by Jon Talton
“What can you possibly give me?” he demanded, his hand still firmly in my grip. We were both sweating heavily but his hands were starting to shake.
“I can give you what you want.”
28
Back at the house, I tried to take stock. After brushing my teeth like a maniac, I put the Bill Evans Trio on the sound system, made a martini, and settled at the desk to think. I thought about Lindsey, wondered about the man or men she might be seeing. Might be in bed with right now. What was he like? Lindsey was so conservative, almost a prude in some ways. Now I guessed she had rubber to burn. My lodestar lost, perhaps irrevocably. Common male jealousy twined with my vivid imagination wrestled with grief over control of my emotions and lost. The level of the liquid in the martini glass went down. I was too broad shouldered to carry off the narrow neckties popular when Bill Evans was at his peak. I still didn’t understand why Robin mattered so much to Sal Moretti that he would put a hit on her.
For the first time, I looked at Robin’s legal pad as more than a painful relic. I pulled it over and started reading the notes she had made on that long afternoon she spent alone, after she had given me a kiss at the light rail station near the central library. Soon, I was making my own notes on a separate pad.
Peralta answered on the second ring.
“Have you murdered anyone?”
“No.”
“And you just happened to see the hit woman walking down the street several miles from your house.”
“I was just a concerned citizen.” When he didn’t answer, I went on. “You still have the contacts to get a fast-track check on military records…”
He reluctantly said yes.
I read him the information from the aged dog tags that I held in my hand.
Then I called a friend back east. She was an expert in the history of the Mafia. It was late her time, but she was indulgent. Something in my voice, perhaps. When I ended the call, all I could do was lay my head on the desk.
***
The next morning, I was at the ASU Hayden Library early. The Arizona Historical Foundation archives were a starting point at least, and by ten, a preservationist named Susan had set me up at a table where I was surrounded by the comforting mass of gray Hollinger boxes.
The Japanese internment of World War II was one of the sorrier chapters in American history, when more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese living in the country were forcibly moved from the West Coast into concentration camps. The reasoning had been fear of a Japanese invasion or sabotage of war industries, even though there was never an instance of sedition or espionage. But it had been arbitrary: Hardly any Japanese living in Hawaii, which had actually been attacked, were interned.
No matter: the anti-Japanese feelings that had long simmered, especially in California, were unleashed by Pearl Harbor. Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 in 1942. Many were brought to camps constructed in Arizona, including one at Poston, in the western desert. Most lost everything and after the war had to start over. Today, conservatives were defending this move by the otherwise hated FDR as a useful precedent for profiling Muslims living in America. Everything comes around.
At my crowded table, like a credible historian, I moved through primary source material, the recollections and documentation of people who had actually been there. The Frances and Mary Montgomery Collection—they had been teachers at the Gila relocation camp south of Phoenix. The Wade Head Collection—he had been the director of the Colorado River War Relocation Center at Poston. I set aside the memoranda about camp construction and organization. Letters about individuals and families took more of my time.
It was a rich archive. I wanted to spend a month there and listen to the hours of oral histories. There was no time. And I couldn’t find much on the relocation in Phoenix itself. It was probably there. Everything is somewhere, if you look long enough—ask the archeologists who found ancient Jericho. But the records concerning Arizona related to the camps themselves. The same was true of the secondary source materials, such as the scholarly articles and a couple of Ph.D. dissertations.
I was ashamed to know so little. I remember Grandmother telling me about the German prisoners of war being marched into town to work. About the Japanese, she and grandfather said little. I did remember one thing: the line that separated the families to be relocated from those who could stay ran along U.S. Highway 60—Van Buren Street and Grand Avenue. Those living south of the boundary, including the Japanese farmers along Baseline Road, were sent to the camps.
I found a couple of good academic articles, but they were mostly confined to Japanese immigrants to Phoenix and Maricopa County prior to World War II. First-generation, or Issei, families began arriving early in the 20th century. The first American-born child came around 1906. The state’s Alien Land Law of 1921 prohibited property ownership by “Orientals,” but it was overturned in 1935. The Japanese were innovative farmers and encountered prejudice and envy, but they also built good relationships with many Caucasian farmers and business owners. Kajuio Kishiyama was among the first farmers near the South Mountains, first leasing land and then buying it. Members of the Nakagawa family were also early growers. Both had been interned during the war. After the war, they came back and started over.
With these flimsy threads, I tried to narrow my search.
Peralta called at one. He had the information that I needed.
***
Back home, I pulled out phone books, opened up Google on the Mac, and started making calls. It was tedious work but at least it kept the panic attacks away. On the thirty-seventh try, I reached a man who took my name and number, and said he would talk to his cousin. In an hour, a young woman called. After some persuading, she said she would be willing to talk with me. She lived near Los Angeles and agreed to meet me the next day.
I made another call, to a cell phone I was sure couldn’t be traced, not that I even wanted to try.
“I need another forty-eight hours.”
“I knew you’d fuck me over.” The sandpaper voice. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“It didn’t work out that way.”
“Maybe you’re afraid to get your hands dirty, history teacher.”
“You know better than that.”
