Snakeskin Shamisen (23 page)

chapter fifteen

Mas couldn’t keep his hands from shaking. He tried to breathe deeply. I can do this. I can do this, he told himself. And then he knocked on Judge Parker’s door.

“Hello, Mas. I’ve been expecting you.”

What does that mean, he’s been expecting me?

Judge Parker gestured toward a chair, but Mas wasn’t going to fall for that trick again. He pulled at his windbreaker, making sure that it hid the extra weight he was carrying.

“I heard about Anmen Sanjo being arrested.” Parker sat in his black leather chair, his back as erect as ever. “Kidnaping and shooting a firearm in a public place. Initiating a ponzi scheme. He’s in quite a bit of trouble. I don’t know what I can really do to help.”

Did Parker really think that Mas had come to beg for his mercy on Anmen? Mas could have handled this a number of ways, but he decided to go for the bull’s-eye first. “Whyzu you kill Isokichi? And why youzu following Juanita Gushiken?”

Parker’s face visibly darkened and his eyes narrowed like slits. He waited before responding. “Do you know what is the Japanese American’s strongest trait?”

Mas wasn’t about to fall into the judge’s verbal trap.

“Loyalty,” Parker answered. “That’s why the internment was such an irony: why would these people turn on the U.S.? Most Nisei were true believers, more patriotic than myself. And their parents—it didn’t matter whether they were born here or not. Even if secretly, deep down inside, these Issei felt connected to Japan, rooted for them, they wouldn’t have done anything. For one thing, they didn’t have any power. Even Japan didn’t take them seriously. Only the misfits, minor-league men and women, went to America from Japan. And secondly, these misfits felt obligated to America for giving them a second chance in life.”

Mas’s forehead was wet with sweat. He didn’t know where the judge was leading him, but it was too late to break loose now.

“You see, white Americans—
hakujin
Americans like me—we can’t see beyond the color of one’s skin or hear beyond words and accents. We’re stupid, really, if you think of it. We act like we own America. We were the ones who came here first, right, on the
Mayflower
. Forget about the Native Americans who lived here off the land. Forget about all the Mexicans who lived in California and Texas way before the
Mayflower
. Those folks don’t count.

“If we say American, we don’t mean Native American, Canadian, or South American, or anyone with remotely brown skin and brown eyes. We mean good ole U.S. of A., and only the Caucasian ones and not the blacks. Those same whites could be one degree separated from Germany, Holland, Ireland, and they would still be considered full-fledged American. But not you. Not your friends. And not your children and not your grandchildren.”

The judge put his hands together like he was praying and put the tips of his index fingers on his lips. “Anyway, what can you do? You could have Kinjo go after me. Or have your friends in the coroner’s department make some accusations. That’s not going to get you very far. Who’s going to care about your man Isokichi?”

Mas’s shoulders sagged as if he were melting right there in Judge Parker’s office.

“You think your newspapers will listen to you? I’ve been on the board of Japanese American organizations for decades. Spoke out against the internment. Who’s going to protest, Mas? The only one these people will go after is you. These people owe me. Their loyalty is unfailing.”

Again,
osewaninatta
. Mas didn’t realize that Judge Parker was so perceptive. He did understand Japanese Americans; and now he was planning to use that understanding against them, or at least against one dead man, Isokichi Sanjo.

“But you kill him anyways.”

“I didn’t necessarily want him dead, Mas. I wanted him to go forward with the trial. But he was a coward. And then his brother fired me. Neither of them realized what was at stake. Our government had abandoned the Constitution; his case could have helped others. But he had given up. I was mad—hell, I was mad. I had every right to be. I had spent hours on that case.

“So, Mas, you ask why I killed Isokichi Sanjo. Well, whatever I may have done, I’ll have God to contend with. But believe me, Sanjo did much worse. He wasn’t thinking beyond himself. If he took a stand, he might have stopped the purging, or at least slowed it down. And Metcalf, he thought he had one over me. What a foolish man. He didn’t know who he was dealing with.”

