The Pearl Harbor Murders

by Max Allan Collins

  "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 attachÈs."

  "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?"

  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.

  Kuhn—even at six foot, still towered over by the strapping, brown-haired FBI agent—had blue-eyed bland good looks, dark blond hair and wore a white linen suit with a silver tie. Elfriede Kuhn was of medium height, with a nicely slender shape, and one of the few women present not swimming in a muumuu or wrapped up in a kimono—she wore a simple black cocktail dress, rather low-cut. Both husband and wife were attractive individuals in their dissipated forties.

  The conversation was focused on an upcoming battle: the annual Shrine-sponsored football game tomorrow, in which the University of Hawaii would meet Willamette. The German favored Hawaii, while the FBI agent—a Willamette University graduate, it happened—not unexpectedly argued for the out-of-town team.

  Burroughs, who didn't give a damn either way—he was a boxing and wrestling fan—stood on the fringes of the conversation, politely; then the German—his blue eyes languid—changed the subject, drawing Burroughs directly in.

  "I feel my countrymen owe you an apology, Edgar," Kuhn said, his accent thick, his manner smooth. "It is something I have long meant to bring up."

  "Why an apology?" Burroughs asked, already amused.

  "Like so many German men, when was it... ten years ago? I was a devoted fan of your Tarzan novels. What a sensation you were in my homeland!"

  Burroughs sipped his wine, offered up a wry smile. "That is true—my first German royalty check was the largest single foreign payment I ever had."

  "Every man and boy in Deutschland caught Tarzan fever," Kuhn said, admiringly, eyes as bright as any young fan of the Jungle Lord's adventures.

  Mildly chagrined, the writer said, "Well, like most epidemics, it ran its course. Or I should say, got cured."

  "What was done to you was most unfortunate," the German said, shaking his head, "most unfair."

  Her pretty features pinched with sympathy, Kuhn's wife said, "Oh, yes, how foolishly the press behaved."

  The FBI agent, confused, said, "What was done to you, Ed?"

  "Well, it was my own damn fault, or my agent's—after we did so well with the first four Tarzans, a rival publisher bought the rights to a book my regular German publisher had skipped over—Tarzan the Untamed, a thing I did during the world war."

  Eyebrow arched, Kuhn glanced at Steriing. "It was published as Tarzan der Deutschenfresser.... It too caused a sensation."

  Sterling still appeared confused, and Mrs. Kuhn further translated, her manner as delicate as her words were not: "Tarzan the German Devourer."

  Now the FBI man got it—perhaps, as the Tarzan fan he had often professed to be, he even recalled the plot of the novel: Tarzan—his beloved wife Jane apparently murdered by a German officer—goes on a blood-lust rampage against the Hun, including setting loose a ravenous lion in the German trenches.

  "You can't give my stuff away there, now," Burroughs said, with a laugh. "As Mrs. Kuhn said, the German press lambasted me—one article advised readers to throw their Tarzan books into the garbage can."

  "Sanctimonious nonsense," the German said. "Were you expected to soft-pedal your honest convictions, at the height of a bitter war?"

  "Well, I should have seen it coming, and blocked publication in Germany—it was dated material, wartime propaganda, and shouldn't have been reprinted, anywhere."

  Sterling said, "I guess politics and entertainment don't mix. You've never regained your footing over there, in all this time?"

  Kuhn answered for Burroughs, "Adam, you don't realize the extent of our friend's popularity—the fever turned into a furor...."

  Sterting frowned. "What does Hitler have to do with it?"

  Burroughs laughed, almost choking on his wine. "Not 'f¸hrer,' Adam—fur-or."

  Embarrassed, the FBI man said, "Sorry."

  "An understandable confusion," the German said urbanely. "After all, there were public burnings of your books, Edgar."

  Mrs. Kuhn asked the writer, "Did your German publishers ever ask you to offer an... explanation, or apology to your readers?"

  "An open letter from me was published," Burroughs said, and Kuhn—aware of this—was nodding. "I didn't apologize, exac
tly. The novel reflected what I thought and felt at the time I wrote it. I wasn't about to assume a spineless attitude and retract and apologize ad nauseam."

  With a nod—though stopping short of clicking his heels—Kuhn said, "Well, please allow me to offer an overdue apology myself, on behalf of the German people."

  "Thanks, Otto—though I prefer royalties to apologies."

