Two Halves Whole Read online

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh? So you’re going to give me that two-faced ‘pretend-clueless’ bull? Like it’s not obvious? Like the whole school hasn’t noticed by now?”

  Ryu stared blankly, dumbstruck. Aside from Seth being much less mellow than his usual self, his accusations were—Ryu and Haruna weren’t…

  Seth smirked, and he took another quick drag. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Seems everyone else has realised it but you.”

  “Nothing is going on! We’re not anything!"

  “Oh please. When are you going to cut the crap? You might officially be 'nothing,' but that's not what you want, is it? You’re crazy about her and you've always been. But guess what—you and me? We’re the same. No way in hell will either of us get girls like that. That’s what you said way back, isn’t it?”

  “First off—that isn’t what I said. I said girls like that weren't worth the effort. Second, we’re not the same. How are you like me? You’re nothing like me. You have a real family—people who actually care about you. Meanwhile, I’m a goddamn hitman."

  Ryu’s voice lowered at the last part. Seth scoffed.

  "Yeah about that—tell me. Who killed David Singh?"

  "Huh?"

  That name.

  It hadn’t crossed Ryu’s mind in a while. Why was he bringing it up?

  "Don't play dumb—was it you?" Seth shouted.

  "No! Okay, one of our guys was behind it, but—"

  "Seriously, dude? The guy's throat was slit!"

  Ryu felt a deep sinking feeling. Why was Seth talking so loudly? Ryu glanced around to see if anyone had passed by. They were far enough from the school and fortunately, all was clear.

  "Listen, Seth. It wasn't me," Ryu hissed.

  Seth cackled once then his face went from Jekyll to Hyde.

  "Does it matter if it wasn't actually you? How can you even live with yourself knowing that happened? Speaking of parents, the guy's dad is on the news every other day bawling his freakin' eyes out—"

  "Oh, come on! Shit happens, okay?"

  "Wow! ‘Shit happens’? Do you hear yourself?"

  "Do you hear yourself? You’re being loud as hell, bro!”

  Once Seth had calmed, Ryu considered all he had said. Seth was being crazy-judgemental. It wasn’t Ryu’s fault any of it happened. That was his life. He didn’t need Seth criticising him on top of everything else he dealt with. Seth was supposed to be his friend.

  “You have no idea what it's like. You couldn’t live a day, a single day in my place,” Ryu said it, eyeing him with a harrowed gaze.

  “Yeah. You’re right. I haven’t a clue. Makes me wonder why we’re friends.” After toking his last, Seth dashed the remainder of his joint—or whatever it was—to the ground. He secured his bag on his shoulders and took off.

  “Yeah, walk away, you bastard! Why? Why are we friends? I don’t know either!”

  Ryu had hollered at Seth and right away he felt it. The full brunt of his own words toppling down. Ryu remained standing in Seth’s wake, regret hitting him like an avalanche.

  Fridays at the firm were hectic, no less chaotic than a Tuesday or a Wednesday. But it was the weekend and nobody was too keen to being at work. It really didn’t help that it was the last Friday of November, and the upbeat melody of every known Christmas carol was virtually inescapable. To think it was already so close to the year’s end. Where had the time gone?

  Marie wasn’t complaining though.

  No matter how many years went by, Marie never liked November whether in Leicester or in Campbelton. It was an awful month. The transition was terrible. It rained a lot, and when it rained, it was cold, too cold and windy for an umbrella but still too warm for a winter coat. There were no real holidays except that one very depressing one—Remembrance Day. Marie didn’t need annual reminding of the Second World War. Youth today hadn’t a clue about those times. She hated to dwell on the not-so-fond memories of post-war England. And November was bad for other reasons too. It built up to a holiday season that took ages to come, but ended in a snap. And the absolute worst thing about this month was the most painful memory attached to it. It was the month she had lost her only child, Grace.

  Marie braced back against her desk chair, puzzling over whether she should put up the Christmas tree in the waiting room. Precisely a month in advance wasn’t too early, was it? Why, if it wasn’t too early for Wal-Mart, it wasn’t too early for Irving-Smith LLP! Besides, Christmas was something to look forward to. December meant the end to this miserable, disgusting month.