Mas felt numb, as if he had just experienced a beating. Only the beating wasn’t of his body, but of his mind.

“Mas, I’m happy you stopped by. Feel free to come over anytime. I have a new gardener, you know. He studied horticulture at Cal Poly Pomona. You might learn a thing or two from him.”

Mas left Judge Parker’s office, feeling sick to his stomach. He feared that he would
haku
right there in the courthouse hallway.

Parker was a man full of ideas and principles. He’d seen Sanjo’s case as the fulfillment of those things early in his career. The only thing was, Sanjo wasn’t an idea. He was a man, a husband and father. A man who was, yes, Japanese, specifically Okinawan, but who wasn’t only defined by his ethnicity. Sanjo hadn’t had any fight left in him, which had enraged Parker. And when the attorney had been fired, he must have confronted Sanjo, yelled and screamed at him, and finally killed him.

Mas didn’t know if it was intentional or accidental, but what happened next was definitely calculated. Parker spent years, decades, working on behalf of Japanese Americans. Each effort was like a baseball umpire extending his arms out—safe, safe, safe. Until maybe today.

Mas stumbled down the corridor and then opened the door to the last room. Wearing a pair of earphones, Detective Alo sat with four other men, including Buchanan Lee, and a woman at a low table filled with tape recorders and other high-tech equipment. Alo removed his earphones. “You did good.”

“I dunno,” Mas said as the woman lifted his shirt and peeled off a microphone taped to his chest. Mas wasn’t sure if Judge Parker had actually confessed. But much of what Parker had said was true. “No Japanese goin’ to go after him.”

Agent Lee stood up. “But you’re forgetting, Mr. Arai. We’re not Japanese.”

A
fter being stripped of his bugging device, Mas went to his next destination with good news. Antonio Gushiken would be released immediately from his holding cell on Terminal Island, according to Agent Lee. “The Department of Justice is only happy to drop it,” he told Mas. Apparently some politicians with close connections to Judge Parker had been the ones putting pressure on certain Homeland Security administrators to go after Antonio, in an attempt to squash Juanita’s investigation of the Sanjo case. Lee suspected that the judge himself had been the one who had planted that antiquated tracking device in Juanita’s wheel well.

That piece of news at least took some of the bite away from what Mas would be experiencing next. Another commemoration of a dead man’s life. He went to more funerals these days than weddings, holiday parties, and anniversary celebrations combined. This one, however, would be new in that they would be gathering at the Los Angeles County Cemetery. As he drove through Evergreen’s entrance, Mas felt a wash of sadness. He had been better about visiting Chizuko’s grave site lately—coming on her birthday, Memorial Day (well, actually, the day before, to beat the crowds), the anniversary of her death, and New Year’s Day (again, one day afterward, to beat the crowds). But still not enough.

The memorial service was actually Itchy Iwasaki’s idea. He thought every death needed to be remembered formally at least once. And, of course, these remembrances would, conveniently, be good for his business.

Although the Los Angeles County Cemetery was only accessible through Evergreen, Mas had never been there before. He drove down a sloping path to a simple chain-link fence. A huge pile of reddish dirt, crisscrossed with the tracks of a forklift, sat inside. On one side of the fence were the collapsed wooden frames of old floral arrangements. A granite Japanese headstone lay abandoned next to a stack of white caskets. Mas’s gut felt queasy. Surely Isokichi Sanjo, master
sanshin
player, had not been in such a place for fifty years.

After Mas passed the first metal gate, he entered a grassy area shaded by a massive pine, a willow, a eucalyptus, and even a couple of fruit trees next to a white wood-framed chapel. Itchy was there, wearing a suit and white gloves. It was a small crowd—the son, Brian Yamashiro; G. I.; Juanita; and himself. Gushi-mama would have made it if she could have, but she’d said that she would send a representative. No such representative had arrived.

