December 6 (V5.0)

by Martin Cruz Smith

  “No time. Everything’s happening so fast.”

  “Like what?”

  “Life.” Gen leaned forward to spear a cigarette from Harry. “Did I ever tell you how I got in with the C in C?” The commander in chief of the Combined Fleet was Admiral Yamamoto. Naval personnel reverently called him the C in C.

  “No.”

  “It was thanks to you. I was in the mess with some other officers, and suddenly the C in C himself was at the hatch asking whether anyone played poker. You know how it is with junior officers, one wrong answer can ruin a career. Guys played bridge, but no one was going to admit they gambled. Without even thinking, I said yes. He almost grabbed me by the neck to get me out of there, then I had to race to stay up with him to the senior mess, where there was a poker game of admirals and commanders, the C in C’s inner circle. One had to go, and they needed a fourth. It’s not much of a game without at least four players. The C in C gave me half of his own chips and said two things. First, that he didn’t trust any man who wasn’t willing to gamble. Second, that there was no point in playing except for money. That’s what you always say, too.”

  “God’s truth. So, how did you do?”

  “Won a little. The C in C asked where I learned to play poker like that. I said Cal. He learned at Harvard. Anyway, from then on, whenever they needed a fourth, they called on me.”

  “Cal and Harvard? Wow, were you in the same fraternity? Both smoke briar pipes?”

  “Come on, Harry.”

  “In other words, you gave me no credit for teaching you the most valuable thing you ever learned.”

  “Harry, you’re the ace I keep up my sleeve.”

  “Shozo asked about the Magic Show.”

  “Oh, he did? What did you say?”

  “That I didn’t know what he was talking about. That’s what I always say.”

  “Good. First the police know about it, then the army knows about it, then we’re all in the drink.” Gen pulled a folder tied with a red ribbon from the dispatch bag to signal a change in subject. He undid the ribbon and opened to a loose page that he stared at as if it were half in code: “This is the new total. With shortages of two hundred thousand gallons of oil from Petromar, and two hundred and forty thousand from Manzanita Oil added to Long Beach, altogether four hundred eighty-five thousand barrels of oil seem to have been diverted from Japan to Hawaii. There are enough tanks at Pearl Harbor to hold about four million gallons. We estimate they are already full. Where are they putting the extra oil that you have found? And if you found some, there is probably much more. There must be other tanks in Hawaii, and the only information we have on where they are is your story about an American contractor you met in Shanghai who claimed to have put reinforced tanks in a valley behind Waikiki.”

  “He was drunk. We were in a bar. He could have made it up.”

  “Why that story, though?”

  “Gen, it’s all stories. Books were altered, so what? Books are always altered, and mistakes are always made. The same with Manzanita and Petromar. It’s fun to run Kawamura in circles, but we can’t prove anything. Let me ask you this, have your people ever found those mysterious tanks? Why stick them in a valley? When did they build railroad tracks or oil pipes or access roads? The man was drunk. We were at the Olympic Bar in Shanghai, longest bar in the world, ten languages going at the same time, with two Russian girls who didn’t understand a word, so I don’t even know why he was boasting. You’ve been to the Olympic, it’s a mob scene. I didn’t get his name or his company, and he didn’t draw a map on the back of a cocktail coaster. It’s all smoke, Gen.”

  “It’s four hundred and eighty-five thousand gallons, Harry. At least.”

  “I suppose it’s a lot of oil. But it’s just a story, that’s all.”

  “If you could remember anything else. What he looked like?”

  “He was fat and loud and drunk.”

  “Anything else?”

  “What I know, you know. The only way to prove it is to fly over every valley in Oahu. Until then it’s a rumor, a glass of fog. Why believe it at all?”

  Gen released a smile with Pepsodent dazzle. “Because of the Magic Show. You nailed someone who had everyone else fooled.”

  “All I said was I saw a magician in China. I could have been wrong.”

  “You weren’t. And the place you met him was the Olympic Bar in Shanghai, the same place you met this contractor. So we can’t ignore anything you say happened there.”

  “Has this been good for your career? Get you more attention from the C in C?”

