Snakeskin Shamisen (17 page)

“
Orai
,” Mas said, adjusting his Dodger cap. “No
monku
.”

“That’s what I like about you, Mas. You don’t complain. My husband, on the other hand—
monku
,
monku
,
monku
. Do you know now that he refuses to eat leftovers? And no fast food for him. I have to cook up a fresh batch of food every day for two old people. Isn’t that ridiculous? You’d think that now he’s working part-time, he’d lend a hand around the house.”

Mas didn’t know how to answer. If he agreed with Bette, Stinky would be in hot water. Normally, Mas wouldn’t care, but since he needed information from Stinky, he adopted another strategy.

He shifted his weight from one foot to another, cleared his throat, and sniffled hard, as if a huge
hanakuso
had blocked his ability to smell or hear. “Stinky ova here, by the way? Needsu to talk to him.”

“Well, you’ll have to go to his office to see him.”

Office? When did Stinky have enough money for an office?

Bette smiled. “Eaton’s Nursery. His so-called office is right there—outside on a picnic table. He even keeps his Crown City Gardeners files over there.”

Mas should have known. Ever since Tanaka’s Lawnmower Shop had closed down, Wishbone’s gang had had to find another hangout. Like a flock of cawing crows, they needed to exist in numbers or risk never being heard. And for Wishbone and his like, not being heard would be worse than death. They had finally landed at Eaton’s Nursery on Altadena Drive, right below the county wash, a flood control drainage area.

Thanking Bette, Mas headed down the driveway back to the Ford. Eaton’s was actually owned by a
hakujin
fellow, an old-timer who spent his nights gambling with the Japanese. His number-two employee was a Nisei, Bill Kamiyama, who everyone called Kammy.

Eaton’s was pretty far north, so the purple-peaked San Gabriel Mountains loomed close. One time, Mas’s second cousin came down to visit him from San Francisco and was shocked to see the mountain range just above Altadena. “Didn’t know L.A. had mountains,” he said. Outsiders rarely knew of L.A.’s true charm. And the ones attracted to the region’s superficial glitz and glamour weren’t the type to ever see it.

Mas parked in the gravel lot and this time didn’t bother to use the screwdriver to lock the car. This crowd wasn’t the thieving kind, at least not beyond a poker table.

Mas walked underneath a lattice roof where potted plants hung, and then past gallon containers of bougainvillea and ficus trees. On the side, in front of the bathrooms and around a plastic table and umbrella, sat the
renchu
, the gang of five. For the customers, having Japanese gardeners on display might have made Eaton’s Nursery feel more authentic. But if you bothered to spend any time with them, you would learn the truth: that the gardening trade hardly came up in their conversations. Even now, they were busy eating sunflower seeds, taking turns flipping the shells into the center of the table.

“Mas, haven’t seen you around for a long time. How are you doing?” one of the gardeners exclaimed. He had a plastic cooler at his feet, and Mas knew that although the top would be filled with Coke and Hawaiian Punch cans, the bottom would be all Budweisers, reserved for after-hours. Stinky must have been in a good mood, because even he was smiling up at Mas.

“
Orai
. Getting ole, datsu all.” That was about all the small talk that Mas could manage. He then turned his attention to Stinky, sweat dripping underneath his comb-over. “Stinky,” Mas said, pulling him aside, “I gotsu to talk to you.”

“Sure, sure, around the back.”

They went past the bathrooms down a walkway to another gravel lot, which faced an alley. A rubbish bin was so overwhelmed with chopped-up greens that its lid didn’t properly close.

“Whaddya want, Mas?”

“Go to Keiro today. Youzu went ova to talk to Gushi-mama dis week?”

“The old lady? Yeah. I know that she was tight with Wishbone, so I thought she might know where Wishbone was.”

I thought you were running from Wishbone, Mas thought to himself. And now you’re running toward him.

Mas’s thoughts must have been worn on his face, because Stinky asked him, “Didn’t you hear about Wishbone?”

Mas shook his head.

“Turns out he was in on the deal with that gardener from the very beginning. He knew that it was a scam. That’s why he got so mad at me for investing in his own scam. I guess the guy pulled a fast one on him and disappeared with all the money, his and everyone else’s.”

“How youzu find dis out?”