Little round cement markers the circumference of soup cans pockmarked the Bermuda grass. They each had two numbers designating row and column, a grave site graph. The small party stood underneath the pine tree, where Isokichi’s ashes were apparently buried underneath 5/2.

Itchy read a short biography on Isokichi Sanjo. Date of birth and date of death. And not much else.

“Does someone want to say something?”

Brian kept his eyes on the numbered marker.

“Mas? You know something about him,” G. I. said.

Mas looked around. Strange thing was, he did know more about Sanjo than anyone else there. “Heezu a man who loved
shamisen
—well,
sanshin
. He care about his wife. His boysu. He care about America. He fight so hard, in the end, all fight gone.”

Mas heard sobbing beside him. Brian’s shoulders were shaking. Monster tears dropped down the sides of his face. Itchy was right. It was ones you least expected to crack that did so at times like this.

Brian would now have to go back to Hawaii and have a funeral for his brother. Sorrow on two sides of the Pacific.

G. I. looked distressed. He began to curve his arm around Brian’s back and then thought better of it, and returned this arm to his own side. Mas bit down in agreement. Right now, Brian didn’t need anyone’s sympathy. He had to learn to hang on to his dignity. He needed to find that hard place inside that would center him like the middle of a compass. Throughout his life, the needle would point in various directions, but he would have to know where he stood. Brian Yamashiro now had an uncle that he had never known existed, but for all intents and purposes, he would still be alone.

Making arrangements to meet later at a restaurant in Chinatown, they walked toward their cars.

“My father is going to be released tomorrow,” Juanita said. “I owe you so much, Mas.”

Mas shuddered, hearing those words. “No, no. But I gotsu a favor—don’t say no more Izu some kind of detective.” He said this loud enough for G. I.’s benefit. “I gotsu a bad
hyoban
to begin with. If people thinkin’ Izu some kind of spy, I keep gettin’ into trouble.”

Before leaving the cemetery, Mas had something to do, namely to make sure Chizuko’s resting place was free of dead leaves and dirt. And also to think about whether he missed his wife so much that he was seeing her face everywhere, even in an African Okinawan American professor.

Mas was a few steps away from the Ford when he saw a lone figure by the cemetery’s chapel.

“Hallo, Kinjo-
san
.”

“Gushi-mama told me to come.”

Mas nodded. The old lady was conniving, yet she knew what she was doing. The Uchinanchu needed to come together. G. I. and Brian had already recognized that, as they had agreed to donate Randy’s Las Vegas winnings to the Okinawa Association to begin a center for the study of the
sanshin
in the United States.

“I didn’t want to
jama
and disturb the service. I’m sure Isokichi’s son doesn’t want to see me.”

Mas was glad that Kinjo had exercised discretion. Gushi-mama might have expected an immediate reconciliation, but people’s feelings weren’t like wooden blocks you nailed together.

“If I had known what would happen, I would have never gone to Metcalf.”

Kinjo didn’t have to explain anything to Mas. Mas had made his share of mistakes and knew that it didn’t help airing them to either friend or foe.

“What can I do? I’ve already agreed to testify against Parker. Send money to Isokichi’s son? Donate money in memory of Isokichi’s name to the Okinawa Association?”

There was also explaining himself to Isokichi’s brother, Anmen. But the hope of that conversation was slim to none. Some relationships were so severed that no intervention—even that of a 106-year-old matriarch—could rectify them.

Mas looked beyond Kinjo to the chapel, whose doors were ajar. “Sing his songs.”

“What songs? The songs he wrote in the band?”

Mas shook his head. He didn’t literally mean Isokichi’s songs, but the subjects he wrote about. The fallen tears while earning pennies in the fields. The love for his sons. Isokichi’s last song had been a farewell, but they needed a new song that would bridge the past to the present.

Mas tried to explain as best he could, when Kinjo interrupted. “Do you know what’s strange, Arai-
san
?”

A breeze blew through the cemetery, causing brown pine needles to drop on the Ford.