Chapter 14: What Needs to Be Done
"Yeah!" Fred said pumping his fists in the air. "End of the day! Let's get outta here guys. Chinese food's on me."
Everyone was in the parking lot either heading to the bus stop or to their cars to when the day at SFIT was over.
"Where do you get your money?" Gogo asked as they all walked to Wasabi's car.
"That's another story for another day."
"You didn't tell a first story-"
"So Tadashi, you gonna meet us at that Jade Garden place on your moped?"
"I'll catch up with you guys," Tadashi said. "There's… something I have to take care of real quick." He gave Wasabi a look that said "you know what I mean."
"Well then let's get going," Wasabi said before anyone could question Tadashi.
Everyone piled into Wasabi's car, except for Tadashi who parked his moped elsewhere.
As he was putting his helmet on, Tadashi could see Honey Lemon running up to him out of the corner of his eye.
"Tadashi!" she yelled as she was running across the parking lot in her high heels. Tadashi wondered how many times she fell down before she learned to run in those things.
"Oh, hey," Tadashi replied as she finally got to him. "What's up?"
"It's…" Honey Lemon looked around. "When are we gonna do that Krei Bank thing?" she whispered.
Krei Bank. Tadashi had barely thought of the concept of robbing it. All he knew was that Mr.S was "planning it". That is of course if he thought that Christian was dead. Which of course he wasn't. But Mr.S didn't know that, so he was probably in good spirits.
"Well, I don't know when it's gonna go down. It'll just happen when it happens," Tadashi replied.
"It's just…" Honey stopped talking and looked to the ground.
"You're worried," Tadashi assumed.
"Kind of. I'm just thinking, 'what if we don't do this sooner?' What if we wait too long, and something really bad ends up happening if we don't get this money."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, and that's what worries me. We don't know what's coming. What if this Callaghan guy catches us in the time we've been waiting? Or what if our parents find out about this? The police know we were using chemical weapons. What if they decide to take a look at SFIT?"
"As for the SFIT thing, I wouldn't worry about it. The police have better things to do than interrogate a bunch of college kids." Tadashi didn't mention it, but Honey Lemon was right about one thing: Callaghan. The longer they waited, the more time they were giving the guy to catch them, but Tadashi still kept his cool. "I can't tell you when we'll be hitting Krei Bank, but I know that between now and then, nothing will go wrong."
Honey Lemon smiled. "Yeah, I just needed to hear someone other than myself say it. So where are you going?"
Tadashi came up with a lie right on the spot. "Well my aunt's been going to see Hiro at the hospital more often, and someone needs to feed Mochi."
"You're passing up dim sum to feed your cat?"
"I'm not "passing up". I'll meet you guys there after."
"If you say so," Honey Lemon chuckled as she began to walk towards Wasabi's car.
Tadashi wondered what both Honey Lemon and Fred would think about him if they had known about the things he had done. They weren't there when Yama died, and only Wasabi knew about Christian. Would they look at him as a different person? Just another criminal?
Because they had every right to.
Tadashi lied about Mochi, but he was telling the truth when he said he needed to feed someone. He started up his moped, and began his long drive to the storage unit.
"Gerson," Callaghan said from his office, attempting to summon the sergeant. He didn't come. "Gerson!" He yelled.
"I'm comin', i'm comin'," Gerson said as he walked through Callaghan's door. "These walls aren't made of concrete. I can hear you."
"Come have a look at this," Callaghan said, ignoring Gerson's complaint. Callaghan was looking through the files of the Silent Sparrow robbery. Out of all of them, he kept going back to one in particular. A file marked "Steven White".
Gerson walked behind Callaghan and looked over his shoulder. "What, this White guy? He's dead."
"Is he?" Callaghan said skeptically. "Then who put his gun in the repository?"
"Probably him," Gerson replied. "According to the records, the thing was in there for a while."
"But according to Steven's file, he died a good two years before the gun was deposited."
"Possessions get moved around. Maybe it was in his will."
"I don't believe in thirty year old men writing wills, and he didn't have any family to speak of."
