Protection for Hire Read online

  “So keeping your family off balance is fine? What if Heath manages to follow you to our house?”

  “He’d have to find me first. He doesn’t even know my name. Wings isn’t going to give him any information about me or Elizabeth — they’re very careful about stuff like that.” Added to that was the fact she was the best out of all her yakuza cousins at spotting and getting rid of a tail. But Mom didn’t have to know about that fascinating ability.

  “Knowing your luck, he’d manage to go to the only grocery store in the entire Bay Area where you happen to be shopping, or something ridiculous like that. And then you’ll bring more trouble to your family. You’re certainly not going to win any Daughter of the Year awards.”

  As if she’d ever? What with working for her mob boss uncle against Mom’s wishes and then suddenly coming back from prison penniless, she figured she’d forfeited any parental brownie points. “Please, Mom, Elizabeth’s desperate. You saw the bruise on her face, and I thought we did a good job cleaning up the sunroom in the past couple days.”

  “I have to admit, her fried chicken last night was good.”

  Tessa couldn’t speak for a moment. The concession had been grudging, but for Mom to admit someone else’s cooking was good was like being knighted by the Queen. “I thought so too,” Tessa said in a neutral voice, but inside she was shrieking, “Good? It was flippin’ awesome!” The crust had been crispy and flaky. Colonel Sanders had nothing on Elizabeth St. Amant.

  She entered the squeaking glass door to the small motel. A pitted wooden counter almost entirely hid a balding head sitting on a low chair behind it.

  “Mom, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”

  “We are not done talking about this.”

  Tessa hung up with a sigh. They’d talked about it every single time Mom got her alone for the past two days. You’d think they’d talked it to death by now, but Mom liked beating dead horses. Maybe she thought the problem would go away if she mentioned it ad nauseam. At least she hadn’t been rude to Elizabeth or tried to get them to leave. In fact, she’d played with Daniel this morning and chatted comfortably with Elizabeth.

  Tessa fought a twinge of jealousy that her mother, who had only disapproved of her all her years growing up, was so kind to a perfect stranger. Even now that Tessa was trying to go legitimate, her mother didn’t seem to treat her very differently.

  Tessa approached the counter. “Who works nights here?”

  “I do.” The man had a beak of a nose that reminded her of Gonzo from the Muppets. And he had as much — or rather, as little hair as Gonzo too. But unlike Gonzo’s wide friendly eyes, this man’s were narrow and bulgy like a lizard.

  “A week or so ago, a man came — or maybe he came with several men.” Tessa showed a picture of Heath.

  The man’s eyes remained flat, emotionless. Giving nothing away.

  “They asked about this woman.” Tessa flashed a picture of Elizabeth.

  A flicker, but it was so subtle, it could have been the indifferent fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “I could have figured that out, lady.” The eyes gleamed with a film of slime covering the irises.

  Tessa realized she’d automatically fallen into the stance she usually adopted when talking to people on behalf of her uncle — neck high and chin up, confidence falling off her shoulders like a robe. She had flexed her muscles, the strength coursing through her limbs like buzzing electricity, waiting to be unleashed.

  She had become yakuza again.

  But she wasn’t yakuza any more, and this wasn’t yakuza business. Did that count? Was she still wrong to regress into this persona, if it got her what she wanted?

  She didn’t know. She didn’t know who she was anymore.

  She had to not show weakness. She had to uphold her pride or she would never get what she wanted. She leaned against the counter, but kept her shoulders straight. “What did these guys ask you about this woman?”

  “Which time?”

  “They talked to you more than once?”

  “I can be persuaded to remember.”

  Tessa dug into her back pocket for the cash she’d stashed there — cash she’d guiltily taken from her mom’s purse. She’d needed the money right away, and her cousin Ichiro hadn’t answered his cell phone. As soon as she got a hold of him, he’d lend her the money to pay Mom back — Itchy owed her more favors than he could repay in this lifetime.

  She slapped a twenty on the counter, but kept her hand on the bill. “Convince me of how much your information is worth.”

