I've had a hole in my heart for so long
I've learned to fake it and just smile along
Down on the street--
Those men are all the same
I need a love
Not games...
--Iggy Pop, Candy
Karai walks to the window, puts a hand up to her forehead. She can hear the door
opening behind her. "Satoru?"
"Yes, Mother...they are taken care of?"
"They are leaving."
"You should have killed him," he says harshly. "Both of them, after hiding this--"
"I gave him forty-eight hours."
"What? He doesn't deserve--"
Karai feels very old and very tired. "Satoru, there are things--"
"What, some freak gaijin without--"
"You don't understand."
"What could possibly--"
"Satoru. Stop asking me--"
"Why would you give him amnesty like that? Forty-eight hours?"
"He is your brother's father," she snaps.
He turns to her, and she can see the shock on his face. It was a gamble, she knew--
She doesn't see the anger until it's too late and she's reeling from the pain.
"You whore," he whispers coldly, the words hurting her more than his blow.
"You insulted my father's memory by taking that for a lover... but to bear his
child..."
"Satoru," she moans, her hand at her aching jaw. Not broken...but the pain...
"Because you are my mother, I will give you an hour to get yourself and that-- that--
creature's spawn out of here," he growls. "If I see you again-- if I find you-- I will
kill you both."
"Your own brother--"
"Anything fathered by that beast is no brother of mine."
"I finally found you, little brother," Satoru hisses. "Are you ready to die?"
Isamu wakes with a start, realizes it was only a nightmare, turns the light on and sits
up.
He can hear his mother in her bedroom. He has gotten used to the sound of her despair;
the quiet, almost gentle sobbing that he's lived with for all these years. The first time he
heard his mother crying, it was devastating, like watching the world fall apart; now it just
saddens him.
He sits up, looks out his window. He can see just a glimpse of the city between the
buildings across the alley, and he focuses on that sliver of light and brightness. My
father used to live here, he thinks to himself.
"It's a big city."
"Like Kyoto?"
"Big like Kyoto is... bigger, even... but different. Very different... I don't know. It's dirty
and it can be mean, and the people aren't polite at all... but it's so alive, it's got a pulse... I
think you'd like it. I hope you'd like it. Maybe someday we can go there, huh? I could
take ya to Times Square... they got all kinds of stuff happening there, not the kinda stuff
that happened when I was a kid, it used to be a pretty bad place..." he smiled as he said it,
pulled Isamu a little closer.
Isamu remembers how big those green fingers seemed, how much he loved holding onto
them...
Where are you, Leonardo? Are you even still alive?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"You think she'll like it?"
"Yeah, I think she'll like it."
"'Cause I wanna get something she'll like..."
Angela rolls her eyes. "Carlos, she'll like it, okay?"
"I gotta necklace," Ookami says.
"It's real pretty," Angela assures her.
"I mean, it's not like I get her something every day..."
"Carlos, will you shut up?"
"I just want her to like it."
"Something gave that away, cuz."
Carlos looks nervously at the box.
"Hey," Ookami says. "There's Silva."
"No way," Angela says.
"Yeah. Right over there..."
"Don't point," her cousin says anxiously, "he might see us..."
"I don't know why you like that asshole," Carlos says.
"He's not an asshole," Angela snaps, "and I don't like him."
"Uh-huh."
"Carlos--"
"Hey." He grabs Angela's arm.
"What?"
"That kid in the green sweater...I know him." So much like the boy in the picture...It's
him. It's gotta be him...
"So?"
"It's Isamu--"
"Isamu?"
"Leo's son--"
"How--"
"It's him, Angela, I know it--"
"All right, all right, so what're we gonna do about it?"
"'Kami," Carlos says, takes their packages, dumps them in her arms. "Go to Sullivan's,
okay? And hang on to our stuff? We'll be right back--"
"No fair," she starts to whine, but they're already gone.
Ookami growls and heads for Sullivan's.
They make their way up to him slowly, and Angela watches Carlos' face. The hint of
doubt she had seen in his face at first dissolves as they get closer.
He's buying something from a street vendor-- sausage, by the looks.
"He's brave, anyway," Angela mutters under her breath.
"Isamu," Carlos blurts out, and the kid freezes.
Carlos calls out his name again, and their eyes meet.
The kid drops the sausage and starts running.
They don't even have to ask each other. They take off after him.
They chase him for three blocks before they manage to herd him into an
alleyway.
"Isamu," Carlos yells, and the kid jerks his head back, almost slams into a dumpster. By
the time he's recovered they're on him, Angela holding the collapsible bo she slid together
while they were running, Carlos fishing his tonfa from under his jacket.
"You want money?" The kid tosses his wallet at them.
"We just want to talk to you," Angela says.
He pauses for a moment, then lashes out with a kick.
Angela ducks the blow, damn he's fast, maybe Carlos is right...
"Who are you?"
