This Scorching Earth (41 page)

Ahead were the lights of the Motor Pool, brilliant in the surrounding darkness. Individuality, Tadashi decided, was a luxury. Could one be an individual when there were mouths to be fed at home, when his job and not his soul was the most important thing there was? His own feelings seemed so unimportant by comparison that he was ashamed to think of them. He must think of others' feelings.

One of the first of whom he must think was Mrs. Ainsley, alone in the dark. In the middle of the ruins, she was miles from anything American. It would be hours before she could find her way back. He pitied her, out there alone with the ghosts of the dead, and he hoped nothing happened to her. And one more reason he should help her was that she was insane—he was sure of that. Why else should an American woman want what she had wanted from him?

The humiliation of telling what had occurred would be extreme, but he must do it. First, they could rescue the lady. Second, if they knew the truth, perhaps the final delinquency report would be withheld. Then he must go home. His wife would be very worried.

He parked the sedan. The guard at the door took the unsigned trip ticket in to the blond lieutenant. Tadashi followed him in, cap in hand.

The lieutenant looked at the trip ticket. "This is just your hard-luck day, isn't it, Tadashi?" he asked. "I don't know how you're going to get out of this."

Tadashi bowed, then turned to the Nisei sergeant and bashfully held his hat with both hands. He talked for a long time, and finally the sergeant understood.

The sergeant turned to the lieutenant. "Boy, he's gotta wild one! Says some dame made a pass at him."

"Geisha or what? What was he lugging around in that sedan anyway?"

"No, sir. An American girl."

"No kidding!" said the lieutenant and smiled. "Is he lying?"

"I don't think so, sir," said the sergeant. "He's all upset. He's too embarrassed to be lying."

"In that case," said the lieutenant, "the CID ought to be interested in this."

"Boy, they had a busy night, eh, Lieutenant?" said the sergeant.

"You can say that again."

"Yeah, like that major in Special Services. They're out dredging the Palace moat right now. Seems he was a real big operator. Them MP's in the jeep a while ago was telling me. Dollars, you know, and one of his boys got flighty and tossed a big hunk of scrip smack in the Emperor's front moat. They got a boat out there now and are fishing around for it. That's one fish I wouldn't mind hooking myself."

The lieutenant was filling out a form. "That's the truth," he said, then looked up. "Well, it takes all kinds—this is a good Saturday-night average for any man's army." He looked down at the report. "Here's another little job for the boys. He let her out at her house?"

"Hell no, she's out in that old ex-whore-district out near Fukagawa."

"How appropriate."

"If the little lady wanted fixing up, how come she started on the nationals I wonder," said the Nisei sergeant. "Hell, the whole Motor Pool is just ready and willing."

"You can count me out," said the lieutenant. "I don't think I'd be interested. By the way, did he get in?"

"Says not,"

"Probably didn't. He looks awful upset."

Tadashi turned to the sergeant and asked a quick question.

"Wants to know about his job," explained the sergeant. "If he gets a DR, it'll be his third, and you know the commander."

"Well, it's up to the Major actually, but if we get this dame and if she corroborates his story, he probably won't get the ax. So far it's just his word, but if she admits it, then he won't get anything except possibly the Silver Star for gallantry in action."

The Nisei soldier snickered. "Boy, I'd like to see the dame that would own up to a thing like that. Had it all planned too, looks like. Liked the looks of our boy here, called him up, and they had a little date. Some fun."

The lieutenant looked at Tadashi. "Well, he can always join the militarized police force. They're looking for ex-servicemen. Particularly officers. You know, he used to be a lieutenant once." He smiled at Tadashi, who smiled back; then he sighed, saying: "Well, there but for the grace of god go I."

He closed the paper folder. "We'd better call the boys and get a search party out for our little lady in distress."

"Boy, what a bitch!" said the sergeant. "I can't understand how anyone can do anything like that—and a married woman too." He shook his head wisely. "She's just plain nuts."

"Oh, I don't know," said the lieutenant. "It's funny but she probably had good reasons for what she did. They all do. All these Saturday-night folks. They think about whatever they do beforehand, all of them."

The sergeant snickered and shrugged his shoulders.

"Anyway," said the lieutenant, smiling, "after something like this I like to remember that these folks are only a small percentage. I like to think about all the thousands of others we didn't hear anything about this evening. The peaceful citizens, you know. But these others—what do you suppose makes them like this over here? If they'd stayed back home, it wouldn't have happened probably. I don't think it's being American. I think it's winning the war that did it. ... Well, we'd better inform our MP friends—and Mr. Ainsley too I suppose."

They both looked at Tadashi. He was looking at the floor, his cap still in his hands.

"These poor Japs!" the lieutenant said, shook his head, and picked up the phone.

The Nisei soldier looked at him warily, then smiled and showed his white teeth. "Yes, sir," he said, "that's what we used to say back in Seattle." He laughed. "These Japs!"

