Deep Purple (43 page)

“
Inu
!" he growled. “Bitch!”

She took a step backward, p
repared to run.

“
You are a silly woman,” he hissed. “You do not know the proper respect that a true Japanese woman should show!”

“
I am not a Japanese woman.” Another small step backward. “I am an American.”

Tsuruda
’s hamhock hands grabbed for her. “You are a traitor who must be disciplined!”

She dodged, but his hand caught her coat. The buttons gave way at his yank. She tripped and went sprawling in the mud.

“No!” she screamed. She kicked out and must have struck his groin, because he released her immediately and doubled over with a bellowing grunt. She scrambled to her feet and ran. In her ears she could hear her frightened panting, but she was afraid it was the footsteps of an infuriated Tsuruda closing in on her.

The door to her room gave way under her pa
nicky hands. Her father turned from where he lay on his side and looked up at her. “What is it?” he demanded.

She crossed to her cot and sat down, shaking. “
I don’t know. I—I suddenly didn’t feel well.”

“
Your coat—”

“
I was hurrying back and stupidly didn’t watch where I was going. I—I tripped over that barbed wire around that septic-tank hole and tore it.”

She did not think her father was thoroughly convinced, but at that moment he was probably feeling too bad to investigate further. She lay there on her co
t, staring throughout the night at the skeleton roof of the ceiling and listening as one by one their neighbors returned to their quarters, laughing and singing.

Their festive spirits annoyed her. She could not seem to think logically. Everything seemed so
bleak. She kept telling herself that at night—in the darkness—things always seemed worse than they actually were. But the next morning, gray and overcast with another approaching cold front, the state of affairs seemed no better.

Sam Tsuruda continued to
hound her, although as yet he had made no further overtures. Her father’s situation was even worse. One morning six weeks later, when he did not feel well enough to rise from bed, she knew something had to be done.

She went to the mess hall to get some bre
akfast for her father, hoping she would not run into Tsuruda. He frightened her almost as much as her fear for her father’s health did. She vacillated over reporting Tsuruda to administration. Tsuruda was a barracks captain and carried considerable influence, while administration was well aware of her discontent with its policies. She doubted she would get much sympathy from them. She could, of course, request a transfer to another barracks, but that would hardly assuage Tsuruda’s wounded vanity.

After she
fed her father, she went to the clinic. The doctors— there were three to serve Poston’s twenty thousand people—told her that unless her father was dying, she would have to bring him to the clinic to be checked.

“
He is dying,” she told the oldest doctor, who looked tired himself. Dr. Niosha glanced through her father’s file, which noted only a moderate case of tuberculosis. But she was persistent.

The doctor ran his fingers through his graying hair. “
I’ll come over to your barracks at lunchtime then."

Taro a
greed apathetically to let the doctor check him. The two old men bowed low after she introduced them, but her father immediately sat down again, weakened by the small effort.

Dr. Niosha took his stethoscope from his black bag and, after ordering her father
to remove his shirt, began to listen to his wheezy breathing. After taking his pulse and temperature, he turned to her, saying, "The tuberculosis is, of course, degenerative, but it’s pneumonia I’m concerned about right now. It seems to be a mild case, but it needs to be watched carefully. We’ll have to move your father into the clinic, where he can receive immediate attention. I’ll make arrangements at once."

That afternoon she watched the camp ambulance halt in front of their quarters and load her father
into the back. She held his hand before they took him away, telling him she would be by to see him as soon as she finished work.

But she did not go to the newspaper
’s office. She walked the three miles through the freezing wind to the administration offices, a white two-story frame building. She knew that she and her father had to leave. It wasn’t just Sam Tsuruda’s threatening presence. She would not let her father die inside a concentration camp.

Taking a number, she waited her turn to see the project di
rector. He was an older man, a Caucasian, with salt-and- pepper hair and a kindly face that gave her hope her request would be granted. “Yes?” he asked when she took her seat before the desk that was mounded with papers.

