Ramen Assassin

by Rhys Ford

  The chateau was an odd setting for his mentor. She’d never seemed like the French villa type of person, but then again, so many moments of their lives had been spent on the run through little alleys and in command centers filled with small-minded men and invasive technology. Retirement brought a different set of problems, odd ones to deal with after a lifetime of gunfire and death. Now Holly seemed content to whittle away her time in the estate’s elaborate formal gardens, hidden behind a thick perimeter of impenetrable hedges and a tall, wide stone wall. Old habits died hard, though, especially for someone like Holly Michaels. Her security system was discreet, but Kuro recognized all of the signs of a deadly ring of protection around the area. If some idiot decided to breach the chateau’s outer ring, the dogs would be the least of their worries.

  And then, of course, there was always Holly to deal with, and since the woman taught him everything he knew, Kuro could easily imagine the drawn-out agony she’d have in store for anyone who crossed her.

  The inside of the chateau was cool and silent. Closing the door left the outside world where it belonged, tucked away in its own false reality, churning away to provide the illusion of a safe existence for the countless millions who lived in the Los Angeles basin and beyond. Kuro knew better about that too. People existed behind a veil, a flimsy façade Kuro hadn’t quite become accustomed to living in front of. Now with the trouble Trey Bishop brought to his front door, he was once again behind the curtain, working at the angles of a job, and he had no idea where the endgame was.

  The dogs kept him company, but he’d lost Holly to the labyrinth of rooms. There were signs of the staff here and there, the sound of a vacuum being run somewhere and the soft buzz of a blender coming from the kitchen down the hall. The décor was a gentle wash of textures and soft colors, designed more for comfort, and in some cases, dusted with a light brush of tri-colored dog hair. Sunlight streamed through the broad french doors at the end of the long foyer, picking out the gold threads in the curving koa staircase leading to the second floor, and the back gardens appeared to be in full bloom, a dizzying palette of pinks and burgundies from the rosebushes Holly tended every day. Spots of yellow bobbed about the blooms, energetic bees zipping through the leaves much to the consternation of a gardener who batted at the small swarm with a Detroit Lions baseball cap.

  A subtle push from Fluffy at the back of his thighs reminded Kuro about Holly waiting for him in her study. Then the dog bounded off, a nightmare of flowing fur dredged up from thousands of hair commercials.

  His sneakers made very little noise on the polished honey-oak floors, but apparently it was enough to draw Holly’s attention from the silver coffee service left behind by a ghostly silent maid who’d slipped out, having just deposited the serving tray on a curved-legged table set in front of a wall of french doors. Most were open, probably to let in the fragrant perfume of the formal rose gardens outside or, as Kuro guessed, to let the dogs roam freely, giving them access to the nearly three acres of trees, lawns, and a now-empty-of-fish pond after Holly discovered the mastiffs liked hunting and eating the delicate decorative google-eyed goldfish she’d once had in there.

  He liked the study. It was a warm, welcoming place with huge soft couches, not unlike Holly’s dogs, yet also someplace she pulled strings and maneuvered ruthless deals, cutting through people’s lives with a gleeful disdain for rules. Of the three creatures in the room besides him, Holly was the most dangerous. The mastiffs, for the most part, were predictable, savage if provoked, but Holly was something much more deadly, a woman with a lot of connections and a very long memory.

  Not for the first time in his life, Kuro was extremely glad Holly was fond of his continued existence.

  “Sit down, sweetheart,” Holly said, gesturing to the pair of plump love seats arranged into an L around the small table. “I’ll pour and you can tell me about this little boy that’s landed in your lap. And why I shouldn’t have him killed for dragging you into this mess?”

  “I was hoping you’d have something to tell me about him. All I have is a bunch of stories and gossip Aoki threw my way over chopped vegetables.” Kuro took the teacup she held out to him, sniffing at the aromatic steam curling up from the hot brew. “Earl Grey with something else in it?”

