The Little Tokyo Informant

by Andrew Rosenheim

  Inside, he peered down a long dark room, which had a heavy teak bar running along one side. The wooden blades of two big ceiling fans circled in a lazy stutter, and some rough-looking natives and a Chinese construction crew sat at tables, drinking from bottles of beer. Most of the bar stools were free.

  The bartender ignored him at first, keeping his back turned and polishing a whisky glass as if it were a piece of silver. Through a haze of smoke in the rear of the joint, Nessheim could see a group of Japanese in workmen’s clothes gathered around a pool table. He heard a cue chalked, the loud click of balls caroming across the velvet, then a curse from the player of the misplaced shot. As the bartender continued to ignore him, Nessheim got the message: he was the only white man in the bar.

  ‘Help you?’ the bartender said, turning round at last. There was a native accent to the voice – American with a funny lilt. But he was Japanese, heavy set, with an upper body shaped like a fireplug. He wore gaudy red suspenders over a white shirt that bulged around women-sized breasts, but no one would joke about his boobs once they’d seen his hands, which were the size of catcher’s gloves.

  ‘I’m looking for a guy,’ said Nessheim, sliding onto a stool to show he was there for a while.

  ‘What, you in love?’

  ‘It could well be,’ said Nessheim cheerfully. ‘But we haven’t met yet – it’s an arranged marriage. Why don’t you give me a beer while I try and make up my mind?’

  The bartender grunted, then drew draught beer from a tap into an angled glass. He whacked the full glass down in front of Nessheim and the foamy head sloshed over the lip onto the bar’s wood top.

  ‘Take it easy,’ said Nessheim mildly. ‘What do I owe you?’

  ‘We’ll call it a dime if it’s your last one.’

  Nessheim reached into his trouser pockets. He took out a ten-dollar bill and flipped it onto the bar. ‘I may want another.’

  The bartender looked at him warily. His eyes were disconcertingly far apart. ‘If you’re looking to mix things up, there’s three guys playing pool who will help me out like that.’ He snapped his fingers menacingly.

  Nessheim leaned forward, letting his lapel fall open enough to show his Smith & Wesson. He smiled. ‘You can relax. I’ll stick to the one beer and there’s a sawbuck sitting there that’s yours – if you give me a lead on the guy. His name’s Akiro.’

  The bartender just stared at the bill on the bar. He must have been used to cops. ‘I can’t take your money,’ he said with a mock show of regret. ‘Never heard of the guy.’

  Nessheim chucked another ten-dollar bill on the bar. ‘Does that help your hearing?’

  The bartender gave a phoney laugh and Nessheim suddenly realised two players from the pool table had joined him, one on each side of his stool. The one on his right started to raise an arm and Nessheim slipped off the barstool, which was high-backed with wooden legs. He lifted the stool by its seat and poked it straight into the man’s face. One of the barstool legs hit home: the man fell, squealing in pain as he clutched one eye. Behind him, Nessheim sensed the other man move and, dropping the stool, he turned and threw a low hard right hand straight into the man’s gut. Whoof! the man exhaled, like a blowing whale, and crumpled to his knees.

  Nessheim pulled his .38 from its holster, just as the bartender lifted a baseball bat from under the bar. The bartender froze and Nessheim said, ‘Put that down or you’ll be wearing its splinters. Tell your other friends’ – he jerked his head towards the pool table – ‘that if I see a fly move down there I’ll shoot it out of the air. Got it?’

  The bartender nodded slowly and dropped the bat. It bounced noisily on its handle, the only noise in the place now, then rolled on the floor behind the bar. Nessheim took three steps back. The man he’d punched was still on his knees, breathing hard; the other guy had one hand plastered to his eye and was starting to moan.

  ‘Let’s start again,’ said Nessheim. ‘There’s twenty bucks there if you give me a lead on Akiro. Simple enough, don’t you think?’

  ‘Twenty bucks,’ said the bartender with false wonder, then laughed. ‘You’d need a lot more than that to catch a man like Akiro. Starting with a ticket to Japan.’ He was suddenly looking cheerful. ‘Now get the hell out of my bar.’

