25
The chill in the building set my skin on fire. Despite the sweltering midsummer heat outside, HQ felt like a freezer. Grabbing a body bag from storage, I loaded the Toyotomi lieutenant inside and slung him over my shoulder. It shouldn’t have ended this way. Everything was going wrong and Harada was too blind to see it.
As I carried the body downstairs, I didn’t see a single soul. The earlier excitement from the discovery of Toshiki’s body had led to fear, and it seemed everyone had found something they suddenly needed to do elsewhere. I’d never seen HQ so empty before. So cold. So barren. Was that why Harada handled this himself? Because no-one else could stand to be in the building? It wasn’t just me that noticed it. I saw people as they walked by. Rubbing the goosebumps on their arms. Side eyeing the dark corners and halls. The building was alive, infested with a darkness no-one could explain. Nobody knew what it was, but they knew something wasn’t right.
Well, I knew what it was. And if the prickling at the back of my neck was anything to go by, the rest of us didn’t have much longer either.
“Hey, you.” A man with a bucket mopped the hall leading to the front door. He straightened the moment he heard my voice. A new recruit, of course. Harada never hired janitors. They saw and heard too much, and why waste money when you could just have the new guys do it?
“Yes, sir?”
“Where is everyone?”
He looked around, as though noticing for the first time that he was alone. “I don’t know, sir. I only got here 10 minutes ago.”
“So you missed all the fun, then.”
“Fun?”
“Never mind.”
The Harada family were falling like dominoes. All because of one single building. One single apartment, even. If Harada had been patient, if he’d let me do my job, we could have gotten the woman out and none of this would be happening. Development could have continued in the meantime; it wasn’t like everything had to be put on hold while we waited for this one single woman to sell. And not like there weren’t a lack of opportunities around Rakucho to begin with, anyway. If he wanted to get into the money business that badly, there were plenty of places that needed renovating. The whole town would benefit from reconstruction efforts.
The best yakuza made their money through legitimate means. Those were his words, not mine. We don’t sell drugs. We don’t traffic women. We don’t even bribe, unless there’s no other way around something. Construction. Security. Things with a paper trail. That was the only way to do it these days, and it was the more profitable route. Now his impatience was killing us all. But then, who was to say that we didn’t deserve it?
“Watch this for a minute, would you?” I dumped the body at the new recruit’s feet and entered the board room. The same place they’d found Toshiki, toilet paper shoved so far down his throat that they found it all the way down in his stomach. How could they even believe a human was capable of doing such a thing? It wasn’t as though he ate it. It was shoved down there, a trail of toilet paper hanging from his mouth that went all the way down to his stomach and beyond. What a horrible way to go.
“Hey, is this a… Oh my god, it is… Hey, wait!” The recruit seemed to finally realise what was lying at his feet, but there was something I needed to take care of first. The door at the end of the boardroom led to another smaller room at the back; the shrine room. Harada didn’t let many people in there because it held many of his family’s heirlooms and prized possessions, but he didn’t keep it locked, either. Trust went both ways, or so he claimed. I turned the handle and stepped inside.
Bowing before the pictures of former clan bosses, and those of Harada’s own biological parents, I looked around the room for what I was after. Something compelled me to be there. Maybe it was my pathetic excuse of a reikan, maybe it was just good old intuition, or perhaps it was something else a little more difficult to explain. Either way, there was something in the room I had to find, and I’d know it when I saw it.
Beneath the pictures on the wall sat a samurai sword in an expensive display case. The engraved plate beneath it spoke of the sword’s illustrious history. It was another sword created by the master swordsmith Sonsho, apprentice to one of the greatest swordsmiths of all time. A Sonsho sword would cut down all those it faced—even, apparently, an oni, which this one was said to have slain—but, at a cost. Sonsho swords demanded blood. That bloodlust drove their owners mad. This particular sword hadn’t been used in battle for over a hundred years, or so the plaque said, but was periodically blessed by the priests of Kido Shrine, another of the five shrines surrounding the Emperor’s palace.
“I wonder if it can cut ghosts, too?” I mused. I reached for it, something hot and buzzing inside my head telling me to grab it, but I shook it off. No. That wasn’t what I was after. Numerous talismans decorated the wall behind it. The talismans, like the sword, were blessed each year and meant to protect the clan. There was one for each of the five shrines; blue, red, white, yellow, and black, spread over the top of the sword like a rainbow. Beneath those hung a single talisman, this one green. Balance and harmony.
I smiled. This was it. This was what had drawn me to the room. I reached over the sword, fighting the invisible tendrils that tried to pull me towards it, and removed the talisman from the wall. It felt hot in my hands, but pleasantly so. I didn’t know how much good it would do, but my instincts had never led me astray before. That wasn’t enough though. I grabbed the blue and white ones and shoved them in my pocket. That should do it.
“Sir!” A voice called out from the hall. “Uh, your body’s leaking on the floor, sir… I just cleaned that…”
I stepped out and closed the door behind me. Time to stop a gang war.
26
SERENITY sparkled in large letters above the door. Opening time soon and Kazumi still had the boy. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and stepped inside.