  “Other than cream? Yes. More of a different balance of the flavors but let’s keep to the topic, the boy.” She clinked a teaspoon on the rim of her cup, shaking off the last drops clinging to its bowl. “Well, hardly a boy. He’s twenty-eight with a spectacular history of drug and alcohol abuse he picked up during a meteoric rise to stardom and then a crash down into the rocky crags below. A literal Icarus, burnt wings and all. What I don’t understand is why you got involved with him to the point I have to pull strings to get you out of jail.”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out,” he admitted, reaching down to one of the dogs’ heads when he plopped his chin on Kuro’s thigh. A bit of spittle flecked his jeans, but the drying film was the price one paid for having tea with Holly. “There’s baggage there, and I want to find out if the man I killed today is something Bishop’s carrying with him or someone thrown into his path.”

  As fond as Holly was of him, Kuro was quite aware her pulling strings placed him further into her debt. Holly did nothing without an expectation of a favor later on. Sooner or later, he’d have to pay the devil her due, and having her pry into Trey Bishop’s life was going to just add more to the tally sheet, but Aoki could only give him what was already out there. He needed more than what was on the table, and the only person he knew would ferret out the whats and whys of Trey’s world was sitting across of him with a canary-swallowing cat smile on her elegant face.

  “You know, of course, my darling boy,” Holly purred over her cup’s rim. “You are going to have to do me a teensy bit of work if I need it some day. Keeping you out of trouble is getting to be very expensive for me, especially since you blew the back of that man’s head off. If you are going to go around executing people at high speeds, at least install a dash cam on that monstrosity you drive. More people would believe you were in danger if there’s a recording of it.”

  “I know I owe you. Hell, I owe you my life ten times over, and that’s lowballing it.” He set his cup down, the tea souring in his stomach. The dog shifted, pushing into Kuro’s leg, then flopped on his foot with a heavy whoof. “I just want to make sure I’m going to be around to pay you back.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Kuro. I know you better than that,” Holly shot back, an indelicate snort flaring her nostrils. “You feel something for the boy. Don’t try to mask it with that thin veil of self-preservation you throw over yourself when you need to trick someone into thinking you’re not a sentimental fool. You did this when Aoki was on the chopping block to be cut from the program and again when Samantha was caught. You like people. It just doesn’t match the idea you have in your head about yourself if you admit it.”

  “Samantha was going to be executed,” he pointed out. “I don’t think extracting a fellow operative from an oubliette is being sentimental. She’s not someone’s Papillion.”

  “Girl is as stupid as one. There’s only so much one can do to rescue a dumb animal that insists on running into traffic.” Holly placed her cup down on the table, its foot rattling when it struck the saucer’s lip. “Bishop is a lost cause. Don’t let that paladin you keep buried down in your soul take over your heart. He’s not worth your time, much less you. I didn’t drag you out of the mud and polish you up for you to lose your head and life over a piece of trash, no matter how thick someone gilded it with gold.”

  He met her gaze, letting the heat of her simmering outrage roll over him. Something was going on, something he didn’t understand, but he was in the thick of it, and Holly was driving her displeasure hard, whipping up her own personal Wild Hunt to ravage those in her way.

  “I’m not letting anyone get to my head. Or anywhere else, for that matter.” Insisting wouldn’t help, but Kuro did it anyway, his voice lifti
ng a bit. The dog at his feet whined, grumbling at Kuro’s irritation, but soon settled back down. The other one at Holly’s feet didn’t so much as blink, snoring hard enough to ruffle the tassels on the table’s decorative runner. “And what if I am? I’m out of the game, Holly. I’m done with leaping through fire and playing at being someone’s pawn. I might owe you a favor or five hundred, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to live my life.”

  “I just don’t want to see you hurt, Kuro. I’m too old to be patching you up all over again.”

  “I’ll be fine.” The dog’s head was back, spreading more spittle and hair over his jeans. “Just tell me what I’ve got in my rearview mirror so I know what I’ve got to do.”