“Well, I went over to Skid Row, you know. Every low-income hotel down there. Finally, at the Chesterton, these guys say that they’ve seen my man. Saito.”

Mas’s eyes widened. The same Saito who visited Keiro.

“I know, Saito. What a joke, huh? That name is a dime a dozen. Should have known it was fake. Anyhows, I give them the two-one-three phone number, and it’s confirmed. It’s the phone number for their pay phone. So this Saito, or whatever he is, had moved out a couple of days ago. I bribe the receptionist to let me in his room so I can look around. And guess who’s there, doing the same thing?”

Mas knew before Stinky said it.

“Wishbone. He’s walking with crutches. He tells me the truth—that he was working with Saito all along. Only now he’s been double-crossed. Just deserts, I guess. He said that he would have warned me not to get involved, if he knew what I was doing. Everything’s all right with us now.”

No wonder Stinky’s disposition had gotten sweeter. But there was still the monetary loss, which must have smarted bad.

“Where’s Wishbone now?”

“Home, if he’s not following Saito’s trail. I guess this Saito’s still hanging around L.A. Not sure exactly why. You’d think he’d hightail out of here, you know. With everyone talking about him.”

Mas pulled down on the back of his cap. Stinky was right. The longer Saito stayed in L.A., the more likely that he’d be spotted by someone on the lookout for him. Unless he avoided Nihonjins completely and stayed and ate in Japanese-free areas. Mas felt he had exhausted all the information he was going to get from Stinky. “Sank you,
ne
. I gotta be somewhere.”

T
he only real place Mas needed to go was home. And more specifically, right into his bathtub. It had been a killer day, and Mas was rubbing Irish Spring soap onto his arms and shoulders when he heard a knock at his door.
A-ra
. He wasn’t expecting anyone. Mas waited, afraid to make any splashing noise to confirm that he was in. But the knocks became more insistent. Finally, Mas gave in and got out of the bath, suds and all. Drying himself with a towel, Mas found his pajama bottoms and quickly stepped into them. He looked through a side window and nearly passed out right then and there. Agent Buchanan Lee was the one banging on his door.

“I know you’re in there, Mr. Arai. I just need a few minutes with you.”

Mas first thought about calling the police, and then wondered if that would do any good. Men and women with badges, wouldn’t they stick together? Mas kept the chain on his door as he opened it. He imagined the crime article in
The Rafu Shimpo
: Altadena gardener killed in his pajama bottoms.

“Listen, I’m not here to hurt you. I’d like to talk. Explain myself.”

“Waitaminute.” Mas went into his bedroom and got a clean T-shirt from a dresser drawer. After pulling it on, he undid the chain lock and slowly opened the door. “Come in,” he said. The house, as usual, was a mess. But Agent Lee wasn’t concerned with good housekeeping anyway.

“Sorry to barge in. Really.”

They spoke standing in the hall. That way Lee wouldn’t overstay his welcome, Mas figured.

“I’ve been trying to talk to your partner, Juanita.”

“Sheezu not my partner.”

“Well, whoever she is to you, she’s extremely stubborn. She won’t hear me out. My agency has been investigating a man named Metcalf. He worked with the INS in the fifties.”

“Why youzu interested now?”

“They found his skeleton buried underneath a city building that is being renovated for residential lofts. It just so happens that one of the future loft owners is an investigative journalist, Manuel Spicer. Now he thinks that he’s on one of those TV crime shows; he’s made it his mission to find out how Metcalf was killed.”

Spicer. That had been the name that Genessee had mentioned back at the library.

“You go to South Central Library.”

“Yep. Been there a couple of times.”

“Ole history.”

“Yes, but my agency is very PR sensitive right now. We don’t need a story about how the INS contributed to the Red scare. So myself and a partner were assigned to dig up the truth and see what we are dealing with. And it’s not pretty. We think that he might have killed somebody on the job. The man you’re looking into. Randy Yamashiro’s father. Isokichi Sanjo.”

Mas nodded. He felt a little proud that he and Juanita had been able to piece together that much on their own.

“But the more we uncovered, the deeper it got. And then my agency told us to stop. Drop the investigation. My partner was more than willing—like you said, this is old history to him. I, on the other hand, can’t let it loose. I mean, what’s everyone so worried about?”

