Henchmen (4 page)

The upstairs is trashed, but the building is surprisingly quiet considering the fight that just went down.  We weren’t exactly loud, but fights tend to make some noise, and a fight in a restaurant freaks out the staff almost as much as yelling about the finger in your soup - especially a place as clockwork as this one.  Speaking of which, our waitress had been by every 15 minutes without fail since we got here, but it’s been over 20 minutes and she hasn’t refilled our sake.  Pity, really.  I could go for some sake right now. Might take the edge off looking at the dead guys on the floor.

Eve looks around, grimaces then sighs.  “I can’t take you boys anywhere.”

Frank’s getting onto his feet. Jacob is rifling through pockets and stealing watches.  Jessica looks a little lost, but that’s not too surprising considering what just happened.  She’s not shaking or crying, though.  Jean offers her a drink of what little sake we have left and she drains it straight out of the carafe.

I want a cigarette.  One of these fuckers must have one.  I quit, but this is looking like a good time to start back up again.

“Jacob, any of these bastards got a smoke on ‘em?”

He pauses for a seconds, thinking, then strolls over to the old guy.  “Yeah, this guy had some.  Never heard of the brand, though.  Sakura, huh.  What the fuck?  Want his lighter, too?”

“Sure, why not,” I say, although I’d probably get a longer jail term for smoking in public than for assaulting an old man.  What the hell. We’ve already done a number on this place and I doubt I’m going to make it much worse.

The cigarette isn’t bad. The lighter is nice.

“Grab that dude with the open shirt.” Eve says, glancing around.  “Make sure the rest are dead.  We need to make this look like a gang tussle gone bad.”

“What about her?” Frank is pointing at Jessica.  “Can we keep her?”

“Yeah, she’s coming with us.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Jessica asks.

“Sure,” replies Eve. “You can come with us or we can leave you here.  These guys still have friends.”

Jessica nods.  I imagine this this not a good headspace to be in.  Either you go with a bunch of strangers who, admittedly, saved your ass, and hope for the best. Or you stay and hope the dead guys’ friends don’t wonder how you survived.

We pack up and start out.  I glance back at Jessica, who’s just standing there wrapped in Jacob’s jacket, starting at a wall.  “Smoke?”

“No, thank you.” She responds distantly.  “I need to get my stuff and some clothes.  There’s a changing room downstairs.  Can we stop?”

“Yeah, sure,” I respond.

We move out and hope no one notices.

On the way down the stairs, we find out why things are so quiet: our waitress is sprawled on the stairs with her blood sprayed on the walls.  It looks like her throat was slit and she was shoved down the stairs, probably before that old guy first showed up.  He almost certainly meant to kill us all anyway.

Downstairs, behind the kitchen, is the staff changing room.  The kitchen staff is dead, the head sushi chef is dead, the hostess is dead, the rest of the staff is dead.  There’s a woman face down on the floor, blood dripping out of the hole in the back of her head.  If we turned her over there wouldn’t be a hole in the front of her face.  A silenced .22, the choice of weapon for thugs who kill waitresses and sushi chefs, uses a subsonic round that rarely goes out the other side of the head; it just bounces around in the skull until it runs out of energy.

“She was supposed to be in your room.”  Jessica looks distraught.  “She wanted to switch because those other guys tip so well, and I didn’t want to be in their room.  Now she’s dead.”

I decide now is not the best time to explain about how subsonic .22 rounds work.

Their break room is a typical shabby employee break room, with the requisite laminated posters about minimum wage, OSHA regulations, worker’s compensation, etc.  I wonder how OSHA would handle complaints about a night like tonight.

Jessica unlocks her locker, grabs her stuff and disappears into the bathroom and comes back a few minutes later dressed in yoga pants, a t-shirt, and a pair of Vans.  She doesn’t seem distraught anymore. Just empty and broken, with an expression that says “I don’t care anymore.”  She’ll fit right in with us.

Frank wanders in, looking quite pleased.

