Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) Chris Bauer (free reads TXT) 📖

learned this. Beheading’s a Yakuza thing, with this crime family at least. I’ve been given assurances the bout will stay bareknuckles only.”

“Great,” Philo said. “You’ve been given assurances. Wonderful.”

“Which is why I’m doubling your purse, Trout. Consider it combat pay. And because of the nature of our… rivalry with the Yakuza, chances are the only two people who will not be carrying weapons during the match will be you and Mifumo.”

“It just gets better and better.”

“I will be forever in your debt, Trout.”

“Let’s talk about that right now. You said on the phone you have something you want to tell my friend Mr. Malcolm here.”

His name dropped, Evan’s dark, grim face stayed laser-focused on Lanakai, waiting. Philo sensed in Evan a great need to pummel someone or something, or he would explode. Whatever the crime boss had to say, it would need to be extraordinary.

Wally stood and crossed the small room. When he arrived at their bench, he took a seat next to Evan.

“Mr. Malcolm. I know you’ve suffered a great loss. It was the Yakuza who murdered your fiancée, not me or any of my associates. What they took from her person, her core organs, her very inner being, they sent to me, although I didn’t know at the time who sent them, or whose organs they were. They were being cute and mysterious, and were looking to frame me for her murder, plus other similar murders they’re committing. I can share with you one more thing. If you would like to know, I will tell you who received her organs.”

He produced an envelope. “In here are the names of three people. You will recognize them instantly. If I give you these names, you must promise to never approach any of them about this, and to keep their names a secret, even from your friends here. Deal?”

Evan nodded, then accepted the envelope. The apology, the offer of the information, the information itself, it had an impact. Evan’s seething disposition dissipated, especially when hearing that all three recipients needed the organs to reverse deadly illnesses. Philo wouldn’t have put it past Lanakai to lie about the recipients or the circumstances, but Lanakai was smooth and convincing in delivering the info, which made it easy to believe him, plus it was probably true.

A shocking, classy move, something Philo didn’t think was possible from this man. A home run. Philo nodded his appreciation, but there was more to discuss. “You got anything else to share, Wally, since you’re in so benevolent a mood?”

Lanakai returned to his seat across the room. “Yes. Of course. The location of the fight. The Yakuza want to hold it—”

“Hold that thought. We also need your help with something else.” Philo leaned out, looked past Evan to Patrick, who thrust out his chin a bit. “What can you tell us about my other associate?”

“Mr. Stakes? What about him? I don’t follow, Trout.”

“Try following a little harder. Think ten-year-old kid, helping his Ka Hui bagman father collect protection money. Think Kauai corner store shakedowns. Ring any bells?”

Lanakai’s body language showed no tell, no indications. He remained stiff, his eyesight hardening on Philo. Philo would need to forget being coy, would need to cold-cock him with a name.

“Time’s up. Denholm ʻŌpūnui. What does that name mean to you?”

Lanakai didn’t move. No facial twitch, no blink, no resettling of his fat ass on the hard bench, no nothing. The only tell came from Magpie, who turned to face the crime family patriarch. “Boss—”

His boss dropped his hand hard onto Magpie’s leg, gripped it. “No, Magpie. Just… don’t.”

Lanakai’s lips tightened their hold on each other, seemed determined not to part, determined to stifle any emotion, him willing something away, willing something distasteful into non-existence, until—

His eyes moistened; he blinked out a tear. Lanakai spoke to Philo, part question, part shame-filled declaration. “He knows?”

Patrick answered for himself. “Yes, I know.”

Patrick stood, which made everyone else stand, the drama so thick it could be cut with a machete.

The last one on his feet was Wally Lanakai. “Patrick. I made a promise to your father—”

The promise, on the occasion of Denholm quitting their criminal enterprise and leaving all his Ka Hui manpower and properties to Wally, Lanakai related, was to never recruit Patrick into the business. And the only way to keep that promise, after the tragic beating Patrick had taken during the Philly attack that claimed his parents’ lives and left him brain-damaged, was to let his amnesia stand even after Ka Hui learned where he’d ended up.

“I left you alone. So you wouldn’t know. So you wouldn’t be tempted. So we wouldn’t be tempted. I—”

“I ate from garbage cans,” Patrick said. “I hid in dumpsters behind restaurants, waiting for food. I couldn’t speak. My head. Look at my head!” He jabbed at himself, at the slight dent in his forehead that had come from the beating.

“We didn’t know,” Lanakai said. “You disappeared. When you turned up—when we learned the Blessids had found you, took you in, put you to work—your father was my best friend. He would have been so proud of you, son…”

Patrick was having none of it, snarling through his anger. “There’s so much missing up here, in my head!” He paced, his eyes down, his hands fisted, making Lanakai’s nervous bodyguards stand. “So much I don’t understand. My father, my mother… they were my family! I had no family, and now I do, but they were criminals…”

“Calm down, bud,” Philo said. “More is coming, Patrick. The ancestry info, any day now the Blessids will have it—”

“It’ll be wrong, Philo! Tell me, whose scorecard had me having a Japanese mother? Whose, damn it? I need some air!” He pulled open the heavy door, retreated outside the steam room where he began pacing again.

A side of Patrick that Philo had never seen. More coherent, and with smarts behind the sarcasm. Less childlike.

“Wally, this has been interesting, but we gotta go,” Philo said. “Telling him, not telling him… I can’t say what you