Snakeskin Shamisen (22 page)

“But this is murder, too, with larger ramifications. I think that I should have first crack at him.”

Finally, Genessee interrupted them, waving a set of keys. “You can meet next door in our office building.” Alan continued to try to deter his father from cooperating, with little success. Mas was going to stay behind, but Genessee took hold of his arm. She led them to the modern, mirrored building. They passed the spiral staircase and went down a hall to the first door, which Genessee unlocked with one of her keys.

They all took seats around four tables arranged together in the center of the room. Kinjo, Alan, and Halbertson sat on one side; Oyadomori, Lee, and Alo on the other. Mas stood awkwardly by the door. He felt odd without Juanita and G. I. there. Had G. I.’s business with Jiro taken all day? Genessee, meanwhile, walked back and forth, her arms crossed as if she were a schoolteacher ready to reprimand her students.

Kinjo pointed to Halbertson and blurted to Mr. Oyadomori in Japanese, “This man is the one who stole the
sanshin
and
kunkunshi
from Shuri Castle in Okinawa during World War Two.”

Oyadomori’s heavy eyebrows went up, and Alo and Lee were eager to know what had been said. Alan looked shocked—it was obvious that he had been unaware of his father’s past association with Halbertson and the stolen
shamisen
.

The Okinawan official was apparently fluent in both languages. “He said his friend took the
sanshin
and
kunkunshi
from a very important landmark in Okinawa, which was totally destroyed after the war.” Oyadomori spoke slowly and deliberately, with only the slightest of accents. He then scolded Halbertson. “Do you know how valuable the
kunkunshi
is? This is like the Bible for
sanshin
players.”

“I didn’t know anything about the
kunkunshi
. Yes, I took the
sanshin
as a souvenir. At that time, I didn’t know what I had. In fact, I saved it, you could say. If I had left it in the castle, it would have burned, for sure. The neck was loose—in fact, it completely came off—and that’s how I found that scroll. When I was working at Jerome, I showed it to Kinjo.” Halbertson gestured toward Kinjo. “He said that it was just some scribbling, nothing important. He paid me fifty dollars for it. A lousy fifty dollars. And now you are telling me the score is priceless?”

“You did not tell me you stole,” Kinjo shot back.

“You knew where I had taken it from.”

Like a married couple on the brink of divorce, the two men continued to shoot accusations at each other.

Alo finally raised his hands. “Is there another room we can use?”

Genessee lifted her set of keys and gestured toward the room across the way.

“Mr. Oyadomori, perhaps it would be better if you interview Mr. Halbertson privately for a little while,” Alo said. “I have another investigation to handle here.”

“Don’t forget mine,” asserted Agent Lee.

There was a flicker of annoyance reflected on Alo’s face. “And you.” He spoke to Alan. “We’ll need you to leave the room too.”

Alan tried to argue with the detective again, but Kinjo shook his head. “
Orai
,
yo
,” he said. “I’m
orai
.”

Alan did not want to leave his father’s side. His handsome face was tight with worry, and Mas realized the son, all this time, had feared that his father had somehow been involved in the death of Randy Yamashiro.

Alo then got on his phone as the Okinawan representative and Halbertson made their way into another room. Alan also reluctantly rose from the table.

“I’ve asked for a Japanese interpreter to come, so we can wait until she arrives,” Alo announced after his phone conversation.

“No.” Kinjo’s eyes flashed, their intensity matching his brilliant white hair. “I talk now.”

Alan tried to talk sense to Kinjo, but he wouldn’t budge. The police detective then asked Alan, this time more forcefully, to leave the room. Mas turned toward the hallway, eager to comply. “No, not you, Mr. Arai,” said Alo. “I need you here.”

It was as Mas feared: Alo was going to use him as a makeshift interpreter. The detective told Mas to sit beside him, across from Kinjo, while Agent Lee reluctantly moved to a side chair. Removing a small tape recorder from his jacket pocket, Alo then addressed Kinjo. “May I?”

“
Hai
,” affirmed Kinjo, his eyes blinking furiously,
pachi-pachi
.

