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Fun and Thieving in Las Vegas	By : mizducky Category: +G to L > Lupin III Views: 2535 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Lupin III, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
My crazy nervous system tends not to play nicely with most
painkiller drugs. They dope me up but can�t keep me knocked out for long, so I
wind up hovering in this bizarre hypnagogic state--not necessarily unpleasant
in itself, but hardly restful. And to add insult to injury, the narcotics don�t
do much more than take the edge off the pain.

So I spend some untold number of hours thrashing around in
murky stupified waking dreams, of which I can remember little more than nonsensical
fragments, until the sound of quiet conversation starts hauling my
consciousness back up towards the surface.

�So how's he doing?� a woman�s voice has just asked. It�s
not until Jigen replies that I get the woman�s voice matched up with Nessa�s
name.

�He�s pretty fucked up right now.� A pause as Jigen takes a
drag on his Pall Mall. �You can tell by the way he�s breathing that he�s in a
lot of pain.�

Oh yeah--I guess I�ve been doing the shallow breathing thing
without even thinking about it, haven�t I? But now thinking about it causes me
to spazz and draw a deeper breath than is prudent. Bad mistake: I get a jolt
from the cracked ribs that almost knocks me right back out. I guess I vocalize
a bit here, because when my brain clears again, Jigen and Nessa are right by my
bedside.

�Well that was nasty,� I stage-whisper. Not going to chance
putting any more breath than that behind my voice right now, not after that
little spasm. From the fragrance of pi�on pine on the air and the bit of the
room I can see without moving my head, I reckon I'm back in Lola's house.

�Easy does it, man,� says Jigen. From this angle I can see
his eyes, and the worry in them.

�Trying to, partner.� I give him a pretty strained version
of my million-dollar con smile. �What day is it, anyway?�

�Still Sunday. You�ve been out about eight hours.�

�Is that all? Feels more like eight months � yikes!� Made
another false move there; the stab of pain puts black spots before my eyes for
about five seconds.

�Looks like the dope�s wearing off. You want a re-up?�

�Not yet. Want the use of my brain for a little while
longer. When I can�t stand it any more, you�ll be the first to know.�

Jigen manages a relieved half-smile in response to my
smartass tone. �Man, you should get a load of yourself right now. You look like
you�ve been in a prizefight.�

�Feels like it. Got a mirror?�

Nessa interjects, �Got one right over here.� She disappears
out of my line of sight and returns with what must be one of Lola�s makeup
mirrors--it�s way too femmy for Nessa�s tastes. She holds it up before my eyes.
My face does have an impressive amount of bruising.

�Whoa, look at those shiners. We should send a photo to
Pops. Scare him out of about eight years� growth.�

�Hey, by the way,� says Nessa, �Fujiko was wanting to know
when you woke up.�

"She was? ... ow ow ow ... " Oops, got a little
over-excited there.

Jigen growls in annoyance at the mention of Fujiko's name.
�Aw c�mon,� says Nessa, giving him a look. I can�t help grinning when he caves
almost immediately, pulling his hat brim down as he concedes to his woman.

�Let me guess,� I say. �She�s getting ready to head on over
to Darkpool on her own.�

�Got it in one.� Jigen snorts and takes another drag on his
cigarette.

�That�s my Fuji-cakes, eyes on the prize. Though I notice
she could have left hours ago.�

�Yep,� said Nessa. �Waiting on you. That girl may be crazy,
but she does have some priorities.� She leaves to fetch Fujiko.

�You know she�s gonna fuck shit up,� says Jigen.

�Yeah. I know.� My grin is becoming a little lopsided--even
this brief amount of talking is tiring me out. �But that�s okay, we need a
stalking horse. Plus it�s all part of the game, you know?�

�Yeah. I know.� He regards me somberly. �Game got pretty
fucking scary this time, man.�

�Yep. And weird. I�m not sure I�ve fully grasped yet exactly
how weird. Still trying to sort it all out.�

�All I care is that you managed to beat the Reaper again,
partner.� He lays a hand on my shoulder and gives me that crooked death�s head
smile of his, the one that speaks of too much knowledge of both ends of the
gun. I tend to forget, having worked and played with Jigen for so many years,
that there's this other side of him. He�s seen the deaths of too many people
he's cared about.