Gerson tried coming up with a good reason for what Callaghan was telling him, but couldn't find any flaws. Gerson despised the man, but maybe he was onto something.
"And look at this." Callaghan grabbed another file. "These were Steven White's bank records. Every month after his death, little bits of money were being transferred from his account to another. If it was a bank or an unknown family member who took it, I would've been able to trace the money, but there's no trail to speak of."
"So," Gerson said, "what you're trying to tell me is that this Steven White who, quote 'died in a fiery car crash' is still out and about?"
"That's precisely what i'm telling you."
Gerson pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Robert, I know you're just doing your job and all, but this guy couldn't possibly be alive. They found his body and everything."
"Maybe not," Callaghan said as he turned in his chair to face Gerson. "You see Gerson, if there's one good thing to come from aging, it's knowledge. About fifteen years ago, I encountered a man who had been presumed dead four years beforehand. He was supposedly burned alive in a house fire. Well when I was investigating the robbery of a jewelry store, I found that the suspect was the dead man. The records had said they had found his body, but there he was when I caught him in a sting. Turns out that the body that was found in his house belonged to a practically unknown plumber, and the man who had supposedly died started the fire that killed him. The thing is Gerson, it's hard to accuse a dead man of anything that happened afterwards. Unless you find them."
Gerson had a look on his face, a look Callaghan knew very well. It was the look of fitting all of the pieces together. "You think this Steven guy faked his own death so he could carry out the Silent Sparrow robbery." It wasn't a question. It was Gerson having an aha moment.
"Exactly," Callaghan said with a smile. "And if I know bank robbers, they're always gonna want more of what they can't get."
Tadashi parked outside of the entrance to the storage unit. He opened a small compartment on the back of his moped and pulled out a bag which contained two BLT's.
If Tadashi was going to hold a man captive in a storage unit, he was going to have to feed him.
Tadashi walked into the building in front of him, and walked the various hallways until he found the storage unit that belonged to Wasabi's dad, and he used the key Wasabi had given him to unlock it.
When the door opened, Tadashi looked to the corner to find Christian sitting in the corner of the storage unit squinting his eyes as the light poured into the large room.
"Hey," Tadashi said like he was walking into a friends house. "So… I figured you might be hungry."
Christian just stared at Tadashi, but then nodded awkwardly.
"Well then I hope you like BLTs." Tadashi waltzed over to where Christian was handcuffed, and squatted down to his level. He pulled a box out of the bag which contained the two BLTs and handed it to Christian, who grabbed the box with his free hand. He opened the box, and without thinking twice, began devouring the first of the two sandwiches.
"You know," Tadashi started, "I really am sorry about this."
Christian stopped eating and looked at Tadashi. He was expecting the man to completely go off on him. He was probably going to swipe at him for even trying to apologise for what he did to him. But instead, Christian simply said, "I know."
This obviously confused Tadashi. "What?"
"I know you're sorry. I know you didn't want to do this, and I know that you were doing what you thought was best for your family. In fact, I almost feel obligated to thank you."
"Excuse me?" Tadashi asked. This man, a man Tadashi had knocked unconscious twice with a pistol, and had locked in a storage unit, was saying he wanted to thank Tadashi.
"Mr.S was gonna have me killed, and now, he thinks I am. I don't ever have to worry about him coming after me."
"But… you're still locked in here."
"Not if I can reason with you."
"Look, i'm sorry, but I can't let you go, or Mr.S will have a bullet in the back of my head the minute he gets arrested. And I need him."
"Do you?"
"If I ever want to make any money."
Christian let out a chuckle. The chuckle soon turned into all out laughter. He was freaking Tadashi out. "You weren't doing this for the reason I thought you were," he managed to say.
"What do you mean?"
"You're in this because you think Mr.S is gonna set you up with some big job- no, wait let me guess, Krei Bank."
Tadashi stood up, and looked down upon Christian. Everything he was saying was unsettling. "What are you talking about? How did you know that?"
Christian's smile faded. "Kid, you're being played. I heard you were some big shot college student, but you were too stupid to realize what was going on."
