chapter twelve
Mas went home and played two rounds of solitaire, losing both times. Bad deck of cards, Mas thought, throwing the whole set in the trash. He didn’t know what to do with Alo’s information about the knife. He should tell G. I. Because G. I. was innocent, right?
It was only seven o’clock in the evening, but Mas got into bed. He thought of Gushi-mama’s roommate, how gray her face had looked from oversleeping. Mas was imagining his own face as a piece of overripe fruit, spoiling on the vine, when the telephone rang.
“Mas, Stinky.”
“Unn,” Mas grunted, waiting to be either mad or annoyed.
“Wishbone found out that the guy, Saito, has an account with the Japanese Credit Union in Crenshaw. He’s been sitting there every day, waiting for Saito to show up. I think something’s going to happen tomorrow. It’s the last day that the CD matures; he’s got to take it out or pay extra. And this guy isn’t the type to want to pay extra for anything.”
The phone began to crackle, but Mas ignored the noise. Was Homeland Security going to care about the comings and goings of a two-bit hustler like Wishbone? If they did, the country was really in trouble.
“Whatchu want me to do about it?”
“Go over there, huh? Make sure Wishbone’s okay.”
“Whaddabout you?”
“Bette has me on this painting project. Got out of it today, but don’t think my excuses will work tomorrow.”
“Well, I gotsu shigoto, too, tomorrow.”
“Go after work, then. Not working full-time, right?”
What did Stinky take him for? Some lazybones with nothing to do?
“He’s getting around with crutches. Even driving around with his bum ankle. He could get hurt, do you know what I mean? Just take a look-see, after your last job.”
Mas didn’t give a definitive yes or no, but Stinky knew what the answer was.
“Thanks, ne, Mas. You’re a good guy. Sorry for the stuff I’ve been saying about you.”
Mas didn’t care what kind of warukuchi, literally “bad mouth,” was coming out of Stinky, but he was kind of curious what it could be. Before he could hear any details, however, Stinky had hung up the phone.
Friday mornings were easy. First was a ten-unit condominium complex in Pasadena, not even a “mow and blow,” but a “shave and blow.” Shave off the ivy along a wall on the walkway and then a good blow from his gasoline-powered machine. Since the condos were in a business zone, it was legal to break out the blower, although some sleepyheads would sometimes yell out in protest before slamming their windows shut. The next and final job was a small, neat bungalow in north Pasadena, the home of an emergency room doctor and now his newlywed wife, also a physician. They liked to keep it simple—a manicured lawn and a passion fruit tree in the corner. Since they were either not home or sleeping during the daylight hours, it didn’t make sense to put too much time in the landscaping.
But today Mas spent extra time at the doctors’, just to spite Stinky. First of all, he had lunch, which he’d never done before. And then he hand-weeded most of the lawn, resulting in an old lady across the street coming over to ask whether Mas was taking any more new customers. “Gardeners today, all they do is zip in and out, use blowers when they’re not supposed to. What happened to a good old rake? Using your hands, not machines,” she rattled on and on.
Mas didn’t even bother to look at her. If she was so against machines, did she walk instead of drive? Use a washboard instead of the washing machine? Machines were good for the customer, but not the gardener. Besides, Mas knew that she would balk at his rates, even though he hadn’t raised them in ten years. If you want hand-weeding, it’s going to cost you money, obasan, he thought to himself. But these folks who wanted him to work extra never seemed to want to pay extra.
Mas pretended that he couldn’t speak English, and eventually the woman retreated into her house, going through her garage and apparently pressing a button to close her automatic garage door.
Mas finally got up, tossed the last of the weeds in his grass catcher, and dumped the contents into the doctors’ garbage can. Driving to the Japanese Credit Union in the Crenshaw District in Los Angeles, Mas hoped that the whole thing would be over. That Wishbone had caught his man and retrieved his money. Case closed.
But as he entered the thick of Haruo’s neighborhood—his duplex was only three blocks away from the credit union—Mas’s temples began to pulse. He parked the Ford on Jefferson Boulevard and saw that the case was indeed not over. Sitting in a lawn chair underneath an umbrella was Wishbone Tanaka. He was looking intently through a pair of binoculars toward the credit union parking lot across the street. He had a thin towel around his neck, a small vinyl cooler at his side. His crutches were leaning against the chair.
