Chapter Four
Peter sighed. Once again they’d been found out, and would once again have to offer an explanation. In other situations he would have tried to bluff, but the uniforms and weapons left no room for skirting the issue.
Mrs. Jenkins walked down the stairs. She reached up and pulled the dark hat from Peter’s hair, combing the bangs off of his forehead. “What happened?” she asked softly. “How was he hurt?”
“We were, uh . . . spying on the mayor. Mike tripped and banged his knee pretty bad.”
“Will he be all right?” Mr. Bennett asked as he followed Mrs. Filchok down the stairs.
“Yeah. He just needs some rest,” Micky said, belatedly hiding his tonfa behind his back.
“Did you learn anything?” Mrs. Filchok asked in a shakily hopeful voice. “Can we go home soon?”
“We learned that they’re tearing down houses to build parking lots,” Davy growled. “We didn’t get anything more than that.”
“Oh,” Filchok said, sniffling slightly. “She said you looked so heroic . . . that there was no doubt you’d help us . . . ”
Heat crept into Peter’s cheeks and he felt himself blush. He wished Mrs. Jenkin’s hadn’t said that. There was no guarantee, and never had been, that they would always be able to help, but the knowledge did nothing to calm the ache that had begun in his chest. Trust. There was so much trust in the three pairs of eyes fixed on them . . .
Mr. Bennett stepped forward. “Boys, why didn’t you tell us? Why all the secrecy? Why didn’t you just come out and tell us you weren’t just long-haired lazeabouts?”
“Would you have believed us?” Peter said. The question was purely rhetorical, so he continued. “It’s not something we . . . advertise. We try to keep it quiet and secret, so that other people won’t look at us differently.” He glanced at Micky and Davy. “We don’t want people to be frightened of us.”
“Frightened of you?” Bennett blinked. “For heaven’s sakes, you work for the government! You’re the good guys! Why would we be frightened of you?”
For the first time in nearly six months a genuinely bewildered expression crossed Peter’s face as he blinked at Micky and Davy. Government??
“What goverment?” Micky blurted; for once he received no rebuke.
“Why ours, of course!” Mrs. Jenkins grinned. “That’s why all the secrecy, right? You’re some kind of spies, undercover here for some reason, and you’re risking it to help us!”
From the couch came a sudden bark of laughter. “Mike?” Davy turned toward the couch.
Mike was sitting up, easing his injured leg to the floor. His hair was mussed and his eyes were tired, but he was alert. “We don’t work for the government, Mrs. Jenkins. We’re not spies. We don’t have any official titles of any kind—except as the Four Winds.”
“The Four—” Mrs. Jenkins began.
“Winds?” Mr. Bennett finished, frowning. “You moonlight as another band?”
Mike stood up, leaning onto his good leg. “No.” He tossed his staff into the air and caught it, twirling it in the long fingers that were so skilled at guitar playing. It was more than just a twirl—it was a series of precise, skilled movements from someone well-versed in the art of handling weaponry.
The women gaped, eyes wide. Bennett stepped forward and whispered a word that took everyone by surprise.
“Samurai?”
Mike gave him a knowing look and nodded. “In a manner of speaking. We have a mix of skills, but yes, that is a part of it.”
He nodded slowly and, seeing all eyes were on him, Bennett smiled. “I spent five years in Japan after the war. Okinawa and Kyoto, mostly. I learned a lot of the culture. Samurai were one thing I studied.” He gave a short rasp of a laugh. “Never in my wildest dreams did I dream I’d meet four in Maluibu Beach!”
Mike nodded. If it made Mr. Bennett comfortable to regard them that way, then that was fine with him.
The two women broke off and went to cook an early breakfast, and Bennett sat down with the men. “So . . . did you find anything we can use?”
Mike turned his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “‘We’?”
A smile was his answer. “I may be older than you, I may not have your skills, but I have experience.” He held up his hand at Micky’s open mouth. “You’re more skilled than most masters my age, but you are boys in your early twenties. I don’t understand how this can be, but here you are. So . . . did you find anything we can use?”
Mike leaned on his staff, limping over to the kitchen and accepting the ice pack Mrs. Filchok offered him. “Just what are you getting at, Mr. Bennett?”
