December 6

by Martin Cruz Smith

  “As a matter of fact, I think he’s golfing. He’s a very decent man, and he’s made friends with the top people.”

  “The top people don’t run this country, the army does. The man has never met ninety-nine percent of the Japanese. He couldn’t communicate with them if he did. If a beautiful woman took his hand and slipped it in her pants and said, ‘Give it to me, Mr. Ambassador, give it to me good,’ he wouldn’t know what to say.”

  Hooper developed hiccups. Harry shared the flask again.

  “Thank you. The ambassador doesn’t learn Japanese because—”

  “Because he’s got you.”

  “Because he’s afraid of making a mistake that would damage the dignity of the United States. How would it be if, say, an ambassador from China came to the States and said, ‘No tickee, no washee’?”

  “That’s the level of competence you expect the ambassador to reach?”

  “No. But face is important.”

  “Not anymore. Something’s up.”

  The hiccups vanished. Hooper looked around. “Harry, I can’t give you intelligence information.”

  “You’ve got it backward. I’m giving you.” Harry plucked a rose and put the petals, like dabs of paint, on Kato’s stone.

  Hooper said, “You’re a tainted source.”

  “Any good source is tainted. This is not a pact with the devil, do you want the information or not?”

  “Harry, I don’t know. I’m not even supposed to be seen with you.”

  “Have I ever lied to you, ever?”

  “You’re such a cynic.”

  “Exactly, that’s what you call a guy who tells you the truth.”

  Hooper smiled with resignation. “Okay, Harry, then I’ll tell you. The Japanese Combined Fleet disappeared a week ago. It’s exercising radio silence, which is the same as sounding a fire alarm, so far as I’m concerned. It could be just to rattle us. I don’t think so, they don’t have enough oil for that kind of bluff. They’re going to the Dutch Indies, I’m sure. That’s where the oil is. They’ll also probably strike in Malaysia and Singapore. Even the Philippines. It’s a matter of days at the most. You’ll get out by the skin of your teeth.”

  “That’s the plan.” Harry looked at his watch. Where he really wanted to be was the ballroom, to keep tabs on Michiko and lay low.

  “You have something to add?”

  “Hawaii.”

  Hooper raised his eyebrows. His bow tie went up and down. “You’re serious? Impossible. They’d never reach it without being seen, and then they’d be hung out to dry.”

  “That’s where they’re going. If you were going to fight a hundred-foot snake and you had one shot, would you go for the tail or the head? They’re after Hawaii —the fleet, the planes and the oil tanks— and then they’ll rule the Pacific. They’re going to gamble big, Hoop, they don’t have a choice.”

  “Oil tanks, too?”

  “Especially.”

  “When is this attack going to take place?”

  “Very soon.”

  “Just ‘soon’? You didn’t see a written order?”

  “No.”

  “Where does this information come from?”

  From urgent questioning with a bamboo rod about cooked books, not the kind of source the embassy would recognize. “From me.”

  “From you? From Harry Niles?”

  It was one of those moments, Harry thought, when your life was put on the scale and the needle didn’t budge.

  “I’m the best source you ever met, Hoop. The Russians have sources, but Americans don’t, because our embassy is a club of Christian gentlemen who don’t snoop. I do.”

  “You make that sound like a virtue.”

  “In my trade, yes. And no one knows the Japanese like me.”

  “That’s the problem. Very well, on what exactly is your information based?”

  Harry didn’t want to go into the details of nonexistent oil tanks, and he didn’t have time for a debate. “Hawaii, that’s it. Tell the ambassador.”

  “I told you, he’s golfing.”

  “Warn Pearl, at least. They ought to be on alert, put some planes up, look around.”

  “They are on alert. Besides, it’s Saturday there. It’s the navy’s Christmas-party day, and Hawaii is not going to go to battle stations because someone in Tokyo has secret information he won’t divulge. I’m sorry, Harry, it’s just not credible. Maybe you mean well, maybe you feel a patriotic twinge, maybe you’re just playing us for suckers, which is what you usually do. Anyway, no one is going to attack Hawaii. It’s too far from here, and it’s too well defended.”

  “When is the ambassador coming back?”

