Two days later, Ken Ito and his wife, Kaho, were exiting their plane and following the signs to luggage claim. Ken had traveled extensively in his life and thought nothing of all the protocol it took to get in and out of airports, but Kaho was overwhelmed. She’d traveled some, but never before to North America. There were so many rules in a language she didn’t always understand that she was getting frustrated.
“When we get our luggage, where do we go from here?” she asked.
Ken was grateful to have his wife talking to him again, and even more solicitous than normal.
“You do not worry, beloved. I have arranged everything. We’ll talk more after we get our bags and get to our hotel.”
Kaho stuck close to him. It wasn’t the crowds that bothered her. All places in Japan were crowded, but people behaved differently there. Here, there were rude people pushing past, cutting in front of them, treating them as if they weren’t even there. She was not pleased.
Once they reached their luggage claim, Ken hailed a redcap to help them and then pointed out the pieces as they came around the conveyor.
As soon as they’d all been claimed, they followed the redcap to where they could hail a cab, then unloaded their luggage. Ken tipped him generously and was then approached by another man who flagged a cab for them, which required yet another tip to reload luggage into the cab. Kaho didn’t miss a thing and complained quietly in their native language as they were seated inside the cab.
“It’s the way the world works now,” Ken said, and patted her hand. Then he gave the driver the address to their hotel, asked for the air-conditioning to be turned up and settled in for the long ride.
It was almost sundown when the driver finally pulled up to the Four Seasons Hotel.
Kaho rolled her eyes. “It’s about time,” she said, again in Japanese.
Ken chuckled, and then the flurry began of getting baggage out of the cab and getting it into the hotel, which involved paying off the cabdriver, tipping one man, then another, and then another before they finally got to their rooms with their luggage.
Kaho made a quick sally through the suite, then smiled at Ken as she came out of the bathroom.
“It is clean and well-appointed,” she said. “You have chosen well.”
“Thank you, beloved. We will rest now. We have dinner reservations for 9:00 p.m. Lie down. Take a quick nap if you wish. I have some calls to make, so I’ll watch the time for both of us.”
She nodded, slipped off her shoes and lay down on the edge of the massive bed.
Ken laughed out loud. “You are going to fall off the edge. There is plenty of room.”
She looked over her shoulder at the space, then giggled a little and scooted back from the edge. The bed was comfortable. Different from what they slept on, but comfortable, and she was tired. Her eyes closed, and within minutes she was dreaming of Sota and Yuki as boys, sitting on the grass beside the koi pond, feeding the fish.
* * *
The mood the next morning was anything but jovial. Today was about reclaiming Yuki’s body. His remains had been sealed within the shipping casket, too damaged for viewing, and unavailable for any of the normal rituals Kaho would have observed as was their custom. That alone was troubling to her heart. But she could dress in an appropriate color for grieving.
She was a tiny woman, so no matter what she wore, it was always tailor-made for her. This morning, she had chosen a black dress with a hem just below her knees. It had a V-neck, which she usually preferred, and in deference to the heat, one with short sleeves. She often wore heels to her husband’s formal gatherings, but today she chose flat slippers without any decoration. The single strand of white pearls she wore were even more accentuated by the black fabric of her dress.
Her hair was wound up on top of her head in a neat twist and fastened down with a mother-of-pearl clip. Had it not been for the gray strands in her hair, Ken Ito might have been forgiven for thinking she had never aged since the day he first saw her.
They had weathered many storms together, and just as many apart, fighting about why it was happening, but they were still together. Today she was sad. It was to be expected. One of their sons had killed the other—a story as old as time.
“You look beautiful,” Ken said, as he walked up behind Kaho and kissed the back of her neck.
She glanced up in the mirror at their reflections. Ken’s hair was completely gray, but at night in their bed, age did not show. She turned around and stroked the side of his cheek.
“Thank you, my love. I am ready.”
“The car is waiting downstairs,” he said.