Alo then asked Kinjo perfunctory questions. Name, date of birth, place of birth. Kinjo seemed antsy to jump from the realm of the mundane into the meat of the matter. “I did not do it. I did not kill him,” he blurted out in English. “Randy Yamashiro is the one.”

Alo exchanged looks with Lee. “What are you saying?”

“I do not kill Yamashiro; he try to kill me.”

The statement was heavy, and it sunk into the silence of the room for a few seconds.

“So what you’re saying is that Randy Yamashiro tried to kill you?” Alo repeated.

Kinjo nodded. “With
katana
this size.” He raised his hands about a foot apart. He knew that he would need to provide the police with a detailed description of what happened, so he turned to Mas and explained in Japanese, “After the performance, Randy told me to meet him outside so he could pay me. He said that he had to leave right away, so I left Alan to pack up, and I went to the parking lot. I couldn’t find him at first; then, there he was behind a van, carrying the
sanshin
. I was so excited to see the
sanshin
; it was like being reunited with an old friend. I thought that Randy was returning the
sanshin
to me, so I rushed over to him.

“ ‘You recognize this?’ he asked, and before I can answer, he breaks the neck from the body, right before my eyes.”

Kinjo’s cheeks were shiny with tears. Mas took the opportunity to retell as much of Kinjo’s story as he could to Alo and Lee.

“Go on,” Alo gently prodded Kinjo.

“I yelled out, ‘What are you doing?’ and then he brought out a huge knife—more than a foot long. ‘This is for my father,’ he said. ‘Isokichi Sanjo.’ He plunged the knife toward my chest. I jumped back, and the layers of my kimono were cut and torn. I tried to yell again, but nothing came out of my throat. And suddenly, before Yamashiro could try again, somebody took a hold of his arm.”

Mas knew what was coming next. “It was a short Sansei man with the freckles. Randy’s friend. Jiro.

“They are trained fighters, I could see. They were on the ground, wrestling, and finally Jiro was on top, struggling to get the knife out of Randy’s hand and then—” Kinjo swallowed. “And then the knife was in Randy’s neck. Blood was pouring out. His legs and arms were still moving, as if he were being suffocated. And then his body stopped moving. Still. Jiro and I were in shock, and then he barked at me, ‘Get out of here. And say nothing. I saved your life. You owe me.’ ”

Mas licked his dry lips. Again,
osewaninatta
. It was a curse. Kinjo took a deep breath, and it seemed that he was done talking for a while. Mas did his best to give a summary of Kinjo’s testimony.

Alo straightened out a paper clip that had been on the table. “So you said nothing about what you saw.”

Kinjo shook his head. “I say nothing. Not even to my son. I drive away, and Jiro runs away, too, but someone see him.”

“Who?”

“Someone I don’t see long, long time. But I know. Isokichi’s brother, Anmen.”

So Anmen had witnessed Jiro fleeing the scene? He had said nothing about this to Mas and G. I.

“He didn’t see me, but I recognized him. The same body. The same way of walking.”

Mas tried to remember what Anmen had said at Haruo’s. That he was going to get the man who did it.

Kinjo’s voice was getting hoarse, as raspy as Jiro’s even. “
Mizu
,” he finally said.

“He want water,” Mas explained.

Alo went to a water cooler in the corner, and Agent Lee followed. They conferred for a minute and returned. Alo, handing both Kinjo and Mas Dixie cups of water, took Lee’s seat, while Lee took Alo’s place across from Kinjo. The questioning was turning, Mas realized, from the present back to the past.

“So the son knew about you informing on his father in 1953?”

Mas roughly translated the question, and Kinjo affirmed, “
Hai.
He blamed me for killing his father. I didn’t do it. But I know who did.”

Mas shivered as if cold water had been poured down his back. He provided a rough translation, and Lee nodded for Kinjo to continue.

