by Dean Koontz
55
Out there in Charleston, Illinois, Setsuko Nozawa proved to be as good as her word. In fact, she would become so intrigued with the investigation that she would not only report by phone to Mr. Tamazaki of the Daily News but would write a detailed account to mail him later, which was very useful to me in the colorful reconstruction of these events. Among her many interests, Mrs. Nozawa attended writers’ conferences at the university, for she hoped one day to tell the story of her years in the internment camp, and she thought that writing the report would be useful practice.
In the company of her dog, Toshiro Mifune (named after the Japanese actor), she drove her custom-painted candy-apple-red 1967 Cadillac Eldorado to the neighboring town of Mattoon. Being a petite woman, she needed a booster pillow to see over the steering wheel, but Toshiro Mifune required no pillow, for he was a large chocolate-brown Labrador retriever.
At the military academy, she parked in a space behind the campus library and left two windows all the way down to ensure that the dog wouldn’t overheat in the warm July day. Although she had heard hair-curling stories about some of the rowdier students at the school, she had no fear whatsoever that the Cadillac might be taken for a joy ride by one rich-boy ruffian or another. Toshiro Mifune had always been as gentle as others of his friendly breed, but Mrs. Nozawa had taught him to glower like a fierce samurai, growl, and bare his immense teeth when anyone put a hand on the Eldorado. She knew that this required great discipline on the dog’s part, that it troubled his good heart to frighten people whom he would have preferred to lick copiously. But when she returned, she would reward him with kind words and two cookies.
Not many students—cadets, the librarian called them—were in the library when Mrs. Nozawa inquired at the main desk. In spite of her wartime experiences, she feared no one in uniform, but she found it disturbing to see boys as young as thirteen dressed like parade-ground soldiers. She told the librarian, Mr. Theodore Keckle, that one of the academy’s students had done her and her husband a great favor, years earlier, and that she had always regretted not better thanking the boy. She wished to locate him now that he had graduated.
Unfortunately, though she knew the cadet had been a member of the class of ’59, she could not remember his name. Even eight years later, however, she felt certain she would recognize his face. She assumed that the school library kept copies of the annual yearbook with senior photographs. Mr. Keckle—whom she would later describe to Mr. Tamazaki as “a stuck-up noodle with a mustache he shapes with pinking shears”—confirmed her assumption and directed her to a span of the history shelves that contained the volumes dealing with the five decades during which this highly esteemed institution educated, inspired, and formed young men of character.
Within a minute of opening the yearbook for the class of ’59, Mrs. Nozawa found Lucas Drackman’s photograph. She Xeroxed that page. On the way out of the library, she told the mustachioed noodle that she thought she recognized the young man but wanted to show the Xerox to her husband to see if he agreed that she’d found the right cadet.
In the front passenger seat of the Cadillac, Toshiro Mifune began to wriggle and whimper with delight when he saw Mrs. Nozawa approaching. She showered him with kind words, and he took the cookies from her fingers as gently as a rabbit nibbling grass.
After returning to Charleston, she went to the office-supply store owned by Ken and Betty Norbert. She and Betty volunteered time to a dog-rescue nonprofit and were in the same quilting club. Ken Norbert and Mr. Nozawa were tennis buddies and members of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce. If someone other than the Norberts had owned the business, Mrs. Nozawa would most likely have known them, too.
In addition to business supplies, the store offered private mailboxes for rent, which was an almost unknown business in those days, at a time when the closest competition were mail drops where you had to wait at the counter for a clerk to take your mail from a bank of pigeonholes and personally hand it to you. The boxes were in demand, because the local post offices never had enough available. It was here that a box had been rented in the name of Douglas Atherton, to which the cruise line sent the ticket for the Caribbean holiday.
In order to avoid renting to someone who might be engaged in fraudulent or otherwise dishonest business, the Norberts required two forms of identification from those who wished to secure one of their ninety-six mailboxes. In those more innocent times, however, almost any two items had been accepted, and photo ID hadn’t been essential.
