Snakeskin Shamisen (5 page)

“No, no,” said G. I. “Just talking.”

“Yeah, right. I bet.” Juanita wasn’t convinced.

The doorbell rang, tinny and cheap, followed by banging on the wood frame of the glass door.

“Now, who the hell could that be?” G. I. went back to the living room and drew back his drapes. Looking out his window, he muttered, “Shit.”

“Who is it?” Juanita asked, following G. I. down the stairs in the entryway. The cat was next, and Mas, not wanting to be outdone by a cat, went down too.

On the other side of the glass door were Detective Alo and a couple of uniformed police officers.

“What’s going on?” G. I. asked.

“We need to do a full search of your residence.” Alo’s voice had become even softer, barely audible.

“Look, your men were already here to pick up Randy’s belongings. What more do you need?”

“We’ve found some evidence back at the murder scene. We have probable cause.”

“Do you have a search warrant?”

“We thought that you’d cooperate, Mr. Hasuike.”

“Listen, it’s late. I just lost one of my best friends. I’m wiped out, guys. I don’t want you ripping up my place. You get a search warrant; better yet, you tell me what you are looking for, and I’ll be more than happy to cooperate, really.”

Alo and G. I. went back and forth like those tennis pros that Mas occasionally saw on TV while flipping channels. Except what Alo and G. I. shot back and forth were words, legalese that Mas didn’t quite understand but still feared. G. I. must have won this match, because Alo was gesturing for the officers to return to their cars.

“We’ll be back, Mr. Hasuike.” Detective Alo’s voice was breathy, but they all could still feel the power of his threat.

The three of them watched the police cars leave the street through the glass door.

“What was that all about?” Juanita asked.

“They found something at the restaurant. Something that implicates me.”

“But what?”

Mas then remembered the discovery in the rubbish bin by the bank. “
Katana
,” he blurted out.

“What?”

“Knife. Police found knife in trash. I see it.”

“What kind of knife?”

“Big one.” Mas held up his hands about a foot apart. “Someone say like in ’Nam.”

“Must have been a bayonet,” G. I. murmured.

“So that’s the murder weapon?” said Juanita. “What the hell? So what were they going to do, try to find a knife in the house?”

“There’s two of them here, Juanita. Not to mention my thirty-eight.”

“Shit. Well, get rid of them. Where are they?”

“I have nothing to hide. Probably half of the guys at the party own guns and knives. This is L.A., after all.”

“G. I., you are their prime suspect. A bunch of people saw you arguing with Randy.”

“I was trying to calm him down, I tell you. He just had too much to drink.”

“You have to think, G. I. Think about your law practice. It won’t look good for a lawyer to be arrested. Doesn’t matter if the charges are eventually dropped, or you’re declared not guilty at trial. It’ll be all over
The Rafu Shimpo
. Your career will be over in a flash. No Nisei grandma will be calling you about her HMO problems. No Sansei’s going to be hiring you on his DUI case. And you know the Japanese—they never forget.”

G. I. picked up the cat and stroked its fur as Juanita continued. “I spoke to Alo at the restaurant. Told him that he needed to look into the
sanshin
. He said they had a lead on it, that I didn’t need to worry about it. He practically patted my head, G. I. They weren’t taking me seriously.”

“The police could know something that we don’t.”

“I know, I know. They probably do. But there’s something about that
sanshin
. Why was it there? Randy was a postal worker and Vietnam vet. He didn’t identify with being Okinawan. I know; I spoke to him about it. There’s something behind it. Something more than the police have discovered.”

G. I. finally nodded. “All right, you win, Juanita. Stay out of the cops’ way, but check out the angles they might overlook. You know, the
shamisen
—”

“
Sanshin
,” Juanita corrected him. “That’s what the Okinawans call it.”

G. I. chose not to argue with Juanita. “And take Mas with you.”

“Why?” Juanita then looked down at Mas, slightly embarrassed. “No offense, but I can do this myself. It’s my job, after all.”

“But Mas can speak Japanese. He can really help you out with the Japanese people. People always talk to Mas.”

G. I. was right. Mas, for his part, was usually dead quiet. It was the other party who would go on and on like a broken faucet. Many times, these people were just looking for buckets to fill with their stories. But buckets were limited in space, and the overflow usually resulted in a mess that wasn’t helpful to anyone.

