Going through Angela’s stuff when we got back to Los Angeles wasn’t as bad as I’d dreaded, since now we had a road map of what to do. The clothes all went to a local thrift shop that benefitted a women’s shelter as we’d discussed with Mamá and Rafael. We packed up all of Angela’s camera gear (after we made sure all the photos had been copied off and then deleted from the camera’s memory stick). Next time we went down to Cartagena we’d take it with us- it was simply too valuable to ship. I had a couple of guys from the dealership in Temecula come up and detail the little Z4 and prep it for storage. All I had to do was start it up once a month or so until it was ready to be driven again, whenever that happened to be.
The elephant in the room that I knew Emmy didn’t want to deal with was Angela’s pink diamond. The folks at Tiffany had let us know it was set some time ago and asked if we wanted to pick it up or to have it shipped. Emmy had asked them to hold on to it until we could pick it up in person, mainly to avoid having to even look at it.
Sensing Emmy’s continued difficulty with the subject, I offered to pick it up when I passed through New York on my way to London.
“I think that I would like to go with you,” Emmy said in response.
“To London, or just New York?” I asked, surprised.
“Both places,” Emmy answered. At my questioning look, she explained that the penthouse was very nearly done and we should go see if everything is alright, and she knew I had business in both places and she didn’t want me to feel as if I had to rush things so I could get back to her. Mostly, though, was that she didn’t want to be alone in the Hollywood house.
“You could have led with that,” I said, wrapping her up in my arms. “I’d love to have you come with me, and yes, I’ll feel better about taking the necessary time if I know I won’t be leaving you for an extended period. But most of all, I’d be happy for you to come with me so we can spend more time together.”
“I hate sleeping by myself,” Emmy admitted.
“So do I,” I said, holding her tightly. “So do I.”
“I kinda didn’t think we’d ever see you again,” Jimmy said as we waited for the rest of the guys at the gas station at the bottom of Angeles Crest.
“We weren’t gone that long,” I protested. “And I popped in to the group chat every now and then.”
“No, I know, but…” Jimmy said, sipping his Red Bull. “It’s just that this whole scene, it seemed like a you and Angela thing, you know? And now she’s gone, I wasn’t sure how much appetite you’d have anymore.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said with a sigh. “And I might never drive the Safari Carrera again just for that reason, as silly as that sounds. But I was driving like this before I ever met Ange, and I’ll continue now that she’s gone. I’m gonna miss having her in the passenger seat, but…”
“Dude, how many times do I gotta tell you? You can have Kimmy any time you want a ride-along,” he said, jerking his thumb back towards his Ferrari and the sullen girl busily texting away in the passenger seat.
“I thought you wanted five Gs?”
“She’s aging out,” Jimmy said. “At this point I’ll let you have her for free. Just no give-backs, hear me? A deal’s a deal.”
“You know, Angela brought peace and harmony to our household. I can’t see Kimmy ever doing that,” I told him. “So I’m gonna have to pass on that offer.”
“Your loss,” Jimmy said. Then, after a moment, he said, “Mine, too.”
The familiar rumble of the V-12 breathing through that sweet Capristo exhaust announced Teddy Bear’s arrival just about then.
“I think you’re gonna have a hard time getting the key back,” Jimmy said.
“TB likes the Aston?” I asked.
“Dude, he won’t shut up about how awesome it is. And the tang he’s been getting? That car is a chick magnet like no Corvette ever could dream of!” Jimmy said.
“Bummer for him there is no humanly way possible to actually get laid in that car,” I said. “But at least it means I won’t have to have the seats cleaned.”
We were still chuckling when Teddy Bear climbed out of the Madagascar Orange coupe. “You two seem to be in a good mood,” he said.
“Jimmy was just telling me that you’ve been enjoying your time with the Aston,” I said.
“It is one Hell of a car,” Teddy Bear admitted. “Hey, you’ll get a laugh out of this one. You remember the guy you met at that party I dragged you to, right? The English guy?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “The guy we saw at my club later.”
“That’s him. Anyhow, I took Solange to a producer’s dinner party, like two weeks ago, and Jace showed up at pretty much exactly the same time. So we both get out and open our passenger doors to let our dates out of our respective cars, right? And he’s eyeballing the Aston like you wouldn’t believe. I mean, he just rolled up in his pearl white R8, so it’s not like he had some shitbox Impala or something, but he can’t stop staring at the Vantage. So anyhow, his date- some wannabe I didn’t recognize- she twigs that he’s paying more attention to the Aston than he is to her. As Solange and I follow the two of them in, I could hear her demanding to know what’s so special about the car.”
“What did he say?” I asked, amused.
“He just brushed it off. Later on, he asked me when I got it and I told him it was yours and you’d just loaned it to me for a while. He remembered you, alright. You should’ve seen the look on his face,” Teddy Bear said with a laugh.
