After a really long lunch Andy and I continued wandering, but this time on side streets which were much more interesting than the main business thoroughfare we’d walked down to get to the Imperial Palace Gardens.

“This is more like what I remember from when I was a kid,” Andy commented as we rubbernecked at all the tiny shops and almost literal holes in the wall from which to buy food. “Busy like this, everybody bustling along… This feels more real to me.”

“It’s almost a different world from what was the name? Suidi-dori?” I agreed.

“Suido-dori,” Andy corrected.

As we walked we drew plenty of stares, but it wasn’t because Emmy was with us. It was because we were two Western giants out for a stroll in an area that rarely gets foreigners.

“Lee, I gotta ask,” Andy said after we’d walked for maybe forty-five minutes. “Were you serious when you said you’ve stabbed eight or nine guys?”

I sighed. “Let’s stop at one of these little bars,” I suggested. “One where nobody can understand a word of English.”

“That should be easy in this neighborhood,” Andy said. “How about that one over there?”

We entered the narrow alley lined with tiny little bars and take-out food stalls, heading to the bar that Andy had suggested.

“Why this one?” I asked.

“The name means ‘killer wave’, or maybe ‘unstoppable force’, depending on how you use it,” Andy explained with a laugh as we descended the narrow stairway from the street.

The place was small, but surprisingly chic. The decor was all low indirect lights, pale varnished wood, and vocal jazz on the stereo. As for seating, there was a row of seats along the bar, which ran the (short) length of the place, and four little two-seat tables, the farthest couple of which were unoccupied. The few patrons and bar staff stared in amazement at us as we settled down at the last table, but when the waitress brought a picture menu Andy waved it off and ordered for us from the Japanese menu there at the table, again surprising people with his Japanese fluency.

A few minutes later the waitress set down a plate of baguette slices and a cheese selection, then our drinks. I had no idea what Andy had ordered for me, but it came in a highball glass with a single giant ice cube and was alarmingly Windex blue. Andy’s drink was some sort of fruity-looking thing in a martini glass, and honestly, I wasn’t sure which was less appealing.

I was surprised at the blue nightmare of a drink, though- it wasn’t bad at all. A bit sweeter than I preferred, but not too bad. The main note was citrus, but with some other flavors I couldn’t identify giving it a complex finish.

“So, Andy, the truth is that I haven’t actually stabbed eight or nine people. At least… four, I guess, I killed with my bare hands. I only used a knife on four or five of them,” I said.

“How can you be unsure of the actual numbers?” he asked, appalled.

“Well, the very first guy was the one who gave me this,” I said, pointing at my scar. “He was getting ready to slice Emmy up in an alley in San Francisco when I kicked the hell out of him. He dropped the knife, I picked it up and stabbed him in the gut. His pal was slow to react, and by the time he dropped Emmy, I hit him like a freight train. I just punched and kicked him until he was knocked out, and he died later from his injuries.”

“Two armed dudes in a freaking alley,” Andy breathed, amazed.

“Honestly, I didn’t even give it a moment’s thought. I saw those guys were going to harm Emmy- Hell, they did harm her, but they were going to do much worse. So I just went at ‘em full speed ahead and didn’t stop until they were down,” I said. “It took me a while to, well, to accept what I’d done, and this sounds really bad- and I guess it is- but after a while I realized that I didn’t regret what I’d done. And seriously, that bothered me for a while, but again, not as much as I would have thought.” I sipped from my blue drink, then continued. “Those two guys got what they deserved. They grabbed Emmy off the street and beat her up and were gonna mutilate her, after all. So yeah, it didn’t wind up bothering me much at all afterwards. I don’t think that makes me a psycho or anything, because I don’t display any of the other traits associated with that condition. I’m just, um, morally pragmatic or something.”

“When you say ‘mutilate’, what do you mean?” Andy asked, stunned.

“I don’t think you’ve met Jassie, Michael’s daughter, have you? No, probably not. Well, when she was just little- five or six years old, something like that, she somehow angered the same guy that had the knife in San Francisco, and he had his guy hold her down while he used his knife to carve his name into the skin of her back. He carved ‘Property of Marfan’. That was his name.”

“He did what?” Andy asked, completely blown away.

“He was a prince of the Night Children, and by their shitty old customs he was within his rights. As soon as Jassie was healed enough, Michael ran away with her and came all the way to California to get away from the asshole,” I explained.

“Where did this happen?” Andy asked, leaning forward.

“Um, Ankara, I think, or maybe Istanbul. Turkey, anyway. So I’d seen little Jassie’s scars on her back, and when I saw the one guy holding Emmy up so the other could carve her back with his knife, I was all in,” I said.

“This girl Jessie, she’s gonna have to live with that reminder her whole life?” Andy asked.

