Aside from that, Dargent claimed to be the friendly assassin. He had been hoping for the other name, the evil one, Tset, to slip out via the microphone, and maybe it inaudibly had during the whisper. Of course, the little demon would never tell him anything.
Yoto thought that, at the least, Dargent could serve as a body guard. He was good enough, though may turn coat if he disagreed with Yoto's orders.
So Yoto would lure him in, and give him whatever he wanted. Already Dargent displayed an affection for Jacqueline, who Yoto knew was not infirm of body as she was of mind.
He smiled to himself while the two plays went on - one in either ear.
In a few hours, the entourage was back at the house. Tset had gone to sleep but had awoken when the front door was opened.
Jacqueline lay sprawled out underneath his coat on the couch - soundly unconscious, with all the sleep noise of a child.
Hiroshi gasped when she saw her little girl under the man's coat - overprotective, worried, and almost paranoid about the little glow she had left in her life.
The man spoke, "We played chess, told stories, ordered take out. She fell asleep over an hour ago."
Yoto-Oro knew all this, "Ah. I trust..." seeing Hiroshi's distress, "You had a good time?"
Tset snorted a laugh, "Yeah, sure. I actually hate chess but that's a very smart little girl you have. She'll talk your ear off if you give her the chance."
Jacqueline was just then sitting up, rubbing her eyes. Hiroshi scanned her body for marks even while Jacqueline yawned and stretched - aside from being a little sweaty from fire and coat, Jacqueline looked untouched.
The man, Dargent, looked over at Jacqueline and gave a little parental wave, Jacqueline took an effort to look solemn but waved back.
Yoto-Oro was simply amused.
However, Dargent had put Hiroshi to rest.
"Dargent, I've chosen your mission. You are to be my body guard and my watchward." Yoto-Oro was tired and cutting to the quick.
"Sounds good. What do you pay an hour?"
Yoto smiled, "A businessman."
Tset leered in response, "No, a hit man."
Yoto humphed, "Fine, but we'll discuss payment when you work. You stay near my chambers."
He glowered at Hammertime, "You stay down here."
Tset looked over at Jacqueline, who was dozing over the back of the couch, "Where's she sleep?"
Yoto waved a hand, "Wherever she lay."
Tset felt unease from Hammertime, he looked to Hiroshi, who was tired, "Does she have a room?"
Hiroshi nodded as Yoto left and spoke quietly, "But the Daimyo says-"
Tset glanced at Hammertime, who was eyeing the small girl. No strange light in his eyes, really, but like a connoiseur, shaping her up.
Tset sniffed, "He's gonna lose a flat top by that order, it looks like."
Tset bent down and lifted Jacqueline.
Hammertime's half-voiced protest was killed with a withering glare from Tset - the hard line of his jaw said everything the mirrored shades couldn't express. Hammertime shrugged and pretended to go to sleep, but Tset could hear his heart, it was beating fast.
He carried Jacqueline upstairs and laid her out in her mother's bed.
Hiroshi stood at the door behind him and waited for him to pass again before entering herself, "Thank you." She whispered, as she closed the door, so quiet Tset almost missed it.
Yoto was peering out his own door, "Saving her, are you? For yourself?"
Tset forced a rigid smile; in traditional Japanese families, you could be directly insulted and do nothing about it. 'Fuckin' Japanese.'
Tset bowed how he hoped it was appropriate, "No, sir. Just didn't want to get woken up and have to kill the two of them."
Cute response, and it resonated with Yoto's disgusting sense of humor. He heaved dryly.
Tset realized it was laughter.
"Though, I do disagree with children being used in the work of adults."
Yoto Oro nodded, "I understand. Jacqueline, unfortunate soul that she is, has no other place in the world besides what I give her, and she's oh so good at it. You would respect her prowess highly, Dargent."
Tset simply bowed, "So nothing can be done?"
Yoto only pointed to another door across the hall, "That is your room. You will stay there tonight. Tomorrow, we move again."
