by Carrie Asai
I sat on my bed. I felt a little better today, a little clearer. My insides were still destroyed, and I was still intensely paranoid and disturbed. But I realized I had to get out of this hotel room. I had to go somewhere else. Those ninjas might have been hired specifically to kill Hiro—but they surely would report back to whoever had sent them that I was still alive. And a new slew of ninjas would be ready to get me at any time. In fact, I was surprised they hadn’t struck yet.
I breathed in and out. Okay. I had to move again. Who could I go to? Who did I know in California? Wachter. Dr. Clarkson. But he didn’t seem like the type who would take me in. Who else? Cheryl. But I’d never go back to her. She was ready to kill me. Karen. Ugh.
I put my face in my hands and let out a gigantic shudder. My eyes were shriveled up from so much crying; my throat was raw. There was no one. My life was empty. I might as well just offer myself up to the slaughter.
Ritual suicide. Oh God, Hiro. Not you, too.
Teddy.
I rooted through my stuff—noticing Hiro’s bag in the process, which again threw me into a crying, near nervous breakdown. I dug out Teddy’s number. It was so weathered and old that I had to squint to see the numbers.
Teddy could help me.
I breathed out as if I were living through a straw. With shaking fingers I dialed his number. It rang, then went to voice mail.
“Yo yo, this is Teddy Yukemura, otherwise known as T-Yu. Leave your digits if you’re bootilicious; leave nothin’ if you’re a dog.”
Teddy never changed his message. But I couldn’t leave a voice mail. I was too terrified. What if someone else had his phone? I hung up.
The sound of his gangsta voice filled me with nostalgia. God, I thought. Even though Teddy’s a thug, he would never, ever accept a contract to capture and kill me.
Then again, I’d never thought Hiro would, either. A lump rose in my throat. My imagination kept getting the best of me. I kept thinking of Hiro, propositioned by Mieko and Masato, agreeing, shaking hands. It was enough to make me rush to the toilet again, throwing up the nonexistent contents of my stomach.
I took a few deep breaths, and the feeling passed.
I stepped out onto the hotel room’s balcony, finally taking in the outside world. Hiro’s dead, I thought. I wondered what had happened to the body. I’d slept with him, and now his body could be decaying on the grass in that apartment complex. I swallowed hard. I wondered if anyone knew. Masato. Mieko.
And then I looked down and saw something really weird.
In the park across the street. Standing cagily behind a tree. Looking up at my window. It was the same cell phone guy. The one who had been standing in front of the police station, the one who had said, “Kaori.” I froze. One of his tattoos looked familiar. It was a large, outstretched dragon.
Where had I seen that before?
And his voice. There was something super-familiar about it. And his hair. I scratched my head.
Finally I realized. It was Yoshitomo. The yakuza guy from Life Bytes—the one I’d flirted with in order to get information on my father. I drew in my breath.
What was he doing in San Diego?
I strained to listen to the conversation he was having on the phone. It was hard because he was across the street. I could only hear snippets: “Yes…no. I don’t know where he is…. Had to do a deal up in Santa Cruz for two days…. I mean…El Penguino…Goin’ in there now…No way…dead?…You’re kidding…. There was already a hit?…Shit…When?…Who?…Not Takeda, though…Okay…yeah, maybe I’ll call him….”
He paused and glanced up at my room again. I scurried inside, behind the drapes.
He must have been talking about Hiro.
Had he been part of the attack?
But then he’d mentioned Takeda. Teddy.
I stood behind the door, breathing in and out. Had he seen me? Was he in cahoots with Kaori? If I was right and he’d been talking about Hiro’s death, it sounded like he was just finding out about it. Which meant he hadn’t been in on the ninja hit.
Which meant…what?
I had to do something. I had to get out of here.
I creaked out of the hotel room, still in my clothes from a week ago, woozy from lack of food and sleep. I passed the maid and her cart. She was cleaning a room two doors down. She looked up at me, opened her mouth to speak, but then stepped back, almost in fear.
