#weak script

Hernandez: We’ll make this quick if you do, Mr. Takada.

Takada: Okay.

Hernandez: Are we good to get started?

Takada: We haven’t started yet?

McCown: Be serious. Faster we start, faster we finish.

Takada: Okay. Shoot.

Hernandez: Tell us about what happened on February 12th of this year, leading up to today.

Takada: All of it? You’re going to need more tape for a whole month. There’s a lot that went on in the shop starting that day, and then there’s everything on the way to Chicago, too. Is this more like a piece-meal thing? Well, probably. (sighs) Okay. Okay. 12th was a Wednesday, the floral shop was busy because Valentine’s fell on a Friday, so there wasn’t much time to catch your breath. Old Estelle had stepped out of the shop at the time, around 12:30ish. No. 1. Definitely 1, that was always her lunch time. Have you talked to Estelle?

McCown: Yes.

Takada: Is she alright?

McCown: I think she’s fairing well, considering the state her shop was left in. Why? Are you concerned something happen to her?

(pause)

McCown: I can tell you she doesn’t know the whole story. She might not like seeing your face again, but it’s a good thing you’ll be far away from Fairfax, Kentucky anyways. She’ll never see Eric Takada again. If it helps you sleep at night, though, she’s physically fine. Fine as anyone can be.

Takada: There was a lot of blood on her floor. Kind of amazing. A little. It had mostly dried by the time me and Rachel left the place. It almost matched those old tiles in there. (pause) You know, that old bat probably’s seen worse than what the Z can do. You think a little place out in Kentucky doesn’t have its share of mess, but I’d say they’re more dangerous. Every person has a shotgun. Or worse. It’s about the only reason I was able to keep trouble out of the flower shop. Of all things, a florist having to ward off these..hick thugs. Nothing like LA. People keep their noses to the ground there, but apparently in Fairfax they look you in the eye when they want to rob you.

Hernandez: And this involves the incident on the 12th? Hick thugs?

Takada: (snorts) Please. Does that look like some kids holding up a package store? No. No, it was planned. Mostly. You can see Z chinpara from a mile away.

Hernandez: Chinpara?

Takada: Two-bit hooligans. The kids on the street corner selling dope. The low-level guys. That’s the name the yakuza give them anyway, the Japanese. You know the Z though. It’s just a term I choose to use because it makes the most sense. Everyone calls their low-level guys something. (Laughs) listen to me, telling you guys this. The FBI doesn’t have this much trouble, they know their gangs a little better. (Sighs) Anyways, yes, chinpara came up. They have these cars no one has in a place like Fairfax, sort of tricked out, not too flashy but not some Tacoma or Corolla. Soon as I saw them pull up, I had a bad feeling.

McCown: Why? You’d been there for three years nearly.

Takada: I don’t know. You live your life devoid of peace and so you think that whenever there is peace there’s something wrong. I kept waiting. They weren’t the first out of town car I saw pull up that made me suspicious. They were just the first I got right.

McCown: A little jumpy, then?

Takada: Not so much. Just cautious. See (sighs) okay, this is also more FBI territory. They get the Z. They know why there’s a reason to be afraid, like people are afraid of M13. You work for these guys for a while, and you get a sense that there’s an eye that’s been tattooed on the back of your head. You know it. You feel it. You sleep with it, and you wake up and you keep doing what you’re doing, but they see it. Heaven knows how. They keep making cameras smaller and smaller.

Hernandez: You never reported anything to your CO.

Takada: No.

Hernandez: Did you think that could have prevented the 12th? Or Rachel and Hanna?

Takada: No.

Hernandez: Why is that?

(pause)

Hernandez: Start from after Estelle went to lunch.

Takada: A car pulled up about a quarter after 1. I was working in bouquets and a few special order arrangements. I had one customer in the store with me—

Hernandez: (overlapping) Rachel Green?

Takada: Yes. She’d been in there for a few minutes, I don’t know how long. She was quiet. I figure I’ll take the time to finish up the orders. Most of them were long stemmed roses, prickly bastards. Which meant I had the sheers out to trim them down for the bouquets. You can never have enough roses for Valentine’s. But I also almost always had the sheers. And I saw the car pull up. I didn’t think about it immediately.

Hernandez: But you knew something was off?

Takada: They waited out there for a minute. Yeah. Something was off. One got out. Had on a leather jacket over a button-up. He didn’t fit in, it was too LA with the slicked back hair. Hell, even more like Memphis than Fairfax. The other got out after him but stayed in the car. That sort of tipped me off. I kept my eye on them. Kid comes into the store, he’s like 20, 22. Someone roped him into this, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I finished up one of the bouquets and set it in the cooler for later. I took the sheers with me, hard as it is to juggle them with flowers and my cane. I just had a feeling.

McCown: You and the feelings.

Takada: Yeah. Full of them. (Laughs) When I come back out, this kid is behind the counter and he’s got a gun low. By his hip.

Hernandez: Does he say anything?

Takada: ….he doesn’t have to. Please….this isn’t the first time. It’s just like the clinic. Some kind of wet-behind-the ears kid. They probably hadn’t even paid him yet, he was doing this for the credit. Except this time, I wasn’t going to let him take out my other knee. You only have two.