  32

  THE NORTH-WEST TIP of Molokai stuck out like the blunt handle of a .25 calibre handgun. The fishing boat slowed about 500 yards offshore and the Hawaiian idled in the swells. He came out of the cabin with a plate of cold rice and vegetables, which he handed to Nessheim with a friendly nod. He pointed to himself and said, ‘Hiapo.’

  Nessheim grinned. ‘Jim,’ he said, keeping it simple.

  The light was starting to go and instead of moving on Hiapo cut the engines, then came back and threw the anchor overboard. He chucked an old wool blanket to Nessheim.

  ‘Sleeping time,’ he said, with a grin.

  Within fifteen minutes, just as it grew resolutely dark, Nessheim could hear the sound of gentle snoring. He could see Hiapo lying on his back, his belly moving like a small bellows, and then he too fell asleep.

  There was poi for breakfast, a disgusting paste of pounded roots which Hiapo served in wooden bowls, and black coffee in a tin mug, along with fresh pineapple chopped with a hand axe. Hiapo started the engine while Nessheim drew up the anchor. They were less than a mile offshore, and the Hawaiian pointed ahead.

  ‘Kalaupapa,’ he said.

  Then he steered them further out into the Pacific, until the island of Molokai was little more than a distant southern speck.

  After travelling east almost an hour – the rising sun straight in their eyes – they moved south towards Molokai again. As land neared, Nessheim saw a tree-less shoreline lined with lethal-looking rocks, jagged as sharks’ teeth. The point of the Kalaupapa promontory, at the northernmost part of Molokai, seemed unbeachable. But when the boat swung around the tip he saw an inlet sweep of honey-coloured sand and a few straggly palms.

  About forty yards out Hiapo slowed the boat, turning it while idling until it didn’t rock in the gentle swells. He motioned to Nessheim that he should go ashore. He then came over and pointed to his watch. Hiapo moved the hands around until they said six o’clock and pointed meaningfully at them. He said in halting English, ‘I will leave then.’ He was smiling, but there was nothing flexible in his voice.

  They shook hands, then Nessheim clambered over the side of the boat, jumping down to find himself up to his hips in the crystal clear water. It was bathtub warm, which he hadn’t expected. A sudden wave hit him from behind and knocked him over onto his knees. His first reaction was that his gun would get wet, but then his left knee hit a razor-sharp rock on the bottom and the pain was excruciating. He managed to stand and hobble to shore. He turned around and shouted, but already the boat was chugging out further to sea, and Hiapo, standing at the wheel, didn’t hear him. The breeze had picked up.

  He managed to climb the small incline of the beach, picking his way through a crop of small, black volcanic boulders, then stood on level ground to survey the damage. It still hurt like hell, though he doubted he had broken his kneecap or he wouldn’t have been able to walk at all. But it was bleeding profusely, just below it.

  He took off his coat and then his shirt and ripped a large patch from one of its sleeves. Doubling it up, he held it against the cut to staunch the flow, which slowed and finally stopped, coagulating into a thick, dark paste. He unfolded the patch of cloth and managed to tie it tightly around his upper calf and shin. It wasn’t Red Cross standard, but it would have to do.

  He put back on what remained of his shirt, followed by his coat, then tried to check his bearings. Facing him over a mile away was a range of spectacularly high sea cliffs, the na pali as the natives called the range. Their tops were heavily wooded in deep furrows of thick emerald growth. The pali ran in a forbidding line that blocked off access to the rest of Molokai, to the south; at either side of the peninsula they plunged vertiginously down into the Pacific.
He saw now why they’d told Popov to come by boat and why he was duplicating those instructions. It was a natural prison. He felt he had just thrown away the key.

  A quarter mile ahead a tall lighthouse loomed like a thin, tapered pencil stuck in the flat landscape. He headed towards it, limping now since each step was painful. It took him ten minutes to go 200 yards, and he was sweating profusely, though it was probably only in the low seventies.

  There was no one at the lighthouse. A few hundred yards away there was a turf airstrip, which had been laid down in the early Thirties. But its use was confined to the military and Hawaii authorities in charge of the colony of patients and afflicted residing in Kalaupapa; no other visitors were allowed to arrive by air.

