Quicksilver (Nameless Detective)

by Bill Pronzini

  But the main reason I was heading back was Haruko herself. I was more convinced than ever, after what the Hama family had told me and what I’d seen tonight at Cypress Hill Cemetery, that her unknown admirer was a homicidal psychopath. He hadn’t done anything to Haruko except shower her with presents taken off men he’d murdered, but the line between love and hate was a fine one in the sanest of individuals; in the mind of a psycho, it was almost invisible. I was going to have to tell her that, like it or not, because I wanted her and Artie to go away somewhere for a while, out of harm’s way. Just in case.

  As soon as I got home I checked the answering machine—one message, Kerry saying she felt better and would I call her—and then dialed the Gage number. No answer. Out somewhere, dinner or something; it was a quarter of eight. But I could feel a vague uneasiness stirring around inside my head.

  Instead of calling Kerry right away, I headed into the kitchen. Food before love, food to soothe the nerves: I was famished. The only things in the refrigerator were eggs and carrots and the container of pineapple yogurt and a package of gray-looking ground sirloin that had been there a while. I sniffed the meat. It didn’t smell too bad; and there weren’t any funny little white things crawling around in it. So I broiled it in the oven, soft-boiled three eggs, and ate two carrots and the yogurt while I waited. None of it tasted very good, but it did combine to fill the rumbling hole under my breastbone.

  Back in the bedroom, I looked up Wakasa in the San Francisco telephone directory. No listing for anyone by that name. I would have to call Harry Fletcher at the DMV again tomorrow, I thought. Even if Michio Wakasa was no longer alive, there might be suriving members of his family still living in California—somebody, maybe, who had known the woman Chiyoku and who could answer my questions about her.

  I tried the Gage number again. Still no answer.

  So I called Kerry and talked to her a while. I told her about my trip to Petaluma and I told her about the two kobun; I didn’t tell her the Yakuza had been following her around too, because I didn’t want to upset her. We both would have liked me to go over and spend the night at her place, but it was late and we both had to be up early in the morning. And tomorrow night was out because she had a business dinner with her boss and an agency client. So we had to settle for Tuesday night at my place; her neighbors were fighting again, which usually meant constant yelling and things being broken against walls.

  Still nobody home at the Gage house.

  I rang up Eberhardt. It took him six rings to answers, and when he did he sounded sleepy and disgruntled. “I feel asleep,” he said. “I was watching this movie, The Horse Soldiers, pretty good old Western with John Wayne, and I just corked off. Christ, I must be getting old.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “Maybe I ought to stock up on some Geritol. So what’ve you been up to since Friday? The Yakuza still bothering you?”

  “Still following me around, yeah. But it’s not the Yakuza I’m worried about right now.” And I told him what I’d been up to since Friday, what I was worried about.

  He didn’t say much until I was finished. “Sounds like you might be onto something pretty hairy, all right,” he said then. “But where’s your proof all three of those Japanese guys were killed by the same . person? Where’s the motive? Hell, you can’t even prove murder in two of the deaths.”

  “I know it,” I said. “But I can’t just sit on it, Eb. What if this loony decides to go after Haruko Gage next?”

  “Talk to her. Tell her to take a little vacation.”

  “I intend to. But she can’t stay on vacation indefinitely.”

  “You got some leads to follow up. Maybe you can prove a connection between the Tamura homicide and the Gage woman.”

  “I’ve got a connection, remember? The medallion. And that white jade ring links her to Kazuo Hama’s death. And the gold locket links her to Sanjiro Masaoka’s death.”

  “So you say. But all McFate and the local boys are interested in is the Tamura case—unless you can show ’em hard evidence that it’s linked to the other two. Which means you got to establish those pieces of jewelry belonged to the three dead guys.”

  “I thought maybe Jack Logan would listen to reason.”