  He eyed the denomination with distaste. “More than that.”

  “That’s for you to prove to me.”

  He sighed. “They came twice. Once before the woman bolted, and once after.”

  This man had enabled Heath to find Elizabeth? “The first time, you told them she was here?” Tessa kept her voice low and spoke slowly to hide her anger.

  He nodded. “The second time was right after she’d gone, he was upset he hadn’t found her.”

  “Is that it?” Tessa started to turn to go, leaving the twenty dollar bill.

  “No, it’s not it.” The twenty on the counter disappeared as the rat snatched his piece of cheese. “I told him to talk to Junie on the corner, because he sees everything that happens. Junie would know what direction your lady friend went.”

  “And Junie is who?”

  “Homeless guy at the corner of Union. He’ll be there by now. He works a corner a few blocks away in the mornings, and this corner in the afternoon and evenings. Hey, don’t I get any more?” he asked when Tessa started to leave.

  She stopped, turned, and leaned over the counter to get in his face. “You might have if you hadn’t given up a young woman and a three-year-old boy to a slimeball and his thugs. Be grateful I didn’t turn your nose into a coat hook, Gonzo.”

  “Who?”

  Junie was indeed at his corner, holding a sign up for drivers caught at the light to read while waiting. His beard showed streaks of red under the dirt, and he flashed a knowing smile with lots of black teeth as Tessa approached. “I have a feeling I can do something for you rather than the other way around.”

  “These guys asked about this woman a few days ago.” Tessa showed him the pictures. “What’d you tell them?”

  “It depends on how much you’re going to donate to the Junie Foundation.”

  She tossed a twenty into the upended hat at his feet, but he sneered at her. “Gonna take more than that, lady.”

  She didn’t have much money, and she didn’t know who else she might have to bribe. “I don’t have any more I can give you.”

  “Then you ain’t getting nothing.”

  “I gave you a twenty.”

  “The Junie Foundation thanks you kindly.”

  Her hand snapped out and grabbed his ear, which was slick with oil and dirt.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” He winced and tilted his head toward her. “No cause for that.”

  “I want the information you gave those guys.”

  “No, you didn’t give me enoug —”

  She twisted his ear, and he swallowed his protest. “She ran up Van Ness toward Lombard.”

  She screwed his ear a tiny bit harder. “No she didn’t, Junie.” Tessa actually didn’t know if he was telling the truth, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to press him a bit.

  “Okay, okay, she went down Green.”

  “Is that all you told them?” Junie’s ear was getting more and more disgustingly slick as his sweat mingled with his ear wax.

  “That guy gave me another fifty bucks for this infor — owowow! Okay, okay, I saw Calypso talking to her. At least, I think it was Calypso. It was dark, and it was pretty far down Green. Looked like Calypso was running after her.”

  Elizabeth had mentioned a man who ran after her, who then led her to Wings. “Who’s Calypso?”

  “Weird guy who’s usually hanging out at Laguna and Harris, but for some rea
son he was on Green that night and went after the woman and her kid.”

  “Thanks Junie.” She let go of his ear and scrubbed her hand against her jeans. She’d have to wash them tonight to get Eau de Junie off of them.

  She asked a street performer on Laguna where Harris was, and dug out a few coins to toss into his guitar case. This trip was getting more expensive than she expected.

  She spotted Calypso right away because he was the lanky African American man shouting at no one in particular on the street corner.

  “Because the meek will inherit French fries!” he proclaimed to a passing motorcycle. “And four sips of Dr. Pepper will fix your leg right up!”

  Calypso smelled way worse than Junie, and his hair was in long, white-speckled dreadlocks. His eyes fixed on Tessa as she approached, and they were wide and child-like.

  “Howdy, partner? You done ride Buzz Lightyear to the Chrysler building and back to buy a Happy Meal but I was playing my saxophone with James Earl Jones.”

  “That must have been quite a concert,” Tessa said.

  “We roooooockin’ down the schoolhouse with Mozart and chocolate tea.”