  “He’ll be golfing most of the day, so there’s no point even trying to get him at the embassy. I tell you what, if you don’t take that plane, I’ll get a group of fellows together later in the week, somewhere outside the embassy, and we’ll kick around your ideas, how’s that? It can even be a kind of rehabilitation for you. A start, anyway.”

  “You know those monkeys who hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil? You could be a fourth monkey covering your ass.”

  “I give up. I don’t know what you’re up to, some inscrutable scheme to turn a tragic situation into a buck, but I’m washing my hands of you, Harry.”

  “People always say that. Wait.” Harry clapped a couple of times and bowed to Kato’s stone. He straightened up. Most of the stones in the cemetery weren’t carved, just selected for their dignity. “You know why we got along, Hoop?”

  “I always hate that nickname.”

  “Know why, more than the obvious reasons that you secretly liked breaking the rules and I needed a lookout? Because we both liked Japan. It was like a mysterious club no other Americans could join. We knew what was going on and no one else did, not our parents, not our teachers, not our preachers. We understood Japan.”

  “That’s over now.”

  “I don’t think so. No matter how hard you try, I think you still have a mustard seed of intelligence. You asked when this attack was going to take place. Did I see a written order? No, but I did see Tojo in the park this morning.”

  That got Hooper’s attention. “Really? What was he doing?”

  “He was riding. He was riding horseback in tweed and breeches and a sporty hat, followed by the missus and daughters in a convertible. The tweeds are important because, as we know, General Tojo is never seen out of uniform, and he never, ever takes a day off from running the busy empire. Today of all days, he took the time to ride around UenoPark with his lovely family and be presented flowers by a little girl. There were photographers. The embassies all take each edition of every paper. Everyone can go to sleep tonight with a picture of a new, peace-loving Tojo under their pillow. Now you tell me when they’re going to attack.”

  “Tweeds? Gosh, I wish I’d seen that.”

  “So?”

  Hooper rocked back and forth. Finally he said, “I can’t do it. Signal Hawaii on a hunch?”

  “It’s not a hunch. You know.”

  “All on your say-so, Harry. I’ll check the evening paper and see if Tojo’s in it.”

  “And you’ll still sit on the pot. Or pray.”

  Hooper flushed as if Harry had slapped him. In fact, Harry felt a band of pain across his back from bending to the joss stick and thought, Well, I’ve made my pitch to save the world and failed. It was stupid to even try. Now he thought about aspirin, Michiko and Ishigami, in that order. A gang of kids ran along the cemetery with their arms out like planes. A breeze pushed first one petal and then another off Kato’s stone to Hooper’s feet. Harry didn’t move, and Hooper became aware that although he was with Harry, he could as well have been alone. Before he headed out the gate, he said, “I’ll pray for you, too, Harry.”

  “Do that, Hoop.”

  AFTER HOOPER LEFT, Harry found a café to use the restroom, which was a cabinet behind a sliding door. He leaned to one side to feel, inside his shirt, a welt raised like a snake acros
s his back. When he pissed, the toilet bowl turned pink. That wasn’t good, either.

  21

  AGAWA’S PAWNSHOP was open on Sunday because December was a busy time, when people needed cash for winter house-cleaning and the big blowout at New Year’s. They didn’t like banks; banks transferred mysterious papers around, sign here, sign there. At a pawnshop a person’s goods were safe, redeemable within three months, and shelves were filled with bright stacks of women’s kimonos, toolboxes, movie cameras, tap shoes, ice skates, a golf bag and clubs. A glass case displayed ivory netsuke, a comb and brush set of mother-of-pearl, earrings of black pearl and golden filigree, everything a little chipped, a little shabby, and over it all reigned thin, dyspeptic Agawa at the counter with an abacus, ashtray and pack of Golden Bats.

  “That story about Noah’s ark. That was pretty cute,” Agawa said when he saw Harry at the door.

  “I knew you were good with numbers. You, saying you couldn’t play cards with Jiro’s ashes there?”

  “Well, I find it distracting to play next to a dead man.”

  “You’re not so far from there yourself. We’ll just prop you up at the ballroom and deal you a hand.”