“Jassie. No, we had a plastic surgeon fix her up. She still has a bit of scarring, but you can’t tell it was writing or even if it was intentional anymore. Now it just looks as if she had some kind of accident or something. Maybe when she’s done growing she can go though another round to clean it up a bit,” I said. “But yeah, the knife that Marfan dropped and I gutted him with? The same blade he’d used on Jassie. So, no freaking regrets on that one,” I said, helping myself to a bit of brie on a little slice of warm bread.

“That’s one hell of a story,” Andy said, leaning back, unconsciously mirroring my posture.

“So the next few guys,” I said, sipping the blue drink that I was coming to actually enjoy. “It was in Vancouver. I had some Night Children business up there, and this local asshole who thought he was a big shot was harassing our people. I’d told him to leave in peace, but instead he killed my local guy and kidnapped Grace.”

“Your, um, foster daughter Grace?” Andy asked.

“Yeah. So he said to meet him at this old abandoned sawmill place. As it turns out, he’d been in contact with Prince Marfan’s dad back in Turkey, and that guy and a handful of his goons had come to ambush us. We were better prepared than they expected, and we took out their lookouts, then went in. The guy, Rahsett? Him I punched in the throat and then kicked in the head. He choked to death, unconscious. King Marfan’s main bodyguard thought he could take me in a knife fight. He couldn’t.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“You say that so, well, casually,” Andy said, his mind still boggled.

“You’ve met Grant, Emmy’s bodyguard, right?” I asked.

“Really big Night Child dude?”

“No, that’s Jeremy, or Tiny, people call him. No, he’s mostly just a decoy. Grant is the older white guy, looks like an ex-Marine,” I replied, signaling to the bartender for another Blue Nightmare.

“Yeah, I’ve met him. I didn’t realize he was Emmy’s bodyguard, though.”

“That’s the idea. Tiny is so obvious, he takes the bad guys’ attention, right? Well, Grant is the real thing, and by remaining unobtrusive he can head things off early,” I explained. “And yeah, he is an ex-Marine. He was a hand-to-hand combat instructor for a long time, and also used to work the embassy protective thing, so he knows all about being a bodyguard. He’s the one that taught me how to fight with a knife, and to be a killer,” I said, stopping when the waitress brought our second round. “He said something interesting about me. He said it’s really rare for people to be able to shift into fight mode on demand, and he said I can do that. He also said that it’s much rarer for people to be able to shift out of fight mode again when things calm down, and I can do that, too. Rarest of all, he said, are people who can do both, and keep those aspects separated. Apparently, I’m the one in a thousand or whatever the exact number is.”

“I… I can believe that,” Andy admitted. “Of anybody I know, I can believe that about you.”

“The military intelligence special forces weapons instructor I worked with in Singapore said something very similar. He said that if it came down to a knife fight between me and him, he’d run away, because I was the kind of person who would make sure he was dead, no matter what it cost me. So-”

“You worked with a Singapore special forces weapons instructor,” Andy said, his tone not exactly disbelieving, but certainly indicating I’d reached his limit of accepting wild stories.

“A guy named Mr Han. Grant introduced us. I guess they’d done missions together or something. Grant thought I could learn from the guy, and he was right. I’m scheduled to go back for more training next year.”

“Lee, this is all so crazy,” Andy said, shaking his head. “I mean, crazy enough with the shin- the people you met here,” Andy said, looking around to make sure nobody was listening. “But this whole thing about you being a trained, um, assassin? That’s so over-the-top crazy that it makes my head spin.”

“I’ve been training for years with some of the hardest guys you could ever meet,” I told him. “I mean, real serious fighters and killers. And like I said, it turns out I have a natural talent at these things,” I said. “I mean, we all have things we’re good at, right?”

“You know my buddy Darius, right? He’s been over to your house a couple of times,” Andy asked.

“Of course. Did he ever tell you that my friend Teddy Bear and I bumped into him and another couple of your teammates one night on Hollywood Boulevard?” I asked.

“Yeah, he told me all about it. He said you took the three of them to some bar and grill in Los Feliz for grilled cheese sandwiches and thousand dollar whiskey shots,” Andy said.

“It was Silver Lake, and the shots weren’t that expensive- that was the price of the bottles,” I told him.

“Yeah, well, Steve Kalani and Aaron Brown haven’t stopped talking about that night. You impressed the hell out of them. I think their idea of class changed from bottles of Cristal at a strip club to glasses of whiskey at a Silver Lake dive bar. You know they’ve been back there a few more times, and they’ve dragged some of the other guys with ‘em? But Darius, and this is kinda funny… Well, let me back up a bit,” Andy said, taking a drink from his raspberry martini or whatever it was. “So, like, everybody on the team knows I know Emmy and thinks she’s married to my cousin- that’s you, right? So at spring training camp the other day the subject came up in the locker room, and like a lot of shit that gets said in the locker room, the topic of how great it would be to spend a night with Emmy gets tossed out, you know? Well, when Case said that around Dar, Dar point blank told him that his life would be worth nothing if he ever put the moves on Emmy. Emmy’s wife- that’s you, of course- would bury him in a hole in the desert and he’d never be found. When somebody asked him what he meant, Steve K just said that they would understand if they ever met you, and Darius just nodded.”