�Lupin!� Fujiko, still clad in that yummy catsuit, bursts
through the door and distracts me from this morbid line of thought. Rushing to
my side, she throws her arms around my neck and showers my banged-up face with
kisses.

�Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!� I gasp. But I�m also grinning full-force
again. This makes twice in less than 24 hours that Fujiko has flung herself
upon me with genuine passion.

�Oh Lupin, I�ve been so worried!� she coos.

�That�s it, I�m out of here.� Jigen stands, straightens his
hat, and heads for the door. Over Fujiko�s shoulder I see Nessa catch up with
him and shoot him another look. �What?!?� he responds to her as the door closes
behind the both of them.

Fujiko slides into bed with me--fully clothed, but hey, I'll
take it. She cuddles up close, drawing my head to her chest so that my face
winds up pillowed in her cleavage. God, she knows me, and my fetishes, way too
well. Even in the state I�m in, even with a bed sheet and that catsuit between
us, I feel my incorrigible dick spring to attention.

�Ohhhhh, Fujiko-chan ...� I flash her one of my
cheesier smiles. �You know, if you wanted to ravish me for a change, I couldn�t
lift a finger to stop you ��

She smiles at me. A genuine, not-conning smile. �I might
consider doing that at some point. If you behave. And if you�re really up to
it.�

Though my back is none too happy about it, I manage to scoot
my hips forward just enough to press my erection against her thigh.

�Oh, I�m up to it, alright ... Ow!� She�s pinched my ass
cheek with those nasty sharp acrylic nails of hers.

�God, you�re such a perv,� she pouts at me. �But at least I
know you must be on the mend.�

�Hey, you�re the one who climbed into bed with me,� I pout
back at her. But I simmer back down and just cuddle, as I know she prefers. And
frankly, despite all my smart talk, I am up to little more than that after all.

�I am glad I�m getting to say goodbye before I
leave,� she said, caressing my head.

�Be careful, lover. Morningstar is not finished.�

�I wondered about that.� Yep, that�s my Fuji-cakes. Never
misses a beat, doesn�t even stop to ask how I know. �Do you think he�s found
another body to possess?�

�I�d bet cash money on it. In fact, I figure he goes through
bodies at quite a clip. When I hacked GeoDynamics� computers the other day I
wondered why there was this strangely high turnover in the elite security team
that guards the corporate VIPs. Now I think I know why.�

�Charming. Well, thanks for the warning.� A pause. �Lupin.
This one really scared me.�

I sigh. �First Jigen, now you. I�m sorry, lover. I truly
didn�t see it coming.�

�You never do, you know.� She plants a long, luxurious kiss on
my bruised mouth. I start feeling like I really could rise to this occasion
after all ...

And then all of a sudden she�s out of the bed and on her
feet again, straightening her outfit, all business.

�F-Fujiko-chan!� I struggle to sit up and reach after
her, but fall back, leveled by a surge of pain. �Not fair, not fair at all ��

�Now now, you need your rest.� She strides briskly to the
door, pauses and turns. �You know, usually for an advance sortie like this I�d
jump my cut of the take by ten percent, but just to show you how much I care,
I�m going to give you a get-well present and keep my share at sixty percent.�

And then she�s gone.

Jigen rushes in, evidently alarmed at the strange
hiccupping/coughing/moaning noises I'm suddenly emitting. "Oh Christ, it
hurts to laugh," I wheeze at him. But I keep on laughing, or trying to,
like the crazy bastard I am. He just shakes his head at me, and slaps a fresh
morphine patch on my neck.

Dear sweet Fujiko, I think as I drift off into wacky-dream land
again. She has never quite gotten it through her pretty task-oriented head that
I don't do these extreme jobs for the money. Though yeah, it does annoy my ego
when she jerks me around about the split. But even my annoyance amuses me. Like
I said, it's all part of the game.

For the next thirty-six hours or so I drift in and out of
consciousness. Various of my friends manage to get some food into me, though
the morphine guarantees that I have some trouble keeping it down. At one point
I regain consciousness to find my body being grasped by strong hands--Jigen's
and Goemon's--so that my head is over the edge of the bed, while other strong
hands--Nessa's--hold a bucket for me into which I shamelessly heave until I'm
empty, and then heave some more. "Geez, and I don't even have a nice
rip-snorting drunk to show for all this effort," I quip. All three of them
roll their eyes at me.

