by Carrie Asai
“No,” I said. “I mean, I’ve wondered where he could have gone, but I’ve heard nothing. I even asked Hiro about him, but…”
“Well, as you remember, he knew somehow that we were on to him,” Wachter said. “He’s split the L.A. area, probably a smart move. He’s managed to evade us for quite some time. But look, if he gets wind that you’re back, there’s a chance he might want to come and talk to you, right? After all, you were almost married.”
“Maybe…,” I said. My heart started to pound, and I felt a lump in my throat.
“Don’t worry,” Wachter said, noting my nervousness. “I won’t put you through that again if I don’t have to. But if you do see him, you’re required to talk to me about it. You know that, right? I’m the one who supported your visa here in the States. I’m the one who pushed the papers through. And I’m the one who’s helping you now. So you owe me. Do we understand each other?”
“Sure,” I said, my voice quivering a little. I pushed back my fears and worries. I’d deal with Teddy when the time came. If the time came. If Teddy knew what was good for him, he’d be far, far away from here.
But a spark of curiosity glimmered in my head. I wondered where he might be.
“I’ve got some time this afternoon,” Wachter said, leading me out of his office. Hiro stood quickly.
“I can drive you kids around to some of these addresses,” Wachter added.
“That would be great!” I said. I looked at the paper for the first time. I didn’t know San Diego at all and wasn’t really sure where any of these houses might be. Were they houses in swanky neighborhoods or houses in the ghetto? What did my mom do for a living?
I noticed as we drove through the South Bay section of San Diego that Hiro kept looking out the car window nervously. “What is your problem?” I said.
“Nothing,” he said quickly.
“First house is on Seacoast Drive,” I said. “The name is Matthews. Melinda Matthews. Do you know where that is?”
“Sure,” Wachter said. “It’s not a far drive from here.”
“Melinda Matthews,” Hiro said. “Sounds like she could be a newscaster. Or a model.”
“Doesn’t sound like a Melinda Matthews would give birth to a Heaven Kogo,” I said doubtfully.
“You never know,” Wachter said.
When we came to the house, my face twisted up in confusion. The place was a dump. The front steps were crumbling, the paint job was messy, the yard was completely unkempt. Kids’ toys—strollers, bikes, squeezy things, a kiddie pool, a swing set—littered the grass. “Yikes,” I said. If this was my mother’s house, then I might have half brothers and sisters.
I looked at Wachter and Hiro. “What should I do?” I said.
“Go ring the doorbell,” Hiro urged.
I got out of the car and walked up the front path. I heard kiddie screams from inside.
Okay, focus. I realized my hands were shaking. What in the world should I say?
I stood there for a few moments. I felt Hiro and Wachter staring at me. Finally I rang the doorbell.
No one came.
I rang it again. Twice.
At last the door opened. I looked down. It was a little girl in pink overalls and messy pigtails. She had something—pudding?—all over her face.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi,” I said. “Um…” My heart still pounded. What do I do now?
A frazzled woman with bleached blond hair and a World’s Greatest Mom T-shirt peeked around the corner from the kitchen. I guessed this was Melinda Matthews, world-famous news anchorwoman. “Sadie, get back here,” she said. “Stop opening the door to strangers.”
Sadie ran back into the kitchen. I stood there like a dumbass.
“What do you want?” she asked. A baby screamed from inside.
“I—I…,” I stammered. I was completely tongue-tied.
“We’re not interested in whatever you’re selling,” she said.
“Uh…” There was no way Melinda could be my mother. From the looks of it, she had about ten kids. Why would she give up an extra one?
“Wrong house,” I finally blurted, and shut the door.
I walked back to the car, my hands up in hopelessness. “Something about that just didn’t seem right,” I said.
“She looked nothing like you,” Hiro said. “We could see her from back here.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Hiro looked out the back window, agitated. “There’s that blue car again,” he said.
“What blue car?” Wachter asked. “You’re sure cagey for such a kid. You on drugs or something?”
“Hiro, drugs?” I said, laughing. “Doubtful.”
