Snakeskin Shamisen

by Naomi Hirahara

  “Come ova,” Mas said after relating the sketchy details of Randy’s death and the mysterious snakeskin shamisen.

  “Orai, Mas, we be there.” Before Mas could ask about “we,” Haruo had clicked off.

  Forty minutes later, Haruo was walking up Mas’s driveway. And sure enough, right behind him, clinging to his hand and wearing a knit cap, was his girlfriend, Spoon.

  “Hello, Mas.” For someone with such a narrow face, Spoon didn’t have a matching thin oshiri. She often wore bulky sweaters, which didn’t do her figure any favors. Mas would, of course, never say a thing to Haruo, because, well, there were limits to every friendship, especially comments about a lady friend’s behind.

  Haruo had brought supermarket donuts adorned with a red sticker: DAY OLD/HALF OFF. Mas didn’t mind eating day-olds, and even applauded Haruo’s thriftiness. He knew that Haruo was barely surviving on his Social Security and the little he made at the flower market; Mas was always worried that Haruo might someday succumb to his gambling addiction. Hopefully, with Spoon in the picture, the odds of that would be slim to none.

  Mas poured some ground coffee into his drip coffeemaker and joined Haruo and Spoon around his kitchen table. He reported what he’d heard at G. I.’s house, that Randy Yamashiro’s throat had been sliced open with a bayonet. A bayonet, Mas had once learned on a television show on the Civil War, was a type of katana, a knife that sat atop a soldier’s rifle. In fact, during World War II, farm wives in Hiroshima had fashioned makeshift bayonets on agricultural equipment to ward off the threat of the barbarians, the Americans, who turned out to be not so barbaric at all. Spoon was apparently surprised that Mas could provide wartime details so nonchalantly, as if he were ordering a cheeseburger with fries.

  “Mas and me, weezu seen our share of dead people,” Haruo told her as if it were something to be proud of.

  Spoon shook her head back and forth. “I can’t even imagine,” she said. “I would be having nightmares every night.”

  “Mas does. I hear him whenever weezu go to Vegas. Cries like a baby in his sleep.”

  “Orai, Haruo.”

  “Unn. Unn.” Haruo was apparently trying to re-create one of Mas’s night terrors. Haruo closed his good eye while his left one remained half-open. He shook his long white hair from his face, revealing the knotted scar stretching from his left forehead down to his chin. Mas knew that most people would have averted their eyes at this point. But Mas never turned away from Haruo. He figured the scar was part of his friend, like it or not. Why make a big deal out of it?

  “Enough,” Mas finally said. He knew that Haruo was just showing off in front of his lady friend. Even Spoon gave Haruo a sharp jab in his ribs.

  Haruo quit shaking and patted his hair back over his scar. “Orai, Mas. Weezu listening.”

  Mas cleared his throat. “I callsu you ova here to find out whatchu rememba—yesterday’s party. Figure youzu there before I come, maybe youzu see sumptin’ I don’t.”

  Haruo and Spoon exchanged quick looks. “Well, Spoon and me were talkin’ about dis on our way ova here.”

  “Nani?” Mas waited.

  “Dat Randy seem so sad.”

  “Didn’t seem like he just won half a million dollars,” Spoon elaborated further. “He didn’t look us in the eye. Didn’t smile. G. I. seemed happier for him than he was himself,” she continued, reinforcing Mas’s previous hunch.

  Mas asked them if they had met Jiro.

  “No, dunno Jiro. So many people at dat party. Maybe Tug and Lil rememba. Youzu gonna see them tomorrow, right?” During the past two years, the Yamadas had had Mas over for dinner every other Monday.

  Mas directed the conversation back to the party. “Youzu no see a shamisen?”

  “Just on stage,” Haruo said.

  Mas felt the top edge of his dentures with his tongue.

  “What’s a shamisen?” Spoon asked.

  “Plays music. Like banjo,” Haruo explained.

  “You know, I did see someone with that kind of instrument. I think a hakujin fella.”

  “Hakujin? Not too many hakujin ova there. Maybe somebody’s husband?” Haruo asked.

  Spoon chewed on the tip of her index finger. “I was buying some peanut butter mochi from the cashier to bring back for my granddaughter. And this man came in, bringing in that banjo thing. He left it in the corner, in back of the register, and covered it up with his jacket. I don’t think anyone else saw him with it.”