Another time I come to sprawled on the bedroom floor.
Apparently I must have felt the call of a full bladder from deep in my drugged
sleep, and decided to get up and go to the can on my own. Only problem, my feet
are still numb and clumsy from my little pseudo-zombie experience, so my legs
go right out from under me within a few steps. More strong hands haul my sorry
ass back upright and drag me into the bathroom, at which point Lola and Nessa
chase the guys out and take over. Ooooh, how 'bout some funky nurse-and-patient
water sports action? Nah, dream on; still way too crapped out to engage in any
such shenanigans. But just thinking about it sends me off into more fits of
giggles, despite the same painful consequences as before. And then it's Nessa
and Lola's turns to roll their eyes at me. I get that a lot.

All of this is reassuringly standard behavior from me when
I'm convalescing. I just don't make a very good patient. I mean, c'mon, me?
Patient? Get real. But totally separate from all that, totally apart from the
bone bruises and cracked ribs and concussion, I feel this indefinable but
undeniable not-rightness within me.

�It�s that Eleggua dude, isn�t it?� I say to Lola sometime
Monday evening. She has gotten me turned over onto my belly without too much
discomfort, and is giving me a tough but helpful massage.

She laughs as she digs into my shoulder muscles. �Yeah, dawlin�
� that �dude,� as you insist on calling him, has definitely got his hooks still
sunk deep in your psyche, I can feel it. He�s got some unfinished business with
you for sure.�

I grunt as she presses hard on a particularly locked-up
muscle. �Any idea what that unfinished business might be?�

�Other than guessing it has something to do with you being
such a perfect child of his, I can�t say.� She begins working down my spine.

I flinch and suck in air sharply. �What does that mean anyway,
to be the �child� of one of these supernatural doofuses?�

�That you are a manifestation of that 'doofus' in the living
world.� She smiles at me as she begins careful exploration of my poor abused
ribcage. I grit my teeth.

�What? Like a � an incarnation? What the Hindus call an avatara?�

�Not necessarily. Sometimes, it�s more a matter of your
natural self echoing the divine's natural self. In this case, it makes all the
sense in the world that you�d be a child of Eleggua. He is the Trickster par
excellence, doll.� She�s gently stroking the sides of my ribcage, making me
alternately flinch and sigh.

�Trickster, huh? Yeah, I can groove on that � ow! Though I
bet I could do it a whole lot better once my Trickster papa gets those hooks of
his out of me.�

She finishes working me over and lies beside me, sheltering
my beanpole frame with her abundant one. �I�ve got a ritual we can try, to see
about fixing that. But first I think you should get a good night�s rest. We�ll
give it a go tomorrow.�

�Crap. That long?� I manage a smile.

She just laughs and kisses me.

* *
  *   *   *

Some time late that night, I awake out of the first sound
sleep I've managed since being injured, strangely free of pain and grogginess.
I feel a presence in the room. Gingerly I pull myself up into a sitting
position.

I address the empty room. �It�s you, isn�t it � Eleggua?�

�What a perceptive mortal you are.� One of the shadows in a
corner of the room detaches itself from the others and steps forward into the
moonlight. He is still, or again, presenting as my dark-skinned doppelganger. I
feel that chill down my spine again, but this time I ignore it.

�So what do you look like, really? Or is it that you can
look like anyone you damn well feel like?�

�Both, really--I do have a form that is mine, but it�s so
boring to stay limited to just one look. As you know for yourself.� He comes
close, smiling slyly, and cups my chin in his hand.

"Look," I say, "I'm flattered that you're so into
me, but I think you know damn well that I'm just not wired to swing that
way."

"I notice you're not pulling away, though."

"Like I could evade you? Even if I weren't recovering
from being beaten to a pulp?"

"Hah. You�ve become a bit more sure of yourself since
our last meeting." He keeps that leer on his face, but does drop his hand.

