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The Scythe's Song	By : hallowedmaiden Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > Het - Male/Female > Jack/Elizabeth Views: 2815 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own POTC or the characters and I do not make any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 18
- 19
- 20
She tied her long black hair up into its customary ponytail and didn't even bother looking in the mirror at her reflection. The dingy lighting of the hotel room she was staying in didn't do much to flatter anyway, but she wasn't one to care about the state of her appearance beyond being awake and alert.
Crossing the room to grab her phone, she kept glancing at the box like it was going to blink out of existence if she didn't, as though she had just developed OCD specifically for that reason.
Hesitating only a moment, she tapped until she got to Arturo's contact page and pressed call. She wanted this whole operation over and done with as soon as possible. Just having the box in her possession made her uncomfortable, especially with the cops now looking for it, and the Yakuza most likely knowing of its theft. That prospect was more than a little chilling to her, but she knew that all parties involved were well equipped to handle any blowback from them.
And there was the ever-growing problem of Sekar Handa. He reminded her of that lump that a person finds and ignores for far too long before getting it checked out only to find out that it is going to kill them in a week. He was next on her to-do list.
Arturo answered on the third ring, but it took him a second to speak, preceded by some rustling noises. "Suzuki, Buenos Dias. I trust you have good news for me?"
Good news. Sure, if good news meant that she had orchestrated the theft of an international case's evidence by hiring two very wanted criminals in order to un-kidnap a little girl because her father couldn't stop being a problem for the Cartel.
"The evidence is with me."
Another gurgly laugh, and more rustling. "Bueno, Bueno. It appears that you hired the right person for the job, then."
"I never expected Jack to fail."
"Ciertamente, ciertamente."
"So what's the plan now?"
The plan was that he was going to board an airplane as quickly as his beer and re-fried bean infested body could carry him, along with his Cartel goons, and come here with Gabriella to get the damn evidence and do the exchange. She wanted to be done with this shit.
"We have made arrangements to travel. We'll be leaving the cálidos Rayos de sol of Mexico to bask in the rain of England later today."
"And you will contact me when you arrive?"
"Si, si, we want this done as much as you do. That poor property of yours should really get back to her padres."
The lie that she had told Jack and the others about the gun had been good, well, good enough, but she had an inkling that Jack hadn't totally believed her, and neither had Elizabeth. But, they hadn't seen it to be worth their while to figure out what the truth actually was, because to them, it couldn't be anything they needed to be concerned about anyway.
And all she was concerned about was keeping the two of them out of the loop at this point. They had done the job that she had asked them to do, and their involvement needed to end there. She just hoped that all parties, the Cartel, the Yakuza, the cops, and Handa didn't royally fuck this whole thing up, but even she had to admit that there were a million ways that this entire thing could go to hell.
That was the way of the world. There was always a million ways that anything could go to hell.
But Gabriella was worth the risk. She would put every single person she had involved on the line to make sure she was safe.
"You realize that you will need to be incredibly cautious here, right? Generally, the Yakuza don't feel the need to travel to fix problems, they can operate from Japan just fine and still get things done, but this time might be different."
"Suzuki, Suzuki, we can handle the japonés if they become a problem. Don't worry. And I trust you are cutting off Jack and the Swann woman? I don't see their continued involvement as necessary."
"Yes, they're done. Though, if the Yakuza or any of us decide to bring them back in forcefully, well, let's just say that Jack won't appreciate it very much."
"...No, I wouldn't think so. Jack Sparrow is a hombre peligroso if provoked. I would imagine his novia is no different. I don't know how much you already know about her, but I know nothing, and even I know that she isn't just arm candy for him."
She hadn't had a chance to do much digging into Elizabeth, but just the way she had conducted herself at Jack's house, she had an air of supreme authority about her, and Jack had looked proud, as though there was nothing he enjoyed more than letting her take control. They were in love, most certainly, any fool could see that just by watching them for more than two seconds.
"Yes, well, you would know all about arm candy, wouldn't you Arturo? Unfortunately, you don't have the benefit of looking like Jack. I rather think it's only your money and position of power that gives you an advantage there."
"Ahhh, mujer, you hurt my sentimientos. But no matter. Do you have a place in mind to meet for the drop-off?"
She did, in fact.
"There is a little park in Bath close to The Ayrlington, the hotel I'm staying in. Hedgemead Park. It's currently closed to visitors, something about repairing the pathways. We can meet there."