They walked together to the elevator, then together across the hotel lobby and out to their waiting car—a new black Lexus, shining like a mirror in the morning sun.
The driver opened the back door as they approached.
“Mr. Ito?”
Ken nodded.
“My name is William. I will be your driver today.”
“This car is beautiful,” Kaho said, as she and Ken were seated.
“Only the best for you,” Ken said, then gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Stay strong for me. Today will not be easy.”
“I am prepared,” Kaho said, but her voice was trembling. “Where do we go first?”
“To the police station to sign papers for Yuki’s body to be shipped home.”
Ken handed the driver the address.
“Please buckle up,” the driver said. “Traffic is bad.”
Kaho reached for her belt with shaking hands, but Ken fastened it for her, buckled his own, then, for privacy’s sake, spoke quietly to her in Japanese.
“We are together.”
She nodded but threaded her fingers through his, just as a reminder.
* * *
When Detective Trotter received the text that Ken Ito and his wife were on their way to his office, he sent a quick text back to let them know the message was received, and that there would be an officer in the lobby who would bring them to his office.
But then he looked around at his office, realized what it really looked like and grabbed a handful of paper towels and began dusting off his desk, then dusted off the guest chairs.
Then he noticed the dust on the floor, cursed beneath his breath and stepped outside his office and yelled across the room at the other detectives.
“I need a dust mop! Anyone?”
One of the detectives looked up from her desk and grinned.
“Who’s coming, the Queen of England?”
“No, grieving parents from Japan,” he said.
The smirk died on her face. “I’ll find one. Be right back,” she said, and left the office at a lope.
Less than five minutes later she was back with a dust mop and a can of air freshener. “Get out! I’ll do it, but keep in mind I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for the parents.”
A second detective got up. “I’ll help you,” he said. She handed him the dust mop. “Sweep behind me as we go.”
“Will do,” he said.
Trotter exited without arguing.
It didn’t take them long to clean up, then she sprayed the room with air freshener before they exited.
“There, and it smells better, too,” she said, as Trotter started back inside his office “What the hell is in your desk? Last week’s tuna fish?”
Trotter’s eyes widened, and then he loped into the office to check his drawers. He didn’t see or smell anything, and when he turned around and looked back across the room at the detective, she was grinning.
He resisted the urge to flip her off and yelled, “Thank you,” instead.
Within minutes, he got a call from the lobby that the officer was on his way up with the parents, then smoothed his hair down and straightened his tie. The file on Yuki Ito was in front of him, along with the release papers they would need to sign. He had already gathered up all the information they would need to get his body out of the country.
Adam Ito had given up the temporary address of the apartment where they’d been staying to the Feds, so they could recover Yuki’s personal belongings.
Trotter had to admit this had been one of the more gruesome cases he’d worked. Between the kill shot and the rats, it wasn’t something he would easily forget.
Then he looked up and saw the officer coming with the family in tow, and got up to meet them at the door.
The officer paused.
“Detective Trotter, Mr. and Mrs. Ito are here to see you.”
“Thank you,” Trotter said, and then stepped aside. “Please come in. Have a seat. Can I get either of you anything to drink?”
Kaho glanced at her husband and shook her head.
“Nothing for us, but thank you,” Ken Ito said, as they sat down. “We want to get this over with. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes, of course,” Trotter said, then got down to business, explaining the process of releasing a body for transport to another country. Ken signed his name on a variety of papers, then received a file with instructions as to how to proceed.
“I’m sorry this is so complicated, especially in a time of grief,” Trotter said. “I have one other thing for you,” he said, and picked up a large manila envelope. “These are Yuki’s personal belongings. They were retrieved from the apartment where they had been staying.”
For the first time since the whole conversation began, Ken seemed shaken by the offer. Because he hesitated, his wife, who had not uttered a word since their arrival, suddenly made her presence known.
“My son,” she said firmly, and extended her hand.
