Putting extra emphasis on the word physique, Naiki dragged his salivary eyes up and down her body.
“Matter of fact, we’ve been looking for a woman just like you, one that’s strong and loves to fight. I haven’t heard what sort of scuffle you got into. But how’s about we make a fresh start. What do you say, country girl? Take the job?”
Shindo stared back at Naiki. When it comes to staring, people are like animals. The first to look away is the loser.
“I don’t need another job.”
This made Naiki roar with laughter.
“Be careful, thunder thighs, or you’ll get a piece of cold steel up that stinky twat.”
Naiki had a big grin on his face. Yanagi, off to the side, shot him a glare.
“Let’s have the two of you meet. Come on out, Shoko.”
The fusuma door behind the men slid open.
There was a woman sitting there, beyond the threshold.
She looked almost like a mannequin, but then the woman, Shoko, stood up without a word, as if all of this was normal, and stepped into the room. She was real.
She looked young enough she could have easily been taken for a girl. Dressed in a plain white long-sleeved blouse and a lengthy dark blue skirt. Homely nude stockings shielded the eyes from what little might have been seen of her skinny ankles. Her long black hair was plaited in a single braid down her back. Her figure was slight; her skin was so pale it shone blue. She had thin lips and the black marbly eyes of a baby deer. Like a poster portrait of a beauty from another era, fifty or a hundred years ago. She was a classic beauty, somehow young and old-fashioned at once.
Without so much as a glance in Shindo’s direction, this young lady, Shoko, walked over to Naiki and sat in seiza on the floor. All the more doll-like beside the hulking boss.
“Meet Shoko, my one and only daughter. This spring, she’s taking classes up at Shirahama Women’s Junior College in Suginami. Only the best for my little girl. Her classmates are the daughters of the most elite families around. These days, though, you can never be too careful. Shoko needs someone to drive her there and pick her up. A bodyguard. That’s where you come in. If I had my way, I’d watch over her myself, day and night, but believe me, I’ve already got my hands full.”
Naiki petted her shoulder. A doting signal that made Shoko look less like his daughter than a house dog. Shoko didn’t open her mouth or register a reaction, just stared down at her hands, which were resting in her lap. Her fingernails were cleanly shaped. Pink seashells tumbled smooth by the waves.
Shoko looked awfully out of place in this den of yakuza. Like a crane perched in a landfill. A troubling heat, or violent desire, wafted off of Naiki and Yanagi and the white shirts. Shindo, too. To put it nicely, their bodies emanated life. Raw and vital. From the young lady, however, there was not a whiff of animal vitality to be detected.
Shindo cast glances at the white shirts posted up around the room. She had felt them tensing up the instant Shoko came in through the door. She was so beautiful she didn’t seem like she was real. None of the men would look at her. Bullets of sweat dripped off the temples of the youngest of the white shirts, whose gaze fixed on an empty space in the exact opposite direction of his boss’s daughter.
“Who says I’m qualified to be a bodyguard?” asked Shindo.
“Shit, it’s simple,” Naiki said. “Any shady character comes near her, break his neck.”
“That’s a hard sell.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it makes no sense. Why would a yakuza boss trust his daughter with a total stranger? There’s no shortage of bodyguards around here.”
Naiki sneered.
“Go grab Exhibit A.”
A white shirt slid open the sliding door and came back carrying a lacquer box, square and black, the size of a large bento. As he placed it on the low desk, a nauseating odor wriggled through the incense smoke.
“To your point, we tried having one of the guys here do the job. Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep his grubby hands off Shoko. As a woman yourself, I’m sure you find that unacceptable. Some piece of shit defiling her pure body before marriage? No thanks. My baby girl is all grown up. I can’t have horny boys holding the door for her. What can I say, I’m a protective father.”
Naiki removed the lacquer lid.
“I’m sure that you would never make the same mistake as him. Stop me if I’m wrong.”
Inside the lacquer box was a man’s right hand. Severed through the wrist, where you might wear a wristwatch. The blackened flesh had turned, exposing bone. Viscous liquid, dark and slimy, oozed out of the skin, pooling in the bright red inside of the box.
The foul odor multiplied in force. One of the white shirts bent over and puked. Shoko, however, seated right before the rotten hand, looked at it with a blank expression. It was this barren face that interested Shindo, not the hand.
“I’m not seeing any green around the gills. That takes guts. Yanagi’s intuition hasn’t failed him yet. Okay, it’s settled. Welcome to the team. Yanagi will explain the rest.”
Naiki waved at her like he was shooing off a dog. Yanagi stood up and directed Shindo with his gaze. She had no choice but to follow him.
“HERE’S WHAT YOU can expect.”
As they proceeded down the hall, Yanagi let out a big sigh.
“From now on, you’ll be working as Miss Shoko’s bodyguard and driver. This mansion is your new home. Every day, you’ll make sure she arrives at school on time and makes it home without even the tiniest scratch. Her well-being is your responsibility.”
“What if I say no?”
“I’ll kill the dog. Then you. No joke, as you can see from that . . . display back there. If that’s okay with you, go off and run along. Nobody’s standing in your way. But I can promise you, we’ll send a guy to knock you off and toss that puppy’s entrails on your body as a parting gift.”
“. . . I don’t know how to be a bodyguard.”
“All it takes is the brains of a dog. Just like Pops said, if anybody gets too close, you punch him in the face. Which shouldn’t be an issue. For a woman, you sure aren’t shy about doling out punches left and right. Honestly, I’d say this is a great job for a brawling broad like yourself.”
Shindo looked down and clicked her tongue. Yanagi held a cigarette in her face.