  Marie’s musings were interrupted by a light rapping at the door.

  “Come in,” she said in a cool drawl and reached for her tea flask. The door eased open, and Pamela’s head poked through the opening.

  “You’re not too busy, are you? I’d like to show you something if it’s alright.”

  “Always busy, m’dear, but I’ll make the time,” Marie replied, forcing a smile.

  Pamela appeared quite enthused about something, her face glowing as she shut the door, and bustled towards Marie’s desk. In her hand was a folder. She placed it before Marie. Marie put down her flask.

  “What’s this?” she asked, cautiously moving to open it.

  “It’s about the Singh case.”

  Marie’s head shot up. “What?”

  “Er, so over the weekend I did some sleuthing about Mr. Singh’s theory and I think… there may be something to it.”

  Marie scowled.

  “I thought I told you we weren’t taking this case, Pamela?”

  “I know, but I just… I found it so intriguing that I couldn’t help myself—”

  Marie slammed the folder shut, her eyes narrowed on the naive young woman. “Tread carefully. That’s my suggestion to you, Pamela. You are not an associate of the firm, not yet. You do what is asked. No more. No less. Do we understand each other?”

  “I—uh, yes. Sorry, Marie.”

  Marie watched sternly as a deflated Pamela slouched out from the room, then lowered her eyes to the folder Pamela had neglected to take with her.

  Agitated, Marie opened it.

  The first page was a spreadsheet with a long list of names. “City Council Voting Record: Policing” was in bold at the top. At the very end, Marie saw where the young woman had highlighted in gold, “Ioudas Vangelis." Marie’s eyes followed the ticks and the checkmarks. Apparently, Ioudas had voted against increased police funding every year since he’d taken the councillor seat. Peculiar. Or perhaps not. Budgets for law enforcement had been hyper-inflated for years. Everyone knew that. Ioudas was clearly unbiased given his own brother-in-law was on the payroll himself.

  Not that any member of the family needed the money.

  Marie flipped through the pages: more charts, more notes, more pen scrawls. As she skimmed, she could feel herself growing irritated. That Pamela! How dare she take it upon herself to go on this fool’s errand? The lone positive thing Marie could see was that at least Pamela had the mind to do all of this “investigating” on her free time. Marie couldn’t help thinking the girl’s energy would’ve been best served filing or doing some much needed photocopying.

  Lord knows Lori was barely good at it.

  Marie stopped short of page seven when a black-and-white photo caught her eye. It was from a years-old news article. Ioudas was smartly dressed in a smoky business suit. He smiled back at her with pearly whites set against brown Mediterranean skin and dark cherubic curls. To his right, locked in a firm handshake, was a much shorter East Asian man. The caption underneath read: Wealthy Financier-Proprietor Shin Matsumoto throws full support behind Vangelis re-election campaign. Marie pursed her lip. This article. This particular article. Where had it come from? Marie turned back to page one and skimmed through the documents once more. On her second run-through, she spotted something she hadn’t noticed before. On at least five of the pages, one name stood out among others, consistently
underlined in blue ink: Shin Matsumoto. Marie squinted at a small blurb that Pamela had also highlighted:

  “Matsumoto, foreign investor turned permanent resident, now owns several properties throughout the country and abroad. Notably, one is the Wood Valley Manor, famously turned into a modern orphanage-style group home.”

  The Wood Valley Manor?

  Marie recalled hearing all about Campbelton’s famed mansion on the east side. She might have ventured past it once, back when that part of town was actually a desirable place to visit. Still, that house was a city landmark attributed to Sir Herbert Campbelton, their city founder. To think the person who would end up owning it would be some Japanese man. Well, that sounded about right. It seemed like everything good left in the city was being bought out by foreigners. She wondered if the man even knew a lick of English. In fact, when Marie really considered it, she didn’t understand why this man and Ioudas had any connection at all.

