The Case, Page 2

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  Nina waited for the elevator to open up so she could get the hell out of the building. She'd be going along with Parker's plan, she'd work with Seth, even though both of the things were against her better judgment. She knew Seth's type, the tough guy who couldn't be bothered to care for anyone's neck but his own. Hell, she'd dated more than a handful of guys like that, and it never worked out in the end. She foresaw a similar fate with Seth.

  Just as she was ready to get the whole situation out of her head for a while, she saw Seth approaching her, fresh out of Parker's office. He walked over to her and leaned in close as he hit the down button.

  "I did that already."

  "Maybe you didn't hit it hard enough." He bared his teeth for a split second, a whole lot less of a measure of humor and more of an expression of check out how much of an asshole I can be.

  "OK, listen. I don't want to go into a whole 'I don't like you, you don't like me' thing, but we have to get along well enough to get this job done. After it's over, fine, fuck off, we're done and we don't have to speak to each other again."

  "Then I guess I won't be expecting a Christmas card from you?"

  "I'll tell you right now" Nina shoved a finger into Seth's chest, pushing him back an inch "stop the smarmy asshole routine. OK?"

  "Can't make any guarantees."

  "Of course you can't."

  Seth and Nina turned away from each other as the elevator dinged and the doors opened up. Without much of a choice, they both got onto the same car, going down. They didn't speak the whole way down. The flight to Germany the next day wasn't exactly filled with witty banter either. It wasn't until the poker game went to hell, once Braun hit the ground, that Seth and Nina really thought they may actually have a bond.

  4

  "So...you going to open it?" Seth said, gripping the wheel of the Mercedes at the recommended 10-2 position.

  "What, the case?"

  "Yeah."

  Nina looked down at it, thumbed the latches on the matte black surface of the all-important case. "I haven't really thought about it. The locks are tight anyway."

  "There's no such thing as a tight lock. Especially for you."

  "What do you mean by that?" Nina said, even in the pale reflection of the moonlight Seth saw she very much took this the wrong way.

  "I've done my homework on you, Nina Kokuri. Before we jetted off to Berlin I spent some time down at the bars, spoke to a few people who know your name, for better or for worse. Your story's sort of unusual, I'll give you that. Daughter of a Yakuza father and a mom who was taken by his charm but too scared to ask for child support once he skipped town. Fast forward to today, and you're one of the top con game runners in all of NYC, and I know for sure you can pick the hell out of a lock given five minutes and a stiff paperclip. So I'm saying you could crack that thing open if you wanted to. Be happy I'm complementing you, it probably won't happen again."

  Nina tapped her nails on the chrome latches, pressed her thumbs against the number wheels and flicked them around a little. "Parker would be able to tell if I cracked it open. Besides, I don't give a shit about what's in the case, I only care about the money I get afterwards."

  "But doesn't it just make you a little curious? What Parker would pay so much for?"

  "We already know what's in here" she tapped the case "are you testing me or something, just to see if I'll open it?"

  "Not at all. Just, the sealed case, the mysterious benefactor, seems a little bit like—"

  "—a MacGuffin?"

  "Exactly."

  "Well this MacGuffin is primed to be my biggest payday ever, so I'm gonna just go ahead and do things just as prescribed."

  Losing his curiosity for the contents of the case as well, Seth stared ahead into the night. The countryside of Germany looked like the countryside of just about anywhere: boring, a rolling hill here and there and the occasional house. Once you got far enough out of the cities, places all started to look the same. After the excitement of the previous couple of hours, though, Seth welcomed the bucolic scene. Seth had always been a city dweller and had never lived in any place that didn't have less than a million residents, so these peaceful country scenes didn't trip the same nostalgic triggers as they did for most people. Seth saw the rolling countryside and wondered how people functioned out here in the remoteness, cut off from the pulse of the world. If they wanted to run out to get dinner on a whim, could they even do it? To Seth, these people were off the grid, forgotten, inconsequential.

  With those thoughts in his mind and with Nina's mind wandering to what she'd be doing with her half million payday, they made their way up to the northern coast of Germany. To get back to the United States, they'd need to go via Denmark, Copenhagen to be exact. Flying out of Berlin would have been way too much of a risk, as Braun's former henchmen would be swarming the airport just waiting for them to poke their heads up, so instead it was to the land of Niels Bohr and Lars Von Trier before they could make their way home. They hit the coast just as the sun was beginning to peek out over the ocean. It wasn't time to sit there and admire the scenery, though, so they pulled onto the ferry and began their journey to Denmark.

  5

  Nina held a Coke in her hand. It was three dollars too expensive and could be forgivingly referred to as lukewarm, but it reminded her of home. Of America. In her other hand, a cigarette dangled from her thin fingers, and she was reminded of home once again. The ferry groaned and swayed in the choppy, white-capped waters. Even though it was only a short boat ride, Nina didn't want to stay in the car like Seth had, so she decided to get out and hang over the rail of the ferry. She looked at the never-ending ocean that seemed to go on in all directions. This view of the ocean made her think of Japan, and all the horrible shit that went along with it.