Hernandez: It’s safe to say you felt threatened?

Takada: No. Not entirely. But also yes, because I knew where it was going. This kid didn’t scare me. The thought of not making it til next spring did. I hadn’t spent three years in Witness Protection to get killed at the finish line. Or maimed. I had a strong feeling—

McCown: (overlapping) More of them.

Takada: Yes. I had a feeling that this may have been a ‘rescue mission’. Bring me home, let the Z handle me for my crimes. Better than the Federal Corrections might. They’d have to take me down first, so I guess I was afraid for my life in some capacity. I didn’t think of it at the time.

(pause)

Takada: Like I said, the only thing I thought was this: I wasn’t going to let this shit-nosed punk take out my other knee. I didn’t even think that anyone was still in the store, so I plunged the sheers straight into his neck. I was aiming closer to between the sternum and the clavicles. It doesn’t bleed as heavily, but I was [garbled; flustered? frustrated? fucked?]. It was a rush-job. I hit the carotid.

McCown: Rush-job. Mm-hm. That’s one word for it.

Takada: Sheers aren’t a scalpel.

Hernandez: What happened after you attacked Mr. Yuan?

Takada: (snorts) You would have his name.

McCown: Alex Duong and Hu Yuan. Those were the men at the shop. Mr. Duong is still in the ICU over in Louisville. No one’s come to rescue him yet.

Takada: They will.

Hernandez: What happened after Mr. Yuan?

Takada: I heard shrieking. The whole world woke up in my head. Whenever you’re in a moment like with a scalpel or with the sheers, you’re lost. You focus on the work, but Rachel’s shrieking woke me up. I saw the other kid..Duong? I saw him heading towards her. I didn’t realize she was there, still, like I said, so I hadn’t planned on what was happening next. Calling you guys vaguely entered my mind. But he already had a gun pointed towards her, so I had to do something. (pauses) This sort of comes back to the whole..everyone has a shotgun. Estelle told me where it was. It clicked then, and I grabbed it and pointed it at the kid. I didn’t know if it was loaded. I assumed it wasn’t, she’d never even picked the thing up except maybe to wipe the dust off. I was lucky it didn’t backfire on me. (sighs) So I fired. It had terrible recoil. I remember almost going through the window behind the counter.

Hernandez: Is that how you injured your arm?

Takada: Yeah. My elbow started bleeding after that, but I was too agitated to notice.

Hernandez: Then what happened?

Takada: I look at Rachel. She was still screaming, there was blood on her face. She was holding lilies, just crushing them into her chest. I..I had nothing to say to her. I stared at her. After a few seconds she just starts crying and trying to say something. Something like “You. Why. How. What”. All that. Estelle wasn’t back yet. There’s two guys laying on her floor. I..I dialled 9-1-1 on the cordless and took off after that.

Hernandez: Why did you take Ms. Green?

Takada: Because chinpara come with back-up. And even if they didn’t usually, with me..don’t you think they needed it?

McCown: You think that highly of yourself.

Takada: You still call me ‘doc’. They still see it that way, too. They're patient. They know that I know all the dirty details, which means the Feds know them too. What don’t you tell your doctor? What messes don’t you bring him? If there’s anyone you don’t lie to, it’s your doctor and your lawyer. So I knew there were more. Or at least, I could be certain they were nearby. Anyone who saw anything was going to be on the list. So I took Rachel. She went easily. She was still stunned by everything.

Hernandez: Did you ever see your other pursuers?

McCown: We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Keep going with Rachel. Tell us how you decided to take her along for the whole ride. How did her daughter, Hanna, get involved?

Takada: (sighs) Either you really don’t believe me, or you really don’t get it.

McCown: The Federal government doesn’t take kindly to the kind of behaviour you’re exhibiting as a Witness, no. It doesn’t give you free reign to re-offend. It could be construed as self-defence, with Mr. Yuan and Mr. Duong. But there’s a whole other list of felonies from Fairfax to Houston proper. Let’s see. Petty theft. Grand theft auto. Evading. Kidnapping. At this rate, you’ll run out stories to outweigh them. So no. We don’t believe you can justify them, plus the relocation on top of it. You’re spending a lot of taxpayer dollars, Takada.

Takada: (grumbles in foreign language) You can call me Li. I’m not hiding from you.

McCown: Touch a nerve, did I, son?

Takada: I’m at least your age. Show me a little respect.

McCown: (laughs) let’s just say I like staying in character, shall we. Doc’s as good as I can get but with all this mess as you call it, it’s hard to give you that respect. As far as I’m aware, you’re not licensed. You didn’t go to medical school. You worked underground and you collected some petty secrets from some gangbangers. What a respectable life. You think the American government wants to subsidise that for some petty thugs, some..chinpara like you call them? So yes, Takada, I don’t believe you. Make me believe you. Make me believe you didn’t mean for Rachel to get hurt.

Takada: (sighs)

(Pause)

Takada: Give me a smoke break and we’ll start with Rachel. At her apartment.

(Pause)

McCown: Five minutes. You should take a piss while you’re at it, because we’re not stopping til lunch next, son.