"What happened here?" Frankie said, coming up beside him.
"I'm afraid to think."
Matsuo saw the old two-box wall telephone nearby with the pad tacked up next to it and the pencil hanging on a string from the mouthpiece. On impulse, he began dialing.
"Who're you calling?" Frankie said.
"Your house." Matsuo was relieved to hear Kimura's voice on the other end. "Oba-san!" he said in Japanese. "Please tell Nagata-san I am down at the yao-ya and something is wrong here. I think there's been a robbery."
Kimura said she would tell him right away.
Hoping that nothing worse than a robbery had happened, Matsuo hung up and moved slowly, cautiously through the store, pulling the lights on as he worked his way toward the front. The place was a shambles. All the bins overturned, smashed fruit everywhere, on the floor, the walls, the ceiling.
"Looks like there was a fight," Frankie said.
"Maybe," Matsuo said. "Or maybe somebody just wanted to wreck the place." He hoped that was the case.
Then he saw Izumi's staff on the floor under a counter. He picked it up and found that he had only half of it. It had been broken in two. Looking further, he found the other piece deeper beneath the counter.
Frankie said, "Oh-oh," and squatted to the floor under one of the lights. "This looks like blood."
Matsuo hurried over and saw a thick brown splatter, half-soaked into the wood. It smeared off toward the left. Matsuo followed it. Despite the chill in the air, he felt sweat begin to run. The brown smears led to a pile of old burlap bags in the corner. Something huddled beneath the pile.
"Izumi-san?"
Feeling sick, Matsuo slumped to his knees before the pile and reached out to it. His hand stopped in midair, as if it had come up against an invisible wall. He dreaded what he would find. Every fiber of his being urged him to run but he had to see, had to know. He pushed his hand forward, gripped a fistful of burlap, and pulled.
He cried out as Izumi's slack, pale face stared up at him with glazed, lifeless eyes.
Frankie's scream sounded over his left shoulder and blended with his own as his friend scrambled backward across the floor like a terrified spider.
"My God, Matsuo, he's dead!"
Matsuo steeled himself and moved closer, close enough to see the caked mass of dried blood over the side of Izumi's head. He felt sick, wanted to vomit. But he swallowed the surging bile and moved closer. Matsuo had never seen a dead body before, but he knew that the blood on the floor and on Izumi's scalp was not fresh. He had been dead awhile. Matsuo had seen him on Christmas Eve, had helped him close up early.
Was he murdered yesterday? Christmas Day?
Who? That was the question. Nagata had warned him countless times of the Californians' hatred for Japanese, and he had experienced it in countless ways, but this—this!
He felt something in his hand and looked to see the burlap bags that had formed Izumi's shroud. Furious, he hurled them to the floor. Something rolled out from the tangle. He stooped to pick it up.
"What is it?" Frankie said from halfway across the room. He had not budged since the body was uncovered.
"A cap." A
A smear of blood ran along the narrow peak.
Frankie edged forward. "Let's see." He turned the dirty, plaid cloth cap over and over in his hands. "Gee, Matsuo, this looks just like—"
"Mick's."
The fury leaped up in him. He screamed out his hatred and his anguish. In a blind rage, he began kicking and punching at the tables, the produce trays, the empty crates, striking them again and again until they cracked and broke, and then he kept on hitting them, smashing them to kindling.
Damn California! Damn America! Damn Mick McGarrigle and damn the senseless on that had prevented him from breaking McGarrigle's worthless skull all these years!
He kept it up until his knuckles were numb and bloody and his legs ached. Then he slumped to the floor and sobbed.
"You ... you okay, Matsuo?"
He nodded, unable to speak.
"We'll get the police," Frankie said.
"Don't make me laugh!" Matsuo shouted. "They'll do nothing!"
"Yes, they will. Look, we've got the cap and we know whose it is. Half the people in San Francisco must know it's Mick's. It's even got bloodstains on it. We can prove Mick did it."