  She was eleven years old when she and her mother went on their foolhearted journey to find her father and bring some closure to the relationship that, at that particular point in her life, Nina couldn't give a shit about. She never knew her father other than the occasional terse, impersonal letter written in Japanese that she received every couple of years. But her mother insisted on finding him, doing whatever it took to hunt the bastard down. Like it would change anything.

  Their journey began in Tokyo, where Nina's mom Sally and her father, Toshi, had met and shared a few fateful nights in a cramped hotel room. Sally told Nina about those nights, thankfully editing out some of the more graphic details, painting Nina a picture of a passionate man. She described the tattoos that covered his back and upper arms, the ways he told her that he'd make his way out of the Yakuza in just a couple of years. She told Nina that in those days with her father, she knew he was a wonderful man, but he was a man who couldn't keep himself tethered to anything.

  That lack of tethering, her father's unique ability to have no center of gravity whatsoever outside of the Yakuza, was what made the trip to Japan so painful and fruitless. They searched every pachinko parlor, every karaoke bar, every low-class strip club that would allow an eleven year old girl into their doors, but no sign of Toshi. They ran into plenty of Yakuza, with their swagger that Nina, even at that age found hypnotic, but none of them could tell them where her father was. Maybe they were actively hiding Toshi's whereabouts, or maybe her father was just such a low ranking member of the Yakuza that nobody gave a shit. Either way, the search lead to nothing.

  During the whole search, Nina knew deep down that she wouldn't see her father, and even if somehow she was able to track him down, it's not like she would have had animosity toward the guy. She knew it was her mother's fight, her mother's quest to make things better for her daughter. But Nina, Nina couldn't care less. She was just along for the ride, and even though seeing the glittery pinball machine-like environment of Japan, it didn't feel like home.

  When the trip ended at a hotel room in Kyoto, with her mother breaking down, crying, and admitting to Nina she'd never be able to be the mother for Nina she wante
d to be, Nina didn't have a pang in her heart for her mother's quest...no, she saw her mother as weak, as a person chasing something she could never achieve. From that moment on, Nina never really respected her mother ever again. That explained the slide into crime, the slide into becoming a feared and cunning grifter. You know all those things they say about giving kids a good home, or they'll go bad? Bullshit, Nina thought. Nina's mother gave her everything, but she knew it was just a front, just an imitation of love. So Nina shot off in the opposite direction as quickly as she possibly could, first taking off from home on her eighteenth birthday and heading to Los Angeles where she learned to play three card monte games and rig dice from shady operators who wanted to get into Nina’s pants more than they wanted to teach her about the craft. Nina ignored the passes, the gropes, the lingering gazes, and just paid attention to the game, to the ways to make a person think they have the advantage up until the second before you pulled everything out from under them.

  From those early days, and after more than a few short stints in jails, she moved up in the world of crime, first running tons of fake husband-wife con games and her fair share of phony prostitution schemes. It wasn't the most glamorous of jobs, but it was a hell of a lot better than sitting behind a desk, wasting away.

  "Enjoying the view?" Seth's voice jolted her out of her nostalgia. It was alright, she was sort of sick of mulling over her past anyway.

  "Not much going on...but it's peaceful."

  Seth turned around and leaned with his back to the railing, looking at Nina. "Ahh, peace, who needs it?" He smiled "Can I bum a cig?" Nina complied, lighting Seth's cigarette up and watching it burn.

  "You know your life can't be just full of crime 24/7. You have to have some downtime, some period for reflection."

  "Reflection? I reflect...I stop for a second to take a look at the past, and I'll see just the person I am. You think I want to see that?"

  The waves clapped against the side of the ferry and distracted Nina from Seth, even though he was actually making an effort to get philosophical.

  “It’s your path, you chose it Seth. Nobody made you do anything.”

  Seth took a long drag from his cigarette. “You think this is what I chose, what I thought I was going to turn out to be when I was a kid sitting around my parents’ house in Tulsa playing with blocks while I watched my dad get more and more drunk by the second? I didn’t choose to get wrapped up in this kind of stuff, Nina. It just...happened. And now, there’s no turning back.”

  “Just a victim of circumstance, right? The job chose you?”

  “Listen, I didn’t come up here to get an amateur psychology lesson. I just came to talk.”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing.”

  “I’m talking, you’re listening for a way to turn my words on me.”

  “Just wanted to see if you could dish it out as well as you can take it.”

  "Holy shit..." Seth shoved himself away from the railing and let the cigarette dangle from his lip.

  "Quit getting so defensive..."

  "We’re not alone." Seth looked over to the far side of the ferry, across a bank of four cars, a man was crouching, and he wasn't just down there to check the air pressure in his tires.

  "Who?"

  "One of Braun's guys, I'm sure, someone who picked us out on our way out of country. I don't know exactly, it's dark."

  "We have to deal with him." Nina said, not moving from her position on the railing.

  "I know that. Keep cool, don't look back and I'll shuffle off and make it look non-chalant." Seth pulled himself off of the rail and did just that, casually walking around the outside of the ferry so that their unknown stalker wouldn't think anything of it.