Ken had left for the day when Mrs. Nozawa arrived; but Betty was there with two employees and her Labrador retriever, Spencer Tracy.
The store kept a ledger of mailbox activity: the name of each renter, type of identification provided at time of rental, street address, and confirmation of payments. Concerned about liability, Ken never threw away old ledgers. Huddling over the volume for 1961, the two quilting enthusiasts found that Douglas Atherton had rented a box on the first of June, paying in cash for a full year’s rental. For ID, he provided a Social Security card and a Student Activity card from Eastern Illinois University, located in Charleston.
Mrs. Nozawa copied the pertinent information and then showed the Xerox of the yearbook page to her friend. The name Douglas Atherton didn’t appear under any of the cadet photos of course, and after nearly six years, Betty couldn’t identify any of the eight faces on the page as that of the man who had rented the box.
When Mrs. Nozawa returned to her Cadillac and got behind the wheel, Toshiro Mifune couldn’t stop trying to sniff her hands, for while in the store she had several times petted Spencer Tracy.
The dog’s late-afternoon feeding time had arrived, after which he expected to be walked for half an hour. Because Mrs. Nozawa at all times had her priorities right, she wouldn’t delay that feeding or cheat Toshiro out of even a portion of his walk time. Thereafter, she needed to change for dinner out with her husband and another couple.
From the office-supply store, she drove home, intending to continue in the morning with her inquiries on behalf of Mr. Yabu Tamazaki of the Daily News. She had promised only to get back to him no later than the close of business the following day, and he had not indicated that she needed to proceed more urgently. Between walking the dog and changing, she managed to call him to report her progress, and she was pleasantly surprised when Mr. Tamazaki praised her cleverness and efficiency, referring to her as “a real Sam Spade.”
On the way to dinner, Mr. Nozawa wondered if she might be in any danger because of these inquiries. His wife replied that both of her precious parents and both of Mr. Tamazaki’s were Issei, first-generation immigrants, and even among strangers, certain bonds were sacred obligations. He agreed. According to Mrs. Nozawa, he usually did. He encouraged her to exercise her skills at description by preparing that written report, for which I owe him.
56
During the past six weeks, since we’d moved out of the walk-up and had come to live with Grandpa, Mr. Yoshioka had called a couple of times, always during the day when I would be home alone, to ask if I was well and still practicing the piano. I told him what little had been happening in my life, and he shared what news there was of life in the apartment building we had left.
That busy Wednesday, after Malcolm and Amalia left, before Mom and Grandpa came home, at 4:15, Mr. Yoshioka called again. “Has the day been gentle with you, Jonah?”
I thought of Miss Pearl—her advice, her warning, her revelation that she was the soul of the city made flesh, her big purse and its astonishing contents—and I said, “Well, I guess it kinda bruised me a little.” I had told him everything except about Miss Pearl, and if I ever did tell him about her, it would have to be in a face-to-face conversation. Before he could ask what had happened, I said, “But I’m good, I’m great, I met these cool kids across the street.”
He had called with a purpose, not just to chat. “Have you seen today’s newspaper? The Daily News?”
“It came but I didn’t look at it. The news
isn’t all the news there is.”
“On the front page is a photo of the demonstration at City College on Monday. Among those in the photo are Mr. Smaller and Miss Delvane.”
“I saw them on TV.”
“As you know, I have no television, and the prospect of seeing Mr. Smaller on it does little to motivate me to make the purchase.”
“I was watching … and I saw my father there, too.”
“How very interesting. Your father is not in the newspaper photo.”
“They’re all up to something. They don’t care about the war.”
“Read the newspaper,” Mr. Yoshioka said. “I think you will see what they might have been up to at City College. But first I must tell you that both Mr. Tamazaki and Mr. Otani have at last been in touch with me. There have been developments, and I will learn more tomorrow. I wish to come see you about all of this on Friday. What time would be most convenient?”