“Of course he remembered our Lizzie,” Jimmy said. “She’s unforgettable.”
“So, you and Solange?” I asked Teddy Bear.
“Oh, Hell no. It was just a work thing.”
“She’s got a great butt,” I said.
“She does, and she looks a lot better now she doesn’t do the collagen lip fillers anymore, but still a solid no. No office romances for me, thank you very much.”
“When you put it that way,” I agreed.
“Welcome back, stranger,” Stein said as he got out of his now electric blue McLaren. “How was Billionaire’s Island?”
“Dude, man, you know we talked about this. They went down to Colombia to hang out with Angela’s folks, not to some private island in the Hamptons,” Jimmy protested.
“How do you know where we went?” I asked Jimmy, more out of curiosity than anything.
“Are you kidding? It was all over TMZ!”
“I guess I’m not too surprised,” I admitted. “It’s not as if we tried to hide down there.”
“It was hot gossip material!”
“What did they say about us being down there?” I asked.
“Mostly just amazed that Angela’s family wants anything to do with you, you know, what with the… with Angela’s death,” Jimmy said.
“They’re wonderful people, and as far as they’re concerned we’re still family, even with Angela gone. We’re going to continue spending time down there with them- in fact, Angela’s little sister is going to come up here and stay with us for her senior year of high school next year,” I said.
“She was at your housewarming party, right? I think I met her there.” Teddy Bear asked.
“Yeah, the whole family was here,” I said. “They stayed for a couple of weeks, then spent a week at our place in Manhattan.”
“Your brownstone?” Teddy Bear asked.
“It’s not brown and it’s not stone, but yeah,” I conceded.
“Next time we’re both in New York I’ve got to come over and check it out,” Teddy Bear said. “Angela said the place was really nice. What did they think of The Big Apple?”
“They enjoyed New York, but I guess they froze their asses off,” I said with a laugh. “When I asked if they went ice skating, Angela said she thought her family had never even seen ice before!”
Teddy Bear gave me a funny look. “You know that’s a literary allusion, right?”
“Whoa- look at Teddy Bear’s big brain!” Stein said, sipping his gas station coffee.
“Jackass!” Teddy Bear said at Stein. “No, seriously, it’s how Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ book One Hundred Years Of Solitude starts out- with the character remembering when his grandfather took him to see the ice. Because, you know, they live in rural coastal Colombia and have never seen any before, so to see it was a memorable thing, right?”
“That was Angela’s favorite book,” I said sadly. “She promised me she was going to read it to me. So yeah, I can believe that she threw that out there like that.”
“On that depressing note, we should get rolling,” Jimmy said, tossing his empty energy drink can in the nearby trash can.
“We aren’t going to wait for Stephen or Geoff?” I asked.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Stephen is in Phoenix and Geoff is in China right now,” Stein said. “Which you’d know if you ever checked the group texts.”
“Hey- I’ve got other things to do,” I said with a shrug.
“I feel like you don’t love us anymore,” Jimmy wailed as he lowered himself into the seat of his Ferrari.
I felt really rusty my first few days back at Clancy’s Gym. My cardio was mostly O.K. since I’d been swimming every day down in Cartagena, but my speed and strength had taken a hit. I needed some serious gym time to get back to where I’d been.
Halfway through my workout I realized that being back there in that sweat-smelling, grimy fight gym was somehow comforting to me. It was good to feel the familiar burn in an environment where I belonged.
The regulars had all greeted me with friendly hellos, with no questions about where I’d been. I turned down a couple of offers to spar with the simple explanation that I was out of shape and needed to get back in the swing of things before I was ready to face anybody in the ring, and everybody seemed to understand. It was nice, this sort of easy acceptance, and I hadn’t recognized how much it mattered to my own emotional stability.
The office, too. While I’d I made it clear that I was still going to be spending a lot of time working from my home office, I’d also said that would come in for a few hours during the week. The familiar feeling of sitting behind my desk and dealing with the same issues as always helped ground me back to the outside world, the world that had nothing to do with mourning over our family’s tragedy. It wasn’t as if I resented the time spent with Emmy down in Colombia, but it was good for me to get back into my regular, boring old groove again.
“I thought I was supposed to be the ambassador to you and your people here,” Akiko Tanaka exclaimed over burgers a week or so after our return to Los Angeles. “But you went behind my back!”
“We’ve never really discussed your exact role here,” I replied. “And I didn’t know if this was something you’d have any involvement in, anyhow.”
Akiko opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the right words so she closed her mouth again. After taking another bite of her In-N-Out burger, she finally said, “No, I would not have had anything useful to add, but I would have put you in touch with those who did.”
“People I wound up talking to anyway,” I said.
“That is not the point. The point is that you… undermined? my position. You made it seem to my elders that you did not trust me to do what I was sent here for,” Akiko complained.
