Sake Bomb (2 page)

But with his tongue’s indelicate probing of
the space between her gums and lips, Kizzie now knew the joys of
being licked clean by an inebriated llama. How could someone so
good looking, so fancy with footwork, have
zero
finesse in
the kissing department? This really should have ended in the
elevator.

Smoothing her palm up the back of his head
brought her watch high enough to see the glowing digits. 30 minutes
and 38 seconds since leaving the club. She grunted thoughtfully.
His hips pumped—bang, bang—and he dragged his tongue down her
throat, wet and sloppy. Kizzie moaned, snagged another glance at
her watch: 31 minutes, 2 seconds.

“Bedroom,” she purred, nipping his ear.

“No.” Pelvis flush with hers, he ground tiny
circles against her middle. “Right here. Up against this wall like
the dirty little girl you are.” He dug his fingers into her flesh
and she grit her teeth. “You want it right here, don’t you, you
filthy whore?”

The hold on his neck tightened a fraction.
“Zio…” A warning.

“Mmm,” he hummed, clearly misunderstanding.
“Love the way you say my name,
namorada.
And I plan,”—hip
thrust—“to hear you say it,”—hip
thrust—“all”—hip—“night”—thrust—“long.” The grind-and-jab became a
steady bang between her legs and he went back to asphyxiating her
with his tongue.

A girl had to do what a girl had to do, but
this
might
have been a huge mistake.

His head plunged down her shirt and Kizzie
clenched her abs, tipping her face up to get her mouth as far from
his as possible. A pinpoint of cold touched each shoulder. The
earrings. Maybe he needed a drink. Or another one. He’d downed
enough
cachaça
earlier to drown a large island. His teeth
sank into her flesh and her mouth went wide in a silent scream.

Scrub that,
she
needed a drink.
Strong. Straight. Double. She’d have to be hammered to get
nailed.

They shifted toward the door, and Kizzie
prayed they were heading to the bedroom. No such luck. Clammy palms
groped her ass, bunching the skirt’s material. Something solid dug
into the back of her upper thigh, bringing the saliva paint job to
a blessed halt.

He pulled back, tone relaying the confusion
she assumed was on his face. “What’s this?”

“Beading…in the skirt.” She dragged his
mouth back to hers.

He drew down the zipper of her sleeveless
hoodie, and cool rushed over the tank top stuck to her skin by
sweat and Belém’s humidity. Then a loud
riiiiiip
as he tore
her tank down the center.

She
really
needed that drink.

“I’m gonna make you scream, Janet.” His
fingers crawled up her belly and crushed her breasts with bruising
force and she grit her teeth.

A loud shrill sounded from someplace in the
darkness and she jumped. That ringing ended, and another noise,
much closer, started up. Then a small blue square illuminated near
Zio’s ear. “Alô?”

Kizzie blinked. Really? Right in the middle
of things? Thank the heavens or be offended?

Arms still around his neck, Kizzie dragged a
lungful of funky cologne in through her nose, checked her watch. 39
minutes, 5 seconds. This had to be a foreplay record. They should
be in the bedroom already!

Zio nipped her skin between snatches of
clipped, vague Portuguese. Kizzie leaned closer, giving him her
neck and straining to hear the low voice on the other end of the
line: “
Meninos
.”

Boys.

She squirmed and he shifted to keep her on
the wall. Her hip brushed the switch, and light flooded the room.
Squinting, she blinked a few times to get her peepers to adjust.
Then her eyes bulged.

Clowns.

Everywhere.

Artwork. Pictures. Figurines. Some happy,
some looking downright sadistic. Red noses, polka dot onesies, and
floppy shoes wall-to-wall, like being in a carnival funhouse minus
the fun. They lounged on the couch, lined the bookshelf, crowded
the entertainment center.

All with their creepy little clown eyes
fixed on her.

A chill slithered down her spine. If this
was the living room….

