“He’s all business. But he can bust ’em up if he needs to.”
“Bust ’em up?”
“He uses his muscle if a certain situation isn’t working. That’s sort of his specialty.”
“Ever work with him?”
“Sure. US dollars, for example. During the war, the Territory treasury stamped them with ‘Hawaii’ so they couldn’t be used by invaders, fifth columns, what have you. But ho, we laundered them through the haoles themselves—the same guys who were stamping them.”
“Sure, sure, I get you. Ever see him get rough?”
“Of course. One time, Frankie beat up a rival wanting to take over a boogie house. That rival moke, he never walked again. Never remembered his own name, neither.”
“He ever get rough with you?”
“No. And I hope he never tries.”
Selfer drank. He stared into his whisky, still swirling. “Know what I think? This must be Lansdale bringing in his own man. To watch over things . . .”
She’d told herself she wasn’t going to come begging. But an angle was an angle. She leaned closer to him, ever so slowly, her body moving almost imperceptibly as if she were about to swat a fly. She opened her face to him. “Please, Charlie. Please keep him away from me. Could you?”
“Ah, dear. Don’t worry,” Selfer said, uncrossing his legs.
She pouted.
And Selfer’s head was lowering her way.
“You have to protect me,” she said, her face hovering just under his. “You must.”
Selfer kissed her. He held her by the shoulders, gazed into her face, kissed her again, and then pulled her onto his lap with a strength that his arms did not show, and the next thing she knew she was kissing him back with all she had.
24.
Despite his smooth way, Charlie Selfer didn’t make love like a smooth guy. Kanani had expected lots of flourish, showing off even, telling her how much he cherished her like one of those men bringing flowers and showering gifts on the second date. Men like that were only in love with the thought of themselves courting a girl. Yuck. Her fear was that she’d like Selfer just as well as she’d imagined herself liking Wendell in bed, and then she would have a problem. That wasn’t the case, either. Selfer made love mechanically, but it wasn’t like those low-grade psychopaths she knew from the boogie houses. His grip on her shoulders—nice enough in itself—soon became a series of controlled maneuvers he used to carry her into the bedroom. Set her on bed. Remove clothes. Place her in position. Assume his place. Adjust accordingly. Never looking her in the eyes the whole time. These weren’t even gestures. He was on top of her and inside her, yet nothing but his male member touched her, which was something of a feat, she had to admit.
She should’ve been offended. She wasn’t just a glory hole. The strange thing was that it wasn’t half-bad. The sad part was that the man probably couldn’t enjoy intimacy. He couldn’t give it. Maybe he feared that he might not get it back? So he couldn’t risk it. She stared up into his eyes and couldn’t help squirming a little but still he didn’t touch her. His eyes looked just above her forehead. He even kept his orgasm under control, even when her insides went all warm and expanding and she couldn’t help but let loose. Again, not what she expected from this. What plenty of guys in the boogie houses could not understand, or any man for that matter, was that a certain kind of sex was so often a transaction. A girl did it to get something, or because she had no other choice. It gave her time, a home, a break from a beating. But this? She didn’t know what this was.
They lay on the large bed in the master bedroom, both on their backs. Selfer had the covers pulled up to his throat like a virgin who had just lost it. His eyes searching the ceiling. He told her about his upbringing, his father a con man. He never had any love, so he didn’t see any in the world. He didn’t know how to find any, and he wouldn’t know it if it lay right under his nose.
“I know my rambling on like this is pitiful,” he muttered, “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.” Then he fell asleep.
Kanani felt sorry for him. All he knew was how to get a leg up and climb a ladder. She told herself, staring up at that ceiling, that she herself was nothing like him. She had to tell herself this at least three times. And then she let out a bitter chuckle. What else was she doing here but getting her mitts on gold or whatever treasure she could find and abscond with forever? She’d told herself that she’d use it to help out her mother. She’d told herself she’d create a new life. But what then? She knew what her faddah would have told her if he were still alive: she could never be happy this way.
Selfer snorted awake. He rolled off the bed, tossing covers, and stumbled across the room.