“Hey.” Kazumi smiled when she saw me.
“Hey. Where’s the kid?” The bar was empty. Kazumi nodded towards her office. “Drawing some pictures, as usual. I thought it best that he didn’t sit out here. Never know who might come in, you know?”
In a better time, in a better life, I sometimes wondered how things might have been different for us. Would we go on dates like normal people? Buy a house in the suburbs? Would I go to work as a regular businessman while she cared for the house and our children? Or would we both work and have the kid’s grandparents look after them while we were out? What was that even like? The only father I knew was Harada, a mob boss, and I didn’t even know him anymore.
“Kazumi.”
“Hmm?”
What did I want to say? Did it matter? She knew how I felt. Words were never necessary. We communicated just fine without those.
“Nothing. Here.” I pulled one of the talismans out of my pocket and placed it in her hand. She looked up at me, surprised.
“Superstitious now, are we?”
“If you’d seen what I’ve seen, you would be too.”
She said nothing, but placed the talisman in her breast pocket.
“Look, I hate to do this to you, but do you mind watching the boy for another few hours? I have some business to take care of. Family business. You know.”
Kazumi nodded. “Of course. Is everything okay?”
“No,” I said honestly. “No, it’s not.” I walked over to her office and stopped before it. My ears buzzed and my heart pounded. That smell. The stench of muddy water, just like back at my house. The boy was in Kazumi’s office, alone. Or at least, he was supposed to be alone. I grabbed the handle and recoiled. Ice cold. Kazumi narrowed her eyes in confusion and I grabbed it again, flinging the door open.
The boy sat on the couch, drawing. He was alone. I let out the breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding.
“Hey,” I said and sat down beside him, trying to calm the beating of my heart. “Uh, whatcha drawing?”
He shrugged. “Mama.” Violent black swirls decorated the pages befor
e him. A crude stick figure with long hair lay at the bottom of what looked like a river, surrounded by more violent swirls and angry faces.”
“I see…” I didn’t know what else to say to that. “And have you… have you seen her again recently?”
He nodded.
“When?”
He looked at the corner behind Kazumi’s desk before returning to his picture. Once more my heart pumped wildly.
“Right, uh, that reminds me, here.” I took the other talisman out of my pocket and placed it on the paper before him. “This is for you.”
The boy looked at it a moment before turning his gaze to me. “It’s for good luck. Protection. To keep you safe.”
“Mama keeps me safe,” he said, not moving to pick it up. The Shinto priest seemed to think otherwise, but these matters were beyond my comprehension.
“I know she does, buddy. I know. But your mama can’t always be there for you, you know?”
He said nothing.
“Your mama used to go to work, right?”
After a moment, the boy nodded.
“Okay. So, when your mama’s at work, she can’t look after you, right? If she can’t see you, she doesn’t know what you’re doing.”
“She always sees me.”
A chill ran down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I glanced around the room. The hairs on my arms stood on end. Air conditioning kept the bar cool in Rakucho’s sweltering heat, but this was something else.
“Can she see you right now?” My throat felt parched, despite being fine just moments ago. The boy nodded. “I see. And can you… Can you hear her? Does she talk to you?”
The boy shrugged. My instincts screamed at me to get out of the room. To run and never look back. I grabbed the talisman and placed it in the boy’s hand. “Look, just hold onto this, okay? Promise me.”
He said nothing. I took it from his hand and placed it in the front pocket of his shirt. The shirt Kazumi had given him because I certainly didn’t have clothes for a young child just lying around. She would be a great mother. She already was, and the boy was a stranger to her.
“I need to ask you one more favour.”
He looked up at me. “It’s a really big favour. Can I count on you?”
Silence.
“I need to go out for a bit now. Aunt Kazumi’s gonna keep an eye on you, but I need you to do something for me. Can you keep an eye on her?”
Again the boy said nothing.
“This is really important, okay. Sometimes we need to look after those who are looking after us, even if they don’t know it. I need you to watch over her. Make sure she stays safe, okay? Can you do that for me?”
Slowly he nodded. I smiled.
“I knew I could count on you.” I ruffled his hair. A grin quivered on the tip of his lips. “I’m gonna be back soon, okay? Once this is done, I think it’s time to make some changes.” Sensations coursed through me that I’d never experienced before, like a veil had been lifted from my eyes for the first time. I saw things clearly, and I knew what my course of action was to be.
Harada and the boys, they weren’t my family anymore. Maybe they’d never truly been my family to begin with. But if I could stop this gang war before it started, if I could quell the boy’s mother’s spirit before she killed us all, then that was it for me. I was done. I couldn’t keep doing this. My heart wasn’t in it. I had enough money saved up over the years that I could take Kazumi and the boy and retire to a farm in the countryside. Be the family that none of us had. Start a new life away from all of this. Give the boy the life that neither Kazumi nor I had as kids. I owed him that much.
“It’ll all be over soon,” the boy said. I did a double take, his words dragging me back to the room.
“What?”
“That’s what Mama says. It’ll all be over soon.”
Kazumi went about preparations at the bar. A chill settled over me that I couldn’t shake.
