Somewhere West of Fiji

by Darrell Egbert

  Traveling to Arizona by train put me in mind of a song by Glenn Miller’s orchestra of a few years back. It was popular about the time I left for Australia. This guy leaves the Pennsylvania Station and about a quarter to four, he arrives in Baltimore. He goes on to other stations shoveling all the coal in to keep her rolling. By the time this guy reaches Chattanooga, he was more in love with this certain party who was going to meet him at the station. With me it was the same thing, only I had farther to go and longer to think about her; but by the time I arrived in Phoenix, I knew I was in love. How she felt about me I didn’t know but I intended to find out. That’s what telephones and the mail service were all about.

  Chapter 21

  I guess it started with this letter from Tashima. He was broke, although he didn’t say so. I had been waiting for him to write. I had given him Gene's mother's address before he left Fiji. But now that I had my own I could hardly wait to find out what he was doing. A couple of weeks later he wrote to tell me he wasn’t doing much. He had a job with an American construction company cleaning up bomb rubble. Not too interesting, he said, explaining about the drudgery of working with a pick and shovel. But he did say his English was improving rapidly.

  I did get the idea he wanted me to sponsor him, though, in a scheme he had to get a visa. It was the first step in becoming a citizen. He had written the American Consul, outlining our close association and giving him the original letter I wrote on Fiji. Now he wanted me to write again to confirm his story and this letter. It was the least I could do. Anyway, I had been waiting to be able to do something for him.

  ********

  I wasn’t getting on with my new job. I don’t care to go into details but my understanding of what had become the new Air Force was not the service I once knew–too much politics to suit me. Anyway I was a reservist, and my application to become a regular officer had not been accepted. I figured it was just a matter of time until there would be a post war reduction in force and I was going to be asked to transfer to the inactive reserve. It means I’m in the street looking for a job, at a time in my life when it might be too late to start over. Then, too, there was my medical record with my history and the psychiatric report; none of it was ever going to do me any good.

  I don’t know when the idea settled firmly in my mind. Maybe it was while I was sitting at the bar one night, consoling myself because of my lack of good fortune and wondering how I was going to support Karen if I couldn’t find Joyce. I was halfway looking forward to going back to school, but anxious that we couldn’t make it if I was married, even though there were others in the same boat that were getting along. But married I was going to be. That was the first priority. That’s when I decided to write Tash again.

  I bummed around for the next month, thinking about what I really intended to do with my life. I suppose most veterans go through the same thing in varying degrees. But engineering had once been my second choice for a career, now it was fast becoming my first.

  ********

  He told me once he was stationed in the Philippines right after Pearl Harbor. He said he spoke pretty good Tagalog. That’s what gave me this idea that probably would have never entered my head if I hadn’t been sitting in a bar for the past couple of hours. Bars have a habit of amplifying ideas. Many a denizen has spent time there, convinced after a while that he is going to set the world on fire. What does it matter if he doesn’t, as long as he can come back the next day and convince himself all over again that he can? I believe that bars are a great adjunct to the mind of the positive thinker. They allow him to escape, thinking all the while that all he has to do is think about his problems and they will be solved. That might be why there are so many of them.

  I decided to hire Tash if he could get a temporary visa, telling emigration he had a job offer and confirmed by me. I also sent along the requested “to whom it may concern” letter telling them what a great guy he is. I still had plenty of money left. In fact the economy was booming and I had invested most of it. My income was not great but I didn’t have any real money worries, so I said sayonara to the new Air Force.

  Tash showed up in a month’s time. Sitting at the bar sipping beer, I told him what I had in mind for our future. He was flabbergasted to say the least. But he was interested. He was bored and we were both young and looking for adventure. But first I had to clear up something.

  It had to do with that word Dilantin, Karen’s friend told me about. I did look it up; furthermore I talked it over with a doctor. I told him the story of Joyce and why nobody wanted to talk about her. I told him how she had been killed in an automobile accident. She had been blamed for negligence as a result of drinking, and she was considered to be a pariah in her hometown, and even among members of her extended family, and certainly among members of her husband’s family.

  He told me something I needed to hear. He said that Dilantin was prescribed for patients suffering from epilepsy. He also told me that people with only petit-mal seizures, as opposed to the grand-mal veriety, sometimes forgot to take it or avoided the drug altogether. After all, a seizure, like the kind she might have had when the accident happened, only lasted a few seconds. It can come anytime, he said. And he said Joyce would not be the first who was involved in an accident where the coroner had blamed it on alcohol.

  ********

  Joyce looked a lot like Karen. Still why wouldn’t she, I was never able to see her that clear. It was kind of like through a haze, not a dream, more real than that, but not as clear as looking at Karen. But there was more to it than that. The two almost seemed to have the same personality, but then why wouldn’t they? They were sisters weren’t they? I answered my own question and then forced myself to forget about it.