  “I’d probably still win.” The picture obviously appealed to Agawa. His shoulders shook to indicate that he was laughing. “And I suppose you scratched together some dust for Jiro’s box?”

  “We found something appropriate.”

  Agawa looked around his shop, at pawned saws and patched umbrellas hanging from the beams, slightly dingy scrolls hanging on the walls, like a personal museum assembled by a man who never dusted. “Want anything here, Harry? Ski poles, telescope, carving of a bear with a salmon in his mouth?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” Agawa shouted for an assistant who crept in to mind the shop while he led Harry out the back and across a dirt yard populated by hens to a two-story cement tower that looked like the keep of a medieval castle. The tower door was a bank-vault door with a combination lock, and the upper window had iron bars and coffered shutters faced in iron plate. Drop cloths covered everything on the ground floor, although Harry caught a luminous hint of porcelains and the dark stare of a samurai helmet. These weren’t the pawned baubles of the working class, these were treasures of major debt. He followed Agawa up a ladder to the floor above, where the pawnbroker maneuvered a strongbox toward the crosshatched light of the window. Every movement of Agawa’s had been quick and agitated, but in unblocking the box he became nearly reverent, lifting the lid from the rich, swarming glow of gold bars.

  The bars were cosseted in red velvet and stacked according to size. Indian tael bars were about the size of calling cards. Chinese “biscuit” bars were six ounces and carried the impression HONG KONG GOLD & SILVER EXCHANGE. Strings of Chinese doughnut coins Harry didn’t bother with. Selling or buying gold was illegal, but there was a rough black-market price both he and Agawa knew: five hundred yen per tael bar, and two thousand yen per Hong Kong biscuit. Biscuits made the pockets sag. Harry laid down three thousand for six tael bars that would be his currency from Hong Kong to America.

  “How much for the golf clubs?” Harry nodded back toward the shop. “Keeping in mind that the army’s taking over all the courses and there’s no place to play.”

  “A hundred.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Fifty.”

  “Forty.”

  “Done.” Agawa spread the bills like playing cards to count them. “Always good to do business with you. Very professional. As long as you let me count the money, not you. Just joking. You know the first time I saw you, Harry, you were running errands for the girls backstage at the Folies. I was interested in a dancer named Oharu, remember her? I wasn’t so old. I was married, but I was still interested. But I could never get her away from that artist. I think she posed for him. Now, there’s a job, painting someone like Oharu. Anyway, I heard that the artist was going to an exhibition out of town, and at once I got over to the Folies in time to catch Oharu and ask her to meet me after the show. She said she had a date. I got the drift, I didn’t have a chance, not with her. I went out and tried to drown my sorrows in drink. Then I went to the movies. I don’t think I ever looked at the screen, because three rows ahead of me was Oharu with you. You were her date. A boy, not even Japanese. I fought a powerful impulse to strangle you. I could feel my fingers closing around your throat. I could feel your breath rattle. You were so friendly with her, so easygoing. I wanted to beat your head against the steps and crush it under my heel.” Agawa rocked with excitement and slowly settled back. “I didn’t, of course. I controlled myself and left the movie theater. I went to a red lantern and got drunk again and calmed down. Although, I have to say, when the earthquake hit soon after and I heard that Oharu didn’t survive, my first reaction was Good, I hope the little gaijin died, too. I didn’t know you had already gone home.”

  Harry carefully wrapped the bars in velvet so they wouldn’t click together. He looked up. “I guess those were the good old days.”

  “History. Like Noah’s ark. That what you need now, Harry. Noah’s ark.”

  HARRY BOUGHT A newspaper and met Goro at a Ginza pastry shop where the reformed pickpocket was squinting through a display case, trying to decide between napoleon or eclair, meringue or tarte citron.

  Everyone had expected Goro to become a yakuza like Tetsu. He had the supple fingers of a born dip, but he also had the exquisite mole of an actor. Goro distracted shopgirls while Tetsu lifted the goods, and the two boys were successful thieves until they wandered into a stationery store they had robbed before. The owner at once recognized the mole. She chased Tetsu, locked the door before Goro could escape and could have turned him in to the police. However, she was a widow only ten years older than he, and the more he wept, the more she sympathized. Within a month they married. Goro took her family name as his and never had to steal again, though he still flirted with salesgirls. To get him out of the shop, his wife found him a position at the government printing office, where all he had to do was sort stationery to different ministries. That was still all he did ten years later, except for card games at the ballroom and occasional business with Harry.

