Wolf and Cub

By DJ Clawson

Chapter 9 – That Sparkling Lupin Personality

The police arrived quickly enough to pick them up. Zenigata spent the rest of the way back to the hospital on his radio, calling up as many officers as he could muster. By the time they reached the driveway, his voice was nearly gone from shouting at the commissioner and the sun was now up in the sky. He didn't even want to think about what time it was.

"What the hell is going on?" Fujiko said, having noticed the clamor. She had also clearly been up all night. "What did you guys do?"

"We may or may not have caught Lupin's father," Jigen said. "And it may or may not have blown up in our faces."

"Literally," Goemon said, drawing the shade across the window.

"Well – Zenigata! You're bleeding!"

"Huh?" He looked at his shoulder. He was still wearing the makeshift bandage the doctor in Deauville had put on him, and it was clear he had popped some his stitches. "I'm fine. How's Lupin?"

"I was sleeping until you came in," Lupin said without a hint of malice. "You guys look worse than I probably do."

"Yeah, well, he's not after us," Jigen said, straightening his tie and blackened jacket. "Maybe we should move him to another room. Where he's not registered."

"Hey, I saw that movie!" Lupin said.

"So we're going to stay with Lupin indefinitely?"

Zenigata sipped his coffee. "I can stay up."

Twenty minutes later they were all conked out in the chairs shoved by the bed. Fujiko even rested her head on the edge of Lupin's bed.

"So I have to get knifed for her to sleep with me," Lupin mumbled, waking Zenigata.

"Lupin!" he muttered instinctively.

"You really do talk about me in your sleep," Lupin said.

"You're lucky you're injured," Zenigata mumbled. "When this is over, the cuffs are going right back on!"

"Whatever you want," Lupin said tiredly. A lot of his spunk – his tireless energy – was still missing from him, and it was frightening. "Did you really arrest my father?"

"He got away," he said shamefully. "Had a bomb stashed on him. I should have seen it coming."

"Don't be so hard on yourself. He's even gotten me a couple of times," he said with a smile, "and I'm the best."

"Yeah, he told me your – uh, first meeting. After he escaped from prison."

"What a waste of a television set." He paused thoughtfully. "He probably told you some other stuff, too."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter," Lupin said. "I've done things in my life I'm not proud of. The Lupin family isn't an easy family to be in. But you're a cop – you know that feeling bad about something doesn't undo the damage."

He knew Lupin was right, but he didn't want to say that right now. It seemed too cruel. Besides, his thoughts were interrupted by a loud explosion that shook the hospital. Suddenly alarms were blaring and people's machines were going off.

"Holy crap!" Lupin said, attempting to sit up as Jigen kneeled down in a fighting stance and Goemon practically leapt on top of him, sword at the ready, from a position of sound sleeping.

Zenigata pulled back the curtains, and they all saw smoke rising from another wing of the building, lower down. "I think that's admitting. What the hell is going on?"

"Inspector!" One of the guards assigned to guard the door to Lupin's room burst in.

"Don't just stand there, you idiot! If Lupin is here, I want you to find him!" he shouted as he was saluted. "Go!"

"Dad always liked to arrive in style," Lupin said. "Goemon, get off me!"

"Not until you stay down!" Goemon pushed the handle of his sword down on Lupin's head.

"It doesn't make sense," Jigen said, checking the barrel of his gun. "Why would he blow up a bunch of ambulances?"

"A diversion, perhaps."

"I don't like it." Zenigata closed the curtains again. A nurse knocked on the class door, and he nodded to Jigen to let her in.

"If this is because of your patient – "

"Listen, this is official police business," he interrupted. "I need to get him of here. Can he survive without all those machines? I don't mean for very long."

"That's not recommended."

"He can't stay here," He said, acting mainly on instincts. "Lupin, are you up for a little trip?"

"Where are you going to take him?" Fujiko demanded.

"To somewhere else in this hospital. I don't know yet. But we should make it look like he's still here somehow."

Lupin put up no protest as they unattached him and Zenigata lifted him into a wheelchair. He was clad only in a hospital gown, so Fujiko put a blanket over him, and held his hand to stop the bleeding from where the nurse had pulled the IV.

"Here," Jigen said, handing Goemon a mask from Lupin's belongings. "You be Lupin. I can't shave that fast."

Within a minute they had Goemon in the bed as a fairly convincing Lupin, with Fujiko hovering by his side. "Put a move on her ... and I'll kill you," Lupin quipped weakly.

"It was the furthest thing from my mind," Goemon assured him.

"I'm not sure if this is really a good idea, but I think we'll know soon enough." He tossed Zenigata a walkie-talkie. "Keep in touch."

"You doing all right there?" From his position pushing the wheelchair down the long hallway, he couldn't see Lupin's expression. "Am I going too fast?"

"The day you go too fast for me ... I'll retire, Old Man."

"You're a real riot, Lupin," he smiled. "Hang on tight." He veered left, into a supply room that looked fairly abandoned. He shut the door behind them.