“It was fifty years ago in Los Angeles. I couldn’t sleep the night of Sanjo’s arrest,” Kinjo explained. “I could hear the smallest noise. The ticking of the clock. Sirens in the distance. A car backfiring down the street. A part of me despised Sanjo, and yes, that probably all came from jealousy. He was a musical genius. He had a talent that I could never attain. I don’t know why I wanted to bring him down rather than be happy to be in his presence. I consoled myself with the fact that I had a royal
sanshin
. And the
kunkunshi
. It gave me special powers, an edge, I thought. When it was stolen one night after a performance, I knew that one of the Sanjo brothers had done it. I had gotten in a terrible fight with Isokichi. He told me that I needed to return the
sanshin
and the
kunkunshi
to the Okinawan government. I told him to mind his own business. The band was breaking up, never to be reunited again.”

Kinjo seemed to be in a trance, and Mas didn’t want to interrupt him. Besides, how could he translate all this
komakai
, detailed information? He glanced at Agent Lee, who somehow knew what Kinjo was saying from the tone of his voice. Pointing at the tape recorder, he mouthed, “It’s okay,” to Mas, and then motioned for him to keep Kinjo talking.

“So I had gone to this Agent Metcalf, and we’d struck a deal. He had been nosing around, making empty threats that he would deport any Okinawans connected with the Communist Party. He was coming up empty, but I was going to give him the biggest fish possible. The beloved Isokichi Sanjo. For my testimony, I would receive immunity from deportation myself, since I had gone to a few
aka
meetings. I was just curious. I didn’t really know what they were talking about. I wasn’t a political man. Not like Isokichi.

“Anyway, the night they took Isokichi away, I had insomnia, and I felt a demon was dancing in my insides. I had done wrong, I knew it, but I didn’t know how to undo it. So I left my wife in the bed and drove down to the INS building. I don’t know what I was thinking. They weren’t going to let me in. But like a wolf howling at the moon, I was drawn to the place where Sanjo was caged.

“I passed the parking lot and then I saw it: two men carrying another man on their shoulders.
Yopparrateru
, drunk, I thought. Until one of the men turned and stared at me. He was a hundred yards away, but I knew who it was. The INS agent, Metcalf.

“Suddenly I knew that the third man wasn’t drunk. He was dead. And that he was most likely Sanjo. I felt like a starting gun had gone off in my stomach, and I began to run as fast as I could. Back to Little Tokyo. Back to the true drunks in the
nomiya
. But I heard a car’s engine rev and follow right behind me, driving on sidewalks and finally following me down an alley.
Shimmata
. A dead end. I thought my fate would be the same as Sanjo’s. We would both be gone. Metcalf came out first, and then the other man. Metcalf took out a knife and pressed it against my throat. ‘I can make trouble for you, Kinjo,’ he said. ‘I know that you were at those meetings too. I can get you deported. I can send you back to your own country.’

“I waited for the other man to say something. But he said nothing. The Ford’s headlights were on, and all I could see was the black outline of his body. He seemed young, as young as a teenager. Then he moved into the light, and I recognized him too—Sanjo’s lawyer, Edwin Parker.

“Afterward, I knew that I probably needed to say something. I even made an appointment with that Isaac Delman, but then Edwin Parker came to my house. He spoke in riddles. He pretty much said that Metcalf was gone now, so there would be no trouble. If I wanted it to stay that way, I would let it go. I remember what he said in English: ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’ Then he patted Alan on the head and said that he hoped that we would be together for a very long time. I knew what he was saying. Open my mouth and be sent away. So I canceled my appointment with Delman and shut my mouth. At that point I knew that he had done away with not only Metcalf, but Isokichi. All I could do was watch Edwin Parker become a big shot over the past five decades.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw him at Mahalo. I think he was surprised too. But he still came up to me and said, ‘Hello, Kinjo, so good to see you.’ Like he was daring me to tell people what I had seen fifty years ago. He couldn’t get me now, but he knew that I had stayed silent all these years. Why should I talk now? And who would believe me?”