“I can see how it might have seemed that way," I admitted. “So, let’s get some things clear right now. What do you see as your duties here in Los Angeles? Should I have gone though you?”
“I am here as our ambassador to you and your people,” Akiko announced with amusing gravity, since she seemed so young. I’d seen her ID and knew she was twenty-three years old, but she looked fifteen.
“So when we’re here, I should do all my dealings with the clan though you?” I asked.
“At least let me make the introductions,” she said, her shoulders drooping a little. “I don’t need to be involved after that.”
“And if I go to Iga Province?”
“I have no need to be involved at all if you do that. Mr Oshida would be the one you would work though back home,” Akiko said. “He has been designated as your… liaison? back home.”
“Alright, I think I understand the politics a bit better,” I said. “I apologize for sidelining you.”
“What did you think I was here for?” Akiko asked.
“I guess my assumption was that you were mainly here to learn about me and Night Children here in the US,” I told her.
“That’s true, too,” Akiko admitted.
“How has that gone?” I asked, curious.
“I have talked to quite a few Night Children here,” she said. “They seem to be very happy with your leadership. Leah, several of them told me that you… wiped out your enemies in New York- the enemies that attacked you in Atlanta. When they told me of this they were so very proud. They were proud that their queen struck back and gave retribution against those who would dare to try to kill you and Queen Emmy.”
“Did they tell you any details?” I asked.
“No, just that it was a complete victory. They said that all of the groups that had been unsure about your nation are now lining up to join,” Akiko said, sipping her Coke.
“They are,” I agreed. “It’s had a real domino effect. We’ve had a real rush of people since word got out.”
“If your… military is so effective, why do you want trainers from my people?” Akiko asked. “We are out of date. We have not had an effective fighting force in centuries.”
“As I explained to Mr Oshida, I want some trainers who know the old ways to train my people. Obviously I don’t care about sword fighting or throwing stars or anything like that. I want training for my men in the espionage department. The shinobi were well known as spies long before anything else. That’s what I need.”
“Yes, that is what I was told. And the elders have agreed to send some men to do this, but there will be costs associated,” Akiko said.
“What costs?” I asked.
“We would require you to come to Iga Province, you and Queen Emmy. We want to show you what it is we can teach your men, and we want Queen Emmy too- for her fame. We want her to help us with tourism and with interest in our home.”
“We need to talk about how I can help financially, too,” I told her. “I’d promised that I would invest as needed.”
“Yes, that would be very welcome. As you may know, ours is not a rich area.”
Changing the topic, I asked Akiko how she’d been enjoying Los Angeles.
“It is a big, chaotic city,” she said. “So many different cultures are here! I have eaten food from almost every nation on Earth since I came here, and met so many people from so many places…”
“How are your classes?” I asked, just to keep the conversation moving. Akiko talked for a while about her English as a second language class, lamenting at the same time that it was too fast and yet too easy. We talked about how she had made a few friends and gone out socially with some regularity. When I asked her if she had anybody ask her about her unusual coloring, she admitted that nobody had.
“It is as you said. I find it very liberating to not have to wear the makeup and hide who I am. My friends- they don’t care. They accept me as they see me. I get stares every once in a while, but I think they are out of curiosity and not fear or hatred.”
“This is what I want for all of your people. Mr Oshida said that quite a few of the younger people back home have chosen to live makeup-free, but most have not been brave enough yet,” I told her.
“Yes, it will take a long time for us to change. We have been as we are for a very, very long time and traditions are very important in our culture,” Akiko said.
“Yeah, I get that,” I agreed. “But change is going to happen, one way or another. Either you can embrace it and capitalize on it, or be its victim.”
“Yes, you have made that argument very clear,” she replied. “And the simple truth is that we agree. We see the future you have presented to us, and accept that you are right and we must do what we can.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And Emmy and I are willing to do what we can for your people.”
“And all you have asked from us so far is for a few of our elders that know the old ways to teach these skills to your men,” Akiko said.
“There may be other things I’ll ask for, but they’ll never be unreasonable,” I assured her. “Certainly never anything onerous.”
“Onerous?” Akiko repeated, puzzled.
“Your English word for the day,” I said. “‘Onerous’ means overly difficult or burdensome to do. It comes from the word ‘onus’, which means duty or responsibility. For example, your onus is to represent your people, but if it became too hard, your onus would be onerous,” I told her, laughing at how strange English could be sometimes.
“Onerous,” Akiko repeated again to try and store the word in her memory. “English has so many words that mean the same thing!”
“That, and words that sound the same but mean completely different things, are the beauty of the language,” I said, amused.
“Beauty. That word must have another meaning than what I know,” Akiko grumbled.
True to her word, Emmy accompanied me to New York a few weeks later. When Jeremy opened the door for us, Emmy surprised him by giving him a hug right there in the entry.