  Elizabeth had said that a man told her he wouldn’t hurt her and wanted to lead her someplace safe — could that really be Calypso? “I heard you helped this lady a few nights ago.” Tessa showed Elizabeth’s picture. “If that was you, she and her little boy are really grateful to you.”

  “My little man was flying with his wings and eating cotton candy.”

  Wings — meaning he’d led them to Wings shelter? If anything, Calypso apparently liked his food. “Did you talk to this guy?” She showed him Heath’s picture.

  He blinked rapidly and frowned. “Darth Vader and Ronald McDonald weren’t sharing the Kit-Kat.”

  “You don’t like him, huh? You got good taste.”

  “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Calypso reached out and touched her hand briefly, softly. For a flash of a moment, his eyes were focused on her.

  Then he removed his hand and shouted, “Hallelujah! Christ the Lord is eating Oreos.”

  Tessa winced as he used his outside voice barely two feet away from her eardrum.

  Well, it didn’t look like Calypso talked much to Heath, if at all. Not that Heath would have even understood him. So then, how did Heath know Elizabeth went to Wings?

  “Did this guy talk to anyone else about the lady and her son?”

  “No can do, and a belly of rum. Yo, ho, yo, ho …” he sang.

  “This guy was at Wings shelter, and I’m trying to figure out how he found out she was there.”

  “Arrr, matey. Polly want a cracker.”

  This was impossible. Calypso was completely unintelligible. She sighed. “Well, thanks for helping, Calypso. And thanks for leading Elizabeth to safety —”

  Calypso grabbed her hands, his face tense. His breath, smelling like cat poo, washed over her as he said, “Aye! Avast, Captain! Yo, ho, a pirate’s life for me …”

  What? “Pirates of the Caribbean?”

  “Yo, ho …”

  “Captain Jack Sparrow?”

  Calypso started jumping up and down, but his hands were still firmly grabbing hers and she bounced with him. “Who’s Captain Jack?” she asked.

  He abruptly released her and started walking rapidly in the opposite direction. After a few seconds, he turned to look at her and shouted, “Somewhere over the rainbow with lemon drops.”

  So she, uh, followed the yellow brick road.

  People looked strangely at her, a woman following a homeless man, who absolutely reeked, and she often couldn’t avoid being downwind from him, but Calypso strode with purpose, not looking to the right or the left.

  After several blocks, he broke into a run and then launched himself at another homeless man sitting on a low wall behind a bus station. The two of them tumbled onto the sidewalk in a heap of dirty clothing, and one of them lost a holey Keds that flew past Tessa’s head.

  Calypso fought like he talked — after pushing the man to the ground, he smacked his ear, then tried to pull off his sock.

  “What are you doing, man? Crazy.” The other man shoved Calypso off him and stood up.

  Calypso grabbed his ankle and tried to bite it, but the man yanked his ankle away. “Stop it!”

  “Why does he want to hurt you?” Tessa asked.

  “Beats me.” The man ran his hand through his matted hair, which was so dirty that Tessa couldn’t tell what color it was supposed to be.

  “Are you … Captain Jack?”

  The man grinned, pushing back his shoulders and puffing out his chest. “Arr. I like that. Maybe I’ll start calling myself that. Captain Jack.”

  Calypso had gotten to his feet and stood glowering at Captain Jack. “Arrest the dude I kiss on the cheek.”

  Judas — betrayer? Did Jack betray someone — maybe Elizabeth? “Did you talk to him?” Tessa showed the picture of Heath.

  Jack’s face became blank. “Maybe.”

  Tessa pulled out another twenty and waved it enticingly.

  “Yeah, I might have talked to them.”

  “What did they want?”

  “Some lady.”

  “You knew something about her?”

  Jack looked away toward the busy street. An older Asian woman was walking toward the bus stop, but upon seeing Jack, Tessa, and Calypso, who was still glaring at Jack and who had also started drooling, she turned and walked away.

  “What’d you tell them, Jack?”

  “I’m not talking for just a twenty.”