  “It hasn’t hurt.” Gen was still smiling. “And I take care of you in return.”

  “Well, that’s what I want to talk about.” Harry mashed one cigarette and tapped out another. “You know what’s more important to me than spies?”

  “What?”

  “My neck.”

  It took Gen a second. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ishigami’s back from China. I don’t mind going over the company books from Long Beach Oil or Manzanita, you name it, anything to help an empire in need. Now I need some help. You do remember Ishigami?”

  Gen’s smile went flat. “The name is familiar. He’s been in China, right?”

  “Most of all, Nanking. His picture was in the paper yesterday. I’m surprised you missed it.”

  Gen put the ledger and folder back together and returned them to the dispatch bag. “Nanking was four years ago. You’ll have to remind me what you were doing there. Or should I say, the scam?”

  “For the Japanese government, looking for river tankers, trying to find them before they were scuttled. I was along in case there were any Americans on board. I might have liberated a car or two.”

  “You just never give it a rest, do you, Harry? You can’t pull that around Ishigami.”

  “Well, he holds a grudge, and now he’s after me. Call him off.”

  Gen threw on his leather coat, slipped the dispatch bag over his shoulder, pulled on his gloves. “He’s in the army. The army and navy don’t even talk to each other. The army spies on me. They spy on the C in C. Anyway, I understand they brought Ishigami back to do propaganda. After all, he is a hero.”

  “He’s homicidal.”

  “Right now everybody’s tense. We’ll all be pulling together soon enough.”

  “That old team spirit?”

  “You got it. In the meantime, our job is to protect the C in C from the crazies.”

  Harry followed Gen out the door to a Harley the size of a pony with a teardrop tank and low-slung fenders. There was something about the way Gen swung onto the bike, how he kicked the starter and twisted the throttle so that the bike ached to race away, that disquieted Harry.

  “The C in C is a good gambler,” Harry had to shout over the sound.

  “Better than you, Harry. He broke the bank at Monte Carlo. They say he could have been a professional gambler. He really considered it.”

  Harry had heard the same stories. “Roulette is a tough game, okay. You don’t play other players, you play the house, and the house odds are inexorably against you. You know about odds?”

  “I know the odds.” Gen slipped his goggles over his eyes. The glass spread his eyes like a mask.

  “Do you? Americaoutproduces Japan in oil by seven hundred to one. How do you like those odds?”

  “That’s why it’s important to get all the oil we can.”

  “Really? Do you think a few extra drops of oil in Hawaii make any difference?”

  “Every drop makes a difference.”

  Harry reached and turned the throttle down.

  “No. Listen to me. What makes a difference is Standard Oil and Royal Shell. What makes a difference is a fountain, a flood of oil. Japan used to get ninety percent of its oil from America, sixty percent from Standard and Shell alone. That’s five million gallons a year. Japan hasn’t gotten one drop from Shell or America since June. Most of the oil in Japan goes to the navy, and the navy doesn’t have enou
gh oil to complete an exercise at sea. Don’t ask how I know these things, you know they’re true. Cut off oil and everything will come to a stop. I would guess six months. If Japan goes to war, it has to win by then. The odds? Fifty to one. Worse than Monte Carlo. I know how Naval Operations works. A lot of the planning is done by junior officers like you. Tell them the damn odds.” No deal. Gen could have been a statue on a horse. “I’m only saying, let them know the odds. If there’s a war, it won’t be won with blood and sweat, it’ll be won by the side that has the oil, that’s all.” Still no reaction from Gen. “Okay, try this. Aviation fuel is eighty-nine octane, which the United States has an endless supply of. Japan doesn’t, so it designs the Zero, a wonderful fighter, to fly on piss. American planes will fly faster and farther not because of the pilots but because of the fuel. It won’t be a matter of courage or skill, it will just be better fuel.” Gen might have been stone. Not a word had penetrated.

  “The difference is spirit and men,” Gen said.

  “Right. By the way, remember Jiro from our gang in Asakusa, how much he wanted to die for the emperor? He made it. He’s in heaven now. I lit a stick for him today.”

  “If he died for the emperor, I am happy for him.”

  No American sis-boom-bah now, Harry thought. Just pure Japanese.