"And who will care? Just a lousy old Jap dead and another lousy Jap accusing a white boy. Who will believe me?"
"Well, for one thing, I'll be with you. I'll make the charges. I'll tell them I'm the one who picked this cap out of the pile on top of the body. You won't be the one making the charges. It will be me. I'll be with you all the way."
Matsuo looked at his friend. Frankie stood there with the bloody cap in his hand, obviously as angry and as sickened at Izumi's death as Matsuo. Maybe it was possible—maybe with a white boy making the accusation, Mick could be brought to justice.
Matsuo still had grave doubts, but with Frankie doing the talking, at least there was a chance
And if the law wouldn't provide justice, he would have to find a way to kill Mick himself. Giri demanded it.
"Let's go," he said to Frankie.
He replaced the burlap sacks over Izumi's cold, still form and turned out all the lights as they headed for the back door. Matsuo debated for a moment whether or not to lock it, then decided against it. The window next to it was broken anyway. The sun had gone down and it was dark behind the store. They were just starting down the alley when he realized they were not alone.
* * *
"Where you two guys think you're goin' with my hat?"
At the sound of Mick's voice, I yelped. I sounded like a little girl. And then the sight of those six forms materializing out of the shadows froze my blood. Three came from the alley and the other three from different points behind the store, surrounding us.
I recognized Mick when he stepped up close to me.
"I see you found it for me." He snatched it out of my hand. "Thanks, Spot. Someone stole it from me last night when I was a good three sheets to the wind. I didn't even realize it was gone till this morning. We was waitin' till dark to look for it when we seen the lights on."
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
"You killed him," Matsuo said in a low voice.
The menace in it snapped Mick's head around, then he turned back to me. "I don't know what he's talking about. Do you, Spot?"
I couldn't answer.
"You'll pay!" Matsuo said.
Mick looked at me. "I figured he'd say that. Never could count on no Chinky-boy to know what was good for him. But you, Spot. You'll listen. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to turn around and run back to your big house on the hill and forget any of this ever happened, understand?"
My mind raced. We didn't have the cap anymore, but I could still go to the police and tell them about it. At that moment, though, all I wanted in the world was to be out of there and on my way home.
I finally found my voice. "Come on, Matsuo. Let's go."
"Uh-uh," Mick said. "Chinky-boy's stayin' here. We're gonna teach him a few lessons."
"No!" I said and moved toward Matsuo.
I saw it coming. Matsuo had showed me time and time again how to defend myself against that kind of punch, how to grab the opponent's wrist and turn his own strength against him, twisting him around and sending him to the floor with a painful thud. And I had done it countless times, sending Matsuo to the floor as we practiced.
But I could not move. I could do nothing. And Mick rammed his fist into my belly with gut-wrenching force. I fell back and writhed on the ground.
"I guess pallin' around with Chinky-boy here must've affected your hearing, Spot. I said, ‘Get!' but you moved the wrong way."
He grabbed my collar and pulled me to my feet. Past his shoulder I could see Matsuo's face in the shadows, silently urging me to use what he had taught me. Somewhere in my brain I knew how to break the hold Mick had on my neck an
d double him over with pain in the process. But it wouldn't come to me. Fear had a tighter hold on me than Mick. I was a first grade kid again, ready to wet my pants, afraid to strike back for fear that Mick might hurt me again, only worse.
"And I want to get somethin' straight with you before you go, Spot. You weren't here tonight, right? You don't know nothin' about some old Nip getting killed in his shop, right? Right?"
I nodded like a marionette. "Right, Mick. Right."
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Matsuo. "And you don't know nothin' about him, either. You don't even know him, right, Spot?"
Without even thinking, I said, "Right, Mick. Sure."
And then I looked over at Matsuo and saw his shocked face. But what cut through me like a dull saw was the unfathomable hurt in his eyes. He couldn't believe that the lifelong friend who had promised to stand by him had just said he didn't even know him.