  “Toshiyori? Or young?” Mas asked. His heart began to thump so fast that he began to feel blood pulse up to the tips of his ears.

  “You know, I really can’t remember. All I know is that it was someone different. Someone who didn’t match.”

  Mas pressed down on his left eyelid with his index finger. Somebody not matching could definitely be a distinguished-looking hakujin in a polo shirt. Somebody who was a judge.

  Mas knew that he should probably clear his next move with that girl PI. But at times like this, you couldn’t waste time asking permission to do something. If he had called home and included Chizuko in his decision to put two hundred dollars on a long-shot horse, Popping Paul, in the third race at Santa Anita, he might have lost the opportunity to win three grand—his all-time high in gambling winnings. And because he had not consulted with Chizuko, he didn’t have to tell her about the rolled-up Ben Franklins that he had hidden in different parts of the garage: in the bottom drawer of his toolbox; inside a stack of gray, black, and red duct tape; in an empty box of cigarettes; and finally in the nozzle of an extra garden hose. He could have never imagined that one day Chizuko, fed up with their leaky, worn hose in the backyard, would take it upon herself to replace it with the extra.

  Aiming the nozzle at the vegetable garden, she had been shocked to see a projectile of hundred-dollar bills land in her cherry tomato vines. The jig was up, and the money was given over to Chizuko—all except for the stash in the Marlboro box. Every businessman, even a small-time gambler, needed capital to reinvest in his trade.

  It only took Mas ten minutes to get to the Parkers’ house. It was located just south of Caltech, some kind of technological university frequented by pale hakujin and Asian men and a handful of women who all wore the same kind of uniforms—monotone T-shirts and jeans. The tree-lined street was empty as usual, typical for a Sunday. During the week-days, the only people you’d see were the gardeners working beside their trucks and the maids walking either to or from their bus stops. The landscaping in front of the Parkers’ white wood house had changed. The bushes had been removed to make way for agapanthus plants that looked like giant lavender dandelions. Rows of red, peach, and yellow roses were enjoying their final bloom before being clipped for the winter months. Bunches of sky-blue hydrangea, the delicate petals yellowing, seemed on their last legs. Mas was somewhat happy to see the imperfection; he could only imagine what hell the Parkers were giving the new gardener for that.

  As he walked up the driveway, he was surprised to see an old gold Mercedes-Benz parked on the other side of their gate. The Parkers had just purchased that car when Mas had worked for them twenty years ago. Mas could tell that it was still in pristine condition; he didn’t think of the Parkers as being sentimental types, so he figured that they were rich tightwads. Hiroshima people, in fact, were known as tightwads themselves—whenever other Japanese spoke of their frugality, they balled one hand into a fist to represent how the Hiroshima folks would hold on to their money. Upon seeing the two-decade-old Benz, Mas thought the Parkers deserved a two-fist ranking.

  Mas pushed back his Dodgers cap and rang the front doorbell. He felt quite pleased that he was at the front door instead of the back. He was no longer a hired hand; nobody could tell him where to stand.

  He saw an eye through the little glass window in the door. “Who is it?” came a muffled female voice from the other side.

  “Mas. Mas Arai. Gardener from long time ago.”

  Locks were turned up and down the door, which finally swung open,
revealing the trim figure of Mrs. Parker. Her hair was still dark brown, no doubt due to the help of a beauty parlor. She had a spray of wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, which surprisingly made her more attractive than in her younger years. She seemed more lived in, comfortable with herself, like a well-maintained car seat in a classic automobile.

  “Mas, how are you?” she said. “Edwin mentioned that he had seen you recently.”

  “Good,” Mas lied. Good, bad, it really didn’t make a whole hell of a difference. “Mista, judge, here today?”

  “Oh, no, I’m sorry. He’s gone golfing, his Sunday-morning ritual. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  Mas blinked. He couldn’t come right out and ask, What was Judge Parker doing with a shamisen in Torrance? “My friend put on dat party in Hawaiian place,” Mas finally said. “Just checkin’ if judge didn’t leave anytin’ behind.”

  “Oh, I heard about what happened at the restaurant. Terrible, wasn’t it. Edwin has already spoken to the police. Is that what you were concerned about, Mas?”

