The Little Tokyo Informant

by Andrew Rosenheim

  ‘What kind of trouble is he in?’

  ‘He isn’t. I’m a friend of his. We were supposed to meet up, but Billy didn’t show. I haven’t been able to get hold of him since.’

  The man looked dubious. ‘You want me to tell him you came by?’ he asked.

  ‘Please,’ said Nessheim and the man looked surprised.

  ‘Who do I say it was?’

  ‘Tell him Nessheim.’

  The man nodded. ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Sorry to trouble you.’

  He was halfway through the front door when the man called out. ‘You tried his grandmother’s?’

  What grandmother? According to the file, Osaka’s family was in Hawaii. ‘I don’t know where she lives.’

  ‘In Little Tokyo. Above a restaurant; a fish place. That’s why he moved out here – he couldn’t stand the smells. He said his grandmother didn’t mind it. She used to ask for the fish guts and use them as fertiliser for her window boxes.’ He gave half a smile.

  Nessheim nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said, thinking that there were quite a lot of restaurants in Little Tokyo.

  ‘I hope you speak Japanese.’

  ‘Like a native.’

  The man laughed. As Nessheim started to leave he added, ‘Or you could try Ferraro’s.’

  ‘The restaurant?’ A fancy place on Wilshire Boulevard, with a menu so expensive it didn’t have prices. It didn’t sound like Billy’s kind of place.

  ‘Yeah, but he doesn’t go there for the food.’ He looked at Nessheim meaningfully. ‘The game’s in the back.’

  Nessheim drove home and spent the afternoon in the relative coolness of his study reading What Makes Sammy Run, which had done the rounds of the Ink Well in spring. At 7.30 he ate a liverwurst sandwich and drank a bottle of beer. Then he changed into his best lightweight suit – a grey, double-breasted number he had bought after he’d been promoted to agent. Six years before, yet it seemed an age. He put on a white shirt with a semi-stiff collar and carefully tied his tie – a striped one, maroon and white. From the inner pocket of a jacket in his closet he unearthed a roll of fifty-dollar bills and peeled off six of them, which he folded in half and put in his trouser pocket. Then he went through his wallet, taking out his badge, Bureau identity card and driving licence, substituting a different licence with a Chicago address. He left his gun behind.

  Ferraro’s was not an average spaghetti-and-meatballs Italian joint. Its entrance was on Vine and had a wide yellow stucco front with smoked glass that allowed customers to look out, but did not extend the privilege in reverse to the hoi polloi on the sidewalk. There was a doorman and valet parking, but Nessheim put his car a block away. He didn’t expect to have to make a quick getaway but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  The doorman stood in front under an awning, wearing a full-length coat, which had gold-braided epaulettes on each shoulder, and a commander’s white cockaded hat. Nessheim walked past him, nodding politely. A neatly trimmed privet hedge ran parallel to the sidewalk, and when he came to a gap in it he went through the opening. Ahead of him stretched a colonnaded walkway, running along the side of the restaurant and ending at a squat single-storey annexe in the back, behind the restaurant kitchens.

  ‘Can I help you?’ It was the doorman. He was quick to have caught up to Nessheim so fast.

  Nessheim turned round and let the doorman scrutinise him.

  ‘I was told there was a game tonight.’

  ‘Are you expected, sir?’

  Nessheim forced a wry smile. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

  The doorman was shaking his head, so Nessheim reached into his jacket side pocket and brought out a fin. Folding it with his fingers he tucked it into the breast pocket of the doorman’s coat. ‘Jackson told me about the game.’

  ‘Jackson?’

  ‘Yeah. Tell them Jackson from the studio.’ He figured there had to be a Jackson at a studio somewhere.

  ‘Wait here a minute,’ said the doorman. He looked back at his post and swore. ‘Where’s that crazy carhop?’

  ‘Don’t worry. You go find him,’ said Nessheim.

  The doorman shook his head. ‘No can do. You better come with me.’

  They walked back to the entrance of the restaurant, where under the awning a lectern stood in a corner with a house phone and a drawer for the customers’ car keys.

