s Candy,” Dolla said. “She’s on her own.”

  “Oh yeah?” He checked me out from boots to hair then circled around me for a three-sixty view.

  Dolla’s expression told me not to move, even when his fingers brushed aside my hair and settle on the back of my neck. Electricity spread across my shoulders like spilled ink on a tissue, infecting my skin and marking me with his taint. It took every bit of self control not to spin and strike. But that was me, and this was Candy. Although I’d sprained wrists for less infractions, my alter ego would allow any means to an end, especially if that end involved increased money and protection. Since Candy needed a strong pimp and had already decided Manolo was the best candidate, she’d welcome his attention as a sign of promise—perhaps, even triumph.

  I closed my eyes and sighed into his touch, giving myself over to Candy’s need and fear. Those fingers tickling the back of my neck meant safety, family, and—if Candy and I allowed ourselves to hope—maybe even love. Candy and I had a lot going on, after all. Why wouldn’t Manolo want us? He might even want us so much, he wouldn’t want to share.

  When his other hand slid down my waist, I pressed my bottom into his palm. “Good stuff, right?” I said, tipping back my head so my long silky hair could brush across his hand.

  Manolo slapped my ass. “Don’t work me, bitch. Don’t you ever work me.”

  Dolla flashed a warning look. Candy and I didn’t care: Riches went to the bold. Candy needed a new daddy. I needed to find Emma. Neither of us could afford to play it safe.

  He thumped my backpack. “What’s with the Pikachu?”

  “You know about Pokemón?” I glanced over my shoulder in genuine surprise.

  He turned my face back to the front. “You think I live in a hole? I know about that shit. But that don’t mean it’s gonna fly. And what you need a backpack for anyway? Ain’t you got no place to live?”

  I shrugged but didn’t turn. “I do alright.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  I shrugged again. Things were going well. I didn’t want to ruin it by appearing too eager. Better for him to offer than for me to ask.

  When Manolo finished inspecting me from behind, he circled to the front and joined Dolla, draping his arm over her shoulder and twirling his finger through the strands of her straightened hair. Under different circumstances, they would have made a stunning couple, an Egyptian princess and a South American king. But on this street, in this neighborhood, they looked exactly like who they were: a tough, desperate teen and a cruel, manipulative sociopath.

  “How long you been out of pocket?” Manolo asked.

  “Six months, maybe a year.”

  “What happened to your daddy?”

  “He got shot.”

  Manolo nodded as if this wasn’t a surprise. “I never seen you around here before.”

  “Safer to switch hoods. I didn’t want whoever offed Sammy to take it out on me.”

  Manolo nodded again. “What track were you walking?”

  I scuffed the gravel with my boot, buying myself a moment to recall what Josie had told me. According to her, Manolo rotated his girls in LA County—Sepulveda, Lankershim, Western—I didn’t want to name a track he’d know.

  “Harbor,” I said. “In Santa Ana.”

  “I know where HB’s at. Think I don’t know my business?”

  I bit my lip and prayed he didn’t start rattling off names of pimps and girls I should know. Santa Ana was thirty miles southeast in Orange County.

  Please, let it be far enough away.

  Manolo scoffed. “Orange ain’t worth the gas. I stay out of there.” He pushed Dolla aside and sauntered toward me. “So, Candy, is it? Does that mean you have something sweet for me?”

  He scooped the blonde tresses of my wig and yanked it off my head. I yelped in surprise as bobby pins flew and my hair unwound from its bun. He laughed, pulled off the squinchy, and threaded his fingers roughly through my long black hair. “I like this better.”

  His breath stank of chile and weed. The heat of it clung to my face.

  He squeezed my arms, my back, and my ass. “Your body’s tight. Goes with the whole China doll thing you got going on. That’s good. Makes up for being old.”

  Dolla shot me a cautionary look.

  China doll? Old?

  If Manolo kept squeezing me like a mango, I’d stuff my yellow, wrinkled fist right down his throat.

  “Yeah. I work out some. Gotta have an edge, right?”

  Manolo rubbed his stubbled beard across my forehead, like a cat marking its territory, then shoved me away. “Here’s the deal. You make the quota, you’re in. If not…” He stuck his finger in my face. “If not, I better not see you pedaling your weak-ass shit anywhere near my tracks. You feel me?”

  Any semblance of civility vanished as his deep-set eyes bored into mine. He had dropped the veil so I could see the beast, so I’d know how little my life meant to him. But I’d already known that. What I didn’t know was where to find Emma or how to rescue her and the other children Manolo might have kidnapped or coerced into this horrible life.

  “What’s the quota?” I asked, sticking out my chin in defiance.

  He chuckled—amused or impressed, I couldn’t tell.

  “One G.”

  “A night?”

  “That’s right. You playing with me, you gotta make bank. Ain’t that right, Dolla?”

