Snakeskin Shamisen

by Naomi Hirahara

  “How—”

  “I’m not sure how he found out that I had been his father’s attorney. He wouldn’t say. I think that all of this was new to him, that he needed to absorb everything as soon as he could. It was unbelievable—he hadn’t even known that his father had a different last name. I told him all that I could. That his father had been a target of political propaganda. He was no more a threat to American security than I was. He hadn’t even been an official member of the Communist Party; he had just gone to one meeting. And most of those people were there because they were antifascist, more than anything else.”

  Mas couldn’t follow all that the judge was saying, but got the impression that Sanjo was innocent, at least of being a threat to national security.

  “So whysu he end up dead?”

  Parker shook his head. “Yes, that was tragic. But there was nothing I could have done. I was out of the picture by then. Mr. Sanjo had terminated my services.”

  “Fire? Makes no sense.”

  “His brother Anmen was behind it, I believe. A week later, the coroner’s office contacted me to identify the body. The whole family, including the brother, had moved without telling anyone their whereabouts. I did think Isokichi’s death was suspicious. The INS agent who had arrested him previously, Henry Metcalf, was missing. Quite a coincidence, I thought.”

  And yet you did nothing. Mas’s eyes must have betrayed his thoughts, because the judge sighed and stroked his lined forehead. “I had other cases, Mas. I didn’t have time to run around playing Hardy Boys.”

  Mas didn’t quite understand Parker’s reference to the Hardy Boys, but felt the hiniku, sarcastic jab. Mas obviously did have time to waste, because here he was, playing around and asking questions. All this didn’t explain how the shamisen had gotten into Randy’s possession. “Youzu bring the shamisen to party.”

  Parker nodded. “I had hung on to it all these years. The police released Sanjo’s possessions to me after he was cremated. I was hoping that I could return it to his family someday, and Randy asked for it.”

  “He knowsu about shamisen?”

  “Yes, again, I’m not sure how. But I assured him that I would get it to him as soon as possible. And then he proposed that I bring it to G. I.’s party. I didn’t mention all this to you, Mas, because I thought that it was none of your business.”

  Fair enough. Mas could accept that. “Somebody else’s shamisen.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about that. It had been in Isokichi’s possession when he was arrested.”

  “Yamashiro found dead with shamisen.”

  Judge Parker’s body stiffened as if he were posing for an official photograph in the Los Angeles Times. “I hope you’re not suggesting that I had anything to do with Mr. Yamashiro’s death. I barely knew him. But I must say that I was surprised to see Mr. Kinjo performing at G. I.’s party.”

  “You knowsu?”

  “Well, not personally. But I remember him well. He was the one who informed on Mr. Sanjo fifty years ago.”

  chapter nine

  Mas kept thinking about what Judge Parker had said: Kinjo sensei had been the informant who had led to Isokichi Sanjo’s arrest. Kinjo, who had denied that he knew Randy Yamashiro. Kinjo, who had been at the Hawaiian restaurant the day Randy had been killed.

  Mas was so jumpy that he almost ran over a Chinese woman at the crosswalk on Hill Street in Chinatown. She had been pulling a metal handcart full of green vegetables from the local farmers market. Mas was late to brake, causing the woman to run, her cart overturning and releasing about half a dozen bok choy onto the street, a tumble of edible bowling pins.

  The handcart of food reminded Mas of dim sum. Dim sum, with its steaming-hot round tins transported in carts pushed by uniformed women, was high-pressure dining. In dim sum, you had to make a snap decision right then and there. Yes, pork shumai. Yes, taro cake. Yes, egg custard tart. If you didn’t respond fast enough, the cart would pass you over, leaving a wash of regret in your stomach. In honor of snap decisions, Mas made one in the Ford. For his own peace of mind, he needed to find out the truth. And he didn’t want to burden Juanita with the latest information until he had turned over all the bowls in the shell game. So, instead of north, he found himself going south: back to the house of the shamisen sensei.

