by Carrie Asai
“Well, then lemme drive you,” Teddy said, leaning down and half falling off the stool. “We need to talk more.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you again,” I said vaguely. I didn’t know how to leave it with Teddy. I half trusted him. I knew he wasn’t 100 percent good, but he was looking out for me. And besides Katie, he was the only person in this world who seemed to want me around.
“Yeah, we’re cool,” Katie said, a little impatiently. “We’ll get a cab.”
We exited quickly, saying a brief good-bye to Pablo and Diego. Pablo took my hand and kissed it. “You are just so beautiful,” he said in a thick Spanish accent. “What is your name again?”
I didn’t answer. Teddy blurted, “Isn’t she beautiful? Didn’t I tell you before? Her name’s Heaven.”
“Heaven, ah?” he said. “It is nice to meet you, Miss Heaven.” He squeezed my hand a little hard. I winced, feeling pretty creeped out. There was something wrong. Then he stood up and walked back in the direction of the bathrooms.
We stepped out under the dark sky. The neon was still flashing everywhere; people were still wandering around. Cars were still zooming up the Strip.
“God, that was interesting,” Katie said.
As soon as I sat down in the cab, my head really started to spin. I’d probably had—four drinks? Five? “I might be sick,” I said. My stomach lurched.
“Really? Oh God, Heaven, do we need to pull over?”
The nausea passed quickly. “I think I’m all right,” I said after a minute. “I’m sorry about Teddy. But he’s really okay, you know.”
“But Heaven, he’s not,” Katie said. “Remember how awful he was the first time you met him? And he’s part of the yakuza, for God’s sake!”
“So’s my father,” I snapped.
“Well…” Katie trailed off. I’d caught her off guard. “But now you’re all like…buddy-buddy with him? Heaven, he was carrying a gun.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said blearily. “He’s all talk but no action.”
“And he’s such a druggie. It’s obvious those guys he was hanging out with were drug dealers. It’s obvious they were all on something the whole night.”
“Oh, you don’t know those things for sure,” I said, although I suspected Katie was totally right.
“It seemed so obvious,” Katie said. “He’s totally not going to live past twenty-five. He seems involved in such dangerous stuff, Heaven. You really shouldn’t be talking to him. He’s…scary.”
“Believe me, Teddy’s not scary,” I said, impatience rising in my voice. I knew he was dangerous. I also knew that it was pretty stupid that we’d hung out with him at all. But I felt defensive all of a sudden. Teddy had helped me once. I had to give him some credit. “I kidnapped him on a bus once,” I said. “I flipped him over my shoulder once. Teddy is…Teddy is a teddy bear.”
“Heaven, you’re so drunk,” Katie said. Then she burst out laughing. “I doubt you could flip him over your shoulder!”
I felt the urge to explain to Katie all the training I’d done and that I definitely could flip Teddy over my shoulder and that I had, on the streets of L.A., and that he wasn’t really a gorilla at all but a bit more complex than that. But before I could, the cab pulled up to what I supposed was Katie’s apartment, somewhere in the outskirts of Vegas. I rolled out of the cab, giggling. “The Katie palace,” I said. “Gambling until dawn!”
The alcohol sloshed in my stomach. I turned my head to see why Katie wasn’t laughing. And then I heard her scream. All my senses rushed back to me. I whipped my body around to see what had happened.
Six men surrounded us, cloaked in black ninja robes. They moved right for me silently, their arms poised for battle.
I call up my jefe in Tijuana. “I’ve talked to him,” I say. “But I don’t know if he wants to come up with the money. He won’t budge.”
“We’ve waited too long!” he snarls back at me. “He’s making a fool out of us!”
I fold my phone shut and pace back and forth. I can hear loud talking back in the VIP room. He’s brought two girls with him—but the one, que linda. Gorgeous. She looks familiar. I have a feeling I know who she is. I haven’t known this Teddy for long, but I can guess that he brings around these different model-type girls often. Perhaps because of his father. Because of his largeness, his confidence. The way he throws money around. Although this girl is different.