I wanted to take the words back but I couldn't. Mick still had a grip on me and I couldn't say a thing on my own.
"Good," he said, and gave me a shove. "Now get lost!"
I stumbled away along the alley until I reached the street. Then I stopped and turned around. No one was behind me. No one was watching me from the other end. Slowly, stealthily, I slunk back to where I could peer into the area.
It was dark, but I could see Matsuo's shorter, more compact figure surrounded by the taller whites. I could hear Mick saying something but couldn't make out the words.
Suddenly Matsuo whirled into motion and I saw one of Mick's group double over with a grunt of pain. Then the melee—flying fists and kicking feet. Matsuo hurled one of the whites into another, sending both to the ground. He tried to break free through the opening, but was tackled from behind. He bounded to his feet immediately, but was surrounded and again cut off from escape.
Matsuo wasn't fighting the way I knew he could. He seemed mostly to be defending himself, not attacking. And I knew he could attack. I had seen him come at me in our practices with fists and feet flying, pulling the blows, of course, but devastatingly quick and effective. I saw none of that now. Even in this peril, he was still abiding by his shi-no-on to Nagata.
I could have helped him. I could have charged in and, using little more than the element of surprise, broken up the circle and given him a chance to escape. I played the scene over and over in my mind as I crouched behind my pile of garbage and watched him duck and dodge and crouch and thrust and parry within the circle of his attackers. Twice I actually half rose to my feet. But each time I started to go to him, something held me back. I was anchored with steel cables of fear. I wanted to move. I wanted to go to his side, but I could not. So I crouched there and felt the tears streak down my face and the sobs quake in my chest as I watched Mick and his gang wear Matsuo down.
Then it happened. I saw one of the gang members stoop and lift something from the ground. I saw a pale blur rise and fall as what looked like a short length of two-by-four was brought into play. I saw Matsuo go down from a blow to the back of the head. I cried out in silence, feeling the pain myself. But still I couldn't move. I stayed rooted in my safe little garbage burrow and watched as they leapt upon him like a pack of alley dogs. I saw Matsuo curled into a pitiful little ball on the ground, trapped between a brick wall and his attackers as they crowded around him, each angling for the chance to kick him.
And still I did not move.
Then from somewhere behind me came a noise. I froze at the sound of wooden geta clacking up the alley from the street. From the corner of my eye I saw Nagata walk swiftly by, his bo tapping the ground like a walking stick. With no attempt at stealth he stepped up behind the group and shifted his bo to a two-handed grip near the center. They were too preoccupied to notice him. And then, moving his staff like a kayak paddler's oar, he waded into them.
Cries of shock and pain filled the alley as Matsuo's attackers were driven away from him. They tried to re-form and bring Nagata down, but the big-bellied older man moved like quicksilver among them, his staff whirling, jabbing, poking, never still, until one of the battered and bloody youths staggered up the alley toward the street, moaning and clutching his belly. The others followed, Mick the first among them.
The alleyway was now empty but for Nagata, Matsuo, and me.
Nagata kneeled over Matsuo's still form. I held my breath, praying that Matsuo would move. And finally, he did. I heard him cry out in pain as he rolled over onto his back. I saw his legs buckle under him more than once as he braced himself between Nagata and the wall and struggled to his feet. Finally, he made it. With Nagata supporting him, the pair came my way down the alley.
"Word has just come from Japan," Nagata was saying. "The Emperor Taisho is dead. Your father wants you home."
If Matsuo heard, he gave no indication. They were almost on top of me now.
I didn't move—not a blink, not a breath. As they passed, I could see the agony in Matsuo's face. His eyes were closed against the pain as he clutched at his right ribs and breathed in short, quick, shallow gasps. And I thought I saw a pain in his face beyond the physical, a pain that reached down to his very soul. The pain I had caused him.