  But much later that evening, after the last luau guests had departed the Niumalu, Burroughs—in his bungalow, preparing for bed—reflected on Tarzan the Untamed, which since the German uproar had been withheld from all markets. The businessman in him was thinking that the book was probably marketable again—and, when the war came, could go back into print, in America anyway. Tarzan bellowing the victory cry of the bull ape as he stood with his foot on the chest of a fallen German soldier, whose neck he'd snapped... that could prove to be a crowd-pleaser again, before too very long....

  Though it was after midnight, Hully wasn't home yet—off having a good time with his sailor pals, no doubt, prowling Hotel Street. Burroughs was in his pa-jama bottoms—he liked to sleep shirtless, in this tropical clime—about to shut off the light and climb in bed when a knock at the door interrupted him. Grumbling, he threw on a maroon rayon robe and went to the door.

  "Could I come in for a moment?" Pearl Harada asked, looking up at him through the screen door. The dark eyes in the lovely face conveyed urgency, and she seemed small, childlike, gazing up from the bottom step of the stoop.

  "If you're looking for Hully ..."

  "No, Mr. Burroughs—it's you I want to see." She was still wearing the low-cut gown, but a lacy shawl was slung around her shoulders, and over her dÈcolle-tage, whether out of modesty, or because of the cool night breeze, Burroughs couldn't say.

  He opened the screen door, glanced around, wondering if allowing this young beauty into his bungalow was an impropriety he'd pay for; then he sighed and nodded, gesturing her inside.

  He suggested she sit on the couch, which she did, and offered her a soft drink, which she refused.

  "I won't be here long," she assured him. "I know it's late... and I know this is an imposition. But it really is important."

  "All right," he said, pulling his typing chair over, sitting opposite her.

  "Has your son spoken to you about me?"

  "No he hasn't."

  Her eyes lowered to her lap, where her hands were clasped. "Hully's a nice boy—he probably will say something. But I saw him leave with Bill... and I couldn't take the chance."

  "What chance?"

  "That he would forget to ask you."

  "Ask me what?"

  "If... if you would arrange a meeting for me, with Bill's father."

  "Oh, my.... Young lady, please don't put me in the middle of—"

  She sat forward, her eyes glittering, the shawl slip-ping, and he did his best not to look down into the considerable cleavage of this girl who was young enough to be his daughter. "Oh, Mr. Burroughs, I know you're a good man, a considerate man, underneath that ... gruff exterior."

  "Underneath this gruff exterior, my dear, is a gruff interior."

  "I don't believe it—I can see kindness in your eyes. I know Colonel Fielder doesn't approve of us, Bill and I. . . ."

  "Can you blame him, at a time like this?"

  She shook her head, and the dark arcs of hair swung. "That's why I have to speak with the colonel—I have to speak with him privately, and I know you can arrange that. Discreetly, Mr. Burroughs. It's important."

  "You want a private meeting with Colonel Fielder. Just you and him—not Bill."

  She was nodding. "I need to state my own case. I want to prove myself to Bill's father."

  Burroughs smiled, shook his head. "You're a determined young woman."

  "Yes I am."

  He couldn't help it: she impressed him. She was as intelligent as she was beautiful, and she had courage and conviction. Who could blame any man for loving a woman like this?

  "I've written about women like you," he told her. "But I've met damn few."

  "I... I don't understand."

  He stood, holding out his hand to her. "I'll help you. I'll talk to Colonel Fielder, and set the meeting up here at my bungalow... discreetly. Tomorrow soon enough?"

  "Oh, Mr. Burroughs," she said, beaming, and she almost threw herself off the couch into his arms, holding on to him, tight. Face pressed sideways against his chest, she said, "Hully is a lucky boy, having a father like you."

  "Yeah, I'm a peach." He patted her back, gently. "Now get out of here before I fall in love with you, myself, you little vixen. Scoot!"

  The dark eyes were teary with joy, her smile a white slash of happiness, as she scurried out of the bungalow, thanking him as she went.

  Wishing he were thirty years younger, Burroughs sighed and headed into the bedroom. There's a Jane any Tarzan might fall for, he thought. He slipped out of the robe and—bare-chested, in the pajama bottoms—crawled under a single sheet of his bed, a flower-scented breeze whispering in the open window, fluffing sheer curtains, the lap of waves on the nearby beach soothing him, lulling him to sleep.

