Part 57 (1/2)

”Oh?”

”I've got a car waiting.”

”I see,” he said, pulling a face.

He followed her down and out the front. Minami blushed and hurried into the car when she saw the 'Fire Lane - No Parking' sign, but no ticket meant n.o.body had noticed yet.

She slipped it back into gear and they were off.

”Where are we going?”

”I don't know,” she admitted. ”I hadn't really thought about it.”

”Someplace j.a.panese?”

She shot him a look. ”I could eat that at home, if that was all I wanted.”

”No, then?”

”Not a chance.”

”Hm.”

”Still open to suggestions,” she said, turning the car at some arbitrary point to stop them getting out of town while they talked about dinner.

He didn't have any, and neither did she, so they ended up stopping at someplace cheap. Wes wisecracked that it must have been her first time at a place like this-he didn't know about the year she'd spent here alone, and she wasn't going to tell him. No reason to.

They ate, they went back, no problem. Minami didn't make the same mistake this time, instead slipping into one of the parking spots in the back of the building and hoping she didn't come back to find the car up on blocks with the wheels stolen.

Then again, she supposed, it might come back on her but the guys who stole those wheels would be the ones who would really regret it, so maybe it would be fine.

She let herself smile at that thought. They sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't like it one bit. No, sir. She followed Wes up to the apartment, not sure what she was going to do if he wanted to go for a second try today. They'd been f.u.c.king like rabbits already, the past few days. How long could this keep on going? And for that matter, she needed to get the Bentley back to her father's house.

Wes opened the door and stepped inside, and immediately got knocked to the floor. He let out a loud yelp as a bat came down hard on his arm, but he forced himself to turn over.

Minami pressed herself back against the opposite wall of the hallway, unable to help or do anything, but unwilling to leave him alone to his fate.

She didn't recognize the man who was holding the bat, or the one who had the thick metal rings around his hand who had caught Wes with the first blow, but she recognized Yakuza when she saw them. These weren't some local American street punks.

Her father hadn't sent them, though, which was surprising by itself. The one with the knuckle dusters seemed to recognize her, and then abruptly stopped paying attention, his attention fully used on the man below him, who had caught the bat between his hands and was trying to yank it free, but couldn't get up.

The heavy steel knuckles came down hard on Wesley's face, opening up a wicked cut above his eye that bled immediately down his face.

Wes twisted the bat out of the Yakuza's hand, and then abruptly jabbed the handle into the guy's face, sending him stumbling backwards. Another hard punch to the face, though, and Wes's face was a mask of blood that she would only barely have recognized as human if she'd seen it on the street. He took the bat in his hands and arced it up, hard, cracking the dude on his skull.

A cry of pain ripped from the Yakuza standing above him, the other one finally bringing himself back to bear as Wes pushed himself back up to his hands and knees. The guy dug the point of his shoe into Wesley's ribs and sent him flying a few inches into the wall.

If she didn't stop them somehow, Minami thought, they were going to kill him. But in spite of that, she tried to find the words to speak, to tell them to stop, to tell them that he was under her personal protection.

But the words wouldn't come. It would mean revealing her connection to the Yakuza, telling Wesley that she was from a world she hated, reviled, never wanted to be a part of. She had to tell him, had to eventually, but in the middle of a fist fight?

Wes took the decision out of her hands when he rose to his knees and took a wide swing that cracked the guy on the side of his cheek, sending him sprawling back into the kitchen once more, and from the sound of things, he wasn't getting back up any time soon.

The next hit, the one that Wesley sent for the guy with the steel knuckles, wasn't any prettier.

Sixteen.

Wes Wes forced his eyes to stay open. He'd never taken a hit half that bad, not in years, and he would spit if he didn't have a concussion. Which meant that closing his eyes more than an instant, he probably wouldn't open them again.

Minami had left. She should have left. But now it was G.o.d d.a.m.n hard to keep his eyes open. He stood up to pace around the apartment, and then sat back down. He wasn't sure how far he'd be able to walk in this condition, and he didn't want to fall asleep on his G.o.d d.a.m.ned feet. There was water in the fridge, though. That could be useful to have.