“
I have been told that the WRA is permitting a few Japanese families to leave the camps if they are sponsored by reliable persons on the outside.”

The project director folded his hands before him. “
This is true. But it often is difficult to find sponsors that the WRA will approve. Usually a church or even a large company, like Goodyear or Westinghouse, guaranteeing housing and employment, is what the WRA looks for. And right now we have very few such offers and a long line of waiting families.”

“
I realize that. But I believe I can present a sponsor for my father and myself who will more than satisfy WRA's requirements for sponsorship.”

“
Oh? Who?”

“
Senator Nick Godwin.”

CHAPTER 56

"
l
will not have you obligating yourself for me,” Taro declared vehemently as Amanda began to pack their things. “We must all die sometime.”

She continued folding their few belongings into the duffel bag. “
True. But you are not going to die in a concentration camp. And I am not obligating myself.”

Knowing t
he emotional war that existed between her and Nick, her father was most reluctant to leave Poston despite the wire Nick had sent immediately in response to the project director’s wire of inquiry. Nick informed the project director he would be most happy to serve as sponsor and assured the WRA that housing would be found for her father and herself as well as employment when Taro Shima’s condition had stabilized.

The last thing Amanda did before they left Poston was to give the highly prized sheet-iron stove
to Betty. The two women hugged each other tearfully. “As soon as I put out my shingle,” Amanda said, blinking back her tears, “I’ll represent you in court. We’ll get you out yet.”

A passenger train was to take them to Phoenix, Arizona
’s capital, where Nick and Danielle now resided. Her father found it wasteful that an entire sleeping coach should be reserved for the two of them. Amanda tactfully remained silent during the trip. Looking out the window as the train puffed to a wheezy halt in the Phoenix depot, she wondered just exactly when Nick would demand compensation for his benevolent gesture of assistance.

If there ever was a blackguard, it had to be Nick Godwin. He had waited, warmly ensconced in the capitol building, biding his time. He knew that soone
r or later she would be driven to surrender. The only thing that would probably save her from being attacked right there in his car would be her father’s presence! Would even that stop a determined man like Nick Godwin?

When she and her father descended th
e coach’s steps, a brown-uniformed man of perhaps fifty years greeted them with a wheelchair. “Miss Shima?” he inquired politely.

She nodded, puzzled, and he said, smiling, “
Senator Godwin told me I would recognize you by your hair. He has sent me to bring you and your father to his house. He apologizes for not being able to meet you personally, but he is in a committee session right now.”

Nick
’s limousine edged its way through the capital’s noon traffic and out Center Street past the sparsely settled suburb of Scottsdale. She supposed she should not have been surprised to learn that Nick had leased a luxurious guest-ranch resort. A glistening white stucco one-story building with a red-tiled roof, it sprawled eleven miles northeast of Phoenix in the valley between the Camelback and Mummy Mountains. Nick had assured the project director they would be furnished housing—but a villa? What would Danielle think about Amanda and her father’s coming to stay? Nick must have been out of his mind to actually bring her and her father to his house.

When the chauffeur halted the limousine in the drive that encircled a large multi-tiered fountain, she leaned forward and said, “
Is Mrs. Godwin in?”

The chauffeur
’s sun-wrinkled eyes darted a furtive glance in the rear-view mirror. “No, ma'am. Mrs. Godwin’s in New York.”

Oh, that was just great! Now there was no watchdog to ward off the beast!

Then, with watchdogs still on her mind, a large scruffy mongrel followed on the heels of a stout, aging woman who came down the flagstone walk to welcome them. “The housekeeper, Mrs. Rawlings,” the chauffeur introduced.

But Amanda wasn
’t even listening. "Trouble! Father, it’s Trouble!” she cried, kneeling to wrap her arms about the ecstatically yelping dog.

An enigmatic smile passed over her
father’s face. "It seems Mr. Godwin intends to be at his most persuasive while we’re here."

