Shindo dug her spoon into the rice. Yanagi was staring.
“Wow, even your eyelashes are red. Guess you don’t dye your hair. What are you a mix of, anyhow? Bloodwise.”
Her chewing stopped. The look she gave him almost knocked him back.
“Whoa, settle down. Don’t look at me like that. We’re in the same boat. Outsiders. Though in my case, it’s not so obvious.”
Yanagi fixed his precious slicked-back hair. From the pocket of his coat, he pulled out a card and handed it to her. Beneath the grandiose Naiki crest was his full name in splashy characters.
“Eishu Yanagi . . . huh.”
“That’s what I go by, but it isn’t my real name. You curious?”
“Not really.”
“I’ll tell you, though. If you’ll be my girl.”
“Uh, excuse me?” The words jumped out of her. She scowled.
“I’m serious. Be my girl, Yoriko. That way the other guys can never lay a finger on you. Sure, you’re no dazzling beauty, by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s fine. I want a sturdy woman who won’t break if she gets kicked around a little. As long as we’ve got chemistry, I can look past a not-so-pretty face. Besides, taming a maniac like you would boost my standing. You can be ‘my horse, my ass, my ox, my anything.’”
“I’m not a horse.”
“Dumbass. I’m quoting Shakespeare. The Taming of the Shrew. Try reading a book sometime. I may not look it, but I’m pretty well-read.”
“Then why are you stuck in the yakuza?”
“You should know. Nobody cares how much I’ve read, I could never make it into a good school or a good company. Blood doesn’t wash away. A chonko2 like me is shunned no matter what I do. You must know what that’s like. This line of work is different, though. I’ve got status. The work’s stimulating. I’m respected. It’s all I have. The underworld’s the only place the outcasts and the fuckups can survive.”
Shindo looked at Yanagi for what felt like the first time. Black hair, yellow skin, dark brown eyes. What part of him stood out? Other than standing tall enough he had to duck when he stepped through a door, he looked Japanese to her. Like he said, though, not so obvious.
Her gramma had straw-colored hair and steely blue eyes. Two generations later, Shindo was born with reddish hair and light brown eyes. Her father, based on the photographs she’d seen, looked a lot like his own father, Grampa, straight black hair and Eastern facial features, though one look at Shindo and you’d know that she was mixed. She knew next to nothing about her mom. It’s possible that she was from some other country.
“Look, you need a man. Let me be the one. Those big old hips of yours can handle ten of our kids easy. With our gene pool, no one’ll have a clue what mix they are. Together we can fill the playgrounds of Japan. Sounds fun, huh?”
“It sounds like shit. You’re full of it.”
“Horse and horseshit. We’d make quite the pair. But seriously, once Miss Shoko gets married and moves out, you can say goodbye. If you want to make it out of here alive, you’d better stick with me.”
Shindo slurped down the last of her rice and brought her bowl over to the sink, turning her back on Yanagi.
The thought of being stuck here until Shoko left the house was upended by the fact that Shoko, as a married woman, wouldn’t need her anymore.
If she could’ve walked away in one piece, she would have quit and gone back to her old life right away. She was sure of it. But there was something nagging her, lodged deep, like a fishhook in her heart. She was no good at sorting out confusing situations. Whenever somebody was going on and on about how badly a friend or lover had hurt them, she could never feel their pain, much less attempt to probe the depths of her own heart. That sort of thing felt so unnecessary. Which is why she was hard pressed to name the snag in her own heart this very moment.
A white shirt poked his head into the kitchen.
“Yanagi-aniki, Shindo . . . san, uh, the boss would like to see you.”
Shindo hadn’t spoken face to face with Naiki since day one. She looked over at Yanagi.
“Shindo-san, huh? Sounds like you’ve upped your status, too, Yoriko.”
The dread was palpable, like it was climbing up her neck.
NAIKI’S STUDY SMELLED, again, of incense. Today his desk was cluttered with empty bottles of Lipovitan D and cans of coffee.
“Sorry to drag you in here. How’s the job? Things going okay?”
Shindo nodded.
“Sounds like you’re working hard. Shoko seems to have warmed up to you. Well, then . . . I heard about the incident we had last night. How you were compromised. Any injuries?”
“No . . . sir.”
“Okay. That’s good. What can I say, these young guys have a lot of pent-up energy. Goes to show, you’re one hell of a woman. Glamorous.”
Another fresh start, huh, Shindo thought.
Predictable. Her eyes fixed on the weave of the tatami.
“That said, if someone messes with you, and your job is keeping Shoko safe, that means they’ve put my Shoko in a dangerous situation. All the more, since she’s the one who caught them in the act. When I got the news, I was appalled. Allow me to apologize on their behalf. This one’s on me, Yoriko.”
“Uh . . .”
This was unexpected. It was hard to know how to respond.
“You’re an unbetrothed woman yourself. I can’t just have you getting violated and move on like nothing happened. So let’s make sure that everything is clear. Are you willing to keep working here for Shoko, for the Naiki family?”