Tadashi didn't want to listen to him. For all he knew, he was just trying to get Tadashi to let his guard down so he could execute some sort of escape plan. He could've just walked right out the door and forget about all of this. But soo, Tadashi would be grateful that he listened.
"Keep talking," Tadashi said as he crouched back down next to Christian.
"Silent Sparrow was a test kid. It was a test to see how much heat you and your friends could take. Unfortunately for you, you could take a lot of heat."
"Unfortunately?"
"Mr.S has promised you that you'll be hitting Krei Bank and you'd be rolling in it."
"Yeah. He's planning it right now-"
"Wrong. The Silent Sparrow job wasn't just a test, it gave him leverage. He'll keep telling you that you're gonna hit Krei Bank, but in reality, he's gonna use you and your friends as his personal errand boys and girls, robbing this and that, murdering him or her, and if you don't-"
"He's gonna turn us into the police and get away with everything," Tadashi finished as he stood up.
"Mr.S uses people. He already got you to kill Yama unknowingly, and then he told you to kill me. That's why I was going to give him up. He's filth, and doesn't deserve to see the light of day. He has complete control over you. If he doesn't turn you in, he'll do something a bit more… rash."
Tadashi didn't have to ask what he meant by that.
"We can stop him Tadashi," Christian continued. "We can put him away and he won't use or hurt anyone ever again."
Tadashi was silent, even as he began to storm out the door.
"Tadashi wait!" Christian yelled, tugging at his handcuffed wrist to try and move further, but with no success. "Don't do anything stupid!"
Those words echoed through the hallway as Tadashi closed the door to the storage unit and ran outside to his moped.
Before he was outside though, he received a call from Wasabi.
"What?" Tadashi answered angrily.
"Hey," Wasabi replied, "you done feeding that guy yet? I don't like covering for you, and Gogo's kind of breathing down my neck about it-"
"I'm an idiot," Tadashi said as he swung open the exit door of the storage unit building.
"Uh, what?" Wasabi asked confused.
"We've been being played this whole time. Mr.S isn't gonna set us up with anything. He's using us."
"Dude, what are you talking about?"
"He's gonna use us like fucking slaves, and if we don't he's gonna turn us in or worse."
Wasabi was silent on his end, but soon spoke up. "Tadashi what are you gonna do?"
"I think we both know what i'm gonna do."
"Don't do anything stupid."
"I won't." Tadashi found his moped and started it up. "I'm gonna do something sensible." Tadashi hung up the phone and sped off on his moped.
As Tadashi raced through San Fransokyo, the sun was beginning to dip behind the horizon, giving the sky a purple and blue glow.
Tadashi couldn't believe this. But he should have all along. He should have listened to himself. A guy who was willing to help someone rob a bank out of the kindness of their heart was too good to be true. Mr.S was planning on using them for helping him be some top crime lord, and taking out Yama was the first step. It was all making sense now. He needed a group of people willing and able to do his work for him, and he succeeded.
Who was he? How does someone like that exist? Someone whose entire life is comprised of the most heinous crimes that could be committed, couldn't just be real.
But that was just how Tadashi saw it.
Tadashi had grown up seeing the peaceful, innocent side of San Fransokyo. But after being shot at by biker gangs, and blowing up crime lords, Tadashi had finally see that there was more going on in the city than anybody would like to see.
And he didn't like what he saw.
Tadashi was going to find Mr.S. He was going to find him, and he was going to tell him that he was out. And if Mr.S believed in redundancy, Tadashi knew where to find him.
It was dark by the time Tadashi arrived at the port, but the light poles had lit up so that the workers could see. Tadashi didn't care if they saw him though. He was too pissed to care.
He stormed through the port until he reached Mr.S's warehouse, and sure enough, the room in the back was open, and the light was on.
Tadashi wasn't sure how to feel when the first thing he saw when he walked into the room was the barrel of a gun.
"Oh shit!" Tadashi yelled as he flinched upon seeing Mr.S with a gun. Mr.S screamed as well.