“You remember what I said, yeah? You need to watch over Aunt Kazumi for me.”
The boy nodded and turned back to his paper. Violent swirls started in the corner and worked their way down the page, getting closer.
It’ll all be over soon. He was right. One way or another, it would.
It was time to betray the only family I’d ever known.
27
Rakucho at night was like another world. Bright neon signs, bodies filling the streets, people yelling from all corners to get someone, anyone, to enter their establishments. You would find no police on the streets of Rakucho; not in uniform, anyway, and certainly not on the job. Rakucho existed in her own bubble, with her own economy, her own culture, her own way of life.
She was all I knew. Could I even start a new life away from her? It was a nice dream, sure, but was farm life really for me? I wanted to make it work. After this, I needed to make it work. But want wasn’t enough. When this was over, even if I succeeded, Harada would have me killed. If he couldn’t find me, he’d kill those close to me. And if he ever found out that I still had the boy, well, anyone who had spoken to me even once would be in the firing line. Nothing would stop his rampage. But that didn’t matter. A lot more people would die if I didn’t stop this war first.
Toyotomi headquarters lay in the east of Rakucho. The body of their lieutenant once more filled the piss-stained boot of my car. I guaranteed his life and Harada took it anyway. His death was on me. The talisman burned a hole in my pocket, but it would do no good against people. If the Toyotomi wanted me dead after this, I wouldn’t be able to stop them. Maybe that would be for the best. Surely not a great loss for the world.
“Fuck!”
The mother sat in the backseat, the contours of her features almost vibrating in the rear-view mirror. The smell of muddy water wafted through the car, a stench so strong that I gagged. I slammed on the brakes and stopped mere centimetres from a pole. I flung my head around, heart beating wildly, but she was gone. The stench remained.
“Hey asshole, we’re walking here!” Some kids in yellow tracksuits flipped me off outside. One of them kicked the front tyre as they passed by. Another car beeped as it swerved around me, and some women whispered and giggled by the nearby massage parlour.
The car was okay. We didn’t hit anything. I wound the window down to let the stench out and pulled back out into the street. Hands trembling, I stepped on the accelerator. A little speed reduction was in order, at least until my heart calmed down, but everything was okay. Just a scare. I glanced at the rear-view mirror again, terrified of what I might see, but the back seat was empty. If not for the smell in the car, I’d be forgiven for thinking that I was imagining things.
If only. I was on her radar. I needed to get this done, and quickly.
I pulled into Toyotomi HQ and pressed the buzzer.
“What?”
“I need to speak with the boss.”
The voice on the other end laughed. “Yeah, don’t we all. Piss off.”
“I have one of his lieutenants.”
“And?”
“And he’s dead.”
Silence. A few moments later, the speaker crackled again. “Who is this?”
“Yotchan.”
A longer silence this time. Perhaps they were deciding how many men were needed to tie me up. A moment later the gate opened and several men in suits stepped out of the compound. Unlike the garish lieutenant stinking up my boot, these men wore regular business suits, and with their hair slicked back, resembled nothing more than your average businessman. They could have been accountants, salesmen, or any other non-descript job with a briefcase, if not for the weapons by their sides.
“Well, well. If it isn’t the Tiger of Rakucho. Harada’s Iron Fist himself. They did say you had a death wish, but I gotta admit, this surprises even me. Come to gloat, have you? Even for you, that’s a little over the top.”
The man in the middle pulled a gun and aimed it at my forehead. The two men flanking him grabbed the handle of their sword
s.
“What do you want with us?”
“I already told you. I have one of your lieutenants. I need to speak with Toyotomi.”
“He’s not here.”
“Then I need to know where he is.”
The man laughed. “Why on earth would we tell you that?”
“Because a war is brewing, and we need to stop it.”
He burst out laughing again, as though that was the funniest thing he’d heard all day. Perhaps it was. “A war? You bring us a dead body and tell us a war is coming and you think that’s going to get us to take you to the boss. Are you special? One too many knocks to the head?”
“Harada’s gone mad.” It felt strange to say the words out loud. The betrayal etched itself into me, like a knife carving my flesh. It felt wrong. It didn’t matter that it needed to be done. It just felt plain wrong.
This time the man didn’t laugh. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, as though trying to figure out what type of game I was playing.
“Whaddaya mean?”
“It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that he’s looking to blame you for what’s gone wrong. He wants a war. That’s why he sent me here in the first place.”
The man considered me for a moment and then lowered his gun.
“I dunno how fast news travels, but we’ve lost a lot of men recently. Harada blames you for that.”
“We didn’t do shit.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. He wanted me to deliver you the body. To give you a message. I’m here to give you a different message. I know it wasn’t you. I know both Harada and Toyotomi are looking for any excuse to wipe each other out. But if this starts, we both know it’s not going to end until both sides are dead, and a lot of innocents are going to get caught in the middle. It’ll spill into the streets of Rakucho, and she’s barely holding on as it is. If you wanna bring the cops down on all of us, if you want the government to step back in and take control, this is a damn good way to go about it.”
Kazoku Page 12