The Pearl Harbor Murders d-3

by Max Allan Collins

  "Edgar Rice Burroughs," Kimmel said, putting some pomp into the name, "a flop? That seems unlikely."

  "Admiral, I have sold electric lightbulbs to janitors, candy to drugstores and peddled Stoddard's lectures door-to-door. The only interesting job I ever had was as a policeman."

  This was news to Hully, sitting next to his father. "You were a cop, Pop?"

  Burroughs smiled at the admiral and general, pointing a thumb at his son. "You see, my boy has inherited my literary skill." Then he turned to Hully. "Yes, my poetic offspring, I was a police officer in Salt Lake City, my principal duty rousting drunks and hoboes. Even flashed my gun a few times."

  Hully was impressed. "When was this?"

  "Maybe ought three, ought four… don't really remember, exactly. But mostly I was a salesman-a bad one. I was peddling pencil sharpeners when I first took up writing."

  "Had you always had an interest in literature?" Kim-mel asked.

  "I liked Mark Twain, and The Prisoner of Zenda, if you call that literature. I was supervising other salesmen, had a lot of free time, and spent it reading cheap magazines. The fiction I read struck me as lousy, and I figured if other people could get paid for writing such rotten stuff, make room for Burroughs."

  "I like your books, Ed," Short said, grinning, "and I won't have you downgrading yourself… and my good taste."

  "Don't think I'm not grateful, General. No writer alive has taken more potshots than me-there are li-brarians and literary types who consider my stuff a bad influence, particularly on young minds like yours."

  The general laughed, and said, "How on earth could Tarzan be considered harmful?"

  "Well, a good number of kids have fallen out of trees, emulating him… otherwise, I think it's good for their imaginations."

  Mrs. Short said, rather primly, "Don't you think some children have rather overactive imaginations, Mr. Burroughs?"

  "With all due respect, Mrs. Short, the power of imagination is all that differentiates the human from the brute. Without imagination, there's no power to visualize what we have never experienced… and without that, there can be no progress, no invention."

  Hully smiled to himself, thinking of his father's self-characterization of being a "lousy conversationalist." Of course, giving in to a little wine had lubricated his dad's tongue, no question….

  Kimmel was frowning in thought. "How on earth did you come up with something as imaginative as Tarzan?"

  The half smirk disappeared from O. B.'s face and his response was surprisingly serious-in fact, Hully would never forget what his father quietly, humbly said next.

  "Frankly, Admiral, I suppose it came out of my daily life consisting of such drab, dull business matters. I think I just wanted to get as far away from commerce as possible-so my mind roamed in scenes and situations I never knew." He gestured to the tropical trees around them. "I've never been to Africa, you know-but I find I can write better about places I've never seen than those I have."

  "Excuse me, Mr. Burroughs," said the young Japanese man seated on O. B.'s other side, "but I wonder if you are aware of how very popular you are in my country?"

  This was Tadashi Morimura, who had introduced himself earlier-a diplomat in his late twenties, vice consul of the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu. Like Kimmel, Morimura wore a white suit and a tie; he was a boyish, slender man, his longish black hair brushed back on a smooth, high forehead.

  "Well, I've had good foreign sales for years, though this European war is playing havoc with 'em."

  "My cousin is named Edgar," Morimura said, with a shy smile. "Sir, I know many boys who have been named for you."

  O. B. seemed genuinely touched. "That's the first I've heard of that. But I don't see why a boy in your country wouldn't respond to what kids here do-kids including General Short, of course."

  "You mean the constant urge for escape," Kimmel said thoughtfully, even a little pompously. 'To trade the confines of city streets for the freedom of the wilderness …"

  "I think it's more," O. B. said. "I think on some primal level, we all would like to throw off the restrictions of man-made laws, the inhibitions that society has placed on us. Every boy, of any age, would like to be Tarzan… I know I would."

  "As would I," Morimura said, raising his cup of wine.

  Despite the pleasantness of the evening, the great food, the wonderful conversation, Hully couldn't help but be struck by the surreal incongruity of this social gathering: the commanders of the Army and Navy sharing poi with a Japanese diplomat, when everyone seemed to agree war between their two countries was both inevitable and imminent.

  But Morimura seemed a pleasant sort, harmless, well-spoken, typically polite.