Trotter gave her the envelope, which she clutched firmly against her breasts. He was beginning to think they were unmoved by the whole process, until he saw a tear rolling down her cheek. He started to offer a tissue and then feared she would not appreciate him calling attention to her grief, so he did nothing.
“That finishes up my part,” Trotter said. “Do you have any questions?”
“Yes. How do we get to the prison hospital where Adam is being held, and what do we need to be allowed to visit?” Ken asked.
Trotter blinked. He hadn’t thought about them wanting to see the murderer, then realized from their point of view, he was another son. One who had committed an unforgivable sin, but their son, just the same.
“I’ll give you the address and will call the warden myself to clear your arrival. Be prepared to have your person and your belongings checked. It is a prison, after all.”
Ken nodded once. “Understood. The address, if you please?” And this time, he had no trouble holding out his hand.
Detective Trotter double-checked the address to make sure he wasn’t sending them to the wrong location and then wrote down the warden’s name, as well.
Ken took the information and slipped the paper into the pocket of his suit coat.
“Thank you for your help,” Ken said, as he and his wife stood in unison.
“Of course,” Trotter said. “I’ll walk you to the door. The officer who brought you up is waiting to escort you down, and again, my sympathies for your loss.”
As he’d promised, the officer was just outside the door. They were on their way to the elevator when Trotter hurried back to his office to call the warden.
* * *
Adam Ito was shaking and crying from the pain as the doctor on duty peeled back bandages to check the surgery areas. The gauze had stuck to the stitches and staples, and to the bolts holding the bones in his feet together, and at this point, there wasn’t an easy way to do it.
Adam was also handcuffed to the bed with chains long enough for him to feed himself, but not long enough to do anyone damage, including himself.
Dr. Grimley had seen frightening men with far worse injuries than these, but there was one thing they all had in common. Without drugs and the weapons that made them feel tough—that gave them what they perceived as a “license to kill”—they all bled the same, and they all cried from the pain, and most of them cried for their mothers when they were dying. This one was doing enough crying, but he had yet to cry for Mama.
“Stop! Stop!” Adam wailed. “Can’t you see that’s stuck? Isn’t there a way to remove that gauze without taking scabs with it?”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Grimley said. “It’s unfortunate that you are in this condition, but healing from injuries is not a painless process.”
“Then give me some drugs to dull the pain!” Adam begged.
“I’m almost through here,” Grimley said. “And as soon as I confirm there’s no infections, we’ll bandage you back up again.”
“This is torture. Is it because it’s a prison? That’s it, isn’t it?” Adam shouted. “We’re not good enough for humane treatment.”
Dr. Grimley’s eyes narrowed. “I know how you got here. Do not utter the word humane in my presence again, understand?”
Adam thought about what this man could do to him, and without anyone being the wiser. So he entertained himself by thinking of how many ways he could kill this man without anyone knowing it was a murder, and pretended he was not lying in a prison ward with at least a dozen other men.
He was still plotting the deed when he heard voices, and then he saw the warden entering the ward, talking to the people walking behind him.
Now what? Adam wondered, as the warden stopped at the foot of his bed.
“Dr. Grimley, this is Mr. and Mrs. Ito. They have come to visit their son Adam. Since they came all the way from Japan, I have given them permission to visit for an hour...if they wish to stay that long.”
Adam’s heart almost stopped when he saw his father’s face and his mother standing beside him.
“No! I don’t want them here!” Adam shouted. “Make them leave!”
The warden frowned. “First, you don’t shout at me. You got yourself in here, and since there’s no likelihood that you will ever get yourself out, and they have come such a long way, surely you can spare a few moments to hear them out, don’t you think?”
“My father hates me! He’ll kill me,” Adam said.
“Nobody is dying in here today,” the warden said. Then he looked down at the couple standing by in silence. “Do you still wish to visit? It’s understandable if you want to change your mind.”
“We have things to say. It will not take an hour. We will notify your guard when we are ready to leave.”