  “I doubt it. He goes by the book, the same as McFate. The same as I used to, for that matter. But I’ll tell you what: I’ll go talk to Jack myself in the morning, lay it out for him. He’s more liable to listen to me anyhow; and if he buys it, you can take it from there. Sound okay?”

  “Sounds fine. Thanks, Eb.”

  “De nada.”

  He asked me for the details again—names, dates—and wrote them down as I talked. I was feeling pretty kindly toward him just then. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad having Eberhardt for a partner after all. In fact, maybe it was going to be damned good having him around.

  When I was done filling him in he said, “Check with me at the office after ten sometime; that’s when the telephone company guy’s coming in to install the phones. If you can’t get there for any reason, why don’t you call that custom-shirt outfit on the floor below? Slim-Taper Shirts, I think the name is. I’ll stop by there in the morning and ask them to send somebody up to get me if you call.”

  “Good idea.”

  “What color phone you want, by the way?”

  “Any color,” I said, “except pimp yellow.”

  Another call to the Gage house. Another dozen rings without a response. I was starting to get worried now, even though it was still relatively earty—not yet ten o’clock.

  I went and ran some bathwater and got into the tub with a 1948 issue of New Detective. There were some good writers in that issue —John D. MacDonald, William Campbell Gault—but I was too tense to stay with any of the stories. I gave it up at a quarter to eleven, dried off, put on my old chenille robe, and headed for the phone again.

  And this time, on the fourth ring, there was an answering click and I heard Haruko Gage’s voice.

  I let out a breath and told her who was calling, resisting an impulse to ask her where the hell she’d been; it was none of my business, really, now that I knew she was safe. Then I asked her if the name Chiyoko Wakasa meant anything to her, and she said no, she didn’t know anyone named Wakasa. She sounded honestly puzzled.

  “Do you know anybody who was at the Tule Lake Relocation Center during World War II?” I asked.

  “No ... well, yes, one or two people, I guess. Mr. Tamura was; Ken Yamasaki told me that. What does Tule Lake have to do with anything? And who is Chiyoko Wakasa?”

  “I wish I knew. What I do know is too complicated to go into on the phone; suppose we let it wait until morning. I can come by your place around nine ...”

  “I have a business appointment at nine, downtown. With a representative of one of the companies Art and I design for. I could probably break it at the last minute, but ...”

  “How long do you expect it’ll last?”

  “Until noon or so. I should be back here no later than one o’clock.”

  “How about if I meet you at your place at one?”

  “All right. Are you sure ... I mean, there’s nothing I ought to know right away, is there?”

  “No. Don’t worry, Mrs. Gage,” I said. “There isn’t anything to worry about.”

  And I hoped I was telling her the truth.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the morning, first thing, I called the registrar’s office at CCSF and asked the woman who answered if Nelson Mixer had recovered sufficiently—I didn’t say from what—to get back to his classes this week. She told me he had. When I asked her about his schedule she said he had a free period from ten to eleven and that I might be able to find him then in his office in Batmale Hall.

  Coffee, two more eggs, and a piece of dry toast passed for breakfast. But my bathroom scale said I’d lost another pound, which made four now, so I was able to choke the food down with less difficulty than usual.

  I hung around drinking second and th
ird cups of coffee, waiting for nine-thirty so I could call the DMV. Fletcher wasn’t happy to hear from me again so soon, but when he got done bitching he agreed to run a computer list of all the Wakasas currently holding California driver’s licenses. He’d have it for me, he said, in an hour or so.

  I put my overcoat on and went downstairs and out into the new day. Some more rain had fallen during the night, but the sky was clearing now: scattered stratocumulus clouds, intermittent sunshine, a cold gusty December wind. The air had a clean, scrubbed smell, the way it does after a long period of rain. It also had a sharp, crystal clarity; out around the Cliff House you would not only be able to see the Farallone Islands thirty-two miles at sea but you’d be able to make out the exact contours of each of them.