  The doorman picked up the phone. ‘Susie,’ he said, ‘put me through to Ike.’ He waited a moment. ‘Hi, it’s Dave in front. I got a guy who wants to join the game. Says Jackson sent him.’ He paused. ‘That’s right – Jackson. From “the studio”.’ He paused again and eyed Nessheim’s suit. ‘Yes, he is.’ Then he hung up the phone. ‘You’re in,’ he announced.

  Nessheim went through the opening in the hedge for a second time and down the colonnaded walk, which had a line of stout agave in large pots on either side. He came to a large metal door; it looked heavy as a vault. Next to it he pushed the buzzer and after a moment the door swung open.

  ‘Come on in,’ a balding man in a tuxedo said. He looked like a maître d’.

  Nessheim stepped through the doorway into a large room that was bathed in golden light coming from two oversized chandeliers dropped from a high ceiling. There were perhaps two dozen people in the room. Closest to Nessheim, two men with blonde wives in tow were playing blackjack under the disinterested eyes of a pudgy-faced dealer, who slid the cards out of the shoe with stubby fingers. Nearby a small group was watching a big man with an open-necked shirt throw craps down the wooden alley, and around the roulette table half a dozen people squealed when the wheel stopped on zero. Everyone was well dressed; even the waitresses were classy-looking, with black skirts and crisp white blouses.

  ‘Are you here for the poker?’ the maître d’ man asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Both tables are full right now. Why don’t you sit and have a drink at the bar? There’ll be a space free soon.’

  He went and sat on a wooden-backed stool. The bartender wore a white shirt and black bow tie, but no jacket. He was Nessheim’s height, but squarer in the shoulder – he wouldn’t need a bouncer if there was trouble.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ asked the bartender.

  ‘Bourbon and branch.’

  ‘Branch?’ He looked amused. ‘Where you from, buddy?’

  ‘Chicago.’

  ‘What brings you west?

  Nessheim said, ‘Poker.’

  ‘First time here?’ Nessheim nodded and the bartender chuckled. ‘You’ll find a good game in the back room.’

  A few minutes later a man walked out through a curtain at the back of the room and the maître d’ came over. ‘You’re on,’ he said and Nessheim followed him through the curtained doorway.

  Here in a much smaller room five men sat around a round table with cards and chips on its baize. Nessheim took the one empty chair and watched in silence as the hand was played. The tubby man on his left won a small pot with King high.

  ‘Chips?’ asked the dealer with a smoker’s rasp. He wore a tuxedo too.

  Nessheim pushed all three hundred dollars across the table and got stacks of five-dollar chips pushed back. There were fifty-seven of them, so the club was taking 5 per cent off the top. It didn’t seem unreasonable.

  ‘Ante up,’ said the dealer. Everyone threw in a chip while he shuffled the cards.

  ‘So what are we playing?’ asked Nessheim, his voice all innocence.

  The dealer looked surprised and momentarily stopped shuffling. ‘Five-card stud.’

  ‘You got any better ideas?’ asked the tubby guy next to him.

  ‘No, I’m happy,’ said Nessheim.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Tubby. ‘He’s happy, Fred, so you can deal now.’

  Fred dealt and the cards came shooting out, sliding eel-like across the felt until they halted just short of the waiting hands. One down, then one face up.

  Nessheim showed a deuce and held a four in the hole. He folded at the first bet and did
the same for the next three deals. He was trying to feel his way in. The college poker he’d played had been social rather than serious: five-card draw, which made it less a matter of calculation than of blind hope – almost any hand, however poor, could be redeemed at the last minute by a drawn card. Stud was different – immoveable odds and everything down to betting and bluffing.

  He watched in bewilderment as a forty-dollar pot went to a pair of threes, and then as an Ace high, bet aggressively by Tubby, got a showing pair at the end of the table to fold. Two hands later Nessheim lost sixty dollars when he tried to bluff Tubby, and lost with King-eight against the other player’s King-Queen. Despite this, Nessheim felt more confident now, and was doing his best to show it, talking a little too much, ordering another bourbon and water when the waitress came round.