Mas studied the agent’s face. He was young, probably only in his late twenties. His face held hope and innocence. He was a true believer. “So youzu doin’ dis on your own?”

The agent nodded. “I wanted to work for the government to make a difference. And that’s what I’m planning to do.”

Agent Lee was going to learn the hard way that there was a great cost to making a difference. But that was his life, his decision. What use was it to give the boy warnings?

“Can you tell Juanita what my intentions are?”

“You gonna help her daddy?”

A flicker of either pain or sadness passed over Agent Lee’s face. “I’m trying the best I can on that. I’m low level.”

So much for making a difference, Mas thought.

As Mas steered Agent Lee back to the door, he made a request. “Get rid of dat phone bug,
orai
?”

Lee didn’t openly admit that he had participated in any electronic surveillance, but he did dip his head, ever so slightly.

“And no more bugs in cars.”

“Tracking devices?” Lee seemed genuinely surprised. “I didn’t place tracking devices in any vehicles.”

Mas didn’t know whether to believe the agent or not. But his gut told him that someone else was on their tail, someone perhaps not as congenial as this Buchanan Lee.

chapter eleven

The next morning, Mas was in the garage, sharpening the blades of his hedge clipper, when someone walked up his long, cracked driveway. Mas tried to focus through the haze on a man with a large frame. It was Tug, carrying a sweet-smelling baked good.

Mas knew what this was before Tug spoke. Lil’s apology, wrapped up in a brown sugar coffee cake. So Mas accepted it, placing the warm pan on his workbench next to a can of WD-40 and jars of nails and screws organized by size.

“Whatever she might have said, she didn’t mean it. She’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

Mas could tell that he and Tug were going to be having one of their talks. So he wiped his hands and pulled out his dust-topped Coleman cooler. A few brushes from a rag, and Tug’s seat was ready. Mas then went into the house and poured what was left in his coffeemaker into a mug for Tug. Mas had been around him enough to know he liked his coffee super sweet, so he also threw in a couple teaspoons of sugar before he brought it outside.

“Thanks, ole man.” Tug gratefully took the half-full mug of coffee and declined an offer of coffee cake.

“Mari’s probably already told you about Joy,” he said.

Actually Mari had said nothing. She was a little like Mas—well, truth be told, she was a lot like Mas, in all respects. She kept dark stories locked inside, even from family members.

“Joy’s living with a girl now. They are coming together here for Thanksgiving.”

Girl roommates? What’s the big deal? Mas almost spouted out, when he fully realized what Tug was getting at. So the whisperings in corners of local nurseries were true.

“I’ve been praying about this, Mas. Two years straight. Hoping to get answers. Were we bad parents? I told Lil that she was too strong, and she tells me that I was too soft. Tell me the truth, ole man. Did we do something wrong?”

In her diplomatic way, Lil did call the shots at home. Tug, meanwhile, had fought various obstacles in the
hakujin
world as he worked as a county health inspector. When he got home, he deflated, pushing out all the pressures of work to readily receive the pleasures of being a father. They were a typical Nisei couple; as a family, better than most.

“It’s really my fault to have put so much expectation on her. I told her that she could do anything. Be president, even.” Tug pulled at his white beard. “Maybe the pressure was too much for her.”

Mas slowly chewed his coffee cake.

“We’ve kept quiet about her situation, and now, with the whole extended family coming over to our place on Thanksgiving, everyone’s going to know. I was telling Lil that maybe it’s better that way. It’ll all be out in the open. It won’t be like Lil will be carrying this huge secret burden on her back. It’s Joy’s life, after all. It doesn’t have to be a reflection of ours.”

The
hakujin
s preached openness, but Mas didn’t know how well that worked in the Japanese American world.

“So, that’s enough about me. What’s going on with you and your investigation?”

Mas didn’t know if it was a carryover from his health inspector days, but Tug loved studying evidence. Mas could imagine him getting on his hands and knees to check underneath stoves for any signs of rodents and cockroaches. Measuring the temperature of meat in the refrigerator. Especially in light of his friend’s down mood, Mas gave Tug what he wanted. A blow-by-blow description of what they had uncovered about not only Randy’s death, but his father’s.