The door shook with a firm rap. It was a uniformed officer, his hair the color of newspaper twine. He was young, most likely right out of the police academy, because he reported in a loud voice, “Detective, there’s a hostage situation in a town house in Torrance. They say it may be related to this case.”

chapter fourteen

Alo went into the hallway with the officer, closing the door behind him. Mas’s throat felt so parched, the Dixie cup of water did not do anything to quench his thirst. He walked to the water cooler for more, leaving Agent Lee with Kinjo. What was going on? Hostage situation? Who had kidnaped who? Mas gulped one cupful of water after another.

The door opened, and Alo returned to the table. “I’ll have to speak with you more later, Mr. Kinjo,” he said, retrieving the tape recorder. “I’m going to have to take care of something right now. Mr. Arai—”

Ready to be excused, Mas wiped the excess water from the edges of his mouth.

“I need you to come with me.”

Mas wadded up the paper cup in his fist and threw it into a trash can. Kinjo and Agent Lee looked up, curious.

After Mas followed Alo into the parking lot, the detective explained, “Anmen Sanjo has taken Jiro Hamada hostage in his town house. He has a gun, and he’s asking for you.”

Mas nodded. His heart rattled against his old bones, but he still agreed to accompany Alo to the town house.

Genessee ran out from the building. “You don’t have to go with him, Mas,” she said.

“Izu know,” Mas said. “I want to go.”

T
he Torrance Police squad car led the way, its siren blaring and the lights flashing. Alo had a brown sedan with its own flashing light in the rear window above the backseat. He was putting all his energy into steering the car and dodging the
baka
drivers who failed to stop or even slow their cars for the police. Mas knew that this wasn’t the time to ask questions; he would find out what was going on, sooner or later.

Jiro lived in one of these gated cookie-cutter complexes where three-story units were slapped right against each other. They all seemed to follow the same floor plan: garage on the first floor, living room and kitchen with adjacent balcony, second; and bedrooms, third. The main gate was propped open, and another squad car was parked there to keep anyone from entering. A small crowd, including housekeepers and residents, stood outside. Detective Alo slowed his sedan enough to ask an officer, “What’s the latest?”

“No shots fired yet. We think he has three hostages in there. Two men, including the resident, and a woman.” The officer then gazed into the backseat. “Is that Arai?”

Alo nodded.

A nasty pain shot up Mas’s neck. Alo drove through the gates and made a left into a large driveway in between two rows of town houses. About five sheriff’s squad cars were scattered haphazardly in the flat space like mixed-up mah-jongg tiles.

Alo and Mas walked around the squad cars like rats in a maze. A group of officers stood clumped together alongside the last garage door. Their attention was fixed on a unit one row away to the right. “It’s the middle one,” an officer reported to Alo. “The one with the cars parked in front of the garage.” The cars confirmed Mas’s worst fears.

He saw a filthy car full of junk. Anmen Sanjo’s rental. Next to it was a red Toyota truck.

“Juanita,” he murmured.

Alo nodded. “We think Miss Gushiken and your friend George Hasuike are being held. Along with Jiro.”

Detective Alo picked up a white megaphone from one of the squad cars. He pressed down on a button, and Mas was surprised at how loud and clear his voice sounded. “Mr. Sanjo, this is Detective Alo of the Torrance Department. I’m here with your friend. Mas Arai.”

Mas objected to the use of “friend,” but it was no use to make a big deal out of words now. Alo handed Mas the megaphone, and he was surprised at how heavy it was. A couple of tries and Mas finally got it to work. “Sanjo-
san
,” Mas called out. His voice, magnified tenfold, echoed down the driveways. He felt like a fool.

“Tell him to give himself up,” Detective Alo said in Mas’s ear.

Mas held the megaphone with both hands. “No good,
yo
.
Da-me
. Better give up.”

There was a hush over the complex. And then Anmen spoke. “I want to talk to you, Arai,” he called out in Japanese from the balcony. “But just you. No one else.”

“He saysu he wants me to go ova there. Just me,” Mas told the detective.

Alo murmured, “That’s unacceptable.” The other deputies shook their heads no. They convened again, and Mas heard a deputy say, “There’s no telling what he will do.”

