You Should Always Have Backup
Karam's Legacy, Chapter 10: What His Father Started, He Must Finish
Hey there!
This is Chapter 10 of my serialized novel - Karam’s Legacy
If you’re just joining in, catch up here:
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9
His mother was able to get out just a few words between bouts of intense weeping. “Come see me, please.”
Amir paused. “Ok, Ma, I’m coming over.” He looked down at the floor, disappointed and tense. The last thing he needed was another breadcrumb, another box of dead ends. But this felt different.
Maybe his mother was ready to reveal whatever it was she had been hiding from him all these years.
Amir’s gut tightened as he boarded the 7 train from Astoria, transferring at Woodside to the Long Island Rail Road. The LIRR was cleaner, quieter, and less chaotic than the usual MTA crush. The seats were wider, the lights softer, and for once, the ride didn’t feel like a daily battle for survival.
He was pleasantly surprised by the lack of shouting, music leaking from headphones, or the usual smell of sweat and urgency. Here, there was space to think. To breathe.
The ride was just under an hour, but it felt longer. The train rocked gently as he stared out the window, his reflection superimposed against passing warehouses, junkyards, and strip malls. His phone buzzed with notifications—texts from Mason, a missed call from Manfred—but he ignored them. For once, the noise could wait.
He used to love these trips as a kid. His father would make a game out of it—spotting landmarks, counting stops, sneaking snacks from his bag. But now the train just reminded him of how far he'd drifted from the simple warmth of those days.
The further east he went, the quieter the world became. Apartment buildings gave way to weathered houses, fast-walking commuters to teenagers gliding by on bikes, old men in white undershirts methodically watering lawns bordered by cracked sidewalks. It was like stepping out of the storm of the city into something softer, slower, and somehow heavier.
At Hicksville station, the sky had dulled to a cool gray, the light bleeding into evening. Amir walked the familiar route to his mother’s home, passing the same corner deli with its sun-faded Pepsi sign, the same small church with chipped white paint and hourly chimes that always felt too cheerful.
Her house was a modest split-level—chipped blue siding, rust climbing the mailbox, a front lawn she still tried to tame even as the weeds seemed to take over. The house looked tired, reflecting much of the mood emanating from his mother.
He paused at the front door. The knob turned freely. It was unlocked. She still refused to change her habits, despite his constant warnings. “What if someone just walks in?” he had asked her once. “Who would?” she’d replied.
The weight of everything she hadn’t said since Karam’s death pressed against his ribs. Just as he had felt staring down the file Alex gave him, Amir now wondered if he even wanted to know the truth. There was still time to turn back and pretend he hadn’t seen Alex’s file.
He let the thought drift away.
The smell of curry, over-steeped chai, and a hint of incense hit his nose the moment Amir walked into his mother’s home. The living room hadn’t changed in a decade. Doilies still covered the armrests of the sofa. A faded throw blanket, his father’s favorite, hung neatly over the back. Family photos lined the mantle—Amir in his high school graduation robe, his parents on a beach in Queens, smiling like the world hadn’t touched them yet.
Amir walked along the wall behind the couch and paused, staring at a photo of his father in his karate gi and a young Amir clinging to him. He remembered the day clearly.
The smell of disinfectant from the mats. His father’s warm-up chant in Japanese as he counted off each stretch. Amir had cried halfway through the class because another boy—older, faster—had swept him to the ground. Karam hadn’t coddled him. He’d waited until the tears stopped, then helped Amir back to his feet, whispering, “We don’t fold on pain. Get up and try again. Learn what happened, and adapt. Get stronger. Fight smarter.”
He heard footsteps behind him.
“I almost took that photo down last week,” his mother said softly, holding a steaming mug of chai in both hands. “But I couldn’t.”
Amir turned. “Why would you?”
Shanti shrugged and set the mug on the end table. “It’s hard to look at these pictures every day, Amir.” She took a step closer as Amir took a cup of chai from his mother’s hand. “And you. Look exactly like him.”
She looked at him for a long time, like she was deciding something. Then she sat on the edge of the sofa, folded her hands in her lap.
“I know why you’re here,” she said.
Amir remained quiet.
“I knew this day would come. But I prayed every day it wouldn’t. Amir, you know I didn’t want you to follow his footsteps. Still, you did.”
He nodded. “I’ve stopped apologizing for it, Ma. Maybe it’s true what they say.” He sat next to her on the couch. “Some things just run in the blood.”
Shanti wanted to say I wish it didn’t. Instead, she said, “Your father… he didn’t stop working. Not really. He just stopped wearing the badge.”
“I got that far,” Amir replied. “But I need the full story. Not just pieces of it.”
Shanti looked down, smoothing out a crease in her shawl. “The truth lives where his discipline lived. In the place he loved more than anything after he left the force.”
“The dojo.”
She nodded. “He called it a second skin. Said it gave him a reason to breathe.”
“I thought it closed down.”