  Marie gazed down at the papers, leafing through and again stopping at that photograph. She combed through the paragraphs to see if there were any further details. The orphanage was located in Ioudas’ ward and had been named “Heaven Home for Boys." Marie scrunched up her nose at the blasphemy. Was this Matsumoto fellow even a Christian?

  Marie stretched. She took another small sip of tea before shutting her eyes, leaning into her chair until it creaked. She reopened them and gazed at the ceiling. Heaven. That name resonated. The church had been donating canned goods to that orphanage for the last few years. Ioudas had suggested they start a clothing drive too. That could be the reason, Marie thought. Matsumoto supported Ioudas’ campaign because Ioudas supported the orphanage. It wouldn’t be unusual. Perfectly understandable to return a favour when…

  Marie lurched on the spot.

  That boy.

  Little Catherine had allowed that strange boy into the house two Sundays ago. Where had she said he was from? That very same orphanage? So he was an orphan, presumably parentless, and yet he attended the same elite, expensive private school as her own granddaughter. That boy drove a brand-new car. Meanwhile, this “Home for Boys” located in the most dangerous, rundown part of the city was accepting donations for food, clothes, and everything under the sun?

  How on this green earth did that make sense at all?

  At 5 PM sharp, the office doors were closed, and all the lawyers who had been in that day hurriedly took their much-anticipated leave for the evening. As the firm’s head, Marie liked to remain behind to make sure all affairs were in order before locking up for the weekend. That evening, however, she was on a mission. Who was Shin Matsumoto? Marie wasn’t particularly fond of computers. If needed, she’d ask the junior associates, articling students, or that one dolt of a paralegal they kept on—for heaven knew what reason—to do any of the dreary, online work. But this was something Marie needed to take care of herself. At quarter to seven, Marie was typing into search engines and hunting through archives. She entered the name time and time again… Shin Matsumoto.

  He was a major donor for Shady Glenn Academy.

  So he helped to fund the school this one particular boy attended. Okay. But why?

  Marie began to wonder where Matsumoto got the money. His trade was real estate—at least according to three business databases. But Marie knew this already. What she didn’t know until she'd done the research was that Matsumoto had managed to acquire quite a few assets, including several cocktail bars and a massage parlour. Marie’s face rearranged into a deep frown. Massage parlours, notorious in this country for being fronts at times, not merely the innocent refuge of back pain sufferers some thought they were. Marie turned her head, revisiting Pamela’s folder. Amrit Singh had said that crime had quietly been on the rise for ten years. Could any of it be linked back to massage parlours? Marie leafed through the papers, meticulously poring over the details concerning Matsumoto. The year he had arrived to Canada and the year he had purchased the Wood Valley Manor was 1999.

  This was the year after “the incident.”

  Wasn’t it curious, Marie thought, that the man came to Campbelton, British Columbia in 1999? Wasn’t it curious that that boy, who happened to be half-Japanese, was her granddaughter’s classmate and also happened to live at that orphanage? Marie recalled the boy’s appearance with disgust. He was a feral child—his eyes daring, brimming with overconfidence and framed with such unruly hair. It was evident that there was a roughness about him that screamed nothing but trouble. Catherine had said his name was—

  “Jessica…”

  Marie hadn’t said the name consciously. The name hadn’t crossed her mind in years. Actually, Marie had tried her hardest to never remember that name. She quite hoped she would have gone to her grave before she’d ever utter it again, but everything was coming together. So blindingly clear… yet not clear. Not clear at all. Marie had chills, invisible, jagged blocks of ice grazing along her spine. She swivelled sharply and yanked open the bottom desk drawer, eying a folder in the back labelled “November 1998” in black Sharpie. Marie hadn’t looked at that folder in over a decade. She didn’t even want to look at it now. But she had to look. She needed to look. Fingers rattling, she sifted through page by tattered page until she came to the old, yellowing newspaper cut-out. Her eyes stung as they zeroed in on the name that she had furiously circled in red so many years ago.

  That criminal. That murderer.

  Debiru.

  Takeshi “Akuma” Debiru.

