by Amy Faye
"Look, if you're not going to kill me, I have a fight tonight, I need to sleep. Please."
"Fine. Then we'll talk about your sister in the morning."
The mention of his sister raised the hair on the back of Wesley's neck. Now, in spite of how bad he wanted to sleep, even as he heard Rubashkin walk out of the apartment, he couldn't.
Wes pushed himself up off the mattress on the floor and padded his way across the apartment to the door. The gun was still on the table, as if Rubashkin had decided to leave it there as a gift, or as a curse.
He pushed the door open. Rubashkin was limping away, slow. He moved heavy on his left leg. "Wait."
"Oh, that got your attention, did it, Malchik?"
"What did you come here for?"
"No; the moment is passed. Sorry."
"I don't have time for these games, old man. If you want to go die of your pancreatic-lung cancer, be my guest, but don't bullshit me. What did you come here to say to me?"
"You're interested in talking, then?"
"Fine. But come back, so I can change out of this god damned monkey suit, and then we're going out for coffee. You're buying."
"It's the least I can do, for an old friend."
Wes left the door open for him as he went back to pull a tee-shirt and jeans out of the dresser, forcing them back on as Rubashkin limped back into the room. Wes waited until he closed the door to add, "And take your gun. I don't want it around."
"Oh, Wesley. You never could deal with these toys."
"Don't be a jackass, Anton Yurievich."
Rubashkin put the weapon back into the holster he kept carefully concealed. Getting caught with the thing here wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as New York, but that didn't mean they were friendly.
Thirty-Five
Minami
Minami crossed her legs in bed and tried desperately to read the magazine she'd asked Majima to pick up for her from the store. There had been plenty to interest her in theory, but her eyes just looked right through it, like the words weren't even there on the page in front of her.
She couldn't taste her food. She couldn't calm herself enough to read.
"What was I supposed to have done?" she said out loud, only halfway to herself. Part of her wished that someone would tell her, give her some answer that would have saved Wes's life without throwing him away, throwing away her last life line out of the Yakuza life.
But it was too late for that, and too late for her to change her mind. Those were the provisions of the agreement she'd made with Father, and she'd made it. If she broke her word, what other sort of hell would it bring down on her head? On Wesley's?
Her mother peeked her head in. "Minami, did you say something?"
Seeing Mother's full head of blonde hair served as a strange reminder of what had happened the night before. She darted inside and drew Minami up in her arms when she saw her lip start quivering.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Minami tried to sound in control. She wasn't going to let herself start crying over any of this. She was a grown woman, and she didn't need to cry. It was her own fault, anyways, that she'd gotten anyone into this mess, so—
The tears started flowing, hot streaks flowing down her cheeks, and once the floodgates were open, she couldn't stop it no matter how hard she tried. So Mother held her close as Minami softly cried, not daring to try to ask, and Minami unwilling or unable to explain through the veil of tears.
"It's okay, sweetheart."
Minami took a minute to collect herself, her face numb from crying so hard, and tried to take a breath. "I'm sorry, Mother."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Minami hiccuped and swallowed and tried not to start crying again, even as she dangled precariously over the edge of tears a second time.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
Minami tried to find the right words, but they all came out sounding like it was all her fault, and she knew it was. If she'd been smarter, been more convincing, tried harder, then she wouldn't be in this predicament.
The words that came out of her mouth weren't the ones she expected to be saying. "Mom, I'm pregnant."
Minami's mother closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. "And the father?"
"Father was going to kill him."
"Because you're pregnant?"
"He doesn't know."
"You might be surprised, your father knows a lot he doesn't let on."
"He asked to marry me."
"Okay." Minami could see from her mother's expression that as much as she might be aware of day-to-day Yakuza business, and might know quite a bit about all of it, she wasn't exactly following.
"So I had to talk Father into letting him live. So, I offered to walk away from him, and take his stupid marriage meetings more seriously."
Mother's mouth tightened, and then she nodded slowly. "Ah, okay. I'm seeing now."
"I don't want to, but I couldn't let him die. Mom, I don't want to be part of this—stuff. I don't want to be a gangster's wife."
Minami's mother made a face and nodded conspiratorially. "I know how you feel. Some people aren't really cut out for it. You're a gentle girl, Minami. I could tell you some nonsense about how you'd be a gentling force on your husband, you'd make him a better person. Well, not likely."
Minami's face screwed up in confusion.
"I married your father, knowing full well what I'd be getting myself into. No arranged nothing. Your father loved your mother—your actual mother—but when she died, he wasn't going through another arranged marriage. Your father can't be persuaded by giving in to him. I'll tell you that right now. I gentled him, sure. But I did it by telling him he was wrong to his face. Not in front of the men, but…"
"So you'll talk to him?"
"I'm not going to talk to him about anything. He got the dry cleaning done, he got the laundry done, we've got nothing to talk about. But it sounds like you need to talk to him, Minami, and you need to have a conversation about what you want for your future. I can come with you, if you like, but I'm not going to fight your battles for you, either."
