DISCLAIMER: SAKURA WARS/SAKURA TAISEN, MARIA TACHIBANA and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © SEGA 2006.
Rating: R for language, despite most of the foulest language being in Russian
"FROM THE ASHES" – Her First Time
January 20th, 1921. The building is old, and it looks a bit like it's leaning where it stands at the triangular intersection of Bridge and Pearl, where they meet Broad. This close to the docks in Lower Manhattan, the building is full to bursting with immigrants, predominantly Irish, but all kinds are in this building, the poorest of the poor, the lowest of the low.
It's damned cold out here, and I shake the snow from the shoulders of my trench coat and have to remove my fedora to dust it off. My partner flicks me a glance, his cigarette still pinched in his lips, his match, as yet, unstruck.
"You wanna wait till we're outtada wind before ya try dat?" I ask him. Sometimes he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Uptown, the wind seems restricted to the avenues, unable to get through the buildings much to hit the streets. But down here below the Grid, there is no safe place. We're only two streets from the Harbour. I can see Ellis Island from here if I look around the corner. But then, that's why this place is so full of immigrants. The streets paved with gold are a lie, and none of them can afford to get any further into the country than right here.
Cavaradossi strikes his match as the swinging wooden door bangs closed behind us. It's on a spring, but it doesn't fit into the jamb anymore, so it continues complaining against the wind all on its own. A woman has taken up residence on the stairs for what looks like a long time. A woven shawl wraps around her shoulders and around the baby in her arms. She is thin and petite, and looks Korean. She has that harried, spiritless look, like someone who's lost everything. She looks at us as if she doesn't really see us, not even the twinges of apprehension at two men dressed in what seem to be detective-like clothing.
I glance up the staircase past her. Honestly, I'm not sure it'll hold our weight. I'm fit for forty years old, but tall for the Kilkenny Mick I am. But Cavaradossi's… well, he's Italian. Just to mess with my head, the stairs creak threateningly as we ascend. And the apartment we're looking for is on the fifth floor.
I bang the side of my fist against door number 516.
"Vali otsyuda!" comes a sharp, low, female voice from inside. I have no idea what she said. But I do know it was Russian, and I know it was impolite. Cavaradossi, however, speaks enough Russian—albeit badly—to understand.
"Open up, Tachibana!" bellows Cavaradossi, playing 'bad cop.' We fit the parts well enough. "We still ain't seen no papers t'roo immigration, an' we ain't goin' away! ...till ya show us proof. If ya get my meanin'."
Cavaradossi is the picture of subtlty. In all fairness, the Kazuar has only been working for us for a few months, barely earning enough to keep her landlord from dumping her body in the Hudson. Not that her landlord would be able to pull off killing her. This kid's quick. The boss knew her from the war over in Russia. She's just lucky she was a good driver then, and knew how to drive a steam-powered automobile, or she would never have found any work here at all. Crazy, I think. Coming over here all on her own with nothing, a sixteen-year-old girl? It's asking to be a headline.
A couple of doors have opened and curious heads peek out. The rest are too smart to stick their noses out.
Her voice is closer this time, as if she'd strode up to the door and yelled through it. "Ischezni, govnyuk!"
"C'mon, Ruskie! Jus' open th' goddamn door an' we can straighten dis crud out, awright?"
In a defiant yank, the door opens just a few inches, the security chain holding it from opening any further. That's my cue. The instant it opens, I kick it and the chain rips out of the rotting wood of the door jamb. The door slams into the Kazuar's shoulder, throwing her to the floor inside the the tiny one-room apartment. We are inside before she can stand up, and I turn to close the door.
"Nnh!" I hear the grunt of pain from her and then the unmistakeable sound of heavy gunmetal clattering to wooden floorboards. I turn around and Cavaradossi has her right arm wrenched behind her back, and his left arm around her throat. She's more angry than in pain, but she can't move and she can't shoot us, so that's a good thing. Her Enfield is on the floor a few feet away from them both. Cav spits the remainder of his cigarette to the floor over her shoulder and steps on it, still holding her.