A discreet turn of her head: Framed clowns
lined the walls leading to the kitchen. She swiveled the other
direction to find more going toward the bedroom. Gaudy red runners
covered polished wooden floors. The door at the end of the hall was
ajar, the room it led to dark. A statue stood guard just outside of
it, about knee high, dressed in a suit jacket with a yellow flower
in the breast pocket and a large green tie over a white shirt. Fire
engine red shoes jutted from beneath brown pants, heels touching,
toes pointing away. Curly orange hair, white face paint, and a big
blue smile surrounded the maniacal look in its eyes. An empty
serving tray rested in its upturned hand.

A clown butler.

Ooo
kaaaay
…

Since getting a teeny taste of BDSM, Kizzie
tried not to judge people on their inclinations, particularly since
she might lean a bit herself. But clowns?
Everywhere
? Too
weird. If the man had clown sheets on his bed, she’d have to kill
him on principle.

Slurred words pulled Kizzie’s thoughts from
that poor kid in
Poltergeist
and his possessed toy clown.
Her shoulders flattened against the wall, a firm weight shoved into
her breastbone. As though each inhale was a chore and each exhale a
miracle, Zio swayed left, overcorrected to the right. The phone
slipped from his hand and clattered on the floor.

Grunting, he peeled away from the wall. His
hold loosened and Kizzie dropped her feet, pivoted so her back was
to the clown at the end of the hall.

Zio wobbled, shaking his head slightly. He
frowned down at his hand like he’d never seen it before; up to
Kizzie; down at his hand.

“Jaa-net…? Whaa—”

Kizzie backed down the hall. He stumbled
toward her, squeezed his lids shut then opened his glazed eyes
wide, studying his palms again. Inched closer and closer as Kizzie
moved away.

The surface beneath her feet changed. The
runner. Not far enough. A dozen more steps to the door and she
needed him in bed; had to keep him upright long enough to get him
there. But his movements were too slow, and time was short.

“Jan…”

Another step back—the rug slid a little—and
she motioned with her hands to urge Zio along. “Come on, Bozo,”
Kizzie mumbled. “Let’s go get in the niiiice warm bed.”

Zio took a step closer and then lunged,
hands two vice grips around her neck. The energy surge caught
Kizzie off guard, but nothing like a closing windpipe to focus
one’s attention. She rammed her forearms up and out at the same
time she stabbed her knee into his groin, only partially
connecting, but enough to throw off his hold without doubling him
over. The heel of her hand shot up, a sharp strike to his chin that
clicked his teeth together.

His arms went wide, bearing down on her, and
she drove a foot into his shin, locking his knee. Zio slumped
forward. The toe of his shoe hooked the edge of the slippery runner
and his forehead crashed into her face on his way down.

Kizzie lost her footing, forearms flailing
like a T-Rex. Her back slammed to the floor and her head followed
the leader. Zio pancaked her, as driven as the hydraulic plate of a
car compactor, forcing the air from her lungs in a burning
whoosh.

That,
ladies and gentlemen, was not
part of the plan.

Pain like Kizzie hadn’t known for months
exploded in her side. If this bastard re-injured her ribs….

She lay there, grousing and heaving while
Zio mumbled stupidly against her breasts. “Pal… Pal…”

They were
so
not pals. Her skin
crawled. She wanted this guy off of her post-haste. Planting her
feet, she drove her hips skyward but he had her pinned. Her cheek
stung, eye streamed water and she wriggled a hand free to dab at
it; winced at every gentle probe. Yep, that might swell a bit.

“‘Thirty minutes,’ they said,” she muttered.
“Thirty minutes max and you’d conk out. Not you though.
You
,
sir, are an overachiever. Eleven extra minutes in ya’, you clumsy,
drunk…”

A deep exhale and she tipped her head back
until everything in her vision was upside down. Three feet to the
door—a distance she’d now have to drag Zio’s 230-pound frame. Add
to that the distance from the door to the bed
and
getting
him up on the mattress, and this whole op just got better.

The butler’s stupid smile mocked her new
predicament, solidifying her hatred of clowns. Always laughing when
there wasn’t a damn thing funny. Honestly, did it get worse than
clowns?

Ready to give it another go, she bent her
knees so his chest rested against the cradle of her pelvis. She
worked the sandals off her feet, bare soles on either side of the
runner to give her traction on the hardwood. Then she used the red
fabric like a mechanic’s creeper, sliding out and pushing up at the
same time. Zio’s face raked down every inch of her as she went, a
minor price to pay for liberation.

