"Maureen, we need you--"
"What..." Don grabs her arm, hard, steers her toward the door. "What's going on?"
"Byron's dead."
"What?"
"He's dead. Not pretty. Your brother's seen the body and he's a little hysterical...you've
got to calm him down. Have you seen Mike?"
"No...where's Leo?"
"Think he's still doin' the Time Warp with Renet."
Maureen grins in spite of herself. "Is that what the kids are calling it?"
Don grins back, a little, and Maureen thinks about how strange his face looks, distorted
with pain... "You might just want us to bring Sean out..."
"He was my friend," she says. "I'll see him."
He must have come out to grab his coat, sometimes he'd come out when Don was
outside...God.
After they'd killed him, they'd pinned him to the wall with a katana. And a note.
Where is Oroku Mgume?
"Who's Oroku Mgume?" Sean asked, when he's recovered enough to speak.
"An old student of Leonardo's," his sister says, still staring at the body.
"Where is she?"
"We don't know."
Don, still on autopilot, says, "We're gonna have to call the cops, too..."
Raph answers, "I don't know. Risky..."
Don gestures at the blood on the walls. "We can't give back people's coats like this
without some kind of explanation, Raph..."
"You gotta point there..."
A noise. They brace themselves, Raph putting Sean and Maureen at his back.
A hogtied ninja hits the floor in front of them.
"Shit," Mike says as he emerges from the darkness. "It was Byron..."
The second he's back out, he knows something's wrong. Maureen is over by the food
with a look he's never seen before..."Maureen, what's going on?"
"Byron's dead," she breathes. "Over at the coat check-- Mike's calling the cops...and Don
and Raph are taking care of the guy."
"Don and Raph?"
"Yeah."
"That's not a good idea..."
"I know," she says, "but I sure as hell didn't want to argue with 'em."
Renet appears at his elbow. "Maureen, I'm so sorry. I wish--"
Leo turns to face her, his common sense starting to recover from the shock. "You knew,"
he says, "you knew all along..."
"I can't change anything, I can't tell anyone, don't you understand?"
"How could you?" he asks bitterly. "How could you?"
He turns away from her, walks back to the coat check.
Don takes the sai from Raph's hand. "Take a walk, Raph."
"What?"
"You need to cool down. I can take care of this." Don takes his brother's arm, steers him
away from the ninja.
Maybe he's right. Raph takes a deep breath, starts walking. He can hear the low
murmur of Don's voice as he walks. How the hell can he keep calm like
that?
"What matters to you, huh? What do I take away...what's important to you? Tell
me."
"Honor," the ninja spits.
"More than anything?"
"Yes."
Raph stops walking. He can hear movement...fabric?
"What about this? Is your honor more important than--"
"Yes," the ninja repeats, but there's a nervous note in his voice that wasn't there
before.
And then a howl of pain.
"You're sure about that, now," Don says, almost casually. "You still have one left, so you
might want to think it over..."
"Don," Raph says without turning around, "he's gonna go into shock--"
"He'll be fine." Don's voice is still even, still calm. "He's still got his honor...right?"
"Fuck you," the ninja moans.
"Don." Raph turns around. "Why don't you let me handle this..."
"You know why."
"You're not gonna like yourself very much tomorrow."
"I know," Don says. "I can live with that." He holds the sai up in the moonlight, putting
it in the ninja's field of vision. "Well? Changed your mind?"
"I..." The ninja takes a deep breath. "No. I won't tell you."
"All right," Don says matter-of-factly, and the sai slashes down again. Raph closes his
eyes; this shriek is worse than the one before. When he opens his eyes, Don's beak is
inches from the ninja's face, still holding the sai low... "C'mon," he says, his voice still
low, almost gentle. "Only one thing left to go..."
"Warehouse," the ninja gasps.
"Which one?"
"Used to be Zorn Industries...on the Hudson..."