It had taken a while to decide which hotel would be suitable, but the cozy out-of-the-way nature of the Ayrlington had been a perfect choice if a little cramped.
"Un parque? Suena bien. Once we obtain the evidence, we will arrange a location and time for you to collect Gabriella. It will be up to you to ensure your own safety while traveling back and forth, however."
"I figured as much. Please contact me again when you land here. Just to keep everything...on the same page."
"Convenido, Suzuki. Te veo pronto. Adios."
The lamp on her desk was starting to overtake her entire box of vision, making it warped and splotchy since she had been staring at it for almost three minutes.
She would rather think about anything else, like how best to organize her fuckstorm of an office, or which car she should think of buying next, or whether she ever wanted children, or how to possibly approach dating.
Anything besides this damn case. Because the damn case had been blown wide open on Sunday, all because of the asshole on the phone. Before, it had been a cut and dry gang violence case wrapped in a much larger sex trafficking blanket.
Now? Now it was like someone had shredded the entire damn bed with a pair of Freddy Krueger knife gloves. Nothing made sense anymore.
"I think we need to re-think this entire case, starting from the beginning," she said to no one in particular, even though Cyril was sitting across from her, looking rather concerned.
"Why's that?"
"...because the man on the phone wasn't Cartel."
"So?"
She could already tell that it was going to take some convincing to get Cyril on board with her theory.
"Think about it. If the man on the phone wasn't Cartel, then he was hired by the Cartel. But why would the Cartel hire a third party to do their work for them?"
"I don't know, maybe because they killed a Japanese prosecutor and don't want to implicate themselves anymore into the investigation?"
"...Maybe. But what if it's the reverse?"
"Reverse? What are you talking about?"
Sighing, she stopped twirling the pen that she had forgotten was even in her hand, and prepared to turn the entire case on its head.
"What if someone else killed the prosecutor, rather than Ramos?"
Cyril stared at her for a moment as if he hadn't heard her, then shook his head in a back and forth jerking motion as though she had offended him.
"Someone...someone else? A frame job? That would break the Cartel's ties to the trafficking-"
"Not necessarily. Maybe this trafficking operation, but I'm still convinced they have a hand in the sex trade somewhere."
"And who do you think actually killed him?"
She didn't know. A hundred possibilities had...but any one of them could be right, or all of them could be wrong.
"...I think you might be right, maybe," he said, rubbing at his face. "But I have just as much of a clue as to who the actual guilty party is as you do. What about the phone suspect?"
"What about him?"
Of course, she wanted to find out who he was, as he had been dominating her thoughts more than anything else lately, mostly because she hated being outsmarted.
"Well, you said one of our top priorities is to find out who he is. Any theories there?"
Once she had figured out that a third party had indeed been hired, she had gone through what skills the suspect had just based on what he was able to do. Sighing, she leaned back in her chair, grateful to talk about something else.
"The man is obviously good at manipulation, he's good at scoping out buildings, knows about weapons and bombs, and also likes fast cars."
"Fast cars? You...you don't think he was driving one of the sports cars that boxed in the evidence truck do you?"
The man on the phone, which is what she had been calling him in her mind, didn't strike her as the one driving the car, but rather the one in charge of the plan.
"No, but I do think that he was in one of them-"
"Monica, isn't it a little too convenient for the suspect to be involved in the theft and the threat?"
"Why wouldn't he be? I can't imagine that the Cartel would want the operation to involve that many people. If I were to guess, two people were in the car in the back, our suspect being one of them, and one person drove the car in the front. They must have had one or two other people involved off-site to shut the cameras down."
Cyril was staring at her again, with one of those stares that made her think he was contemplating her intelligence at the same time as her theory.
"And I'm guessing you think he is the one who tranqued Unwin and Slaymaker? What, are we in a fucking Fast and Furious movie all of a sudden?"
The similarities were striking.
"I do think he was the one that overtook the truck. But beyond that, why him? Why did the Cartel hire him?"
Her only answer to that question is that the man's job was being a criminal for hire. The Cartel wouldn't have selected anyone random, or even anyone that just had book smarts about the mechanics of such an operation. They would want someone with experience. Someone who was good at being a criminal, good at stealing specifically.
"...let me guess, you have a theory about that too?"
She did, though he was going to reject it immediately because even she understood how hairbrained it was. But today was all about being hairbrained. And fucked. And then fucked some more. This was the only time that this connection would even make a little bit of sense.
"You know the string of...high grade merchandise robberies that the UK and the rest of Europe have been experiencing for like….the last seven or so years? Cars, jewelry, documents, things like that?"
