Ramen Assassin

by Rhys Ford

  “So why do you want me around for this?” he asked, turning slightly in the seat to give Kuro a skeptical look. “Not like I can shoot a gun or interrogate people. Shit, I can’t even get my damned family to believe me when I tell them I’ve seen a dead guy on the side of the road.”

  “Because you remember things and you might hear something different than I do. You have a different perspective. It’s kind of like triangulating a conversation. We’ll each listen to the same thing and come away with something different.” Kuro shrugged, then said something he never thought he would say to someone he’d only really known for a week or so. “Besides, I trust you. I don’t know why, but I trust the fuck out of you.”

  EAST HOLLYWOOD was exactly as Kuro remembered it, filled with lost tourists dragged down from miles of walking the strip thinking there was something else to see if they just went a little farther down. It was far away from the bustle of streets across of the Roosevelt and what used to be Mann’s Chinese Theater. Down at the other end near the tangle of the 101’s onramps and slightly run-down buildings, there were no out-of-work actors pretending to be superheroes and charging ten dollars to stand for a photo. Instead, they were skirting the edges of Thai Town, coming up to one of the Red Line’s busiest stops. In the middle of the afternoon, the Metro station was filled with mostly kids, but Kuro had a description of the young man he needed to talk to.

  He just needed another set of eyes, and luckily, there was one sitting right next to him.

  “I’m going to circle around to see if I can get a parking spot,” he said, clicking on his turn signal and pulling halfway into the intersection. “The guy we’re looking for is Thai but has dyed bright red hair. Pops says it’s long, like down his back long, but he might have pulled it up. Can you watch for him?”

  “Is this supposed to be your informant?” Trey leaned forward in his seat. “Are they supposed to be inconspicuous? Are you sure he’s still going to be around? It took us a long time to get over here.”

  Kuro was grateful Trey was at least talking to him, although he wasn’t sure if everything was okay. He wasn’t used to people questioning his decisions, even after he retired. The stop-and-go traffic reminded him his leg wasn’t in peak condition, his thigh muscles seizing up when he shifted in his seat, and something twinged along his back, either recalcitrant scar tissue or he’d slept wrong and now was paying for it.

  He wasn’t even in his forties and he was already falling apart.

  “He hangs out here. They call him Rooster, but I don’t know if that’s because of the hair or maybe he just laughs funny.” Kuro snorted, thinking of some of the nicknames he’d encountered over the years.

  “Like Tatiana calling you Blackie?” Trey asked pointedly. “Don’t think that because of all this shit that’s going on, I haven’t forgotten about you and her reenacting the Kobayashi Maru in my living room.”

  “That had no resolvable solution unless you cheated. We came to terms very quickly—relatively—and nobody died. It’s always a good day when nobody dies.” If Kuro could have stopped time and rewound it a few seconds, he would’ve used it to punch himself in the face. Trey’s expression went from curious and still pissed off to shattered, then closed down to a tight mask. After cursing himself out, he muttered, “I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say. I know Sera meant a lot to you, and sometimes it’s easier for me to joke about death than—”

  “No, I get it. Gallows humor and all that crap.” Trey’s lips lifted in a small smile. “She’d have liked you. Mostly because you cook. I never got to take her into your shop, but I brought stuff home. So you fed her a couple of times, even if you didn’t know it.”

  “Sometimes that’s the best gift life can give you,” Kuro murmured, spotting an opening on the street he could fit the Challenger into. “Sharing a meal with somebody you like or love is usually the best memory you can have. Glad you had that.”

  “Me too,” Trey replied, then grinned, pointing toward the back of the building, where a gaggle of teenagers gathered in loose groups. “I think that’s him over there.”

  Kuro took a quick glance while he maneuvered the car into place, catching sight of a slender Asian man holding court beneath an overhang. His gestures were wild, and his face churned into different exaggerated expressions, setting off a wave of laughter among the teens gathered around him. From what Pops told him, they’d definitely found Rooster.

  “And we couldn’t talk to him on the phone?” Trey got out, shutting the door behind him.