“Is it that cell phone guy from the station?” I whispered.
“No…I think it’s two guys,” Hiro said. Then he looked at me, brow furrowed. “Did you know who that cell phone guy was?”
“No,” I said. “Did you?”
“No…,” he said, trailing off. But it sounded like he did.
“The next house, oddly enough, is only a couple of blocks from here,” Wachter said. “You up for it?”
“What the hell,” I said. “Let’s go. But this time you come with me, Hiro. I got tongue-tied back there.”
“Deal,” Hiro said.
But the next house—apartment complex, to be exact—didn’t look promising, either. I had to buzz apartment 4B—Jennifer Cage—from an intercom. I buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. Finally someone answered.
“What?” came a craggy voice.
Great. What should I say now? I looked at Hiro.
“Say you’re Heaven Kogo,” he whispered.
“It’s Heaven Kogo,” I said. Would this ring a bell?
“Who?” the person said.
I frowned at Hiro. “Heaven Kogo,” I said louder, stressing my last name.
“I don’t know a Heaven Kogo,” the woman said. “Who are you?”
“Should we leave?” I whispered to Hiro. “This is a little ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” Hiro said.
We walked down the path back to the car. The day was perfect—sunny, not humid. The sun dappled through the trees; everything looked clean and fresh. San Diego seemed like a far more chill city than L.A. I hoped my mother would turn up somewhere. This was really a place I could get used to. It was so…so peaceful. And quiet.
Wait. Too quiet.
Suddenly I heard a twig snap.
Then a figure dropped from the sky.
Then another. Then another.
Six men, cloaked in black, the same as they always were. Fear clutched my throat.
It all happened in absolute slow motion. I looked at Hiro. He raised his eyebrows. All the blood had run from his face. I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak.
I backed away, expecting them to follow me. But they didn’t.
Instead they turned and surrounded Hiro. He looked scared, but he almost looked like he had been expecting this.
“Wha…?” I croaked.
“Uyemoto,” one of them growled. “You did not fulfill your duty.” He held up a long bunch of pale blond curly hair. “So we found your little friend in the navy.”
I gasped. Melissa.
“Now we’ve come for you,” another ninja said.
I stayed back, surveying the scene. No one had raised a finger yet. They all circled Hiro like wild animals on the Serengeti.
“And Miss Heaven Kogo.” Another turned to me. He wore a purple sash around his waist and seemed to be more whittled and fit than the others. I backed away.
“Hiro had a duty to do. Did you know that?” he snarled. “And he failed.”
Hiro lurched into the one who was talking. He kicked him right in his throat; purple sash was caught completely off guard. He staggered backward, grabbing his neck, bumping into the wall.
But five other people pounced on Hiro pronto. I came behind one of them and grabbed him around the waist. I planted my feet and threw him behind me.
Purp
le sash had recovered and barreled into Hiro. They began fighting fiercely. Hiro’s face was intense and worried. I managed to fend off some others and drag them away from Hiro. But really, they had no interest in me. They all hungrily swarmed back to Hiro, as if they were trained robots or something.
Hiro didn’t seem to be fighting very hard. He wasn’t blocking simple moves. I cringed as I saw blood fly from his nose.
What the hell was happening?
“Freeze!” came a scream from behind me. I turned around. Wachter. He cocked the trigger of his gun. Immediately one of the ninjas tackled him. They rolled for a while. The gun flew off into the bushes and fired. I ducked, hoping not to get hit with a stray bullet. But when I looked up, it looked like the bullet hadn’t hit anyone.
Hiro continued to battle the purple-sashed guy. The others just stood around, watching. Purple sash was really giving it to him, dirty street fighting, pounding his knuckles—which, I noticed, had a lot of rings on them—into Hiro’s face.
This was ridiculous. I had to do something. I ran into purple sash and climbed on his back, battering him from behind. But he was powerful. He shook me off effortlessly. I landed back on the ground with a thump. My hip screamed out in pain.