  “I could just let Calypso keep beating you up. He’ll eventually hit you somewhere that hurts.”

  Jack frowned. “He smells like cat poo.”

  As if Jack smelled like a bed of roses. “What’d you tell them?”

  “Nothing. I showed them the house she entered the other night.”

  “You saw her?”

  “Who didn’t see her? Calypso was talking to his invisible friends all the way there.”

  “So after you saw a woman and her little boy enter a domestic violence shelter, you led a man who was looking for her right to it?”

  Jack shrugged. “What’s the problem?”

  Tessa closed her eyes and looked away. It had been bad enough Junie had blithely told those men about Elizabeth and her son, but Junie hadn’t known what those men wanted with Elizabeth. Jack, on the other hand, had seen Elizabeth enter the shelter — might have even seen her bruised face — and still told a man and his bodyguards where to find her. No wonder Calypso wanted to pound his face into the pavement.

  Tessa turned and started walking away.

  “Hey, what about my twenty?”

  “Did you hear me promise you anything? You’re lucky I don’t punch your lights out for what you did.”

  “I didn’t do anything, lady,” Jack snarled.

  She had been prepared for Jack to try something, but even as she reacted to Jack’s hand reaching out for her, Calypso dove at him like a raven. “He was wounded for our transgressions!” he shouted as a flailing fist caught Jack in the jaw.

  “Ow!” Jack stumbled backward, his knees wobbling.

  “Nice left hook, Calypso,” Tessa said.

  “Expel the wicked from among you,” Calypso said. But he backed away.

  Jack leaned against the bus stop, his hands slightly raised in front of him, his eyes unfocused.

  “Thanks for helping me,” Tessa said to Calypso. “Can I buy you some hamburgers from McDonalds?”

  Calypso suddenly rose to his full height, which brought him at Tessa’s eye level. His face had become serious, his eyes intent and focused. He again took Tessa’s hands. “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.”

  His voice was deeper than normal, spoken in a soft voice that rang with reverence, as if he were reading Scripture at a Sunday church service.

  Tessa was shocked. What had happened? This was kinda freaky.

  C
alypso continued, “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. Remember that.”

  Calypso then turned and walked away.

  Chapter 10

  Tessa walked into her mom’s house and was attacked by paper cranes.

  Actually, she only collided with streamers of paper cranes hung over the doorway, but it sure felt like an attack. Sharp paper beaks jabbed her in the eye, and when she yelled, “Hey!” she inhaled a paper tail into her open mouth.

  “Tessa, this is so much fun!” Elizabeth gestured to her to join them in Mom’s living room, where she, Daniel, Alicia, Paisley, and Mom were gathered around the coffee table. Colored squares littered the floor and the table.

  “Tessa,” Daniel said, and held out to her a crumpled silver paper that looked vaguely like a rock. With ears.

  “Wow, Daniel,” Tessa said, “that’s a great … uh …”

  Elizabeth mouthed “frog” to her.

  “… frog. In fact, that’s the best frog I’ve ever seen. What’s his name?”

  “Her name is Freddie, and she’s Slasher’s girlfriend,” Elizabeth said with a roll of the eyes. “You can blame your niece for that one.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Paisley said with wide eyes. “The name just popped out.”

  “Come join us,” Elizabeth said.

  “No,” Alicia said quickly, “this is too girly for Tessa.”

  A sensation like cold water trickled over her shoulders, her arms, her stomach. Alicia had said the exact same thing when Tessa was twelve and she’d come home from hanging out with her male cousins to find Mom teaching Alicia to fold paper cranes.

  Mom had said, “Oh, that’s true.”

  Tessa had left the house and gone to Aunty Kayoko. Uncle Teruo had been out, so he hadn’t witnessed Tessa’s valiant attempts to hide her tears.

  Aunty Kayoko had gotten out the best origami paper she owned — large squares thickly strewn with pink and red flowers and highlighted by gold gilt, bought in Kochi Prefecture on a trip to Japan. She made one paper crane for Tessa, but instead of being right side out, she made it with the white underside on the outside.