“Getting mixed up with Homeland Security? This is serious, Mas.” Tug’s eyes were shiny with excitement.

A car then pulled up into the driveway. G. I. stuck his head out of the driver’s-side window. “That asshole just served me with papers saying he’s suing me for the five hundred thousand dollars.”

“Huh?” Mas licked some of the sugar from his fingers.

“Brian Yamashiro. I’m so pissed, I could kill that guy. I’m going over to that Burbank hotel to tell him off. I need someone with me so I don’t do anything crazy.”

Mas stood staring at G. I. His face was bright red, making his pockmarks more noticeable.

“I think he means you, Mas,” Tug said, rising from the Coleman cooler. “I’ll lock up your garage for you.”

Mas thanked Tug and told G. I. to wait. He went into the house to get a khaki work shirt. Securing all his doors, he got into G. I.’s car and waved good-bye to Tug, who looked wistful, as if he wanted to change places.

B
rian was sitting by the hotel pool, wearing sunglasses and typing into a rectangular object that looked like a calculator. Next to him on a table was a glass of tomato juice garnished with a leafy stalk of celery. The recent stifling heat had subsided, and now the sky was gray. The only person in the rectangular light-blue pool was a woman in a white bathing cap and goggles.

“What the hell is this?” G. I. threw some papers in Brian’s lap.

“I thought you were a lawyer. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.”

“Your brother’s body is still warm and you pull something like this? You are something else.” G. I. adjusted his tie. He was wearing a suit for a court appearance later in the day.

Brian set his mini-computer on a table and calmly sipped from his drink. “What I think is even more interesting is that you would have received a half-million-dollar check from my brother and not even mentioned it to the police. But don’t worry—they know now. I’m sure they’ll be giving you a call.”

G. I.’s face looked grim, his mouth drawn in a straight line.

“There are more PIs in L.A. than your Juanita Gushiken. It wasn’t that difficult to trace my brother’s bank accounts, especially since he didn’t have that many.”

“I didn’t know anything about the check until after he died. He hid it. Underneath my sofa cushions.”

Brian then began to laugh and took another sip of the tomato juice, only this time the leafy celery almost went up his nostril. “That’s a good one. I like that story.”

“No story,” Mas piped up. “Izu da one who found it.”

“Yeah, right,” Brian said. “That’s going to hold up in court.” He then readjusted himself in his lawn chair. “Listen, we can put an end to this. I won’t even ask you for all of it. You can keep ten percent. That’s still fifty grand.”

G. I. crossed his arms. “No, let’s go ahead. Let’s solve this in the courts. Greedy little brothers don’t do well on the witness stand.”

Brian spit out a couple of obscenities and slammed his glass against the table so hard that Mas feared it would shatter. The tomato juice ran down the sides of the glass. “Greedy? That’s why you think I’m doing this? Who do you think has been helping him financially all these years? Who has to pay off all his debts?”

“He had a job. Why would he need help?”

“He got laid off six months ago. I guess he didn’t bother to tell you that.”

G. I. was quiet. It was obvious that he had not been informed about this latest downturn in his friend’s life.

Brian, perhaps influenced by his liquored tomato juice, was getting relaxed with his language, slurring words and dipping them up and down the musical scale. “You didn’t know the real Randy. I know that he idolized you. The one guy from ’Nam who made it. Randy had problems, okay? I was the one who was always behind him, helping him. Did you know that he was hospitalized once? Nervous breakdown. Had some drug addiction problems too. You can ask anyone back home. Why do you think his wife left him? Jiro knew all of this. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you. Jiro was actually the one who called me, convinced me to come to L.A. Told me that Randy was in trouble. That I needed to talk sense to him.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Dunno. Jiro was going to tell me at that party. I never made it, because my rental car got broken into. Stole my laptop and everything. I was dealing with the theft when I got the call about Randy.”

The woman in the white cap had ended her laps and was getting out of the pool.

“Did you see Randy at all here in L.A.?”

Brian shook his head. “Just spoke to him on Friday before he died. That’s when I found out that Jiro was right, that Randy was going off the deep end.”

“Whatchu mean?” Mas couldn’t help but ask.