“My parents can speak some Japanese.”

“But Mas can deal with a different crowd.” G. I. shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “He’ll know the earthy ones.”

Mas didn’t know what “earthy” meant, but he figured that it had to do with the people who lived close to the bottom rather than the top.

Juanita crossed her arms over her tank top as if she were hugging her tiny breasts. “Okay, he can tag along. But you’re going to talk to the
Rafu Shimpo
reporter. Off the record, of course.”

“I’ll throw her a few bones. But anything you find, report it to Alo, okay?” G. I.’s phone began to chirp. “I better get this,” he said. “Thanks for coming all the way, Mas.” He flipped open his phone and held it to his ear while walking back upstairs.

“I’ll walk you back to your car, Mr. Arai.” Juanita grabbed a hold of Mas’s elbow and practically led him out the door and down the concrete steps. Once they were outside, Juanita released his arm. “I know what G. I.’s up to. He wants you to watch out for me, right?”

Mas was too tired to deny Juanita’s claims. He felt mucus rise up in his throat and spit on the side of the walkway.

“Well, that’s fine. As long as we have an understanding. That we go after who did it, no matter who it might be.”

Mas hesitated. That wasn’t part of the deal. “Yah, yah,” he said. Mas thought his daughter was
urusai
, but Juanita was making Mari look like a harmless little lamb.

Mas fumbled for his screwdriver in his pocket and then remembered that he had given it away to Detective Alo. He had parked underneath a streetlight, and the truck’s yellow interior glowed like the peel of a ripe banana.

“That’s your truck?” Juanita said like she didn’t quite believe it.

Mas nodded. He silently dared Juanita to insult his automotive friend, but she was smart enough to back off.

“I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Mr. Arai.”

Mas grunted. When he got back into the truck, he realized that he hadn’t given her his address and phone number. She’s the detective, Mas thought to himself, she can figure it out.

T
he next morning, Mas called Haruo again. Haruo worked on Mas like a human Alka-Seltzer. He cleaned up any pain in Mas’s gut and cleared his head of any early-morning cobwebs.

“Come ova,” Mas said after relating the sketchy details of Randy’s death and the mysterious snakeskin
shamisen
.

“
Orai
, Mas, we be there.” Before Mas could ask about “we,” Haruo had clicked off.

Forty minutes later, Haruo was walking up Mas’s driveway. And sure enough, right behind him, clinging to his hand and wearing a knit cap, was his girlfriend, Spoon.

“Hello, Mas.” For someone with such a narrow face, Spoon didn’t have a matching thin
oshiri
. She often wore bulky sweaters, which didn’t do her figure any favors. Mas would, of course, never say a thing to Haruo, because, well, there were limits to every friendship, especially comments about a lady friend’s behind.

Haruo had brought supermarket donuts adorned with a red sticker:
DAY OLD
/
HALF OFF
. Mas didn’t mind eating day-olds, and even applauded Haruo’s thriftiness. He knew that Haruo was barely surviving on his Social Security and the little he made at the flower market; Mas was always worried that Haruo might someday succumb to his gambling addiction. Hopefully, with Spoon in the picture, the odds of that would be slim to none.

Mas poured some ground coffee into his drip coffeemaker and joined Haruo and Spoon around his kitchen table. He reported what he’d heard at G. I.’s house, that Randy Yamashiro’s throat had been sliced open with a bayonet. A bayonet, Mas had once learned on a television show on the Civil War, was a type of
katana
, a knife that sat atop a soldier’s rifle. In fact, during World War II, farm wives in Hiroshima had fashioned makeshift bayonets on agricultural equipment to ward off the threat of the barbarians, the Americans, who turned out to be not so barbaric at all. Spoon was apparently surprised that Mas could provide wartime details so nonchalantly, as if he were ordering a cheeseburger with fries.

“Mas and me, weezu seen our share of dead people,” Haruo told her as if it were something to be proud of.

Spoon shook her head back and forth. “I can’t even imagine,” she said. “I would be having nightmares every night.”

“Mas does. I hear him whenever weezu go to Vegas. Cries like a baby in his sleep.”

“
Orai
, Haruo.”