Considering that we would be talking about things of which my mother and grandfather were unaware, I said that he should come any time between eleven o’clock and four, when we could be sure that no one would know of his visit and question the reason for it.
“I will be there at two o’clock. And now I must tell you that two weeks ago, your father and Miss Delvane moved out of the place where they were living and have become impossible to trace. It is Mr. Otani’s considered opinion that they have gone underground.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that they are covering their trail because they expect eventually to be sought by authorities. They may already have changed their identities. If they are, as you say, up to something, something more than what they’ve already done, then the something to which they are up is likely to occur this summer, perhaps sooner than later.”
Miss Pearl, my apparently supernatural mentor, had visited me with her advice and warnings because the pivotal moment of my life lay in the immediate future, perhaps not mere days away but not years in the future, either. This summer, Mr. Yoshioka had said; and that felt about right.
“I will have more to tell you on Friday, Jonah. I have not meant to alarm you. I hope I have not.”
“You haven’t, sir. No matter what happens, everything will be all right in the long run.”
“That is a very Zen recognition.”
“A what?”
Rather than explain, he said, “Very wise. That is most wise. I will see you at two o’clock, the day after tomorrow. Be well, Jonah.”
“I hope so. I mean, I will. I’ll be well. You, too.”
57
On the front page of the Daily News, above the fold, Miss Delvane and Mr. Smaller looked as though they had come from different worlds, heck, from different solar systems. She might have been born on the Planet of Superhot Women, while he traveled to Earth from the Planet of Unfortunate Men.
Reading, I quickly discovered what Mr. Yoshioka meant when he said the newspaper might show me what their weird little gang had been up to at City College.
Late in the demonstration, seven bombs had gone off, one after the other, at locations all across the campus. Nobody had been killed or critically injured, though six sustained minor wounds. Authorities believed that the explosives had been placed specifically to avoid killing anyone, that the purpose had been to create total chaos and distract the police and particularly the campus security forces.
Evidently, there had been plenty of chaos. As the explosions occurred at buildings to all sides of the crowd, the thousands of demonstrators hadn’t known which way to run and had run every which way, crashing into one another. The bombs had been packaged with what the newspaper called “smoke accelerants,” which seemed to mean that in a very short time, churning clouds of smoke spread across campus, greatly reducing visibility and causing everyone’s eyes to water, their vision to blur.
Campus security men, who were not armed, left their posts and patrol routes, rushing into the melee under the impression that many seriously wounded awaited their help. The guard assigned to the Albert and Patricia Barton Gallery, adjacent to the College of Arts, locked the main entrance behind him, but the two men who looted the current exhibition blew open the door with the seventh bomb.
The security cameras caught two individuals—most likely men—dressed in black, wearing masks and gloves. They came in through the blown door and swirling masses of smoke, each carrying a cloth sack. The current show in the gallery featured seventeenth-through early nineteenth-century Chinese jade: vases, incense burners, screens, bowls, human and animal figures, scepters, snuff bottles, jewelry.… They moved through the big room as though they knew the location of everything they wanted, ignoring the heavier items, snatching up the jewelry—necklaces, bangles, pendants, earrings—and the oldest and most exquisitely carved little snuff bottles. They were gone in five minutes.
A preliminary estimate of the loss was in excess of $400,000, an immense sum in those days. Experts suggested that the thieves surely had not stolen such items on speculation, because many were unique and all but impossible to fence. They must have had a client, a wealthy collector who wanted the pieces not for public display but for his private collection.
The assumption also had to be made that the crooks were closely tied with one or another anti-war organization. The protesters had descended on City College in a carefully coordinated surprise, but the bandits would have had to know about the event far enough ahead to scout the jade exhibition and to decide where to plant the bombs. They didn’t need to be planners of the demonstration, only privy to the secret schedule.