  “Your boy Trey didn’t just crash and burn. He bathed in a vat of kerosene, then set himself on fire.” She refilled his cup, a fragrant lush amber stream coursing down the side of the bowl. “He’s the youngest of a fourth-generation tycoon, a surprise baby at the tail end of Harrington Bishop the Second’s long and dissolute life. The boy’s mother was an entertainer of sorts, capturing the old man’s eye, and my sources say when she turned up pregnant, old Harry had a DNA test done on the little bundle of joy. Because nothing says love like doubting if you got your wife pregnant.”

  “We’ve seen worse,” he reminded her. “Remember that guy in Iceland?”

  “The less I think of him the better.” Holly shuddered. “Bishop Senior discovered he had a son and, well, promptly declared the boy the next Messiah and, well, his mother had other ideas. Harry Number Three has been a chew toy between those two since the beginning. Father wanted him to go into finance, and Mommy steered him into the limelight. Mommy won because your boy ended up behind the camera before he could walk.”

  “He’s got a much older sister I know about. A cop. Pretty far away from the family’s tycoon roots.” He leaned forward, ignoring his fresh cup of tea. “Struck me as angry when she got to the scene. Tore into him almost as soon as she got out of the car. Had him corralled up tight. Like she needed to control him.”

  “He needs controlling. And she’s got company. Besides Kimberly, there’s two more much older sisters from Harry Two’s previous marriages. Margaret and the unfortunately named Scooter work for the old man at the family’s evil empire.” Holly toed off her pump, using her stockinged foot to scratch at the sleeping mastiff’s shoulders. The dog sighed contentedly, shifting over to show his belly. “From what I could gather up in what little time you gave me, Daddy made them work their way into those corner offices they have on the top floor, and the whispers around the tower are that if baby brother ever wanted to stroll through those sacred doors, the girls would have to find someplace else to park their staplers.”

  “Think the two guys were sent to take him out that night?” Kuro turned the possibility over in his head, tasting the angles. It was a shaky supposition but a definite possibility. “Maybe since he’s crashed as an actor, he’s making moves on their territory?”

  “Darling, he didn’t just crash. He’s an urban legend. Trey Bishop is literally the poster child of how to destroy your life in a few short years. To be fair to the boy, he was put into the middle of a television show about drug dealers and vicious criminals when he was eight.” Holly reached for her tea again, her sharp eyes settling on Kuro’s neglected cup. “Drink something. I can get you coffee if you like.”

  Kuro picked up the cup, handling the delicate porcelain as gently as he could. “It was a show. All make-believe. Not like they were showing him how to shoot up heroin in between takes.”

  “It is always amazing how naïve you are despite everything I’ve dragged you through.” Holly’s lips curved into a beatific smile, the gold ring she wore on her pinkie finger flashing in the sunlight. “Trey Bishop was front and center for one of the most brutal shows depicting a criminal lifestyle. The cast lived the lifestyle. I can’t tell you how many rehabs it supported over the years, but Trey Bishop wasn’t its only victim. Simply the youngest.”

  “His story was he’d gone running because it helps him stay sober. I believe him on that, but I don’t know him.” Kuro made a face. “Odds of a user relapsing are high. Hard to shake that demon once it’s got its hooks into you.”

  “Especially when they’ve been in and out of more than a handful like Trey Bishop has. He was fourteen the first time he was sent to find himself during the show’s summer hiatus. His last stint was only a couple of years ago, and his father made it quite known if Trey didn’t stay on the straight and narrow, as it were, the next time he landed in trouble, Harry the Second would wash his hands of him.” The dog groaned again, pawing at Holly’s still foot. She leaned over to pat it, thumping its broad chest. “So he’s got a lot to lose if anyone found out he was buying drugs at three in the morning in the bowels of Koreatown. My money’s on the whole thing is a story to cover up his tumble back down into the gutter and he’s dancing as hard as he can because the red shoes he’s got on are way too tight for his feet.”

  Kuro didn’t like the sound of that. Not when his gut told him Trey hadn’t been lying. Or at least not about that night. He’d been scared, terrified about being shot at, but Kuro had seen the confusion in the man’s handsome face. He had no idea who those men were, and there was still the story about the dead man he’d seen them shoving into the back of a white van. “So there’s a good chance his sister was right. The whole thing was a drug deal gone wrong?”

