The engine roaring, it came to a stop alongside Setsura. The sheet metal door opened and a pair of shapely tanned thighs swung out, followed by the splendid physique of a young woman with short-cut hair and thin wrap-around sunglasses.
She stood in front of Setsura, blocking the wind. She was wearing blue hot pants. A bikini top the same color tightly contained her ample breasts. The kind of outfit that made a man want to rip it off.
The wardrobe aside, the eyes hidden behind the dark lenses and the way she carried herself said she was something other than a regular member of society.
“Even in Shinjuku, toss a naked girl into a taxi and the next stop will probably be the cops.” She looked up at Setsura, not a little entranced by his visage. “You can count on me, though.”
“What, you just happened to pass by?” Setsura said, showing no interest as he walked away. “You’ve been watching the whole time.”
“You knew? But you never looked my way.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got eyes everywhere,” he said, the temperament of the senbei shop owner returning.
“Hold on,” she said with more urgency. “You’re Setsura Aki, right?”
Setsura stopped and turned around. “How do you know my name?”
“I’m looking for my brother. Hey, perfect timing, us crossing paths like this. He came here to get an interview with you. You’ve met him, right?”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Sasaki. Freelances for Historical World. I’m his little sister. Name’s Azusa.”
“Sasaki-san,” Setsura repeated to himself. “I met him in Shinjuku Gardens the other night. We talked for half an hour or so. That’s all.”
The senbei shop owner wasn’t eager to be the bearer of bad news. The girl was too young to learn about death the hard way.
But she didn’t think so. “You mean, he’s dead?”
“Well—”
“Fine,” Azusa said. He couldn’t tell from her expression if she was sad or relieved. “My brother had no business getting involved in whatever business you’re in. And certainly not in this city. He did have a lead or two. You interested?”
“Maybe later,” Setsura said coolly, and started walking again.
He’d descended from the grounds of the shrine when the rumble of the engine pulled up next to him again.
“Hey, want a ride?”
“I don’t have the fare,” he said, not turning around. The occasional passerby apparently saw nothing unusual about a man walking with a naked woman flung across his shoulder.
“I’m not a cabbie. Just wanted to find out about my brother and sell a little intel.”
Her voice trailed a step behind Setsura, awfully chipper for having just learned of her brother’s death. A strange girl.
Setsura raised his left hand. A taxi approached the curb. The engine of the street buggy snarled, jabbing its nose menacingly at the taxi. Behind the windshield, the cabbie snarled back and yanked hard on the steering wheel.
The brakes squealed and the cab stopped by the sidewalk ahead of them. The door swung violently open and the barrel-chested cabbie leaned out and bared his yellow teeth. “You crazy, lady? Quit poaching my turf!”
As if waiting for this moment, the buggy’s door swung up and down. “Put a sock in it, fatso!” she shot back. “You blind or something? Get yourself a pair of glasses! No easy mark for you here. What, you looking for a little corrective surgery or something?”
She growled out that last challenge with an unnerving calmness that only pissed off the cabbie all the more.
“I’m gonna wring that bitch’s neck.” His sleeve rolled up, showing his bulging bicep, he cracked his knuckles as he strode towards her.
“Bring it on, bub.”
It was hard to tell whether the cabbie stopped before her voice reached him or the report from the gun did. The heavy crack of the large-caliber revolver was followed by flying chunks of asphalt.
The cabbie yelped, and amidst the spouting flame and booming echoes did a crazy little dance there on the spot.
The noise suddenly ceased. The smoking muzzle of the gun drew a bead on the center of the sweating man’s ugly face. The gun was a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 29. Weighing almost three pounds, the average man would need both hands to hold it level. Azusa was using one hand and it wasn’t trembling in the slightest.
The first assumption was that she was on some sort of roids. In any case, a girl who’d pull a .44 Magnum to ward off a bit of harmless road rage had a personality profile way out of the norm.
“One shot left.” Azusa licked her lips and flashed a bright smile. “Wring away. If you feel lucky. I’m a lousy shot, you know. My, my, my, I was aiming at your heart the whole time. Who knows where the next one will land?”
From the rock-hard steadiness of her arm, probably right between the eyes.
The cabbie backed away slowly, holding up one hand as a sign of surrender. He tried to return her look with an equal one of nonchalance, but still looked scared shitless. The sweat turned his shirt into a sheet of sticky cellophane covering his chubby chest and paunchy belly.
He backed into the door of his cab, and then with a speed that belied his flabby frame, ducked into the car and started the engine before the door had closed behind him.
Two engines kicked into gear. The taxi had turned into the center of the street when the buggy rear-ended it. Setsura watched with blank surprise as the taxi slid sideways onto the sidewalk and into a telephone pole.
If a car could saunter along with a self-satisfied grin, that’s what the buggy was doing as it pulled up next to Setsura. “Well, it looks like the taxi can’t make it. How about a ride?”
Taking in both the girl’s pretty face, unmarred by even a speck of guilt or evil, and the cabbie crawling out of the wrecked car, Setsura Aki shrugged and nodded.