Mas didn’t know what it was. Maybe that Anmen had specifically requested his presence. Or it could have been plain stupidity, or ego. But Mas heard himself volunteer to meet Anmen in the town house.

“I think it’s too dangerous, Mr. Arai. Too dangerous,” Alo said.

What did Mas care? He was closer to death than the beginning of life, more so than any of the police officers, Juanita, G. I., or Jiro.

“I try. Itsu
orai
. No sue,” he told Alo.

Alo smiled briefly. “I’m not worried about you suing us. But it’s not normal protocol to send a civilian in full range of a gunman.”

“Get him to give up.”

“We should just wait him out.”

They then heard the motor and blades of a helicopter flying above. Some movement on the balcony. And then a gunshot so loud that it hurt Mas’s ears. Silence. And then another voice. Jiro’s, his voice sounding sharp and desperate. “Back off,” he pleaded. “Please.”

The officers spoke into their walkie-talkies, and the helicopter lurched back up into the sky.

The captain said nothing, but Mas heard others cursing behind him.

“I go,” Mas said. “He wantsu me.”

Alo’s round eyes stared at Mas, measuring whether a seventy-two-year-old man could weather the stress of facing a hostage situation.

“Put a jacket on him,” Alo instructed.

Mas felt a heavy weight around his chest and back as a deputy outfitted him in a black bulletproof vest. It was cumbersome and awkward, but Mas wasn’t complaining.

Alo picked up the megaphone and aimed his voice toward Anmen. “I’m sending Mr. Arai to you, but he can’t go alone. I’m coming with him. Unarmed.”

Silence, just the faint drone of traffic in the distance.

“Mas, you better translate.”

Mas sent the same message in his broken Japanese.

“Mr. Sanjo, did you hear me?” Alo asked.

“
Hai
.
Orai
.”

Alo removed a gun and a holster from around his shoulder, but shoved something down in his sock. Mas moistened his lips. He feared that this would end badly, not only for himself but most likely for Anmen.

The garage door then opened, revealing a mess of boxes, multiple packages of toilet paper and paper towels, as well as stacks of bottled water. Jiro was a big-box shopper, stocking up for the big earthquake or another future disaster to befall Los Angeles County.

As they slowly approached the garage, Mas heard the officers position themselves, their rifles cocked and ready. His legs felt so
darui
, weak, that he thought he would collapse in the middle of the driveway.

“Mr. Sanjo—” Alo called as they stepped into garage. He then peered up the stairs leading up to the second floor. “Why don’t you come down so we can talk?”

“Arai, come up.” Mas could hear Anmen’s voice.

Alo led the way, hugging his body against the wall up the stairs. He reached the second floor first, and Mas could see him raising his arms in surrender. Mas then emerged in the doorway. Anmen, still in the same clothes he had slept in, was standing with a gun to Jiro’s head. Jiro’s lip was swollen as if he had been banged in the face a few times. Mas looked down the hall to the living room, where Juanita and G. I. sat in chairs, duct tape wound around their mouths, arms, and legs. Even from that distance, Mas could see Juanita’s eyebrows. They said it all. She was afraid. And also mad as hell.

“I didn’t want to kill him,” blubbered Jiro. “Mas, tell him in Japanese. I was trying to stop Randy from killing.”

“
Damare!
” Anmen whipped the back of Jiro’s head with the gun. He pushed Jiro down to his knees onto the hardwood floor. “I saw this man with my nephew. Lying there in his blood.”

Then why didn’t you say anything? Mas thought. But he knew the answer. Anmen was a wanted man. “
Honto, yo
,” Mas said to Anmen in Japanese. “He speaking the truth. Randy the one who was going to commit murder.” It all made perfect sense to Mas now. The knife. Randy’s special request—no, demand—for Kinjo and Son. The premeditated murderer here was not Jiro, but Randy. “He going to kill Kinjo. For getting his father in trouble.”

Anmen’s eyes remained frozen on Mas’s face. He understood Randy’s hatred. Because he held the same hatred himself. “He couldn’t have done that because of me,” Anmen murmured.