"Thank you," Don says calmly, and his arm comes up, guts the ninja smoothly, almost
surgical in his calm precision. He stands up, walks very slowly to Raph, hands him the
weapon. Raph puts his arm around his brother's shoulders. He's shaking, Raph realizes.
Pretty bad. "Could you...could you leave me alone for a minute?"
"No."
"Please, Raph..."
"No. C'mon. We're gonna walk, and you're gonna smoke a cigarette, and I am
not leaving you."
"I think I need to throw up..."
"You can do that too. Just not alone."
"What," Don says weakly, "yer gonna throw up too?"
"Maureen?"
She looks up at Sean. "What?"
"Why didn't he want to call the cops?"
Maureen's face goes a little whiter. "Sean...there are a lot of things about them..."
"What? Are they in organized crime or something? What the hell did you get yourself
into, Maureen? Are you even safe?"
"Sean. Calm down."
"I'm not gonna calm down until you tell me what's going on."
Renet's sitting a little way from the bar, staring out at the dance floor, nursing a drink
of some sort. He finds a chair and pulls it up beside her. "So...what else do you
know?"
Her eyes never leave the dancers. "What do you mean?"
"I mean...do you see it all? What...how..."
"It's like a tapestry," she says. "Thousands and thousands of threads, criss-crossing,
braiding together, beginning, ending...and if I come close, if I get near someone, then I
can see more detail..."
"How much more?"
"Too much, sometimes," she says sadly. She knows it's years away, a decade, maybe
two, but she can see it as clearly as tomorrow, Leo kneeling down at his brother's side,
sobbing...she shuts her eyes to try to drive it from her mind.
He touches her hand. "I'm sorry, Renet. I didn't mean to get so angry..."
"It's hard," she says. "People don't understand. They can't understand..."
"C'mon," he says. "You wanna take me back to the desert?"
She smiles at him, the darkness on her face clearing a little. "I got a better idea," she says
mischeviously, and Leo feels that strange sensation again...
Don turns the lights on, takes his bandana off, drapes it on the back of the chair. He
goes into the bedroom, makes the bed, straightens out the living room and the bathroom.
The tatami mat's in the bedroom closet, behind the portraits Byron was going to give
everyone for Christmas...harder than he thought it was going to be. It's all so hard...
On the way out of the bedroom he notices the Vitashell container on the floor. He tosses
it into the kitchen trash.
"Don?" April's voice. He opens the door to her concerned face. "Why don't you come
down and stay with us tonight? The girls would love to have..."
"I'm fine."
"Don, I--"
He puts his hand on April's arm. "I know you're worried," Don says. "I'll be fine."
You don't look fine, April thinks. You look like hell.
"No, Mike. He's bad. He's really bad...and I don't know what the hell we can do..."
Mike picks Angela's plastic Joan of Arc sword off the floor. "He wouldn't come over
here, either."
"I'm pretty sure April tried to get him over there, too, at least let someone stay with
him..."
"How bad is really bad?"
"I've never seen him like this...Mike, I've done some fucked-up things in my life, but the
guys I fought all died with their balls attached."
Mike sits down on the couch, gestures at Maureen. "You sure?"
"Yeah...pretty sure...I don't know. He was just so calm, the whole time, hardly blinked...
it was freaky...Lupe, what're you doin' up?"
"I better let you go," Mike says, slipping an arm around his wife.
"Alright. I'll talk to ya in the morning, okay?"
"Deal." He passes the phone to her, and she hangs it up. "I...aw, man, I can't even think
about it. If something happened to you..."
She moves into his arms, kisses him softly. "How's Don?"
"Bad."
"Should you go over?"
He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't think I'd make much difference. And...I can't leave you.
Not tonight..."
She shifts in his arms, puts her arms around his neck.
"You're so precious to me," he whispers, stroking her hair, and they both close their
eyes.
"I'm gonna miss him," Maureen says sadly. "They were really good together...I wish-- I
wish there was something we could do, anything..."
"I don't know. I just don't know."
She kisses him again, and he smiles a little.