  She nestled up beside him and traced her finger from his chest to his belt. “You know it, Daddy. We all work hard for you.”

  Manolo smiled at me. “See? My bitches be dedicated.”

  “I can be dedicated. You want a G, you got it.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, pulling down the front of Dolla’s shirt to expose the crusted skin of her newly branded chest. She must have expected something of the sort because she had removed the bandage I had applied the previous night.

  He traced the small Manolo’s Bitch tattoo over her left breast and smiled. “Earn up and you get this.” Then he jabbed his fingernail onto the raw flesh of the M$B brand centered on Dolla’s chest. “Fuck me over, and I won’t just brand you, I’ll cut you up and toss you in the L.A. fucking River.”

  Tears rolled down Dolla’s face as he outlined the dollar sign with his nail and made it bleed. If I hadn’t already made the deal with Payns and I didn’t need to find Emma, I would have killed Manolo on the spot. Lucky for him, I had wanted to do things right this time, which meant involving law enforcement an
d keep my hands clean—or as clean as they could be after all the people I’d killed.

  I closed my eyes as the thoughts conjured visions of death.

  Flashes of violence. Percussive gunfire. Gaping wounds. Twisted bodies scattered over a dried-up yard. Blood splattered on a driveway like rose petals on a wedding aisle.

  Not now, I thought. Not now.

  Manolo’s cold voice reeled me from the depths of my haunted memories back to the seedy lot and his seedier smile. “What’s it going to be, renegade? Time’s wasting and you got bank to make.”

  I glanced at Dolla, tears still streaming as she whimpered in pain, and walled my heart from her suffering. “Yeah. I got this.”

  He smacked a big wet kiss on Dolla’s cheek and threw his arms out to both of us. “Alright, then. I’ll let you bitches get to it.” He hopped into his car and screeched off the lot.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, catching Dolla before she crumpled onto the pavement. Her bravado had fled, leaving her vulnerable and afraid.

  “You in the shit now,” she said, as I caressed her back in soothing circles. “Manolo will expect his G at the end of the night. How you gonna come up with a thousand dollars? No offense, but I’m not sure you could make a hundred.”

  I offered a playful smile, hoping to lighten the mood. “You don’t think johns will like what I got?”

  “Oh, they’ll like it fine. I just don’t think you’ll like giving it.”

  Chapter

  Forty-Seven

  The middle-aged white dude who picked me up at the corner could have been my doctor, banker, or the local Walmart manager. Nothing about him seemed sleazy or criminal. Quite the contrary. He would have looked at home in a BarcaLounger calling out answers for Wheel of Fortune.

  What made a man like him—clearly not a local—drive all the way out to Compton to buy sex? Was he looking for an illicit thrill? Had his wife or girlfriend lost interest? Did he have to pay to feel aroused?

  The more I stared at him, the harder it became to imagine. The guy could have been a friend of Baba or Stan.

  When he saw me walking the street, he should have pulled over out of concern for my wellbeing, offered me a cautionary tale, or bestowed some fatherly wisdom. Instead, he reached for my knee and walked his fingers up my thigh in spider-like steps.

  “Your skin is so smooth. No hair at all.” Higher and higher he crept. Each touch of his fingers prickled my skin like the hairy feet of a tarantula. “Is it like that everywhere?”

  Was he freaking kidding me?

  I gripped the car seat to keep from breaking his fingers and jamming them up his nose.

  “Park and find out,” I said, plucking his hand off my leg and deposited it on his own. “But you pay for the privilege.”

  Rather than annoying him, the snub added to my appeal and elicited a most disconcerting chortle. He pulled into a strip mall, drove around to the back, and parked between two industrial garbage bins. When he switched off the ignition, his hands flew at my breasts. I shifted in my seat and fanned them off course.

  “Easy, cowboy. First things first.”

  He pulled his wallet from his pants, a process made harder because of the bulge in his crotch. Once he shifted himself back to comfort, he fixed me with feral eyes. “How much?”

  “Two bills.” When he paused, I opened my legs just enough to capture his attention then snapped them shut. “Don’t worry. You’ll have to beg me to stop.”

  As he fumbled with the money, I snatched the wallet out of his hands and shoved him against his door with my palm.

  “Hey. I was trying to pay you.”

  “I know. And you still can.” I pulled out his license and checked the name, “Ernest.” I tucked the license back into the slot and pulled out a photo of him with a woman and two small children. I turned it around so he could see. “Yours?”

  He nodded, uncomfortable with this turn of events.

  I tucked the photo into the wallet but didn’t return it. Instead, I dropped it into my lap and planted my boot on his dash. His eyes followed the wallet to the crotch of my shorts, too hypnotized to notice the knife I had pulled from my boot.

  I brought the karambit into view and opened it, slowly, so he could watch the black talon-like blade appear.

