1992. Seattle.
Colin Becker is enjoying his coffee. Up until now, “coffee” has meant Folger’s or Sanka – instant crap like that. But this, this is a cup of something. He could get used to this Starbucks place. The only creepy thing is the way all the young punks are dressed like he is – the same way he’s been dressing for forty-six years. He fits right in here, which to him doesn’t feel natural at all. He’s tempted to remove his wool cap just to freak everybody out.
An old guy holding a latte is standing in the middle of the joint, looking around for a place to sit, but all the tables are full. His eyes meet Colin’s.
“Room at your table?” he asks.
“Uh . . . sure,” says Colin.
The old guy is looking at him pretty intently. Something about him seems familiar. “Do I know you?” he asks, tentatively.
“Don’t think so,” mutters Colin, but he’s just placed it. This is Private Denton. What are the odds? He was a hell of a sniper, at least by reputation, though Colin only ever saw him laying railroad ties across Thailand for the Japanese, and trying not to die while lying in his own shit in a insect-infested hut. Just like Colin. Denton should be pushing 70 by now, and he looks older. Colin is 73 and looks somewhere between 28 and 42.
“Japanese-American, aren’t you?” says Denton, lowering himself tentatively into a chair, and slopping some of his latte into the saucer. “I got an eye for these things.”
“Yeah, sort of,” says Colin.
“Well that’s funny, because you look a heck of a lot like a guy I knew from the war, ‘cept bigger. Name of Becker. I’d venture a guess that you’re his son, but there ain’t no way he married a Jap. He hated ‘em more than anyone I knew, and I met plenty of folks with more reason to hate ‘em, believe me. But I guess I ain’t supposed to say ‘Jap’ no more, either.”
Colin wishes he had a book or something. He can only sit there awkwardly. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation.
“I guess you ain’t Becker’s son, are you?” says Denton.
“No sir,” says Colin.
Denton nods, but he’s looking at Colin like he doesn’t quite believe him. “Well, that’s too bad. If you were his son maybe you could tell me where he is. See, he went AWOL during the occupation, and nobody’s heard from him again. But now one of the boys – we was all in a camp together, see – is trying to get a reunion together, and he calls me up out of the blue the other day and says he’s got reason to believe that Becker’s in Seattle, and could I keep an eye peeled. And here I spot you and it seems a little too good to be true. So I had to ask.”
“Sorry,” says Colin. But something seems wrong here. He needs to find out. “That’s cool that you guys are still getting together like that, though. Who’d you say is organizing it?”
Denton smiles broadly. He figures Becker has just given himself away. Why else would he be asking? “Harvey Black. The good lieutenant. Matter of fact he’s in town. Meeting me here in a few.”
Colin reaches behind him to where his kana-bo is propped against the wall, to reassure himself that it’s still there. “You and Black stay in touch before this?” he asked.
“Nah, I hadn’t heard from him in twenty years,” said Denton. Colin’s looking at him very closely now. He can’t tell if he’s lying, exactly, but if Denton had any sort of nasty intent, he’d know. And he doesn’t. He’s a poor old guy that’s delighted because he thinks he’s found the son of an old compadre. He has no idea that Harvey Black died fifteen years ago of lung cancer.
Becker stands up. He hates this. He has a job at the docks, a good union job. He has an apartment. He really likes this fucking Starbucks place. And now he’s going to have to leave without even stopping home for a change of clothes. “Sorry, gotta go,” he mumbles as he slides past Denton, past all the tiny circular tables, and out the front door. The bus station is ten blocks away. He starts jogging.
Harvey Black is waiting for him halfway there, standing right in the middle of the sidewalk. It’s quiet – hardly any cars. He looks just like you’d guess Harvey would look if he’d actually lived this long, but only in the face. He’s holding a katana.
“Facedancing. Nice,” says Colin. “But that ain’t Fist style, is it?”
“The Pure Fist adapts,” says the monk. “The hunt demands it.” His voice sounds just like Harvey’s did in 1945. How the heck could they get that right?
“So where’s your friends?” says Colin. Usually when they catch up it’s a dozen or more, a real slugfest.
“No friends. Just me.” The monk lowers into a fighting stance.
Colin knows how they think this is going to go. This guy has been training for years – he’s their secret project. He’s been studying the way Colin fights. He’s supposed to be the one who finally takes him down, after an appropriately long and drawn-out battle.
The monk comes at him, skittering forward, slicing down. Colin doesn’t even bother to step out of the way. His skin takes a lot of punishment, but this guy is good enough to get through it, give him a real nasty gash. At the same time Colin is swinging the bottom of his kana-bo upward with every bit of his strength. It doesn’t quite hit the guy square on, between the legs like he was hoping, but it gets him good in the hip and knocks him off balance. So Colin comes at him again from the side, with no martial grace at all. He’s swinging his staff like a baseball bat. The monk has his blade up to parry, with a pretty good stance and just the right angle. The blade snaps and the staff hits him in the side of the head, right below the ear. He’s carried up off the ground and flies ten feet into the brick side of a townhouse. He collapses like a rag doll.
Colin walks up to see if the guy’s going to move again. Not a chance. He’s losing control over his face; the right half is still Harvey but left half is all Japanese – at least the bits that aren’t covered in blood. The voice is still all Harvey’s, though, but old Harvey – deathbed Harvey, coughing up bits of his lung.
“Had to be here to watch me die a second time, didn’t ya, buddy?” the monk says. Then, as a last act of will before he dies or lapses into a coma or whatever, the monk concentrates and forces his whole face to look like Harvey again. His eyes close.
So this is their game. Why beat him, when they can break him? Drive him away from where he’s happy. Throw old memories in his face.
“It’s not going to work,” Colin says, mostly to himself, but loud enough so that they can hear if they’re listening. He keeps saying it to himself, as a mantra, as he quickens his pace toward the bus station.