  Not hurrying, I started off toward Laguna Street, which was where I’d parked my car last night. I expected to encounter the white Ford somewhere nearby—I was looking for it, in fact—but when I spotted it, parked so that the two kobun could watch both my car and the entrance to my building, I felt myself getting angry all over again. God, they were persistent bastards; throw them off and they came right back with the fixated determination of cats. It gave me a paranoid hunted feeling.

  Batmale Hall, on the City College campus, was a rectangular building of grayish stone, several stories high, built into a hillside so that if you entered it on the upper level you were already on the fourth floor. That was the way I came in, at twenty past ten. There wasn’t any directory that I could see, so I stopped a couple of kids and asked them if they knew where Professor Mixer’s office was. One of them did: fifth floor.

  Rather than wait for an elevator, I walked up. Mixer’s office was at the rear; I found it easily enough because it had his name framed alongside the door: NELSON MIXER—U.S. AND CALIFORNIA HISTORY. Below that were one listing of his office hours and another of his lecture hours in a different building, Cloud Hall.

  The door was closed. I knocked on it, tried the knob, found it unlocked, and opened it and went inside. Mixer was there, alone, sitting behind a desk piled high with papers and books. Books were everywhere in the room—on the chairs and filing cabinets, stacked haphazardly on the floor, stuffed into shelves over two walls. Otherwise, the office was nondescript. Which made Mixer stand out even more than he would have in a crowd, because he was wearing a mauve-colored suit, a lemon-yellow shirt, and a mauve tie, all of which clashed violently with his wild red hair.

  His first reaction to my entrance was an annoyed glare. Then he recognized me, and the look metamorphosed into one of persecution. His long scrawny neck seemed to extend out of his shirt collar like a fox’s out of a burrow; his face immediately began to stain the same color as his hair.

  “You!” he said. He dropped the pen he’d been scribbling with and bounced up to his feet. “What do you want this time? Why can’t you leave me alone?”

  “Take it easy, Mr. Mixer. All I want—”

  “For God’s sake!” he said. He came bounding out from behind the desk, dislodging one of the piles of his books in his hurry. The books made a series of thumping noises on the floor, but Mixer didn’t notice; he was already at the door. He poked his head out into the hallway, then retracted it and shut the door and locked it. When he turned to face me he was panting a little. He looked as if he were on the run from a pack of hounds.

  “Why don’t you believe me?” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “I tell you, I never touched her.”

  “Touched who?”

  “Clara. An intellectual relationship is all we had.”

  I was not going to play any more pattycake with him. I took a couple of steps in his direction and waggled a finger under his nose. He cowered back against the door, looking horrified, as if he thought I might be planning to turn him into fox soup.

  “Listen, Mixer,” I said, “we’re going to have a talk—a nice, rational talk for a change. No more screwball stuff. You understand?”

  “Screwball? Are you insinuating that I—?”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  He shut up. Just like Artie Gage when Haruko spoke or gave him a look. It seemed I had finally discovered the secret of how to deal with the Mad Lecher.

  I curled my lip at him, tough-guy fashion. Then I reached out and flicked some imaginary lint off the front of his mauve jacket. The sudden movement made him flinch, which was what I’d intended. Both Clara and her father, whoever they were, would have enjoyed this. Hell, I was beginning to enjoy it a little myself.

  “All right, Mixer,” I said. “Go on over to your desk and sit down. Don’t say anything; just do what you’re told.”

  He obeyed. And sat stiffly in his chair, looking up at me with bright, nervous eyes.

  “The first thing we’re going to get straight,” I said, “is why I’m here. I’m not working for the father of any woman named Clara; I’m working for Haruko Gage. Is that clear?”

  “Haruko who? Oh, the Fujita girl. Yes.”

  “So is it clear, or should I say it again?”

  “No. I mean yes, it’s clear.”

  “Good. Now do you remember why I’m working for Mrs. Gage?”

  “Ah ... no, I ... no.”

  “I didn’t think so. I’m working for her because she’s been getting anonymous presents in the mail—pieces of jewelry—and I’m trying to find out who’s sending them.”