She sat up, legs spread wide and Zio
facedown between them. The hard part was over. The rest was cake.
But just as she tucked into a moist and fluffy slice of freedom
frosted with sweet success, a hammer cocked and cold metal dug into
the back of her head.

Oh yeah. Guns trumped clowns any day.

Hiroshima, Japan

T
en thousand miles
away, a handful of women were at different locations in the most
peaceful park on Earth. All were of Japanese descent—all, save one,
had straight black hair. And all were there for the same reasons: A
little boy, and the haunted memories of a then four-year-old
girl.

“Matushka
,” she said in a voice that made
everything a question. “Where are the swings and slides? And nobody
plays on the grass…”

A copse of trees was to her right, one side
of their bark scarred and emptied out, but the crowns were
gloriously green. She eyed them curiously as she skipped along,
then turned her questioning gaze on an old woman crying nearby.

“
This is a different kind of park, baby,”
Hiro said, voice husky.

“
What kind is it?”

Her
matushka
squeezed her hand. “A
special kind…”

The cenotaph was the heart of the grounds
and as such drew most of the attention. A small offering platform
fronted the shrine, and it was here that two of these women stood,
shoulder to shoulder, dark heads bowed.

The platform itself was a rectangular block
practically flush with the railing. Atop it, and bringing its
height nearly eight inches taller than the barrier, sat a simple
structure that resembled two Greek
pi
s positioned side by
side, horizontal bars touching to make them one. Like a
torii
, a traditional Japanese gate separating the sacred
from the profane.

A fitting description.

The low railing continued on either side of
the platform, guarding the large cenotaph. Through this concrete,
saddle-shaped arch, the tranquil pool, the eternal flame, and
the…building could all be seen in perfect alignment. A powerful
sight, but far more important than what the cenotaph framed was
what it sheltered.

The box.

Just a simple stone chest, opened once a
year so the cache could be added to. Not gold or rubies or
diamonds, but a far more precious haul.

Names.

Her
name: Hiro Ohayashi.

“…given here reach the departed,” Julie
finished solemnly. She lifted her head, peering through the
open-ended cenotaph to the building at the far end of the park.
“
Privideniye
,” she whispered in Russian, her throat tight
with a mix of anger and overwhelming loss.

Beside her, Akari’s gaze settled on the
trove beneath the arch, soaking in the epitaph etched into the
stone:
Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not
repeat the evil.
She grunted low in her throat. “Yeah, right.
If that were the case, they wouldn’t have reset the peace
clock.”

“And soon they will do it again. Now hush,”
Julie admonished. With great care she pulled the offerings from her
pocket.

Akari rolled her eyes, groping inside her
purse. She ducked her head and discretely coughed into her
hand.

At the same moment, 150-meters away, another
woman approached the monument from the southwest. In designer jeans
and an expensive shirt, Fay strut along the concrete walk as though
it were a runway in Milan: chin up, shoulders back, one expensive
stiletto firmly in front of the other. A scarlet leash curled over
her forearm, the tether merging with the color-matched collar of
the tiny dog preceding her, its little tail wagging. Ever the
conversationalist, a phone was in its usual spot at Fay’s ear, this
chat with an obliging ticketing agent: “Please, send it to the
email provided. And thank you so much for your assistance,
especially with this being last minute.”

A few pleasantries and the call ended.
Without breaking stride, Fay angled the phone a bit to snap a
selfie—a vanity she indulged in more frequently of late, though she
didn’t share the pictures with the world. Her life was one captured
memory after another, crammed onto the whatever-size Gigabyte
storage card of her overpriced cellular.

Her dog stopped abruptly to sniff at the
grass, making the leash go taunt as Fay went by. She yanked hard
and the dog jerked, stumbled, regained its footing and trotted to
catch up. Head down, she typed
Blue without you
… into the
body of the text, attached the newest picture, and sent off the
3
^rd
such portrait of the day.
In stride, she dropped the phone into the oversize Birkin at her
shoulder.