Minami sucked in a breath and tried to calm herself down.
"You promise you'll come with me?"
"Of course, baby."
"And he won't hate me?"
"I don't think he could ever hate you. And, um… one thing. That man has been talking about grand kids since I met him. You were one year old. Use that information how you will."
Thirty-Six
Wes
Wes sipped his tenth cup of coffee. Rubashkin liked to talk, and then he'd get into a coughing fit and start talking again, as if the previous conversation hadn't even occurred.
Stories about how his boy was doing. 'All thanks to you,' he assured Wes.
Then it would be about business.
The one thing that he didn't talk about, and the only thing that made Wesley quite certain that there was more to this than an old man's ramblings, was that they didn't talk about Wes's sister one bit.
The one reason he'd come, and now it was "wait a few minutes, can't you?"
Well, he could wait a few minutes, even as a few minutes turned into an hour, even as the waitresses changed shifts, Rubashkin tipping the first one more than she deserved (and, Wesley thought, she deserved quite a bit) because her breasts were large and prominent.
Wes found himself getting too tired to argue as Rubashkin talked. He wasn't awake enough yet to let the fatigue slip into the background, even after all that coffee. If the day had been active, if he'd been training or fighting or even going out to pick up laundry, he might be able to wake up a little more.
Instead, they sat in a little dimly-lit 24-hour diner and Wes watched the sun come up, watched the hours tick down until he was supposed to go fight, and he went to the slaughter.
Finally he stirred from his reverie, cut Rubashkin off in the middle of a sentence—not one he'd been listening to, but something about different brands of
whiskey.
"When are we going to seriously talk, old man? I have a long time, but I haven't got all day."
"Haven't we been talking?"
There he was, back to his usual self. The Rubashkin who would give anyone shit for even the mildest of misstatements. Cancer hadn't changed who he was, just how hard he could hit you.
"I will walk right out that door, if you don't cut this shit out. I'm not your errand boy any more, Anton Yurievich, so why don't you stop acting like I'm on your time?"
"Well," Rubashkin pouted, his face twisting into an exaggeration of disappointment.
"I didn't realize I was causing you such an inconvenience."
"Cut the shit, old man. Complaining doesn't suit someone your age. Just tell me what you have to tell me about Lauren, or let me go get some sleep."
"Oh, fine," he said, letting out a long breath. He tapped on the table in irritation. "You young people, you need to learn manners, you know that? You've got to learn better manners."
"I'll take that under consideration. Please, continue."
"Manners, manners, manners."
"Anton Yurievich, I will walk right out that door."
"Your Lauren is getting worse. You know that she's sick, don't you?"
"What the fuck are you talking about, old man? She's not sick."
"Oh, so you didn't know, then. Well, isn't that interesting."
"What kind of games are you playing here? I talk to the girls every week, and they never said anything. Talk to Lauren sometimes, too, when she can get clear of that dope you've got her on."
"Oh, you poor, poor boy. So foolish, so foolish. What mother would let her little girls know something like that? Oh, they'd worry, wouldn't they? And what mother would want that for her daughters? No, nobody. No one would!"
Rubashkin's habits of circling around an idea like a buzzard was more than grating on Wes's nerves, which were at a razor-edge. He continued ignoring it, but it continued to dig a burr into him that wasn't going to ever quite go away as long as he sat at the table.
"Okay, so the girls don't know. What is it?"
"She's dying, my poor boy. You should come back with me. To be with her, in her final days."
"I'm not going anywhere with you, Anton Yurievich. But if I make it out of this fight tonight, then I'll find a way on my own. I don't have anything keeping me here any more."
"About that. You're working with Mr. Todd Bradley, is that right?"
"What about it?"
"An odious man. Those thick, sausage-like fingers, oh. I never liked him. No, I never did."
Wes closed his eyes and took a slow breath. "And?"
"And I tell you, if you don't fight tonight, you come back to New York with me—I don't expect anything from you. Just come back, for your sister's sake. My business, it needs someone to run it, and Ilya, he's not—"
Rubashkin started coughing hard, bracing himself against the table and hacking into the crook of his elbow.
"I'm not a gangster any more, Rubashkin. I'm not getting back into the life, and you really can't convince me."
"The men, they… things are different, Wes. People are different. When you were there, so young, you know… I miss those days. People like you, trying to get things to work. Respect, hard work. Nobody cares about those things any more. It's all about how they can do things for themselves. How they can do things fast, for themselves. No sense of pride, no sense of the value of working hard for yourself. They just want to rush the job, finish it as quickly as possible, and then get out."
Wes didn't say anything, because as far as he was concerned there was nothing to say.
"Ilya, he moves too fast. He gets caught. You took the blame, because you're a good boy. But Ilya is just another symptom of the problem. He's just as bad as any of them, and I need you to make sure that it won't keep going."
"I'm not interested, Anton Yurievich."
Rubashkin looked like a husk of his old self, after the sickness had taken him. But now he seemed to collapse even further into himself, as if the only things that had been holding him up were taken away.