  He stuttered, nervously. “That’s not the kind of fun I’m looking for.”

  “No?” I turned the blade this way and that, watching as his eyes followed the tip. “Don’t be so sure,” I teased. “If you haven’t tried it, how would you know?”

  Nervous laughter fell from his mouth and deepened into a raspy growl. Ernest Jones hid a darker nature inside his everyman façade.

  I shook my head and sighed. “Oh, Ernie. Is that why you’re here? To feed yourself morsels of perversion so your wife won’t find out what a sick man you really are?”

  “Take another hundred,” he whispered, eyes locked on my knife, not in fear but with desire.

  “You got a pen?” I asked.

  “In the door.”

  I plucked a dollar bill from his wallet and wrote the phone number of a well-respected psychologist in the space beside George Washington’s face. Ernest kept his cash in neat order with small money in the front and five crisp hundreds in the back. I fanned the bills and peeled off three of the hundreds.

  “You sure about this? I’ll give you what you need, but I promise it won’t be what you want.”

  “Take it all.” Need rolled off of him like sweat.

  I took the money but showed him the marked dollar bill I had left. “In the morning, when your head is clear, call this number.”

  I had given Ernest exactly what he needed. All he had to do was call Dr. Tanaka. If he followed through and did the work, he might save his life from ruin. If not, maybe the loss of five hundred dollars would teach him to stay off the tracks. Either way, I felt just fine about taking his money.

  I tucked the bills in my bra and pulled the debit card from his wallet. I tapped the bank’s name with the tip of my blade. “There’s a branch a mile up the boulevard.”

  “You’re robbing me?”

  I winked. “I told you you’d have to beg me to stop.”

  Rather than object, his expression changed to hopeful excitement. “I can beg.”

  “Oh, dear God. Just drive, all right?”

  When we reached the bank, I surprised him by returning his wallet. “Go home to your wife and kids, Ernest. Clean up your life. Stay out of Compton.”

  I never intended to rob the guy: I just needed a ride to a couple bank branches so I could withdraw the thousand I owed Manolo. Ernest’s contribution helped considerably. With his five hundred, I only needed another five, which meant I could withdraw my limit from one ATM.

  Thank you, Ernest Jones.

  I padded my bra with the stack of twenties then strolled down The Blade in the direction I had left Dolla. Within half a block, I realized my mistake: I should have made Ernest take me where I needed to go. In all of the excitement, I had forgotten who roamed the north end of The Blade.

  “Hey, look who’s here. What happened to your blonde hair?” the Varrio said, leaning out the window of the flame-orange Impala.

  He had recognized me as Candy, but not as myself.

  I flicked my hair into my face and strut past the car. “I like to switch it up. Tomorrow night, I might try red.”

  I swung my hips and dug deep into my streetwalker persona. If the Varrios matched my alias to the tomboy they’d confronted here five nights ago, I’d have a bloody fight on my hands.

  The Impala reversed, cruising the wrong way on the boulevard to keep pace with me. “Nah, I like the black. Reminds me of someone though. What do you think, Two Guns? This Asian chick look familiar to you?”

  I kept my face forward and prayed the driver had earned his nickname because of his massive biceps and not a proclivity for redundant fire power. The only weapon I had on me was a knife. And everyone kno
ws how that saying goes.

  A honking car forced the Impala to stop reversing. I hurried into the street and over the median strip to the other side. The Impala sped up the boulevard. As soon as the median stopped, Two Guns would turn around and come for me.

  Chapter

  Forty-Eight

  I dodged through a parking lot and onto a residential street that paralleled Long Beach Boulevard. I ran north, in the same direction as the Impala, hoping that, after it pulled a U-turn, it would drive south, creating more distance between us. No such luck. The Varrios must have seen where I’d gone, because a bullet hit the car parked beside me. I bolted toward the sidewalk. The Impala skidded to a stop then reversed. A spray of bullets peppered a metal fence.

  I changed direction and sprinted back the way I’d come, taking advantage of my mobility to offset their speed. Low-fenced homes offered means of escape. I ignored them in search of safer options—not for me, but for the innocent people inside. If I bolted through their yards with the Varrios on my tail, I’d draw gunfire into their homes. I couldn’t live with myself if an innocent bystander were killed.

  More gunshots.

  I might not live at all.

  I scaled the security fence of a commercial property and dropped into a junkyard full of broken furniture and rusted appliances. Cinderblocks, lumber, and drywall lined the side of an ugly building—a remodel in progress. No one would catch a stray bullet here.

  I dismissed the leaning sheets of drywall and lumber since they only offered concealment, not cover, and ran straight for the stack of bricks that would protect me. One way or another, this hunting game had to end. I couldn’t find Emma and deal with Manolo if gang members were gunning for me. Word would spread, Manolo would find out, and the remaining members of the Varrio Norwalk 66 would be on my ass.