  Mas was struck by how silly he was to have come to the Parkers. Of course the police had already gotten to the judge; he had been the highest-profile guest there. And why would Judge Parker be carrying around a shamisen, anyway? Before the party, he had probably never seen one before. Bakatare, bakatare, he cursed at himself. He was starting to feel angry that G. I. had put him in this position in the first place.

  “Do you live in the same place? Can I have Edwin call you?”

  “Ah, no. Orai, orai. No big deal.” Mas slid away from the door. “Sorry to bother.” He almost tripped down the porch stairs on his way out. He realized later, as he rubbed his bum knee, that he wouldn’t have almost fallen if he had just gone to the back door as usual.

  Mas knew that he had to come clean to the girl PI when she came over that night. Juanita was less than pleased. “Why did you go there, Mr. Arai?” Juanita paced on the linoleum floor in Mas’s kitchen. It was close to eight, already pitch-black outside, and a breeze blew through old wind chimes Chizuko had bought in Solvang, causing them to tinkle like shards of broken glass.

  “Dis lady saw a hakujin wiz a shamisen. So I go ova to ask,” Mas repeated.

  Juanita opened her mouth so wide that Mas could see the filling on her back molar. She then snapped closed her mouth in defeat. “Edwin Parker,” she said after taking a deep breath. “The judge on the JABA board, right?”

  JABA? Sounded like a children’s comic book character.

  “You know, the Japanese American Bar Association.”

  Mas remembered Judge Parker mentioning that group. “Yah, how come he wiz dat group?”

  “You know, I asked G. I. the same question a while back. I guess Parker’s always felt close to the Japanese. Something about his old-time neighbors being Nisei. And, of course, he’s done a lot on behalf of redress.” Redress was shorthand for “redress and reparations” for those like Tug and Lil, who had been locked up during World War II without being charged with any crime. Tug spent a year in camp, before shipping out to fight for the same country that had imprisoned him.

  “She couldn’t say one way or anotha who she saw.” Mas didn’t know how good Spoon’s eyes were. And she hadn’t even known what a shamisen was. “Could be some otha hakujin man. Maybe singer wiz shamisen group.”

  “Well, I’ll check over the guest list. In the meantime, I’ll get a photo of Judge Parker—there must be something over the Internet. We can confirm if he’s the man your friend saw.”

  Spoon’s not my friend, Mas wanted to say, but that was beside the point.

  “Maybe she can at least verify that the sanshin she saw was the same one left by Randy’s body.”

  All this detailed work was giving Mas a mean headache. He didn’t mind tending to an overgrown bush, but to have to keep returning to people and having them recount their observations was too mendokusai, too troublesome, for Mas to deal with. Juanita must have sensed his bad attitude, because she said, “Listen, Mr. Arai, if this is too much for you, you can back out at any time.”

  Mas realized that was Juanita’s unspoken desire, but that just made him dig his heels in more. “No, I do it.”

  “You have to be totally straight with me, even about the little things.” Again, just as Detective Alo had said, report on the details.

  “Orai.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yah,” Mas said. Anything to keep the girl quiet.

  Mas walked Juanita to her Toyota truck.

  “Dunno too many women with picku-upu,” Mas couldn’t help but comment.

  “Trucks are very handy—as you know, Mr. Arai. You can easily hide dead bodies back there.”

  It was Mas’s turn to open his mouth. Juanita let out a long laugh that seemed to bounce off each metal garage door down the street. “You’re too easy,” she said, opening the driver’s-side door and getting in. She then proceeded to make a U-turn on McNally Street. Mas turned back to his house and then heard a loud boom, like the sound of a shotgun. It had only been the backfiring of an older German car, which was speeding down the street and now practically sitting on the Toyota’s tail at the stop sign. It was past twilight. Mas couldn’t tell if the car was gold or yellow, but it was definitely a Mercedes-Benz. They both made right turns, one after another, and Mas was worried. “Sonafugun,” he muttered. He went inside and found Juanita’s cell phone number on her no-nonsense business card.

  “Mr. Arai,” she answered her phone, surprised. There was a lot of static on the line, and Mas could barely make out her voice. “Something wrong?”

  “Where are you?”

  “On Fair Oaks. Near Old Town. What’s up?” Old Town Pasadena was a tourist area full of lights and pedestrians. Juanita would be safe from there to the freeway.

  “Some crazy driver back on McNally. Checkin’ youzu orai.”