Brian unconsciously began cradling his bracelet with his left hand. “He started talking about how he’d found our dad. That story again. I told him to forget it. Our dad left us; we’ve had nothing to do with him for over fifty years. Why start now? ‘If Mom was alive now, she would spit on him,’ I tell him. But he said that he was going to meet with him on Friday afternoon. What the hell.”

“Why didn’t you mention it to me?”

“Because I knew that you would make a big deal of it. But it’s not. Believe me. I’ve gone through a lot with Randy over the years. I had warned him not to meet with the guy. He was probably only after his money, I told him. But there was no stopping Randy. Obsessed. Ever since he was a teenager. Obsessed about our dad. Drove our mother crazy with all his questions. I can’t tell you how many times she just started crying. My grandfather whipped his
oshiri
, told him that it wasn’t worth looking back at the past. You know, all that Japanese shit.
Shikataganai
. What, it cannot be helped. I agreed with Grandpa, actually. Why look at stuff you can’t change? But Randy wasn’t that type of person. He liked to brood, you know. Wallow in his pain.”

“He never mentioned anything to me about his father. I just knew it was an off-limits topic.”

“You know how his obsession started? When he was drafted in the seventies. Everyone was messed up. Our mom. Our grandparents. And Randy. He didn’t want to go over there and kill people. Or get killed himself. But he said that he wouldn’t go to Canada or anything like that. That his number was called, so he had to go. Why should he be any different than any other Buddhahead in Hawaii? But then the army called. Turned out they were doing some checking into our family’s background. They started asking Randy if he’s a communist. Crazy stuff. He was the tailback for McKinley High School, almost failed civics, eh? What the hell does he know about politics? But they said that our dad was one of them. A commie. A Red. I couldn’t believe it. My grandparents were upset. Mom was crying. So the army doesn’t want to take Randy, but then he made a fuss. He wanted to see proof about our father, but the army offered nothing. It’s all classified, for some reason. Randy said that he’ll sign any paper saying that he’s a true red, white, and blue. I don’t know what he was doing, eh. Because he could have gotten out of the service, you know, but instead he insisted that the army take him.”

G. I. sat on the beach chair, his fists clenched so hard that his knuckles stuck out like ridges of a mountain range.

“You didn’t know any of this, did you?” Brian smiled again. “Randy was good at keeping secrets. Especially from those he cared the most about. Runs in the family, eh? What can I say?”

There was a high-pitched ringing and G. I. excused himself, pulling his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.

Brian finished the last bit of his drink, even crunching on the celery stick. He must be hungry, thought Mas. Maybe he didn’t have money for a decent breakfast.

“What’s your name again?”

“Mas. Mas Arai.”

“So what do you get out of this?”

“Excuse?”

“G. I. pays you?”

Mas shook his head. His relationship to G. I. wasn’t Brian’s business.

“You related to him or something?”

Did Mas and G. I. look anything alike?

“I get it, I get it. You guys
mahu
? Together, you know, like boyfriend-boyfriend?”

“Juanita his girlfriend,” Mas said plainly.

“Oh, she’s one good-looking chick.” Brian licked tomato juice from the edge of the celery.

G. I. walked back from his phone call and pulled Mas aside. “That was Juanita. That professor, the one you and Juanita met, called her. The Torrance PD contacted her to come in for some academic consultation.”

“Whatsu about?”

“I’m not sure. I guess the
shamisen
and something else; I wasn’t too clear. I have to go to court, so I told Juanita that you would go over there. That’s okay, right? You don’t mind meeting with the professor again, do you?”

T
he Torrance Police Department building looked like it had been constructed during Mas’s professional heyday, the 1970s. It was big and blocky, and made up of squares of cement. It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t have to be.

The parking lot was in the back, and Mas had no trouble finding a spot for the Ford. Crime was obviously not a big deal in Torrance. Before he got out of his truck, a car—one of the those new VW Bugs, the color as strong as the greenest green tea—parked in the next space. He noticed an orange gerber daisy in a vase on the dashboard. Before he was able to sneer, a familiar figure emerged from the driver’s-side door. Genessee Howard.

She was wearing a black suit, appropriately dressed for an official visit with a police detective. Mas suddenly felt self-conscious in his jeans and khaki work shirt.

“Mas,” she said as he stepped onto the asphalt. “Juanita told me that you’d be meeting me here. It’s good to see you again.”