�As long as we�re being all chummy," I say, "would
you mind telling me what you want with me, anyway? I don�t mean to sound
ungrateful, but ever since you saved my ass I have just not been feeling quite
right. If I didn�t know better I�d swear you planted the supernatural
equivalent of a tracer on me.�

He throws his head back and laughs. �You are a bold one,
Arsene Lupin the Third. You are quite right--I did place my mark on you.
Because I have been waiting for a chance to come back and do � this.�

And suddenly I�m flung out of bed. The room lights up and
whirls around me like Dorothy's house in the tornado. Next thing I know, I find
myself, fully clothed, face-planted into the sands of a desert.

I climb to my feet. My body is mysteriously and completely
healed. I pat myself down--it�s my actual gear, not an illusion. There�s my
Walther in its holster, the extra ammo clip in my left hip pocket, four remaining
smoke bombs from Saturday�s mayhem inside my right jacket pocket, and the other
random assorted toys just where I remember putting them when I last loaded up.
The desert I�ve landed in looks like the barren pancake-flat playas of
northwestern Nevada, home of land speed records and intentionally remote hippy
art festivals. It's full daylight, and oven-hot.

Eleggua is standing several yards away with the sun at his
back, hands in pockets, legs planted wide -- the pose I often adopt before I�m
about to pull something.

�Oh c�mon,� I say, planting my hands on my hips. �What the
hell do you want--a duel?�

�I want to see what you�re capable of.� With the sun
silhouetting him, only the shift of his jaw and his tone of voice tell me he�s
smiling.

�Ridiculous,� I say. �What kind of a fair duel is that, a
mortal against a god?�

�I�m not a god, I�m--�

�A divine being, yeah yeah yeah. I got that part. Whatever
you are, you still have lots more going for you than a mortal. Which means it�s
an unfair fight. You hold an unbeatable trump card.�

�What if I swore to use no abilities other than the ones you
possess?� I�m still hearing that shifty smile in his voice. Hey, it takes a con
to know a con.

�Oh sure, like you came by my abilities naturally in the
first place. What do you think you are? That insufferable Q busybody on Star
Trek? Why--yow!�

This Eleggua dude may have magically copied all my natural
abilities, but that doesn�t mean he automatically has the smarts and experience
to run them like I do. So: all the while I have been deliberately pitching my
little hissy-fit at him, I have also been watching for that telltale tensing of
his right shoulder muscles. So by the time he draws his gun, I'm also drawing;
and when he fires, my bullet meets his in mid-air with a flash and bang.

Even before our bullets meet and explode, I�m off like a
jackrabbit on speed, dodging his follow-up shots with a somersault and a leap
that carries me behind the nearest rock outcropping.

�That was pretty damned impressive, boyo.� I hear him change
clips and pump the slide in his copycat Walther. Amateur--he wasted eight whole
shots trying to hit me.

�You're impressed, huh? Well, I�m not.� I slowly and calmly stand
up, step up onto the rock that had briefly been my hiding place, and turn my
back to him, dropping my head onto my chest.

�And just what do you think you're doing?� he asks in the
tone of an annoyed parent.

�I've decided I don�t want to play this game," I
answer, back still turned to him. It's my turn to stick my hands in my pockets.
"If you want to kill me, even after having expended all that effort to
bring me back to life, I can�t stop you. So you might as well just plug me and
get it over with.�

�You know I can�t just shoot you in the back.�

�Well, you�re going to have to, because I�m not up to
gratifying your divine sadism when I know I�m overmatched. You wanna shoot at
me, go ahead and get it over with. But leave me out of your first-person-shooter
re-enactment fantasies, okay?�

And so I bloviate along. Only I am no longer where Eleggua
thinks I am. I have slithered out of my clothes, leaving them hanging,
scarecrow-fashion, on my handy-dandy little folding framework. Because my head
had been lowered out of his line of sight and my hands were concealed in my
pockets, he cannot now tell that my head and hands are missing from the
scarecrow.

Meanwhile, stripped down to underwear with Walther in hand,
I stealth my way around the perimeter of our little patch of desert, all the
while throwing my voice so that it sounds like it's coming from my effigy.
Oblivious to all this, Eleggua keeps trying to reason with the obstinate little
mortal he thinks is still before him. When I gently but firmly press the muzzle
of my gun into the back of his skull, I am rewarded with the spectacle of the
divine being jumping nearly a foot into the air.