“The schedule for tonight only has two entries, us, and those other guys.  That’s why there was a minimal staff on tonight.  There’s no walk-in traffic here.  No one’s coming in until morning at the earliest.”

Jean pipes up, “We’re all good.”

Jacob looks around.  “Since we’ve got the place all to ourselves, is there any food around here?  I mean, it’s a fucking restaurant, right?  There’s gotta be something to eat around here.”  He’s not pleasant when he’s hungry. I think it may be a blood-sugar thing, but he won’t get it checked out because going to the doctor would be damaging to his masculinity.

“If no one’s coming in, we can work here tonight.” Eve is smiling, which is never a good thing when she’s talking about work.  “Find me a sturdy chair and a lamp. And there’s got to be a pair or two of handcuffs or rope or something similar in this place.”

“Jessica, you said there was an In-N-Out around here?”  I ask.

“Well, yeah. It’s a few miles or so from here,” she replies.

“Good, let’s get some food.  It’s going to be a long night.  Have you got a car?”

“Uh, yeah.  It’s out back,” she says, looking a bit lost.

I know what’s going to happen next with Disco Inferno. I’ve partaken in it in previous misadventures, and it’s never pretty.  It’s also hard work.  People always get all gooey about the tortured, but no one stops to think about the emotional toll it takes on the torturer.  At any rate, I doubt Jessica’s ready to see this, and I know we’re all hungry.

“Right, then,” I say. “Let’s go get some big-ass burgers and big-ass fries and big-ass shakes for everyone.”

Jean somehow found a sturdy wooden chair hiding out in a corner, and is dragging it into the center of the room as I escort Jessica out.

Jessica’s car is a typical college car, nothing exciting, but it has a stereo and the windows roll down, and that’s more than I can say of some of the cars I’ve owned. 

Her AC works, which is a good thing in summertime Vegas.  Did you know that human testicles have a regular temperature of about 94 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit?  True story.  As such, when the temperature gets that hot you can quite truthfully say it is hot as balls outside.  Vegas in the summertime is much hotter than balls.

All In-N-Out Burger joints are the same: they’re bright white and red, and the interiors are sterile to a fault.  The food is always good, and there’s almost no one ever holding up the line trying to figure out the menu because there are only, like, three things on it.

We order seven Double Doubles, seven large orders of fries, and seven large chocolate shakes.  This is America in one greasy wrapper, a tasty amalgam of awesomeness.

“Who’s the seventh order for?” Jessica asks.  They’re the first words she’s spoken since we left.

“Jacob likes to eat,” I tell her.  “I once saw him put down a large pizza on his own and start eyeing everyone else’s food.  Trust me: it’s best to keep him fed.”

It’s only a few minutes’ drive back to the sushi house, and Jessica’s quiet the rest of the way in, like she’s driving on autopilot.  I don’t know if this is normal – for her, or for anyone. I’m not sure what it would be like to have to integrate into our little group as a complete stranger. Frank and Jean were already working with Eve when I showed up, and I didn’t have any problem fitting right in.  Jacob would be happy doing anything that allowed him to stick it to the man, and bust skulls.  None of the rest of us are exactly normal, so a regular person may be a little at sea right now.

We get out of the car and I tell her to wait a minute.  “You OK?” I ask her.

She wraps her arms around herself and shrugs, head held low.  “I don’t know.  I don’t even know how to answer that.”

“So, you’re saying your average night doesn’t entail being assaulted, watching a bunch of strangers casually kill another bunch of strangers, finding out your coworkers have been executed, and eating In-N-Out in a parking lot with strange man you don’t know?” I ask.

“Yeah, basically,” she mumbles, her expression lightening a bit.

“You need to get out more often,” I say, digging into the burger bag.  Hunger may be the best gravy, but when you put that gravy on a tasty burger? Perfection.  “Here, have some dinner.  Everything looks worse when you’re hungry.”

She toys with the burger, fumbling with the wrapper.  It’s probably best to wait to go back in. And, frankly, I am hungry.  I hope they finish up soon, though, or their shakes are going to be melted.