"Awww man," he says after a while, "I forgot to say anything about Sean..."
Raph thinks about going over, just shoving his way in and refusing to leave. Makes
sense. Might work. Probably make Don even worse in the long run...
He starts the kitchen faucet and sloshes some cold water into the teapot, puts it on the
stove, realizes what he's doing and laughs at himself. "Ya got me trained, Leo, don't just
stick the cup in the microwave..."
Ookami appears to have finally gone to sleep, and everything he's been trying to hide
from the kids is starting to come out. He can feel the blackness settling around him, and
he doesn't even bother trying to fight it. If Leo ever comes back, maybe he can take a
walk... ah, what the hell. Least somebody's gettin' some.
A knock at the door, and a voice. "Raph? You awake?"
"Sean?" Oh, shit, just what he needs...
"Raph, I talked to Maureen..."
"Sean, I am in one hell of a mood tonight, and you--"
"She told me."
"She what?"
"She told me...about you. And your brothers."
Raph takes a deep breath. "She did, huh?"
"Yeah."
My fucking life, Raph thinks to himself, and shoves the deadbolt back, opens the
door. "Okay, the freak show's open. Come on in." He turns away from Sean and walks
into the kitchen. "You want some tea?"
"Sure...you always this nice to guests?"
"Yeah." He sits down. "You can sit, if ya wanna. I don't know if Leo's coming in or not
tonight..."
"You want me to come back?"
"When?"
"I don't know. Whenever. When you know you'll be alone. When you're in a better
mood."
"I'm never alone," Raph says, "and I'm never in a better mood."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Why are you here? I mean, you wanna tell your friends about it? Maureen tell ya we're
hung? What?"
Sean looks hurt. He gets up. "I'm sorry, Raph. I just figured...we're both alone tonight,
and maybe...maybe we wouldn't have to be. Forget about it."
Raph says nothing. Sean turns around. He gets his hand on the doorknob before Raph
says, "Wait."
Sean doesn't move. "What?"
"Don't...don't go, okay?"
Sean takes his hand off the knob and turns around.
"Angela, what're ya doin' here?"
"I was worried."
"Angela--"
"I brought my sleeping bag." She lifts up the bag for him to see.
"Angela, honey..." I know your parents mean well, but...
"It's okay," she says. "I left a note."
"You what?"
"It's all right. They'll know where I am." She calmly begins taking her coat off,
revealing a pair of pajama bottoms and her Joan of Arc armor.
"Angela. They'll be worried sick--" The phone rings, and Don grabs it faster than he
thought he could move. "Mike?"
Angela looks up at him, that girl is too damn smart for her age..."Yeah, she's here. She's
fine, by the looks...you got your jammie top on under that thing?"
She nods.
"Yeah. She brought her sleeping bag, too...I can bring her right over, or she can stay
here...yeah. No, it's okay. Yeah. Take care, guys...love you too, Mike. Give my love to
Maureen." He puts the phone down.
"I can stay?" she asks, hopefully.
"Yeah," he says, scooping her up and holding her at eye level. "But you are in
serious trouble, and you'll be in even worse trouble if you try coming on your own
again. Especially this time of night. All right?"
"Okay," she says, putting her arms around his neck.
He squeezes her. "You can stay in the bed if you wanna--"
"No." She remembers the last time she was in there; she'd had a nightmare, and Byron
had told her jokes until she felt better...
"All right," he says softly. "We'll do it like the old days?"
She nods, and he puts her down, unrolls the sleeping bag next to the mat.
Tomorrow, he thinks, we'll start looking for the Zorn Industries warehouse,
figuring out who they are, where they are, how long it'll take to take them down...why do
we have to do this? Why can't it just end?
He walks to the bedroom to turn out the light and takes one last look at the bed and it's
finally too much for him. He starts crying, the tears just rolling down his face at first, but
then he's sobbing and Angela's at his side, holding onto his leg...he lifts her up to him,
draws her head onto his shoulder.
They spend a long time like that, crying in each other's arms.