"...of course I do. I did the case study on them. About comparing them to run of the mill bank heists and home invasions or business robberies. Remember?"
Of course she did. At least the bits of the presentation that she hadn't slept through.
"What if...and I know this sounds crazy, but what if it was all the same person?"
He raised an incredulous eyebrow, twitching his head in confusion as though she had just suggested that babies really did come from storks. She had had this theory buzzing around in her head for awhile actually but had never had a concrete reason to mention it until now.
"...the same person? Please don't tell me that you really have a criminal mastermind theory brewing. Really, Monica…of all the things..."
"All of the merchandise that was stolen was either expensive or important. And every single theft was done cleanly without incident. We never pinned down any suspects because we never treated it as one case, we treated each one as a new case. Maybe we should have been looking into only one suspect."
"Ok, so what's the point of bringing this up, if I were to go along with it for a second to humor you?"
Taking a deep breath, she checked with herself to make sure she actually believed the possibility enough to even mention it.
"What if that person is the same man on the phone that I talked to? That orchestrated the theft? What if we're looking at another JM type? Only a version that likes to remain faceless and nameless rather than waltz into the Tower of London and let himself get captured wearing the Crown Jewels, which to me almost makes him better than-"
"He was one of a kind," he cut in. "...but, if your theory is even a little bit plausible, we are dealing with someone very intelligent, very resourceful, and very careful. Certainly not psychopathic though, which JM certainly was. Our suspect relies on a team, it appears, at least for this operation."
They both sat there, contemplating the ludicrousness of the entire situation.
"If we are to go down this route," Cyril continued, "we need to reexamine the most recent theft cases that were closed off. See if we can come up with anything new that could give us a face or a name."
She sat there, wondering if Cyril was trying to take the piss out of her because she had expected to need to offer up organs for him to even consider her idea.
"...you mean, you're actually open to the idea?"
"Well, since we have had experience with someone like that already, I guess I don't see why there can't be other criminals like that, and it is suspicious that we never found a suspect for any of those robberies. I'll dig up the case files. Maybe going two months back?"
"...Yeah, yeah, I suppose that would work. And what about getting the evidence back?"
"It makes sense to go through the person who stole it, doesn't it? At least, for a place to start. Because right now, we don't have anything else. I'll send out an order for constables to record any sightings of exotic sports cars in the area, and I'll alert all of the surrounding police departments."
He got up, leaving her to wallow in her overpriced leather office chair, hating every decoration that she had in her office, allowing herself to focus on the annoying reality if her theory ended up being true. If someone else really did kill Akihito Ishii, then that meant that the Cartel was being framed, which introduced a whole new clusterfuck of problems.
But if they pursued this angle, and it was the Cartel that killed Ishii, then they were wasting their damn time.
She hated wasting her time.
He zipped his pants up as the latest blonde secretary rose from her knees in front of him, and then gazed around his huge office, something he liked to do to remind himself of exactly how much money he had and how much power he could exert with it.
"Same time next week, Mr. Handa?" her voice floated out, sounding like she belonged on one of those Real Housewives TV shows. Sure, same time next week. If she was here next week. This was the tenth secretary that he had gone through in the last two months.
"I...look forward to it, Ashley."
"It's Amanda," but her face only fell a little bit before she ran a red acrylic nail over his clothed crotch, giving him a kittenish smile as she turned on her heel. "Amanda...whatever."
He'd had two Amanda's by now, not counting her. Unless he was fucking their names up too. But what did it matter? They all gave him blowjobs if he promised them raises and vacations to the Caribbean and other extravagant gifts he never intended on following through with.
Circling around to the other side of his desk, he was reminded of the current pressing matter in his busy schedule. A matter that should have been taken care of a week ago.
A matter that was currently taking the form of a middle finger on a piece of white paper. He had received it in the mail three weeks ago in a black envelope, sealed shut with a sticker that said: "Fuck You". It had apparently been hand delivered to the front desk.
Normally, he wouldn't have had a clue who sent it, had it not been in the black envelope, with the "Fuck You" sticker and the printed out middle finger. Thankfully, because of those details, the mysterious admirer became not so mysterious.
Not that they had ever been mysterious to begin with, because the asshole that sent it liked to remind him that not only was he still alive, he was just waiting for the next moment to fuck with his life. But the fucker should have been taken out last week. Point blank, boom, a bullet to the skull.
