Gasa-Gasa Girl (25 page)

M
as didn’t think that it was a good idea for Lloyd to go into the Ouchi Foundation board meeting with a gun in his pants pocket, but there was no stopping him now. Lloyd was pretty quiet and reserved for a
hakujin
, but now an aggressive part of him—maybe a past generation of hunters who wore coonskin caps—was coming out. Men like Tug and Lloyd, with their sedate, decent exteriors, had pushed down their dark sides for so long that their primitiveness was more concentrated and pure and, as a result, more dangerous. When their anger was unleashed, you had to take a step back and stay out of their way.

As they approached the Waxley House, Mas was shocked to see the state of the sycamore. Someone had taken what looked like a chain saw to the poor tree. Stripped of branches on the right side, it seemed as though it could topple over at any time. Perhaps that was the state of the Waxley House as well.

Mas followed Lloyd into the house and then into the dining room. The fry-pan–faced attorney sat at the head of table. Becca was at his right and Phillip across from her. Miss Waxley’s back was toward them, and to her right was Penn Anderson, his orange hair uncharacteristically drooping down like a wilting plant. To her left was Larry Pauley, who looked like something wild had been unleashed inside of him. He wore a wrinkled long-sleeved dress shirt over a pair of jeans ripped at the seams.

Phillip was the first to say something. “It’s not right for him to be here.” There was an annoying thin shrill to Phillip’s voice. “His wife has been charged in my father’s murder. There’s a huge conflict here.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room,” Lloyd said. “I have every right to be here, according to Kazzy’s will.”

“Kazzy’s not around now. We’re the board, and we should decide,” Phillip pushed back.

“Did they decide that the garden should be destroyed?”

Becca, who had been nervously fingering one of the three earrings dangling from her earlobe, became alert. “What?”

Lloyd laid his cards on the table. “You paid a teenager to vandalize the garden.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Phillip stood as straight as one of the shovels in the toolshed.

“Some kid named Riley.”

“Riley?” Becca asked. “Didn’t K-
san
fire him for stealing from the company?”

“Listen!” Phillip exploded, the volcano finally erupting. “Our father was pouring millions into this place. It didn’t make any good fiscal sense. Ouchi Silk is on the brink of bankruptcy. Who wears silk anymore in America?”

“So you hire a criminal to deface our garden.” The siblings were going at it—two crocodiles facing off, their tails whipping back and forth.

“There was no stopping Kazzy, Becca. He was like a man possessed. He had to restore this whole place like he remembered it, sixty years ago. Why? Mr. Waxley is the one who kicked him out of here in the first place.”

Miss Waxley then reared her head and joined the fight. “I won’t allow you to talk that way. Our family is the one who gave Kazzy his start. Our foundation, don’t you forget, has also poured good money into the garden. My father was just trying to get Kazzy on his own two feet. And look what happened! Perhaps Kazzy owed his success to my father.”

Before the two families clawed each other further, Lloyd stepped in. “I didn’t come here for this. All I want are the financials.”

The group stared at Lloyd, trying to comprehend what he had just announced. Penn looked like he was going to dissolve into his chair, whereas Larry seemed to rise up, an
obake
coming back from the dead.

“If I’m officially on the board, I want to see the financial statements,” Lloyd repeated.

“What?” Penn followed Larry’s lead and stood up as if he were a marionette whose strings were being lifted by his puppeteer.

“The quarterly statement since the foundation was created. Tax filings, et cetera.”

“That’s not going to happen. You have no right to any of those documents,” Larry said, pointing an overstuffed sausage–shaped finger at Lloyd.

“That will take some time to photocopy,” said Becca.

“Well, then let’s start off with the past quarter.”

Becca glanced at the attorney, and he nodded his head. She disappeared, and Mas could hear her shoes clomp up the wooden staircase. The phone rang, and then, a few moments later, Becca came down. “It’s Mari,” she told Lloyd. “She says it’s an emergency.”

Lloyd left the room, and Mas felt desperately uncomfortable. Becca, Phillip, Miss Waxley, and Penn had all positioned themselves in different corners, like the same poles of magnets repelling each other. Larry, on the other hand, planted himself right in front of Mas. “You two aren’t going to get away with this,” he said. Larry’s breath was warm and
kusai
, like Mari’s old dog Brownie when he was sick with distemper.

It was just business records; why was Larry so concerned? Mas didn’t back down, and stared back at Larry’s face. The vein underneath the scar on his forehead pulsed, making his flesh look like a crawling spider.