"I know you're not interested, Wesley. You're a good boy."
"Why don't you find someone else?"
"There isn't anyone else, Wes. I don't have time to find someone else. Three months, maybe four, and then… pfft." He snapped his fingers lightly.
Now that Wes listened closely, he could hear how the old man, every time he took a breath, wheezed. He could see the way that every little movement was a struggle. Three months looked, for all the world, like it might be an overestimate. Wes was no doctor, but it looked like three weeks might be pushing it.
"I'm sorry, Anton Yurievich, but I'm not going back to that life. I promised myself I wouldn't, and I won't. I'll starve on the street before I put myself back in those shoes."
"I know. Come on. Let me drive you home." Rubashkin rose, his arms shaking, and unfolded a fifty dollar bill from his wallet, dropped it on the table.
Wes swallowed hard. His head swam from lack of sleep and the prodigious amount of coffee he'd just finished, not quite wired enough to make up the difference in energy. Eight more hours, and he'd be in a ring, and fighting to continue a life he didn't know he could keep going any more. Not if Lauren was in trouble. Christmas cards and cash transfers didn't make up for having nobody to raise you.
Not when you're barely ten years old.
Thirty-Seven
Minami
Minami felt like a little girl as she walked into the room, her father hunched forward and talking to Kobayashi and his lieutenants. Her mother behind her was a simultaneous help and source of worry, a constant reminder that she was in this too deep.
She didn't speak for a minute, waiting for Father to recognize that they'd entered. When he didn't, she cleared her throat softly. A moment later, she cleared it more forcefully.
Father pushed himself upright and turned to look. "What is it? I'm busy, can't you see that?"
"I need to speak to you, Father."
He looked over at the men in front of him, who all looked ready to wait if he told them to.
"Can it wait?"
"Oh. Um." Minami swallowed. "Yes."
Mother's hands came down heavy on Minami's shoulders as she turned to go. "Darling, can you spare a few minutes of your time? Minami will be brief."
Father looked at the others again for a moment, then nodded to them and rose to his feet.
"Very well."
Minami guided him out of the room, and a little ways away, to the first empty room she could find, and when they entered, Mother closed the door behind them.
"What is it? This isn't about that boy, is it?"
"Father," Minami started, her heart already beating hard in her chest. "I'm not going to be a Yakuza. I don't want to marry someone who's going to keep doing… this."
"So this is absolutely about him, then."
Minami could feel herself wavering again, her eyes starting to sting with the threat of tears always at the edge of her mind.
"No, Father. It's not. It's about me. Forget about other people for a moment, and think about your daughter."
He shifted unpleasantly at that thought, his feathers a little ruffled. "I have always thought about you, Minami."
"No, you haven't. You don't know what I want. I just wanted to be out of this world, and I went all the way to America to get that. So you brought it here."
"I thought—"
"I know what you thought, Father, and I'm sorry that I lied to you. I shouldn't have. It's disrespectful."
His eyes shifted to Mother, who didn't give him any hints on what to do next. He was going to have to figure this out on his own.
"If you are so opposed to my business—"
"It's got nothing to do with you, Father. I just… you must understand, somehow."
"Well…"
"I'm pregnant," she said, the dam breaking as the words tumbled out of her mouth, the conversation having given her enough
momentum.
She saw his nostrils flare in anger.
"And that American is the father, I'll assume?"
"Yes."
"He took advantage of you."
"No, Father. He didn't."
"Stop lying to defend him, Minami. Kobayashi will get a confession out of him—"
"No. I don't want that. I—Father, I don't want you to hurt him. I want…" The words stopped all of a sudden, like someone had turned the tap off in her brain. She hadn't needed to put words to it before. Wes didn't ask her to, and things had moved so quickly, she hadn't really had time to think about any of it, except when there was too much time, time to do nothing but think. "I love him."
Minami's father's face softened for a moment, from 'severe' to an expression that could only be called 'stony.'
"So you've made your decision, then?"
"I have."
He let out a breath and sat back a bit.
"Sarah, our daughter's leaving me."
"I know," Mother answered.
"I'm—" Minami swallowed the rest of her response, not sure what to say any more.
"Very well, Minami. You want him, go get him."
Minami swallowed hard. This was exactly what she'd hoped to hear, but in the moment of truth it almost seemed as if it were another test, and if she were too excited, she would fail.
She pushed herself up from the chair she'd taken by the table and pulled her father into a tight hug.
"I love you, Father."
He didn't answer, but when she pulled away, though his expression was as stoic as ever, his eyes were wet.
"You're a good girl," he said, softly, and pushed his chair back as he stood. "Go find him, and get yourself out of this old Yakuza's life."
"I don't want to leave you alone. I just—"
Mother spoke for him. "Go on, Minami. Your father wants some time to himself."
Minami turned back as she left the room, no small amount of uncertainty still remaining, but her father had turned away from the door, her mother with her hand on his shoulder. She stepped out the door and closed it behind her.
She had to find Wes, and if she was lucky, she'd find him before he went to that damned fight.