He'd been in fucking Mumbai for fuck's sake, and the assassin that he had hired was literally given the opportunity to kill him on a silver platter. He had told her where the asshole was staying, but apparently killing people in hotels was too difficult, because he had walked away perfectly healthy and bullet-less.
Suzuki had reassured him that she would get the job done, but the target was proving more difficult than she had anticipated.
Difficult was certainly somewhere on a long list of insults that he could call Jack Sparrow, cocksucker and fuckhead being closer to the top.
As a CEO, he had access to piles of money, mountains of money, more money than he could spend in a lifetime. He also had access to very good lawyers, and the combination of those two things landed him in a position to do some...criminal activity under the table. Or, at least he could if Jack Sparrow hadn't made it his life goal to make all of his business ventures go to hell.
He didn't have enough fingers to count how many times Jack had intervened in his affairs, but it was enough to want him dead, currently six years too late.
Snatching his phone off of the desk, he decided to figure out where exactly Suzuki was with putting the man six feet under. She answered on the last ring.
"How's my favorite Japanese-"
"Shut the fuck up, Handa. What do you want?"
"Wow, so rude. Consider for a moment that I'm your employer, I could make you go away very quickly, and let's not forget that you are a week late on what I hired you for."
"I told you that Jack wasn't going to be a get-in-get-out target. Just imagine John Wick mixed with a touch of Joker and sprinkled with a dash of Dominic Toretto, and you have Jack Sparrow. Or is that too complicated for your silly little brain?"
He clutched the phone tightly for a moment, clenching his jaw. "I know full well how slippery Jack is. He's been stealing shit from under my nose for six years without being caught."
"I assure you, I will get the job done-"
"I know you will because I'm coming to London to make sure of it."
There was silence on her end for a moment. "...How did you know-"
"He has a place there, somewhere in the UK anyway. Not sure of exactly where, but I do know that since you fucked up killing him in Mumbai, you would've followed him there."
"Not necessary, Handa-"
"No no, I've already got a plane arranged. I'll be there within a few days, and if you don't have Jack dead by then, I will be forced to give you extra incentives. Is that clear?"
"...Clear."
The call ended, and he smirked at how much power he could exert over even an assassin.
Chris had some kind of techno playing again as she searched Jack's kitchen for something to eat, waiting for him to emerge from the bedroom.
"What's your opinion on that Trivoly lady?" he asked, making himself some coffee.
"Um...I don't know, she seems competent enough. I didn't see anything spectacular about her though. Just another cop."
Hopefully, anyways.
"Yeah, I agree. Hey, you know, if you and Jack want to get out of the house for a little bit, there is an ice cream shop kind of out of the way. It's a farm, called Marshfield's. Almost straight north."
She turned to smirk at him. "Are you giving us permission to go on a date?"
The prospect sounded very attractive actually. It would be nice to get some normal time in with him before they embarked on the second half of their conversation.
"Well, no, it's just that I don't think we all need to treat the house like a stronghold that we can't leave. I doubt the Yakuza are going to break down our front door, and I actually really doubt that they are going to be leaving Japan. Even if they do, it's unlikely-"
"Yeah, they have no idea we're involved, and currently, they have no way of finding out. And ice cream does sound good."
His face relaxed, and he looked a little too pleased with himself. "What?" she asked with a little giggle.
"...Nothing, I just like that Jack finally has you back. He's...like a brother to me at this point, so seeing him happy is nice."
Turning back to continue searching the fridge, she finally settled on making sandwiches. "Remind me to stock Jack's kitchen with actual food at some point. And I'm sure that he really appreciates having you around. Have you ever told him that?"
"Told him what?"
"That you see him as a brother."
"Well...no, but he doesn't seem like the type to enjoy discussing-"
"Tell him. Seriously, I think he'd like to hear it."
"...Yeah, maybe."
Jack would like to hear that. The closest thing he had ever had to a brother was Will, and she wouldn't even call their relationship that close. It was more little brother than anything, in that Will just annoyed Jack most of the time, such as when he clubbed Jack over the head with an oar, or when he traded Jack's ship to Sao Feng, or when he ruined Jack's leverage landing them marooned on an island.
'We could use a ship. The fact is I was going to not tell Barbossa about bloody Will in exchange for a ship, because as long as he didn't know about bloody Will, I had something to bargain with. Which now no one has, thanks to bloody stupid Will.'