Tset bowed again, then retired to his room, he sat on his bed and checked his .45s. Then he waited. He listened. He thought.
'Why care so much about one little girl?'
"Probably because you want to believe you're a person."
He sighed, "Probably."
Hours and hours later, when Hiroshi and Jacqueline were safely breakfasted, around dawn, Tset showered and changed into a suit provided for him. "They're meticulous, gotta give 'em that." The colors were perfect, and the cut was exactly how he liked it.
He put on some cuff links before heading downstairs.
After eating, the woman and girl were told to leave, and the men sat around the breakfast table.
Yoto-Oro had explained to Tset that he would stay silent and listen. Anything he had to say would come afterwards, in private.
He'd agreed, but the topic under discussion was Jacqueline.
"It's simple, really," One of the other gangsters was saying, "She just has to go in, one target, one hit, one kill. She's done a few of these..."
The metallic scrape of Tset's teeth didn't go unnoticed, but no one could tell what it had been, so the mobster continued, "... And this one isn't even definite. We're just showing the Senator he's being watched. She'll be used for reconnaisance, and she won't even kill any of his men if they get in her way. She's such a... a..."
Yoto-Oro scoffed, "Woman."
They all laughed, except Tset, who's jaw was locked tight. He contemplated whether calm or slaughter were in his basic nature, and then whether he should go against his own grain.
The mental conundra allowed the others to stand and leave alive.
Tset had been given coffee. It was weak, but black, he drank a few more mugs to calm his nerves before he stood to find Yoto-Oro and keep him close.
He found Yoto-Oro in a sitting room, on the phone. When Tset entered Yoto waved him out. Tset stood down, annoyance clearly on his face.
Hammertime stepped in front of him, "The Daimyo is busy. Why don't you go out for a walk? Get a cup of coffee?"
"I don't like walks and I just had four."
Hammertime became testy, "We're moving operations, you have some downtime. Yoto doesn't need you until we're in the heat."
"Yoto doesn't need me 'til you're in heat. Check." Check was more a sound-effect than a word, and by the time the mobster caught the jibe, Tset was out of the house and wandering in the chill morning air.
He got tea, not coffee.
And a phone call.
"Dargent, this is Smith."
"Oh! How's it going? Can we blow up Japan yet?"
Smith hesitated, "This is no time for jokes. I've been staying close, out of the way, but close, in case you needed me, but one of your guys is tailing me."
"Right now? What did I tell you about risks? Where are you?" Tset was thinking, fast.
"Right near the house."
Tset looked up at the skyline, "Good. You within sight of that ugly building with the inflatable beer can on top?"
A pause, "Yeah, it's a block over."
"Good, get on the roof of that thing, now."
Tset pulled out his other cell-phone and took a photograph of the beer can. The resolution on his phone was not nearly good enough. 'It looks like a partially-inflated novelty condom.'
Tset saw Smith cross the street ahead of him, he ducked into a store.
A second later he was out on the street again, now racing - one of the mobsters was in hot pursuit of Smith, but saw Tset. He gave a crooked little smile to which Tset waved.
Then he found what he was looking for and plowed into a camera shop just as the mobster was n
odding to him.
"End game." Were the words lipped with that nod.
"Fuck yourself." Were the words Tset whispered back.
Tset grabbed a heavy Canon camera with a massive telephoto lens and threw €$2,000, promising he would come back to pay the difference. As an afterthought he dug into a bin full of memory cards and stuffed some into his pocket, he shot the manager a look, though the manager hadn't changed his facial expression since Tset had entered his dusty shop.
"This thing better work!" Tset called back as he slammed the door behind him.
After a second the manager came from behind the counter and locked the door, throwing the bar. Then he went back to his till and took the two bills laying, crumpled, on the counter.
There were only two bills, clearly marked, but he counted them several times before he was sure he had the amount right.
It was approximately ¥7,000 to the Eurodollar.
The unassuming retailer high-tailed it out the back door in case his last customer that year came in for a refund.
Out the other door, Tset took a picture of his shoe, then looked up, to see the Jap briskly walking away, after Smith, and alone. "Perfect."