“What?” Mas asked.

“I told him that Kinjo had been the one who got his father in trouble.”

Mas took a deep breath. By giving his nephew this information, Anmen had launched his revenge. But it had boomeranged, and led instead to his nephew’s demise.

“We get you a
bengoshi
, lawyer. Good one. Number one best.
Ichiban
,” Mas added for good measure.

“Why don’t you put down your weapon, sir, and we can all talk this out,” Alo said in his calm, soothing voice.

Anmen was obviously distressed. His hands were shaking, and the gun along with it. It was only a few inches from Jiro’s throat. One slip of his hand, and Jiro’s head would be shot off. The detective extended his arm as if to shield Mas from any oncoming gunfire. The arm moved ever so slowly toward the sock with the hidden weapon.

“Sanjo-
san
,” Mas called out loudly. “
Da-me
. No more. This has to stop. You have another nephew.
Ikiteru
. He alive. He just lose
oniisan
. You can’t do this to him.”

Anmen’s eyes softened. Perhaps the mention of a big brother made Anmen think of his own. The gun then fell on the hardwood floor, and Anmen hid his eyes in the crook of his arm.

Alo pulled the gun away from Anmen’s feet and then quickly secured Anmen’s wrists with heavy-duty plastic ties. He pushed Anmen forward to the balcony and waved his arm, signaling that he had caught his man. The police officers then swarmed into the town house like worker ants.

Mas watched as an officer took custody of Anmen. From the balcony, Mas could see Anmen’s head being pushed down into the back of a patrol car. A wire cage separated Anmen from the front seat. From this moment on, he would have to get used to looking at the world from barred windows and fences.

Back in the living room, some officers were delicately removing the duct tape from Juanita’s and G. I.’s faces, arms, and legs.

Juanita was the first one to be set loose. “Mas, you were unbelievable! You handled it like a pro. Better than a pro, even.”

G. I., meanwhile, was more concerned about Jiro, who was being led down the stairs. “Wait, that’s my client. I need to talk to him in private.”

He called Mas over to stand watch by the bathroom door, which was in the second-floor hallway. “Stay close to the door, Mas. Don’t let anyone come near,” G. I. said before he and Jiro disappeared inside.

Mas felt silly standing guard. The town house, including the bathroom door, was made of flimsy material. Mas could hear everything, whether he wanted to or not.

“I don’t know how all of this happened, G. I.,” Jiro was saying. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It happened so fast. In a split second. I tried to stop him. But he was out of control.

“It all started in Vegas after he won the jackpot. I told him not to buy any knives there. Would only lead to trouble. But he said that he needed self-protection. From what? I was so worried that I called Brian and told him to get to the mainland, fast. I told him that Randy was losing it again.

“And then, when we got back to L.A., Randy got that call from that shithead Anmen, looking to fleece him out of his jackpot money. Goes out. And when he comes back, he’s loaded. You were out meeting with a client, but I heard it all. He says his money’s finally safe, out of his hands. And then he keeps talking about Kinjo. Kinjo, Kinjo, Kinjo, he says. If Kinjo took his father away from him, he would take him away from his son. I thought I’d talked him out of it, but then at the party, I heard the name of the band, Kinjo and Son. I knew that Randy was up to no good.

“I confronted him in the bathroom at Mahalo’s, and that’s when I saw the knife poking out of his shirt. I knew what he was up to. I told him that he was crazy, that I was going to tell you what was going on.”

“Shit, Kermit, why didn’t you?”

“G. I., you’re the only one of us who made it, man. Randy looked up to you. He told me if I said anything to you, he would never forgive me. And I couldn’t have other people see Randy as being bad or evil. He wasn’t, man. Just lost.”

Mas didn’t hear anything for a while. Just a catch of a throat like a hiccup. And then the door finally opened.

“Remember, let me do all the talking,” G. I. whispered to Jiro. “Don’t say anything to anyone.”

Mas clenched his false teeth. He disagreed with G. I. There had been too much silence. It had to finally stop.