  “Hard to shove cash through the phone, and believe it or not, people who take bribes for information don’t take credit cards or online payments. Something about trail of evidence,” Kuro teased. “Come on. Let’s go find out what the cops won’t tell us. Not that I don’t think your sister’s working hard enough, it’s just that she’s got rules she has to follow. I don’t.”

  Rooster looked up at them, and his expression shifted from playful to a hard mask. Detaching himself from the crowd, he walked over to a trash can tucked deeper under the covered walk, then lurked in the deep shadows to lean against the wall. He was probably in his twenties, but he’d played up his youthful Thai looks by dressing down, wearing what Kuro believed to be the uniform of the disaffected Los Angeles teen, in a pair of baggy jeans, an eye-bleeding yellow T-shirt with a nonsensical slogan written in bad Japanese, and a backward LA Dodgers ball cap on a fall of stoplight-red hair.

  It was like someone had a handful of hard candy and brought it to life as their own private Pinocchio.

  “Rooster?” Kuro called out. “Pops sent me.”

  “Shit, don’t use my name.” He looked about nervously, shifting from one foot to the next.

  “You think everyone here doesn’t already know your name?” Jerking his head back toward the crowd Rooster just left, Kuro scoffed.

  “Hey, I know you,” the young Thai man said when they came in close. “You’re that guy on the show. Shit, the kid who blew that biker’s head off and no one knew until the end. Broke my mom’s mind. She thought your mom did it. Thought you died. Didn’t you OD or something?”

  “Or something,” Trey mumbled, his discomfort visibly growing when Rooster laughed.

  “No, it’s cool. Gimme a selfie before you go.” He smirked, nodding at Kuro. “That’s insane. You see the show? It was crazy nuts.”

  “No, but I wasn’t in the country, probably,” Kuro drawled. “And the selfie’s probably a bad idea. What you’ve got to give me is connected to him, and you don’t want that tied to you, yeah?”

  “Crap. You’re right.” He spat on the ground, his tough posturing softened by his too-pretty features. After digging through his pockets, Rooster came up with a small flash drive. Holding it out to Kuro, he grunted under his breath, “Everything I got from my girl’s on here. Don’t know all what’s on it, but she gave me a heads-up it’s about those murdered guys. Told me one of them was in the freezer so long his legs were, like, cooked through. Got all mushy when they thawed him out.”

  “Meat gets like that. Ice crystals break down the tissues sometimes if he was taken out of a freezer and left out for a long time, then put back in,” Kuro murmured, sliding the drive into his pocket. Trey looked like he was going to be sick, so Kuro gently pushed him toward the nearly overflowing trash can. The slim envelope in his pocket made a brief appearance, as he passed it over to Rooster in a quick slide when their hands touched again. “Sure that’s enough?”

  “Yeah, no one else is going to ask for that, so it’s not like there’s competition. I’m going to get what I can.” Rooster shrugged. “Dude, if you’re going to hurl, don’t get anything on my shoes. These are some bucks, and I can’t replace them.”

  “Pops said you knew more than what you just coughed up,” Kuro pressed. “What’s on here? What am I going to be looking at when I open this up? You can’t tell me someone sent you files and you didn’t dig through them. Or else, how would you know you couldn’t shop it around to someone els
e?”

  “I’ve got an in down at the morgue, so she shoots me some of the interesting shit, figuring I can either upload it to one of the shock sites to sell or sometimes give people a heads-up if something shitty is coming their way. No chance I’d be able to farm this one out without it coming back to my girl. It’s just too fucking weird.” Rooster at least looked a bit chagrined at being caught out. Considering some of the assholes Kuro had worked with before, the kid seemed decent, despite needing his clothes dialed up to eleven. Sighing, he shrugged, then said, “This one’s got those guys down there kind of confused. The other guy they found—not the Iceman but the guy from the river area? She said they started to cut him open and found plastic surgery shit underneath his skin. Like he had work done on his face. They think the newer dead guy had surgery to look like freezer guy, but they don’t know who did it.”