  Then he got some cards. He won a hand with a pair of tens, though all but one player folded and he only won twelve bucks. On the next hand he held an Ace in the hole. Tubby had King showing, and further up the table a man with brillantined hair also showed a King. He bet twenty dollars and Tubby and Nessheim seed him. Through the next two rounds no one showed a pair, but Tubby bet so aggressively that Brillantine man folded, King notwithstanding.

  With the final card to play there were almost three hundred dollars on the table. With that kind of money at stake, Nessheim figured Tubby didn’t bluff, so he was ready to fold after the last card came out. Instead he found his heart beating like a drum when he was dealt another Ace.

  Tubby pushed two neat stacks of chips into the middle of the table and grinned at Nessheim. ‘Raise you another two hundred.’

  ‘I haven’t got enough cash left to call,’ Nessheim protested.

  Tubby gestured at the dealer. ‘He’ll take your note. But I feel bad taking your money.’ Not that Tubby looked very upset. ‘You can raise me to the moon and I ain’t gonna fold. Fish don’t fly over rainbows in this part of the world.’

  Nessheim nodded at the dealer who counted out two hundred dollars in stacked chips and pushed them over to him. Nessheim thought fleetingly of Guttman – and tried not to imagine the expression on his face when he saw Nessheim’s next expenses.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ said Nessheim suddenly. ‘With the two hundred in lieu.’

  Tubby slowly turned over his hole card. Sure enough, he had another King. He looked momentarily jubilant – until Nessheim turned over his second Ace.

  There was a little gasp of admiration at the far end of the table. As Nessheim raked in the chips, he glanced at Tubby, who was staring at him angrily. Tubby said in a mimicking voice, ‘So what are we playing?’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘You been around a bit, buddy. Where you from?’

  ‘Here and there.’

  ‘How did there get you here?’

  Nessheim finished stacking his winning chips. ‘A guy I met told me about the game. He said he played here a lot. Funny-looking fellow – kind of Japanese. Billy something.’

  No one said anything. Noise from next door suddenly seemed louder. Tubby put his hands on the table, nodding thoughtfully. Nessheim saw he had a scar the size of a stick of gum running along one side of his neck. When Tubby spoke he almost spat out the words. ‘You’re telling me you heard about this game from Billy?’

  ‘Something wrong with that?’

  Tubby shook his head at Fred the dealer. ‘Count me out. I need a drink.’

  Without Tubby the game seemed to lose its intensity and the betting was more restrained. When he turned to summon the waitress, Nessheim saw Tubby standing by the door, talking with the maître d’. After another round, in which Nessheim folded early, the maître d’ appeared at Nessheim’s side. ‘Could I have a word in private please?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I’ll explain in a minute.’

  The other players weren’t looking at him any more. When he stood up, Fred pointed to his chips. ‘They’ll be safe there,’ he said.

  The maître d’ led the way towards the back of the room and into a small corridor where they found a closed door. When the maître d’ knocked a voice called out ‘Come in.’

  They entered a small dark office that was lit only by a table lamp on a desk. A man sat behind the desk, dressed in a grey banker’s suit with thick pinstripes and a scarlet silk tie. He looked about fifty years old and had a handsome face, though a birthmark sat in a small red patch under one eye. His hair was slowly going a distinguished grey.

  ‘Have a seat,’ he said, pointing to the empty chair on the other side of his desk.

  Nessheim sat down and the maître d’ left the room. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked. ‘I was doing okay out there.’

  ‘Don’t worry – you got plenty of time to lose it.’ The man leant back in his chair until only the very front of his face was in the lamp’s light. ‘George tells me you were asking about somebody.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘Evidently. Guy called Billy Osaka.’

  Nessheim was thinking how to answer when there was a knock on the door and George the maître d’ reappeared. ‘We got company,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘It’s Foyle again. And some of his men.’

  ‘Christ. Better send him in.’

  As George went to get the visitor, the man behind the desk looked at Nessheim. ‘Sit tight. This won’t take a minute.’

  A few seconds later the door swung open and a cop came in, wearing a peaked cap and a double-breasted uniform coat lined with brass buttons. His face was big-boned and Irish and – when he looked at Nessheim – very unhappy. The last thing Nessheim needed was to be busted in a raid by the local cops, carrying a phoney identity card.