As I sat there, groaning, another ninja stepped over me and started giggling. “What’s so funny?” I cried.
“You’re trying to defend him,” the ninja said in a slick, silvery voice. “You stupid, silly girl. Don’t you know that he was sent to set you up?”
“To kill you,” another said.
“What?” I said, wiping the sweat off my forehead. Suddenly the world seemed ultrasurreal. “What did you say?” I repeated. Time sped up, then it slowed down. Hiro was getting massacred.
“Don’t tell her that!” Hiro shouted at the ninjas.
“Why?” the silvery-voiced ninja asked him. “It’s true, isn’t it? You were to bring her to Kabukicho so that someone could kill her.”
“Liar!” I screamed.
Wachter let out a shriek. I wheeled around. The ninja who’d tackled him now wielded a knife. I saw blood. A giant gash opened on Wachter’s leg. It looked like they’d sliced open an artery.
I scrambled to get up. “Liar!” I said again to the silvery-voiced ninja. He still giggled at me. I punched him in the face. But he was like a punching bag. He bounced back, still giggling. He unleashed a gigantic knife and started whipping it around toward my face. I backed off, yet managed to trip him up with some low kicks. The knife flew from his hand and landed blade down in the grass. I grabbed it and hefted it over my head.
“It’s true,” purple sash said. I whipped my head around. He had Hiro in a headlock. “Uyemoto here was basically ordered to kill you. And he didn’t carry out his duty.”
I looked at Hiro. “Is this true?” I screamed. I felt them closing in on me from behind. I whipped around and roundhouse kicked two ninjas at once. My anger and disbelief manifested in pure kicking power. I saw blood spew from both their noses as they clutched their faces in pain.
Purple sash still had Hiro in a headlock. “He’s a traitor,” he said. “He’s trash.”
I looked in Hiro’s face for a sign that this wasn’t true. But I could see that he was struggling to breathe. I didn’t know what to do. They’re making this up, I thought. They’re making this up so I won’t help him.
I began to pound purple sash’s back. I kicked him, trying to trip him up. I wanted him to let go of Hiro. But he still had him in a stranglehold.
And then a blinding crack came to the back of my head. I saw stars—literally. I spun around, a feeling of nausea creeping into my throat. The pain was immense. Blindly I fought for something to hold on to. More kicks came to my side.
And then I got my sight back. I quickly crawled behind a bush. The ninjas, for the moment, had turned back to Hiro. Now he was on the ground. They kicked him with their heels from all angles. Hiro sputtered and spewed gasps and grunts of pain.
Fear overtook me. Get up, Hiro! I thought. Why was he being so weak? He’d taken on more than one guy before. I tried to push myself up, but my elbows buckled. I was wiped. I lay there, powerless, watching the horrible scene unfold.
Oh my God oh my God. More grunts and sounds of pain came from Hiro. And then for a few seconds the air cleared. The kicking stopped.
“Heaven!” he called weakly. His breath came out uneven and raspy. “Are you there?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking that as soon as I called out, the ninjas would be on top of me again. But none of them were.
“Well, then run! Get out of here! They’re going to kill you next!” he said, mustering all the strength he could.
“No!” I said. What was he talking about? A samurai doesn’t run.
I slowly pushed myself up, wincing at the pain in my elbow. As soon as I saw Hiro’s face, nausea overtook me again. His cheeks and chin were a bloody, pulpy mess. I should run, I thought. I should get the hell out of here. This wasn’t an I’m-gonna-scare-you attack. This was serious.
They were massacring him.
“Run!” Hiro said again.
“No!” I said. I couldn’t leave him.
“Dammit! Just go! This is my seppuku! It must be this way!”
Seppuku. Ritual suicide. Wait. Ritual suicide?
What? I said in my mind. I didn’t have the strength to scream and knew Hiro didn’t have the strength to answer. Why would Hiro mention seppuku? Why was he just accepting this? Why wasn’t he putting up a real fight?
And then I realized.
Ritual suicide. Honor to your superiors.
It was true.
Hiro really had been sent to capture me. To kill me.