I start a search of the tiny apartment. One room. It's got a sink and a counter, and one gas burner that doesn't look like it's worked in years. One pantry cabinet will, I am certain, contain roaches rather than food. She doesn't have a bureau or a closet for someone to be hiding in. Her clothing, what little of it she owns, is all hung on hangers over the gas pipe that runs the length of the seven-foot ceiling. I could reach up and put both hands against the ceiling. So could she. But they grow them tall in Russia, too. The radiator is under the window, paint chipped and rusted, and doing little to warm the room. A desk with a military arm-lamp and an army green rolling chair stand in the darkest corner of the apartment. The window is cracked. There are no curtains, no one could be hiding behind those either. The fire escape has a chair on it, as if she uses it as a balcony. A three-drawer file cabinet stands next to her desk. On top of it is a framed photograph of a Russian soldier, and a candle. Too young to be her father, and doesn't resemble her enough to be her brother. Probably dead. Russian Orthodox is one wacked religion. I reach for the picture.
"Nyet!" she yells, struggling against Cavaradossi. She's been silent up until now. "Ya adna!"
"She says she's alone," Cavaradossi translates. So I don't bother invading any more of her privacy. Cavaradossi releases her neck and flings her by the wrist to the bed, where she lands with a huff of lost breath, sitting at the head.
"So. To business." I pull off my gloves and stuff them in the pockets of my beige trench. "Is he dead?"
She glares up at me with flashing green eyes, from under a curtain of disarrayed short blonde hair. She is massaging the wrist Cav had twisted. "Da, myertvye."
Cavaradossi yells at her again, making her jump in surprise. "Ne svitsi!"
She yells back, "Mne nasrat' chto ty dumaesh', krutoj paren'!"
"HEY!" I stop them before it comes to blows. Besides, it's beginning to piss me off that I can't understand them. "Quit wit' da Russian."
Cavaradossi gestures impatiently to the Kazuar. "You speak English? You know… Angleiski?"
She thinks for a minute. "Little," and she nods to confirm. She seems a bit subdued now. The defiance and affront were fading back into the automaton soldier we recognized. Can't blame her. I remember my first time. I was shaken for weeks. She better get over it fast, though. They're not going to give her weeks to recover, Valentinov already has big plans for her. She glances at the floor and whispers, "Isvinitye."
It sounds like an apology, so I treat it like one. "S'awright, kid," I reassure her and ruffle her hair, turning to look out the window so I do not see the furious reaction to the patronizing treatment I'd just made her endure. I stuff my hands in my pants pockets, curtaining back my trench. "Look, Cav's jus' a little… panicked, ya know? On accounta we was supposed ta tell da boss firs' t'ing dis mornin'."
"But…" she begins haltingly, her low voice thickly laden with a Ukrainian dialect. "You come… just now… only."
"You was supposta meet us down at da docks, doll," Cavaradossi smirks.
The Russian glares, evidently disliking both the accusation and the term of 'endearment.' "I go… where he say!" she points at me now. She's not lying, precisely. I told her to wait here for a messenger at 8:00am – who never came, and then meet us at the docks at ten. It's eleven now. "And wait… here! For…" she seeks a word, opening one hand as if she might find it in the air. "…messenger."
"MESSENGER!" Cav thinks she meant him. Messenger is the lowest rank you can possibly have in the Mafia and still be considered part of it. He draws himself up to his full height, his face red with outrage. The Kazuar smiles, pleased that she's managed to insult him, and in English, too. "Ya got ANY idea how long I been workin' for Valentinov? YOU's da lucky one, gettin' in as a driver, ya skipped all dat crud, but ME! I worked for every step, blondie!" He jabs a finger at her, accusingly. She doesn't like the implications, but is used to them by now. She knew Valentinov in the Russian Revolution, and so the rumours of just how she was rising so quickly through the ranks were rife. And from what I could tell, completely untrue.
Cav looks a little murderous, but the Kazuar doesn't look scared. Regardless, I say his name softly, as if to remind him not to kill our newest, best, and most expendable hit man. Or, hit woman, if a seventeen year old kid could be considered a woman.