  Kuro was getting a better idea of what happened but only the barest hint of who could be behind the attacks. After thanking Rooster, he headed back to the car with Trey in tow, keeping his thoughts to himself until they were almost to the car.

  “So, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Trey said, his long legs keeping pace with Kuro’s stride. “It sounds like someone killed Robert Mathers and his brother had surgery to look more like him. Then David stepped in to replace him and they shoved Robert’s body into the freezer someplace. Does that sound right? How could you get away with that? Fingerprints and everything… that kind of shit only works in soap operas.”

  “There’s ways to get around that. And from the sound of it, there seems to be enough money to splice in David’s vitals over Robert’s.” Kuro opened up the Challenger, flicking the power lock up to unlock Trey’s door. “The question is, when did the switch happen and who else knew about it? Let’s get back to the loft and take a look at what’s on the drive. I have a feeling it’s going to be a very long night, and I want to get you someplace safe.”

  “Didn’t we already have the discussion about you not ordering me around?” Trey growled, raking his fingers through his hair, clearly frustrated.

  “It’s not an order. I just want to have you someplace where I know if someone’s going to come after you, I’m going to be able to take them out,” Kuro said, starting the engine. “They were moving Robert for some reason. I don’t know why they didn’t dispose of the body to begin with, but you were there and caught them. I’m going to guess your sister is digging up information on any building in the area that has a deep freezer.”

  “Like a restaurant?” Trey chewed on his lower lip for a second. “Shit, you have a restaurant. You can’t swing a cat in K-Town without hitting at least five.”

  “Yeah, that’s the problem, but people will talk to me who won’t give the cops the time of day.” He eased the classic muscle car into traffic, falling in behind a red Metro bus. “We’ve got two leads to follow, the freezer and the plastic surgeon who did the work. With any luck, one of those will lead to the guy pulling the strings.”

  “And who killed Sera,” Trey whispered. His grief flared through his voice, tempered by an anger Kuro understood well. “I really don’t give a shit about them coming after me, but she was the only one in my life who… stood by me. After everything I’ve done, I don’t blame my family for turning their backs on me and doubting me, but how long am I supposed to pay for that? I figured there was nothing I could do and I didn’t deserve forgiveness, but Sera—she gave me a clean slate. I owe her everything for helping me get my head straight. I could be as sober as fuck, but it screwed with my mind so much when everything got clear but I was alone. She made me feel… less alone.”

  “Well, like I’ve said before, you’ve got me now,” Kuro murmured, patting Trey’s leg briefly. “And I’m pretty sure between the two of us, we’ll be able to figure this out and hand this asshole over to the cops.”

  “Or die trying?” Trey teased.

  “Yeah, let’s try to avoid that,” Kuro shot back. “I’d at least want to be able to get farther than a kiss with you before someone blows my head off.”

  HE WANTED a drink.

  Actually, what Trey really wanted was the sour bite of cocaine in his nose and along his gums after he rubbed his finger across whatever slick surface he’d used to break down the load to pick up whatever minute grains were left there. In a pinch, heroin would do, but he knew from experience and other users that he would have to scale down the hit dramatically. It’d been too long and his system no longer had the buildup of drugs in it, so any heroin he injected wouldn’t have to fight through any resistance.

  Booze would work too. He actually preferred it because it gave him something to do with his hands over an extended period of time. It also had the bonus of lasting longer and numbing his brain to the point of erasing everything and everyone around him. He couldn’t go for a run or call up Sera to talk out the burn in his blood. Her death struck him again, digging into him and chasing the stream of perverted want coursing through his body. Booze sounded really fucking good.

  So instead, he watched Kuro cook.

  It was almost becoming a habit. Trey perched on a stool next to a kitchen island opposite of Kuro as he worked. This time it was the loft’s kitchen, with a much bigger selection of food and what appeared to be enough knives to equip a Roman army. There were spices and leafy things which eventually were going to become something, but Trey didn’t know what. Sniffing at a jar of yellowish powder proved to be a mistake when he caught a full whiff of dust in his nose.