Smiling at the memory as she slapped the bread on the counter, she grabbed the mayo next and attempted to unscrew the lid, only to find that someone had put it on with the goal to not allow the next person to get it off. After struggling with a good thirty seconds, she finally heard a snicker to her right and turned to find Jack staring at her with a grin on his face and Chris nowhere in sight.
"You know, even a King can ask for help once in a while-"
"...I don't...oh my god why is this on so tightly...I don't need help…" she gasped as she made one last effort. Jack stepped up behind her and circled his arms around her to grab the jar, which she conceded with a heavy sigh. She turned around just in time to see the lid pop off.
"You loosened it for me," was his quippy response as she glared at him, barely allowing the little smile she was battling to curve the corner of her mouth up. "Whatever."
She stepped up to give him a kiss before taking the mayo from him. "Chris gave us permission to go on a date, by the way."
"Oh, did he?" Jack responded as he wound his arms around her again, making the task of spreading mayo on bread a tiny bit more pleasant. "That's nice of him."
"He mentioned that there's an ice cream place, Marshfield's, north of here. Ice cream sounds good."
"It would be nice to get out of the house," he said in between kisses on her neck. "Let me eat something, and you finish your sandwiches, and then we can go if you want."
He opened the cupboard and had just as much difficulty finding something to eat as she did. "I was telling Chris that it might be a good idea to go like...grocery shopping at some point. Buy some real food," she said to his back.
Finally, he settled on making sandwiches himself, successfully managing to accidentally flick a glob of mayo onto her shoulder. "Oops, knife slipped."
"Right, it slipped. Slang term for being annoying-"
"And why do we need groceries?"
"Well," she started, wiping the offending substance off her skin, "all you have here is sandwich stuff, some frozen microwave stuff, and hotdogs."
"...There's some soup in the cupboard…"
"...We need groceries. You'll survive a grocery trip, I think. When we get back from Lima, we're definitely going shopping."
"I dunno, I'll prolly die of boredom," he said as he took a bite of his sandwich, a look that was a cross between taunting and pleading in his eyes.
"You'll be fine."
"Which car do you want to take?"
She scanned the options in the garage, before allowing logic to take over preference. "We should probably take the truck. It's the least flashy vehicle you have. After the job, they'll be on the lookout for sports cars."
"Yeah, you're probably right," he responded, plucking a set of keys off the hook on the wall. The Silverado's headlights flashed as he unlocked the doors. "You wanna drive?"
"No thanks, I hate driving trucks."
"I think you just want to make me do all of the work."
He laughed when she stuck her tongue at him before disappearing around to the driver's side to climb in. She followed suit on her side, noticing that the truck was very clean, as though it was rarely used. "Have you ever actually driven this thing?"
"Of course. I bought it for the purpose of blending in if need be. Chris uses it to go pick up anything that requires hauling."
"...when you say that you bought it, do you really mean James bought it?"
The only response she got was a grin as they pulled out of the garage. She rolled the window down a bit to get some fresh air as Jack turned some music on, keeping it at a low volume so they could still talk.
"So, have you been to any concerts lately?" she asked. The last concert they had gone to together was the original Woodstock, in 1969. Jack had proposed the idea to try and take their minds off of Russia. They had only stayed one day before deciding that it was too chaotic to stick around, with the hoards of people and smoke and just general uncleanliness.
"Yeah, actually. Went to Maiden in May with Chris and Shawn at the 02 Arena in London. Was a pretty good show, just wish they would have played more of their classic stuff than they did. I don't really like concerts much unless it's a band that I really like."
"Why's that?"
"I dunno," he said as he turned onto London Road. "Usually I would rather be on the stage rather than watching. Hard to be a guitar player when you are a wanted criminal though."
"You could just wear a mask and use a stage name. A lot of bands do that. The supporting band for Maiden, their lead singer is called Papa something and dresses up as an evil Pope."
"And," he paused to grumble about how the person in front of him was driving like a grandma on valium, "what do you suppose I would dress up as?"
She had half a mind to suggest his Captain outfit, then burst into a fit of giggles at the image of Captain Jack Sparrow jumping around on a stage with a guitar. "I don't know...you could go full vampire like Lestat in Queen of the Damned."
"And wear a gross mesh shirt? No thanks. Pretty sure I could do the whole lip-syncing bit though. And I would make a pretty good vampire too."
"Your self-control would put all other vampires to shame."
The thought that he was thinking occurred to her at the same time as he looked around at her for a second, making her giggle again. "Maybe you forgot," he began, turning onto a road with a farm at the end of it, "but I do have a bit of an addictive streak. I was addicted to alcohol, well I guess you could say I still am, just addicted in moderation, I was a drug addict for a little while, and I'm addicted to you. So do really suppose that I could control bloodlust?"