�Gotcha,� I grin, stepping back and sticking my gun into the
waistband of my boxers.

He turns and stares at me for a moment, openmouthed and
wide-eyed. Who knows, when you're faking out a faker? But my little hunch
circuit insists his shock is genuine, and profound.

Then he snaps out of it and starts to laugh. "You did
it. You really did it. You unequivocally got the drop on me. Even though I was
watching, and sensing your presence there in front of me--"

"Wait a minute. I thought you said you were going to
restrict yourself to my abilities."

"Oh, I wasn't technically using my divine powers,
in terms of taking advantage of that sensory data in our little game. But it's
a moot point, because my supernatural senses were as totally fooled as my
mundane eyesight." He grins big. "So congratulations, you have won
our little duel. Though I may have succeeded in achieving a more important
goal."

"And that is?" I eye him suspiciously.

"Proving a point." He gestures, and a bistro table
and umbrella materialize there on the cracked dusty surface of the playa.
"Come. Sit. Talk with me."

Like I have a choice? I think to myself. But I follow him to
the table--after retrieving my clothes and folding frame from the rock.

When I straighten up from pulling on my pants, there's an
ice-cold gin and tonic at my elbow. I take a sip. Tanqueray. "Nice."

"Only what you deserve, after I dragged you out of bed
to play first-person shooter with you." He smiles wryly, sipping a
lemonade. "Now about that little display of your skills just now ..."

"And about that little incident of cheating ..."

"Ah, yes. Actually, it wasn't just a little incident. I
was cheating throughout the entire thing. Watching and listening. When you
stood up and turned your back on me, I fully expected you to pull your
slipping-out-of-your-clothes trick. After all, I know your methods, boyo--I've
been inside your head."

"You mean to say you were faking your surprise just
now? I don't believe that."

"No, that was no fake. I was indeed shocked to the
core. Because even though I knew what you were going to do, I could not catch
you at it. When I felt your gun against the back of my head, I was still
watching your goddamned clothes, waiting for you to do the slip. You got the
drop on a full-fledged orisha, boyo. Do you have any idea what that
means?"

"No. I don't.� I let my exasperation show in my voice.
�All this supernatural stuff--spirits and possessions and divine beings--I just
don't get it. It makes no sense to me. I'm a thorough-going pragmatist so I
don't doubt the evidence of my own eyes--let alone the evidence of the heart
still beating in my body--but it's like terra incognita to me. I was much
happier being on the periphery of all this ... stuff, only coming as close as
the occasional treasure with occult properties. And even that�s been more than
enough to get my ass bitten at least once that I recall. But otherwise, forget
it ..."

He starts laughing. "You really can't see it, can
you?"

"See what?"

"This supernatural stuff that you claim is so alien to you--you're
living your whole life up to your eyebrows in it. Everything you do and are is
steeped in it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"That business of slipping out of your clothes, for
instance. Such a bizarre skill, and yet so useful to your unique way of doing
business. How exactly do you do that? Can you describe your method in
words?"

"Oh. That." I relax a little; I'm still on weird
ground, but it�s a recognizable weirdness. "Sure, I'd be the first to
acknowledge that it's not a normal ability. But it's completely and totally
natural--for heirs of the Lupin family genetics."

"Ah yes, the naturalistic explanation. And you use it
to explain away a host of other freakish abilities as well. The sudden bursts
of lighting speed. The acrobatics and vehicular stunts that defy the laws of
physics. The moves that look like sleight of hand, but aren't--poor Zenigata
could have had you arrested about a hundred different times now if handcuffs
behaved on you the way they behave on any normal mortal. And above all, the
twin guardians of your skinny little ass--your unerring hunches and your
unfailing luck. That whole portfolio of oddball abilities runs in your family
as surely as that lantern jaw and ear-to-ear grin. But you're going to sit
there and give me this reductionist cant that it's completely and solely
genetic? Surely you must be joking."

"Just because the abilities themselves are paranormal,
doesn't mean that they can't be accounted for without resorting to supernatural
mumbo-jumbo." I can't believe I'm sitting in the middle of a desert
arguing philosophical crap with a god. Divine being. Whatever the fuck. This is
insane.