I’m not sure if I can trust this Teddy. Does he know what he’s doing? Why have we had to follow him out here to Vegas from L.A.? Apparently he had to leave there suddenly. Why?
I go into the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. Make sure my hair is in its proper place. But this bar has no beautiful women, really. Except for this Heaven. But Teddy says she belongs to him. Perhaps if she is not with him that way…perhaps…since he knows our deal…perhaps we could work something out. I would like to have a few hours with this girl on my own. I would show her that Japanese men have nothing on the Colombians. Teddy comes messily into the bathroom, practically falling over.
“Hola,” I say as he staggers over to the urinals.
“Ho,” Teddy says, barely getting out the first syllable. Finally he sputters out the second: “La.” When I drink too much, I get angry, violent. Everything I can’t control comes forth in a barrage of punches. Teddy falls apart, becomes a wrecked house of cards.
How can I trust a house of cards?
Teddy straightens up from the urinal and comes over, without washing his hands, to inspect himself in the mirror. He lays a hand on me.
“I’m glads yous and Diegos decided to meet me tonight,” he slurs. “I knew you’d see things going my way seeing.”
I look at his reflection in the mirror. “Who’s the girl?” I ask, although I know the answer.
He grins, straightening up. He crosses his arms over his chest smugly.
“She’s my fiancée.” He uncrosses his arms and lights a cigarette, still smiling. “Pretty hot, huh?” Then he turns and shoves out the door with his shoulder.
Pablo
6
The ninjas quivered, waving their shogei knives gracefully in the air.
Katie let out another mind-numbing scream.
I sprang into action, whirled around, and kicked the one closest to Katie. He didn’t have time to react and fell quickly. I grabbed Katie and rushed her to the bushes, practically pushing her in. Katie yelped in fear.
“Stay there,” I commanded. She looked up at me with confused and terrified eyes. I didn’t have time to dwell on it. The ninjas moved closer to me.
I prowled around a little, keeping them all at a distance. When one got close enough to strike me, I was able to defend myself with a series of blocks and rolls. I tried my shinobi-iri technique, but it didn’t quite work here—there were no shadows to slide into. One of the ninjas was able to kick me in the jaw. I bit my tongue and tasted blood. My jaw went numb with pain. Tears sprang to my eyes.
“Shikkan,” one of them growled. Surrender.
I managed to hold them off for a little longer with a series of kicks, but I could feel panic creeping in. I gathered up every ounce of strength I had. If I didn’t, something might happen to Katie.
One of the ninjas kicked me in the gut and I flailed backward. The blow made all the contents of my stomach—the long forgotten burger, the cosmopolitans—rise up. I coughed and looked at what I’d spit out on my hand. Blood.
Another ninja rushed toward me. I could see only his cold, soulless eyes. But I couldn’t think of a defense. A bizarre mishmash of images gathered together in my head: the blinking lights of the Sahara casino, the taste of Mike’s mouth when he’d kissed me, the smell of Teddy’s breath—rank and alcoholic. The glint of Pablo’s smile, the silver of Diego’s watch. Hiro, standing alone as he watched me climb aboard the bus.
I was losing this battle.
I dodged a ninja’s kick to my chest by ducking and rolling. The grass felt wet and sticky. Was it dew or my blood? I managed
to do a takedown move on one of the ninjas from the ground, but the strength I had to muster from my quadriceps drew all the life out of me. He fell in a pile on top of me, and I couldn’t shrug him off.
“Heaven!” Katie screamed from the bushes.
Hearing her voice forced me to stand up, but the ninjas were close. As soon as I stood up completely, my head started to spin. I backed away but realized I was backing into the wall of Katie’s building—something Hiro had told me time and again never to do. “Don’t back into a wall or an alley or a corner,” he’d said. “You don’t want to be kyuuchou—a cornered bird. Don’t let your enemy drive you to that.”
I looked around desperately. I had backed into a little alcove in the front of the building. The grass was even wetter back here—I could feel it on my ankles. A sprinkler sprayed the grass and brushed against my leg. I quivered.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Suddenly a cracking noise erupted in the sky. Everyone ducked. A gunshot. I took a risk while the ninjas were guarding themselves: I leapt over them, rushed into the open space. I kept my head covered, kept checking my back.