"I would have faith in you, I think."
"Uh huh. You know, last time you used that line, you were trying to seduce me. Is this ice cream venture just-"
Whatever he was going to say, and she had an idea, turned into a string of garbled hysterical "no stops" when she shot her hand out and dug her fingers into his ribs, tickling the living hell out of him.
"I'm not always trying to seduce you," she said once he recovered. "Sometimes a date can just be a date, just like a cigar is just a cigar."
They had just pulled up to the farm, which was incredibly handsome, with green pastures filled with cows and a lovely house that she supposed the ice cream shop was in. "Besides, you do your fair share of seducing too."
The smell of farm assaulted her nose as her feet landed on the gravel road. Jack was waiting for her on the other side of the truck with a playful grin on his face. "Never said I didn't, love."
As she stepped forward, warm skin suddenly touched her hand, and she looked down to find Jack's hand enclosed in hers. With a jolt, it occurred to her that they had never properly just held hands before. That thought, it really hit her, right square between the eyes, that they were really together.
She didn't even try to hide the megawatt smile that threatened to break her face, and she rather fancied that she started to bounce slightly as she walked, enjoying the feel of the light breeze in her hair. For once it was a fairly sunny day.
"I love seeing you smile," came his voice, almost a quiet whisper with how softly he said it, as though he meant the words only for her. She sidestepped so that she was pressed up against him as they walked. "I mean, you're the one making me smile, so…"
"That's my job, isn't it?" he said, sneaking a kiss onto her head. Oh god she loved him, and she repeated the thought in her head over and over even as she shook her head in mirth at him, still grinning like a fool.
A stout handsome old woman wearing red-framed glasses looked up from behind the counter when they walked in, and she knew immediately that the woman was one of the types to gush over couples.
"Hello, hello, welcome to Marshfield's. Just give me a moment."
They watched her bustle around, pawing at various papers, and grumbling about not being able to find the phone. Finally, she came around the counter and clapped her hands. "My name is Margaret, I am...well, co-owner, but I might as well be the owner since my husband has taken it upon himself to become engrossed in...oh, nevermind. I get carried away sometimes. It's not every day that a couple comes in to get ice cream, and a gorgeous couple at that."
She blushed, unable to help it with someone else commenting on them. "You have a lovely farm here. How long?"
With a nostalgic look in her eyes, Margaret replied, "31 years," in a wistful voice, hundreds of memories almost playing for them as she gazed at them. "What about you two? How long?"
Almost 300 years? Six days? She wasn't sure which answer was truly accurate.
"Just under a week," she answered. "But we've known each other a long time."
"Ahh, finally admitted that you loved each other then? Excellent, never enough love in the world. Well, over here is our ice cream selection. Take a gander, talk amongst yourselves. You can sample any flavor you like, and you can certainly mix flavors together if you wish."
An air of knowing far more than she let on came from the woman, but rather than feeling invaded, she felt strangely comforted.
Jack followed just behind her to the counter, where she counted at least 25, maybe 30 different flavors. "You had a hard enough time picking food at the airport, how on earth are you going to choose here?"
"I picked Subway!"
"Yeah," he said with a snort. "After going through the entire list of other available restaurants, and Subway was my first suggestion."
"You're a first suggestion. Ooh, that one looks good." She pointed at a pot of bright yellow ice cream.
"Heavenly...Honeycomb?" Jack said, sounding a tad skeptical. "I was looking more at the Caribbean Coconut."
"Why not the Rum and Raisin?"
He made a face like he had just swallowed something distasteful. "You couldn't pay me enough money to eat raisins. I'll eat all of the rum flavored ice cream in the world, but not the raisins."
"They're just dried grapes. And you love grapes."
"I'm not gonna try it-"
"Could I have a bit of the Heavenly Honeycomb?" she asked Margaret, cutting off Jack's protests.
"Certainly, certainly, and how about I select one for your lovely man here myself? A bit of a surprise?"
She smirked around at Jack, a challenge in her eyes, daring him to deny the woman's suggestion. The challenge was accepted with a slow pull at the corner of his mouth. A pirate's smile.
"If you insist."
Margaret presented him with a brown-colored spoonful of ice cream, watching him closely as he stuck it in his mouth, looking around the room as he rolled it around, contemplating the taste. "I knew he would like that one," she whispered, glancing at her with glee dancing in her eyes. "Toffee Fudge Fiasco."