  The man behind the desk said, ‘This is an old associate, Commander.’

  ‘I don’t care who he is. You’re late, Ike.’

  Ike shrugged, and the cop looked at him angrily. ‘I’ve told you, and told you to tell your boss: this isn’t Cleveland. So don’t fuck around. When I name a date, you keep to it, got it?’

  ‘Okay. But I’ve got this for you,’ said Ike. He reached in his top drawer and brought out an envelope. ‘Or do you want to turn it down and stay pissed off?’

  The cop called Foyle hesitated, then reached out for the envelope and grabbed it like a candy bar. Nessheim looked down at the floor as the cop shoved it into his inside jacket pocket. ‘It better all be there,’ he said.

  ‘Of course it is. With a double sawbuck thrown in for late delivery.’

  ‘Next time … on time. Got it?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Ike cheerfully, and the cop went out the door, banging it shut behind him.

  Ike looked at Nessheim and shrugged. He didn’t seem fazed. ‘I’ve creased palms in a lot of towns, but the LAPD take the biscuit. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, you were asking after Billy Osaka.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. I’m looking for him, though.’

  Ike stared at Nessheim and pursed his lips. Then he said, ‘You mind my asking why?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ike continued to stare at him and Nessheim relented, since otherwise he wasn’t going to get anywhere. ‘I’ve got business with him.’

  ‘Join the crowd. Don’t tell me: he owes you some money.’

  ‘Something along those lines.’

  Ike nodded and his mouth hinted at a smile. ‘He could be hard to find. Some people think Japs all look alike.’

  ‘Not Billy. Maybe because he’s only half-Jap.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Ike, and Nessheim realised he had been checking that he really did know the guy. ‘But it would still be pretty easy for him to disappear in Little Tokyo. There must be twenty thousand people living there.’

  Nessheim didn’t react, and Ike said, ‘You know the neighbourhood?’

  ‘A bit,’ he allowed.

  ‘Well, that’s more than I can say.’ He sat up a little in his chair and put his hands on its arms. ‘So here’s the thing
: I got my own wish to see Osaka, and I want to piggyback on your search for the guy. I’m offering you a thousand dollars to let me know where he is. It’s got to be reliable – don’t just give me rumours. But if it’s real, you get a grand.’

  ‘I want to see him first.’

  ‘Okay, but I don’t want damaged goods when it’s my turn. Understood?’

  ‘Sure – I want the money he owes me, not his hide.’

  Ike nodded. ‘And another thing: I don’t want any trouble with the Tokyo Club. They’ve got their turf and we’ve got ours, and that suits me just fine; I’ve got no bone to pick. But I can’t have Osaka coming here to play, then not clear his debts. Make sure they understand that’s what it’s about – nothing more, nothing less.’

  ‘Got it,’ he said, though he hadn’t.

  ‘So we have an understanding?’

  ‘It sounds that way to me.’

  Ike extended his hand across the desk and as Nessheim shook it, asked, ‘You got a name, pal?’

  ‘Rossbach.’

  ‘A Kraut, huh?’

  ‘One hundred per cent.’

  ‘Okay Mister Rossbach, is there a way I can reach you?’

  ‘I’ll give you a phone number.’

  There was a pad on the desk and he reached for it and wrote down his home number, then slid it over to Ike, who looked at it and said, ‘You got an address maybe?’

  Nessheim shook his head. ‘It’s Osaka you’re looking for. Not me.’

  5

  SUNDAY WAS MISTY and overcast when Nessheim drove to Pearl’s house in the foothills of Bel Air. He drove through gates a lot fancier than those at the studio, then the drive curved sharply and swung round a line of eucalyptus; behind it he saw a mocha-coloured clay tennis court, sitting in the middle of half an acre of lawn that was tightly mown in stripes of dark green. Another curve and he glimpsed the roof of the house before it disappeared, blocked by a pair of native oaks. At last the drive straightened out and he pulled up in a circle of packed gravel that had a little statue of Mercury in the middle, standing on top of a bubbling bird bath. But by then his eyes were on the house – an immense villa, three storeys high with a flat roof. Its stucco walls were painted pink, its window frames glossy white. The place looked like it was built of candy cane.