In the night club Bolivar Japan Yohji wasn't the sophisticate, the playboy, the joker. Here he was the drunk who cried in his rye about his lost love. It was a mask truer to life than the others.
The club's kitsch had been fun when he and Asuka had been alive. They'd been going to make something real of the playful themes. Now it was merely tired and sad, as if the club itself had learned it was only replaying a joke that had been on itself the first time. The waiters were harder and tireder, the drinkers were weaker and warmer. But Thursdays had been staff night out for Murase and Kudoh.
Unusually, the staff acknowledged him that particular Thursday. The bartender served him his regular and said, "There's been a woman asking for you, the last two nights." In the old days the staff had enjoyed using archaic slang, and terrible American accents, to help the 1930s atmosphere. Nowadays, he spoke with the same slang and lilting Tokyo accent as on the streets outside. "She might be in later."
Yohji took his drink and gave an even heavier tip than usual. There were so many women that it hardly seemed worth wondering. He only knew she'd mean trouble. "Might as well get it over with," he said resignedly. "Leave any name or message?"
"Nah. She came in pretty late though. She might still show."
Yohji felt an impulse to sit somewhere different from usual, to keep the cubicle he and Asuka had used from being violated. Damn it, though, he would not be driven away! He'd promised only one woman in his life more than one night, and he wouldn't let himself be put in the wrong. He sat defiantly exactly where he always sat and scowled at his drink. There should have been jazz, but the club was broadcasting the latest pop song. It gave Yohji the feeling he'd wandered into the disused corner of a supermarket.
He kept an eye out for the woman. She was probably harmless, but he hadn't lasted this long by taking chances. (Unlike Ken, who had.) Manx would get such a laugh if the elite killer, Balinese, was taken out by some disgruntled civilian. Most of the woman nearby were kids or dogs, but one of them did look his type. She looked like Asuka.
She came nearer. Very, very like Asuka.
She sat down in Asuka's spot, in Asuka's casual, almost mannish way, and looked back with Asuka's eyes.
For a moment Yohji clutched at the thought she was a ghost. A ghost would have made sense. More, anyway, than a woman shot dead a year ago and also walking around warm and breathing and solid. Yohji didn't think she was just a fantasy. He'd had those, in plenty.
He reached out one hand. His Asuka. Solid.
And looking at him with the same impatient little frown. "Yohji, I need help. I need you sober to help."
"I'm not drunk," he protested reflexively. As he had a dozen times when she was – when they were together. Meekly, "I'll get some coffee from the bartender." He was rather slow in getting up, and he didn't think his knees were wobbly from alcohol. "Don't go away, will you?"
"No." She made a shooing motion. Her arm had needle tracks, but Asuka had never wanted drugs. And there were bruises...Misreading the cause of his nausea, "Hurry up and get that coffee."
"Promise. Promise you'll be here when I get back."
Even after she promised, he kept glancing back to make sure she was there. Maybe it was time travel? In a high tech haunting, Asuka had been allowed to go forward to do something about the people who'd killed her, but the inertia of time would whip her away before she could do anything effective.
He grabbed the coffee. Well, it was black and acrid, he wasn't waiting for the lab report.
He sat down and scalded his throat before he said anything more. That was real. No one can quite dream overbrewed, overhot coffee. "How?" But that tailed off. He didn't know what had happened, to know how. "They said you were dead."
She shrugged. "I wasn't taking notes at the time. I might have flatlined at the hospital - "
"What hospital?" Magic Bus? Good God, had Kritiker knowingly put him through this?
"Any hospital. I don't remember anything between me trying to do a line run around some thugs' bullets and waking up with some Klingon Grand Inquisitor trying to persuade me – oh, by the way, I think I might be wanted for murder."
Yes, that was his Asuka all right. "The doctor?"
Regretfully, "He wasn't there when I made a break for it. I swatted his head bitch a good one, though."
"You were in a madhouse?"
"Not a legit one. But those guys had resources. I'd bet on them being connected. Well, Riot was connected, wasn't it?"