“These guys are going to keep after me, aren’t they?” she asks.

“More than likely.  There aren’t a whole lot of Yakuza in the States - they tend to work mostly in Asia - but they’re expanding.  Even if these guys are the only ones here in Vegas, I’m sure they’ve told someone else what was going on.  Even if the rest of their clan doesn’t know, it’s a sure bet another clan does know. So, yeah, I’d bet someone else is coming along.”  It’s hard to say this, but it is the truth.  There is honor at stake.  These guys will keep coming back forever to go after a girl whose dad may or may not know anything of any value.

Her shoulders slump a bit.  Yesterday she was getting paid a bunch of money to hang out naked and think about what to do later in the day.  Today - well, not so much.  This is one of those moments that will stretch to eternity and be miserable the whole time.  I never know what to say in times like these. How do you tell someone it’ll be OK, when it’s patently obvious that it probably won’t be?  It’s a simple fact that if she stays here, she’s dead, and not in a good way, especially considering what’s happening to that Yakuza gangster right now.

The back door bangs open and Jacob comes swaggering out.  He’s grinning ear to ear and his knuckles are raw and bloody.  He sees the bag and makes a beeline to us. He grabs a shake and downs it in one gulp.

“Hey, Jessica,” he says casually, like they’re old friends.  I swear, nothing fazes this guy.  He’s the type of guy who could grin his way through a car crash, crawl out and calmly pop open a beer and wait for the cops.  He’s shoves a burger in his face and tries to talk at the same time.

“So mumblegrumblefumblejapwumblechomp chompchomptoughmumblemumb leteethand mumblefuck.”

“Jacob, chew your food then talk,” Eve says as she walks out, Frank and Jean in tow.  Frank’s wiping his hands and face on wet-nap he found in the kitchen.  Eve grabs a burger and a shake and leans against the car.  She takes a bite and a drink to wash it down.  “Jessica, your father worked in some dark areas, right?”

Jessica nods.  “I don’t know exactly what he did. He never talked about it. I haven’t heard from him in years.”

“Those Yakuza fellows don’t know exactly what your dad was up to, but it involved something that scared the hell out of the people working on it.  Apparently the government buried the whole thing and tried their best to forget about it,” Eve says.

Jean gulps down a bite.  “You know, when the people who brought us such wonders of modern life as VX gas, nuclear bombs and enhanced interrogation techniques are scared of something, it must be delightfully terrifying.”  He’s grinning like a kid who just found out he’s getting a new bike.

“Do you know how to get hold of your dad, Jessica?” Eve asks her, a serious bent to her eyes.

Jessica finally takes a bite of her burger, swallows it.  “I’m not sure.  Like I said, he disappeared years ago.  He got offered a job in New Mexico and took it.  He was going first, and then we’d follow about six months later.  We got regular messages for the first month. Then they started getting more and more erratic.  About six months in, he just sent a message telling us not to come.  Mom assumed he was having an affair.  We didn’t know how to get hold of him, and we never could get anyone to answer us.”

“He’s in Albuquerque. Or was.  Our friend in there had his last known address,” Frank says.

“Well, why the fuck would they go through me to get to him?  I haven’t seen him in years!  I don’t know what he’s doing!  I don’t know a damn thing!  Why not show up at his doorstep and beat the shit out of him and threaten him?” Jessica’s angry now.  Most of the time when you hear someone talking about their pathetic daddy issues, they’re just being pricks.  She actually does have daddy issues, and justifiably so, from the look of things.

“They couldn’t go after him directly.  If they tried to go directly after him, DSS would’ve taken them out without thinking about it.  All he’d have to do is tell anyone in the government, and all those crazy Yakuza fuckers would’ve woken up in Cuba.  Or worse.  DSS takes secrets very seriously, and guards them jealously, especially the dangerous ones.  Look at that guy, Snowden. He’s done his damage, but they’ve got to grab him just to send a message to anyone else who’s thinking about doing the same thing.  If they’d gotten to him before he spilled the beans, they’d have crushed him like an ant for even thinking about it.  The gangsters had to get your dad to come to them willingly,” Jean says excitedly.  It’s nice to see him get excited about things.

