Snakeskin Shamisen (20 page)

“Kermit,” Anmen repeated.

“Why, youzu see him at party?”

Anmen didn’t answer at first. “Tired,” he said. “Very tired.” He stretched out on the couch; he didn’t have to know that it had been the last resting place of his nephew.

G. I. was supposed to give Mas a lift back to Haruo’s, but when Mas peeked into his bedroom, G. I. was fast asleep on his futon, Mu curled up in the crook of his arm. Mas didn’t want to wake him, so he figured he might as well stay the night. Mas unrolled Juanita’s sleeping bag; he didn’t mind sleeping on the floor. It reminded him of camping trips he had taken in Ventura County with Chizuko and Mari; Juanita’s bag even had the same smell of charcoal from past campfires, and a pinch of sea salt from the ocean.

After Mas turned out the lights, Anmen began to talk. “You think I’m rotten,
ne
. A
dorobo
who doesn’t deserve to live.”

Mas wouldn’t have gone that far, although folks like Wishbone and Stinky might have other opinions. But he was a
dorobo
, there was no doubt. A thief was a thief was a thief.

“I heard that you are a
hibakusha
,” Anmen said. “That you were there in Hiroshima, two kilometers from the epicenter.”

“Who say dat?”

“The man with the
kizu
.” Scarface Haruo. Mas sneered in the darkness. Why did Haruo have to open his trap to complete strangers—to, in fact, a bona fide criminal?

“I know what it’s like,
yo
.”

Mas listened.

“During the war, I hid in a cave in Okinawa. I was afraid that the Americans were going to kill me. But they pulled me out and set me free. My legs had been bent in that crowded cave for so many weeks.”

Mas had heard of these stories. Of men, women, and children hiding in caves to escape American flamethrowers, gunfire, and grenades during World War II. One of the bloodiest battles ever fought in Japan. Rivaled the Bomb in terms of Japanese casualties, although the Battle of Okinawa occurred over the course of numerous weeks instead of a single minute. Mas had heard of the caves. Described as honeycombs of land next to the shore, they were the final refuge for both soldiers and civilians with nowhere to go. The same Japanese military that had conscripted twenty thousand Okinawans, including boys and girls, was at the last minute only more than willing to kick these same people out of the caves to make room for the “real soldiers.” Everyone had heard of the tragic fate of the Himeyuri Corps of schoolgirls, who were forced to be nurses to the Japanese soldiers, only to be forcibly released into gunfire and explosions. One out of eight Okinawan civilians had been killed.

“All during the war, Isokichi was in America. He left Okinawa when he was only fourteen. Was a Christian,
yo
.”

A-ra
, Mas thought. Christians in Japan were few and far between at that time. Radicals, soapbox preachers, men and women who didn’t mind swimming against the tide.

“He had dream about America. Wanted to see democracy in action. Was tired of seeing Okinawa being pushed around by Japan. He went to Hawaii and then worked on a sugar plantation. Couldn’t find democracy there. And then sailed off to California, joined Christian farming communities in the San Joaquin Valley. Made just pennies—where was the Great Democracy? I could tell that his heart was getting hard. His letters seemed bitter at that time; he must have started to go to those political meetings. And then, during the war, nothing, of course. He was worried sick about us, even though he was stuck in a detention center in the middle of nowhere.

“After the war, we were able to find each other. He helped me to come over. I thought this was my chance to make it big. I started a
sanshin
school and was going to send my money to them. I have no children of my own; this was one way I could live on.”

Anmen’s voice became softer as he went back in time. “Our father was a
sanshin
instructor. That’s how we both learned how to play. He even brought a
sanshin
into the cave my mother and he were hiding in. They were the next cave over. I could hear the tinkle of the
sanshin
all night. It’s what allowed me to sleep. But one day the mountains shook and the music stopped. My parents were never found.”

Mas stayed still and quiet.

Anmen obviously wanted to change the subject, because he started humming and singing an Okinawan song. Mas tried to smother his ears in the sleeping bag, but it was no use. Actually the song wasn’t so bad. In the end, Mas even clapped two times. Maybe if he clapped one more time, Anmen would be silenced, like those sound-activated lights.

But before he knew it, Anmen was talking again. “You know, Isokichi was always writing songs. He even sang a song for me at the immigration office when I visited him. He called it ‘Sayonara Udui.’ ”

“Udui?” Mas loosened the sleeping bag from his ears.

“Okinawan for ‘dance.’ I never forgot it.” Anmen stirred from the couch and turned on the lamp. He picked up the
shamisen
and brought it over to the couch. Tightening the pegs, he tuned the three strings, took a deep breath, and began playing the familiar singsong melody. And then he began singing. First a low murmur, and then, with each lyric, Anmen’s voice began to rumble like the start of the earthquake. Then, in a flash, the song was over.

