The Case of the One-Penny Orange: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Two) (3 page)

After Beckman left, Masuto continued to study the portrait for a while. Then he wandered around the back room, stared at the stamps in the locked cases, and went through the two drawers in the small desk. There were two ledgers, a large general cash book, and a smaller book. The larger book contained day-to-day transactions, but nothing under twenty-five dollars, as Masuto noted. In the smaller book were names and a sort of code mark next to each name, no identification of stamps and no prices. Not surprising, Masuto decided, in a man who must have had many cash transactions and who would have used any means he could to avoid paying taxes. There was also a comprehensive international stamp catalog.

Masuto put the ledgers and the stamp catalog under his arm, made sure the outside door was latched to lock, closed it behind him, and walked over to where Officer Cutler stood next to his patrol car. There was still a small crowd of the curious on the sidewalk, a KNX mobile unit parked behind Cutler's car, and Hennessy of the Los Angeles
Times
and Bailey from the
Examiner
. Both reporters blocked Masuto's way, pleading for something more than they had.

“You're only two blocks from the station,” Masuto said. “Get it from the P.R. there.” Then he told Cutler to leave, and picked up his own car and drove to the station.

He sat in Wainwright's office, waiting for the captain, who was with the city manager and the mayor, and when Wainwright returned his scowl was even more deeply etched than usual.

“Murder,” he said, “is all right in East Los Angeles, in West Los Angeles, in Hollywood, and in the Valley. Not in Beverly Hills. For a half hour I was lectured on the impropriety of murder in Beverly Hills.”

Masuto nodded sympathetically.

“Well, goddamn it, Masao, what have you got?”

“An interesting day. A robbery where nothing was taken and a murder where nothing was taken.”

“The hell with the robbery at the Briggs home! What about Gaycheck?”

“They are both of interest. A day is a contrivance.”

“I am not interested in Oriental philosophy.”

“That's a pity. Now about Gaycheck — he was shot at close range with a small twenty-two-caliber weapon.”

“So Baxter informed me,” Wainwright said. “Twenty-two short, from what they call a purse gun, probably a Smith and Wesson. The bullet went through the brain and lodged in the back of the skull. What else?”

“By someone he knew. No sign of a struggle, no sign of any resistance. Someone raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, then grabbed Gaycheck and eased him down to the carpet. That is why, purse gun or not, I'm not going to assume it was a woman. Gaycheck must have weighed at least a hundred sixty pounds. It would have to be an extraordinary woman — cool enough to deal with a corpse, strong enough to handle the body.”

“What about the next of kin?”

“None. A man alone. Did we check his prints?”

“Nothing at the F.B.I. or L.A.P.D.”

“Interpol?”

“I thought of that. We sent them a Telex a half hour ago. What about this man Haber?”

Masuto nodded thoughtfully. “He intrigues me. He overperformed, vomiting, hands shaking. He's an eloquent liar. There's a safe in back of the store, and he denies knowing the combination. I think he's lying. I also think he could make an excellent guess at the murderer. He may know why Gaycheck was killed. He put on a show of going to pieces at the sight of the corpse, yet he's cool enough to play his own game. He lives on Lapeer, in West Hollywood. I would put a man on him.”

“What kind of a safe?”

“Stayfix.”

“All right. We'll have them send a man down in the morning to open it. And I want this cleaned up, Masao — quickly and efficiently.”

“By tomorrow, no doubt.”

“Don't put me on, Masao. This is no casual street gunning. We got leads and we got connections.”

“And we also have a very cool and very self-possessed killer.”

“That's what you draw your pay for.”

“Thank you.”

The door to Wainwright's office opened, and a girl entered with a sheet of yellow paper, which she handed to him. “Telex, Captain, from Interpol.”

He read it and then said to Masuto, “You never know.”

“Gaycheck?”

“His name is Gaylord Schwartzman — captain in the SS, fourth in command at Buchenwald, wanted by West Germany, East Germany, Israel, and France, disappeared in 1944, reported at various times in residence in Brazil, Argentina, and Canada.”