“Huh,” I said.

“Right. So Case asks what Darius meant, and he just said that you were a real freaking serious person that any sane man would not fuck with. Steve says something like, ‘Bro, you would just know. She’s cool and all,’” he says, “‘But you get the feeling that she’s already figured out how to kill you if she has to.’”

“Steve? He’s big and strong, but not all that fast. I’d take out his knee first, then a quick roundhouse kick to the head. After that it’s just be a matter of finishing him off,” I said with as straight a face as I could muster. “Easy peasy.”

The look of shock on Andy’s faced was quickly replaced by mirth as he laughed out loud, spilling his drink. “Shit!” he said grabbing his napkin to wipe up the mess. “You did that on purpose!” Andy complained.

The waitress hurried over to help clean up the mess. Andy had pretty much gotten it all, as minimal as it really was. Andy spoke to her briefly and maybe a minute later she brought us a couple of Cokes.

“I figured we should maybe detox for a round,” he explained.

Our conversation turned to lighter matters as we speculated on how large a shipping container we’d need to send all the stuff our better halves (or two thirds, in my case) were probably buying.

“Ange was all hot and bothered to go to this one street that’s famous for having nothing but stores that sell kitchen stuff,” I said. “It’s not like our kitchen lacks anything, but I didn’t get the impression that matters much at all,” I said.

“Well, what’s even worse is that you have three houses to buy kitchen stuff for,” Andy said. “So anything she sees and likes, she’ll buy three of.”

“Oh, man,” I groaned. “Well, maybe only two, since the London place isn’t built out yet. But it wouldn’t surprise me if she wants to come back for another round of shopping after the penthouse is finished.”

“When Jenna and Angie get together, look out,” Andy commiserated, his shoulders slumping in exaggerated despair. “Em isn’t much of a shopper, is she?”

“I think growing up with unlimited money kanda changes your attitude on it,” I said. “If she wants something, she just buys it. She doesn’t shop in the sense of comparing prices or hunting for deals, you know? For her, if she sees something she likes it doesn’t occur to her to even ask how much it is, because it just doesn’t matter.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Andy said. “So for her there’s no, um… thrill in shopping? I don’t know if thrill is the right word, but…”

“No, I know what you mean,” I assured him. “And yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it. Having stuff doesn’t matter to her since she’s always had plenty of stuff.”

“I gotta say, it is really nice not having any actual money worries,” Andy said, leaning back in his low seat, more like a one-person couch than a normal bar chair. “You know how it was when we were kids. We neither of us, neither of our families, really ever had much money. I know you worked a couple of jobs in high school, and I worked in construction after school and in the summers.”

“Yeah, I remember,” I agreed. “At least you had a truck. I had to take the city bus.”

“I loved that truck,” Andy said with a far-off look in his eyes. “It was a total POS, but I loved it.”

“Whatever happened to it?” I asked.

“The timing chain failed and the engine ate itself in my sophomore year at USC. By then I was working at a better-paying part-time job… You know how it is, the jobs the boosters give the good players? I could afford something newer, so I got a Toyota Tacoma. Sold that when I got drafted by the Rams,” Andy said.

“I’d always heard rumors that the star basketball and football players got fake jobs,” I said.

“What can I say?” Andy said with a smirk. “I think I calculated it out at one point and it worked out to be a bit less than two hundred bucks an hour for what really should have been a minimum wage job.”

“Nobody gets those jobs playing volleyball,” I groused.

“They will when volleyball brings in the big money for the school,” Andy said, enjoying ribbing me.

Eventually we finished our drinks and left, still getting curious stares from the locals. We walked back to the hotel taking a meandering route down any interesting street or alley until we found ourselves back in the Tokyo Dome City area.

Andy pulled out his phone and texted Jenna, who said they were still out shopping and having a great time.

“Hey, I saw that they have a bowling alley here- wanna roll a few frames?” Andy asked.

“If you want a good laugh,” I said. “I have bowled exactly once in my life.”

“I might have you beat by maybe three times,” Andy said. “But so what if we both suck? It’s just an excuse to drink and wear cool shoes, right?”

“Sure, why not?” I said with a shrug.

That’s exactly what it turned out to be. The bowling alley’s bar was actually really good, and the more Andy and I drank, the better we both got- or at least, the better we thought we got. We wound up getting into a friendly competition with the couple playing the next lane over, who were both fascinated by the fact that Andy could actually speak Japanese. They beat us soundly, but it was a lot of silly fun anyway.

Eventually we stumbled our way up to our suite to relax for a bit before the girls got back from their shopping trip.