“What, you watchin’ the horses from here?” Mas asked.
Wishbone lowered his binoculars. “What are you doing here?”
Mas continued walking down the cracked sidewalk toward the bare piece of ground that Wishbone had claimed.
Wishbone moaned. “It’s that bakatare Stinky, right? I told him that I don’t need a damn babysitter. It’s because of him I’m out twenty grand.”
How about all the others who lost money? Mas thought. Wishbone had gotten a taste of his own medicine, and he obviously wasn’t feeling too well afterward.
“Any sign of da guy?”
“Nope. But he’ll be here. Believe me. Soon. It’s four fifteen, and the credit union closes at five. The guy won’t want to lose one bloody cent.”
“How much he got in there?”
“He told me fifty grand. And twenty of that is mine. He’ll be here; I guarantee it.” Wishbone held up the binoculars to his eyes again. Mas noticed a security guard standing in front of the tinted glass door. A couple of black men sitting outside a clothing store pointed fingers Wishbone’s way. For a guy trying to be inconspicuous, Wishbone was sure attracting a lot of attention.
“Guard ova there, don’t say nutin’ about youzu?”
“Came over here once yesterday. Asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was watching birds.” Wishbone gestured toward a couple of crows resting on a telephone wire next to a pair of ragged tennis shoes that were hanging by shoestrings that had been tied together. Bird-watching in Crenshaw? Didn’t make sense. It was like saying you were collecting butterflies in Watts. It was kichigai, or crazy, talk.
“What heezu say?”
“What can he say? Free country. This sidewalk is public. I’m not hurting no one.” Wishbone dabbed at his face with the edge of the towel as if he had been in an athletic competition. Obviously spying was taxing on the body. “Waitaminute. I know why you’re here. This is about that Sanjo guy you’re looking for.”
Mas did a double take. Were his ears acting up? Or had Wishbone said Sanjo?
“I heard all about it from Gushi-mama.”
“Gushi-mama in hospital.”
“Yah, I saw her there. After talking with her, I was able to put two and two together.”
Mas waited.
“Saito, this Saito fella I’m waiting for? He’s the same guy you want. His real name’s Sanjo.”
“Sanjo’s dead.”
“I don’t know. That’s all Gushi-mama told me. That she saw this Saito come to Keiro once. My Saito. But it turns out she remembers him from way back. Sanjo.”
Why hadn’t Gushi-mama mentioned this to Mas? Before he could quiz Wishbone more, the old man pointed a crooked finger toward the street. “There—there’s that SOB!”
A white car drove into the parking lot. It was one of those cheap soup-can rental cars. A man opened the car door and got out of the driver’s seat. He was short, but well built. Strong shoulders. He must have studied karate or judo when he was younger.
“Chotto, letsu see.” Mas nudged Wishbone for the binoculars. It took a couple of seconds before Mas could find the man through the binocular lenses. The man had puffy bags underneath his eyes, and a face that Ma
s had seen before. At Mahalo, Mas remembered. The man sitting next to him at the bar, ordering sake on the rocks. Now watching him carefully, Mas could see that the resemblance was unmistakable. Randy’s face, aged twenty years. Mas didn’t know if this was indeed Randy’s father, but it had to be a Sanjo, one way or another.
Wishbone pulled at Mas’s sleeve. “Wait until he gets the money out. No sense catching him before that.” He reached back for his crutches and hobbled onto his unsteady feet.
Mas was unclear what Wishbone expected them to do. After a couple of cars passed by, Mas helped Wishbone cross to the parking lot. The guard was up from his chair too. He wore a pair of sunglasses. A long club was attached on his belt.
“When he comes out, talk to him,” Wishbone said. “Whatever you do, Saito can’t get back into his car.”
Whatever you do? When did I come into the picture? Mas wondered.
And then, as if he’d heard his name, the man walked out of the credit union. “Go on, Mas, stop him. Stop him.” Wishbone practically pushed Mas forward.
Mas almost tripped on the asphalt. “Sanjo,” he called out. “We needsu to talk.”
