Free Bad Blood by Anthony Bruno

first.”
    â€œWe’re not married, Toz.” Gibbons sipped his beer. I don’t have to explain anything to anyone. Including you.
    â€œWhy don’t you just talk to her? You know, explain your side of it. She’ll understand . . . eventually.”
    The blonde dropped her purse then. She got off the bar stool to pick it up, bending over from the waist and pointing her fanny to the crowd. Half the guys in the room went to heaven.
    â€œJust talk to her, Gib. That’s all. Just talk to her.”
    Gibbons glared at him. “Mind your own fucking business, Tozzi.”
    Tozzi nodded. “I knew you’d understand.”
    When Gibbons looked back, the blonde was heading for the door. Damn.

SEVEN
    RESTLESS FLAMES shot out of tall oil-refinery smoke stacks and licked the black night over Elizabeth and Linden. In the distance, hundreds, maybe thousands of naked light bulbs outlined the nebulous pipework grids below those big lit candles. Closer, the roar of incoming jets made the corrugated aluminum door vibrate in his hand as the red and green lights of the departing flights filled the sky with artificial stars. A chill wind threatened frost. It reminded Nagai of home.
    Nagai shut the warehouse door and threw the bolt. The greenish fluorescent lights inside made him blink as he walked through the maze of aisles formed by pallets stacked high with boxes of canned food. Del Monte Fruit Cocktail, Campbell’s Pork’n’Beans, Heinz Sweet Gherkins, S&W Creamed Corn, Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Bumblebee Chunk Light Tuna, V8. He wondered whether this place was still safe. He’d been careful about finding it, but Antonelli’s family controlled East Newark and Hamabuchi’s men moved like shadows. They certainly could’ve found it by now. He hoped not. Mashiro needed his own dojo .
    Coming around a stack of Progresso Lentil Soup, he saw his samurai carrying two metal folding chairs into the center of his space. He stopped and watched Mashiro set up the chairs side by side, then fetch a glass jar of something he couldn’t quite make out and a white porcelain rice bowl, setting these down on one of thechairs. Nagai noticed the white futon in one corner of the gray concrete floor and the hotplate next to the antique stained cherry-wood weapons box. Nothing else in the way of comforts. This was how Mashiro wanted it. A secluded place to practice in is a samurai’s paradise. Every morning he packs his things and stows them in the trunk of his car, then sets up again in the evening, like setting up camp. He noticed that Mashiro had already hung his ancestor’s armor on the wall as he always did before practicing. It was his inspiration. Nagai watched the samurai taking off his shoes and socks and thought how cold the concrete floor must be. Mashiro’s life was simple and purposeful. In a way, Nagai envied him.
    Mashiro finally acknowledged his lord’s presence with a curt bow, then went for his katana laid out on the futon and slipped it into the black belt that held his white gi jacket together. He then fixed the short sword, the wakizashi , so that it sat laterally over his belly. When he was ready, he looked to his lord and nodded.
    Nagai returned the nod and went to the two folding chairs where he found a jar of Partytime Maraschino Cherries inside the rice bowl. He sat down in the empty chair, opened the jar, and dumped the cherries into the bowl. They were neon red under the fluorescent lights. He popped one in his mouth and immediately wished he had a whiskey sour.
    â€œReady?” he asked Mashiro in Japanese.
    The samurai nodded and pulled his sword an inch out of its scabbard. A dark-crusted scar covered the cap of what was left of his right pinkie. Nagai saw a glint of metal where Mashiro had pulled the sword out. That was the place where the blade met the hilt, the place where the ancient characters were engraved. “Cut through cleanly—four