  As the dining wound down, the entertainment increased, the evening alive with flaming torches and swinging swords, and various renditions of the hula from seductive, lyrical swaying to the frenetic hip-twitching version tourists craved. Wandering troubadours with ukuleles and steel guitars sang traditional Hawaiian standards, but also Tin Pan Alley island fare like "Sweet Leilani" and "Blue Hawaii."

  By around ten, the luau proper was over and the guests were milling around the grounds, lounging throughout the lodge, in the rock-garden courtyard, and in the enclosed rear lanai, with its wicker furnishings and soothing view onto a tropical garden. The music, however, had shifted to the big-band music of Pearl and the Harbor Lights on the dance floor adjacent to the dining room.

  Hully and his father split up-he noticed O. B. talking to Colonel Fielder at one point, out on the lawn, and to that German playboy Otto Kuhn, in the rock garden-and the younger Burroughs sat at a table with Ensign Bill Fielder and Seaman Dan Pressman, smoking cigarettes, drinking oke (except for Hully, who had switched from wine to coffee), listening to Pearl and the band do "Oh, Look at Me Now."

  The only concession to Hawaiian-style music made by Pearl and the Harbor Lights was the inclusion of two guitars, one of them steel, and of course the boys in the band did wear blue aloha shirts with a yellow-and-red floral pattern. Bathed in pale pink stage lighting, Pearl-standing at her center-stage microphone, which she occasionally touched, in a sensually caressing fashion-wore a clinging blue gown, with a daring dEcolletage that showed off her medium-size but firm, high breasts to fine advantage.

  "I'm going to tell the old man tonight," Bill was saying. He was a handsome Naval officer in his early twenties with dark hair and a cleft chin-despite his crisply military haircut, he looked more like a kid than a sailor, in his green aloha shirt and white slacks.

  "I can see what you see in Pearl," Hully said, and he certainly could, his eyes returning to the ethereal, erotic vision she made on stage under the pink lighting in the low-cut blue gown. "But you've only been going with her for a month…. Can't you wait-"

  "What, till war breaks out, and I'm at sea, fighting her relatives?" Bill's dark eyes were sharp, but his speech was slightly slurred-too much oke. "There's not going to be a better time to break this to Dad-certainly after we're at war with Japan, it's not gonna be any easier."

  "Bill," his friend Dan said, a blue-eyed blond sailor

  from California, "she's a nice girl, and I mean you'd have to be blind not to see she's a living doll… but you gotta admit-she's been around."

  “Take that back!" Bill said, stiffening.

  "Okay, okay," Dan said, patting the air with his palms. "I didn't mean she was … fast or anything. Just that she's dated a few guys…. Maybe you should wait a couple months, get to know each other better."

  "Dan's right," Hully said. "Wait a little bit-get past the physical attraction and know each other as people … just to make sure…."

  "I am sure-Pearl's the girl for me. She's sweet and she's nice and she'll give everything up for me, her singing, everything… just to be my wife and have my babies."

  "Maybe you ought to think about that, too," Dan said.

  Bill glared at him. "What?"

  "What it'll put your kids through-you know, the racial thing."

 
"Pearl's half white. Our kids'11 be all American. Dan, I won't hear this kind of talk."

  "Okay, buddy … I'm just trying to help. You've helped me before, plenty of times-I'm just trying to be your friend."

  Bill sighed and nodded.

  The band was starting to play "I'll Remember April," and one of the guitar players began to sing the lilting ballad. Bill shot out of his chair as if from a cannon, muttering, "This is one of Pearl's free songs," and headed for the bandstand.

  Then he was out there dancing with her, holding her close, gazing into her eyes like a lovesick puppy, and she was gazing back, a beautiful woman who seemed equally in love. It was romantic, and frightening.

  "His father is going to kick Bill's ass," Dan said.

  "I know," Hully said, and nodded toward the entry-way to the lobby.

  Colonel Fielder-slim, casually attired in red aloha shirt and white slacks, his dark hair widow's-peaked, with a narrow face and hawkish eyes and hawkish nose-stood just inside the doorway, staring out at the dance floor, obviously viewing his son dancing with the nisei singer-and just as obviously unhappy.

  Shaking his head in apparent disgust, Fielder exited.