"Jesus fucking Christ!" he yelled in response to Tadashi's yelling. "You know there's this new trend going around, it's called knocking. You don't just scream in a guy's face as soon as you walk through a door."
"Why the hell are pointing a gun in here?"
"I… I definitely wasn't pretending I was a spy." Mr.S set the gun down on the table, and Tadashi noticed that it was the same antique gun he had taken from the repository. "What are you doing here?"
Tadashi almost blew up right there. He almost screamed that Mr.S was a manipulative psychopath who deserved to rot in hell for the things he had done. But he kept his cool. He decided it was best not to anger a man when he was half a foot away from a gun.
"I just wanted to know how the Krei Bank planning was going," Tadashi lied. "it feels like it should happen sooner rather than later."
"Like I already said, you'll be the first to know when the planning is all done. It's not the easiest thing in the world trying to figure out how to break into one of the most secure buildings in the city. I'm not a fucking computer."
Fuck this.
"Have you even started planning it yet?" Tadashi asked. "I'm curious to know." Tadashi used the most smartass tone ever.
"What the hell's that supposed to mean? Of course i've started planning."
"You were planning." Tadashi agreed with him on that. "But you weren't planning the Krei Bank robbery. You were planning all the jobs you were gonna have us do."
Mr.S narrowed his eyes and stared at Tadashi. "What are you-"
"Christian told me everything."
The room was dead silent. For a while, the two seemed to be having some sort of secret staring contest.
Tadashi walked right up to Mr.S and let him have it.
"You were gonna turn us into your own personal errand runners," he said quietly as he got right in his face. You tested us to see if we could take all the shit you were going to throw at us. Well i'm done. I'm done with all of this."
Mr.S stood expressionless. "No," he said, "you're not. And do you know why Tadashi? You might not be afraid to be turned into the police, but I can bet all the money under your mattress that you are afraid of something happening to your family."
Tadashi backed up. "You touch my brother or my aunt, and I swear to God i'll-"
"You'll what Tadashi? Obviously you were too much of a coward to kill Christian. What could you possibly do to me?"
Tadashi answered his question by grabbing the gun off of the table, and aiming it right at Mr.S's head.
But he wasn't phased. Infact, he was laughing.
"That's cute. Really it is. You couldn't pull that trigger to save your life."
"I'll do it to save my family," Tadashi said shakily.
"You pull that trigger and harm will still come to them. I know people, people who were told what to do if something like this happened."
"Then i'll kill them too."
The smile on Mr.S's face faded. "Think about this Tadashi. I chose you and your friends to carry out my dirty work. You're right by saying I was setting you up, but think of the outcome. With you and your friends combined intelligence and skill, we could own this city. Everything i've ever worked for is to ensure that i'm top dog in San Fransokyo, and imagine the kind of money you'd make working for a guy like that."
"I don't want your blood money."
"But you still won't shoot me. I know that you won't. You have morals. Think of your brother. What would he say if he found out his older brother, his role model, murdered someone?"
Tadashi remained silent. This man was trying to weasel himself out of death. Why couldn't he just pull the trigger? Maybe it was because Mr.S was right. Tadashi was no murderer. He was an older brother who had someone looking up to him.
"Face it Tadashi, you can't shoot me. And try again, and- well let me just say that it won't be that hard to make doctors think a boy with a heart condition died of natural causes.
Tadashi cocked the gun.
"You may be able to cock it, but you don't have the balls to pull the-"
CRACK!
That night, Tadashi made a choice. Between saving Mr.S or saving himself, he saved his family.
Or he may have set an even worse fate in motion.
(A/N) I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRY! I REALLY wanted to get this chapter done, but I could just never find the time. Unfortuneately, this will be the last chapter for a while, as i'm beginning to write a third story for my "A Darker Path" story arc. If you haven't read "A Darker Path", or "Oblivion", I highly suggest reading them. This isn't anywhere near the end of the story, and Mr.S wasn't even the worst antagonist in there. I honestly didn't like the character of Mr.S that much, but I needed to give Tadashi some sort of gateway into becoming a criminal. That's Daydream Department out of your hair! )