When he finally swallowed, he tilted his head in defeat. "Pretty good, I guess."
They both ordered a bowl of the flavors that they had sampled, sitting in the corner of the shop next to one of the windows. "She's interesting...so, Chris said he finds it highly unlikely that the Yakuza will come here, but I'm not sure I agree with him."
"They have no way of knowing that we're involved even if they do-"
"That's what I told him," she said, sighing. "I can't wait for Lima. Hopefully they don't screw our seats up this time."
He grinned down at his bowl. "Yeah, no kidding. Hey, I was going to tell you in the truck but I guess I forgot. I actually met the guys in Maiden a few years ago. They were, of all the places, in a gun shop in London. James Purdey and Sons. I walked in for a shotgun and did a double take when I saw Bruce standing there holding a pistol.
"After I found the right moment to approach him, we got to talking and I steered him in a different direction as far as the gun he was looking to buy. Then we switched to planes and he told me a few stories about piloting because he flies the plane for their tours.
"A few minutes later, Nicko and Steve, the bassist and drummer, walked up and at that point, I was in full starstruck mode if you can even imagine that. I chatted with them for a good two hours."
"Did you get any autographs or anything?" she asked, thoroughly fascinated by the image of a starstruck Jack.
"No, didn't want to bother them with that. Did get a picture though, which I have somewhere back at the house. What about you? Met anyone famous?"
She searched through her memory.
"I met Angelina Jolie once, sort of. I was in the same room with her in Los Angeles. Didn't say anything to her though. A year ago I was also in the same room with Jennifer Lawrence, but didn't say anything to her either. As far as people I have actually met, I had a ten-minute conversation with Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr. He's incredibly funny.
"I also met Emilia Clarke in London. She's lovely. I met, oh who else...oh, I also met Ryan Reynolds in Miami. Completely strange, but he was at a record shop there, just browsing, and I forget why I was there, but I was bored, so I went to the record shop, and just like you, I did a complete...well, it was more like a five-take when I saw him standing there.
"Once I gathered the courage to say something, we talked about Deadpool for a couple of minutes, and it turned into me quoting almost the entire movie and him just laughing."
He swallowed a chunk of ice cream, making a 'holy shit that was too much ice cream at once' face. "I'd love to meet him. Oh, I forgot about this one, and this might actually be the best celebrity encounter I've had. So, I was at a bar in Hollywood in September of '85, the Whiskey A Go Go, just sitting there drinking.
"In walks Nikki Sixx, the bassist for Motley Crue, and the guy is already hammered, probably high too, I think he was into coke and probably heroin at that point. Anyway, he sits down right next to me, and the guys in the bar were pretty used to seeing him around apparently, so no one else bothered him.
"He starts telling me, and this is a hilarious thing considering that I was just talking about Maiden, and he wasn't really telling me, more telling whoever was listening, about how he thought he accidentally fucked Bruce's girlfriend while they were on tour with Maiden that year."
"Oh god, what did you say?" she asked through her laughter.
"I asked him how a person manages to accidentally have sex with someone else. He told me that she walked into his trailer and demanded that he have sex with her. They fucked, she left, and nothing else happened. Then he started to say that he was worried that Bruce had found out, and all I could do was sit there and call him a fucking idiot.
"I was a huge fan of Motley Crue, still am, and the only chance I got to meet one of the band members, I spent a half hour listening to a high on coke and drunk on Jack Daniels Nikki Sixx moan about getting some with another guy's girlfriend. Imagine that."
"Poor you," she said, finishing off the last of her ice cream. "That is an interesting claim, accidentally having sex with someone else. Have you ever accidentally had sex with me?"
He nearly spit the last of his ice cream out. "No, no, I'm fairly certain that it is always entirely on purpose."
On the tail end of her giggling, Margaret approached their table, a smile on her face. "Was everything to your liking?"
"Yes, very much, thank you," she responded, returning the smile.
"No problem, no problem. It's on the house even, as a celebration, and congratulations."
They thanked her and got up to leave, and then Jack pulled out a 20 banknote and tossed it on the table anyway, muttering something about 'people being too nice'.
He was Tatsuo Izumi, next in line to lead the Tokyo Branch of the Yakuza. At least, he was if he managed to clear himself of murder.
Did he regret killing Akihito Ishii in that parking garage?
The short answer would be no, but the variation of the answer no would also depend on which time a person was referring to.