Mas only understood half of the words. The song ended with “sayonara”; that much Mas could pick up.

G. I. came stumbling out of the bedroom, in a torn green UC Davis T-shirt, shorts, and black-framed glasses. His hair was in a single braid like the queues of Chinese pioneers during the Gold Rush. Mu slithered in between his legs. He lifted his glasses and wiped some sleep from his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Sanjo’s song,” Mas said.

“Huh?”

“Isokichi write song before he die.”

“No kiddin’.” G. I. fell into his purple chair. “Well, play it again. Please.”

Anmen did an encore—this time he closed his eyes as if he were trying to better capture his brother’s voice.

The melodic song made Mas’s ribs hurt and his ears ring. There was something haunting about the words, even though he couldn’t quite follow them.

“What’s it mean?”

Mas shrugged his shoulders. “Too much Okinawan. Can’t understand.”

Anmen repeated the lyrics, and Mas tried to throw out the words in English. G. I. then chose prettier words and wrote them down on the back of an envelope.

“Okay, this is what I have,” G. I. said finally after five tries.

Tears, the stars I see out the window
Years of struggle, pennies for blood
What hope for my boys?
The door is closed; I cannot breathe
My sons, wife, someday must dance again.
Sayonara, sayonara, sayonara.

G. I. and Mas let the words rest in the room before they spoke.

“
Jisatsu
,” Mas whispered.

“This is a suicide song,” said G. I.

Anmen looked up, nodded, and Mas noticed the edges of his eyes were wet. “I told Agent Metcalf that my brother was not himself. That he could not be left alone. But he kicked me out of there. He told me to come back the next day. But both of them were gone by then.”

Mas remembered what Hajime, the clerk at the coroner’s office, had said. Isokichi had been missing his shoelaces. He must have removed them to commit suicide, perhaps hang himself? Mas didn’t know how it was possible, but if you were hardheaded and
ganko
enough, you could do most anything.

“What do you think, Mas? Was Isokichi planning to kill himself?”

Mas nodded. But the coroner’s assistant said the cause of death was blunt force trauma, not death by hanging. So whether or not Isokichi planned to do himself in, someone else beat him to it.

chapter thirteen

Sleeping on G. I.’s floor, Mas had another nightmare. He and another boy he grew up with, Kenji, were in a rainstorm. The water came down hard and fast, stinging his skin. Then he noticed that the raindrops had turned into small pebbles, and then larger rocks, the smooth kind that Mas used for dry gardens. He felt his head being knocked about, the stones pelting his shoulders, his neck. He fell to his knees—where was Kenji?—and the rocks were beating his thighs and knees. He could not cry out, speak. All he heard was the thunder of rocks cascading around him and then on top of him.

When Mas woke up, he saw that Anmen was gone. The black couch was squished down in the middle, evidence that a human body had been there at one time, but Mas figured that it had not been for long. Anmen had had to cut open his memories. And once he did that, he left.

Mas walked barefoot to the living room window and pulled at the curtain. The sky remained gray, still trying to make up its mind whether to squeeze out rain or clear to blue. A single bundle of the L.A.
Times
had been left on G. I.’s lawn. There were no cars Mas recognized parked outside.

“Mornin’, Mas.” G. I. came out of his bedroom, wearing the same pair of glasses. He had loosened his braid, and his long hair went past his shoulders. He had a faint smudge of stubble underneath his nose. G. I. was one of those Japanese who couldn’t grow much on his face, other than a long mustache and a paintbrush of a beard, just like those Asian villains in black-and-white movies. Those same villains always had strange Scotch-taped, squinty eyes and long, curved fingernails; Mas had never seen any human being, much less an Asian, with that kind of appearance. Mu ran out behind him, his paws swiftly padding on the hardwood floor. At least one living creature had energy this morning.

“Anmen gone,” Mas said.

“What?”

“Heezu gone.”

G. I. went to the window and looked at the parked cars. “Dammit,” he cursed. He surveyed the living room. He lifted the blanket he had given Anmen and then pulled at piles of dirty clothes and the bags and containers from the Cuban restaurant. “That shithead took Juanita’s
shamisen
.”

“
Honto?
” Could it be?

Mas went into the kitchen, just to make sure. But other than the small Formica table, a couple of metal chairs, and a bag of Haruo’s persimmons, nothing. But something was on the table. A note. In Japanese.

G. I. joined Mas at the table. His breath smelled awful, like something green, gelatinous, and left out too long, but Mas knew that his own wouldn’t be much better. Surely the amount of garlic they had consumed the night before didn’t help.

“What’s it say?”

Mas had left his reading glasses in the truck, but G. I. handed him a magnifying glass instead. The glass was a heavy-duty one with a rectangular black frame.