“Why should I even trust you? You’re a former cop?”
“Because you want more than me.”
He didn’t speak for a long time. Then, “I’ll give you twenty-four. That’s all. Then we’re coming for you, this time for keeps. We’ll start by cutting off your finger.”
“Whatever.”
***
I flew into Burbank and rented a car, driving an hour through the dismal traffic to a comfortable house with a view of the San Gabriel Mountains. It was not a very smoggy day. Phoenicians always talk about not wanting to become “another L.A.” It’s the smugness of yokels. Phoenix had become another L.A. in all the bad ways, including the gangs. It lacked almost all the good things, from the extensive rail transit to the cool vibe to the world-class universities and talent. Oh, and there was the ocean—and mountains, when you could see them, as magnificent as the San Gabriels.
The young woman I had spoken to on the phone only had a youthful voice. She was close to my age, but attractive with shoulder-length hair, large eyes, and a fine figure in an expensive suit. It turned out that she worked in the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office and was not prepared for any bullshit from David Mapstone, of late the historian for the Maricopa County Sheriff.
“I checked you out,” she said, standing in the doorway.
“Did I pass?”
My flirting skills still needed work. She said, “Let me see them.”
I handed her the plastic bag with the dog tags. She took them out, held them in the sunlight, and ran a finger over the metal.
“Oh, my God.”
She introduced herself as Christine Tanaka Holmes, stepped aside, and let me com
e in.
She led me back into a large family room lighted by an arcadia door that led out onto a sumptuous garden. But much of the interior space was taken up with the tools of old age: a walker, a four-footed cane, a wheelchair with a thick, black cushion as the seat. And in a print armchair sat a small, very elderly woman with hair the color of lead pulled back into a bun. She assessed me with bright eyes.
The deputy D.A. bent down on her haunches.
“GiGi, this is David Mapstone from Phoenix. This is my great-grandmother, Sarah Kurita. GiGi, he brought Johnny’s dog tags home.”
I pulled up another chair and sat before her as she held the objects. Tears dimmed the bright eyes. She took both of my hands. “My big brother, Johnny.”
She instructed the younger woman. “Bring them.”
We sat in silence, her diminutive, bony hands clutching mine, until Christine returned. She opened a wooden box and began to hand out objects.
“This was Johnny in 1943. He sent it to us in Poston, from his training.”
The photo showed a cocky smile on a young soldier. “He trained in Mississippi, if you can believe that,” Christine said.
“He was his own man, Johnny,” the old woman said. “He was a rebel, had to do it his way. Didn’t want to follow the old ways. Wanted to marry who he wanted. He was such an American boy, even though they called him a Jap. But he was a good brother and a great soldier. He didn’t want to stay in Poston. He and his friends enlisted as soon as they could. It wasn’t easy. Lots of resentment about what the government did to us. But Johnny was going to show them.”
More photos: Johnny with other soldiers; aboard a troop ship; another man. “This was his friend Shigeo,” the old woman said. “He was killed on the beachhead at Salerno.” She touched each of the photographs as if they were religious icons. “Johnny wrote us every other day.” She pointed to stacks of letters inside the box, neatly tied with silk bands. “Johnny fought all the way up Italy and into France, with the rest of the 442nd.” Her face clouded. “Then he came back home…”
Christine said quickly, “The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was made up exclusively of Nisei who chose to fight for their country. It was the most highly decorated unit in the Army’s history—twenty-one Medal of Honor winners. Meanwhile, their relatives were forced to live in the relocation camps.” She allowed her first smile. “But you know that.”
Next came shadow boxes with medals and ribbons. One was a Silver Star. It was the third highest decoration for bravery and this one looked as if it had just come from the War Department. In a laminated cover was a citation for Johnny Kurita, for gallantry in action against the enemy at the battle of Biffontaine.
All this was living history, right before me. I let it wash me along, carry away my impatience, and then distract me from my heartbreaks and losses. Against all this, mine seemed small.
Two hours went by at warp-speed before I finally asked my questions. Her hearing was keen, so I could speak in a normal voice. Her memory was vivid and precise. The answers she gave knocked me sideways. The same was true for Christine.
“GiGi, I’ve never heard this before.”
“What was the point? We knew we couldn’t get justice in Phoenix. The other Japanese on Baseline tried to help us, but they were just getting re-established. Most of the whites didn’t care. Oh, we grew so many things. The South Mountains shielded us from the frosts. The whites just said we were taking the best land. What was the point in carrying around such bitterness.” She nodded to Christine. “None of you young ones knew. Except…well, he read Johnny’s letters, so I eventually told him.”
It was only then that GiGi wanted to know, so politely, how I had found Johnny’s dog tags.
29
After the mandatory hassles at Sky Harbor, I was back in the Prelude by six that evening. The sunset was ordinary. As I took the exit out the east side of the airport, Peralta reached me.
“Where have you been?”
“Scholarship.”