Sanjo quickly got into the car, slamming the driver’s-side door closed. He revved up the engine, backed out, then sped toward the exit, barely missing Mas’s feet.
Wishbone had already positioned himself in front of the exit. “Stop!” he yelled, waving a crutch. Sanjo had no choice but to stop, unless he wanted to add a manslaughter charge to the other crimes he was piling up in L.A.
The guard ran out, his hand on his club.
Wishbone began banging his crutch hard on the rental car’s hood and then on the driver’s-side window. Bam, bam. The window was close to shattering when the guard pulled Wishbone aside and motioned Sanjo to get out of the car. As soon as Sanjo emerged, Wishbone swatted Sanjo’s hand with his crutch, causing him to drop his keys onto the ground.
“Hayaku.” Wishbone poked Mas. “Pick up the keys.”
Mas dutifully scooped up the keys without thinking.
A small crowd stood outside the credit union.
“Should I call the police?” a Japanese man in a suit asked the security guard.
“No, no police,” Wishbone said.
“No police,” Sanjo echoed.
Apparently Wishbone and his partner in crime had something in common: they liked to tell lies, and they were good at it. Both were laying it on thick with the security guard.
“Old friends, we’re old friends. Just wanted to get his attention,” Wishbone said.
“Yah, big mistake.”
The two men hugged each other’s head, two coconuts on a tree.
The security guard folded his arms and grunted. More bank employees were now outside, clutching paper bags and briefcases. It was past five, time to go home. A woman with big chi-chis, wearing a tiny T-shirt and tinier miniskirt, strutted into the lot and stared at the security guard. “What’s going on? You ready to go?”
The security guard looked at the two old men, then at his woman friend, and then back at Wishbone and his partner. “You guys handle your problems off of the bank’s property, okay?” he said, shooing them out of the parking lot.
“You drive his car,” Wishbone hissed in Mas’s ear.
“Where?”
“I don’t care. Just take us someplace where I can pummel this guy.”
Mas reluctantly got into the driver’s seat while Wishbone forced Sanjo into the back. Both Mas and Sanjo were unhappy with this new arrangement. The rental car was filled with rumpled clothes and fast-food containers. The man had clearly been living out of his car.
Sanjo’s spirit was now as flat as a pancake, like an old tire that had been punctured by a nail. He was empty of all energy or rebellion. He must have been tired of running.
“Where you taking me,” Sanjo said, more than asked.
Mas didn’t bother replying. He made a right out of the parking lot and then a left, two blocks down, to Haruo’s house.
“Mas, didn’t knowsu you gonna come by.” A lopsided grin on his face, Haruo held open his security gate. He must have just taken a shower, because his long graying hair was plastered against his keloid scar, resembling wet seaweed over barnacles. Badly equipped with an ancient fake eye, Haruo usually embodied the classic Ron-Pari look. That is, one eye focused on London; the other, Paris. Today his fake left was barely visible, as if it had left the map.
Before Mas could enter the duplex, Wishbone nudged his hostage forward with the back of his crutch. “Gotta borrow your house,” he said to Haruo.
“Hallo,” Haruo said, smiling at the stranger. “Hallo,” he said to Wishbone. “Yah, datsu orai. But Spoon and her family comin’ to pick me up for dinner, so you gotta be out of here by seven.”
Mas felt guilty bringing the two criminals to Haruo’s one-bedroom apartment, but he didn’t know where else to go. Haruo was Mr. Hospitality; he probably thought “borrow” meant “visit.”
Haruo had moved his persimmon bags into the house; they were lined up against the walls. “What’s this? Trick or treat?” Wishbone hobbled around the duplex with one crutch and peered into a bag. “Ah, trick,” he said, almost cackling. “No kid will want kaki for Halloween.”
“No, from my tree. Take some.” Haruo handed a bagful to Wishbone. With Wishbone’s hands full of persimmon, Sanjo thought it was an opportune time to make a run for it. He headed for the door, but Wishbone expertly caught the leg of his pants with a crutch. Sanjo fell forward and instinctively tucked his head, turning an ugly yet complete somersault on Haruo’s carpet. Mas’s hunch had been right. The man had gone through some martial arts training.
