“When did the newspaper review come out?” I asked.
“Last Sunday. It was—mixed,” Andrea said. “I can’t believe you didn’t see it.”
I’d been lost in self-pity on Hugh’s calfskin sofa. “I’ll have to dig it out of the recycling.”
“I’d like to taste Takeda-san’s yosenabe.” Norie’s expression was almost mischievous. “Let’s see if he can prepare a Japanese dish without a cookbook.”
Andrea and I exchanged a quick glance. I didn’t want a failure in the kitchen, and I was sure that she didn’t, either.
“Why don’t you go along with Andrea to oversee Jiro’s cooking?” I suggested.
“But I cannot leave your side—”
“Rei, you come, then,” Andrea said. “Marshall’s been waiting for you to wax the ladies’-room tansu. And I made copies of those letters of my mom’s for you, Norie. It’s all in my locker there.”
“Rei cannot use hands to do any work,” Norie protested again.
“Really?” Andrea eyed the splints on my fingers.
The doctor had told me not to do anything to cause stress to the fingers, but I found myself wanting to go. “They’re healing pretty well. I can do some things. If I’m in pain, I’ll stop.”
The truth was, doing something more strenuous than reading or drinking tea might lift me out of my emotional slump, though I doubted that it would lessen the sensation that someone was watching me, from behind every corner.
I was greeted warmly when I entered the kitchen about an hour before the lunch service started. A crowd of cooks and waiters surrounded me in a giant football huddle, one that smelled of sweat and garlic and ginger. But I didn’t mind.
“You go, girlfriend,” said Justin, surprising me with a kiss on the mouth. I’d thought he loathed girls, especially me.
Alberto, the line cook who’d helped me before, asked me what I wanted to eat.
“Nothing right now,” I said. “I have to check in with Marshall and also see to the tansu in the ladies’ room. And my aunt has a recipe to share with Jiro—”
“Marshall and Jiro are together in the office right now, confabbing about the review,” Justin said.
“I can’t believe I missed it.”
“Well, you’ve had a lot on your mind, honey,” said Justin.
“I hear there was mention of the yosenabe. I hope my poor cooking did not embarrass this restaurant,” Norie said, playing her Japanese manners to the hilt.
“That was the good part,” said Phong, who had just come in. “Come over to the bar, Mrs. Shimura. I have a copy of it there.”
I was curious about the article, but I wanted my aunt to have a chance to see the good review of her dish first. So Norie went off to the bar with Phong, and I set to work in the ladies’ room with my container of wax and a few soft cloths. I’d put gloves over my bandaged hands, and while I wasn’t as flexible in my movements as before, I could manage.
After thirty minutes’ work, the tansu was drenched in wax. I needed to wait a while before rubbing it off, and it was high time, I knew, that I talked to Marshall. I wove my way through the restaurant to Marshall’s small office. Through the window set in the door, I could see that Marshall was at his desk, facing Jiro and talking. The office was soundproof, so I couldn’t hear what was being said, but Marshall’s expression was serious. I felt a flurry of anxiety that didn’t stop when Marshall caught sight of me and beckoned me in.
“You poor girl,” he said, getting up and taking a few strides through his clutter to embrace me.
Jiro had risen, but didn’t make a move to touch me. “Are you well enough to be here, Rei-san? You must take care.”
His manners were so Japanese; he couldn’t be anything else.
“Some of my fingers had small fractures, but they’re healing well enough for me to have waxed the ladies’-room vanity. Sorry you had to wait so long for me to do it. I don’t think you’ll have water-damage problems for a while.” I smiled at both of them.
“Have the cops caught up with the guys who, ah, took you?” Marshall asked.
“No, they haven’t had luck, but they assure me they’re working on it.” I watched my boss, trying to figure out his motives. “Anyway, I’m just glad to be alive and finally out and about. How has business been over the last week?”
“Not great.” Marshall’s voice was flat.
“It looked pretty busy out there,” I said.
“Not busy enough. I’m sure last Sunday’s review has something to do with it.”