  He sat and rested on the inland side of the raised concrete platform that surrounded the lighthouse like a collar. At this rate he would be hours late for his rendezvous; actually, he doubted he could even make it to the village, which was over a mile away according to the map he had seen.

  Why he was doing all this? Guttman’s instructions – or were they Stephenson’s? – had been precise about where he was to go, but there had been nothing about why he was there other than the general instruction to receive information from the Japanese. He didn’t like the vagueness of it one bit and he was in any case finding it hard to concentrate, given the pain in his leg.

  From the lighthouse a dirt path led into the heart of the peninsula. The terrain ahead was flat here, though the path looked rocky and was overgrown in places with low, scrub-like bushes. Then he heard a shuffling noise and, turning his head, saw a small Hawaiian boy standing on another path which led to the lighthouse from the west. He was holding a mule by a sagging length of rope and he was staring straight at Nessheim.

  Nessheim beckoned, but the boy stayed where he was, still staring. Standing up, Nessheim took an awkward step and pointed to the bandage below his knee. He didn’t have to exaggerate to show he was in pain.

  The boy came forward hesitantly and Nessheim smiled, trying to look friendly and unthreatening. He gestured to the south-west, then pointed at his chest. The boy looked at him and his eyes widened.

  ‘Kalaupapa?’ he asked timidly.

  Nessheim nodded vigorously and said, ‘St Francis Church.’

  The boy suddenly beamed. ‘Mother Julia?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nessheim. Whoever she might be.

  The boy came closer now, tugging on the rope to make the mule follow him. He motioned for Nessheim to move to the edge of the platform, then drew the reluctant animal alongside. Nessheim crouched down, ignoring the sharp pain from his leg, and swinging his wounded limb to the far side clambered onto the mule’s back. The boy laughed at the sight of him there, and then set off along the peninsula’s central path, leading the mule and Nessheim.

  They travelled at the pace of a slow walk and Nessheim tried to ignore the steady throbbing in his leg. From his position astride the mule he could see for hundreds of yards over the open flat of the peninsula. He spotted a pair of wild spotted deer, which bolted when they heard the mule’s lumbering tread, and a bright orange-red bird flitted across the sky, picking minuscule flies out of the air with its attenuated beak. Low stone walks were laid across stretches of grassland, which looked unfarmable, though he saw a small herd of cattle in the distance.

  The path turned sharply west and soon Nessheim could see clumps of trees ahead, ironwood and coconut palms, plum and papaya. Then he saw houses and knew he was almost at Kalaupapa, since it was the only village on the peninsula.

  As he came to the first street he was surprised to find it paved, and more surprised still to see an old Model T sitting in a concrete driveway of one of the bungalows, since the enclosing cliffs meant you wouldn’t be able to drive it very far. The houses were one-storey and well built in the Hawaiian plantation style, with shingle roofs, sweep-around porches and encircling verandas. Their boarded walls were sun-faded, the white or green paint half-stripped by the humid air and high rainfall. One larger house had a wooden portico.

  The village was bigger than he had expected, and carefully planned: the streets seemed to form a regular grid and the houses sat in neat rows, divided by picket fences, stone walls or thick hedges of lantana in yellows and pink, and some were obscured by the shady fronds of banana trees. There were huge coconut palms and morning glory, hibiscus, lilies and roses; most of the yards contained tidy vegetable gardens. It all seemed part of a concerted effort to look like a normal Hawaiian village.

  They were nearing the ocean. He could smell the salt brought in by a breeze that had suddenly come up. Another street over and he heard the roar of the breakers. They passed a row of shops: the grocery store, which had concrete walls and a corrugated roof, a freshly painted white bakery on Damien Road, squashed between a launderette and a bigger building that had a sign offering the services of a carpenter, plumber and blacksmith. A goat was tethered under a flame-coloured Poinciana tree.

  They turned the corner and the boy pointed ahead down the street towards the Catholic church of St Francis, a cream-coloured building built of stone covered in rich layers of plaster.