  I met Tash a couple of days later in the same place. He was more interested in what I had to say this time than he had been the last time. Then he seemed to be more interested in talking about looking for work. He didn’t want to live in my apartment. He wanted to be completely independent. I had told him that working in a restaurant might be the best answer. I had done it while going to high school and thought at the time it was a pretty good job. It was inside, out of the cold, and you had all you wanted to eat when you wanted it. I told him he might even stay overnight as a watchman. So, I told him to look for a dishwashing job. It didn’t take much skill and all you had to do besides wash dishes was peel potatoes. That’s what I did anyway.

  It took him a couple of days of looking around but that’s exactly what he found. Transients, many of which have a drinking problem, move in and out of unskilled kitchen jobs. I told him about all you had to do was inquire of the manager, even if he had a dishwasher. If he was looking for one you were in. If he wasn’t, chances are he was looking to fire the one he had. A few days on a bender, letting the dishes pile up, was all it took for him to start looking around.

  By spring, both Tash and I had saved enough money–enough anyway to make the talk about our fantasy adventure more practical. The trouble with talk, though, especially adventure talk; the talk and the planning often becomes the objective. More so if there are a few bottles of beer involved. It’s not long until you are all talked out, the urge for the adventure slowly fades away and that usually finishes things.

  There have been several projects in my lifetime that went that way–up Powell Street in the fog. But when the idea was new, and if it had any possibilities at all it was fun to think and talk about. It was an adventure in itself, an exercise of the mind that got the adrenalin temporarily flowing.

  “Do you remember the name Yamashita,” I asked him. “He was convicted of atrocities and war crimes and hung five or six months after the War ended. Do you remember?” We were sitting on our favorite stools drinking our favorite brew.

  “He was also the General that was responsible for bringing the gold hoard from China and Malaya to the Philippines. Remember, they hauled it from Manila to the mountains about fifty miles away.”

  I asked my friend behind the bar for a
pencil and a piece of paper. I drew the map from memory, from what Shig had told me. Not much to remember, just the distance and that it was on the eastern side of the mountain slope about fifty miles from Manila. Shig showed me where it was buried years ago, when he told me about one of the prince’s of the royal family having been assigned by the Emperor to safeguard it.

  Now if all I knew about it came from that blow hard Shig, we wouldn’t be talking about it now. Actually, my uncle didn’t believe it when I told him. That might be the reason I forgot about it until Aokie brought it up when we were on the raft. I even went to the library and looked it up, later. Nothing much there other than some newspaper articles speculating about how such a treasure was thought to be in the hands of a guy named Ferdinand Marcos.

  This Marcos bird was a local Philippine resistance hero. And the word was out that he was going to parlay his popularity into becoming president of the country, when they were granted independence. But right now, he was the strongman who was running things.

  Chapter 22

  I pulled up to this large Iron Gate that of course was locked. I walked back along the split rail fence about fifty yards from where the brick entranceway ended. I climbed over, hoping they had no guard dogs.

  I could have pushed the buzzer to the main house and asked to come in but I was persona non grata that’s for sure. I had contacted her both by letter and telegram. I had also called her on the phone from Walter Reed, and in each case I was treated as though I was selling life insurance or vacuum cleaners. There was no reason for it, that’s why I came to see her.

  The house was one of those that my bunkmate had described as proliferating in this area. Typical estate, sitting on about ten acres of prime oak lumber, surrounded by a two-story mansion, with the customary couple of acres of manicured lawn, gardens and fountain. It also had the usual faux Grecian statuary that you couldn’t miss–something on the order of Randolph Hearst’s place at San Simeon. You know, his ranch halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

  Anyway the place I’m looking at is the poor girls version of Hearst’s mansion that is currently being guested by the actress and his mistress, Marion Davies.

  I knocked on the door and was allowed in only because to keep me out would draw more unwanted attention as to why I was there.

  The woman I had talked to on the telephone attended upon me in due course. But while I was cooling my heels in what they call a drawing room, I had a chance to look around. There, off to the side, was the usual grand piano costing several thousand bucks. I could have cared less about it, but not about the picture on the top nestled among other photographic family keepsakes.

  An officer, standing by an upscale roadster, had his arms around a pretty girl who looked very much like Joyce. I had some time to study her features, and a little left over to debate whether the car was a prewar Duisenberg or a Mercedes.

  She entered in a morning coat, trimmed in fur at the neck and sleeves. I thought she was overdone, a little reminiscent of Marion herself in one of Hearst’s productions. I suspect she had been taking coffee on the terrace or on one of the many patios when I interrupted her. According to the lapse in time, from the time I entered until now, I figured she was debating with herself whether to see me at all. But if she was, she had now made up her mind–maybe she had been practicing, because she lit into me before I had much of a chance to say anything.

  “No need to introduce yourself Captain, I know who you are. I saw your telegram and received your call. I have just one question of you: why did you leave my Harry in that wretched airplane. Why didn’t you bury him like a civilized person would do.” I was struck dumb, I had no idea where she got that information, not until I remembered the detailed briefing I had given the authorities months ago on Fiji, followed up by my conversations with the medics at Walter Reed.

