by Howard Fast
“Thank you. I am most grateful and very hungry, since I missed my lunch somewhere during the day.”
“So? Indeed? So very busy, yet you find time to come and chat with this old Japanese gentleman.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Ishido operated a back-hoe?”
Naga stared at Masuto for a long moment, and then he shook his head sadly. “Granted that you were born in this country, and granted that your Japanese is abominable, and granted that you have absorbed barbarian habits—granting all this, one would imagine that you still retain some comprehension of the fitness of things.”
“We are not speaking of the fitness of things. We speak about the fact that I came to you as a policeman and you saw no reason to tell me that Ishido operated a backhoe.”
“Perhaps you should not have come as a policeman, Masao.”
“Oh?”
“Think about it. I am Kati’s mother’s brother. How would you characterize us in old Japan? Shopkeepers, perhaps. Ishido is tied by a marriage to Kati’s father, so she is not of his blood. Ishido is of seven generations of Samurai. His father was an advisor to the old emperor. When Ishido was twenty-five years old, he was a colonel in the imperial army. He was decorated, honored; and when finally Japan fell, he could not remain there, shamed, dishonored. You would not understand why he came here; it’s an old form, the vanquished honoring the victor—a very old and honorable Japanese gesture, but one that evoked nothing from the conqueror who couldn’t care less whether this young Japanese Samurai starved to death or not. Whereupon, I gave Ishido a job.”
“And he learned to operate a backhoe?”
“Nephew, I did not conceal this from you. You never asked me, and it was so many years ago that the circumstances are most vague in my mind.”
“But he did operate a backhoe?”
“Yes, as I recall. It was an opportunity for him to earn a bit more. Only for a while. Ishido was very clever.”
“And did you perhaps rent this backhoe, driver and all, to Alex Brody when he built the house on Laurel Way?”
The old man knit his brows. “I don’t know. Did I rent it or just lend it for a few days? It was so long ago.”
“And Ishido with it? Come, dear uncle, try to remember.”
“Possibly.”
“You should have told me.”
“You are chasing ghosts, Masao. The past is dead. We who are Japanese should know that better than others. How could we live if the past were not dead?”
“I am not Japanese,” Masuto said unhappily. “I was born here in California. My wife was born here, and my children here.”
“No, you are not Japanese,” Naga agreed. “But in a manner of speaking, Ishido is your kinsman.”
“I’ll be back in a moment,” Masuto said. He walked to his car, and from the trunk rack, he took the photocopy that the F.B.I. had sent to him. He brought it to Naga.
“You know this man?” he asked Naga.
“A thing like this,” Naga said, blinking at the photocopy, “it could be anyone. It was so long ago—”
“Or someone.”
“How did you come by this picture, Masao?”
Masao shook his head. “I can’t explain that now. But when I leave, honored uncle, there is no need to telephone Ishido and warn him. He knows what I know.”
“I have not spoken to Ishido in more than twenty years,” Naga said sadly. “I have no love or affection for him. But we are kinsmen. Of course, I am speaking out of a lack of knowledge. Mr. Lundman and his wife were killed, a terrible thing. Ishido did not do that.”
“And the skeleton under the swimming pool?”
“Who knows what went on there? Who will ever know?”
“You told me the grave could not be dug with a backhoe. It is your business to know such things. Now I must ask you again—could the grave have been dug with a backhoe?”
Still studying the photo and without looking up, Naga said, “This is a very strange picture indeed, Masao, not of any person, but—” He switched into Japanese. “A thing lurks in shadow and asks for recognition.” And then in English, “Is it not an article of your Buddhist thinking that the vibrations of the subject are in the drawing?”
“It is an article of damn nonsense!” Masuto said with irritation. “I asked you a simple question. Should I go elsewhere? There are twenty contractors in this city whom I can ask to join me on Laurel Way, and who will give me a plain answer as to whether that grave was dug with a backhoe.”
“Gently, gently, Masao,” the old man begged him. “Why such anger?”
“Because murder angers me.”