  Kinjo sensei’s street was full of cars; Mas had to drive two blocks away to find a parking space. He noticed a familiar car, a dusty old Cressida—a dime a dozen, Mas thought to himself. Something was going on in the neighborhood, and Mas quickly discovered that it was happening at Kinjo’s house. The security gate and door were closed, but Mas heard music coming from the back. He walked around the back of the house, where windows revealed a bunch of black and white heads. Once Mas stood on his tiptoes, he saw what the crowd was there for: six shamisen players, including Kinjo and his son. Mas had seen this before—Mari’s tiresome piano recitals, where one child after another banged on the keys, producing a sound that could be called anything but music.

  He couldn’t just charge in there and confront Kinjo. He had no choice but to wait. He leaned against the corner of the outside wall and wished that he had a cigarette to pass the time. He didn’t want to smoke it, just finger it, hold it, smell it. Even the dead man, Randy, had understood Mas’s compulsion. Hadn’t he had an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth during the party?

  Standing out there alone in the driveway, Mas couldn’t help but listen to the music. Before, he had been definitely a shakuhachi man more than anything else. The sound of the bamboo flute was a searing wind that blew in and out the cracks of his heart. It was as if his own breath were going into the shakuhachi, leaving behind a hollow husk, his pitiful body. The shamisen was different. The twang of the instrument first bit into the back of his jaw like ice on a filling. But then the notes quickly wove a pattern that moved from his head to the pit of his stomach. The shamisen music made his insides dance. Even listening to Kinjo and company’s music now, in spite of the anger he felt toward the shamisen instructor, Mas felt like his soul was elevating and almost leaving his body.

  After a couple of songs, the music stopped and Mas heard clapping. The black and white heads were moving; people were getting up from their folding chairs. There must have been some food, because people were gravitating to a corner like summer flies to a picnic table.

  Mas contemplated his next move. He still might have to wait some more for the crowd to thin out. He raised his heels again, and he was surprised at what he saw: Jiro, in green scrubs again, talking to Kinjo. What did those two have to say to each other? They didn’t travel in the same circles, with the exception of that tragic day at Mahalo. Mas was looking around the corner to the back stairs when the door opened, revealing a Nisei couple accompanied by the skinny Santa Claus man Mas had seen here last time, when Kinjo had been giving lessons. Now the man wore black pants and a turtleneck.

  The three must have just wanted fresh air or quiet, because they didn’t come down the stairs; they stayed on the top step, balancing paper plates on the wooden handrail. The couple spent a good five minutes oohing and aahing over how impressed they were by Santa Claus’s performance. Mas grimaced. It was like those Japanese straight from Japan who were impressed by a hakujin saying konnichiwa instead of hello. It wasn’t rocket science or brain surgery.

  The couple addressed the man as Mr. Halbertson. Mas closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on their conversation as hard as he could.

  Mr. Halbertson was telling them that he had fought in Okinawa during World War II. The three of them were eating some kind of cake, and the man paused to swallow. “It was a nasty time, but I just fell in love with the Islands. And the sanshin, of course.”

  The couple again oohed and aahed in affirmation. They were doing the classic aizuchi—literally “hammering togetherness”—which in Japanese was hai, “yes,” or sodesuka, “is that so?” These Nisei, on the other hand, did their aizuchi in the form of saying “really” and “that’s right.”
It didn’t mean that the listener was agreeing, only that he or she was actively hearing. So Mas hoped Mr. Halbertson wasn’t under the delusion that he had a real fan club in the couple.

  “How long have you been playing?” the Nisei woman asked.

  “Not that long, in fact. About three years.”

  “But you do it so well. Will you be performing this Saturday at the Okinawan Association?”

  Mas couldn’t hear Mr. Halbertson’s response. It must have been yes, because the wife said, “Oh, I’m so looking forward to it. We could listen to the sanshin every day. It’s medicine for us. I think that’s the secret to the Uchinanchu living so long. Has nothing to do with eating pork and vegetables.”

  “How did you meet Kinjo sensei?” the husband interjected. Mas could have pounded the man’s back right then and there—that was the exact question he wanted answered.

  Mr. Halbertson hesitated—maybe just a couple of beats, but enough so that Mas knew that he was considering feeding them a lie. “Arkansas,” he finally said. “I worked a stint in the Jerome camp after I came home early from the war. I was recovering from a minor injury—I’m the type that needs to keep busy.”