The warden nodded and then shook Ken Ito’s hand. “If you have any further questions, the guard will bring you to my office. Otherwise, have a safe journey home.” He bowed awkwardly to Kaho Ito and walked away.
Ken looked at his son, and then the doctor. “Please finish your work quickly. We wish to speak to him in private. We won’t take long.”
Grimley was happy to accommodate. “Yes, sir. Give me five minutes.”
For the next five minutes, Ken never took his eyes off Adam’s face, and Adam was finally silent, paralyzed with fear.
As promised, Dr. Grimley finished and then even helped the nurse replace bandages. “We’re through here, and my apologies for keeping you waiting.”
“What about my pain pills?” Adam asked.
“I’ll write the order on your chart,” Grimley said, and left the ward.
The closest patient was three beds away, which was all the privacy they needed, but when Ken moved to the side of Adam’s bed, Kaho stayed at the foot of it, her gaze fixed on her son’s face.
Adam was pissed at being at a disadvantage. Being flat on his back in front of them was disconcerting. “After disowning Yuki and me, I’m curious as to what the fuck you two are doing here.”
“We were summoned,” Ken said. “We came to claim Yuki’s body.”
Adam’s face was flushed, first with guilt, then with anger. “Well, obviously Yuki isn’t here. And I am no longer your son, so that doesn’t answer my question.”
As Ken watched the rage moving across his son’s face and coloring the timbre of his voice, it occurred to him that if he was not incapacitated by wounds and handcuffed to his bed, he and Kaho could both be dead by their own son’s hands.
This, too, was his fault. What he should have done was refuse the cartel’s offer to get involved and shot Adam himself. Ken took a deep breath and glanced down at Kaho. It was for her. He’d taken their offer for her.
“Well, I’m waiting!” Adam said.
“You’re not going anywhere and we have an hour,” Ken snapped. “I have nothing to say to you, but we are here because of your mother. She is the one who has grieved her sons being banished.”
Adam shifted focus from his father to the woman standing at the foot of his bed. She was too quiet. He didn’t want to look at her, but he couldn’t look away. He felt like he had the day she’d caught him strangling their cat.
“Well, then, Mother? What is it you came all this way to say? You are part of the reason I’m here. Part of the reason Yuki’s dead. You chose him—” Adam gestured with his chin to his father “—over us, or you wouldn’t have let him banish us.”
“Stop talking!” Kaho said.
Adam opened his mouth, ready to defy the order, when the floodgates opened. Kaho Ito came at her oldest son with a fist upraised. Ken caught her before she could hit him.
Adam was in shock. She had never raised a hand to either of them. Ever. Then she began to whisper.
“Liar. Evil. Cunning. Soulless. Murderer.”
Adam felt the skin on his face growing hot, pulling taut across his bone structure, as if he’d moved too close to a flame. He tried to respond, but words wouldn’t come. Then she leaned closer.
“You are an abomination. You kill your own blood. I should have thrown you in the river once I’d realized what you were capable of, even as a child. I knew that you were bad, but I thought I could love the evil away.”
Adam heard the words coming out of her mouth as though he were in the bottom of a well. He was growing smaller and smaller and the well was getting deeper and deeper beneath her rage.
“I curse you. What days you have left on this earth, may you spend them in total agony, with fear as your pillow, and pain the blanket that smothers you in your sleep.”
Adam was beginning to shake. Ken Ito was almost as shocked as his son. Never had he heard Kaho utter words like this. Never would he have believed she even had these thoughts. He was staring at her like he’d never seen her before.
Kaho was oblivious to her husband’s shock, but it wouldn’t have stopped her. She’d stayed silent too long. She pointed to her son’s feet. Without touching them, she could see the wounds and the metal pins beneath the bandages. She could see the shattered knee and feel the broken bones beneath the skin as surely as if she’d run her fingers across their surfaces. Her voice grew softer, then softer still.