Who was shooting?
The ninjas froze. I froze. They were inches away from me. I looked over and saw the whites of one of the ninja’s eyes. He stared at me with a steely and menacing gaze.
A second shot sounded. My attackers ducked again.
A figure emerged from the bushes, pointing the gun at the group of ninjas around me. Or maybe the figure was pointing the gun at me. I trembled. Oh my God, I thought. It’s pointed at me. They’ve got guns now.
I checked to hear Katie’s breathing. I couldn’t. Had they shot her? Oh God, no…
Suddenly the figure stepped into the porch light. And then I saw.
Teddy.
He held the gun steadily, still pointing it at the ninjas. His hand didn’t quiver at all—he certainly didn’t seem as drunk as he had before. He glared at the group of ninjas. I still shivered, standing in the center. No one spoke.
Teddy shook the gun a little, pointing it one by one at each ninja. They didn’t flinch, but they didn’t continue to attack me, either.
“Hikisanasai!” Teddy growled. Leave. He waved his gun around the circle. The ninjas backed away, afraid of what the gun could do. Slips in the air, they vanished in seconds.
When I was no longer surrounded, I looked up at Teddy, who was still standing at a distance, watching them go. He seemed so levelheaded. But at the bar…hadn’t he been totally loaded? How had he sobered up so quickly? How had he known to follow us home?
Teddy rushed up to me. Katie rolled out of the bushes, crying.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said hurriedly.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. “I thought I’d be safe here. Who were they? Did they have something to do with those Latino guys at the bar?”
Teddy shook his head. “Come on. We’ve got to get you out of Vegas.”
“What do you mean, not safe?” Katie wailed, her first words since the attack had begun.
“I don’t know who they were,” Teddy said, answering my earlier question. “But I know that it’s not safe. That I can explain to you. And that’s all I can explain.”
“What do you mean?” Katie said again, hysterical.
I still felt drunk and horrible. And beat up. But Teddy seemed even, calm. I’d never seen him this levelheaded, calm and brave. At our wedding he’d been a scared little baby. Was he on something? Perhaps something to…speed him up? Slow him down? I didn’t even know what sort of drug he’d need. But then I thought of something even more interesting: Maybe at the bar, he’d been pretending.
“What’s going on?” Katie asked again, clearly crazed that no one was answering her question.
“Heaven and I have got to leave Vegas,” Teddy said evenly. “Things aren’t safe here for us.”
Katie whimpered, her eyes wide. “Heaven, you told me that you weren’t safe, you told me that these things were happening to you, and I saw your eye and everything, but…I didn’t know….”
Tears started running down her face. I ran my hand over the bottom of my jaw. It felt tender. I was going to have a big bruise.
“Knowing it and seeing it are two different things,” Teddy said, finishing her thought. He finally put his gun back into his waistband of his pants. “Come on. Let’s go inside and make a plan.”
7
How had they found me?
“Keep the lights off,” Teddy said. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“This apartment looks out onto a courtyard,” Katie said angrily. “Not the front of the building. Who would see us?” She glared at Teddy, then lit a bunch of candles. “I’ll make coffee,” she said in a dead voice.
Once it was ready, Katie handed me a cup of coffee and we sat down on the couch. I drank it but felt even dizzier. “Ugh,” I said. I had completely botched the fight. My limbs had moved sluggishly. My mind had been clogged with useless stuff. I hadn’t used any of the tactics Hiro had taught me.
“Vegas isn’t safe for either of us,” Teddy announced. “That attack proved it.”
“But wait,” I said. “Were they attacking you or me? If I hadn’t spoken to you, would this have happened to me?”
“I don’t know,” Teddy said, a little exasperated. “Why do you think I’d know?”
“It just…it just seems that every time I run into you, I get attacked by ninjas!” I said. But then I thought about it. Those ninjas had descended on me like dogs realizing where the really good meat was. The steak. They obviously knew I was the target, the prize. I clamped my mouth shut.