  “Oh,” the couple said in unison, probably mulling over how they felt. Jerome brought back memories of incarceration. Mr. Halbertson didn’t seem like a teacher or social worker type. Mas could easily picture him as a scrawny, beardless Santa Claus hefting a rifle in a guard tower.

  There was a lull in their conversation. Mas then heard some voices out front, the jangle of keys, and the opening and closing of car doors. Before Mas could duck behind a car or garbage can, he was staring at the pure-white crown of Kinjo sensei, who apparently had come out to move his car. “A-ra—you again. What are you doing here? This is a private event,” Kinjo said in Japanese. Instead of the worn fleece vest and patched pants, Kinjo sensei was wearing a turquoise kimono.

  “Izu come to talk. About the dead man.”

  “I told you everything I know. Nothing. Just that the sanshin is mine. My son is hiring a lawyer to get it back from the police.”

  “Maybe Judge Parker will helpsu.”

  Kinjo’s face suddenly lost all expression. His eyes darted back and forth as if he could find the answer in the bushes or his pine tree. His savior came in the form of his son, dressed in a black kimono-style top and hakama, the same clothing he’d had on at the Hawaiian restaurant. He squeezed in between two cars to get closer to Mas.

  “This is private property. You need to leave now, or I’ll call the police,” said Alan. Long gone was his ingratiating smile, perhaps reserved for women like Juanita.

  “Judge Parker, rememba him?” Mas repeated to Kinjo.

  Kinjo’s eyes took on a strange color, like that of a diseased animal.

  “Who’s Judge Parker?” Alan asked.

  “Parker knowsu Kinjo real good. And Kinjo tomodachi of Randy Yamashiro’s father.”

  Randy’s name sparked interest in the faces of both Kinjo and Alan. Mas didn’t keep them waiting. “Isokichi Sanjo.”

  “Sanjo no friend of mine.”

  “Dad—you don’t need to say anything.” The ever-faithful son again.

  “Youzu in same band.”

  “He’s a dorobo,” Kinjo spouted. “A thief.”

  Mr. Halbertson emerged from the back of the house. “Don’t tell him a thing, Kinjo.” His tone of voice surprised Mas. It was authoritative and demanding. No way to talk to one’s sensei.

  He then called out to no one in particular—the Nisei couple, perhaps—“Call the police.”

  Mas felt a sense of calm wash over him. Maybe it had been the music that made him feel stronger. He wasn’t going to leave unless Kinjo explained what exactly he had done to Sanjo in the fifties.

  Mas decided, as Tug would say, to go for broke. He thought of the worst thing a man could call another man—a dog, an informant, a back stabber. “You inu,” Mas stated.

  “Who are you calling inu?”

  “You tellsu INS dat Sanjo aka. I knowsu. Judge Parker tell me.”

  “Sanjo was aka. I saw him myself at that meeting.”

  “Then youzu aka too. Whysu you at the meeting in the first place?”

  Kinjo’s face looked frozen again, as if he were stuck in the past and couldn’t move forward.

  “You make deal with government, desho? You finger Sanjo, and then you free.” Mas kept going. “But Sanjo neva come back after they get him. He found dead at coroner’s. And now his son dead too.”

  The backyard had gotten stone quiet; even the birds seemed to know that they shouldn’t hang around anymore. The Nisei remained silent on the steps, still holding on to their empty paper plates. Mas didn’t know if they had heeded Mr. Halbertson’s demand to call the police. The couple had been joined by at least half a dozen other guests who were all the type to slow for auto accidents—not to help but just to survey the damage.

  The son, meanwhile, had also gotten as still as a statue. Mas could see a couple of veins were distended on his forehead, and his hands were shaking. Pure rage, Mas first thought, but then quickly realized that Alan was actually scared out of his mind.

  Mas figured that if the police had been called, they were going to take their time. A crazy old Japanese man crashing a shamisen concert obviously wasn’t a big priority. Still, Mas knew that he shouldn’t push his luck, and he left, walking two blocks down and finding refuge back in his Ford.

  He hadn’t even started the engine when a car pulled up next to him. It was the Cressida, the passenger window wide open. Jiro was in the driver’s seat, a mean scowl on the frog face of his. “What the hell are you trying to do, old man?”