“All right. Listen then. Your twenty contractors could not give you a firm answer. If your backhoe had a ten-inch claw spread, then it could have gouged out the grave and made the final shaping easier.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that the other day?”
“You know why.”
“And what do you find there?” Masuto asked harshly, pointing to the photo.
“A resemblance.”
“To whom?”
“To a laborer, I think. It was long ago.”
“What? Or to Eric Saunders?”
“Not obviously. If I saw it somewhere, in a book or a newspaper, I would not think of Mr. Saunders.”
“But you do think of him now?”
“I don’t know—”
“Perhaps you have been thinking a great deal about Mr. Saunders?”
“Masao, Masao, we shelter our kinsmen when we can. I would do it for you. You would do it for me.”
“Uncle,” Masuto said with annoyance, “what kind of talk is that? Shelter a kinsman when he is hungry or cold, but a murderer?” He stalked over to the car, and this time he returned with the drawing the police artist had made under Dr. Hartman’s direction. “And this?” he demanded, thrusting the drawing at Naga. “This is not so long ago that your memory must fail you.”
“Am I a criminal that you speak to me so?” Naga asked unhappily.
“You are my revered uncle. But you must tell me the truth.”
“Yes, it’s Saunders. He had his face changed. I knew and Ishido knew—”
“Do you also know you are in terrible danger?”
“I am an old man. Each night I go to sleep with the knowledge that I may not awaken. I am not afraid of danger.”
For a long moment, Masuto studied his uncle. Then he asked, more gently, “What dealings did Ishido have with Eric Saunders?”
“I know very little of what went on there. I don’t even know how they met. I only remember that Saunders needed someone who could speak Japanese. There was a litigation of a landholding in the San Fernando Valley, land that had belonged to Japanese nationals and was seized by the government. I think it comprised eleven hundred acres. Saunders bought the land at auction, and then Ishido joined him to fight the litigation that the Japanese nationals brought against them. Eventually, they settled, and Ishido’s share was almost half a million dollars. That was the beginning of his fortune.”
“And the beginning of Mr. Saunders’s fortune?”
“No, he was already wealthy. The story was that he was a sort of cast-off son of an important British family.” The old man blinked his eyes and then stared at Masuto unhappily. “Of course, the story is a lie.”
“Yes.”
“And what happened at the hotel today?”
“How do you know about that?”
“As with all things today, Masao, it was on the air immediately. Is it connected?”
“Yes.”
The old man hesitated, then he said, “Be very careful, Masao.”
“I always am.”
“Don’t think of yourself as a kinsman. I assure you, they have stopped thinking of you in that fashion.”
“They? Why do you say they?”
The old man shrugged.
“Is there bad blood between Ishido and Saunders?”
“Why should there be?”
“I asked you.”
“Ah, so, of course. I would think not. From what my sons tell me, Saunders made it possible for Ishido to belong to the West Los Angeles Country Club. It is not a thing that pleases me, to see a member of the old aristocracy using influence to belong to a club where the only qualification for membership is to have money and to be neither Jewish nor Oriental nor black nor Mexican. I myself would have no part of such a place, but it was something Ishido desired.”
“But you say that he and Saunders have remained close all these years?”
“So I am told, so my sons tell me. In fact, I have heard that currently Ishido is engaged in negotiations with Tokyo Airlines for the purchase of some sixteen Saunders airbuses at a price of twenty-eight million dollars each—that is, acting for Saunders.”
“I feel like Alice in Wonderland,” Masuto said.
“Oh?”
“A children’s book.”
“Have I done something very wrong, Masao?”
“No—no, I think not, uncle.”
Chapter 14
THE GAME
PLAYERS
Kati knew and understood Masuto better than he imagined. She understood the strange psychology operative in a man who earns twenty thousand dollars a year to protect those who make two hundred thousand and even two million. Being a policeman in Beverly Hills is certainly somewhat different from being a policeman anywhere else, and being a Nisei only complicates it further. Yet Masuto was not judgmental. He had neither contempt for wealth nor admiration for wealth. As an abstraction, he saw neither virtue nor evil in wealth; it was simply a fact of the society he worked in. Yet tonight, as he dressed himself in a clean white shirt, gray flannel trousers, and his best blue blazer—indeed his only blue blazer—Kati noticed that he appeared even more unhappy than the approaching evening should have caused him to be. She watched him toy with his gun, trying to make the shoulder holster unnoticeable under the well-fitted jacket. The jacket was too well fitted. When he stretched it to button, the gun bulged wickedly.