  Gen milked the throttle again and seemed to regard his old friend from a great distance. “I’ll do what I can about Ishigami. You know, Harry, Nippon Air came to me about putting you on the plane to Hong Kong. I backed you up. You shouldn’t be spreading defeatist propaganda.”

  “Just numbers, Gen, forget I mentioned them. I appreciate everything you did to get me on the plane.”

  “When is it taking off?”

  “Monday the eighth.”

  “Two days. Okay, I’ll see about Ishigami. You stay out of trouble.”

  Gen put the Harley into gear. His hair snapped back as the bike surged and chased its noise along the dock. Across the bay under Yokohama’s verdant bluff, Harry saw ships offloading the wealth of empire: bales of cotton from China, bags of rice from Thailand, sugar and sweet tropical fruits from semitropical Formosa and, from Manchuria —now the Japanese creation of Manchukuo— iron ore and lumber. A German blockade-runner, a gray freighter with a tarp over a forward gun, stood off by itself. The ships of Yoshitaki Lines were everywhere, there wasn’t enough waterfront to go around. Sampans and barges swarmed to other freighters anchored out, the barges loaded until they shipped water. Through the sheer physical effort of a single oarsman, a sampan could move a half-ton of goods. Along the Bund, stevedores in straw hats and padded jackets swung on hooks, clambered up nets and trotted with handcarts between railway cars, men in motion everywhere. The scene put Harry in mind of a drunk bingeing on his last full bottle. But the days when Yokohama swallowed a full measure of sweet Maracaibo crude or clean American diesel the color of honey, those days were gone.

  ON THE WAY back to Tokyo, Harry drove by Haneda Field. In the far distance was a white tower and hangars. Harry was tempted to visit Nippon operations and see the plane they were flying to Hong Kong, a DC-3 with a full bar and sleeper seats, but he quelled the urge when soldiers appeared along the edge of the road, and decided it wouldn’t do for a gaijin to show too much interest in an airport. On the other side of the road, however, were ballplayers on a field. It was a small field with grassy slopes for bleachers and a little scoreboard beside a bottle-shaped sign for Asahi beer, but Harry recognized the team’s gray flannel uniforms with black and orange piping even from his car, and he rolled up to a clubhouse of cinder blocks painted green. The ticket window was shut. Harry walked through the turnstiles to the batting screen and joined a couple of reporters who were arguing over who was paid more money, Bob Feller or Satchel Paige. Feller was the biggest star in American baseball, but Paige sneaked around that fact by playing both the Negro league and winter ball.

  The Tokyo Giants were taking advantage of the warm weather to hold an off-season workout. Not just for rookies; Harry spotted the home-run slugger Kawakami and the pitcher Sawamura, who once struck out Ruth, Foxx and Gehrig in a row. Japanese were fanatical about practice. Pitchers threw hundreds of pitches a day, which was probably why their arms wore out so soon. Especially with breaking pitches, a Japanese specialty. Every few minutes a fighter plane would pass overhead, towing its shadow across the diamond and up over the slope to the airfield across the road. Otherwise the scene was immaculately normal. One coach hit grounders to the infield, another lofted fly balls toward players stationed in front of the beer sign, pitchers lobbed the ball back and forth on the sidelines. Sawamura had lost two seasons to active duty in China and was resurrecting what had been the league’s best fastball. With each pitch, the catcher’s mitt produced a satisfying pop.

  Harry was a Giants fan, and no one on the team ever had to pay for a drink at the Happy Paris. He liked practice almost as much as games. He found a meditative calm in the repetition of the infielders as they broke for the ball, fielded the good hop, set their feet and fired to first. They refused to backhand grounders or dive for liners, but otherwise they were as good as Americans. Also, they played honorable baseball: they would never slide with their spikes high to break up a double play or throw a knockdown pitch. During the season every game had an epic dimension; when the Giants lost, there was mourning throughout Tokyo, and an error on the field demanded an apology from a shamefaced player to his entire team. After games, writers raced back to the office on motorcycles to file their stories. Even at a winter workout like this, when Kawakami, “The King of Batting,” walked to the plate with his famous red bat —fashioned from a sacred tree in a secret forest— the writers studied every swing as if he were a great actor onstage. When he knocked a ball over the scoreboard, they oohed and aahed like children. The Japanese were crazy for home runs.