“Your feet will not heal. They will rot, like bad fruit on a vine. Your knee will fester, like the blackness in your heart. Like the demon in your brain. You no longer have your power. You no longer have your voice.”
Then she took a deep breath. It rattled like chicken bones in a dish as she inhaled. And then she pursed her lips and blew the breath out across the bed, across him, across his face, while the skin tightened even more.
Adam’s heart was racing. It felt like it was going to burst.
“I am done here,” Kaho said, and then walked away from Adam’s bed, leaving her husband to follow as he wished.
Adam started to yell at her. To call her foul names. To deny he ever loved her, but the words wouldn’t come. He took a breath and tried again, and then something inside him gave way. The left side of his face began to sag, as if it no longer had bones. Then he lost feeling in his left arm, all the way down his left leg to the foot.
He tried to cry for help, but the words...his words...his voice. He no longer had his voice. His mother had taken it away. She had neutered him with her curse.
But it was his own grief, his own guilt and shame and anguish that were undoing him.
He was struggling to breathe now, choking on the secretions of his own spit.
Help! Help me!
But no one heard, because the voice was only in his head.
A door slammed.
His eyes rolled frantically toward the exit, but the guard was gone, walking them back out of the prison. He could hear the nurse in the other room, still talking on the phone. The other patients in the ward were too sick to care, or unaware because they slept.
The first voice that popped up in his head was startling. He’d always known they were there, but they’d only been whispers. This one was talking to him in his native language. Then another joined in, talking back in English, then in French.
Adam shuddered. Go away. Crawl back under the bridge. Go away.
One of them cackled.
Adam closed his eyes, begging in a silent plea. Somebody kill me now.
Then the first voice said, We cannot leave now. We’ve just arrived.
* * *
Ken helped Kaho into the Lexus, then directed their driver to take them back to their hotel.
“Please buckle up,” the driver said.
“Yes, because the traffic is terrible,” Kaho said.
She buckled herself in and then leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
Ken buckled his own seat belt, made sure that Kaho was comfortable and then held her hand as she slept, but his head was spinning. He didn’t know whether he was holding on to her because she’d frightened him, or because he needed her to know he was not the enemy.
The drive was made in silence. Kaho slept. Ken spent the time gazing out the windows into the city that had been his first son’s world. On the surface, it was just another metropolis. But nothing was ever as it seemed. Not even the people you thought you knew.
Kaho mumbled something beneath her breath. He looked back out the window. Part of him wished he had left her at home, but at the same time, he acknowledged that he would have had to bury her upon his return. She needed to face all in order to get through it. To hide from it back in Japan would have meant collapsing underneath all the grief.
He wondered now, as the distance grew between them and Adam, if this was to be his punishment for the life he had led. Losing both sons, and then learning his wife held more power in the breath from her body than he did with his vast fortune and the men and guns at his constant disposal.
Was this what the Americans called “up the creek with no paddle”? Had he, too, lost control? He was as afraid as he’d ever been. Even more afraid than the day he killed his first man.
* * *
Kaho pretended to sleep. She and her husband had to discuss what happened, but not here in this car. In private, back in their room. She felt his fear, but it would pass, once he understood that what he’d witnessed was grief and rage. She had sensed far more than they were told about the condition of their son’s body, and was greatly saddened about how Yuki’s life had ended. Her only comfort was knowing he did not suffer a moment of pain.
And so the wheels beneath them continued to roll, and the comfort of Ken’s shoulder finally lulled her past pretense to actual sleep. When they finally reached their destination, she was refreshed.
“Kaho, we have arrived,” Ken said, and gently shook her awake as the car rolled to a stop beneath the entrance to the Four Seasons.
She sat up, blinking slowly, trying to acclimate herself to this place, when she’d been so far away in her dreams.
“I dreamed we were in the snow at Yuzawa. Remember when we took the boys? It was their first time riding the rails. Adam didn’t like it. It was too cold and uncomfortable, but Yuki loved it. How old was he then? Four, maybe five years old?”