"My name's Angela," she says, "and your family-- your mother--"
"We know your father," Carlos interrupts. "Leonardo. We know where he is."
"How--" His eyes are darting furiously, looking for an escape.
"We're your--" Angela stops as Isamu's nervous frown relaxes into a smile.
"Right here," he calls out, and the yakuza are on them.
Angela feels the side of her cheek grind into the pavement, the barrel of the gun
pressing into her neck.
Whether they were gallant or just stupid, Angela couldn't tell, but she knew Carlos had
taken the brunt of the attack. Maybe it was just that she'd figured out that they were
outnumbered and close to outclassed and so she hadn't fought as hard...Carlos had taken a
couple of them down, and she could see that at least one wasn't going to get back up-- or
was that the one she had fought? Had she...
She thought it would feel different, killing someone. This doesn't feel like much of
anything.
Just...hollowness, almost.
It was easy...
"Carlos?" she whispers.
"Yeah?"
"If he is our cousin?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm gonna kick his butt for puttin' us through all this--"
"Come on, little girl," a voice hisses in Japanese, "we're going for a ride..."
Isamu walks down the hallway, trying to sort out his thoughts. They know my
name. They know my father's name. How many people...how...dammit.
He opens the door. His mother's going through their things. "I don't know," she says.
"There's this--" she hands him a card.
Emergency numbers, Isamu reads. Michaelangelo Hamato, father.
"The author," she says, almost to herself. "Never made the connection before..."
"You think--"
She nods. "Makes sense that they would choose that name..."
"Why?"
"He was their sensei's sensei. Hamoto Yoshi."
"What about the boy? What did you do with that stuff?"
She points at the second pile. Isamu grabs the wallet, opens it up.
A debit card; Isamu slides it into the scanner. "Over three hundred dollars there."
Karai raises her eyebrows.
Isamu goes back to the wallet, pulls out another square of plastic. "Platinum card..."
"A thirteen-year-old?"
"...issued to...Raphael Hamato."
"Either you've done your homework," Isamu says, trying to sound tougher than he
really is, "or you really do know me. Which is it?"
"We're your cousins," Carlos says, "Isamu, please--"
"I don't have any cousins," he says, but his eyes are unsure.
"On your father's side." Angela's eyes meet his for a second. "Why's your mother yakuza
now?"
"How..."
"We told you," she says.
He moves closer to her, the three of them inches apart now. "Prove it."
"Your back," Carlos says. "It's a shell."
"Anybody could have told you that--"
"Then why do you look so scared?"
"Carlos," Angela says, "c'mon, take it easy..."
"We're your family," Carlos says. "You don't have to be afraid of us."
Isamu laughs and turns away from them.
Carlos leans forward in his bonds. "Come on, Isamu, you can trust us."
"Quit pushin' him," Angela hisses.
Isamu steps up to Carlos and puts his face inches from his, tilts his head toward Angela.
"She wanted to know why my mother's yakuza, right?"
Carlos nods.
Isamu takes a step back. He slams his fist into Carlos' stomach; Carlos gasps with the
pain. "My mother is yakuza because my brother is trying to kill us. And has been since I
was six. Spare me the crap about family, all right?"
"I live with my uncle," Carlos says. "Your father. You know, he still misses you. I think
he even misses your whore of a mother--"
Isamu hits him in the face this time. "You dare speak that way about my mother--
"
"Spare me the crap about family, Isamu," Carlos says coldly.
Isamu stares at him for a second before he leaves.
"You and your big mouth," Angela says.
"He'll be back," Carlos bluffs. "You'll see."
Angela just stares at the door.
Karai walks into her son's room, goes to the bookshelf. A Brief History of
Time, Wuthering Heights, Dune...ah. Leftovers,
Michaelangelo Hamato. The Yearning. The Outpost. I should have
known...he had me buy the first one, told me Isamu would like it someday...stupid. Like
so many of the things I've done... She pulls a book off the shelf and looks at the
cover. A lone warrior poses on the cover, holding a bright golden sword.
So your name was Michaelangelo... he always called you Mike. Leonardo,
Michaelangelo, Raphael... and Don. She racks her brain for Renaissance artists.
Botticelli, Titian...Don, what kind of Don...
He never talked about them. He had failed them by leaving, and she knew it weighed on
him, but he wouldn't talk to her about it...
"That's a good one," Isamu says, and she looks down at the book in her hand. The
Yearning.
"What was his brother Don's name? Did he tell you?"
"Donatello."
Raphael, Michaelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo. The last time she had seen them
together was when Isamu was conceived... they said they knew where he was.
She opens the book, starts reading the jacket copy. He had never stopped loving her.
Despite the decades of pain that had passed between them, despite the anguish of her
betrayal--
She closes the book with an audible snap.
"The boy called you... something nasty," Isamu says sullenly.