Lloyd reappeared and asked Mas to meet him outside. His eyes were moist, and in the hazy sun, his pupils resembled the broken patterns within a kaleidoscope. “Takeo needs a blood transfusion. I need to go to the hospital now. Can you wait to get the financial statements? We’ll call you at the apartment and tell you what’s happening.”

Mas nodded.

“And put this”—Lloyd slipped something heavy into Mas’s coat pocket—“in a safe place. But no target practice, okay?”

“
Orai.
”

“I’ll tell them what’s going on.”

“I wait here,” Mas said. Lloyd went back into the house and then reemerged, gripping Mas’s shoulder briefly before he headed for the sidewalk.

A few minutes later, Larry stormed out, almost knocking Mas down from the porch—a giant bowling ball crashing into a lone pin. He uttered no threats or apologies. He moved quickly and forcefully down the walkway and up the sidewalk. If Larry was indeed a gambling man, he would seek relief at the tables or racetrack, Mas figured. The problem was that Larry was already acting like a gambler on the losing end of a bet. That kind of transparency would lead to further losses.

Becca came out with a stack of papers in a manila file. Mas took them without saying thank you or good-bye. He wanted to get away from the Waxley House as soon as he could.

B
ack at the underground apartment, Mas had to find a hiding place for the gun. It was so beautiful, Mas wanted to keep stroking it, but he didn’t have time to be an
aho
. He first put it in the bottom desk drawer. But wasn’t that obvious? Next was a drawer in the bedroom underneath Lloyd’s boxers. Another stupid idea. Finally, Mas decided on the
okome
canister on a shelf in the kitchen. There wasn’t that much rice left, but enough to cover the gun. Mas pushed down on the tin cover, hoping that out of sight meant out of mind.

Next Mas had to contend with the papers, an inch thick. He arranged the financials in piles. This was a familiar task, as he met with his tax man, a former gardener, once a year before April fifteenth. Before their meeting, Mas would sort out receipts, check stubs, and invoices, attach related pages with paper clips, and calculate the totals with an adding machine Chizuko had bought from a now defunct discount chain called Fedco.

Mas chewed on some peanuts left over from his plane ride and surveyed his work. He had placed income all together in one pile; he wasn’t concerned about incoming funds. But expenditures, that was another story. Becca, whether intentionally or not, had gone beyond just providing financial summaries. Instead, Mas had copies of receipts and checks, all signed by Larry Pauley and Penn Anderson.

Sitting at Lloyd’s desk, Mas paid special attention to the bills for gardening supplies and services. He used to help his ex-friend, Wishbone Tanaka, with his lawn mower shop on rainy days in Los Angeles. He was familiar with various gardening and pesticide companies, their prices and policies. Adjusting his reading glasses, Mas blinked hard and tried to focus. The rows of numbers seemed to merge into one another. Mas felt his eyelids drooping. He rested his head on the stack of papers. Just for a minute, he told himself.

T
he phone rang, jerking Mas awake. He was still at Lloyd’s desk, and he could tell it was morning, because light was coming through the edges of the curtains. He must have slept a good six hours. The financials that had served as his pillow were wet with Mas’s drool. His reading glasses had dug into his face and left impressions on his cheeks. Wiping the drool off the side of his face, he answered the phone on the fifth ring.

“Dad,” said Mari, “we need you now.”

chapter twelve

Mas sipped some orange juice through a straw and bit into a cookie, one of those Danish ones that came stacked in white cupcake holders and arranged in a round aluminum tin. Actually he didn’t care much for these cookies, as he usually regularly received at least three tins from various customers each Christmas. He preferred those pastel pink, yellow, and green swirls that he bought from a Dutch bakery in Bishop on his way home from fishing in Mammoth Lakes. That was everyone’s take-home gift,
omiyage
, to the ones who had to stay behind in Los Angeles.

But the nurse had told him to make sure to eat and drink before he left the blood donation room. “Need to maintain your blood sugar level,” she said. So Mas dutifully poured himself a drink and forced himself to finish a flattened-pretzel–shaped cookie topped with large sugar crystals.

The nurse was pretty good with a needle. A rubber tie at his elbow, one slap on his forearm, and Mas was filling a bag full of blood. He had done this at least one time earlier, and hated the fact that his blood would be churning in someone else’s body. But this time it would be his grandson’s. Both of them had type AB; AB people could receive from anybody, but could only give to other AB types. He did feel some apprehension. “Don’t wanna hurt Takeo more,” he said to Mari. “Who knowsu with the
pikadon
.”