"So what did they want you for?"
"Besides the obvious? The creep," she looked away from Yohji and her confident voice faltered, "was trying to persuade me I was some German woman. And loved him."
"Do you know his name?"
"They only called him by his first name."
"They?"
"His harem of bitches. Well, I don't know about the little one, she called him 'Daddy'. I think she was retarded. He called them by the sort of names you'd use for bitches anyway. Attack Dobermans. 'Schoen'. 'Hel'. And they called him Masafumi darling." To get some taste out of her mouth she grabbed the nearer of his drinks and swigged it. It turned out to be his rye whiskey. She had a short coughing fit.
Handing her the coffee, "You got any luggage to pick up before you come home with me?"
"None worth the risk. Every time I go back to that hotel I think they'll be waiting for me."
As they stood he managed to start his brain again, at least in third gear. "I don't think I can take you back to where I live at the moment. It's all guys and too crowded at the moment." Especially with weapons and war maps.
Asuka had always been able to detect his bullshit. "Yohji, I'm not going to be mad if you've found someone else."
"I haven't!" He looked round. They were nearly at the door of a nightclub he could now admit was sleazy and unpopular. There were few staff and fewer customers, and none of them near. "Asuka, love, I'm afraid I've got mixed up in some business that isn't exactly legit."
"A straight arrow like you?"
"I was pretty desperate when you were shot." He had no intention of telling her anything but the exact and full truth, but this wasn't the place to do it. It would take some believing. It took him some effort to believe it at times. "But the guys I work with won't be pleased to see you. Nor my employers." The later Manx heard about this the better, as far as he was concerned.
"What is your business?"
"Well, I work in a flower shop." He opened the door for her. A pity he hadn't brought the Seven, but he'd expected to get blind drunk.
"What can be crooked about that? A smokers' section in your greenhouse?"
"Er, not exactly. " Not that Manx wouldn't go along with it, anything to cut costs. And it would get them contacts with the drug world.
Ken would go postal.
He grinned. When she smiled back he was distracted just long enough for a couple of thugs to get closer than they should have.
One reached out to grasp his right arm. Yohji used his longer arm length to reach around and behind the other's. He grasped the back of his opponent's neck and squeezed. Yohji was strong enough to pull a heavier man up from the floor with his wire. The man's neck snapped in an instant.
The second man was trying to hold Asuka's arm. Asuka knew a lot about unarmed combat and the man went flying into Yohji, who brought his knee up. The dead man was still dropping when his free arm threw away the curled second. He looked alertly around for any others but they weren't there. Yohji felt slightly let down at such short odds. "You okay, Asuka?"
"'Course. You've got better at that sort of thing."
"Yes, well..." This nightclub might not be the most respectable, but they'd probably ask questions if they saw what was happening. Yohji slipped his arm around Asuka's shoulders. He'd been so wanting to do that. This time it was to hurry her along into the shadows. She stumbled. The shadows were strange to her. "You're coming along with me to the Koneko."
"It's safer, but I'm not sure they were after me."
It would be the first time a boyfriend had ever gone that far. He looked at her hurts again. "If they're not casual thugs it would be one hell of a coincidence. You're coming anyway." No one would send two men unarmed after Balinese.
"To the kitten?" She was small, but she'd never had much trouble keeping up with his long legs.
"That's the shop I work in."
She stopped dead. "Yohji, if you work for yakuza that's the last place I need to be."
Despite the bright street lights attack wasn't impossible. Most places in Tokyo a few killers could hit a man and be away before police arrived, as Yohji well knew. The subway was worse. "We're not yakuza." He looked around and chose the most average looking car he could find. He walked up to it and casually and quietly broke the lock. He looked round the inside. This was not the sort of car to be bugged or booby trapped, but he checked anyway.
She slid into the car after him. "So, if you're not yakuza, what are you?"
Making sure the car windows were closed. "Ever heard of an organisation called Kritiker?"
"No."