Cav sits on the only chair in the apartment with a flop, making the old army issue chair creak and roll a few inches. He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down. The Kazuar has the good grace not to chuckle, and has, admirably, wiped the self-satisfied smirk off her face, returning to the icy, stony, impassive expression that became her trademark, hiding the explosive fury inside. This is to her credit, good survival instincts. She stays where she's been flung, sitting at the head of her iron rail bed. There's nowhere else to sit in this joint, so I'm pacing. She glances only once at her gun, in the middle of the floor. None of us make a move for it, it's kind of a mutual respect thing.
I find myself back at the file cabinet. For some reason, I'm staring at this jake's picture again. He's got tinted glasses on, protection against snow blindness and rifle flare. The candlewax is melted so far away that it doesn't look like it'll burn again. My curiosity begins to obscure my purpose.
I shake my head and remember why I'm here. The record book. Bianni's ring. His file. And the Kazuar's money. If this went off without a hitch, she could pack up this joint now and move to a better one.
I grab the handle of the top file drawer and pull. It doesn't open.
"File's in here? You gotta key?" I ask her.
She shakes her head, juts her chin indicatively at the file cabinet. "Is break."
"It don' open?"
"Nyet."
"What the hell you keepin' it for, den, posterity?"
She's got that smirk again, the one that always serves to remind me that I might outrank her, but she's got skills I could never dream of. "Is having… two more…" she gestures to the cabinet, having given up on finding the word 'drawers.'
I roll my eyes at the insubordination. She's mocking me on purpose, but she always does. If the boss wouldn't kill me for it, I'd kill her. She's more annoying than she's worth. "Jeezis. Which drawer."
"Drawer," she repeats, like I've just solved the Russian-to-English puzzle she's been working on since she last spoke. "Two," she holds up two fingers.
Right, the middle one. I pull it open. The first file is marked 'Bianni.' It's got a thin red leather book in it, and a bulky envelope that probably contains his ring, and the papers of his information. He'd been skimming off the top of Valentinov's operation for almost a decade, long before Valentinov 'inherited' it just over a year ago. Now they'd be skimming HIM off the top of the Hudson.
"No one saw ya?"
Slowly, she shakes her head, and I can tell she's resisting the urge to be offended by the question.
"Where's the body?" I ask her.
Her glare sharpens. "You do nyet worry," she says slowly, "about that."
I drop the file into my soft leather briefcase and grin at her. Good instincts again. "Ya done good, kid. But jeezis…" I hold up an empty bottle of Stolichnaya that I know Valentinov had only given her two days ago. "Ease up. Ya look like shit."
I reach to pick up her gun, and she's on her feet in an instant, and Cav's gun is pressed against her head, her hand is around my wrist, my fingers just an inch from the barrel of her revolver.
"HOLD IT!" Cav yells and we all freeze. Slowly, I pick up her gun by the barrel and offer it to her, handle first.
"Congratulations, kid. You're gonna getcherself promoted."
She seems unimpressed. She's got both hands around the handle, her finger on the trigger, aiming straight between my eyes. "Money…" she reminds me. "Now." She's shaking. She's hung over. She's never killed anyone in cold blood before last night. She hasn't slept, of that I'm sure.
Cav drops his briefcase by her feet, his gun still trained on her head, and hers still on mine. I jut my chin at the case. "There. Now put the goddamn gun down before Cav ruins your pretty hair."
Slowly, they both lower their guns. The Kazuar picks up the case and opens it on the bed. I cannot see her face as she sees the bills stacked inside. "Getcherself outta this dump, kid," I advise her. "And getcherself cleaned up before tonight."
She turns to look at me, her full expression changed to one far less intimidating, one that would almost convince me she wasn't capable of murder, if I didn't know better. "Tonight?"
"Yeah. Seven o'clock. Luna's up in Little Italy." This is the only part of town where Nolita could be considered 'up.' "And come sober."
I close the door solidly behind us, leaving the Kazuar alone to continue resolving herself to her new life.
Russian Translations:
Vali otsyuda – "Get lost!"
Ischezni, govnyuk! – "Beat it, you bastard!"
Nyet! Ya adna! – "No! I'm alone!"
Da, myertvye. – "Yes, dead."
Ne svisti! – "I think you lie!"
Mne nasrat' chto ty dumaesh', krutoj paren'! – I don't give a shit what you think, tough guy!
Angleiski – English
Isvinitye – I'm sorry.