Apparently Trouble wasn
’t the only surprise Nick planned for them. Both Amanda and her father were astounded to find a nurse in her father’s room. The tiny old lady in white, who must have been as old as Taro, straightened from fluffing the bed’s pillow. “Mr. Shima! I’ve been expecting you all morning.” She practically bubbled. “I’m Nurse Haines, and Senator Godwin has hired me to look after you.”

Taro bowed as much as could be permitted from the wheelchair the chauffeur pushed, but not before Amanda saw him roll his eyes heavenward. “
I am a blessed man.”

She ignored the frustration in his voice. “
It’ll be good for you to be pampered for a while.”

“
I’ll help you out of those clothes,” Nurse Haines said, “and we’ll get you comfy-cozy.”

Taro darted a beseeching look at Amanda as the woman began to work the ill-fitting coat off his shoulders. "Enjoy yourself, Father,”
she said, smiling. "I’ll look in on you once I've settled in my own room.”

After the small, chilly quarters of the camp, the room Mrs. Rawlings showed her was palatial. Warming sunlight streamed through the triple arched windows to fall on the large bed
’s hot-pink spread and the terra-cotta tiled floor. Luxuriant foliage of all sizes and kinds filled the colorful
mesetas
set decoratively in the room’s corners and even in the private bath off her bedroom. Hibiscus, miniature orange trees, bougainvillea. Incredible. She had not seen any green vegetation in almost a year. How different was the bedroom from the barren cold room she had known at the post relocation camp; how different from the barren rooms she had known all her life.

After she unpacked and put away the few clothes she had in an im
mense rosewood dresser, she and Trouble wandered the labyrinthine corridors that emptied onto fountained patios and riotously blooming gardens. A view from the den displayed a nearby tennis court fringed with tall poplars and a kidney-shaped swimming pool landscaped with boulders, paloverde, and cacti. Farther off, against a backdrop of foothills, was what appeared to be riding stables.

The den was furnished in a Western pioneer decor
—complete with a wagon-wheel light fixture, branding irons and coyote skins on the rough cedar-paneled walls, and leather-upholstered furniture. A warm, comfortable room, it even had a hand-carved bar of pine opposite the stone fireplace.

Mrs. Rawlings, who was passing through the den, told her that there were two other dens and
twelve guest rooms.

“
And Mr. Godwin,” Amanda asked, “when do you expect him?”

“
The senator usually returns anywhere from six to midnight, depending on how long a committee session may last,” the woman replied, seeming not at all curious that her employer had a strange woman in the house. But then Nick and his wife no doubt entertained guests frequently.

Amanda hoped he would be quite late returning, because she felt unprepared to do battle with him. After she looked in on her father, who seemed to be resti
ng comfortably (in spite of Nurse Haines—who sat in one corner reading a lurid detective story aloud), she returned to her room to take a bath.

She let a heavenly sigh drift upward as she settled in the sunken tiled tub, hair piled on her head. Jasmine-sce
nted bubble bath lapped her breasts. How heavenly it would be to sleep the evening away in the tub.

Finally she emerged to change into the white kimono, the only item in her belongings that was not jeans or khaki pants. She had no perfume or cosmetics to p
lay up her almond-shaped eyes or the childlike curve of her lips. Nick would have to take her as she was—as the lord takes his concubine, for had she not sold herself for a price?

At seven, with Trouble at her heels, she stopped by her father
’s room again, and Mrs. Haines was spooning broth between his recalcitrant lips. “Now, Father,” she admonished him, “you’ll feel much better if you do as Nurse Haines tells you.”

He sighed and dutifully opened his lips for the determined old woman. Satisfied that her fa
ther seemed to be doing better, she went on into the dining room. It was dominated by a large rectangular dining table of oak and a long buffet near the jalousie doors.

She took a seat at the nearest end of the table, feeling lost in the huge, empty room.
Recalling the mess halls, often crowded with as many as five thousand people, the loud interchange of conversations mingling with the shout of children made unruly by the lack of discipline, discipline that the families were unable to administer under such conditions, she shuddered. Yes, she would sell herself again if need be to take her and her father out of such a place.