"How you spell that?" asked the corporal on night duty. "A -1 - N, yeah, I got it, S - L, oh, Ainsley? Why n't you say so." His white helmet was too big for him, and he kept pushing it up to get the phone next to his ear. "CID? Oh, won't have to call them. They're all here, really cluttering up the place. We got the Big Rowboat Mystery under way across the street, in the moat. You hear about it? Yeah, big deal. Everyone comes in here to warm his hands after paddling around out there. All the brass, you know." He lowered his voice discreetly, and continued. "Yeah, all big boys and more shavetails than you can shake a stick at, more goddamned lieutenants—What's that?" There was a long pause. "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, Lieutenant. Yes siree! Oh, no, sir. No. Thank you, sir."

He hung up the phone, his face red, then importantly beckoned two MP's over to him and began explaining.

In the other corner of the room stood a number of officers, some civilians, and one private. One of the civilians was talking to a colonel.

"I know, sir, but this man has already confessed. There is no mistake about it. I know he was your PIO, sir, but this has ceased to be the affair of Special Services, if you'll excuse my saying so. It belongs to us now."

"He is still under my command, sir," said the colonel, "and I intend to see that he and this soldier here have proper defense. It may be no longer an affair of Special Services—but it is certainly an affair of mine."

"I know how you must feel, sir, finding something like this in your command. But at the same time you're making it very difficult for us. Your actions, if I may say so, are quite unprecedented."

The colonel pulled his moustaches, then said: "I can well believe that they are. Still, do you think that I am wrong in demanding a fair trial for my men, in helping them in their difficulties."

"But they are guilty, sir," said the civilian.

"That remains to be proved," said the colonel.

"Look at it this way, sir. Don't you yourself believe them to be guilty?"

The colonel looked first at the major, then at the private, then at the civilian.

"No," he said slowly. "I believe them to be innocent."

"But the evidence—" began the civilian.

"Evidence be damned!" shouted the colonel and all the others looked at him. Then the civilian sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and moved away.

"Sir," said the private, "you oughtn't involve yourself like this."

The colonel looked at him, smiled, and put his hand on his shoulder. "Michael," he said, still smiling, "what else have I left to involve myself in? But I do wish you'd told me the truth, back in the theater."

"Why don't you just go home, sir?" asked the major. "I got myself into this, and I got him into it too. O'Hara's in on it too. I guess I got it coming."

"Oh, I'll go home," said the colonel, and the major looked at the floor. "But, first, you see, I've got to help my men. That is what an officer is for."

A lieutenant-colonel looked out of the window and said: "Well, shall we go back to the moat? Really, soldier, you might have picked a more convenient place to throw it."

Slowly they all went outside, and the MP behind the desk said: "So you go get her husband and then go out and pick her up, OK?"

"Us boys get the juiciest assignments," said one MP.

"Yeah, like our loco friend a while back."

"Who was that?" asked the MP behind the desk.

"He's in the guardhouse now. Got a big red nose. Funny as hell to look at. Charge was molesting the nationals. Got looped and then got into some kind of fight. Says he was just trying to be friendly and got a real crying jag on, tears running all over that big raspberry nose of his. They'll probably section-eight him out fast I bet."

"They'll stockade him even faster. Mac doesn't like the boys beating up his Gooks any more."

It was near morning when Gloria reached her hotel. She was so tired she could scarcely walk. Her fur coat was heavier than sin. There had been not so much as a pedicab until she reached Ginza. By that time she had walked for hours. She'd walked in great circles over the burned rabble, terrified by the sound of the wind and dead leaves. When she reached the deserted streets, she'd taken wrong turnings, endless alleys which led only away from where she wanted to go. Finally she'd found a bridge, and then a pedicab. She told the startled driver the name of her hotel, and then fell asleep. He woke her at the hotel. She had no yen, so gave him all her cigarettes.

"No yen," she repeated to herself, but it wasn't so funny. She was too tired to laugh, and she was still frightened. An MP jeep had wailed behind her in the dark. One of her endless circles had taken her back to the spot where the sedan had left her, and she saw their lights in the ruins. Squatting down behind some rubble, she heard them calling: "Mrs. Ainsley! Mrs. Ainsley!" Well, at least the driver hadn't told her real name; maybe he didn't even remember it.

Another jeep drove up, and she heard Dave Ainsley's voice speaking in a rather dazed way to another occupant of the vehicle: "But I really don't understand it at all. What could she have been doing here? We were just ready to go to bed when she suddenly remembered something she'd forgotten to tell Madame Schmidt. Has anyone gone there to try to find her? I kept telling you, you know. What would she be doing here? Why won't any of you tell me?"

Well, thought Gloria, I guess I'm not the only one who'll have some explaining to do. Because Dottie's no more at Mrs. Schmidt's than I am—as Dave will discover soon enough. But she didn't feel at all guilty at having gotten Dottie into a mess of her own. It had to come sooner or later. Davie-boy couldn't go on forever living in a private heaven.

Then when the jeeps moved on, she'd run so fast in the opposite direction that she'd broken one of her heels. It was only now as she started into the hotel and thought of her appearance that she realized it.