“Everyone keeps talking about the review, and I’m embarrassed to say that I missed it.”
Marshall picked up a newspaper from the top of his desk. “Do you want to read it?”
“Yes. I can take it out of here, if you like. I didn’t mean to interrupt your meeting,” I said.
“Please sit down. Jiro and I will carry on,” Marshall said.
“Yes, please take your rest. We are talking about tonight’s special, yosenabe.” Jiro sounded unhappy. It probably felt like a slap to him, having to add a dish to the permanent menu that wasn’t in his personal repertoire.
I sat down on the yellow love seat and began reading. The critic pointed out the true meaning of kaiseki ryoori, the classical Japanese cuisine term that Jiro and Marshall used to inaccurately label Bento’s cuisine. Then he went on to complain about the Kobe beef filet’s toughness and the grit in the mussels, though he praised a few dishes, like the salt-grilled red snapper and the yosenabe stew that he’d found “heady with complex aromas.” But the review was about far more than food.
Despite the prettiness of the antique furniture in the place, the restaurant doesn’t have the glamour that Mandala does. In lieu of airy chic, this restaurant appears overly fussy and Edwardian. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not a powerhouse like Mandala or Ten Penh.
“Oh my God,” I said. “They hate the interior because it’s not modern. Marshall, I’m so—so sorry.”
“I asked you to use antique furniture,” Marshall said heavily. “The customers tell me they like our china and the bento boxes. I just don’t get it.”
But I’d moved on to the last few damning lines of the review.
Adding to the restaurant’s challenges is location. Too southeastern to be part of the hip scene in Penn Quarter and too foreign to belong to Chinatown proper, the restaurant lies in a zone that is bereft of reliable parking-valet service. The recent abduction of a female customer points up the neighborhood’s edgy status. The good cooking’s there, but it’ll take a mountain of good karma to make this restaurant work.
I refolded the paper and said, “I can see why you’re upset about this. I am, too.”
“We’ll survive,” Marshall said.
“You said business was slow. What are tonight’s dinner reservations like?” I asked. In the back of my mind, I was thinking. I was going to have to drum up business, call everyone I knew to come eat. I’d get Hugh to drag over his colleagues, Kendall to coax in the politicos…
“We’re half-full, and if we get some walk-ins, we’ll do okay. But I doubt it. Everyone’s afraid to come to H Street now.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to protest that people shouldn’t be such chickens, but I recalled what had happened. I hadn’t even been near H Street, but in a supposedly much better area. No place was safe.
22
Norie was tired after our venture to Bento, which meant that she wanted to nap rather than start reading Andrea’s mother’s letters. I didn’t push her, just took the letters into the room I shared with Hugh and began to puzzle through them myself. Some words I caught—more than I’d expected. My kanji studies on the Internet had paid off. Still, I couldn’t possibly put pen to paper and start a translation.
While Norie was lying down, a phone call came from the Naganos. They were planning to fry tempura for dinner and wondered if Norie, Hugh, and I would like to join them. Tempura! It had been ages since I’d had the lightly batter-fried vegetables that we
re so delicious when homemade. I imagined myself biting into a tender slice of kabocha squash, or a sweet onion. I had wanted to stay home and read the letters, but this would be a nice thing to do first.
“How kind of you,” I said happily. “Hugh’s working too late to join us, but Norie and I are free. What can we bring?”
Betty Nagano demurred a million times, but by careful questioning, I deduced that she hadn’t planned dessert. I volunteered to bring some green tea ice cream. I would stop by the Japanese store in Rockville to get it, before we went over. My aunt slept on, so I nudged her awake at five.
“How kind,” she said when she learned of the invitation. “It is so generous of them, I must bring a gift.”
I explained that Betty thought that green tea ice cream was fine, but Norie didn’t think it was enough, so I had to agree to let her buy manju, sweet-bean-paste cakes, at the Japanese grocery in Rockville. We were stuck in traffic all the way from Rockville to Bethesda, and the ice cream was somewhat melted when we arrived, so I was very glad that we had the manju as well. Betty put the ice cream in the freezer, and Yuji was pouring everyone tall glasses of Kirin when a beeping noise started.