In the moment, it was the most logical choice he could have made. The man was getting far too close to uncovering their operation, and that was simply unacceptable.
But now, the consequences of that choice were blooming outwards like some kind of biochemical weapon, and the prospect of halting the prosecutor's investigation paled in comparison to the problem that they needed to stop now. As he looked out of the window of the airplane, down at all of the miniature cities and cars, he wondered if the poison of crime was finally going to swallow them all like the atomic bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The long answer was that he had a reason, an excuse for being what Sasaki had termed as reckless in the only lecture he had received about the whole mess. He inferred that his excuse was the only reason that he was still in the position of power that he was. Any other situation and Sasaki would have had him killed.
He had lost his wife three years ago to a series of unfortunate circumstances. She had gotten wrapped up in some kind of theft operation, simply the wrong place at the wrong time. The thief, a woman that he only knew as Liz, had threatened her to remove herself from the equation, which she had complied to. Through a cruel twist of happenstance, two Yakuza had seen this confrontation and had assumed that his wife was a rat, an accomplice to the thief, and had executed her the next day.
His soul hadn't been the same since, and he had spent every minute that he had available trying to track Liz down, but she was like a wisp of smoke, barely existing in the tangible reality.
When he did find her, and he would, he was going to make her suffer for his wife, going to make her taste the pain that he had felt, was still feeling.
But before that, this Ishii mess needed to be sorted out, his name needed to be cleared, Ramos needed to get the charge, and then everything could go back to normal.
It was going to be a long flight to Britain he knew, and there was nothing more that he would like than to turn around and go back to Japan.
With sluggish movements she trailed along after Art, her long dark brown hair flapping in the wind. The hotness of it was dry against her face, and she had to squint to not see everything as blobs of color. The world still looked big to her, still looked like a place that she would like to explore, when she was done pretending that playgrounds were the world anyway. But the world was shrinking to her with every day that passed, every day without her parents.
"Where are we going?"
The other men treated her like the teachers at school had treated her, or like how the animals on a farm are treated; like a faceless thing. But not Art, Art answered all of her questions, listened to everything she said.
She didn't like Art. He was too nice to her, his face was always stuck in a greasy smile, his eyes holding too much niceness to the point where she was reminded of how a troll might lure children across the bridge before he killed them under it.
He didn't really care about her, not really, not in the way that her mother cared about her. But she hadn't seen her mother in three weeks.
"Well," he said, turning and stooping down to her level, the other men rolling their eyes behind him. "Remember when we watched Oliver? We're going where Oliver was. Gran Bretaña, Britain. You'll like it there."
Doubt it. It sounded cold.
When he rose again, his huge belly at her eye level as he turned around, she eyed the plane with her nose screwed up and her mouth puckered. The other men were whispering about why they needed to bring her with, why the 'Japanese bitch' couldn't just come here instead.
She missed Suzuki too, even if she was a little less friendly than her mother was. She was someone to talk to, someone that didn't act like Art did, like he wanted something from her. Lately, she had been telling her that she would get her back to her parents soon, to trust her and that she wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.
The men had been whispering about things around her for weeks, and she had picked up on words like 'framed' and 'Japs' and bad words that they called her father. She tried to understand, tried to think, but there had been nothing in the library that she found herself in every day to help her.
With its old book smell and cranky front desk lady that always yelled at her for leaving books everywhere, the library was her second home, and Suzuki loved taking her there. She rather thought it was because Suzuki preferred being alone, but could still watch over her at the library, even when she disappeared in the rows of books, running her fingers over the spines until one caught her eye.
The other day, she had come upon a book that was hidden down on the bottom shelf in the back corner. It was a book on pirates, and she had spent all day reading it, completely fascinated. There were things about their ships, about swords, about something called the Brethren, about something called pieces of eight, and even a couple of named pirates. It was a week ago now, so she couldn't remember the names exactly, but she remembered them having something to do with birds. She had even dared to bring it to Suzuki to ask some questions, but she had no answers for her.
A gurgly sounding "Gabriella" floated back to her from where Art was, and she realized that they were already standing by the plane. He was motioning for her to climb the steps, and she tore her attention away from the skyline, away from wondering what was out there, beyond these men and their secrets and Art's huge belly and his too nice eyes.
When she was older, when she was a teenager, instead of being the boring age of ten, where she had to listen to adults and rules and had to play outside only at certain times of the day and couldn't have all the candy she wanted, she would explore, learn, and no one would tell her what to do.
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The Scythe's Song