Shanti looked away, her voice softening. “Your father didn’t work alone. Not in the end.” She hesitated, like she was debating how much to say. “There was one man he trusted. Manfred.”
Amir’s brow creased. “Manfred? My trainer, Manfred?!”
Shanti gave a faint smile. “That’s how you know him. But he and your father went back further than that. I don’t know the full story—I never asked. But after everything happened… Manfred stuck around. Quietly.”
“He was part of the task force?”
“Yes,” she said, honest and firm. “Your father never used that word with me. All I know is—when things got dark, it was Manfred who showed up. After the funeral, he said he’d keep the dojo from disappearing. And he did.” Shanti paused again, fighting back the memory of that day, “Manfred moved everything to a storage unit.”
Amir raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, everything?”
Shanti met his eyes. “The office drawers. Your father’s locker. Even the trophies. Certificates.”
“Trophies?” he asked, surprised. “We didn’t have any at the house.”
“He didn’t want them here,” she said. “Said the dojo was where they belonged.”
She paused, then added, quieter now, “He kept notes, too. Notebooks, files. Said paper was harder to erase than memory cards.”
Amir’s brow furrowed.
“He didn’t trust digital records. Wrote everything by hand. Names. Patterns. Incidents. I don’t know what it all meant—I never asked. Because I knew he’d never tell me.”
Amir stood still, letting her words settle over him like dust in a locked room. All these years, he’d assumed it was his mother who had scrubbed away that part of his father’s life—hiding the medals, the certificates, the framed memories—maybe to keep him from following the same path.
Shanti picked up her chai again, both hands wrapped around the mug like a small shield.
“Be careful, Amir,” she said softly.
Finished with her chai, Shanti rose to rinse her cup, the clink of porcelain undercutting the silence.
“I should have the key somewhere,” she murmured. “Manfred gave me a copy just in case.”
She opened a drawer in the kitchen. Rifled through envelopes, old mail, and a tangle of rubber bands.
“Not here,” she said, half to herself. Then she stopped. “No. ”
Amir looked up. “I have to get it from Manfred.”
Shanti turned to face him. Amir sensed a tinge of guilt in her expression, but it only lasted a moment. “Finish your chai, beta. And stay for dinner this time, please.”
He paused. Her eyes were already waiting for his answer.
“Of course, Ma,” he said.
The two moved through the motions that evening—shared memories, quiet bites, and careful silences. Beneath it all, his mother hoped he’d let the past rest. But Amir’s mind had already left the room, drawn to the shadows of a dojo he hadn’t stepped into for years, and wondering why, in all these years, Manfred had never mentioned to him the storage unit.
The front door creaked open. Amir stepped inside, the key still warm from his palm. The gym was quiet, still heavy with the smell of sweat and disinfectant.
In the back, Manfred was mopping—slow, methodical, half in rhythm with the soft hum of the radio.
The overhead light caught the angles of his frame—wiry but dense, like a coiled steel cable in human form. His arms were veined and compact, built from decades of grappling. Manfred was shorter than Amir by a few inches, but built like a battering ram ready for another round.
The face was ex-cop all the way—sharp eyes, close-cut hair, and a nose that looked like it had been broken once and reset wrong on purpose.
“You know, Mason keeps calling me about you. Where’ve you been?” he muttered, driving the mop into the corner. “Anyway. I’ll get the heavy bag set up.”
“I’m not here to train,” Amir said.
Manfred finally looked up at Amir, arms crossed, brows low.
“You’ve got that look. You’re about to do something.”
Amir stepped further inside, letting Manfred fully see his face under the overhead light.
“I talked to my mother. She told me about the storage unit.”
Manfred exhaled through his nose. His face went flush, and his skin turned as pale as a ghost. The day had finally come. “Son.” It was the only thing he could mutter out at that moment.
A beat passed. The fan clicked as it rotated. Amir stepped closer.
“She said there are notes. Files. From him.”
“There are.”
“I want to see them.”
Manfred nodded, arms still crossed. He decided to walk back over to his mop. He grabbed it and said, “Why now?”
Amir's voice dropped. “Because something’s not right. I always knew that something was off.”
That made Manfred pause. “About what?”
“About everything,” Amir said, his voice cracking under the weight of it. “About how I became a cop. About the cases I was given. The way things always seemed to fall into place. And now the Chief of D’s tells me Mason has protected me.” He stepped forward, jaw tight. “Protected from what, Manfred? What the hell has everyone been shielding me from?”
He took a breath, steadied himself.
“It has to be connected to whatever my father was working on. Whatever he didn’t finish.”
Manfred looked square at Amir. His voice lowered, almost like it hurt to say it.
“I’ve got the spare key in the drawer.” He paused.
“But you’re not going alone.”
Amir narrowed his eyes. “Why not?”
Manfred turned, walked to the far wall, and rested his hand on the heavy bag like it were a gravestone.
“Because your father worked alone.” He looked back at Amir. “And it got him killed.”
A long silence stretched between them.
Then, softer this time:
“You should always have backup.”
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