“Unn. Unn.” Haruo was apparently trying to re-create one of Mas’s night terrors. Haruo closed his good eye while his left one remained half-open. He shook his long white hair from his face, revealing the knotted scar stretching from his left forehead down to his chin. Mas knew that most people would have averted their eyes at this point. But Mas never turned away from Haruo. He figured the scar was part of his friend, like it or not. Why make a big deal out of it?

“Enough,” Mas finally said. He knew that Haruo was just showing off in front of his lady friend. Even Spoon gave Haruo a sharp jab in his ribs.

Haruo quit shaking and patted his hair back over his scar. “
Orai
, Mas. Weezu listening.”

Mas cleared his throat. “I callsu you ova here to find out whatchu rememba—yesterday’s party. Figure youzu there before I come, maybe youzu see sumptin’ I don’t.”

Haruo and Spoon exchanged quick looks. “Well, Spoon and me were talkin’ about dis on our way ova here.”

“Nani?”
Mas waited.

“Dat Randy seem so sad.”

“Didn’t seem like he just won half a million dollars,” Spoon elaborated further. “He didn’t look us in the eye. Didn’t smile. G. I. seemed happier for him than he was himself,” she continued, reinforcing Mas’s previous hunch.

Mas asked them if they had met Jiro.

“No, dunno Jiro. So many people at dat party. Maybe Tug and Lil rememba. Youzu gonna see them tomorrow, right?” During the past two years, the Yamadas had had Mas over for dinner every other Monday.

Mas directed the conversation back to the party. “Youzu no see a
shamisen
?”

“Just on stage,” Haruo said.

Mas felt the top edge of his dentures with his tongue.

“What’s a
shamisen
?” Spoon asked.

“Plays music. Like banjo,” Haruo explained.

“You know, I did see someone with that kind of instrument. I think a
hakujin
fella.”

“
Hakujin
? Not too many
hakujin
ova there. Maybe somebody’s husband?” Haruo asked.

Spoon chewed on the tip of her index finger. “I was buying some peanut butter
mochi
from the cashier to bring back for my granddaughter. And this man came in, bringing in that banjo thing. He left it in the corner, in back of the register, and covered it up with his jacket. I don’t think anyone else saw him with it.”

“
Toshiyori?
Or young?” Mas asked. His heart began to thump so fast that he began to feel blood pulse up to the tips of his ears.

“You know, I really can’t remember. All I know is that it was someone different. Someone who didn’t match.”

Mas pressed down on his left eyelid with his index finger. Somebody not matching could definitely be a distinguished-looking
hakujin
in a polo shirt. Somebody who was a judge.

M
as knew that he should probably clear his next move with that girl PI. But at times like this, you couldn’t waste time asking permission to do something. If he had called home and included Chizuko in his decision to put two hundred dollars on a long-shot horse, Popping Paul, in the third race at Santa Anita, he might have lost the opportunity to win three grand—his all-time high in gambling winnings. And because he had not consulted with Chizuko, he didn’t have to tell her about the rolled-up Ben Franklins that he had hidden in different parts of the garage: in the bottom drawer of his toolbox; inside a stack of gray, black, and red duct tape; in an empty box of cigarettes; and finally in the nozzle of an extra garden hose. He could have never imagined that one day Chizuko, fed up with their leaky, worn hose in the backyard, would take it upon herself to replace it with the extra.

Aiming the nozzle at the vegetable garden, she had been shocked to see a projectile of hundred-dollar bills land in her cherry tomato vines. The jig was up, and the money was given over to Chizuko—all except for the stash in the Marlboro box. Every businessman, even a small-time gambler, needed capital to reinvest in his trade.

It only took Mas ten minutes to get to the Parkers’ house. It was located just south of Caltech, some kind of technological university frequented by pale
hakujin
and Asian men and a handful of women who all wore the same kind of uniforms—monotone T-shirts and jeans. The tree-lined street was empty as usual, typical for a Sunday. During the week-days, the only people you’d see were the gardeners working beside their trucks and the maids walking either to or from their bus stops. The landscaping in front of the Parkers’ white wood house had changed. The bushes had been removed to make way for agapanthus plants that looked like giant lavender dandelions. Rows of red, peach, and yellow roses were enjoying their final bloom before being clipped for the winter months. Bunches of sky-blue hydrangea, the delicate petals yellowing, seemed on their last legs. Mas was somewhat happy to see the imperfection; he could only imagine what hell the Parkers were giving the new gardener for that.