“Will you need the gun, Masao?” she asked gently. “Surely in the West Los Angeles Country Club an occasion to use a gun is not very likely. And anyone will know you have a gun there.”
“Regulations—” Masuto sighed and put the gun aside. He selected a knitted black tie, thinking that he, like Ishido, was still a victim of the old ways. In all truth, he did not want the gun. The game precluded it.
“Masao, with a white shirt—you have nicer ties. This striped tie I gave you for your birthday and which you have never worn, well, it is much nicer than a black tie. You’re not going to a funeral.”
“No?”
“I haven’t seen Ishido for years, but I do remember how charming and bright he is. It should be an absolutely delightful evening, if you would only relax and allow yourself to enjoy it. Who did you say the other man was?”
“Eric Saunders.”
“I don’t mind a bit. It’s very old country, three men having dinner with no women, except geisha girls.” Kati giggled. “In the West Los Angeles Country Club, geishas. Can you imagine?”
“Not very well, no.”
“Oh, Masao, you are so somber.” Kati was tying the striped tie now. “No one ever takes me to such a place. If they did, I would be quite happy about it.” She tightened the tie fold. “There. That looks elegant. Have you ever been to the club before?”
“It’s not a place I frequent.”
“Then you must tell me all about it.”
Not all of it, certainly, Masuto thought. Not the way the car jockey at the club looked at his old Datsun. Masuto had forgone the small conceit of using his police identification card, and in any case, it would have been out of place there and would have attracted attention to himself. He simply drove up to the door, taking his place in the line of Rolls-Royces, Mercedes, Jaguars, Lincolns, and Cadillacs. If one can conceive of a car held at arm’s length, slightly off the ground, faced with pinched nostrils, then one can understand Masuto’s irritation—which he fought, telling himself, This is not the time or place for irritation. Soon, the game begins. Stay cool and steady. Which was commendable advice, since he had been fool enough to leave his gun behind—a fact which he was beginning to regret a great deal.
Ishido was waiting for him in the lobby, and he welcomed Masuto with great cordiality. “Indeed, nephew, I had thought that perhaps you might not come.”
“Why? When I face a killer, I have what I might call my moment of truth. They are few and far between.”
“And you are convinced that Eric Saunders is your killer?”
“You convinced me, Ishido-san.”
Ishido stared at him thoughtfully. Then he bowed slightly. “Come and meet him, Masao.”
Masuto followed Ishido into the dining room, a charming room done in the Spanish colonial style, the floor and walls tiled, a handsome fireplace at one end.
The headwaiter recognized Ishido, expressed pleasure at seeing him, and led him and Masuto to a table in one corner of the room. The man already seated at this table rose as they appeared and welcomed Masuto warmly. “I have heard much about you,” he said.
“And I about you, Mr. Saunders.”
They stood face-to-face for a moment, Masuto taller, leaner, younger—but also aware of the tremendous strength in the hand that gripped his. Saunders was built like a bull, the build of a man who is overmuscled but fights his weight successfully. For a man close to sixty, he appeared to be in marvelous physical condition, the skin tight around his face and neck, his stomach flat.
“Please, sit down,” Saunders said. Masuto seated himself, Ishido on one side of him, Saunders on the other. The headwaiter was hovering over them. “I ordered champagne,” Saunders said, and turned to Masuto. “You do drink champagne? Just a taste for each of us, a drink to whatever we drink to. I think we should drink lightly and eat lightly.”
“For the sake of the game,” Ishido said.
“Naturally,” Saunders said.
When the champagne had been poured, Saunders raised his glass, but no one spoke a toast, or cheers, or anything of that kind.