I took the fire stairs down to the lobby and crept through a side door. I came out on a side street and looked to my left. The park. I slid along the wall of the hotel and eased behind a Dumpster to shield myself from view.
But when I crept up and peered over the Dumpster, the park was empty. The trees swayed and the leaves kicked up in the breeze. No one on the park bench. No one behind any of the trees. He’d been right there less than a minute ago.
Suddenly I felt the back of my neck prickle. A freakish thought occurred to me: What if Hiro wasn’t dead? What if that had all been a setup? And what if this was a setup within that setup? What if someone was behind me, waiting to kill me?
I whirled around, my fists clenched, my leg lifted halfway off the ground, ready to kick.
No one.
I came out of my fighting stance. The street was empty. The park was empty. Maybe I was losing my mind. The wind picked up again and blew my hair around.
“Hello?” a voice echoed behind me.
I jumped about a mile and turned, my fists raised again.
“No!” called out a woman in a maid’s uniform. She had just stepped out of the side door to have a cigarette.
“Oh,” I said, letting my arms fall to my sides. “I’m sorry. I thought you were…”
She looked at me as if I was crazy and then lit the cigarette.
“You hiding from someone?” she said.
“No,” I said slowly. I looked to the park again. He was gone. And then I squinted. There was a smoldering cigarette lying on the ground, half crushed. So he had been here. Or someone that looked just like him. I slumped and turned and went back inside. The maid gave me one more look, then exhaled three perfect smoke rings.
“I’m checking out.”
There was a new woman at the desk. She was a skinny girl in her early twenties who had about twenty piercings on her face. “There a problem?” she said.
“No,” I said. “Just hurry.”
“Whatever,” she said, tallying up my bill.
I’d found another place not too far away that was equally seedy and cheap. I knew it was a temporary stall. If Yoshitomo was coming for me next, it wouldn’t take him too long to figure out I’d split and find out where I’d gone. But then, why hadn’t he come and killed me already? I’d been in the room for days, doing nothing. A perfect target.
Unless he’d wanted Hiro and Hiro alone.
Still, I had to get out of here. I rushed out of my old room, stuffing Hiro’s bag down the garbage chute. I’d considered bringing it along with me, but then thought, No. You have to make a clean break. I took all the money he had in the bag, plus a couple of bos and his little penlight. Although the penlight was useful, I couldn’t help wanting something a little personal that had been his. All of his clothes, toiletries, random papers, anything else—gone.
I walked quickly to the new motel, staying in the shade, looking behind me every so often, trying not to seem nervous. I didn’t notice anyone following me. I approached the new motel, El Rancho, which had a cheesy swimming pool in the front with a big plastic slide. I rushed into the lobby and got my key. Watching as the bugs skittered into the cracked walls as I snapped on the light, sitting down on the old bed, I felt utterly and desperately alone.
I needed to call someone. I needed to talk. I had a weird, nagging feeling that Hiro was still alive somehow, but I didn’t know how that could be. A little voice inside me whispered, You’re just overparanoid. But he had, after all, been set up to kill me.
I would never, ever get over that. Even the thought of it made my world turn upsid
e down.
I tried Katie in Vegas, but the line was busy. I tried some kids from the dojo, but I couldn’t get through to them. I even tried to reach a couple of kids from Vibe, but the guy who answered the phone there said they weren’t working that night.
“Karen,” I whispered. Fat chance Karen would help me. But it was possible that she’d at least listen. Wasn’t that what I really needed? Who knew, maybe she’d hear my story, sympathize, and offer help somehow.
I dialed the familiar number. A sinking feeling swirling in my stomach. Before I could hang up, she answered in a rough voice.
“It’s Heaven Kogo,” I said.
“You,” she said after a long pause. “I can’t believe you’re even calling me.”