G. I. rubbed his mustache stubble. Mas spent a few minutes trying to make out Anmen’s writing. He’d obviously been in a hurry and maybe even writing in the dark. “Itsu say heezu sorry. He not a kinda man to stay until the end.”

“So, basically, he’s a coward.”

Mas shook his head. “Heezu used to runnin’. Can’t stop, even if he wants to.”

“Did he mention anything about the
shamisen
?”

Mas read the note over again. “Nutin’ about
shamisen
.”

“Well, he’s an asshole, a thief, and maybe a killer.”

Mas frowned. “Youzu think he killsu somebody?”

“Maybe. Why has he been incognito for all these years? I’m going to call the rental car company. Maybe they can trace his whereabouts.” G. I. then went back to the living room and cursed again.

“Whatsamatta?” Mas asked from the doorway.

“That guy took my address book. Must have thought it was a wallet.” G. I. then went on a tear in his closet. More cursing. “He also took my gun.”

“Thought police take away.”

“They took my knives, but I convinced them to leave my gun.”

Mas then recalled what he had overheard at the Torrance Police Department. “Police know where knife sold.”

“What?”

Mas repeated the information he had learned. A store in Vegas. Cash. Asian buyer.

“Kermit was looking at knives in Vegas,” G. I. said softly. His face was pale. “You know, I haven’t heard from him in a couple of days. Ever since Randy’s death, he’d been calling once, even two times, a day.”

G. I. got on the phone in the living room, and Mas heard him leave a message for Jiro and then Detective Alo.

As G. I. made his calls, Mas was feeling damp and sweaty, in need of some heavy-duty cleaning. He also needed a strong cup of coffee to shake up his brain, but he refrained from being a
nezumi
, a rat, scurrying through G. I.’s kitchen cabinets and refrigerator. Something was nagging at him. Didn’t he have to go somewhere this morning? And then—
a-ra!
His appointment with Olivia Feinstein. Mas turned the twine on his Casio watch to see its face. The appointment was forty-five minutes from now.

Mas removed the address that he had written on the back of an old receipt in his wallet. The attorney’s daughter lived in zip code 90210, Beverly Hills, maybe only five miles away from G. I.’s address.

G. I. apparently struck out on his calls, because he returned to the kitchen table in a bad mood.

“I gotsu to go,” Mas told him. “Appointment with dat lawyer’s daughter.”

G. I. offered Mas his second car, an old Volvo whose muffler was held up by wire. “I wish I could go with you, Mas. But I have to see if I can find Jiro. He’s supposed to be at work, but he hasn’t come in. And Juanita and I were supposed to go to that concert at the Okinawa Association. Actually you should be there, Mas. I know that Kinjo is involved somehow; I’m sure of it. It all goes back to that
sanshin
. You need to get some straight answers from Kinjo, even if you have to confront him onstage.”

“I try to make it,” Mas said. In the meantime, he would need to use G. I.’s shower and borrow a clean set of clothes. He was sorry to be such a
meiwaku
, but going to Beverly Hills required being a bother. He couldn’t visit a fancy lady in clothes he had just slept in, not to mention the smell of garlic permeating from his mouth and skin.

G. I. was about fifteen pounds lighter and five inches taller than Mas, but he was able to find a loose Hawaiian shirt and a pair of dark pants that Mas could fit into. In the shower, naked, with the water pounding down on him, Mas tried to think.

To use Lil’s word, Anmen was most definitely a
yogore
. And there Mas, hearing about caves and explosions, had felt sorry for the man. Why had Anmen Sanjo left in the middle of the night with a stolen gun? And this Olivia Feinstein, what could she possibly shed light on? What would she know that Edwin Parker hadn’t told Mas already?

The shower didn’t provide any answers. Mas got out, dried himself off, and got into G. I.’s clothes. He combed his hair back and, for the hell of it, splashed some cologne from the medicine cabinet on his neck for good measure. G. I. gave him a disposable razor and a toothbrush. Mas also requested fizzy water, which he used to soak his dentures for five minutes.

Mas then left the bathroom to put on his socks and loafers in the living room. The legs of the pants were too long, so Mas folded over the cuffs two times. If G. I. was serious about Mas confronting Kinjo, he had to have reinforcements. Mas discussed with G. I. who those people needed to be.

Before he left, Mas asked G. I., “By the way, whysu Kinjo’s band at your party?”

“I don’t know. I figure the restaurant handled it all.”