He called Smith, "Are you on the roof?"
"No." Smith was huffing and puffing up some stairs.
"Almost? You got Jappy murderers on your ass."
"It's. Ten flights. Little. Steps." Then a door opened, "Okay, here."
"Good, stand out in the middle of the roof, stay on the phone."
"What? Why?"
Tset started snapping pictures, "You're doing fine."
He snapped several more before the mobster arrived through the same door Smith had, slowly, calmly and casually. The camera was whirring and snapping away and Tset hung up his phone, but not before saying, "You're probably not going to like me for this, but keep your shit together."
Smith put his own phone away and stoically faced the mobster, who folded his and delicately put it into his pocket.
Tset was grinning, "Perfect." He purred again. The camera was still snapping shots.
As the mobster advanced Tset dropped the camera, "Sorry, Smitty." And he turned to make his way back to the house. 'Smith's gonna have a few rough nights.' He exhaled in prayer.
On the way, he picked up another tea to replace the one he'd dropped and stopped at an electronics store to print his photos.
Just inside the door was a small yellow and red Kodiak machine, he fed his memory card into this.
He ordered his prints. The difference in Yen and E-Dollar did not strike him even as he paid approximately a quarter cent for each print. They flipped out, like an ATM, and Tset was gone again. He waved to the friendly woman behind the counter but couldn't understand a word of what she said.
A few minutes later, he carried his tea and his envelope up the front stairs to the house and let himself inside. He reformatted his camera's memory and stored his card in a coat pocket. The pictures in another.
He breathed again and Jacqueline came around the corner from the another sitting room. She looked both ways and smiled at Tset when she was sure no one was watching.
"G'morning." Tset said.
"You look tired."
Tset tossed his coat to her, "Rough night, and I hate daylight." He shrugged, "C'est la vie."
Jacqueline hung his coat, "You want anything?"
Tset pursed his lips, "No, six cups of coffee, two of tea. Breakfast of champions. Here, I bought you a present."
Jacqueline looked aghast while she took the camera, "What! Don't you eat?"
"Coffee is bean juice, m'dear." But Tset had crouched, something was on his mind, "Jacqueline?"
"What?" She was confused.
"I think something's afoot."
"Like how?"
He sighed, and Jacqueline felt her heart skip when he put a hand on one of her slender shoulders, "Just be careful, alright? I'll see if I can talk our wonderful Daimyo out of putting you out there."
Jacqueline was definitely confused, "But why?"
"Why? 'Cause you're a kid. A lil' one. You should be given a shot to do your own thing 'fore you settle into the annihilation of other human beings." He nodded his head over his shoulder, indicating the Daimyo's location, as if to say, 'Especially for that toad.'
Tset wouldn't have said toad, but Jacqueline understood the nod better than Tset had expected.
"You're a hyprocrite."
One of his eyebrows appeared over his lens. A horizontal question mark.
"'Cause! You kill people. So why you worried about me doing it?"
Tset stood, "Meh. Your education's faulty. You're a woman. If you were a man, I wouldn't be as concerned. Especially with the little edge you've got."
Jacqueline felt her anger flash and Tset caught her out of the corner of his eye. Then he laughed.
"See? That's the edge. But you should see what women really do."
He put his fist to his chin, "I knew one once. Never met another, before or after." It had been a bit since he'd thought of Liz... her pervasive beauty.
He exhaled, his third prayer yet.
"Dargent?" She had his sleeve.
He looked around, "What?"
"I was asking, so I'm not a woman?"
He put his hand on her head, "No. You're a womanling. Whether you grow up a moth or a butterfly's up to you."
The brotherly hand upset Jacqueline, but the platitude did not - Butterfly was her mother's nickname for her. She consciously resumed breathing, and something from A Midsummer Night's Dream recited itself to her.
She looked up at the line of his jaw, and caught the faintest glimpse of solid black at the corner of his eye before those glasses were peering down at her again.
Keats was singing to her softly somewhere.