  “You’re fogging the glass,” Harry said.

  “It’s hard to choose between the meringue and the éclair, each has its merits.”

  “Then one of each.”

  “Excellent. Harry, that’s why we’re still friends.”

  Goro had his sweets with coffee, Harry had tea and they took a booth under a mural of cancan dancers kicking on the Champs-Élysées. Harry had met the wife once, and she had used the word “chic” in every other sentence. Goro had padded at her side, to all appearances a well-dressed consort, a neutered cat.

  Harry opened the newspaper to the movie times. “I was thinking of taking in an early show. Want to come? You can pick.”

  A tael bar sat in the paper’s crease. As Goro pointed to a theater, he incidentally palmed the bar. A moment later he rested his hand in his jacket pocket and let the bar slide down, every move natural and unhurried.

  Goro read, “Stanley and Livingstone, what’s that about?”

  “Missionary gets lost. Nothing new there.”

  “I’m supposed to meet the wife for lunch. She’s very Western, strong-willed. She has me on a diet.”

  “I can see.”

  “A wonderful woman.”

  “Absolutely.” Harry watched Goro stuff his face. “Marriage suits you.”

  “She watches every move.” Goro’s tongue searched the corners of his mouth for crumbs, and only after could he bother with chat. “Are you in trouble, Harry?”

  “Me? Furthest from it.”

  “This request was a little unusual.”

  “Was it scary at your end?” Harry asked. “Did you have to get into some offices? Get past a guard? Was it fun?”

  Goro permitted himself a grunt of satisfaction. He drank the dregs of his coffee and sat for a moment with his eyes closed, breathing deeply
the scent of cream and powdered sugar before rising from the table. “The wife.”

  Harry left a minute later. He waited until he got to his car to unfold the newspaper to an envelope that Goro had slipped in so smoothly that even Harry hadn’t noticed. The envelope was government issue, with a twine closure he unwound to draw out two sheets of paper that were blank except for the letterhead of the Department of the Military Police, Defense Section, Ministry of War. A third piece of paper as fine as tissue bore the red imprint of a ministry stamp. The government printing office was also responsible for rubber stamps. A forged document wasn’t quite as good for Willie and Iris as a call from Saburo, which would have swept all objections aside. However, it was heartening to see that a son of Asakusa like Goro still had, despite all efforts at reformation, an itch that had to be scratched.

  Harry felt better, more the captain of his fate. He didn’t have to go to the ballroom right away. Knowing what he did about Hawaii was like standing by a burning fuse and doing nothing. It was just too…annoying. He didn’t have to go through Hooper, he could go direct.

  Michiko would have to wait. He knew she had made it to Haruko’s long enough to swipe a dress and she had a gun. At the ballroom card game, she would be protected by the yakuza. Harry couldn’t wait to get his hands around Tetsu’s throat for the rebuff at Saburo’s gate, but Tetsu wouldn’t let anyone harm a woman at his game. She was safe.

  • • •

  WEST TOKYO petered out into dry fields, sun-warped wooden houses and small children with bare bottoms who waved as Harry drove by. If the Japanese fleet really was headed to Hawaii, he felt he had to do something. He wasn’t a patriot, but the con he had run on Gen and the navy about phony oil tanks on Oahu was the shell game of a lifetime, his masterpiece, and he refused to see it come to such a miserable end. He refused to lose.

  When he thought about Iris, he wondered if he really had helped her. Assuming that the Orinoco made it through the blockade, racist Germany was going to be no bed of roses for a Chinese bride. That was the problem with good deeds, they rarely stood up to scrutiny. Besides, mixed marriages always seemed to bring grief. He could just imagine Michiko meeting California girls, like a panther among tabbies. When he did tell her that he was leaving, he had to remember to take the gun away from her first. His back began to throb again, and he chewed aspirin as he drove.