M
as didn’t have many opportunities to go into Beverly Hills. His gardening route was limited to the northeastern side of Los Angeles, so he rarely strayed beyond the west side of downtown. Mas remembered an old-time gardener telling him that during the Great Depression of the thirties, some people in Beverly Hills tried to pass a law that banned all Japanese gardeners from the city. Out-of-work
hakujin
had entered the gardening trade, and they didn’t want to face competition in a free enterprise economy. But as it turned out, while a single Japanese gardener might usually be quiet, when you got a thousand of them together, they could make quite a racket. And that’s what happened; the gardeners got together and formed a Japanese gardeners’ association in response to the proposed ban, and the law was killed.

That was a long time ago, however. Beverly Hills had gotten its
bachi
, or comeuppance, as it was now populated with as many immigrants as
hakujin
. Still, Wilshire Boulevard hadn’t changed a whole lot. The ivy-covered Beverly Wilshire Hotel was still there. And sure, fancy stores might have different names, labels, and models, but they were still selling top-of-the-line products.

Mas parked the Volvo on a small street three blocks off Wilshire Boulevard. He had expected a fancy mansion and instead got rows of fourplexes that looked as if they’d been constructed in the forties. The lawns and gardens were immaculate, and Mas knew that the new men and women who tended them weren’t Japanese but most likely newcomers from Latin America with their own sets of dreams.

Olivia Feinstein lived in a back unit. The gardener had shaved a boxwood hedge into the shape of a mouse, with another matching one cut like Swiss cheese, holes and all. Very clever, Mas thought disdainfully; he preferred geometric designs over Disneyland in his topiary.

At the first ring of her doorbell, Olivia opened the door. Her bobbed hair was completely white, but with a silvery sheen. Like the hedges outside her door, she looked recently primped and groomed. She smiled widely, and Mas could see the schoolgirl in her. It didn’t matter if you were three or ninety—a woman could go a long way with an attractive smile.

“Hello, Mr. Arai.” Olivia welcomed Mas inside.

Mas pulled down on G. I.’s Hawaiian shirt. Hawaiian shirts weren’t Mas’s thing; in fact, he had never worn one in his life Luckily, there weren’t any bikini-clad wahines on the shirt. The only remotely Hawaiian touch was a pattern of surfboards that resembled the shape of leaves. Leaves, Mas could deal with.

Olivia Feinstein left Mas in the living room, which had rounded corners and alcoves. She had a white carpet, which made Mas nervous. He couldn’t remember if he had properly wiped his shoes on the welcome mat. The Japanese had the custom of leaving your shoes at the door, which only made sense. Why bring the dirt and the foreignness of the outside into your home? But the
hakujin
were quite married to their shoes, Mas understood. It was as if the loss of height, style, or status would lessen their power in a room. Shoes, whether they be a man’s wingtips or a woman’s stilettoes, were like calling cards. Stockinged feet, on the other hand, were too human and vulnerable.

Olivia Feinstein brought a tray of tea and placed it on the table in front of the couch. Mas tried to the refuse the tea, but she still poured him a cup from a flowered teapot. A bowl of sugar cubes and a small pitcher of milk remained on the tray. Mas would have accepted a cup of green tea, which would at least have had some grit to it. But sweet tea and milk—Mas couldn’t take that much civility today.

Olivia dropped a sugar cube in her tea with a pair of mini tongs and stirred. “Now, Professor Howard was telling me that you’re interested in my father and one of his cases during the 1950s?”

Mas licked his lips. He wasn’t quite sure how to begin, so he merely blurted out, “Isokichi Sanjo.”

“He’s a past client, right? I think I recall his name.” Olivia removed a box from the table and thumbed through some index cards. “S-A-N…” She waited.

“J-O.”

“Yes, yes, here it is—the Sanjo case, one of the Japanese deportees. Now I remember. I’m editing my father’s memoirs right now. He regretted not being able to help him more. Didn’t Edwin Parker take over the case?”

Mas nodded.

“There was something about this one.” Olivia tapped the edge of her three-by-five card. “Was this the one in which the deportee was found dead a few days after being arrested?”

Olivia was a sharp one. Mas felt his pulse quicken. Maybe this trip to 90210 would be worth it.

“They weren’t able to locate the INS agent, Henry Metcalf, involved in the arrest, right?” Her face grew more animated. “My father wrote pages and pages about Metcalf. A horrible man. He thought it was his personal mission to get rid of all immigrants, especially those of Mexican, Jewish, and Asian descent. He viewed them to be un-American, and joined the bandwagon to deport those with any connections to the Communist Party. It was the Cold War, of course, and we had to be protective of our national security, but Metcalf took it too far. Even his own agency, the INS office in L.A., was troubled; they didn’t know what to do with him. When he disappeared, everyone suspected foul play—that either he had committed a crime or a crime had been committed against him. In terms of the theory that he had been killed, there was a whole line of suspects. My father was even questioned. In private, he said that he would have gladly taken credit for Metcalf’s disappearance if only he could have had experienced the pleasure of doing away with him. But no pleasure, no credit.”