But Teddy was keyed up. “I think we should get out of here,” he said again. “We should leave Vegas ASAP. We both should. Together.”
“I don’t think we should have to leave,” I said. “I mean, yeah, this house is probably marked now…but couldn’t we, like, go to a hotel or something?”
Katie sighed. It made me feel worse—I’d come here and promised Katie that she wouldn’t be involved in any of the past bad stuff that had happened in my life—that we were completely free of danger. But I’d been wrong.
Teddy shook his head. “No hotels,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense. We have to get out of here. Tonight.” He said it with such chilling forcefulness that I felt like we were in danger if we stayed here, in Katie’s apartment, for another minute.
“Heaven,” Katie said in a small voice, “I think he’s right. I think you should go somewhere that’s safer. Wherever that might be. Although I don’t know if you should go with him.” She pointed at Teddy. “You could have been killed out there. I saw what they were doing to you. Is this what’s been happening?” She played with a tassel on one of her pillows.
“Pretty much,” I said, bringing my hand up to my bruised eye.
Katie looked ghostly in the candlelight. “I didn’t really think that this…was what would happen to you…because of who Konishi is,” she said softly.
“Who knows if this even has to do with Konishi,” I said.
Teddy grunted. Katie didn’t say anything. I could see a large tear on her cheek.
“So,” Katie went on, “I think you should leave, but I don’t think you should leave with…him.”
“You said that already,” Teddy said. “She’s got to leave with me. I’m her ticket out of here.”
“What are you talking about? Why are you her ticket out of here?” Katie said obstinately. “There has to be another solution. We should call Hiro.” I heard her get up, walk over to where I guessed her phone was. “What’s his number?”
I perked up despite myself. Hiro! Could this be a way to reach out to him? If someone else called him? Or would he answer, hear the name Heaven, and immediately hang up?
“No way,” Teddy said. “That’s a stupid idea. Hiro was just this guy who put you up for a little while. Whatever.” He waved his hand to the side. “Why would we call him? What’s he gonna do about it? Why does he h
ave anything to do with any of this? This isn’t Hiro’s problem.” He said “Hiro” the way one would say “tumorous mass.”
“He’s more than just some guy I stayed with when I got here,” I said. “He was a friend of Ohiko’s.”
Teddy grunted. When he’d been trying to find me in L.A., he’d attacked Hiro while he was working at his bike messenger job. Apparently he’d pinned Hiro to the ground for a few moments and demanded to know what Hiro was doing with me and whether it was romantic or not. Then Hiro had flipped him and told him to buzz off.
“Let’s not get him involved,” Teddy said gruffly.
I had a feeling Teddy was a little jealous of Hiro. But what he said was true. This wasn’t Hiro’s problem. And how would Katie explain it on the phone? It’s 5 A.M., please come rescue Heaven ’cause she’s in trouble? She sucks ’cause she can’t even last a day in Vegas without you? I mean, maybe if she mentioned Teddy’s name and ninjas…
But Hiro would probably say what Teddy just did. This is her problem. She has to solve it for herself. I’ve told her to strike out on her own. She has to forget me.
I wasn’t ready to hear it again.
Teddy walked toward the door. “We’ve got to go now,” he said to me. “Come on. Before something else happens.”
Katie followed him. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said, her voice shaking. “Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on. But I just don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“Dude, I saved your life,” Teddy said gruffly. “Does that count for anything?”
“Yes, I realize that,” Katie said in sort of a teacherly voice—the tone she used when she was trying to explain English grammar to me. “But how do we know that it isn’t really you who’s behind the attacks?” She pointed at Teddy and frowned. “Why did you know to follow us home, after all?”
Teddy snorted. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I was just looking out for Heaven.”
Katie stomped her foot in frustration. “Look, jackass, I have a long history with her, too! You can’t just take her like this! There’s something more to you than you’re letting on, and I don’t think this is right! I think that attack was something of your doing! We would’ve been fine if we hadn’t run into you!” After she finished her mini-tirade, she slumped back on the couch and put her head in her hands. I could tell she was crying because her shoulders were shaking.