“Someone’s cell phone?” I asked.
“We don’t have one,” Yuji said. “It’s coming from your handbag.”
I looked at my bag in shock, remembering at last the cell phone. Hugh had been adamant that I carry it everywhere, but I still wasn’t used to it. By the time I dug the phone out, the call had been forwarded to voice mail, so I had to awkwardly click my way into the messages to find out who had called.
It was Andrea phoning from the restaurant to say that she’d just heard from a neighbor that her apartment had been broken into. She’d already called the police, but she needed someone to be around when they arrived. Could I be there?
“What is it, Rei-chan? Andrea-san does not sound happy,” Norie said, standing behind me.
“I’m not sure I understand it all, but she needs help. I’ll call her at the restaurant first.” I was already dialing Bento.
“Good evening, this is Bento. How may I help you?” The accent was almost English, but clearly put on. I recognized Justin.
“Justin, it’s Rei. May I speak with Andrea?”
“Ach, nein.” Justin had switched to a phony German accent. “It’s verboten for staff to use this line—”
“I’ve seen a phone in the kitchen. Can’t you put me through on that line? Justin, this is a real emergency.”
“Oh, you mean Andrea’s break-in? She’s been moaning about that ever since her neighbor called, but Marshall really can’t let her go, as we’re short-staffed again.”
So Andrea really needed my help. But I didn’t like the idea of going somewhere I didn’t know, in twilight. “Where exactly does Andrea live?”
“Somewhere off Fourteenth Street, near Logan Circle. One of those blocks in transition,” Justin added archly.
“Let me talk to Andrea,” I insisted.
“Enter at your own risk,” Justin said in his natural snippy tone as he put me on hold. After five long minutes, the phone finally rang through to the kitchen. Alberto picked up and handed me straight over to Andrea.
“Thanks for calling,” she said in a low voice. “Lucy, my neighbor, called me just about an hour ago. I need someone to be there to talk to the police.”
“Wouldn’t Lucy be a better person to talk to the cops? I mean, she would have noticed more things, and she’s on-site—”
“She’s not there anymore. Lucy’s not the kind who gets along with the police. After they left—and she didn’t get a look at them because she was hiding in her own bathroom while it was happening—she split. That’s another reason I need you there. Lucy said that my apartment door lock was ripped out. That means now anyone could go in and take stuff. I need you to take my mother’s papers over to your place for safekeeping.”
“But we already have the letters—”
“I know. I’m grateful for that. But the box has lots of pictures and files and records—all I have of her. Please, Rei.”
“Andrea, I’d like to help you with the police, too. But I’m in Bethesda right now, actually about to have dinner with some people—”
“Never mind, then,” Andrea said bleakly.
“Is there anyone else you could call?”
“It’s the dinner hour. Everyone in the world I could ask is working, except you. Look, I understand. It was a crazy idea—”
But the papers meant so much. They were Andrea’s only tie to the memory of her mother.
“I’ll see if I can get someone to go with me,” I said.
Before I’d finished what I wanted to say, Andrea had blurted out an address on P Street and hung up. Maybe she was under scrutiny in the kitchen, and had to end the call.
As I clicked my phone closed, I noticed that the Naganos and Norie were staring at me.
“It’s Andrea,” I said. “Someone broke into her apartment. The police are on their way, and she was hoping that I could go there to meet them. I don’t mean to upset dinner like this—”
“But it’s an emergency,” Betty said. “Of course.”
“I’m going to call Hugh, to see if he can leave his office and meet me. It’s almost seven already—he shouldn’t be working this late.” As I spoke, I was dialing. The phone in his office rang into voice mail, so I left a message and tried his cell number. Again, nothing. He wasn’t at the apartment either.
“I’ll go with you,” Norie said.
“I don’t feel comfortable putting you at risk. Besides, this is a special dinner! Tempura can’t wait,” I reminded her. It would get soggy and awful.