“What you doing?” she whispered.
“Can’t sleep,” he muttered. He went into the master bathroom, flipped on the light and pushed the door shut, but it bounced back open a crack. She could see his reflection in the mirror, pale, a gelatin. He kept staring into that mirror. Then he opened the mirror and pulled down a bottle of pills and threw a couple back and drank a glass of water.
Sleeping pills, she hoped.
He came back to bed. He patted her on the knee, lay on his back. She waited for his breathing to calm. She waited a long time after that, too, until a person wouldn’t even know he was lying there, he was sleeping so still.
She slid off the bed, inches at a time, rechecking that he was asleep. Once up, she went over to the bathroom, turned on the light, and pulled the door shut so that a line of light showed under the door so he might think, if he woke at all, that she was only in the bathroom. She went back to the middle of the room. He still hadn’t moved.
She tiptoed out of the room.
His office was two doors down the hallway. Luckily an outdoor perimeter light reached into the room, just enough to lighten the edges and shapes and show her around. A teletype machine stood on a side table, the trash can below it empty. His desk had no photos of family and certainly not of a girl. She picked up papers in the inbox and under a paperweight of the Eiffel Tower and peered at them, finding only boring regular reports and ledgers, all befitting a glorified head clerk. She slid open drawers but only found pens and unused notebooks and lighters and more packs of Camels. The desk had a leather pad topping it. She lifted it, a paper slid out. She raised it to her eyes.
It was a map. Tiptoeing, she walked it over near the window for light. It was a type of surveyor’s map of the island, probably one used to build this camp. It bore no official military source such as Corps of Engineers and yet it read TOP SECRET in one corner and OFFICIAL USE ONLY in another. She located the up mountain forest where they were, and southeast of there where the volcano rose, and east where the landscape was just fields of lava rock for miles and miles, so barren that the US military had used some of that land for target practice during the war. The only route traversing the island’s desolate interior, Saddle Road, was mostly gravel.
The map was marked with little triangles. These appeared just inland from their camp, but close. Each triangle had a few numbers and letters, drawn precisely. But these markings had the same dark purple color as the lines of the map—meaning this was a copy, a mimeograph.
She studied the map as long as she dared, concentrating only on the triangles closest to camp, and then she slid the thing back under the blotter.
***
She stepped back into the bedroom. A jolt traveled through her. The sliver of light was gone from the bathroom door. She looked to the bed. Empty.
“You’re not going to find a thing,” Selfer said. “Not in my office, you won’t.”
He was sitting in a chair, in the corner. His head hung and he stared between his white knees, into darkness.
She didn’t answer. She moved closer, but there wasn’t another chair. She sat on the edge of the bed.
“You didn’t find anything, did you?” he said.
She shook her head.
“See there? You want to know more about what’s been trans
ported here, is that it?”
She didn’t reply.
Selfer sighed. “You ever hear the name Yamashita?”
“He one local boy? Plenty guys with that name.”
“He was one of the Japanese Imperial Army’s top generals. Responsible for their last stand in the Philippines. Back in ’45, General MacArthur put Yamashita on trial in Manila, first time in history that the US of A tried a defeated enemy general for war crimes. He was charged with massacres committed by Japanese sailors and marines in Manila, even though some of this happened against Yamashita’s own explicit orders or outside his command. The defense had a case, at least. Yet Yamashita was found guilty—and all appeals declined. He was promptly hanged. MacArthur, you see, was getting his old nemesis out of the way as swiftly as the rules allowed. Many thought MacArthur was just taking his revenge, the general making it personal because the Philippines had always been his claim. Oh, he was probably doing that, too—two birds with one stone, as it were.”
“In that trial, they didn’t mention . . . ?”
“Mention what, Kanani? Get to the point, please.”
She couldn’t say it.
“Then bear with me,” Selfer continued. “Meanwhile, members of Yamashita’s staff were interrogated on the sly, to put it mildly. Especially those serving with him in the Philippines.”
“By who?”