  Deep asleep, dreaming, he believed he'd awakened, hearing a sound. In his dream, he opened eyes that in reality were tightly shut, and saw—shrouded in darkness—a figure standing across the room from him. The figure gradually revealed itself to be female—a tall, beautiful female who moved into a shaft of pure, heavenly light, slanting through the window.

  The woman's flesh was an emerald green, her hair scarlet, her voluptuous body bare but for strategic scatterings of gold sequins that appeared to have been applied to her naked skin. She seemed to be approaching him, reaching out to him, and he sat up, and reached out for her....

  A roar from the darkness—for the bedroom had become a cave—announced a third player, and a mammoth man-beast lumbered into view ... a pair of tusks, a huge single eye, a fiercely muscular build matted with fur with two arms on either side, each thick pawlike hand clutching a scimitarlike blade, four swords slashing at the air, threatening the green woman, who fell as the blades cleaved her emerald flesh, blood the color of gold splashing, and Burroughs tried to move, but found himself paralyzed in bed, screaming in protest, unable to move, too late to save the beautiful emerald girl, too late....

  Then he was sitting up in bed, drenched in sweat, catching himself in mid-scream.

  Quickly Burroughs got up out of bed, raced to his typewriter, snapped on his desk lamp, and sat in front of the keyboard, fingers flying. Before it could fade, he recorded the dream, in its every detail. Such nightmares came to him regularly—often involving some terrible creature or unidentified danger. Many of the plots and characters in his novels and stories had been literally dreamed up; he would routinely rise from a bizarre nightmare and, as calmly professional as a secretary, jot down notes.

  He'd had these useful nightmares for many years, ever since receiving a blow on the head during his stint as a cop in Salt Lake City. At first there had been torturous headaches, as well, but these had faded, and the dreams remained. He was quite accustomed to them, but neither of his wives nor his children had ever got used to his nocturnal thrashing and bellowing, his moans and screams frequently awakening them.

  Both of his wives had insisted that he sleep in a separate bedroom.

  He was right up to where the scimitar-wielding man-beast had entered the dream when another scream echoed across the night—not his own.

  A woman's scream, a scream of terror, cut off abruptly!

  The cry came from outside, had found its way through an open window, and seemed to be coming from the dkection of the beach. He threw on the maroon robe, not even bothering to sash it, and ran barefoot into the night, finding his way through the palm trees in his backyard, toward where the purple ocean blended with the purple sky, with only the stars to show the difference, padding down onto the white sand, which looked gold in the moonlight, like the sequins on the emerald woman in his dream.

  This n
ightmare had a woman in it, too, but Burroughs was not, unfortunately, sleeping: she lay sprawled ten or fifteen yards down the sandy expanse, lying near the surf, which rolled gently but insistently onto the shore. A man was kneeling over her, touching her shoulder with one hand, blood glistening on the other.

  Burroughs could already see who the woman was: Pearl Harada, still in her blue gown, askew on her side on the sand, her skull crushed, blood turning the beach black around her rained head. Nearby lay a blood-spattered stone, one of the thick, roundish rocks used in the luau imu—an impromptu weapon anyone might have picked up.

  The man bending over the obviously dead girl was a handsome if pockmarked Hawaiian from her band—the trombone-playing leader, Harry Kamana.

  All of this the writer took in, in a heartbeat, and then he was running toward the kneeling man and the dead girl, yelling, "You! Don't move!"

  The musician looked up sharply, his eyes wild, but he did not obey Burroughs, rather he scrambled to his feet and ran, heading down the beach.

  Though Burroughs was in his sixties and his quarry in his thirties, the writer was bigger than the slight, slender Hawaiian, still in his dance-band aloha shirt, and—as it turned out—faster.

  He threw himself at the fleeing musician, tackling him, bringing him down onto the sand, rolling with him until they were both in the water, where the surf licked the shore. The writer had the younger man around the knees, but Kamana squirmed out of his grasp, pulling Burroughs forward, and the writer lost his robe, was climbing to his feet in the surf in just his pajama bottoms, chest as bare as Tarzan, and Kamana tried to ran again, but he was running in wet sand and didn't get very far before Burroughs slammed a fist into the man's back, nailing a kidney.

  Kamana blurted a cry of pain, fell facedown, splashing into the shallow water, then flipped around and, making a shrill whining war cry, came up at Burroughs, small sharp fists flying.