“We shall all go,” Yuji Nagano said firmly. “I will lead with Betty, and the two of you can follow.”
“It’s too much of an imposition—” Norie and I both cried this out in unison. Then we all laughed. We were being so Japanese.
In the end, we went in both cars, me following Yuji because it turned out that he had GPS in his Lexus sedan, and because I thought it mattered to him to lead. We drove in on Sixteenth Street, which was blissfully free of cars due to the hour. Yuji Nagano found a spot right in front of Andrea’s apartment, but he motioned that I should take it. He turned around and parked a half block south, which made me nervous; I’d noticed a run-down building nearby that I suspected was a shooting gallery because of some hollow-looking people coming from it. Justin’s words about the neighborhood being in transition didn’t seem so snobbish anymore. I’d been rash to come here, especially with three older people.
I got out of the Lexus, stepping carefully around the car to help Norie out.
“What’s that?” she asked. I followed her gaze to a syringe lying next to the curb.
“A syringe. Don’t touch it,” I added.
“Could a doctor’s office be nearby?” Norie looked around with a frown.
“I don’t think so, but Andrea’s building is right there.” I pointed to a narrow row house of about the same vintage as Hugh’s place in Adams-Morgan. The building, like others on the street, had lots of charming architectural flourishes—a witch-hat roof, curly plaster moldings over the windows, and a bay window. But unlike most of the houses, which had small, fancy gardens filled with flowers and unusual shrubs, Andrea’s building had peeling paint and a front yard full of weeds. The Naganos joined us, and we all moved forward to the building’s vestibule. A panel of names and buzzers by the door informed me that Andrea’s apartment was on the second floor. There was a door separating the buzzers from the staircase, but the lock was broken. Andrea’s door, on the second floor, hung open as well.
I reminded everyone not to touch anything as we walked inside. I used Norie’s clean handkerchief over my hand to flip on a light switch, to no avail. In the last bit of sunset coming through the windows, I could see that the place had been thoroughly tossed. Drawers hung open, furniture was overturned, and cushions were strewn everywhere.
The first thing I made s
ure of was that there was nobody still in the apartment. Walking through each room, I looked behind doors and under furniture. The Naganos and Norie clustered by the door. It was too dark for them; they were worried about bumping into things. I urged them to go back to Hugh’s car to wait. They could signal to the police, I convinced them, and also keep an eye out for me, in case anyone suspicious headed toward the building. I gave them my cell phone number and showed them that I was keeping the phone in my hand, turned on and at the ready, for word from them.
As careful as I was trying to be, I still hadn’t wanted them to hang at my side while I looked around. I felt terrible for Andrea, whose place had been ruined. It was obvious that she had really cared for it. Her windows were draped with tasteful sheers, the walls were hung with old, framed fashion photographs, and the few pieces of furniture were all special and vintage-looking, including a dramatic red velvet sofa with an art deco shape. She wouldn’t want the Naganos to see the ruined, semi-shabby life of the daughter of a Japanese woman they’d once known.
I’d been so caught up in the atmosphere of Andrea’s apartment that I didn’t immediately look for the papers. But now I reminded myself that it was a priority. Andrea had told me that it was in her bedroom closet. I went back to the closet and opened the door. In it, I found dozens of skirts and dresses and blouses, neatly hung by color. And beneath it all was a jumble of high-heeled shoes, but nothing more.
23
I checked the other closet, just to make sure that I hadn’t misunderstood. But there was no box there, either. So the reason for her burglary was clear.
I heard the sound of a car stopping and looked out the window. A police cruiser had pulled up, and the Naganos and Norie were standing next to it. Norie pointed to the building, and the police officer started toward it. He was a baby-faced blond, the kind of guy who looked young enough to be the perfect decoy for a liquor-buying sting. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, I’d come to the door to meet him. He squinted in the dark at me as I introduced myself as a friend of Andrea who, since Andrea herself was at work, was there to assist with the police report.
The Pearl Diver Page 20