“Ah. That depends. I can’t say, but you can probably guess.”
General Macarthur. His intelligence section in Tokyo. Later, other intelligence operators unspoken. Miss Mae had told her some of this, but Selfer didn’t need to know that. “This was where Mister Lansdale washes ashore. What about that Japanese thug, Kodama?”
Selfer nodded. “Officially, Yoshio Kodama is supposed to be in a high security prison in Tokyo—awaiting trial. He’s heading back now. Certain players were giving the man a secret little prison leave.”
Kanani grabbed the covers and pulled them around her, even though she was hot. “Now it’s a gold rush,” she said.
“Correction: It’s a secret gold rush. Full-scale retrieval, to be even more precise. Way I hear it, it lasted into 1947 at the least.”
“But this is now 1948, the last I checked.” So that meant it was starting all over again, based on new intelligence.
“That’s right.” Selfer swallowed a gulp of air, as if holding his breath, and fell silent for a good few minutes.
The revelations were over, Kanani realized. But she tried anyway. “You once mentioned something called ‘The Directorate.’”
“No, I did not. Never say that again.”
“Okay. Calm down.”
Selfer muttered something under his breath. He let out a long sigh. “There is something new going on, yes,” he said. “I’m afraid that things have changed. Just in the last week or so.”
Kanani had a hand up. “How you know all this if you’re so in the dark, eh?”
Selfer touched an ear. “Loose lips.” He added a bitter smirk. “I told you. I listen. That’s what a host does. I’m headwaiter and a maître d’ all in one. The host staff in the secret clubs know all the secrets of the world, I expect. And they’re trusted to keep quiet. And, sometimes maybe I do see papers, reports, not many.”
“What does Golden Lily mean?”
“Oh, you are a good listener too, aren’t you?” He stared at her a moment. “I heard the name you mentioned. Miss Mae.”
“You did? Where is she?”
“Overheard, I should say. All I heard is that she’s still in Hawaii. But she’s been given travel papers.”
Kanani clapped, bobbed on the bed.
“She’s where you first heard about all this, isn’t it?” Selfer said. “From Chinatown.”
“Yes.”
“And you must have gotten that other tidbit from Kodama when you slipped him the Mickey? Yes? That’s what I thought. So, yes, Golden Lily. Kodama was once Japan’s top gangster. Then the Imperial Japanese Army calls him to China after they invaded. They need a man who can deal with the local gangsters there. Golden Lily was the program for moving all the loot, the plunder. Sometimes it involved gangster measures like swapping for drugs. So Kodama was Golden Lily’s number one negotiator with gangsters in all of Southeast Asia, Indochina, Siam, Malaya, Burma, the Philippines, and Indonesia, doing whatever it took to get them to play along. Damn clever of the Japanese, really. Why not simply commission a gangster as an army officer?”
Selfer fell silent a while after that.
“You said something has changed,” Kanani said.
“Yes. Lansdale, this whole camp, it’s under new ownership.” Selfer wiped at his mouth as if he’d just spat.
“Who’s the kahuna?”
“Ah, you want the big kahuna. At the very top? I don’t know. I’m not supposed to.”
“General MacArthur?”
Selfer shrugged. “I doubt that. Not directly at any rate. The generalissimo would have it arranged just so, so that he could deny anything if he needs to. No, it’s bigger.”
“What’s bigger than MacArthur?”
“Indeed. Deeper, anyway. Some of it’s surely out of DC. And Lansdale knows just the right angle. It’s the American Way: enterprise, capitalism wrapped in the flag, all that business.” Selfer spoke rapidly, gasping words, flinging his arms around in the darkness. “Now Lansdale’s spewing this and that about America’s great mission to reform Asia, all richly frosted with his hokey homilies. I’m sure he was a big hit in his secret meetings back home. They don’t know from Asia. Only Lansdale knows. Lansdale! He can do whatever he wants.” He let his arms drop.
“People get secret money, people can do secret deeds,” Kanani said.
“That’s right.” Selfer snorted, then went quiet again. Eventually he said, “You know that novel It Can’t Happen Here?”