“I hear from Ishido,” Saunders said, “that you are a most unusual policeman. I would guess that you are studying my face with such intensity to see whether you can detect scar tissue or suture marks. But before we go any further, Masuto, I must ask whether you are wired?”
“And if I were, why should you imagine that I would tell you?”
“A sense of honor.”
“Honor?” Masuto asked in amazement. “You really confront me with a thing called honor?”
“I speak of you,” Saunders said. “Not of myself, not of Ishido. He tells me that you are a Zen Buddhist, that you practice meditation as well as the Okinawan art. If you tell me you are not wired, I believe you.”
“I am not wired.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
Masuto’s mouth was dry. He sipped at the champagne. Actually, he did not care for champagne, and he had little desire to drink with these two men.
“I am not asking for truth,” Masuto said. “To find truth between the two of you would be like seeking a lump of sugar in a pool of molasses. But you, Ishido, what advantage by lying to me?”
“Did he lie?” Saunders smiled. “Where does the truth end and a lie begin? Ishido said you very cleverly put together a picture of me, but that it did not resemble me at all.”
“Then you are Stanley Cutler?”
“No, no, no, Masuto. What a dreadful mess you have made of everything. Thirty years, during which I live my life and Ishido lives his life, and then a rainstorm and a Nisei detective on a small-town police force destroy everything. I am not Stanley Cutler, Masuto, I am Eric Saunders. I was christened Eric Arthur Sutherland Saunders, and I am the youngest son of the Earl of Hewton.”
“Then it was Cutler’s skeleton?”
Saunders laughed. “No, no, indeed.”
“I think we should order dinner,” Ishido said. “We will eat lightly, but we
should eat and preserve the amenities. What would your pleasure be, Masao?”
“Whatever you wish.”
“Surely you have a preference? Or is the company so unpleasant that you have no appetite?”
“The chicken, since you insist,” Masuto said, thinking that they were both quite mad. But then, are not all murderers quite mad, and might not one say that this madness had become the condition of a great part of mankind? They chatted over the food, hardly eating, only toying with the meal. If they meant Masuto to feel the strain, they succeeded, and finally, unable to contain himself, he asked them flatly, “Which one of you killed Stanley Cutler?”
“Why? Why, Masao?” Ishido asked him. “Thirty years. What good comes of this?”
“Let me explain,” Saunders said. “Since there is nothing you can ever do about it, since there is no way you can ever prosecute either of us, you should have your bone, the reward of the hunter. I would have rewarded you otherwise, but Ishido said no. Killing you would hardly be worth the price of Ishido’s enmity.”
“Hardly magnanimous,” Masuto said. “You still plan to kill me.”
“Who knows?”
“When dinner is over,” Ishido said, “you may leave here, and no harm will come to you. You have my word.”
“I am waiting for the explanation.”
“I created Cutler,” Saunders said. “He was killed in Burma. I was with him. I think I got the notion from his prints—or lack of them. Burned off in a flaming tank.” He held out one hand. “Doesn’t look much different, does it, but if you look closely, you’ll find no recognizable prints. I turned myself into Cutler. Oh, don’t think it was easy—it took months of planning, years to carry it out.”
“Cutler’s body?”
“I took his dog tags and blew his head off with a grenade. You have no idea how much confusion war engenders. We were of a size and he had no family, so I had the pleasant choice of being one of two persons, whichever I preferred.”
“You blew his head off with a grenade,” Masuto said. “Was he alive then, or was he dead?”
“Always the policeman. You want another murder to add to your list? I’m afraid I can’t oblige you. He was dead when I blew his head off. I got the job at Manhattan National Bank as Stanley Cutler.” He paused and smiled. Ishido took a cigar, clipped the end, and lit it. “Odd to think of it. I never fancied working at a bank, but embezzlement is so enticingly easy. Of course today with the computers everywhere, it’s even easier. When I finished the job and had soaked the money away here in Los Angeles as Eric Saunders, I simply put all that was Stanley Cutler, a few cards, one or two other things, down the toilet—flushed them away.”