  “Just some impatient asshole. Lost him a few blocks ago. Why?”

  Mas breathed easy. Why would a judge be following Juanita like a no-good spy? Didn’t make sense. “Nutin’. I talk to youzu tomorrow.”

  Mas hung up the phone. Maybe he should have said something, but he felt like a fool. He didn’t want to be like a worrywart old woman, jumping at every backfiring car and concerned about whether young people were wearing a jacket on cool autumn nights. But then again, he had told Juanita that he would report everything, even the tiniest of the tiny. He glanced at his Casio watch, held around his wrist with twine. Only ten minutes had passed, and Mas had already broken his promise.

  chapter three

  The next day was Monday, the beginning of Mas’s workweek, if you could even call it work. He only had ten customers, or two customers a day. His first customer of the week was Mr. Patel, a skinny East Indian man who owned a chain of teriyaki bowl shops in San Gabriel Valley. At one time, after he bought out his partner’s share of the company, Mr. Patel had said that he wanted to rename his eateries “Mas’s,” but Mas told him that was a bad idea. “Think itsu Mexican food,” he told Mr. Patel. “People get confuse.” Mr. Patel backed down, deciding on the name “Crickets Teriyaki” instead. But he insisted on calling his star menu item—the jalapeño teriyaki bowl—Mas’s Special, because it had been Mas’s idea to combine the two flavors in the first place.

  Mr. Patel had been married twice, and his grown children had left the house. These days, besides his restaurants, his children were his aging Shar-Pei dog (could an animal acquire more wrinkles?) and his collection of curved knives, displayed on the living room wall in his Arcadia home. Mas was staring at one now as Mr. Patel sat down to write him a check. He must have been staring at them too hard, because Mr. Patel commented, “You a fan, Mas?”

  “Excuse?”

  “Swords. The Japanese are the king of them. You must have some bit of samurai in you.”

  Mas doubted that he had any drop of samurai blood. Neither did many of his Japanese friends, despite their claims to have a direct lineage to those Japanese warriors. Alas, mo
st of their ancestors had been peasants stuck in the rice fields. But what was wrong with being a plain old farmer? Mas wondered. In some ways, it took more guts and strength to stand out in the humid heat, swatting away mosquitoes as you pulled out green rice stalks, than to wander along dusty roads, carrying around an oversized katana.

  But with Randy’s death, swords were definitely on Mas’s mind lately.

  “These are kurki, the weapons of the Gurka.” Mr. Patel pointed to his knife display. Noting Mas’s blank stare, he added, “The Gurka were warriors from Nepal who fought for the British in World War Two.”

  Mr. Patel was an expert on sharp blades, so he might have some insight into the one that had killed Randy. “Knowsu someone killed with knife. Right through here.” Mas traced the side of his neck with his right hand, which still stunk of rose fertilizer.

  “What kind of knife?”

  “Ba-yo-net-o. Dunno who do it.”

  “Hmm. If the victim was killed with a bayonet, they must have been fighting in close proximity.” Mr. Patel tore out his check from his checkbook. “Hand-to-hand combat—the ugliest kind of fighting.”

  Mas left Mr. Patel’s with a dull pain in his stomach. Picturing dead bodies diminished Mas’s appetite, and he skipped lunch. By five in the evening, his stomach was jumping with hunger. But Monday was dinner-with-the-Yamadas night, so at least he would be ending his day with a home-cooked meal.

  As he entered the Yamadas’ dining room, Mas was surprised to see four place settings, rather than the usual three. Stinky Yoshimoto, another Pasadena gardener, was sitting at the table. Mas didn’t know why Stinky had been invited. He didn’t travel in the same circles as the Yamadas. Neither did Mas, but their daughters, who had gone to the same preschool, would always tie them together. Those same daughters were now both in New York City: Mas’s Mari, a sometime filmmaker, wife of a giant hakujin gardener, and mother of three-year-old warubozu, little troublemaker; and Tug and Lil’s Joy, who didn’t seem to be bringing her parents much joy these days. Mas had heard various rumors about Joy from the Pasadena gardener grapevine, but they weren’t worth checking out with Mari. None of his business, thought Mas. Young people lived their lives as they saw fit. But he was still well aware of his own character weakness: although he didn’t like to spread gossip, at times he didn’t mind listening to it.