Cajun Justice(88)

Cain flipped the switch on the pen and the tattoo machine started buzzing. He pressed the pen against Hayabusa’s face and started scribbling like a child with a coloring book.

Hayabusa screamed in agony as the needle seared through his skin. He thrashed his body violently as he tried to escape the unbearable pain, but Cain’s full weight was on top of him.

Cain caught movement out of the corner of his eye. There’s another threat! his mind shouted with alarm. He shifted his weight and quickly turned his attention to the tattoo artist, who immediately put his arms in the air in a gesture of submission.

“No E-E-Engrish,” he stuttered nervously. “No p-p-probrem here.”

In that brief moment of distraction, Hayabusa squirmed free and jumped to his feet. He sprinted toward the closed window and jumped right into the glass. The window broke and shards of glass shattered everywhere. Hayabusa screamed as his momentum propelled him into the night sky. Cain reached out to grab him, but it all happened way too fast. Hayabusa’s shouts ended only with the thud when he smashed into Umiko’s scooter below.

Cain watched from the window as a crowd began to assemble around Hayabusa. The crowd looked up at Cain and started pointing at him. He stepped back from the window and sat in the tattoo client’s chair. He looked in the large mirror that was bolted to the wall. His face was pale and bloody. He looked like a wild animal. He grabbed a towel off the table. He brushed the broken glass out of his hair and off his shoulders. He cleaned the blood from his face and neck and tied the towel around his neck to serve as a makeshift tourniquet.

Cain snatched the black address book off the counter and flipped through it. It was full of dates, addresses, names, and telephone numbers. He stuffed it in his expeditionary bag and raced down the stairs to Hayabusa.

The glass had cut his head in multiple locations, and a broken rib protruded from his jacket. Hayabusa was suffocating on his own blood.

Cain leaned in and stopped about four inches from his face. He could feel Hayabusa’s hot, laboring breath.

“Where is Bonnie?”

Hayabusa tried to say something, but Cain couldn’t understand it. All he could hear was blood gurgling. Hayabusa’s eyes rolled back, and he stopped breathing.

Cain yanked him off Umiko’s scooter and tossed him aside. The headlight and turn signals were busted, and the handlebar was bent. The scooter was too badly damaged to ride.

“Shit!” Cain muttered under his breath. “Shit, shit, shit!”

A police whistle pierced the air. It sounded again. Cain looked up and could see a Japanese police officer running straight toward him from the military base. Several military guards were trailing behind. They would be on top of Cain in less than twenty seconds.





Chapter 68



Cain reached into Hayabusa’s jean pocket and found a set of keys. He ran toward the orange Skyline and opened the door. He fumbled with the keys until he found the right one. The car’s exhaust rumbled to life, along with the techno music blaring through the speakers.

The Japanese police officer appeared at the driver’s side window. He was yelling something in Japanese when the American military police arrived. They tried to open the door, but Cain had locked it. One of the guards drew his expandable baton and raised it in the air. He was about to break the driver’s side window.

Cain pressed the clutch and shifted the stick into drive. His boot heel pushed the pedal to the floorboard. The tires squealed as they struggled to gain traction. The Skyline fishtailed as it fled the crime scene.

Cain’s eyes darted wildly in every direction as he escaped capture. His heart thumped against his chest like a drum and his thoughts rambled, but his eye caught someone familiar. I can’t believe what I just saw. It can’t be. Down one of the alleys, Cain saw a man in the shadows wearing a fedora and smoking a pipe. He was leaning against a building and snapping photos. That son of a bitch! Champ’s reporting my murder!

His rageful thoughts toward Champ were broken by the cawing of a bird in the back seat. The car swerved on the roadway as Cain twisted the steering wheel at the same time he turned his aching body to see behind him. What the—? A brown-and-gray hawk with yellow claws and matching eyes stared back at him. It flapped its wings from inside a custom-made wooden cage. Of course, Cain thought, Hayabusa would have a live falcon as his mascot.

Cain ditched the Skyline about a half mile from Umiko’s apartment. I can’t leave this bird in here. The owner might be a piece of shit, but this is a helpless animal. He grabbed the cage, along with his backpack, and walked the ten minutes to the high-rise apartment.

“Shh. Be quiet,” he instructed the bird. “You’re drawing too much attention.” And I’m not? An American with blood on his shirt, walking with a Japanese sparrow hawk and using a towel for a bandage?

Cain took the stairs, hoping to avoid any residents who would have likely used the elevator. He reached the seventh floor and tapped on the door with his middle knuckle.

“Nande ya nen!” Umiko shrieked as she opened the door. “What happened to you?”

Cain quickly invited himself in and shut the door behind him.

“Why are you bloody?” She continued her rapid-fire questions. “Why do you have a falcon? What happened?”

He placed the birdcage on the floor and looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m in a lot of trouble, Umi. I found Hayabusa, the man who took Bonnie.”