  Approaching it, the boy stopped the mule by the entrance and Nessheim got down very slowly, trying not to put pressure on his hurt leg.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he said when the boy tried to help. ‘Thank you,’ he added, wondering how he would ever get back to the boat. He’d have to find someone to take him there, but Nessheim didn’t want to ask the boy to wait when he himself didn’t know what he was letting himself in for.

  The wood door to the church was slightly ajar. He heard music inside and limped in cautiously. There were half a dozen rows of dark wood pews, divided by a thin centre aisle that led up to the altar. At the foot of the tall white pillars on each side of the nave were wide pedestals which held brightly painted, life-size statues of the Madonna and Child and of St Francis.

  The front pews were half-filled with people: men and women and a few children. The men were dressed neatly in white short-sleeved shirts; the women wore skirts and cotton blouses and hats. It could have been a service held almost anywhere, except that this congregation was barefoot and there was no sign of a priest. Instead a nun stood in front of the altar, in traditional black-and-white habit. She was a tall, imposing woman with weathered skin, probably in her fifties. Giving the faintest of nods as Nessheim came in, she and the parishioners were singing the final verse of a hymn.

  The hymn finished, the nun took a step forward and regarded her audience fondly.

  ‘Next week we welcome our new priest, Father Patrick, who will be arriving on the supplies boat from Oahu, and at last we will be able to celebrate Mass again.’ She paused to let this sink in, then concluded, ‘Please bow your heads. Let us pray.’

  There was an unusual cadence to her voice and Nessheim realised she was English. The small sea of heads bowed and the Sister tucked her chin down. As she intoned the words of the final blessing, Nessheim’s were the only watchful eyes. The instructions had been vague – no mention of the congregation, only the injunction to sit in the last row and wait for the contact.

  ‘Amen,’ the nun declared again, and as the heads lifted she signalled that the service was over. The congregation stood up to leave and Nessheim saw them properly for the first time. He tried not to gawp.

  These were the lepers of Kalaupapa, the reason for the community’s physical isolation. They all seemed to have something terribly wrong with them – a perman-ently raised eye, a lip curled in an involuntary grimace, a pus-seeping wound on a nose. And scars – so many terrible facial scars, furrows and cuts and lines etched into their skin. As they came towards him, Nessheim saw that many of them were also crippled – toes missing, fingers gone, an arm amputated at the elbow. They moved down the aisle like the wounded retreating from the front line. There was nothing self-conscious about their procession; they barely gave him a glance.

  At last the parishioners had all left and the church sat
empty and quiet. The nun had disappeared and when she appeared again she entered by the church’s front door – she must have gone through the vestry to greet her congregation as it came out. As she passed Nessheim’s pew she said chidingly, ‘The lepers are not to be frightened of.’

  ‘I’m not scared of them, Sister,’ Nessheim said, and realised he hadn’t masked his shock.

  ‘Believe me, they are not the worst cases – those will not even come to church, however much I tell them that the Lord sees people only with eyes of love. Many people do not understand. It is why we do not usually have visitors here. Are you of the faith, my son?’ she enquired.

  ‘I’m Lutheran, Sister,’ he said, with the deference he had always given nuns – the Lutherans had plenty of them.

  She tilted her head questioningly. ‘I am Mother Julia. Have you hurt yourself?’ she asked, pointing at the makeshift bandage wrapped around his leg.

  ‘It’s nothing, Sister. A small accident, nothing serious.’

  She took a longer look at his leg. Finally she said, ‘Excuse me a moment.’

  She walked to the vestry and Nessheim sat and waited tensely. His leg was stiffening badly. After a few minutes the door to the church opened and a balding Japanese man came in, then sidled into his pew.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  The voice wasn’t friendly.

  ‘Rossbach.’

  ‘Noritaka,’ the man said.

  Nessheim nodded. That was the name he had been given in Guttman’s instructions, the same person Popov was supposed to have met five months ago.

  ‘How did you get here?’ asked the man.

  ‘I came down the cliffs,’ he said, as he had been instructed.

  The man said tersely, ‘We were expecting you months ago.’