On unsteady legs, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I leaned over and threw up into the bush. Dizziness overtook me. I took small, cautious breaths, my eyes unfocusing, my body shaking. It was true. He’d probably been trying to steer me into a bad section of Kabukicho, where some assailant would pop out of an alley and chop my head off. I stepped back from Hiro, nearly tripping over Wachter’s unconscious body. I looked down; his leg had bled profusely. The smell of blood brought another wave of nausea to my throat.
The ninjas continued to beat Hiro. I backed up farther. Hiro had been sent to capture me. Hiro had been sent to kill me. How could this be true? But it must be.
Dazed, in shock, I saw Hiro standing in front of me, bloodless.
You know your enemy now, he said.
Yes, I do.
I am your enemy.
I was thrown back into the present. The grass was ultragreen, rain forest frog green. The light refracting off the windows made my head hurt. I licked my lips and grabbed my jaw. With a final groan Hiro dropped like a boulder to the ground. The ninjas backed up. I could smell blood and death. I breathed heavily.
“No!” I screamed. My voice was the ragged sound of shattering glass.
Hiro managed to turn his head around. Our eyes met. His lips parted slightly. They were covered in dried, black-red blood. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I tried to explain. I wanted you to know. I thought…haragei…I thought you could see….”
“But…,” I whispered.
“I love you,” he murmured before going completely limp.
I screamed. Then for what seemed like both one minute and ten hours, I didn’t know what happened. I saw the ninjas back away from Hiro and turn to me. But the next thing I knew, I was running like a crazy person down Imperial Beach Boulevard, still screaming. I ran until I hit the ocean. They weren’t behind me. And then I ran into the water, washing off the blood, half delirious. I sat down and let the waves crash over my head. Still wailing and screaming and crying.
I ran for my life.
10
I sat in my hotel room, muttering to myself, not knowing what to do. I broke down and called a trauma center finally, two days later. But even then I couldn’t explain. “My, um, ex-boyfriend died,” I said to the voice on the other end. “In an attack.”
“Like a gang attack?” the therapist said.
“Sort of,” I said. “But…the thing is, he was…he was in another gang. A rival gang. He was actually out to get me. Or so they say.”
“Wow,” the trauma center person said. “Let’s focus on the killing. Are you in danger right now?”
“Most likely,” I said. “They could come looking for me next.”
“No, I mean suicide,” she said. “Are you in danger of suicide?”
The mention of suicide made me start bawling again. I felt betrayed, I felt bereaved, and I felt more lost than ever. I even felt guilty for having been so standoffish to Hiro during our final day together, although I realized that this was idiotic. He was the one who’d screwed me over.
“I think you should come for a counseling session,” the trauma center woman said after I stopped crying.
But I was too afraid to go in and talk to someone I didn’t know. How had they found us? Had they followed us the whole way here? But how was that possible?
Hiro had been sent to kill me?
My instincts, back when Hiro had found me at Masato’s, had been right. My haragei. I wondered if Hiro had wanted me to learn haragei in order to realize that he was into things that weren’t good without him actually having to tell me so. I put my head in my hands and rocked back and forth, suspended in disbelief.
I felt like I was back on that ship. Every time I stood up, I was woozy and either threw up or had to lie down. I’d had very few moments of lucidity during the past two days. Mostly I just stayed in bed, eating nothing, stunned. Weird images of everyone I knew kept floating through my head. I had horrible, sickly dreams; often I woke up screaming.
After I hung up the phone, I heard pounding on my door. My head shot up.
I managed to get up and not barf as soon as I stood. I hobbled over to the door. I hadn’t showered since before the fight. My ocean bath didn’t count. I smelled like seaweed and sweat.
Through the little peephole, I saw that it was a harmless-looking woman in a uniform. “Housekeeping,” she said. “This room hasn’t been cleaned for a while.” She shoved the Do Not Disturb sign in my face. “I want to change your sheets.”
I couldn’t open the door for her. “I’m okay,” I croaked. I heard her sniffing and walking away.