  Suddenly, cocaine didn’t seem like a good idea. Breathing again didn’t seem like a good idea.

  Choking, Trey asked, “What is that? It smells like someone punching you in the face.”

  “It’s garam masala. It’s strong because I make it myself so everything’s bright and fresh,” Kuro said, giving Trey one of his unbelievably sexy, lopsided smiles. “I buy the spices from a woman down at the market and grind them up. You’re probably smelling the cinnamon and nutmeg. Maybe the black pepper too. I tend to go heavy on those.”

  “What are you making?” Trey stretched out his arms, feeling the tightness along his shoulders. Bruises were still coming up in places he hadn’t realized he’d hit, and the emptiness in his chest seemed to throb and ebb without any rhyme or reason. Getting off the stool, he asked, “And how can I help?”

  “I’m making chicken makhani because it’s fairly fast, and if you want, you can make rice.” Kuro nodded toward a squat, round appliance sitting in a corner of the kitchen. “I’ve only got Calrose, because well, that’s just what I like, but if you like something else, I can probably get somebody to grab some.”

  “First, you’re going to have to explain to me how to make rice, especially if you want me to use that.” Trey pulled out the appliance and lifted its glass lid to look inside. “I’m guessing this is a rice cooker.”

  “Yeah, and it’s very easy to use. Rice is in the cabinet below. Measure out three cups—there’s a black cup in the container—then rinse it a little bit. Try to get a lot of the cloudy water out, but you don’t have to be exacting about it. You just want to rinse that one. Some rice you actually have to pick through, but that just takes too long sometimes.”

  He found the rice and rinsed, swishing his hand through the grains and water. Draining it carefully under Kuro’s supervision, he looked at the other man with suspicion when he got the next bit of instruction. “So, wait. I’m supposed to put in enough water and what?”

  “Make sure the rice is level, then put your index finger into the pot until the tip touches the rice. The water should come up to the first-joint line. If there’s too much, pour some out.” Kuro chuckled, blending cream and yogurt together while minced shallots and chopped sweet onions were cooking in a skillet on the stove. “Then put the pot back into the rice cooker, put the lid on, and push the button down.”

  “How do you know it’s the same amount of water for everyone? People’s fingers are different.” The water seemed to be tricky, and he had to a
dd a little bit more after he’d poured too much out.

  “Trust me. People have been doing that for centuries. Or at least however long rice cookers have been around.” Kuro set the cream-yogurt aside, then began to add butter and spices to the pan. The fragrant hit of spices made Trey’s mouth water, and he almost forgot to push down the button on the cooker. “This has got to simmer for about twenty minutes after I have everything together, so rice will be done at about the same time. Then we can eat.”

  “What do you want to do while we wait?” Trey’s hands were suddenly clammy, and he wiped them on his jeans, aware of the heat coming off of Kuro’s body as he moved around the kitchen, brushing past Trey to get something in a cabinet. “I don’t know if I can look through any more of those reports. There’s just too much… death.”

  “I’m sure I can find something to take your mind off of that,” Kuro murmured, squeezing past Trey again. The stretch of Kuro’s T-shirt across his back and shoulders did something funny to Trey’s stomach, but watching the play of muscles beneath the pulled cotton warmed the kernel of coldness in the center of his chest. “Why don’t you grab a couple of sodas from the drink fridge and we can go kick back on the couch while this cooks?”

  “There’s beer in there too.” Trey studied the refrigerator’s contents, a bit overwhelmed at the selection. “You should have one if you want. Don’t not drink it because I’m here.”

  “See, I don’t agree.” Kuro gave the pan one last stir, then covered it. “I plan on kissing you at some point, and the last thing I want you to taste on me is alcohol. May not be today. May not be for a while, but I’m not going to do that to you. Even though right now I can tell you really want to take a drink. So you got a couch, a very needy cat, and me to keep you company while you power through that. And if you’re very lucky, you might even get dinner out of it. Providing you didn’t fuck up the rice.”