“Bitch is back!” she yelled during the long instrumental break.
The rhythm was strange, hobbling, but Mildred followed the bouncing ball with no trouble, shaking her hips as she waited for the last verse to come along.
The woman stamped across the stage from side to side, head rolling, dropping to her knees as the tune eventually faded away into silence. She put the microphone on top of the karaoke machine and grinned a little embarrassedly at her applauding audience.
Everyone clapped, except for the pinch-faced sister of the shogun, who brushed away Mashashige’s restraining hand and hobbled toward the sweating black woman on her bound, crippled feet. She held her hands like claws, muttering under her breath.
“No!” the shogun called sharply. “You will regret any bad action here.”
But his sister had reached Mildred, standing for a moment and glaring at her through hooded, malevolent eyes. Then spit full in her face.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ryan had never seen Mildred Wyeth in such a towering rage.
They had persuaded her to return with them to their rooms in the heart of the ville, where she sat on the edge of her mattress, tight-lipped, sighing and shaking her head in disbelief. “He can’t do it.”
“He can,” J.B. said, squatting next to her, trying to hold her hand. But Mildred pulled away from him.
“Leave me be, John,” she said warningly, her voice tight and angry.
Ryan stood by the barred window, looking out across the moat. He turned to speak to Mildred, then caught a glance from Krysty and closed his mouth again.
Doc tried. “It is appalling, Dr. Wyeth. Truly disgraceful, but it is their way. When in Rome”
“Now, how did I guess you were going to trot out that old cliche, Doc?”
“It was bad, what she done.” Jak was absently polishing the leaf-shaped blade of one of his throwing knives on his jacket, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“It was spit! Saliva, for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t concentrated nitric acid.”
“But it shamed Mashashige and made the whole damn palace lose face.”
Mildred turned to him. “Sure, Ryan. Look, get this straight. I’m not a stupe person. I’m not having a breakdown. Like they say, I don’t have acute psychosis. I have a cute face. Right? I understand the way wheels turn here in this shitty, rotten place. Shogun says jump and all his people ask how high.”
“Mebbe if we let a little time pass, then we can go to Mashashige and ask him for What’s the word, Doc?”
“Clemency, Ryan.”
“Yeah. Mebbe he’ll let his sister off from having to chill herself.”
“Just don’t bet the mortgage on it, bro.” Mildred stood and paced the room, her boots clacking on the polished wooden floor. “And there’s no time, anyway.”
“I can go and ask him,” Krysty offered. “Gaia! The man’s not an animal.”
“No. Just a gut-proud samurai who thinks he’s lost face because his sister spit in the eyes of an American nigger bitch! That’s all, isn’t it?”
The outburst left them all silent.
Doc coughed to clear his throat. “Just for once I find myself totally on the side of Dr. Wyeth. It seems intolerable that this suicide should be forced on the wretched woman.”
Ryan punched his right fist into his left palm. “Fireblast! This is a bastard waste of time. We all feel the same. But what are we going to do about it? Doc? It seems intolerable, you said. How do you propose we save her life? Stage a rescue and a firefight? This is their world and their rules.”
“Wish never saw karaoke machine,” Jak muttered. “Issie’s dead upset.”
“We all are.” The Armorer was walking slowly up and down the floor. “What Ryan says is right. I don’t see what we can do to stop it happening.”
“He says I have to be there to watch the insult cleansed in blood.” Mildred was on the edge of tears.
“Mebbe he’ll reconsider.” Ryan put his arm around the woman’s shoulders, feeling her body as tense as spun crystal, flinching at his touch.
“Fuck and damnation!” She eased away. “If he’s going to make her chill herself, then I’ll be there. I want to look in the cold-heart shogun bastard’s eyes when it goes down. Nobody has to come with me who doesn’t want to.”