Ken smoothed a strand of her hair back in place as he watched her lips forming words, then realized he was meant to give an answer.
“Ah...I think he was four. It was the year before Sota became a teenager. At that age, he didn’t like anything.”
Kaho nodded. “Yes, you are correct.”
Then the driver was at their door, helping them out, and thanking Ken for the generous tip.
“If you have need of a car again during your stay in Houston, I am available,” William said, and handed Ken his card.
Ken dropped it in his pocket. Right now he was more concerned with getting his wife up to their room. They needed to talk.
They were mostly silent during the elevator ride because they were never alone in the car, but once they reached their room, all bets were off. Ken hung his suit coat over a chair and removed his shoes.
Kaho removed her shoes and moved to the sofa. “Ah, this quiet soothes me,” she said.
Ken was more forthright, and the fact that he chose to sit on the opposite sofa so that he could see her face was telling.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Kaho smiled. “I know.”
“What happened back there? I never saw that side of you before.”
His wife shrugged. “I said what had been in my heart for years. I did not make him evil. That is who he is. I did not make him a liar, or a murderer. That is what he did. Calling him cunning only means he is sly, like the fox. Calling him soulless only put a name to what he’s always been.”
“But you said you cursed him.”
Kaho shrugged. “Those are only words. They are vocal ways of making someone look into a mirror. Words have no power unless the receiver hears them and recognizes himself in the accusations.”
Ken frowned. “You are talking around my questions. You are trying to fool me. I do not want to see you this way!”
She stared at him across the coffee table, then began slowly shaking her head. “Stop talking. I have never hidden a thing from you. You only chose to ignore it. Maybe you weren’t listening, husband! Maybe you saw only what you wanted to see!”
Ken’s hands were sweating like they used to when he was still in school, afraid he was going to fail a test.
Kaho stood abruptly. “Remember your first big deal? The one that set us on the road to success?”
“Of course I remember,” Ken said. “I got the art pieces I wanted and the contract allowing me to reproduce them in mass quantities, and negotiated the artist down to one percent of the gross.”
“But the contract stated one half percent on the contract he signed. I noticed it but said nothing. It was his mistake, not ours.”
Ken’s mouth dropped. “You never said anything.”
She shrugged. “Call the accountant. Have him look it up for you. It won’t take long, and while he’s looking, I will tell you now the things I have overheard the servants say and passed on to you, have kept men from betraying you, from stabbing you in the back, from wanting your seat on the cartel bad enough to take a contract out on your life.”
Ken turned away from her and strode to the window in anger, but she kept talking.
“Have you ever been sick since we married? No, you have not, because I have always had your health and best interests at heart and made sure you received only the best care. You never told me about the skiing accident you had five years ago...the one where you grabbed hold of that bush just before you fell over the cliff, but I found out anyway. I did not chastise you for keeping secrets from me. You were alive and that’s all that really mattered to me. I believe you are successful because we are a team!”
“And what happens if I anger you? Will you speak a curse on me like what you did to Adam?”
Breath caught in the back of her throat as tears suddenly blurred her vision. She held out her hand, as if warding off an approaching enemy.
“How soon you forget,” she whispered. “You angered me beyond words when you banished our sons. I went to bed to die. That’s what happens when you break my heart.”
Ken gasped and then ran across the room and took her into his arms.
“My beloved...forgive me. That was hurt speaking. I felt you had been keeping something from me all these years, when it was I who refused to see you for who you are.”
Kaho wiped away tears. This was too important to interrupt with weeping. He was such a stubborn, proud man, but she wouldn’t have him any other way.
“What you must understand is that I am as knee-deep in the cartel as you are, but they don’t know it. And as long as they see me as nothing but the dutiful wife, I am safe, and so are you. We are not innocents in the world. What’s happened to us now is part of our punishment. We let ourselves be corrupted, albeit overtly, but it marked our sons to fail. There is always a price to be paid.”