“You orai?” Haruo asked, helping the man to his feet and into a chair. “Whatchu doin’, Wishbone?” Haruo had finally realized that something was amiss.
Wishbone didn’t answer. He disappeared into the next room in an attempt to turn Haruo’s tiny kitchen into an interrogation room. With one sweep of his crutch, Wishbone cleared the card table of all condiments—soy sauce packages from the local Chinese restaurant, ketchup and mustard packages, salt and pepper shakers. He lifted Haruo’s high-powered flashlight on the floor and duct-taped it to the side of his five-foot refrigerator as a spotlight.
“Here, you, Saito, Sanjo—whoever the hell you are—come over here.” Wishbone finally directed Sanjo to sit down at the kitchen table.
Haruo walked into the kitchen and stared at his condiments strewn on the floor. “Whatchu doin’?” he repeated.
“Have to question our man here.”
“What kinds of questions?”
Mas finally had to step in when Wishbone tried to duct-tape the man’s wrists together. “Listen, Haruo, call G. I., will youzu?”
Thankfully, G. I. was home and available. While they waited for him to arrive, Haruo poured each of them a glass of 7-Up with ice.
“You from here?” he asked the stranger. By this time, Sanjo seemed totally deflated.
“Don’t bother asking, Haruo,” said Wishbone. “I’ll get the truth out of him.”
“You knowsu, I don’t think I wanna have sumptin’ like dis go on my house,” Haruo said. Mas was familiar with this tone of voice. Haruo was setting his “boundaries,” which Mas previously had connected with property lines, not invisible ones regarding what you want and do not want to do.
“Well, it’s too late, Haruo. We’re in, and we’re not going to leave.”
Just in the nick of time, G. I. appeared at the security gate. “What’s going on in here?”
Wishbone commanded G. I.’s attention, admitting everything, from first meeting Sanjo at a friend’s house, to the hatching of the stock market scam, to the scene at the credit union.
“He’s been calling himself Saito, but other people know him from way back as Sanjo.”
G. I. rolled up his long sleeves and leaned toward the man sitting at the card table. “What’s your real name? Sanjo?”
“Hai, Sanjo.” There was no doubt that Sanj
o’s English was poor. It was a wonder that he and Wishbone, whose Japanese was equally bad, could have communicated enough to hatch a scam.
“Mas or Haruo, one of you, get in here,” G. I. said.
Haruo pushed Mas into the kitchen.
“Find out who he is—”
“Namae. Whatchu name?”
“Saito.”
“That’s not his real name,” Wishbone interjected.
“Real name. Honto no namae,” Mas demanded.
The man grimaced as if he were holding something bitter in his mouth. “Sanjo. Anmen Sanjo.”
“Live in Rosu, L.A.?”
“Don’t live nowhere special,” he said. “Just go from town to town.”
“Ask him what he did with the rest of the money. We should have thirty grand more,” Wishbone spouted out.
“Okane. Where’s the rest of the okane?”
“All gone. I sent to Okinawa.”
“Sonofabitch,” Wishbone cursed.
Mas had his own line of questions. “How are you connected to Isokichi Sanjo?”
Anmen abruptly looked up, and Mas noticed that whites of his eyes looked yellowish. “My niisan.”
“Do you know Randy Yamashiro?”
“My nephew. I know that he’s dead. That’s why I haven’t left. I need to get the one who did it.”
“You did it, you double-crossing Jap!”
“Wishbone, yakamashii.” Mas tried to shut Wishbone up. G. I., meanwhile, sat cross-legged on the living room carpet, listening intently to Haruo’s shotgun interpretation. With Haruo continuing to whisper in G. I.’s ear, Mas asked, “Why you call Randy?”
Sanjo bent his head down. “I saw the article about him winning the money. I knew who he was. Thought maybe he could help me out.”
“By taking his money?”
“The money’s not for me. Anyway, I met with him on a Friday, found out he was kichigai. Like his head was on fire. He asked me how I could leave the family, abandon them. How I could cause so much trouble?” Anmen looked down at his hands. “Finally, I told him the truth.”
Snakeskin Shamisen Page 18