Kanani shook her head.
“Ever hear of a Marine General Smedley Butler?”
“Don’t know him, either.”
“Well, he wrote a book, a pamphlet really, titled War Is a Racket . . . You know something? Forget about it.” Selfer came over and sat next to Kanani on the edge of the bed, lit a Camel, and offered one to her.
He smoked and sneered at her. “So, how did you like my office?”
“Your office is boring.” Except for a certain mimeographed map, which she wasn’t telling him about.
“That’s because I’m just a manager. I take and give the most common of orders. That’s it.”
“You feel like you’re missing out,” Kanani said. “I know the feeling.”
Selfer held out his hands as if ready to catch something heavy. “They have their great cause now. Their crusade. It’s the war against Communism. Not just in Asia, but worldwide. Some actually believe in it. They actually believe Lansdale.”
“We don’t,” Kanani said.
Selfer stared back, holding up his cigarette between thumb and forefinger. “No. But the problem for us is, they now have Frankie Baptiste, too.”
25.
Lett returned in the middle of the night, the boat dropping him off in a snug little cove. A jeep was waiting in the dark, the headlights blinding him. Lett climbed in back. “Where are we?” was all he said.
“Place of Refuge,” the driver said and shifted and sped off, driving fast inland up the hills. Lett slumped dead tired in the backseat, his head bobbing. Then he noticed the driver, a big man.
Frankie. Francisco Baptiste. Lett hadn’t seen his tattooed hands in the dark. He wore coveralls like the men in The Preserve tunnels wore, and a holster. Lett sat up and grabbed at handles for the rest of the ride.
He should have been terrified. But he stayed calm, unlike on the boat coming back, where he’d vomited his guts out overboard until it was just slimy strings hanging off the railing at the visions of him murdering father, son, and daughter in front of Miss Mae before doing her in. That done, he shot himself in the forehead. He had never envisioned that before, and didn’t ever want to again. He knew he
had no choice, letting Miss Mae and her family live. He could never have lived with the alternative. He ended up taking his dose twice on the boat, and luckily it helped. But he would still have to live with a new terror—that his masters here would find out. They could do anything to him, with him, in his name.
The front gate of The Preserve opened for Frankie as if he’d pressed a button in the jeep, and he sped them on through. He drove Lett right up to his bungalow and cut the engine.
He turned in his seat—the movement rocking the jeep that was still creaking and pinging and hissing from the fast, rough ride—and stared at Lett, his chunky brow accentuated by a faraway camp light. Lett stared back.
“What happened?” Frankie said, and Lett heard his local Hawaiian cadence.
“She must have gotten away,” Lett said. He added a shrug and told Frankie what he told the cabbie. He lied through his teeth, just as he had told Miss Mae he would. That camp light shadowed Frankie’s eyes the whole time as he listened, and Lett wasn’t sure if that had helped him tell the lie or not. “Maybe someone tipped her off,” he added.
“Maybe,” Frankie grunted.
“Anything else?” Lett said.
“Rest up. We’re going to train you for your next mission, so stay sharp.”
“All right.” Lett climbed out.
“Leave the gun.”
“Oh, right.” Lett placed the Colt, holster, and suppressor on the front seat. Frankie watched him. Lett added the wallet with civilian ID of one Wendell Lett.
“Keep dem clothes,” Frankie added with a grin.
Lett smiled back, but Frankie’s grin had already dropped.
“You saved your ass back in da Philippines,” Frankie said. “Don’t think I don’t notice.”
Lett winced inside. He didn’t know if Frankie’s response was good or bad, but he guessed the latter so he wasn’t about to say thanks. “Well, good night,” he said.
Frankie only nodded. He watched Lett go.
Congrats, Lett thought as he trudged up his steps. You’re officially a traitor here, too. But, maybe it’s just as well. Because maybe their savagery and subterfuge and soul-selling changed what it meant to be a traitor. So, in the words of any GI or Marine worth his salt: fuck ’em all.
The Preserve Page 20
