“Hey Eddie! Stop staring at her ass and get back to work, you lazy motherfucker! Mine is way better, anyway.” Vera turned around and slapped her butt. “If you want a piece of this sweet ass, you’ll have bust yours. So move it!”
Geez, what a way to make a living. I grunted as I picked up a particularly heavy box. I was still tired from the trip back from Japan. I only had the one night to rest before being sent out to the docks again—no time off here. Today’s shift was extra long, too—it was dark by the time we finished. It was a battle of will to make it to the end. My muscles were aching like one hundred toddlers were kicking me in every single part of my body.
When the work was finally done, Vera waved me over to talk to her. I felt a sinking feeling in my heart. My shift was over, she shouldn’t still be giving me orders. Surely she wasn’t going to make me work a double shift, right? Akari was standing next to her, while everyone else filed out.
When I walked up to Vera, she looked around and made a motion like “keep it down” before saying, “You want to make some extra cash?”
I started sweating nervously. This sounded very suspicious. “Uh… no, that’s OK, Vera. I’m really tired, and I’m already earning enough from my regular work, so I think I’ll just head home.”
“C’mon, don’t be a wimp! You call yourself a man? Come with me, you’ll make some real money! And I know you’re still broke after blowing it all at that Japanese hostess club. With this job, you’ll make it all back in no time flat.”
I really didn’t like the sound of this, but then she added: “Do it or you’re fired.” So, biting back a response, I followed along behind her, watching her wide hips as they swayed back and forth with her huge strides.
“Where are we going?” I asked after some time.
“Don’t pay it no mind. We’ll be there soon, anyway.” That was the non-answer I got from her.
After a while, I realized where we were going: a particularly bad part of town known as the Tenderloin. I never had a need to go to this part of town, but I had heard stories from some of the other dockies about the crime that went down here. The buildings were dilapidated, and the windows mostly boarded up, but I could see cracks of lights through the boards over the windows.
“Oh, hey. You might need this.” Vera picked something off the ground and handed it to me. It was a piece of scrap wood, roughly three feet long and just barely possible to hold with one hand. I gripped it awkwardly with both hands.
“… What do I need this for?” I was really hoping for some answer that didn’t involve using it as a weapon.
“Probably nothing. We’re just gonna talk, don’t worry. You stand behind me and don’t say anything. Just hold that thing over your shoulder and pretend like you’ve used it before.”
“I really don’t like this…”
That was an understatement. I didn’t like Vera, I didn’t like this part of town, and I really didn’t like hanging around here at night with Vera holding an improvised weapon for some shady deal. My escape from Japan was the most violence I’d ever seen, and I didn’t want to see more.
But Vera didn’t agree. “Don’t worry, Eddie,” she said. “We’re just going to have a nice, polite chat. I’ll remind them very politely that they still owe me money, which they might have forgotten about. Then we’ll be on our way. I just wanted you two here for moral support, you don’t need to do anything.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
And with that suspicious explanation, she kicked in the door and walked in screaming: “Alright you motherfuckers, time to pay up!”
She led the way in with no hesitation at all. I nervously followed behind her, still carrying the piece of lumber over my shoulder. Akari was on my left, unarmed but holding her firsts up like a boxer.
The room turned into chaos. There were five of them, all women. All of them had been sitting around a table, and they all jumped up. Someone flipped it over, spilling its contents everywhere.
Them started running for the back exit. But Vera managed to grab hold of one, and started screaming: “Where’s my money? Huh? Where is it?” while slapping her in the face.
“Hey Vera, what the hell? I thought we were just going to talk calmly!” This was not the way she described it.
“Yeah, that’s what we’re doing. I’m talking calmly with this motherfucker here.”
“You call that calmly!!??”
“It’s calm compared to what I’ll do if I don’t get my money soon. Right??” She slapped the poor woman again as she said that.
I couldn’t take this anymore. I walked forward to stop her.
“Watch your left,” said Akari.
“Huh?” I looked over to see a woman attacking me from behind on my left side. She was charging me with a knife! I managed to dodge, but in my haste I tripped over some junk on the floor. She was holding a knife, and was just about to stab me with it!
I closed my eyes, expecting to be stabbed, but then I heard a clattering as the knife fell to the ground. I opened my eyes and saw Akari standing over me. She was twisting the arm of the woman who had attacked me, holding it behind her back as she writhed in pain.
“You OK?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah… I guess so.”
“Nice work you two!” said Vera. She was also holding a woman subdued with her arm twisted behind her back, and the other three had fled. “Might want to defend yourself a little better, but you protected me, that’s the important thing!”
“Uh, right. Can we leave now?”
“Yep! Got my money!” Vera held up a bag of cash and grinned. “Now let’s go spend it!”
“Ugh, I’m tired, and I’m in a lot of pain,” I said. This might sound like whining, but consider that I had just landed in Japan, worked a heavy shift, and then almost been stabbed. “I think I’m just going to go home.”
“Nonsense, you gotta come with me and have some fun!”
“No, screw you Vera!” I screamed. “It’s not bad enough you’re harassing me at work all day, then you make me come out here and help you beat up some poor innocent women and take their cash like some mugger? No way. I don’t care if you fire me, I’m through with you.”
Vera must have been startled by my anger. For once, she didn’t have a ready retort. But Akari spoke up instead: “Eddie, those women were not as innocent as you seem to think. This was the safe house for a gang that had been harassing us.
“Yeah,” said Vera. “I may be a bit of an asshole, but I’m not such an asshole as to go around robbing random houses. There’s a gang that’s been causing all kinds of trouble around town. Drugs, robbery, protection rackets, all kinds nasty stuff. Lately they’ve been stealing stuff off of our airships. Isn’t that right, bitch?” She said the last part to the woman whose arm she was still holding twisted.
“I don’t know how the hell you are or what you think we did to you,” the woman said. “But you’re going to regret coming here.” And then she spat at me!
“Right, see that?” said Vera. “These people aren’t very nice.”
Was she telling the truth? I wasn’t sure. I wanted more information.
“Tell me more so that I can know if I can believe you,” I said.
“Sure. But uh. We really should be going.” said Vera. “It’s not a good idea to linger around here too long.”That much at least I agreed with. We tied the two women remaining to chairs so they wouldn’t come after us, and then swiftly left the area. I dropped the piece of wood, but Vera was still carrying her bag of money.“Where are we going?” Akari asked.
“Oh, you don’t need to come, Akari. I don’t think you’d enjoy it. Eddie and I will have fun on our own, right?” Vera put her arm around me as she said that.
“No, I must come as well. Eddie will be in danger without me. As you just saw, he needs me to protect him.”
Vera glared at Akari for a second, then looked away. “Fine, you can come too. We’re going to a nice little lounge near here. It’s a classy place, so try not to embarrass me.”
I was still pretty pissed at Vera for getting me involved in all this, but I at least wanted to know what was going on. Maybe once I learned more, I could report her to the police or get myself a lawyer, or something. Not that I had even seen any police or lawyers in this world so far. For the time being, I decided to tag along.