“But not in Beverly Hills.”

“No, not in Beverly Hills.”

3

ISHIDO

Masao Masuto lived in Culver City, and for those unfamiliar with the geography of Los Angeles it may be said that while Culver City is only a few minutes by car from Beverly Hills, by property values and population it is a continent away. Masuto's small, two-bedroom cottage was on a street of small cottages, differing only in the lushness and perfection of the shrubbery in front and the garden in back; for when he was not a policeman, when he was off duty, Masuto's world was rather simple and contained. He had a daughter, Ana, aged seven, and a son, Uraga, aged nine, a wife, Kati, and a rose garden where he spent many pleasant and contemplative hours. The rose garden, surrounded on three sides by a wall of hibiscus, contained a world of forty-three different rose bushes, ranging from antique cabbage roses to ultrasophisticated, hybrid, scentless black and purple modern miracles of horticulture. Masuto knew each plant, its strengths, its weaknesses, its moment of bloom, and he was not beyond trusting that in their own way the plants knew him.

His wife, Kati, had been raised in the old-fashioned way. She was a small, lovely, timid woman, and although she had been born in California, she had led a sheltered life. She did not drive a car. Her ventures on foot to the supermarket and the few other places that demanded her personal attention were undertaken with trepidation. Her home was her world, and she lived there in constant anxiety about the strange and violent profession her husband pursued. It was a world she knew only from his reports of his work — carefully censored.

When he came into the house this evening, she greeted him with restraint, yet with the relief that was always evident. His bath was ready. He greeted his children, spoke a few appropriate words to them, bathed in steaming-hot water, then slipped into the kimono Kati had ready for him. Then he went into the tiny screened-off area that was his meditation room.

As a Zen Buddhist, he tried to find time for some meditation, regardless of how much his day pressed upon him, forty-five minutes if possible, and at least a few minutes if no more than that was available. He knew that five minutes of perfect meditation accomplished more than an hour of struggling with his mind, trying to tame an un-willing beast. Now he sat cross-legged for thirty minutes, then went to his wife.

They had tea, sitting on two cushions with a small, black enamel table between them. Masuto honored the pouring and drinking of tea in the old way, and Kati waited for him to speak about his day.

“A man was murdered,” he said finally.

Kati shook her head in horror and sympathy. She never understood how this man, who was her husband, could live and work with murder.

“I don't judge, but he was a man who was responsible for the deaths of many innocent people. Death waited a long time before it welcomed him.”

“Did he suffer?”

“Less than those whom he killed,” Masuto replied.

“Then something else troubles you. You are troubled.”

“Oh, yes.” He smiled. “But you must not be troubled. It's a small matter and very puzzling. Postage stamps.”

“Postage stamps?”

“About which I know absolutely nothing. Not the stamps one buys at the post office to mail a letter, but stamps that people collect with greed and passion.”

“But Uraga has a stamp album, which you bought for him. He bothers everyone for the stamps on letters from Japan.”

“Of course,” Masuto remembered. “And you recall why I bought it.”

“The packet of stamps that he received as a gift from my kinsman, Ishido. How simple. If you would know about stamps — then go to Ishido. They say that his stamp collection is worth many thousands of dollars.”

“Not so simple,” said Masuto. “I would have to humble myself, and that is something that does not come easily to me. Ishido despises my birth, my ancestors, and my occupation.”

“No,” Kati protested weakly.

“He is Samurai. My father was a gardener. He has never forgiven you for marrying me, and he has never forgiven me for being a policeman.”

“That is in your mind, not in his. You forget that he has lived in California for the past thirty years. He is not bound by the old ways. I have heard him speak highly of you.”

“And we have never been guests in his house. In all the years we have been married, we have not been guests in his house.”

“And did you invite him here?”

“Who am I to invite Ishido to my home?”

She refrained from observing that, for a sensible man, he could be both stubborn and foolish; she simply said that not only Ishido was proud, then followed it with that very Japanese expression, “So sorry, dear husband.”