My initial impulse was to slip the newspaper into the middle of the trash in the kitchen waste can, bag the trash, and put it in the garbage can outside. If my mother saw the photograph of Miss Delvane looking like a supermodel, it could only hurt her. If she recognized Mr. Smaller in spite of his bandana, I couldn’t begin to imagine all the questions and speculations that might occur to her. Pretending to share her surprise and puzzlement, I would quickly come to a moment when she saw through my pretense, and all that I’d concealed from her might come tumbling out. The reasons for my secrecy had all seemed good and honorable at the time; but I didn’t have confidence that they would seem good and honorable—or entirely defensible—now.
If I ditched the Daily News, Grandpa Teddy would want to know what had happened to it, and I didn’t want to tell him it never came, didn’t want to start lying to him, as well. My grandfather had never seen Miss Delvane and perhaps he’d seen Mr. Smaller only once or twice, briefly and at a distance; he would recognize neither. My mother didn’t read the entire newspaper and often skipped stories involving violence, which depressed her.
I decided to trust my luck, let it to fate. I folded the paper, trying to make it appear untouched, and slipped it back into the thin plastic bag in which it had come when tossed into the front yard. I put it on the table beside my grandfather’s armchair.
Grandpa Teddy wasn’t playing in the hotel’s Deco dining room that night. It would be a long evening of suspense, waiting for my mother to chance upon the photograph. I decided to go to bed early and read a book, sort of hide out. Maybe if she discovered the photo when I wasn’t present, she would never mention it to me.
Anyway, the events of the day had worn me out. I would most likely fall asleep early, which was another way to hide.
58
Later, after dinner, Mom and Grandpa Teddy and I were clearing the dinette table when Amalia Pomerantz stopped by, sans Malcolm, with a proposal that I assumed my mother would reject after at most a half minute of consideration. Being seventeen and responsible, Amalia had for almost two years been taking the bus to other places in the city, safe places, to catch the matinee of a play, to explore a museum, to listen to a lecture, and that kind of thing. Her parents had no problem with her taking Malcolm along, and now that the geek saxophonist and I were becoming friends, she hoped that perhaps I would be allowed to join them on these expeditions.
Grandpa knew
Amalia well and thought highly of her, trusted her to bring me back “unscratched and hardly tattered,” and he said as much to my mother, who looked dubious. I believe that what Amalia did then was without calculation, that she was merely being her sociable self when, as she talked entertainingly about a free folk concert in Riverside Commons that she’d seen two weeks earlier, she stoppered the kitchen sink, drew hot water, squirted liquid soap into it, and started to wash our dinner dishes. Pretty soon, as Amalia rinsed and racked the plates, my mother dried them, and they were talking and laughing as if they had known each other longer than I’d been alive.
By the time I headed to my bedroom and book, the issue had been settled. The following day, I would be going with Amalia and Malcolm to some fancy art museum to look at a bunch of paintings, which just the previous day would have made me want to barf; however, if Amalia thought it would be fun, all doubts I might have had were swept away.
In my pajamas, in bed, I couldn’t concentrate to read. I had a little transistor radio with an earphone, and I tried to dial in music that might elevate my mood. Couldn’t find it. I took the La Florentine box out of my nightstand and looked at the Xerox of the page from the book about Manzanar, the pictures of Mr. Yoshioka’s mother and sister. That made me think about the war and the riots and everybody killing everybody. The only thing that settled my mind was the haiku on the little sympathy card that had been attached to the floral arrangement at Grandma’s funeral. I read it over and over again: Dawn breaks / And blossoms open / Gates of paradise.
The events of the day weighed me down. I slept. Toward morning, I dreamed. In the dream, my father was strangling Fiona, and for some reason I wanted to stop him, although she frightened me more than he did. Then my perspective changed, and I saw that she wasn’t Fiona, that she was instead my mother, that the necktie bit cruelly into her throat. Her eyes were clouded. She was half dead. I tried to scream for help, but I literally had no tongue, and I tried to hit him, to claw at his face, but I had no hands. My arms ended at the wrists, in bracelets of coagulated and crusted blood.
