Cage on the Sea by Kaoru Ohno

Author:Kaoru Ohno [Ohno, Kaoru]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781939326188
Publisher: Bento Books
Published: 2014-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The next morning Nakai and Suzaki left Mizutani’s place without waiting for breakfast. They wanted to avoid any chance encounters with Noda.

“Wonder what poor Higa’s going to do,” said Suzaki as they walked home. There was no telling what Noda might do if the man refused to knuckle under, and Suzaki was afraid that another murder could be in the offing.

“Trouble is,” replied Nakai, “we don’t have a good way to stop Noda.” It was simple: they were powerless in the face of the pistols.

“You should have lent Takano the rifle when he came asking,” Suzaki said.

“No way. That would’ve just made a bad situation worse.”

For now, Noda and his gang were fixated on Kazuko. They were determined to convince her to move near their hut so they could “borrow” her from time to time. If Kazuko ended up complying, the thugs would be less of a danger to everyone else. Nakai didn’t like the way they were pulling in recruits and establishing themselves as the dominant force on the island. For the time being, Higa was acting as a breakwater, holding back the tide. The gang was at least making a show of getting Kazuko with his blessing. Negotiations were ongoing, and no agreement had been reached. That was where things stood now.

Late that afternoon, Noda and Koyanagi dropped by Nakai’s hut; Kazuko was with them.

“Hiya, pal,” Noda stuck his grinning face through the doorway.

“Decided to make the move then, Kazu-chan?” inquired Nakai, trying to sound offhand about it. Kazuko’s expression didn’t change. “Yes,” she said, and stared out to sea, looking not the least bit perturbed.

“’Course she did,” Noda said, mostly for the benefit of his cronies outside. “We’ve got tons of food at Misery Brook. More food means a happy little Kazu-chan. Right, Koyanagi?”

“Yeah, and that Higa fella, he’s a smart guy. He knows what’s good for him,” replied Koyanagi with a smirk.

“Gotta move on, pal.” Noda stood up and left, taking his gang with him. A few minutes later Higa appeared.

“What could we do? Noda gave Kazu-chan an ultimatum: go with them, or they would kill me. We had to say yes. They even came and moved our things out of the hut. We had no choice.”

Higa knew perfectly well what Noda and his gang had in mind. He followed after them with feet of lead.

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