Tset patted her head, "Anyway, stay safe."
Tset went upstairs. He'd made the connection, from fatigue, that if he had a few hours, he could sleep.
Jacqueline stood in the foyer and was speechless.
Then came the thoughts, inevitably, "You're fourteen. He's thirty."
"He's probably got lots of beautiful women, even if he doesn't really like 'em. Why'd he go for a little girl?"
"'Specially one with no education."
"And if he did, wouldn't that be weird?"
"'Cause guys his age expect one thing. And it isn't Keats, Jacquie."
"What would your mom think?"
"The Daimyo would kill him."
"Just 'cause you're a freak. You can't have a family."
"The Daimyo will kill you for that, too."
She swallowed, and Hiroshi came to find her, "Jacqueline! What are you doing? Chores, little lady."
Jacqueline fled - the burn in her cheeks would bring questions, "Okay! I'll do it!"
"And Yoto needs to see you when you've finished."
Upstairs Tset slumped over his bed. He thought of Jacqueline, too. She was a strange creature. He also had the feeling she had romantic aspirations. This made him smile slightly, 'Funny lil' chick's heart slips gears anytime I say anything.'
He chuckled but had already dozed.
He awoke to a polite knock on his door.
"Come in." He mumbled, but had leapt up and crossed the room before the door opened.
He gently held the knob as the door swung in - he'd used this method to bash would-be attackers in the past.
Jacqueline was startled to see him so near.
He holstered his pistol and spoke groggily, "What time is it?"
"Ten AM. You slept all day yesterday. Are you sick?"
"Depends who you ask. We leaving soon?"
Jacqueline nodded prettily, "Yup."
"I need a fresh shirt."
"Okay!" And she turned. That's when Tset noticed what she was wearing - a ribbed, skin-tight stealth suit.
Possibly bullet proof.
"Hey!"
She turned back.
"Uh." Tset wasn't sure, "You... not gonna be too cold in that thing?"
>
Jacqueline smiled very wide, and when she realized her Dargent was still worried for her, 'For me!' she blushed, "No. I'll be okay." She managed her voice but almost skipped down the hall before Tset said, "Yeah. Just, don't get shot."
He accidentally slammed the door. Jacqueline's spirit faltered, 'You've upset him.' But then it rose again, 'He's just angry like that all the time.' Then she did skip.
As he was undressing he muttered to himself, angrily.
He took a very hot shower; twenty minutes of muttering and soaking the heat in, to the depth of his tired bones.
When he came out of the bathroom, his new suit was arranged. Black silks and charcoal tie.
This brought him a slight lift, 'But pounding the shit out of Yoto-Oro would work even better.'
He was dressed and ready three minutes later. His glide started at the bathroom sink and brought him all the way downstairs to the entry room.
Jacqueline stood nearby, an inconspicuous hoody over her skinsuit. Hiroshi was sobbing and kissing her repeatedly, apologizing.
Jacqueline hugged her mother tightly, "I'll be okay, mom. It's not your fault. You just be here when I get back." Tset was impressed with the maturity of the girl, and wanted to kill everyone even more than he had a minute ago.
The rest of the mobsters arrived, seven plus Yoto-Oro. They filed out and Jacqueline followed. Yoto did not even look at Tset and Tset found himself grinning about the photographs he had - 'Bee in your bonnet? Have I got some pics for you.'
He was thinking his thoughts and moving out the door when a tight hand grabbed his arm, it was Hiroshi and she pulled him close, her wild, grief-soaked face pushing close to his.
She smelled of lavenders. "Something is wrong. Watch Jacqueline. I think they don't want her to come back."
She shoved him towards the door.
He straightened his jacket and fell in step, quickly coming bestride Yoto.
"What did she have to say?"
"Told me not to touch her daughter."
Yoto nodded, smiling, "Well, she has no say."
Tset forced a laugh, "Ha. We'll see."
Jacqueline and Tset were in two different cars, and Yoto-Oro was explaining the mission; essentially, they were spying, and establishing their control.
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