"You think so, hmm? Well riddle me this, boyo. Is it
not true that, while some level of the Lupin family skill set manifests in
every one of your many blood relations--including the insatiable horniness,
apparently, because it's a pretty large family--is it not true that these
abilities are realized most powerfully and completely in the heirs of the
family line?"

"Well, yeah. So they are. But what does that--"

"If the inheritance were solely based on genetics, then
birth order should not mean a fucking thing." He punctuates each word with
a stab of his index finger into the tabletop.

"Wha-wha-wha-what?" My brain freezes.

"Simple Mendelian genetics. Each offspring should have
a statistically equal chance of getting the full complement of Lupinosity. Yet
you yourself acknowledge that the heirs, the first-born descendants of Arsene
Lupin the First, have an odds-defying edge in manifesting the family legacy.
Why is that, oh Prince of Coincidence? What the fuck do you call that shit, if
not supernatural?"

And as my jaw drops, he leans back in his chair, wearing the
Con Artist Smile of the Universe, and laughs and laughs and laughs.

Holy shit. Busted.

And then I start laughing too, and laugh until I tip my
chair over backwards and hit the ground with a crash, and then I continue to
laugh, rolling in the dust of the playa. Holy fucking shit. Right there in
front of my nose, plain as day. Stupid stupid stupid--what an idiot I've been.
Could the entire family have been conning me? Or perhaps just Grandpapa, the
old devil? But I think back, and I swear the entire family sincerely believes
the genetic explanation. So the whole lot of us have been blinded by denial,
even the family members who specialize in card-sharping and thus know
statistics inside and out.

Because Eleggua the Trickster is dead right, it can't be
genetics--at least, not any type of genetics I've ever heard of. It's not
just biological. I really am some kind of magic man.

"Wow," I gasp, still laughing, "there's a
whole bunch of assholes who have been trying for ages to clone me, who are in
for one rude surprise."

He just smiles at me, the smile of one who knows he has won.

"Okay," I say at last, picking myself back off the
ground and righting my chair, "so ... what the hell does this mean, then?
And I still don't understand why you've gone to such lengths to wake me up to
this crap."

"Well, on a certain level, waking you up was an end in
itself. After all, isn't that what your mother's familial religion is all
about? Achieving enlightenment, the state of being awake and aware of one's
true nature. I've been trying forever to find a way to get through to you, but
your own powers were making that damned near impossible. It took lying in wait
until you came within a hair's breath of snuffing it, but then Miss Lola
called, and gave me at last the opening I needed through which to slip your
wakeup call."

"Okay. So I'm awake. I think." I finish dusting
myself off, and sit back down at the table. "But there's more to it than
that, isn't there? This wakeup was not just an end in itself, but a means to
some other end you have in mind."

He laughs. "Correct, my child. I have a job for you. Or
to be more exact, you are already deep into the job I was needing done."

"So you're after Morningstar too. Not so surprising in
hindsight--he's much bigger than I could have dreamed. But why do you need a
mortal's help--even a mortal as freaky as me? Is there a reason you can't go
after him yourself?"

He sits back and sips at his lemonade. "Boyo, the
spirit world doesn't work that way. Just because it violates the rules of the
mundane world does not mean it is not governed by rules of its own, and one of
those rules is that the divine cannot directly intervene in the mundane. We
must ever and always have intermediaries, channels for the energy, mortals who
are willing to serve as the instruments of our will. Chevaux."

"So you want me to be your man against Morningstar.
Interesting." I sit back and consider. "Well, obviously I was going
after him anyway. But even though you can't act directly, can I count on you
for a little assistance here and there?"

"I was going to insist on it if you didn't ask. You're
damn good, there's no two ways about it, but even with all your friends and
allies, you're going to need some extra muscle." He stands and offers his
right hand to shake. "So ... do we have an understanding? Partner?"
He winks at me.

Damn, I think to myself, he's pulled my own
turn-the-adversary-into-an-ally gambit on me. Is he bound and determined to
have me experience all my favorite moves from the receiving end? But I'm alright
with it--I've come out the other side of this confrontation feeling I can trust
this crazy dude.