  “I’d say yes, a very good chance, except for one small little thing.”

  “What’s that?” Kuro leaned back in his chair, shuffling through the information streaming through his head.

  “The Los Angeles Police Department just fished Robert Mathers’s well-ventilated body out of the river not more than half an hour ago.” Holly’s purr was back, a deeper thrum to her melodic tones. “And that is the very man Trey Bishop told our boys in blue he saw dead and wrapped up like a stinking fish the night he was outrunning his demons.”

  Eight

  “YOU’RE A fucking liar, Bishop,” the bald detective spat at Trey from across the table. His fist slammed down, rattling the metal top, and its sturdy legs jumped slightly, shifting the table sideways. “Now I’ve got two dead guys and you’re in the middle of it.”

  Trey had nothing left in him. Not another word. Not another breath. All he wanted to do was crawl in through his front door, lock the knob behind him after pulling in the welcome mat, and burrow under the covers of his unmade king-sized bed.

  The world had other plans.

  And they apparently included him once again sitting in a police station so his oldest sister could shake him down for information he didn’t have. At least this time, she had the decency not to throw him into an interrogation room like he’d been the one who’d murdered their father’s golf buddy.

  She’d had him put in an office, not even doing the decent thing of picking him up herself. A hatchet-faced woman in crisp blues led him to the small square space and closed the door behind him with a final click Trey felt down into his teeth. There’d been no offer of something cold to drink or a reassuring murmur about his sister being with him in a few minutes. Just the door closing behind her and the soft rasp of the detectives’ bullpen outside.

  Garrett came through the door first, with Kimber hot on his heels. Trey couldn’t read his sister’s face. Not then. Not now. There was a coldness in her eyes, a glacial distance he’d seen too many times before. Trapped against the uncomfortable chair in the tiny space, Trey felt like a butterfly waiting for a pin to pierce through him to fix him into place.

  It’d taken him a few minutes to realize he was sitting in Kimber’s office when he’d first been led in. There was little by way of personal touches, mostly a discarded blazer hanging from a black office chair sitting behind a neatly organized desk and a few pictures fighting for space on a pair of bookshelves against the long wall next to the door. A thin window sitting off-center to the right of the desk gave the room much-needed natural light, but the
view left a lot to be desired, the rattle of an air-conditioning unit set nearly a foot away from the glass dominating most of the window’s width.

  The photos were a somber reminder of Trey’s erased existence in his sister’s life. Although, he amended, it wasn’t just Kimber who’d thrown him out. Maggie and Scooter were captured standing next to Kimber, their frozen smiles sometimes strained, but they were at least there, standing up for their sister when she graduated from the police academy and possibly one of her college jaunts. Trey didn’t know exactly when he was looking at. A trip to Italy seemed to be important, or at least the moment of Kimber standing in a gondola with the sunlight sparkling around her blonde hair had been snatched from time before it could disappear. Trey had been wondering who’d taken the photo when Garrett burst through with his bluster and accusations.

  Accusations that included murder.

  “Trey, you had a conversation with Dad about Mathers after you claim you saw his dead body being dropped on the street.” Kimber sat on the edge of the desk, leaning back on her hands. Her body language was open, but her face was closed off, any hint of sympathy or emotion buried behind her cop mask. “We’re just trying to figure out what happened. Because when you allegedly saw Mathers, he was alive.”

  “And now he’s not,” Garrett growled. “So your story comes off as hinky. Like maybe you were in on the planning of his murder, then chickened out. That’s why those guys were shooting at you. Because you knew about what they were going to do. Then you went and set up that conversation with your father to cover your own ass.”

  “Why would I need to cover my own ass if the man was still alive?” Trey rubbed at the throbbing spot on his temple. The air in the cop house was dry, scented with unwashed human and coffee, a tried-and-true recipe for a headache. “I’m going to say this again—I saw what I thought was a dead man. He looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before. The next day when I was at Dad’s office, I saw a photo of him on the wall and recognized him. That’s when Dad told me who he was and that he was alive. That’s all I know.”