“Look, Karen, I had nothing to do with—”
“God, you just don’t know when to quit, do you? Why don’t you just leave me alone? And you know, if it weren’t for you, he’d still be alive.”
I gasped. “So…then…you know?”
“Of course I know,” she said huffily. “It’s been all over the news, you moron. Where have you been?”
“I’ve been grieving!” I said. I took a deep breath. “Wait. Let’s start over. I had nothing to do with Hiro’s death.”
“Sure, sure,” she said. “You’re like a death sentence.” She cackled.
“Karen, come on, be rational,” I said. “We’re both hurt by this, and I think it would do us some good to talk.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice turning sweet. “And I suppose next you want to suggest we become friends or something?”
“Well, yeah, maybe…,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” Karen said. “Why the hell would I want to be friends with you? You’ve ruined my life!”
“I…,” I sputtered.
“Hiro wasn’t even really interested in you, anyway,” Karen said. “All he was interested in was his little battle against the yakuza. You were its pinup queen. You were its prize. And really, it was so dumb because Hiro was fighting against something that he would eventually return to once his money ran out….”
“What?” I said sharply.
Karen stopped.
“What are you talking about, he’d return to the yakuza?” I said. “How did you know about that?”
“What, you didn’t know?” Karen said. She started laughing. “Oh, poor Heaven. Oh, this makes my day. He didn’t tell you, did he! He didn’t tell you that his whole family is involved and that he was nothing like who he said he was. God, we used to talk about it all the time!”
“H-He told me,” I stammered.
“Yeah, probably right before he died,” Karen said. “Oh God, you’re so pathetic, Heaven. Get a life, why don’t you?”
“Go to hell,” I said, full of anger. “You’re making all of this up. He never told you any of this.”
I hung up, breathing heavily.
When it came to Hiro, everywhere I turned, there was betrayal. All this time Karen had known his background, yet he hadn’t told me. I grabbed a pillow from the bed and ripped the pillowcase off and started pulling out the down, fluff by fluff, angrily tearing.
“Every thing our relationship was built on was a lie!” I said through my teeth, tearing and tearing out the down, then punching the pillow, pretending it was Karen’s head. Then I pretended it was Hiro’s head. I pounded and pounded away, hating him more and more and more. I hated him for being dead; I hated him for being alive.
“You stupid asshole! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” I said, pounding. Pieces of fluff flew everywhere. Then I didn’t know whose face I was bashing in. I didn’t know if it was Hiro’s, or Masato’s, or Mieko’s, or even my father’s. At one point I even envisioned my own face on the pillow, battering it in, frustrated with myself, wanting all this to just end.
Finally I stopped and looked around. I actually felt okay. Something turned over inside me. I suddenly felt…I don’t know. Light. Free. Free of Hiro. He was dead. I had to rise up from this. I had to be strong.
I was my own sensei. I stood up and raised my fingertips to the ceiling, letting my whole body stretch. I was my own strength. All these negative people—Karen, Hiro—I didn’t need them. I breathed in and out, conscious of myself finally, for once.
I had to move on. I realized now what I had to do.
I had to find my mother.
Would you believe I found out about Hiro’s death on the news? I came home from the dojo—not even strong enough to teach a class anymore—and flopped down on the chair. I felt like crying. And this was before I saw the newscast.
The breakup with Hiro had torn me apart. But it had done something else, too. I had become this vengeful person, and I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop these horrible things from pouring out of my mouth. And I couldn’t stop obsessing over what Hiro was doing. That one time he’d come into the dojo with Heaven and that stupid haircut of hers. What jerks. Just parading her around, saying, “Look, Karen, look at my new girlfriend, look hard, ’cause you aren’t good enough.”
So I sat down on the couch and turned on the news and there it was. That yellow banner at the bottom with the headline UNKNOWN MAN FOUND MURDERED. And there was some lawn in San Diego, a newscaster at the scene, yellow police tape, the whisperings of ninja, a Japanese boy without ID.