"It's a deal." I seize his hand and shake it
whole-heartedly. "And now, partner, here's a few thoughts on what kind of
assistance I think you could provide ... "

*   *
  *   *   *

Some time later, I awake back in Lola's spare bedroom, with
wan pre-dawn light filtering through the curtains. I am sprawled on the bed
still fully clothed. When I sit up, I discover the miraculous healing to be no
dream.

Quietly, I rise and make my way through the house, feeling
the unusual need to confide in someone, to fully re-ground myself in this
reality. In my new reality. I hear Jigen's snore from behind his closed door.
Lola's door is ajar and the room unoccupied. In the kitchen I find a half-pot
of coffee keeping warm in the coffeemaker; as I pour myself a cup, the headline
on a recent newspaper left on the counter catches my eye. That's right, the
currently lame-duck President of the US is making an appearance in Los Angeles
in a few days. Yet another hunch (where the hell do those keep coming from,
anyway?) tells me to file this factoid away for future reference.

Now caffeined up a bit, I slip out the front door into the
dew-wet early morning grass. Movement over at the horse paddock captures my
attention; it's Lola and Nessa, exercising their horses and having a moment
alone together. Something (again, where do these premonitions come from?)
suggests to me it's best to not announce my presence.

From a vantage point just around the corner of the barn, I
see them lean towards each other across their mounts and exchange the kind of
comfortable kiss only long-time lovers share. Yes, this does get my libido's
gears grinding--hey, I'm not proud, I'll cop to my share of yuri fantasies.
But it also somehow gladdens my heart to know these two sister-lovers are there
to take care of each other. Because I don't need my hunches nor even my new
guardian angel to tell me our next move in this little war is going to be
hazardous as hell.

Suddenly I'm aware that I don't sense Goemon's presence in
the barn, but it does feel like he's nearby somewhere. (How, how, how do I know
that? Man, this new knowledge has definitely blown a hole in my beginner�s
mind.) I walk around the back of the building, study the nearby treeline, and
spot him sitting in seiza on an east-facing rocky outcropping, watching the sun
come up.

As I approach, he neither turns to face me nor makes any
other move, remaining serenely at rest, Zantetsuken also at rest against his
shoulder. "I rejoice in your recovery," he says.

"You and me both." For awhile, we both watch in
silence as the sunrise paints the east crimson. Presently, I clear my throat.
"Goemon. I need ... advice."

"Hmph. Unusual." As a long-time
Goemon-interpreter, I can hear the amusement--and warmth--behind the gruffness.

"I know. But I'm a little out of my depth here
..."

"You have had an encounter with that kami. I
felt the energies moving in the night." Somehow his use of the Shinto term
for divine spirit is comforting; it's a more familiar terminology.

"He told me things about my nature that I'm still
having trouble trying to digest."

"That you are akitsu mikami." Now, that
particular term for manifest divinity, freighted as it is with Japanese
Imperial history, is nowhere near as comforting. Yet Goemon uses it easily.

"You're not surprised," I observe.

"I began to suspect as much not long after our first
encounter." He rises and faces me, wearing one of his rare smiles.

"So that's why you've put up with my shit for all these
years." I smile back.

"That, and the comradeship of brothers in arms."
Though still smiling, he lowers his eyes in deference. "And speaking of my
putting up with your 'shit,' as you term it, I must offer you an apology."

"An apology?!? Whatever for?"

"All these years, I had respected your destiny--but in
spite of what I viewed as your objectionable behaviors. I regarded your
womanizing and childishness as defects impeding your potential for greatness.
But when I witnessed your re-awakening ..." here he blushes beet-red, but
doggedly soldiers on ... "I came to realize that, for you, these are no
defects at all, but qualities as essential to your soul as your life's blood is
to your life."

He draws himself up to his full height. "We walk very
different paths. I am guilty of having judged your path by the standards of my
own, and for that arrogance I beg your forgiveness." He bows deeply and
with great seriousness.

"Goemon." I bow just as formally, deeply moved.

"And that advice?" he asks.

"I think you just about covered it," I smile.

He nods. "So. We continue the job, then."

"Yep. Shall we?" And we make our way back to the
house to gather the others and flesh out my plan.
- 6
- 7
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Fun and Thieving in Las Vegas