She raises her eyebrows. "Raphael's son, all right," she notes wryly. "Wonder if he's got
any more little brats?"
Carlos turns, spits a nasty mixture of blood and spit out of his mouth.
"Dammit," he says after a while.
"You all right?"
"Yeah. Hurts, but not that bad."
"You said he'd be back."
He turns to her, and a grin spreads over his bloody face. "Didn't say when."
"Hey, Mike?"
"Yeah?"
"Heard from Angela?"
"I was just about to call you--"
"They shoulda been back by now."
"Yeah, but your kid probably had to sweat over his birthday present--"
Raph leans against the window, grinning. "I know...he's got it bad."
Mike laughs. "I keep tellin' ya, they're gonna end up married one of these days."
"No chance," Raph says. "They'd kill each other after the first five minutes..."
"So we'll give 'em another-- what? Hour? Half an hour?"
"Give 'em an hour...it's still pretty early."
"All right...and call me if you hear anything."
"You know I will-- oh, and if they go there first?"
"Yeah?"
"Get my damn sai away from Lupe?"
"She snitched 'em on you again?"
"I hid 'em on top of the refrigerator...I'm gonna have to hide 'em over at Don's or
something."
"Good luck," Mike says. "Doubt even that'll work...she's too damn much like you."
Raph groans into the receiver.
"Somewhere out there," his brother says, "you know Splinter is laughing his ass
off."
"Don't remind me."
Carlos' mouth has started bleeding again.
"You shouldn't have said that about his mother," Angela says firmly.
"Mmm."
"Can you talk?"
"Eh."
"What?"
"Eh...yeh..."
"Yes?"
"Eh!"
"Right."
"Throo oo."
Angela smiles to herself.
We'll hold onto them until morning, his mother had said. By then, if
they're lying, they should be willing to tell us the truth...and if they're not lying, we'll
know.
But I won't get any sleep before then, Isamu thinks to himself. He turns his light
on, puts-- his uncle's-- books away, turns back the covers on the bed.
He pulls his sweater over his head, hangs it up, takes the rest of his clothes off and throws
them in the hamper. He looks at himself in the mirror for a second.
We'll start initiating you soon, huh, kid? You'll look good in those tattoos...
"I don't want to be yakuza," he says to his reflection. "But how do I get out?"
The mirror doesn't answer. He turns away from it, turns on his bedside lamp and shuts
the overhead light off.
He's reaching for his book when he feels the blade pressing softly into his throat.
A little girl's voice growls, "Time to let my brother go."
Mike picks the phone up on the first ring. "Hello?"
"You haven't--"
"No," Mike tells his brother.
Raph gets up, starts walking around the room again. "I can't sit here waitin' any longer--
Leo said he'd wait here in case they came back, and Don said he'll go out..."
"You think I should--"
"I don't know, Mike. I don't know...I mean, if it's safe to leave Maureen there alone, sure,
but--"
"Yeah. Maureen called the hospitals, too, the cops, all over the place... the girl at
Sullivan's said they were there around three, and Ookami stopped by later and left some
stuff there. She said it looked like she was in a hurry..."
"Just her?"
"Just her, she asked to make sure. The girl said she figured the others were just waiting
for her..."
"Shit."
"Yeah." Mike closes his eyes and tries not to imagine the worst.
"You better stay there."
Karai told the others-- in Japanese, guess she didn't think they'd know it-- that they
would figure out what to do with them in the morning. Angela wonders how many hours
that is away.
"Carlos?"
"Mm."
"Got any idea what time it is?"
"Nn. M hunry."
"Me too...guess we should be grateful they fed us at all..."
"Cweepth."
"Yeah. Guess we shoulda known that after she tried to get Leo killed...think they've got a
lot of guards on us?"
Carlos shrugs his shoulders.
"Worth a try, I guess." She closes her eyes, bracing herself for the pain, ready to pop her
wrist out--
Someone approaching; she squints at the darkness. "Isamu?"
"Shh." He's wearing a bulky cloak, carrying some kind of bag... he reaches up, punches a
few numbers into a keypad, and Angela's wrists are free. He kneels down and begins
freeing her ankles. She turns and frowns at Carlos, who shrugs his shoulders again.
"There," Isamu whispers, and turns to Carlos' wrists. "Get your stuff out of the bag. I'm
getting you out of here."
"Twy?"
"What did he say?"
"He asked why." Angela tries to catch Isamu's eyes under the hood.
"Let's just say someone persuaded me to see your side of the story." He puts his hand up
to the hood and lets the cloak back for half a second, just enough so they can see the figure clinging to his neck. "Did I mention I'd met your
charming sister?"
"Wat de hekru--?"
"Getting you out of here," Ookami hisses. "Shut up. They'll hear us."
"She's right," Angela says, pushing Carlos' things into his hands. "C'mon."
Wanna see the 'next generation'? GreenWillow's interpretation is here:
|