  CHAPTER three

  the looking glass

  Hoodies on, shirts underneath, in knee-length jean cut-offs and full-on sweatpants, they bounded against the concrete of the old outdoor basketball court. The temperature had dropped to a solid four degrees Celsius. Even the sky had become navy blue. Despite the threat of cold, the pair let nothing stop them especially since they'd been spared the rain that poured nonstop all week. Contrary to logic, it was the best time to play. That’s because when no one else saw logic in being there, the court was all theirs.

  Ryu double-backed. The black and orange ball sank through the hoop. Damon Long sprang to retrieve it, dribbling to build momentum before letting it go again. The ball circled along the edge of the hoop’s rim before submitting to gravity and plunging through.

  Their score was even.

  Damn. Damon was good. Earlier, he’d even managed to drive it in from half-court.

  Damon caught the ball a second time as it bounced away and slung it back to Ryu.

  “Your ball!”

  Ryu caught it with ease. “Yo, how’s your defence game?”

  Damon jeered. “Stellar! Just try and get it by me.”

  Challenge accepted.

  Ryu charged as though launched by slingshot. Damon shuffled back, arms out to block him. Ryu pivoted, finding the opening he would surge through for the shot—and then he felt it. That white-hot stinging in his thigh. He winced and dropped the ball. Damon frowned.

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah, I think I just need to sit for a minute.” Ryu retreated to a metal bench, swiping sweat from his forehead.

  It had been nearly three full weeks since Ryu had had his thigh sliced open by that whack-job, Jo Szeto. He’d gotten a few stitches, and had to lie to the doctor, telling him he’d done it to himself. Meanwhile, he’d been ordered by everyone including Katsuo to take it easy, lay low so it could heal. Sure, Ryu tried taking it easy at first, not because he cared about the advice, but because without the pain medicine the cut hurt. Ryu supposed by this point he’d gotten used to the pain. So used to it he didn’t mind shooting hoops in spite of it. Still there was that one-off occasion where he’d push himself a little too far. That stinging would return with a vengeance, reminding him of what a fool he’d been.

  Ball in tow, Damon took the spot beside Ryu on the bench. Ryu pulled off his hoodie, allowing the air to wash over his back. He reached into his book bag for a cigarette. Damon turned, brows raised.

  “Ever thoug
ht about quitting?”

  Ryu scoffed. “Thought about it. Decided… nope.”

  “Fair enough,” Damon said.

  After another moment’s silence, Ryu noticed Damon lean over with a grin. Ryu looked down, confused, until he noted the pendant at his chest out on full display.

  “Sick necklace,” Damon exclaimed, looking impressed. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Dunno. Always had it. Made in Japan, though. Check it out.”

  Ryu pulled it over his head and showed him. Damon inspected it, staring in awe as though laying his hands on the latest tech gadget.

  “Nice—and it’s got a Chinese dragon on it—I guess for your name, right?” He flipped it around and saw the writing. “Oh, what’s this?”

  “It means—”

  “Sun or something?”

  Ryu blinked. “You know Japanese?”

  Damon shook his head and handed back the necklace. “Correction. I can read Chinese. The Japanese borrowed that one from us.”

  Ryu gave a weak nod. He’d almost forgotten that Damon was half.

  “Pretty impressive that you can read it. I only know a handful of kanji,” Ryu admitted.

  Damon laughed. “I was so determined to know how to read it as a kid—I worked my butt off just memorizing things. Dad sent me to lessons. The struggle is real.”

  Ryu sighed, clipping the necklace back on. He lowered his eyes to his shoes. One thing he resented was not being more fluent in the language that had once been his first.

  “It’s cool but weird, eh? Never really being one or the other," Damon muttered. "And even so, it’s like everyone wants to put you into a category you can never belong to.”

  “To be honest, when I first met you, I thought you were all black,” Ryu said.

  “I thought you were all Asian.” Damon squeezed the ball between his palms. “I guess sometimes it’s the mistake we all make. Jumping to conclusions.”

  “What’s it like though? I mean, for you?”