Masuto was silent all through dinner. When he was silent, the children were silent. It was not the most pleasant dinner. When he had finished eating, he rose from the table, went to the telephone, and dialed a number. Kati listened.

He spoke in Japanese, and Kati smiled slightly. The servants in Ishido's home spoke little English.

“I would speak with Ishido Dono. My name is Masao Masuto.”

A pause. He glanced at Kati, and she stopped smiling.

“A thousand apologies, Ishido Dono. I interrupt you at the worst of moments.… You are too kind. I am thoughtless, but this is a matter of my work and I need your assistance and your wisdom.… Of course. In one hour. A thousand thanks.”

Masuto put down the phone and said to his wife, “I will thank you to make no comment on what I have just done.”

“I love you very much,” she said. Then he smiled, and the children began to chatter.

Bel Air, while a part of Los Angeles, is if anything even more self-contained and more packed with wealth than Beverly Hills. It has its own private police force, which is called the Bel Air Patrol, and it has in its few square miles more castles, keeps, and baronial halls than one would find in a hundred miles of the River Rhine. Ishido's home was high on a hill, and as Masuto drove that night up the winding road that led to the place, he reflected as so often before on the oddity that was America, where a samurai, once at war with these people, could in the same lifetime dwell in peace and luxury in their very midst, both welcome and respected. “Well, it is as it is,” he said to himself, which is a very Zen comment.

The single-story house was Japanese in style, surrounded by a wall of hedge and brick, glowing through its translucent walls. The doorbell was an ancient Chinese gong, and Ishido himself, clad in a black silk kimono, opened the door, a particular gesture of welcome. Masuto felt abashed by his own stubborn pride.

Ishido was a small man of about sixty, slender, with a round, moonlike face. “So pleased, so delighted,” he said, speaking in Japanese. “My kinsman honors my poor, humble home.”

“No, the honor is mine,” Masuto replied in Japanese, conscious of his bad accent but not to be outdone. “I am overcome. I do not know how to thank you for your graciousness.”

“My home is yours. You have been too long a stranger.”

Once inside, Ishido switched to English. He had a slight British intonation and almost no accent. He ushered Masuto into his living room, which was rather large, about thirty feet by twenty. It was furnished — or better said unfurnished — in the Japanese manner, with four splendid painted screens, cushions on the floor, low tables, a room for himself and his family. His study was in the Western manner; but it was a mark of consideration to take Masuto in here.

“You have a problem,” he said. “I am pleased. It has brought you to me.”

“I hesitate to burden you with it.”

“Is it police work?”

“Yes.”

“How fascinating! Tell me about it.”

“A man was murdered today. I am afraid that murder is my major province. You know I am chief of homicide in Beverly Hills.”

“No. I didn't know. Fascinating. Who was the victim?”

“His name was Ivan Gaycheck.”

“Gaycheck? Really.” Ishido's moon face remained expressionless.

“I see you know him.”

“I know him, but without pleasure.”

“Have you dealt with him?”

“Once. I found him rude and unpleasant. You know, Masao, his name is nondescript — Ivan Gaycheck. It means nothing, but it suggests a Slav or a Hungarian. He was a German.”

“Indeed? How do you know that?”

Ishido smiled. “I am right?”

“Yes.”

“His accent. I have an excellent ear for accents. Tell me, how did death find him?”

“Someone he knew well shot him in the forehead with a small twenty-two-caliber pistol.”

“Ah.” No judgment. Watching his kinsman, Masuto read nothing. Well, a man like Ishido was not to be read easily.

“Your conclusions are part of your police work?”

“Hardly a very brilliant part,” Masuto said. “We have the bullet and there was no sign of a struggle. The shot was at close range.”

“And since he dealt in stamps, you postulate that his death might be connected with stamps. And since I am a collector, you come to me.”

“But with apologies. I come only for information.”

“Nonsense, Masao — if you will forgive me. If a stamp is central to this murder, then every collector of consequence must be suspect. A collector is a unique type of personality. I have heard that you are a Buddhist?”