“Dad, the Bomb happened over fifty years ago. Anything you may have, you gave to me, and I’ve already given it to Takeo. Aside from Lloyd, we’re all radioactive. Haven’t you noticed that we glow in the dark?” Mari grinned. Her humor was biting, but today it made the news that Takeo needed a blood transfusion go down a little easier.

Both Mari and Lloyd didn’t trust the general blood supply and had called everyone they knew to donate. Apparently Takeo didn’t need much, but they wanted to stockpile, just in case. Mas didn’t realize how many friends they had in New York. Most of them were
hakujin
, with unkempt frizzy hair (gardeners or filmmakers? Mas wondered), but some were black, Chinese, Sansei, and Puerto Rican. They all bent down to hug Mari and kept an arm around her shoulder. Mas could almost see all the
kimochi
that was being woven around his daughter and son-in-law like bolts of fabric, cocooning them from harm. But Mas knew those cocoons, no matter how saturated with love, were still fragile and vulnerable; anyone could still tear through and reach the soft parts.

He wished that he could join in. Add to the layers of support. But it would be like ballroom dancing, or kissing. No self-respecting Kibei would partake of such practices in public. If he did, wouldn’t he just dissolve, lose control and a sense of himself? If he opened that floodgate, there was no telling how much of him would bleed out. Instead, he could help his family in practical matters. Make sure that there was food on the table, ample life insurance in case he dropped dead too early, and a house, bought and paid for. That was Lloyd’s job now, but Mas wasn’t in New York City for no reason. While Lloyd and Mari needed to keep a watchful eye over Takeo, Mas had to tend to the other matters that would keep them together.

M
as had lost track of the days of the week, so he was surprised to see a security guard, not the floppy-bow–tied receptionist in the mausoleumlike lobby of Waxley Enterprises.
Mochiron
. Of course. It was Sunday, not a day of work, at least for white-collar types.

Mas didn’t know what to do. This had been a waste; he should just go back to the hospital and be with his family. But he felt that he needed to get a better sense of Larry Pauley. Maybe take a second look around his office and photos of his prized Thoroughbred. Mas waited by the side of the door and saw a couple of Latino men unloading a carpet shampoo machine from a white van. They spoke a different kind of Spanish than Mas was used to, but he still could make out enough words, and, of course, when language failed, you could always read people’s faces. And one of them was obviously irritated. A third man had not shown up. Mas watched them struggle with their cleaning equipment, and finally stepped in. “
Ayuda, ayuda,
” he offered, lifting two buckets. “I go in, anyways.”

They first protested, and then shrugged their shoulders. So a
loco japones
was going to help them, they probably figured. What did they have to complain about?

Mas let them lead the way through the lobby, lowering his face as they passed the security guard, who obviously recognized the two regular cleaners. They entered the freight elevator, whose walls were covered with a gray padded blanket. While the elevator rose, the two men spoke to each other, talking about some local soccer tournament the day before. They stopped on the third floor, at which Mas carried out the buckets filled with rags and cleaning products.

“
Gracias, gracias,
” they murmured, as Mas hit the Up button for the regular elevator.

Getting out on the eleventh floor, Mas was relieved to see no one manning the receptionist’s desk. But as he walked down a corridor, he felt the presence of another human in the maze of cubicles. Sure enough, Mas spied hair, the color of a paper bag, frizzed out like cotton candy. As the woman rolled her chair back, Mas finally saw the rest of her. A
hakujin
, wearing jeans and simple striped shirt.

“Excuse me, sir, can I help you?” she asked. Rather than afraid, she seemed curious. Here Mas’s size and age were obviously an advantage.

“Ah, Pauley. Mr. Pauley,” Mas managed to spout out.

“Mr. Pauley isn’t here.”

“Left sumptin’ in his office last time,” he said, and then charged through the door to the hallway on the left.

With the cotton-candy–haired woman practically tailgating him, Mas charged into Larry Pauley’s corner office. It was dark, but Mas could still see that the walls were empty, no painting of the galloping horses, only a clean blank space where it once was hung. Larry Pauley must have been in this office for a long time for the paint to have faded. The beer steins were also gone.

One leg of the desk had been broken and the window that overlooked Central Park was now boarded up.

“I told you that Larry Pauley wasn’t here anymore.” The woman pulled at her hair. “I guess he didn’t take leaving too well.”

B
y the time Mas returned to the hospital, most of Mari and Lloyd’s shaggy-haired friends had left the waiting room. Mari was walking in the hallway, carrying a steaming cup of coffee.