  "It's gonna be ugly," Dan said.

  "Pearl asked me to set up a meeting between her and the colonel-she wants to plead her case."

  “If she thinks batting her lashes at that hardnose is going to do the trick, she's dreamin'."

  Out on the dance floor, something "ugly" was already transpiring. A soldier-a handsome brown-haired kid in a green sportshirt and tan slacks, not very tall but with wide shoulders and an athletic carriage-was tapping Bill on the shoulder-hard-as if to cut in.

  "Oh hell," Hully said, shaking his head.

  "Who is that guy?" Dan asked.

  "Jack Stanton-he's a corporal over at Hickam… used to date Pearl."

  "Ouch."

  "Fact, that's who she threw over for Bill."

  "Double ouch."

  Out on the dance floor, Pearl was desperately trying to keep the peace as the sailor and the soldier began shoving each other.

  "You take Bill," Hully said, getting up, "I got the dogface."

  The crowd was forming a circle around what was clearly about to erupt into a fight, with reactions that ranged from shouts of indignation to squeals of delight. Hully and Dan broke through just in time to see Stan-ton connect with a right hook to Bill's jaw.

  Bill went down on a knee, but came up with his own right hand to the soldier's belly, doubling the boy over.

  And the fight was over before Hully and Dan could break it up, because the soldier-like everyone here-had been to that sumptuous, endless luau, and his stomach … filled with poi and raw fish and roast pork and a dozen other delicacies … did not take a punch well.

  The soldier, clutching his stomach, scrambled out of there, struggling not to throw up, heading for the men's room, as relieved laughter rippled across the crowd. Soon the onlookers began to dance again, the Harbor Lights beginning to play "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," with Pearl magically back onstage to sing it.

  "I'm going after that bastard," Bill said, lurching forward, and Hully grabbed him around the arms, from behind.

  Hully whispered harshly in his friend's ear. "You get back to the Arizona-you want your dad to see this? Much less get wind of what this fight is about?"

  Bill, oke or not, sighed and nodded.

  "Get him the hell out of here," Hully said to Dan.

  "Sure thing," Dan said, and took charge of his friend, walking him out.

  Then, suddenly, O. B. was at Hully's side. "Did I miss some action?"

  "Just a sailor and a soldier, fighting over a dame," Hully said.

  Jitterbuggers were jumping and kicking before them.

  O. B. asked, over the blaring music, "Fielder's son?"

  Hully nodded.

  The old man shook his head, nodded up toward the pretty girl in the low-cut blue dress, her breasts jiggling provocatively as she sang the up-tempo tune.

  "That little Pearl of the Pacific up there," he said, "is gonna get some poor fool killed."

  And then O. B. turned and went out, leaving his son to marvel at how little got past his old man.

  FOUR

  Nightmare at the Beach

  At the luau, after his son had gone in to enjoy the dance band, Burroughs sought out his friend Colonel Kendall "Wooch" Fielder, and chatted on the Niumalu lawn under the soft pastel glow of Japanese lanterns … an irony lost on neither man.

  Burroughs sipped a glass of red wine, and the slim, hawkish-countenanced Fielder worked on both a cocktail and a cigarette. Wooch-a nickname that dated to the colonel's Georgia Tech football days-was a frequent participant in Niumalu poker games. Sunday through Thursday, curfew requirements kept everyone but officials indoors, and card games had become a favorite pastime.

  Lots of drinking went on at these "whiskey poker" games, and Burroughs had kept active, despite his current abstinence from the hard stuff. He loved poker with a passion, and was accepted as "boss of the play and ruler on all technicalities."

  Fielder was a key player because liquor was rationed, but as a high-ranking officer, Wooch could bring unallotted bottles from the officers' club.

  "Listen, Wooch," Burroughs said, "I want a correspondent's card. With war coming, no one's gonna give a damn about fiction writing-I want to get in the thick of it, and write about what's really going on."

  "Ed," Fielder said, smiling, exhaling smoke, "what the hell do you want to fool with that nonsense for? A man of your reputation, a man your age …"

  "An old fart, you mean. A hundred bucks says I can do more sit-ups than you-right here, right now."

  Fielder laughed, a little. "And here I always thought you talked that way because you were drinking."