  Mas could ask Jiro the same question. “Youzu big fan of shamisen?” he said sarcastically.

  “This isn’t a joke. It’s no game. Randy’s dead, and you have to honor that. Honor his memory.”

  “G. I. tryin’ to findsu his killer.” That in itself seemed pretty honoring.

  “He needs to be at peace now. He can’t be, with all of you running around.”

  Mas would usually be the first to agree with that philosophy. But something still didn’t sit right with him. Why was Jiro talking to Kinjo? “Why, then, youzu runnin’ to Kinjo?”

  “Just go back to your plants, Mas. You don’t know what’s going on.” Jiro revved his engine and sped forward down the residential street. Then what was going on, and how was Jiro involved?

  As Mas turned the truck’s ignition, he was surprised to see that his hands were trembling. What had possessed him to stand up to the shamisen instructor, and do it in front of an audience, anyway? Perhaps, ironically, it had been the effect of Kinjo’s music, music that he had inhaled, absorbed into his blood and bones. He thought more about Jiro’s accusations. Was he in a sense dishonoring Randy’s memory by looking into his family’s past? Mas cringed to think about strangers investigating his own legacy after he died.

  Confused, Mas needed an emotional release. No tobacco—that was his vow after his grandson had recovered from a serious case of jaundice. So instead, it would have to be alcohol. He didn’t know if Peruvian beer would be any good, but he was willing to give it a try.

  It wasn’t that hard to trace Antonio’s. The main hub of Juanita’s family restaurant chain was on the second-busiest street running east and west in Hollywood, north from Sunset Boulevard. It was in a mini-mall, next to a Spanish-speaking podiatrist’s office, rental mailboxes, and a Laundromat. The parking lot was full, but on Mas’s third circle, he was finally able to find a spot next to a beat-up Nissan sedan and an abandoned laundry cart.

  Like Juanita, the restaurant was nothing fancy, but up-front and full of color. There were posters of Peru—yes, even Machu Picchu—on the walls, weavings of dancing men in costume, a mirrored wall to make the space look double its size, and a large menu above a register. A sign by the door stated SEAT

  YOURSELF, so Mas chose a small two-seater in the corner.

  A glass of water came immediately
, and then a laminated menu folded into thirds. Mas looked for any sign of Juanita, but the help were mostly young Latino men in white shirts and black Dockers. Before Mas could take a good look at the menu, a pile of octopus tentacles, cooked shrimp, whitefish, and scallops was placed on his table. He was ready to protest, but it was Juanita, her hair pulled back in a rainbow-colored headband and wearing a full-length red apron.

  “I saw you come in,” she said, slipping into the chair across from him. “Peruvian ceviche—you’ll like it.”

  Mas felt so glad to see Juanita that he almost forgot about his day’s adventures.

  “I guess you’ve heard about everything,” she said.

  Mas wanted to ask about her father, but didn’t want to open that door if there wasn’t good news. Juanita was at her family’s business anyway; no place for such conversations. Surely she would bring up any new developments on her own.

  Mas had his own news to tell. “Buncha things happen.” He revealed that Sanjo, too, had faced possible deportation. “He gotsu lawyer, but had to get new one. Parker.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Judge Parker was Sanjo’s lawyer. Same Parker wiz shamisen.”

  “So that’s how they’re connected.”

  Mas also added that Kinjo had been the informant in the Sanjo deportation case.

  “That SOB,” Juanita murmured. “I wonder if he knew that Randy was Sanjo’s son.”

  Well, if he didn’t before, he knows now, thought Mas, wondering if he should have even gone to the recital in the first place. “Jiro at Kinjo’s,” Mas said as an afterthought. “Tell me to mind my own bizness.”

  Juanita frowned. “Kermit’s been busy. He was over here too. Asked me to drop the case completely, for Randy’s sake. It doesn’t make sense. Randy’s dead. How can anything help him now? Why is Kermit on this personal mission for us to stop investigating?”

  “Hidin’ sumptin’?”

  “Most definitely.”

  Mas tried to dislodge a piece of chewed octopus stuck on the back of his dentures with his tongue.