He smiled and tilted his head. “Let’s just say some of my questions have been answered.”
Mrs. Jenkins gave a rather inelegant snort. “Some of them, Richard?”
Mr. Bennett shrugged. “Well? Think about it. Three old people coming to four young kids for help?” He looked back at Mike. “Your generation doesn’t trust mine and a lot of the time we don’t trust yours. It made no sense for us to come to you, but I felt . . . ”
“It was Richard’s idea to come here,” Mrs. Filchok said with a smile. “He told us you could help, but we couldn’t figure out why. Four young men, poorer than we are—”
“Were,” Mrs. Jenkins sighed, and Mrs. Filchok hugged her as the slightly younger woman cried silently.
After a moment, Bennett sighed and said very softly, “—and now I think I know why we came here. Somehow, I think I could sense what you are. I used to have friends in Japan who were proto-samurai and I’d help them plan strad—stra—uh . . . ” He gave a sheepish smile. “I can do it, but I can’t say it.”
“Strategy,” Peter said, finally recovering from his verbal paralysis. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“Peter!” Mike hissed, pulling him aside. “It’s one thing for us to be involved, but Mr. Bennett’s—”
“Old?” Peter said. At Mike’s slightly chiding look, he smiled. “Look. We’ve been looking at books for how long now? He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. Liang is good, but he’s so busy and honestly, I’d feel strange asking him. But Mr. Bennett, he’s been a friend to us since he moved in. I’m not saying we’ll do anything to put him in danger, but at least maybe he can help us make some sense out of this that the books can’t give us.”
“Like a . . . mentor or something?”
Peter shrugged. “Not sure. But he’s real, he’s here . . . he seems to know what he’s talking about, what we are.” He looked over to where Bennett had picked up one of their ubiquitous throwing stars and was turning it over in his hands—moving it in such a way that he wouldn’t stab himself.
“See, look how he handles it. That’s someone who knows a little of what he’s talking about.”
Mike sighed. “I just don’t want him hurt.”
Peter smiled and squeezed his shoulder. “He won’t be. Not if we’re careful.”
At that moment, Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Filchok came over and served breakfast. “You boys need to get some rest after we eat,” Mrs. Filchok said. “You were out all night.”
“We’re used to it,” Micky said, yawning despite himself.
“Uh-huh. Eat and bed,” Bennett said with a smile. “Can’t help us if you collapse.”
All four tried to protest, but as they ate, one by one their eyes began to close. Poor Davy fell asleep mid-bite and a sleepily smiling Peter fished the sausage out of his mouth.
“Poor lit’le mite,” Micky said in a bad imitation of Davy’s cockney. “All tuckered out, innhe?”
“Aye, mate,” Mike cockney-drawled back at him. “An’ ye’re not fer b’hind. Gitcha gone.”
“Huh?” Micky blinked at him, his almond eyes blinking widely open as he tried to focus.
Bennett smiled. “Come on, boys. All of you.”
They didn’t resist as he led them into the downstairs bedroom, settling Micky and Davy into their pallets on the floor. Peter stumbled into the room and collapsed onto Davy’s bed, burrowing deep under the covers.
“Are you going to be all right, Mike?” Bennett asked as Mike limped in.
“I’ll be fine, sir,” Mike said, easing himself onto Peter’s bed with a sigh. “Just need some sleep and a chance to think.”
“Sleep,” Bennett said, quietly commanding. “There will be plenty of time to think tomorrow.”
“No, sir,” Mike sighed. “If there was time to think, Mrs. Jenkins would still have her house. We . . . ” a yawn escaped him. “We have to act . . . ”
Bennett leaned over him. “Mike, if a wind blows too strong, it blows itself out and becomes useless. Let me be Aeolus to you.” At Mike’s widening eyes, he smiled. “You get the reference, I see.”
Mike smiled and allowed himself to fully relax.
“Aeolus?” Micky asked sleepily as Bennett closed the door.
“Greek Mythology,” Peter mumbled. “The keeper of the winds.”
On to Chapter Five
Back to Chapter Three
Back to Secrets and Lies Index