DSS, in case you’re wondering is Defense Security Service.  They’re the branch of the government that’s responsible for maintaining secrets.

“Shit,” Jessica grumbles.  “I always assumed my dad just got tired of his old family and decided to get a new one.”  She sticks a fry in her mouth and chews it.

Eve sighs.  “Here’s the hard part, kiddo.  They’ll keep coming for you.  We couldn’t give you to a bunch of degenerate gang-bangers, and we probably saved your life, so we’re responsible for you to some extent.  You can stay here if you want.  Tell everyone we killed those guys and let you go because we weren’t interested in you.  Give them names if you want - it doesn’t matter.  We’ll help you out however we can.  The problem with this idea is they will still come after you for other reasons.  Or, you can come with us.  Whatever you choose, it has to be your choice.”

“What’s up with the guy inside there?” Jessica asks her.

“He’s messed up. He might live, he might die.” Eve says, “He’s alive right now.  Live or die, he’ll never be the same.  Personally, I’d prefer that he dies.  He was a pretty bad guy - hired muscle - he enjoyed his work.  Besides, if he lives he can stir up attention we’d rather not have right now.”

“You want to see him?” I ask Jessica.

She ponders a moment, thinking whether or not to answer the question truthfully and finally nods.  “I want him to know I won.  I want
me
to know that I won.”

Eve stands up and straightens herself up a bit.  “Let’s go in.”

Jacob finishes his second burger and heads over to the door, flings it open, and stands there like a royal attendant.  It doesn’t exactly suit him, but it does help break the mood.

Jean stands next to Jessica.  “His name is Hiroshi, and he’s been with the organization for ten years.  He busts people up for a living.  Raped some, killed some.  He was planning on doing his worst with you tonight while his buds took pictures.”

I walk in first. Eve follows, protecting Jessica like some kind of mother bird.  Frank and Jean come bouncing in last, and Jacob shuts the door. We all stand and stare at this busted-up guy duct-taped to a wooden chair.  His right wrist is swollen, probably broken by Jessica’s kick.  His face is bruised from Jacob’s fists, and his eyelids are missing thanks to Frank’s razor.  One shoulder is misshapen and looks like it was crushed in a vise - probably Eve lightly squeezing his shoulder.  His head is lolled to one side, and his red eyes are locked on Jessica.  To his credit, he’s not begging for mercy. He’s looking like he can’t quite make out what we’re up to.

Jessica walks up to him and looks him up and down dispassionately, like he’s just a bug pinned to a piece of Styrofoam.

“How does it feel to be on the other side of the beating?” she asks him.  “How does it feel to know it’s all over?”

“
Kuso kurae, baka buso
,” he chokes out.

Jacob smacks him in the back of the head.  “English, motherfucker.”

Hiroshi grins at Jacob and I shudder at his missing teeth.  “Fuck off, stupid bitch.”

Jessica holds up her hand.  “It doesn’t matter.  He doesn’t matter.”  She looks over at me.  “Do you still have that knife?”

I actually do, and was planning on keeping it.  Hey, it’s not every day a nice piece of Japanese steel drops into your lap.  I pull the knife out and hand it to her handle first.

She takes the tanto and smiles.  He smile doesn’t quite make it to her eyes, and she looks scary as hell for a moment.  She admires the blade, turning it and watching the light reflecting off it.  Like I said, it’s a nice knife.  Without warning she smoothly turns and buries it to the hilt in Hiroshi’s throat with enough force that the tip pokes out the back of his neck.  He looks as surprised as the rest of us.

She watches him die, pulls out the knife and wipes the blade on his pants, hands it back to me handle first.  “Thank you.  I’ve wanted to do that ever since I met that guy.”