I don't know how long I huddled there in the cold and the garbage. I felt utterly miserable, unspeakably worthless.
And then I heard a rattle in the debris a few feet away on the other side of the alley. A rat stopped and stared at me before scuttling away into the night.
Then I too scuttled away.
* * *
"They're gone. This is incredible. All three of them gone!"
My father stormed through the living quarters above the garage, shouting at the empty rooms.
"They went back to Japan," I said.
"Japan? How do you know?"
"I overheard them talking."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"It was only last night, Dad."
I didn't want to mention last night, didn't want to think about it ever again. I would never have believed I could feel such shame and self-loathing. I was relieved Matsuo was gone, because I knew I could never look him in the eye again. I couldn't even look myself in the eye.
"Didn't he even say good-bye?"
I shook my head, not daring to answer.
"Some friend," my father said. "Well, let's get back to the house. I swear, I'll never understand those people if I live to be a thousand."
We walked back through the garden, my father grumbling ahead of me while I kept my eyes down on the path, looking at anything but that garden, and thinking about what Nagata had said last night. "Your father wants you home." What could that mean? I had always assumed that Matsuo was an orphan.
My father stopped short as we came up to the back door and I bumped into him.
"What the hell is that?" he said.
Sitting on the back doorstep was the stone I had given Matsuo for Christmas.
I couldn't hold it in any longer. I burst out crying.
My father put an arm around my shoulder and I buried my face in his jacket and sobbed like a baby.
"It's okay, Frankie. I know you liked him, but you'll make other friends. Besides, he took off for the other side of the world without even saying good-bye. What kind of a pal is that? He didn't deserve a friend like you."
The truth of that made me cry even harder.
PART TWO
1927-1932
1927
THE YEAR OF THE RABBIT
JANUARY
TOKYO
This is Tokyo?
Matsuo couldn't believe his eyes as he watched through the open window of the touring car. Where were all the beautiful Japanese people in their brightly colored kimonos and even brighter obis who were supposed to fill the streets of Tokyo? All he saw were dull drones: businessmen in drab, Western-style lounge suits and secretaries in tight, short skirts, all trudging along the streets with glum faces.
Seeing them angered Matsuo, temporarily blotting out the dread and anticipation of knowing that he was minutes away
from meeting his father and brother for the first time in his memory. He had spent every hour of the slow sail across the Pacific wondering how he would be received. But for the moment, those worries were gone, submerged in an insane urge to leap from the carriage and shout at the pedestrians, to send them scurrying to their homes, not to return until they were properly attired.
And Tokyo itself—where was the magic, the exotic atmosphere? The houses that crowded up to the street were flimsy-looking structures of wood and paper with no foundations and no chimneys and only the narrowest of alleys between; occasionally he saw a roof of clay tiles but most seemed to use wooden slats. Where was the plan? All seemed to be chaos. Sushi bars next to kimono shops next to hotels. Where was the neatness, the structure, the order Nagata had described to him in such glowing terms?
"Why the long and troubled face?" said Nagata at his side.
Matsuo hesitated. Dare he say it?
"This is not what I expected, sensei. I thought Tokyo would be... different."
"It has changed much," Kimura said from the far side of the car. She did not seem to mind the changes—her face radiated happiness at being back in her homeland.
Nagata nodded vigorously. "That it has. I have read of changes in the newspapers from home, but never realized they were so great. The fire that followed the Great Kanto Earthquake two and a half years ago, that is to blame."
"Ah," said Kimura. "Namazu still shakes his great tail when he is angry, and the earth trembles."
Matsuo searched his memory. Namazu . . . he knew that name...
Nagata said, "Surely you remember my telling you of the great catfish who swims among the islands of Japan and sometimes causes them to shake."
Of course. "Yes, sensei. I remember now."
"Good. Some modern people call Namazu a silly superstition, but we know where the truth lies, don't we?"
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