He pushed himself up on unsteady feet and used the back of the sofa as a support as long as he could, then let himself wobble his way to the far wall and around the corner into the kitchen. Which wasn't as bad as he'd expected it to be, but his knees threatened with almost every step to buckle out from under him.

The fridge came open easy and he crouched down and took a bottle out, leaned his shoulder into the edge of the fridge as he twisted off the cap and took a sip. Cool, clear water was as much as he could as for right now. It went down cold all the way to his belly, and then he set the bottle on the counter and pushed himself back up.

He closed the fridge and started the trip back. His knees already felt a little better. If he was lucky, he might even be able to walk again in another hour.

More than that, it would be nice to be able to give the girls something, even if it was only a few hundred dollars. He had a plan, one that he was hoping would provide dividends as long as he could keep fighting. One that would multiply his money quickly and painlessly-or, without any added pain. But he had to keep some money, even after that gremlin of a man had paid him extra to avoid getting clobbered.

Wes settled back into the sofa and took a long drink of water and tried to relax, without letting his eyes droop shut. They threatened to do it every few minutes, and then he'd lean forward on his elbows, or slap his face. Until then, it wasn't every five minutes, it was every ten. Then every twenty. Until he was feeling better, though it was still as dark as could be. He finished the bottle and went to get another, found that he could make the trip without holding the wall.

Which meant he couldn't justify sitting around the apartment, not any more. He grabbed the keys from the hook on the wall and started down to the elevator. It dinged open, he slid inside, and pushed his back against the wall. Better safe than sorry. He pushed the b.u.t.ton and the door closed with a loud sc.r.a.ping noise, and then the elevator started to hum as it went down.

Wes made his way to the car and settled into the seat, turned the key and brought it to life, then turned on the radio. He wasn't going anywhere in the next few minutes. Even that short trip had taken more energy than it should have out of him. He could already feel the wooziness coming back, just a little, and that meant that he should definitely wait as long as he could justify before pulling out of that parking lot. That is, unless he had a G.o.d d.a.m.ned death wish.

Wes took another deep drink from the water bottle and then set it into the pa.s.senger seat, too large to fit into the cup holders. Another sucked-in breath, and he put the car into gear and started the short trip to the Western Union.

The drive was pretty painless, aside from going a few miles under the speed limit. He didn't realize he was doing it, and then would press the gas down harder, but then after another turn or two he'd look back down, and then... five under again.

He pulled into the parking lot. Usually he had a better time to come here, but if he had to do it at 2 in the morning, then he'd do it at 2 in the morning. The lot was unlit, which was always worrying, particularly because there were two very visible lights in the middle of the lot that weren't working for some reason.

But the yellow light of the Western Union sign shone above the light inside, which all acted like some sort of beacon of hope.

Wes slipped out of the car and rubbed his face as near to where he'd been hit as he dared. It itched, the whole thing, but he couldn't touch it with even the lightest touch, or his face would explode in the worst sort of pain he'd ever felt, short of taking the hit itself.

Wes wasn't going to the hospital for it. What were they going to do? Prescribe him some painkillers, and then send him home, all for the low cost of several hundred dollars. If he needed painkillers, Bradley had his hands in all sorts of pockets. Why on earth would Wes go to the doctor when he can get the stuff straight from the source?

He almost didn't notice the guy walking up. The sound of the boots on the ground behind him blended in with all the other noises of the city, and he a.s.sumed that he was making it up.

The noise of the knife clicking open confirmed it. For a minute Wes considered just doing what he was told. Getting hit in the face with steel knuckles hurt like a son of a b.i.t.c.h, but it probably wouldn't kill you unless they really tried hard.

A knife, on the other hand, was different. It was d.a.m.n hard not to seriously hurt a guy with a knife, even if you didn't necessarily want to. You could make little surface cuts if they were holding still and you were pretty careful, but the odds of avoiding the blade as well as he would have to do in order to get away... it was a gamble.