"Well, they - we - are on the side of the good guys, but use pretty dirty ways to show it."
Watching him sort through his picklocks her eyes widened. "Yohji, was this your car?"
"No."
"And used to be, you refused even to use a slug on the coke machines."
"I still do. Paying coke machines won't get me killed."
He ditched the car a couple of streets from the Koneko. He tried to keep an eye out for danger during their walk, but was distracted by Asuka. She was furious at him for getting mixed up in such a business and had no hesitation in letting him know it.
Ken had his own nights out. It was Kudoh luck this wasn't one, and he was sitting with Omi brooding over something on Omi's laptop. They showed no surprise to see Yohji enter with a pretty brunette. They were when he led her toward them rather than his bedroom.
"Omi Tsukiyono, Ken Hidaka, may I present Asuka Murase." He tried to sum up most of his life. "Asuka used to be my partner. She's still my partner."
Ken was distracted by having to mop health drink off his lap. "Good night, Murase-san," said Omi politely. "Or should it be morning, by now? I hope you're not too disappointed to find your partner working in a quiet little flower shop."
Asuka drew up a chair and sat facing Omi. Yohji had told her he was the brains, Ken the brawn and he himself the good looks. Asuka was a smart girl. She'd have no doubt about the first part. He'd also told Kritiker didn't like employing people they didn't own. "Tsukiyono-san, I've murdered someone. Yohji says you can help me. If not, Kritiker can."
Omi stared at her, then at Yohji, who spread his hands with a 'what-will-you?' expression. Any pretense at contrition was spoiled by the grin which kept breaking through. "Sorry, Omittchi, we're a set."
Omi asked carefully, "Murase-san, are you asking us for help to escape?"
"No, Tsukiyono-san. I'm asking for employment."
Ken entered the conversation. Cooler than Yohji would have expected, there was still a hard set in his jaw. "Okay, Omi's been saying we could use a fourth. You've killed someone. But can you kill people routinely, Asuka Murase?" He stood at Omi's right shoulder. His bright hazel eyes concealed nothing, and they missed nothing.
"Three nights ago I deliberately swung a metal rod at a woman's head intending to kill her. I was trying to save myself, but I would have done it to save another person. Yohji's told me what you guys are doing, and I can do it."
Omi bowed his head. "People don't do this if they have a choice. You do realise, Murase-san, you will be giving up that power to choose?"
"I choose to be with Yohji, even if it means I can no longer choose."
Omi looked at Ken.
Ken swung at her.
It was a swing that possibly might have hit a rheumatic grandfather if he'd been pasted down first. Asuka returned with equal restraint. They warmed up quickly.
Asuka was exceptionally good at unarmed combat for a civilian. She made Ken work in the last three minutes. When he knocked her on her backside, on her face, and into the sofa.
Finally Ken stepped back and nodded. "Okay. You've got the basics. You'll have to work on your speed, though."
Omi said, "We'll keep you out of the field until Ken passes you. You realise," he looked at them both, "Kritiker's going to check your background very thoroughly. Yohji's bare word won't be enough for them."
"Is it enough for you?" asked Asuka.
Omi looked at Yohji and nodded. "Yes." Well, almost, thought Yohji. He knew Omi would invent a cover story, for the fan girls, which would leave room for Asuka's sudden and permanent disappearance.
To Asuka, Bombay went on, "You're giving a lot of weight away, and you'll meet some good bare hand fighters. I suggest you also try to learn my crossbow. I'm using the handbow now, it's quicker to draw, but the crossbow is better for someone with less upper arm strength." He offered his hand.
Isao Kawaji finally left his dirty, dead end work. He endured the socialising with his boring, Philistine work mates until he barely had time to make it to the interview with the music publisher.
His car had been stolen. With all the tapes in it.
Even if the police recovered the car, he might never get that vital interview again. Not for months of waiting, of work he despised, of work mates he despised.
Okay, that was it. He could have offered a unique and important contribution to the music industry, but they'd have to do without him. He was going back to the family business in Okinawa.