Mrs. Rawlings served the gazpacho soup first with a rosé
wine, then, as she brought in a sizzling steak (real beef, Amanda thought, dazzled), Nick entered the room. He stood in the double doorway, jacket slung over his shoulder, watching Amanda. Slowly she lowered her wineglass. Her stomach somersaulted as he walked toward her and pulled out the chair opposite her. He did not say anything at first, but the way his gaze traveled over her was almost like a physical assault.

When Mrs. Rawlings left, he said in that low rumble of his, “
So, you didn’t marry while you were at Poston. There was a doctor courting you, but that was at Santa Anita, wasn’t it?”

“
You knew?” she gasped.

He began to loosen his tie, his sun-browned fingers working at the collar of his La Costa silk shirt. “
I told you, Mandy, you’re a part of me.” He stated it dispassionately, not as a romantic declaration but rather as a simple fact. “You don’t think I’d ever forget what’s between us, do you—or let you be interned in some hellhole?”

“
But you did!”

“
No, you let yourself. But I wanted to be there when you needed me, so I kept track of you. By the way,” he said carelessly, “your columns were quite good. You should be a journalist instead of a lawyer."

Mrs. Rawlings entered with a bowl of gazpacho and another wineglass. When she left, Amanda said, “
So you knew. You even went as far as getting Trouble back for me. Why?”

“
You need to ask? I want you, and I’ll buy you—bribe you—in any way I can.”

She ignored the wicked gleam in his smile. “
What must everyone here think about your installing me in your home? And what will Danielle say?”

He tested the soup. “
They’ll think just what I told them—that you're a distant cousin.” His eyes twinkled. “You are, aren’t you? And as for what my wife will say, I really don’t care. She’s not happy out here in the desert and has taken up residence in New York.”

Mrs. Rawlings brought in a steak and s
et it before Nick. After he thanked her, he said, “I’ve made an appointment for your father to see a doctor tomorrow—depending on how he’s feeling after the train trip. The doctor is the best in Phoenix. He’ll run X-rays, a battery of other tests, and—”

"You didn't have to do that. I can arrange for my father to see a doctor and take care
—"

“
You forget, Mandy—”

"Don't call me that!”

“ 'Amanda' doesn't fit your looks. And it’s your exotic looks that the WRA has made my responsibility,” he told her now.

"Ju
st what does that entail on my part?"

He set his fork on the plate's edge. His angry gaze slashed into her defensive one. "Nothing." He sighed and resumed eating. "Was it bad
—the camp?”

She shrugged, not wanting to weaken her defenses with the kindness he
seemed to be showing. She must remember he wore the facade of the smooth-tongued politician. “It could have been worse. We had food and clothing—and a roof over our heads.”

“
You’re thinner. And you’re looking tired.”

It unnerved her the way his gaze ran ov
er her, seeming to note every feature as if he possessed her. He did possess her. “I could say the same for you," she retorted. “You looked tired.” Yet he certainly did not look thin. His powerful build dominated the room.

He set aside the steak and took u
p the wineglass. “It’s been a long day. I’m bushed.”

Watching his lips touch the rim of his wineglass, she knew what he was hungry for. She saw it as her gaze met his and his pupils blazed. She saw the way his gaze dropped to play on her lips, then slid lo
wer to her exposed cleavage. It seemed to actually caress her, to peal back the folds of the kimono and bare her breasts. Her skin took fire. She shifted agitatedly in her chair.

“
I—I can’t just stay here!” she cried out, breaking the sensual tension in the silent room.

He raked a brow. “
Why not?”

“
I—I’ve got to have something to do!”

“
Why?”

“
It’d be worse than Poston. The boredom destroys your nerves.” She fixed her eyes on his watchful ones. His intentions suddenly dawned on her. “You want to destroy me, reduce me to groveling, because you can’t buy me?”

He flung his napkin to one side. “
I have bought you! When will you realize that?”