  One of the Giants ran off the field, leaving Sawamura no one to throw to, so he motioned Harry to pick up a loose glove. The pitcher had such a smooth motion and the ball came with such easy velocity that Harry’s hand stung with every catch, but he was damned if he was going to let it get by him or be distracted by a line of bombers coming out of the sun, practicing an approach in close formation. As the planes passed overhead, the gunners in their bubbles seemed near enough to shout to.

  When Harry’s arm warmed, the ball went back and forth with more energy. A game of catch was a conversation in which nothing in particular need be said. Motion was all, motion and the elongation of time. Activity around the field —grounders, fly balls, the pitchers’ easygoing throws— took on the steady nature of a metronome. At the batting cage, Kawakami took a cut. The ball rose and hung, spotlit by the sun, as a fighter that had just taken off from Haneda came over the clubhouse. For a moment the ball and plane merged. Then the fighter passed, trailing a shadow that leaped the outfield fence. And the ball came down into a glove and the fielder threw it cleanly, on one hop, to home.

  8

  A FTER THE BATTLE at UenoPark, Kato took Harry into his confidence more and more, allowing him into his studio and paying him to deliver finished work. Harry liked the studio for its sophisticated jumble of Greek statues, samurai armor, urns stuffed with props like umbrellas, swords and peacock feathers. Artfully out-of-focus photographs of French haystacks and cathedrals covered the walls, plaster casts of feet and hands weighted the cloths that covered works in progress. Whether his models posed in kimonos or without, Kato always wore a studio coat and beret because, as he said, “Professional decorum is never so essential as with a naked woman.”

  Western art was for himself. For money, Kato produced purely Japanese woodblock prints. It was a transformation to Harry. Kato was no longer an imitation Frenchman fussing over a palette, he was a master who could capture the contours of a model with a seemingly continuous line of ink. The model herself was no longer a sallow, short-limbed version of a Parisian prostitute but a delicate courtesan wrapped in a silk kimono. Better yet for a boy like Harry, the process was a
puzzle to be disassembled and put back together. Kato’s sketch went to a carver who sent back a close-grained cherry-wood keyblock and as many as ten other blocks carved for separate colors. Sometimes Kato sent the blocks to a printer, sometimes he did the printing himself. He printed one color a day, from light to dark —clamshell for white, red lead for tan, turmeric for yellow, redbud for pink, safflower for red, cochineal for crimson, dayflower for blue, lampblack for ebony— on soft mulberry paper. Kimonos were always a challenge, with their patterns of peacock eyes, russet leaves, cherry blossoms, peonies. The subtlest color of all, however, was skin, painted with the lightest pink to flatten the fibers of the paper. Layer by layer the colors coalesced into an image, the slattern into an innocent beauty, a swirl of lampblack for a teapot’s steam, a dusting of mica to suggest the night. Harry enjoyed the misdirection. Great artists like Hokusai or Kuniyoshi could each print a series called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which were not pictures of Fuji but of life in Tokyo, of courtesans or fishermen or peddlers stumbling up a hill with a small, hazy Fuji floating serenely in the background.

  Harry arrived once when Kato had gone for medicine and left the door unlocked. Harry was inside alone, stealing a smoke, when an ember fell from the cigarette and burned a drop cloth. He had to move a plaster cast to refold the cloth and hide the incriminating hole and, in doing so, uncovered a work in progress that he had not seen before: a courtesan in an elegant black-and-blue-striped kimono, her hair knotted and embellished with a tall white comb. What was different about this print was that she was in the pleated leather back of a large car, leaning to one side with a cigarette to accept a light from a male hand holding a lit match. The more Harry looked, the more he saw the artistry in the two sources of light, the match’s small ball of fire and the moon through the rear window of the car. How her twisted position revealed the line of her neck. How loose strands of hair and the kimono’s rumpled surface indicated a recent intimacy. What surprised him most was that the woman was Oharu.