“Where’ve you been, Dad? I was looking for you. Didn’t know if you wanted a bite to eat from the cafeteria.”

“Howzu Takeo?”

“Good, real good. Lloyd’s with him. Tug’s around, too. I think the transfusion has really perked Takeo up. We started off with Lloyd’s supply—he gave about a week ago. Apparently, I can’t give any blood right now.” Mari’s eyes became wet and shiny. “I’m anemic, Dad. Low iron.”

No wonder Mari’s color looked bad, thought Mas. Here he thought it was just age, but it was actually some medical reason.

Mari sipped her coffee and then leaned against the wall. “Seems like I can’t do anything right for him now.”

“Youzu a good mother.”

“You think? I’m trying. I really am. Lloyd says that I’ve been doing too much. After Takeo was born, I’ve tried to slow down, you know.”

“Not be so
gasa-gasa
.”

“Yeah. But that’s in my genes.”

“You like your mom.”

“Actually, Mom always said that I was like you.”

Mas shuffled his feet and looked down at his loafers. Mas knew that he had to mention his trip to Waxley Enterprises. “Izu try to see Larry Pauley,” he announced. “I thinksu heezu fired.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I didn’t get a chance to talksu to Lloyd, but I think itsu has to do wiz the books.”

“The books?” Mari looked confused.

“I checksu all the bills: don’t make sense. One lawn mower company belly-up, no around anymore. But still listed in the records.”

“What?”

“And they put down chemical fertilizer, but I knowsu Lloyd use all natural. Don’t make sense. Overcharge for bamboo. And
toro
, too. They pay two thousand dolla for dat. No way dat
toro
two thousand.”

“So you think Miss Waxley figured that out as well? Maybe he’s been doing that at Waxley Enterprises, too, huh. Maybe that’s why he was fired.” Mari furrowed her eyebrows. “Oh, I forget to tell you. Haruo called yesterday for you. Wanted our fax number. What’s that all about?”

Before Mas could explain, he felt another presence beside him. The eccentric man he had met at the church, Elk Mamiya. He was a couple of inches shorter than Mas, most likely a pure five feet tall, so Mas could see right into his magnified eyes. Little globs floated in the whites of his eyes like curds in spoiled milk. Elk must not have been sleeping well.

“Mamiya-
san
,” Mas said, wondering if some kind of health problem had brought the Nisei to the Brooklyn hospital.

“Heard about your grandson through the pipeline at church,” Elk said. Gossip traveled fast in New York City, thought Mas, as fast as in Los Angeles. Tug must have mentioned the blood drive to the church ministers.

“Sank you,
ne
,” Mas said.

Mari extended her hand. “Yes, we really appreciate your help.”

“No, no, I’m not here to give blood.” Elk shook his head, sparse tufts of white hair sticking out of his ears. “I’m here to tell you I figured it out.”

Mari crinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad.

“I’ve been doing research into this Hirokazu Ouchi—”

“That’s Kazzy’s father,” Mari said.

“Yes, an Issei, born in Nagano Prefecture. Married to Emily, an Irishwoman. Don’t you think it’s quite a coincidence that he died shortly after his wife died giving birth to a stillborn child?”

“What are you getting at?” Mari thinned her eyes.

“What I’m getting at”—Elk began to raise his voice—“is that somebody killed him off. Somebody wanted him dead, and then they killed off Kazzy.” Elk turned to Mas. “I told you, back at the church. They’re out to destroy us.”

“Ah, Kazzy’s father died in the 1930s. I doubt that has anything to do with Kazzy’s death today.” Mas didn’t know why Mari kept talking to the man. It was obvious that he was not in his right mind. Mas had met his share of men who had fallen off the edge. Some had been scarred by the camp experience, others from surviving the Bomb. He didn’t know why certain people were able to piece themselves together and even flourish, while the weaker ones languished like plants without water. It was a slow death, a process that Mas preferred not to watch, because it reminded him of his own disintegration.

Mari visibly frowned, and Elk apparently noticed. “So don’t believe me. What the hell do I care?” Elk focused back on Mas. “I just wanted to warn you—watch your step. They’re watching.” With that, he left, the fluorescent lights reflecting blue on top of his bald head.

“Who was that?” Mari asked.

“Ole man from Tug’s church.” Mas was going to add that he was
kuru-kuru-pa
, but thought better of it. Elk Mamiya was apparently acting out of his convictions. He had come all the way to Brooklyn to protect a fellow Japanese American, and Mas should at least be grateful for that.