He silently weighed my answer. “We’re taking down the Jesus Is Lord Pawn Shop. Want a front-row seat? You can sit in the command van with me and the A.G. Those guys you saw loading guns into the SUV? They work for Antonio. We’ve got probable cause. We’ve got the buy on tape, the fake paperwork. We’ve got enough now to shut down the new supply route. All the muckety-mucks from Washington signed off at last. So we’re finally going in. It’ll be fun to watch Barney frog-marched off to prison.”
I told him no thanks.
“Why not?” It was a demand, not a question.
“I’m just trying to put all this out of my mind.”
“Good luck,” he said.
On the freeway south, I made another call. I had an obligation to repay and the clock was running against me.
***
The walnut with eyebrows opened the door himself. He stood, slight inside his loud golf shirt, blinking at me.
“May I help you?”
I just pushed my way past him. “Where are your punks?”
He stepped outside, did a careful check of the street. The only vehicle in sight was Lindsey’s Honda Prelude. He turned back.
“I don’t even know you. Why have you forced your way into my house?”
It was a good act and he kept it up in his old-man voice, even after he had produced the Beretta and begun a careful search of me, not just for a weapon but also for a wire. When he was satisfied, he used the gun barrel to prod me into the Arizona Room.
“Now, Dr. Mapstone, you have become an intruder on my property, so I can shoot you at will and be perfectly within Arizona law.”
“But you’re curious why I’m here.”
“You do surprise me. Sit.” He hospitably waved the pistol toward a leather sofa. The room was large, decorated at some expense but still vulgar: cowboy paintings, a bejeweled saddle on a stand, a grandfather clock encased in faux adobe, and gigantic leather furniture.
I dropped into the sofa and he gingerly sat across from me, his hips barely on the seat, as if he needed to be ready to spring up at any moment.
We seemed alone, but I asked again about his teenage henchmen.
“Back home for dinner with their families. I wouldn’t want them falling in with the wrong crowd.”
“And what a mentor they’ve found. Salvatore “Sal the Bug” Moretti.”
He cocked his head in mirth.
“If we had the time, I’d love to know how you found me.”
Part of my brain sized up that angle: He didn’t know that I had followed him from the Stuffed Beaver. The honor student I interrogated with the dashboard: I told him Moretti’s house was under surveillance and his phones were tapped; if he went back or warned Sal, he’d be arrested. Tom Holden had made the call I wanted—with the persuasion of Demetrius Smith—that a California bounty hunter was after him and he needed to lay low and not risk bringing the cops to Moretti’s house. Too many days had passed, so Sal had assumed that his identity and location were secure. But he didn’t strike me as someone who would be introspective in the face of the crisis now sitting on his leather sofa. As he said, if we had the time…
So I just said four words, the lethal information I had gained from my friend the organized crime historian.
“Eugene Costa, your grandfather.”
One black eyebrow went up.
“He wasn’t just a gofer for Harley Talbott,” I said. “He was a middle-man between Talbott and the Chicago mob. The DeSimone case was bullshit, of course. But the articles mentioned Eugene Costa. Just a bit player. A nobody, unless you knew what you were looking for. Unfortunately…” My throat started to close and I slowed myself down. “Unfortunately, Robin happened to run Eugene Costa through some old property records and put that information as a footnote to the report we gave you.”
“You’re a genius.” He aimed the gun at my chest.
“She didn’t know anything. Neither did I.”
“The
y always say that.” His voice sounded thirty years younger and I could imagine the many executions he had carried out. In fact, I knew about ten of them. He must have negotiated a sweet deal with the feds to avoid the needle. If I were thirty days younger, I might have been afraid, might have been anxiously worried about time—just like that little boy at Kenilworth School, watching the clock. None of that was in my mind now. I settled in the sofa and spread my arms over the back, feeling the cool leather on my hands.
“You’re an idiot,” I said. “You rat out your old pals, get witness protection to resettle you here, and pretty soon you’re selling black tar heroin to high-school kids. You can take the goombah out of the rackets but you can’t take the rackets out of the goombah.”
“I opted out of witness protection a year ago,” he said. “They check in every now and again, but you know how it is, war on terror, budget cuts and all.”
“You might have gotten away with it if you hadn’t paid ten thousand dollars to that woman to kill Robin and me.”
“It would have been twenty thousand if she’d done the job right. I should have had Tom do it.”
“Like he did the job right on Jax Delgado.”
He moved his finger off the trigger, curious.
“It was meant to look like La Familia’s work,” I said. “But because you’d seen Jax with Robin, you figured she was a risk, too. So you had Holden send her his head. That way, when she ended up dead, the cops would think it was another killing by Mexican gangs. Nobody would ever suspect you. So far so good? But you learned her brother-in-law was a deputy sheriff. You backed off. You’re a careful guy. You wanted to know what Robin had learned from Jax: so you did the Judson Lee thing, gave us a cold case, quoted Napoleon on history. You provided us with just enough information that our findings would tell whether we knew the secret about Jax and you.”
He moved the Beretta to his lap, watching me intently. I remained sprawled on the sofa.
“Robin didn’t know anything.” I spoke slowly, letting each word hit him. “She was just a thorough researcher. It got her killed.” A voice in my head: David, you got her killed. I said, “You killed her and it made me curious why.”