  "Well, I have had a little wine-but come on, Wooch… you can hook me up, you can wrangle me that card. I want to see some action."

  "Let's wait till there's some action to see, why don't we?"

  Over to their left, in the flicker of torchlight, standing near one of the bungalows which was draped in purple and rose-colored bougainvillea, General Short was engaged in a smiling conversation with Morimura of the Japanese Consulate. Mrs. Short, in a floral muumuu, was at the general's side, and a pretty Oriental girl, with contemporary makeup and hairstyle but wearing a kimono, was on Morimura's arm. Everyone had cocktails in hand.

  "What's the story on the toothy little Jap diplomat?" Burroughs asked Fielder.

  "If that pipsqueak is all Tojo has in store for us,"

  Fielder said, snorting a laugh, "we don't have much to worry about. Intelligence clears him-inexperienced, doesn't show up on any list of attachEs."

  "Why is the brass so friendly with him?"

  "What's the harm? Morimura spends most of his days playing golf, and his nights in nightclubs and restaurants. He drinks heavily, and I understand practically lives at the Shuncho-ro."

  That was a well-known teahouse on Alawa Heights overlooking Honolulu.

  "Well, hell, Wooch-that would give the little bastard a ringside view of Pearl Harbor, and Hickam Field to boot."

  "The only view that amiable buffoon is interested in is the teahouse girls, like that one he escorted here, tonight. He's taken half the geishas in Honolulu on glass-bottom boat rides around Pearl Harbor."

  "Sounds to me like he makes a habit out of socializing around battleships."

  Fielder gestured with his cocktail in hand, sighed smoke. "Ed, a certain amount of espionage is to be expected. How can we keep the Japanese consulate from studying local newspapers, and listening to local radio broadcasts? … As for the ships in Pearl Harbor, all a 'spy' has to do is perch someplace and watch. It's legal-we do the same damn thing to them."

  Arching an eyebrow, Burroughs said, "You'll notice that smiling, sociable Mr. Morimura keeps bis distance from our German friend, Mr. Kuhn."

  "Your point being, what? That they're in league, helping each other spy? Those playboy clowns?"
r />   The writer shook his head. "You don't read enough pulp fiction, Wooch-ever hear of the Scarlet Pimpernel, or Zorro?"

  "Kuhn and Morimura are harmless fools-not that I don't agree with you, Ed, that all this… fraternization … is unsettling."

  And with that statement, Wooch Fielder's expression shifted, or had Burroughs simply not noticed the anxiety in the man's narrow eyes?

  The colonel moved near Burroughs, his manner more intimate, his tone a near whisper. "Ed, your son and my son are close … as close as we are."

  "I'd say so."

  "Would you ask Hully if he's heard anything about Bill and that… that little Japanese singer?"

  Burroughs, who knew damn well Bill Fielder had been dating Pearl Harada, said only, "Be glad to check."

  “This morning, I had an anonymous call to that effect. … I don't usually pay much heed to such things, but… Christ, Ed, you don't think Bill could be that foolish, do you?"

  With General Short visible in laughing conversation with the Japanese vice consul, Burroughs said, "Wooch, she's a pretty girl. If you were young and healthy, would you think about politics, or that Hedy Lamarr face and figure?"

  Fielder drew on the cigarette, nodded, dropped the spent butt to the grass and heeled it out. "I think I'll peek in there and see for myself. Bill and his pals are in listening to her band-maybe it's time for me to do a little espionage work of my own."

  Burroughs put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Don't be hard on the boy, Wooch. You were young once. Hell, even I was."

  Fielder nodded, barely, and strode toward the Niu-malu lodge, from which emanated the muffled sound of the band playing "I'll Remember April."

  Burroughs, cup of wine in hand, wandered, stopping now and then for conversation. A few guests were chatting in the hotel courtyard-not a spacious area, particularly since the hub was taken up by a rock-garden, and standing room was compromised by the yawning fronds of potted tropical plants on the periphery. The dining room was open onto this rock-garden courtyard, and the loud, lively dance music of Pearl and her Harbor Lights limited conversation, as well.

  But Burroughs was amused to find Otto Kuhn-his blonde wife on his arm, "playboy" or not-chatting with secret adversary Adam Sterling of the FBI.