I knew it was Hiro. I just knew it. They zeroed in on his face (as close as they could get) and there he was. I nearly choked on my tongue.
I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed all night. I knew it was that bitch’s fault. She killed him. Somehow she killed him. Such trash. Her family and their yakuza filth. The next day I took a sick day, wallowing in bed, miserable. I writhed around for a while, trying to deal.
And then the phone rang.
And it was her.
I couldn’t get away from her!
But it was as if on cue. In a way, I was waiting for her call. I’d known she would call if she was in the States—which I was sure she was. She was right at Hiro’s side when the whole thing went down, I bet. Yet she’s still alive. And he’s dead.
I really threw her for a loop when I mentioned all that yakuza stuff. I made a lot of it up. I didn’t really know if Hiro’s whole family was involved, although I’d definitely suspected something like that was up. I mean, who cares about the yakuza and avenging and stopping it unless you’re not tied to it somehow? Heaven’s such a moron. A monkey could have made that deduction. Leave it to Hiro to ditch me for some dumb girl with a mobster father.
But I really stunned her, and then as I heard her catch her breath, I realized: it’s true. Hiro really was involved with the yakuza. He must have told Heaven that, and she’s pissed because she thinks I knew first. The whole thing felt delicious and horrible at the same time. Delicious because Heaven now questions her relationship with Hiro. But horrible because I know the truth—he told her far more than he told me.
Her gasp was priceless, though. But now, shit. Where has all this gotten me? What will I do now? I still have no idea what will become of my life. I still don’t know if I’ll ever get my strength back, if I’ll ever be able to turn things around. Will I ever meet someone new? Someone who…isn’t Hiro? Who is as far from Hiro as you can get?
There’s one thing for sure. If I have anything to do with it, I’ll never see Heaven Kogo again.
Karen
11
I sat in the lotus pose for a little while, trying to breathe calmly. Then I called the San Diego police station.
“Yes, is Detective Wachter available?” I said to the voice that answered.
“Who is this?” the person barked.
“Um…,” I said. “Is Detective Wachter there?”
“He’s in the hospital,” she said tersely.
“Oh…which one?” He’s alive, I thought gratefully.
“Who is this?”
“Is he hurt badly?”
“He might not make it through the night. Good-bye.”
Click.
I sat for
a moment, blinking in the half darkness. The sun reflected all the dust that was constantly swirling around the room.
So I would have to go it alone.
I had a list and a map and I was ready. I figured I’d just hit the remaining houses on foot. The ones that were too far, I’d figure out for later. As I walked to the first house, I stayed guarded, still on the lookout for Yoshitomo. I half expected ninjas to drop from the sky, but they didn’t.
The first house I got to looked nice enough; I could see a marble swimming pool in the backyard. Standing at the front door, I felt a twinge. Hiro had been so eager to help me with this search. Did I feel him standing with me right now? But I didn’t. I felt Ohiko standing with me more than I felt Hiro.
I rang the doorbell.
A woman appeared. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“I’m…I’m Heaven Kogo,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” she said. She had graying hair and a nice, friendly face, but she looked nothing like me. I thought my mom would be a little younger, too.
I hemmed and hawed around the issue for a little bit, and then finally blurted, “Did you give a baby up for adoption twenty years ago?”
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Uh, no,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I probably just sounded like a crazy person right then. I’m a little stressed. I have this list of names of people who might potentially be my birth mother, and…”
“And I’m on the list?” the woman said, amused. She smiled—her face was open and friendly. “That’s hilarious, because I’ve never had any children. I’m a lesbian.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I wonder how I got on the list,” she said. “That’s fascinating.”
I began to tell her about the biometrics and Dr. Clarkson. She seemed enthralled. “I’m a journalist,” she said. “This would make a fascinating story. Would you mind if I put this in the San Diego Union-Tribune Science section?”
“Um…,” I said. “How about when my search is over? I’ll contact you.” I pointed to my list. “I have your number.”