“Huh?”
“I hear that you made Penguin and Shachi help you commit various crimes. Smuggling weapons, breaking into jewelry stores, and the like. Is that true?” Wolf asked.
“You little brats! You told him about that?” the man started to rant. “I don’t believe this! Apparently I didn’t teach you your lesson the first time!” The man lifted his fist to swing at the boys, and they stood there stock-still, too traumatized to react.
But Wolf reached out and easily caught the man’s fist.
“Hey! Let go, old man! What the hell? You’re so strong… S-stop! You’re going to break my hand!”
“Is this the hand you used to beat these boys with?”
“Yeah, that’s right! You got a problem with that? I was the one giving these miserable orphans a place to stay! I’m the one who found a use for garbage like them! When they screw up, they get hit! That’s how you teach them to work better next time. From useless trash to useful tools! It’s a good thing!”
I can’t stop shivering. But this feeling wasn’t fear. A groundswell of rage surged through me when I heard the man talk about Shachi and Penguin that way.
“Screw you!” I shouted, before I could stop myself. I couldn’t control my emotions; frustration and sadness combined with my intense anger. “Those boys follow me and they’re important! You’re just a rotten scumbag! Don’t you ever refer to them as ‘tools’ again!”
“Law,” said Shachi to me tearfully, overcome with emotion.
“Don’t you understand how they feel?” I went on. “They lost their parents and they didn’t have any grown-ups to rely on. Then you forced them to do things they knew weren’t right. Don’t you realize how much pain you caused them?”
“Look at this little brat who thinks he knows something about the world! Listen up, you! I took them in. I gave them a home, a place to sleep, and food to eat! Well, rat food, more like, but garbage spawn like that doesn’t deserve anything better!”
“You…” I couldn’t take it anymore. I rushed at the man, ready to pummel him. But before I could get there I noticed something. Wolf’s fist was buried in the man’s gut.
“That’s enough from you,” Wolf said calmly.
“Urgh…guh…” the man gasped, then toppled forward and passed out.
“Shachi! Penguin!” Wolf shouted. “You boys aren’t anyone’s tools. You’re not garbage! You’re not unwanted! You’re both precious to me. There isn’t any reason why this rotten man’s words should hurt you!”
Bepo and I stood motionlessly, taking in the drama around us. Shachi and Penguin fell to their knees, crying. There were so many things I wanted to say, but Wolf had said them all.
“Wolf! What happened?” called Rudd, the policeman, who had heard the clamor and come running as fast as he could manage.
“Perfect timing, Rudd,” said Wolf. “This man and his wife, who I assume is somewhere in the house, were forcing these children to smuggle weapons and break into shops downtown. You ought to search their place immediately.”
“I’ve heard rumors about this place, but we can’t go and search a private residence without reasonable cause,” said Rudd.
“Hmph!” Wolf snorted. “I’ve got plenty of evidence. Here are some documents I got from the organized crime group that this man was selling weapons and drugs to. It’s got a list of the substances, amounts, and buyers, all right here.”
“But how did you get this?”
“I’ve spent the last month gathering information from the people in town. I was eventually able to track down the group’s hideout. When I went to retrieve this evidence yesterday, I even got involved in a little bit of a brawl.”
“Junker,” I said, “when you said you had business in town, is this what you were doing?”
“Hmph. I didn’t think it would take a whole month to find their place. And in the end I had to fend off five of them at one time. It was more trouble than it was worth.”
So he was running all over town for the last month trying to find evidence against a criminal gang? And he fought five men at once? Has he been this brave and strong all along, and I just didn’t know it?
“This should be plenty of evidence to perform a search,” Rudd responded, looking down at the paperwork. “Give me a minute to call for backup.”
Within moments several police officers showed up and marched into the house. As Wolf promised, they found plenty of evidence of Shachi’s uncle and aunt’s crimes. It wasn’t just the stuff Shachi and Penguin had told us about, either; they were also dealing drugs themselves, and even had plans to abduct children and sell them off the island. They were arrested on the spot and taken to the police station.
“You’ve done great work here, Wolf,” said Rudd, removing his hat.
“Hmph. I owed it to the kids for all the hard work they’ve been doing. Just a little perk of the job.”
“You never change, do you?” the officer responded. “You always make things harder for yourself.”
“Mind your own business, Rudd. I live the way I want to,” Wolf said gruffly.
Rudd laughed, and Wolf scowled, looking away to try to hide the blush on his face.
“Wolf!” shouted Penguin and Shachi, rushing toward him.
“Hey, kids. Sorry you had to witness such an ugly scene. But now that it’s public what they were getting up to, nobody’s going to blame you for it. Now you can go to your new jobs without that hanging over your heads,” he said.
Wolf crouched down and placed his right hand on Shachi’s head and his left hand on Penguin’s. Then he tousled their hair roughly.
“There’s no one out there who can scare you anymore,” he said, as Penguin and Shachi leapt to embrace him, burying their faces in his chest and wailing. Wolf just grinned and picked the boys up, one in each arm. Their faces were covered in snot and drool.
“Law, do you think Wolf was planning to do all that stuff for us from the start?” Bepo asked.
“I dunno,” I replied brusquely, but it was obvious to me what the answer was.