  “Oh. Yes. Anonymous presents.”

  “Now you’ve got it. And I think the person responsible is connected to some Japanese guys named Tamura, Masaoka, and Hama., Those names ring any bells with you?”

  He shook his head. His eyes were still bright and nervous, but there wasn’t any guile in them. Still, he was a screwball—and so was the person who had murdered those three Japanese. Screwballs, as any psychiatrist will tell you, can be cunning as hell when it comes to concealing things about themselves.

  I asked him, “How about Chiyoko Wakasa? Do you know that name?”

  “Is she another of my former students? I’m not very good with names; I deal with so many in my classes ...”

  “Okay, forget it. What I want from you now is some information on the Japanese relocation camps during World War II.”

  That surprised him. Or seemed to. He said, “You do?”

  “Yes, I do. You teach California history; you ought to know something about them.”

  “Of course I know something about them.” Now he sounded indignant, as if I had impugned his credentials as a teacher. “I know quite a bit about them, as a matter of fact.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes. I once wrote a paper on the wartime evacuation of Japanese-Americans. A fascinating study, from the historical point of view.”

  “Sure. Unless you happened to be in one of the camps.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Tragic. Very tragic. Families uprooted, stripped of their possessions, shunted off to live in dreary tar-paper barracks behind barbed-wire fences.” He shook his head. “Tragic,” he said again, and he seemed to mean it.

  I started to say something, but Mixer wasn’t finished yet. He seemed to be warming to the subject. “Politics, war-induced hysteria, racism—those were the three principle reasons behind the decision to relocate. The idea that all the Nisei and Issei in California were potential spies and saboteurs is ridiculous. Did the government decide to imprison American citizens of German or Italian descent? Of course not; they were white. Nor was there any mass evacuation of people of Japanese ancestry in the Hawaiian Islands, even though more of them lived there than here on the West Coast: 157,000 as compared to 120,000. What the Hawaiians did was to round up known dissidents and ship them to the mainland camps—a total of less than a thousand, or a mere one percent of the adult Japanese population. Were you aware of that?”

  “No,” I said, “I wasn’t.”

  “A gross miscarriage of justice,” Mixer said, and nodded his head emphatically.

  “How many camps were there altogether?”

  �
��Ten. Two in California, two in Arizona, two in Arkansas, and one each in Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah.”

  “The one I’m interested in was a California camp—Tule Lake.”

  “The California camps were the worst,” Mixer said. “Tule Lake and Manzanar—woeful places. Barracks partitioned into one-room apartments twenty by twenty-five feet, each one occupied by eight to ten people. No furniture; just Army cots and bed ticking. Inadequate sanitation facilities, inadequate hospital facilities; insuffient food in most camps. And the allowances the people were given ... my God! Eight dollars a month for unskilled labor, twelve dollars for skilled labor, sixteen to nineteen dollars for professional work. And even then, the people didn’t start receiving their money until the War Relocation Board took control of the camps in the summer of 1942, three months after the first evacuation orders came out of Washington.”

  Pretty grim stuff. I remembered feeling sympathy for the Japanese-Americans when it was happening; my family and a Nisei family had been friendly in the Noe Valley district where I grew up. But I’d forgotten about their plight as time passed, ignored the suffering and the injustice. Too many others had forgotten and ignored too, without any feeling of shame or culpability. It was only in recent years that some effort at reparation had been made—too little, too late, to too few of the survivors.

  I said, “Tell me about Tule Lake. What kind of camp was it?”

  “The worst of them,” Mixer said. “Isolated, with its own irrigated farm land so that it was self-supporting; but there were sixteen thousand people jammed into it, an uneasy mix of Pacific Coast farm workers and their families and recalcitrants from other camps and from Hawaii. It was also the official ‘Segregation Center,’ where the small percentage of Issei who requested repatriation to Japan and Nisei who renounced their American citizenship were sent.”