“You look great!” Emmy exclaimed. “How are you recovering?”
“Slowly,” he said, but that didn’t stop him from taking Emmy’s luggage from Wally and carrying it as if it weighed nothing.
“Has he been going to his doctor’s appointments?” I asked Wally in a low voice as we followed behind, intentionally dropping back a bit.
“Yes, I’ve been taking him,” Wally assured me. “Luisa told me that he works out twice a day and has been very careful of his diet.”
“He looks as if he’s lost three pant sizes,” I said. “But Emmy was right. He does look good.”
“Jeremy and I have been walking every day, regardless of the weather,” Wally said. “He doesn’t limp anymore.”
“That’s so good to hear,” I said. “I was really worried for him.”
“He told me that he will never fail you and Emmy again,” Wally said. “I told him that he never has yet, so why would he start?”
“Thanks for that, Wally. I said more or less the same thing right after the attack, but him hearing it from another source is bound to be good for his emotional state.”
Luisa made dinner that night for the seven of us, and we ate in the rarely-used formal dining room. Conversation stayed light during our meal by unspoken agreement. We chatted about how the weather had been in Cartagena vs New York, and the house we were buying down there and how the London penthouse was finished and supposedly ready for occupancy.
“We are going there next, after we take care of a few things here in New York,” Emmy said. “I am certain it will be rainy and cold, but that is to be expected this time of year.”
“I like London,” Luisa said wistfully. “Even when it’s cold and rainy. But cold and rainy loses its charm PDQ.”
“You spent a lot of time there with the Daltons, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, three to six months a year on average,” she said. “More and more as time went on.”
“Would you like to come with us this time? We have enough room there for both you and Jeremy,” Emmy offered.
“I’m going to London?” Jeremy asked, surprised.
“You do not have to, if you feel you are not up to it,” Emmy assured him, but that was like a red cape for a bull.
Of course he said, “No, I’m ready.”
“I have school- I can’t take the time off,” Luisa lamented. “But if a rain check is available, I’ll gladly take one.”
“Will you need me?” Grant asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “This is just going to be a low-key business trip for a few days, and to make sure the apartment really is ready to move in. I’m going to talk to a friend about getting us UK residency, too. Just boring stuff, really.”
“And we will get you fitted for a few more suits,” Emmy added.
“And some more suits,” I agreed. “But yeah, nothing exciting.”
After dinner I led Michael and Grant up to the parlor to talk, giving off the vibe that this meeting was just for the three of us. Nobody questioned it, or asked what we were going to talk about. Once in the parlor with the doors shut, I mixed us up some drinks while Grant started the fire. We settled down into the overstuffed seats and just relaxed for a few minutes before I began.
“I’ve kept you both updated on Colombia,” I started. “And I’ve been thinking about doing something similar here, too.”
“In regard to what?” Grant asked.
“Setting up an official headquarters of some sort. We’ve been running things in a very loose way, and while it has been working, we may be better served by a more structured approach. I’ve told you both about the chunk of land I’m buying in Cartagena, right? The plan is to rehab the old structures on it to serve as a training center for our outreach as we move into the rest of South America. We’ll have classrooms and resource centers as well as dormitories for our trainees and instructors. I want to start developing a completely fresh and completely Latin American outreach program down there. Of course you two will be involved as things progress, but my hope is that within a year, two at the most, we can start sending teams out all over the continent.”
“Yes, you’ve explained as much,” Michael said. “But what does this have to do with New York? We have mostly covered North America without such a training center, so it seems a bit late to start now.”
“It’s a pretext, isn’t it?” Grant asked. “You’re going to build out a training center, alright, but it’s going to be for the hitters.”
“You are both right, in your ways,” I admitted. “Yes, it is a bit late to start a formal training center for our outreach here in the US, since we’re in the final innings of the program anyhow. The thing is, we need to codify that knowledge and experience. We need to develop a tested playbook, a guideline to our best practices. Once this is done, we can hand that guideline over to our South American division and let them run with it.” Sipping my Old Fashioned, I continued. “We are winding down our need for outreach here in North America, it’s true, but I think we will continue to need our hitters, our security forces. Some policing, of course, and some protection, same as they’ve already been doing, but we’re going to need the ability to project force, and seeing how well our guys executed against Big Joe, it’s obvious that a dedicated and well-trained standing force can do amazing things.”
“You’re talking about Marfan, aren’t you?” Michael asked.
“It’s looking that way,” I admitted. “Odds are he was behind convincing Big Joe to go after us.”
“And you want revenge,” Michael said.
“It may be at least partly rationalizing, but no, revenge isn’t the motivation. He’s proven to be a long-term consistent threat, and I can’t let that lie. He needs to be convinced permanently that he can’t mess with us,” I countered.
“This sounds a lot like going into Iraq for weapons of mass destruction,” Grant said, leaning back.