"I have to say – this is not where I thought ... I would end up," Lupin said. "Half-naked in a closet with you."

"Why don't you save your energy by shutting up?" he demanded, though it wasn't in any kind of hurtful manner. Above them, there were sounds of screaming and gunshots. He pulled out his gun, and positioned the wheelchair so it wouldn't be visible when the door was opened.

He found himself more concerned when there wasn't any sound from above. He checked the walkie-talkie, but certainly he didn't want to start a connection and alert the elder Lupin to their location. Zenigata positioned himself behind a cabinet, shielding Lupin from view.

There were screams in the hallway – some nurse, probably, or a patient – and some amount of talking, none of it audible. He cursed under his breath and waited.

The door opened despite the lock, and a flash of black and silver darted across the room, sideways at first and then towards Lupin. Lupin the Second's dagger – a mini-zantetsuken, another one from his collection – went right for Lupin, but was stopped only by a parry from Zenigata's jutte. With a twist of Zenigata's wrist, he was able to pull the dagger right out of the thief's hands. It hurled across the room and embedded itself in the wall.

"Didn't we do this already, Tottsan?" Lupin the Second demanded, as he went for his dagger.

"To the ends of the earth, Lupin!" Zenigata said, hurling his jutte so it pinned the other man's hand to the wall. "You're under arrest!"

But when he went to handcuff him, Lupin senior slapped him across the face with a surprisingly powerful blow, hurling him backwards against the door. This gave Lupin the time he needed to try and pull the jutte out of the wall. "Is this Zenigata Heiji's jutte?"

"That's none of your business!" But by the time he was standing again, Lupin the Second was ready for him. He pinned him back down with his knee, jutte in hand.

"This weapon is worth more than you are," Lupin said, but before he could do anything else, he was whacked in the back of the head with a broom. Lupin the Third had managed to reach one from his wheelchair and was wielding it with looks that could kill. "Little brat!"

Lupin the Second was a very good fighter, but he couldn't fight them both at once. He got up to strangle his son, Zenigata grabbed him from behind and cuffed him to the duct. He took back his jutte, then rushed to the younger Lupin, who was still recovering. "Are you okay?"

"You're not suppose to be mothering him, you dolt!" Lupin the Second said. "No wonder you never caught him. You don't have the –"

"I'm really getting sick of you, Lupin," Zenigata said, pointing the tip of his weapon at his rival's throat.

"Oh, I'm so sorry I'm not a nice thief."

"Your father was a gentleman."

"And a liar and a crook. Just like me and just like Arséne. Who's side are you on here, Keibu?"

"We're talking about your son's life!"

"That's right. My son. Not yours." He slipped out of his cuffs and hurled them at Zenigata. When Zenigata went to punch him, he had ducked and gone sideways, up against the wall where his dagger was still stuck. He pulled it out and came back with it. He swung it underhand, up into Zenigata's chest. Zenigata flinched and bucked over, grasping the weapon as his jutte fell out of his hands. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to get involved in someone else's family feud?" He smiled and patted Zenigata on the back, turning away from him, and towards his son, who was still trying to reach for the broom.

He had left the dagger in Zenigata. The inspector slowly slid it out and dropped it. It hit the floor as he straightened up. "Lupin –" he said, grabbing him from behind by the shoulder. "You're under arrest!"

Next thing Lupin the Second knew, every limb was cuffed to the supply cabinet, the ducts, and anything else in range. Zenigata stood up fully, obviously completely uninjured. He picked up the dagger and put it in his belt. He also retrieved his gun, and held it up at Lupin, as he undid some of the buttons to his collared shirt. Beneath it was obviously a Kevlar vest.

"You son of a bitch," Lupin the Second said. "You actually beat up a sick old man to protect the man you've been chasing for twenty years."

"Damn straight!" Though it didn't make a lot of sense, now that he thought about it.

"If you think you're on the right side, you're more twisted than I am."

He probably should have had better control of himself, but his head was pounding, his shoulder was killing him, and the confined space had become stuff and disorienting. "You!" He grabbed Lupin by the throat and began to strangle him.

"Pops," came Lupin the Third's weak protest. He was still holding his neck, and could barely sit up in his wheelchair, but he put one hand out on Zenigata's. "Leave him alone."

But it felt so good to have his hands around the older thief's neck. He had to hold himself back from continuing.

"He's just an old man with nothing but hate left in him," Lupin said in a hoarse voice, barely above a whisper.

"Lupin," Zenigata said, but he did take his hands off the father, who was still practically chained to the wall. "This man tried to kill you."

"And I tried to kill him," he said. "But he's still my father."

Something about Lupin's words deflated him. He pulled away from Lupin the Second, but kept his gun up as he reached for his radio. "This is Zenigata. I'm on the second floor and I need assistance."

"You spineless coward –"

"You," Zenigata growled, "had better be quiet."

"Where are my partners?" Lupin the Third demanded in the sternest voice he could muster.

"Alive. Depending on how much blood they can afford to lose," he sneered.

"All right, you can punch him now," Lupin said to Zenigata.