  She switched subjects on me and I’m almost glad she did: “I told you I didn’t want to talk to you. I also told you my son was not married. And that I have never known a woman by the name of Joyce or have I ever heard Harry speak of an acquaintance by that name. Are you some kind of an adventurer bent on acquiring some of his money by scheme or subterfuge?” The whole thing smacked of a Hollywood production, featuring Katherine Hepburn and James Stewart. “Tennis anyone?”

  But before I had a chance to say much of anything, I found myself being butlered towards the door. I figured this had also been rehearsed. And if this guy was a genuine professional butler, they had hired the biggest one in town.

  I found myself unceremoniously streeted, with her last words ringing in my ear: “And if you come back, I’m going to set the dogs on you. And rest assured I will go to the law if I ever see you again.”

  But it was the menacing look of the butler come bouncer that put a little more spring in my stride than I had before.

  I guess I was about fifty yards down the gravel drive when I heard a voice tell me to stop, bend over and tie my shoe lace. I complied, while he further told me my life was in danger, and to go to the Safeway store in the village and hang out.

  I couldn’t see him but the drive was lined with bushes. He could have been anywhere. I never looked around, I figured if my life was in danger somebody was watching me to see what I was going to do next. I didn’t intend to keep them wondering, I made straight for the gate and my car. I cranked her up and headed for the store.

  These people had enough money to be dangerous. And I had enough of an imagination to conclude that they might well be. Something was awful screwy here, and it hadn’t helped my case to discover she was lying through her teeth. Her son had been married to Joyce and Joyce’s letters had originated from this address. And somebody didn’t want me to know about either one. And somehow my landing on that pacific island had landed me in one large cow-pie. And I was sure the best was yet to come.

  ********

  I saw him before he saw me. I was feeling among the produce with a sack, helping myself, as was the new custom. Before the War, you used to tell the grocer what you wanted and either he or one of his people got it for you. If you had a large order, you gave him a list and came back later and picked it up. For preferred customers, your order was telephoned in and it was delivered. That, however, like a lot of things had gone by the wayside.

  So I was acting like I was helping myself to a cabbage when I saw him. It had to be him, he was that conspicuous the way he was sizing me up. Then, too, he was dressed too neatly trying to fit in as though he was attached to one of the many estates–what with his vest length houseboy working coat. And he was Japanese to boot.

  I followed him out. When he opened his trunk to put his purchases away, I climbed into the back seat and lie down. He never said a word, driving down the same two-way country road. Directly, he parked on the opposite side, facing oncoming traffic. He then spoke for the first time telling me to climb the rail fence about fifty yards from where I had just climbed over. He said there would be a trail I should follow into the woods. He said I would be met. And that’s all he said. I looked astounded and said sayonara.

  The fence was there and the footpath was there and it did lead back into the woods about a hundred yards or so. This same concealed voice I heard before told me to stop. Then he appeared. He too was Japanese. Dressed the way he was, under the circumstances, I took him to be one of the gardeners.

  I followed him to a large oak tree with wide wooden stairs leading up about 30 feet to the largest tree house I had ever seen. We had tree houses in most neighborhoods where I grew up. They were built by the younger kids but usually abandoned for ground-huts more practical when they grew a little older. These tree huts were usually the secret hiding places for off color magazines as well as the clubhouses for “clubs” sponsored by the numerous pulp magazines extant. This one was no different but since it belonged to a rich kid, I figured it had to be much larger and more ornate. Where we built our own out of scrap lumber, the lumber for this one came from a lumberyard and was designed and built by carpenters
.

  He beckoned and I followed him up the stairs. We bent over as we entered what once was my navy friend’s secret den. The owner I was pretty sure was Harry. The newest of my Japanese friends told me his own name was Frank, nothing more Asiatic than that. I understood why when he told me his story.

  “My friend, you have stumbled into a hornets nest. I am a gardener on the Frankl estate. I am also with the FBI. And so is your friend Tashima now, and he has been for the past two months. And so is your friend, Carl, from the hospital. In fact we have a number of special agents in this area working on this case. Let me explain.”

  “Please do,” was all I was able to muster. But I had to catch my breath when I said it. That I was taken aback was an understatement. Confused, a little scared, and a little teed off is more like it. But no longer bored, I can assure you of that.

  “When you turned in Harry Frankl’s dog tags at Fiji, you managed to overly excite the hornets. And you really set them to buzzing. And it’s my job now to see that nobody gets stung. And I need your help.

  “I am Nissi, an expatriate from the Hawaiian 442nd Regimental Combat Team. My family was living on the mainland when they were removed to Mansanar, the relocation center in the desert, south of Bishop in case you’re interested.” He started by telling me his life story almost from the beginning. I cut him off with a glance. I was interested, but right now I was more curious about what was happening in the present than I was interested in the past.

  “Things really started humming when you told that story of yours to the medics about communing with Harry’s wife. You repeated it again to your buddy, who incidentally was not wounded at Saipan. He was placed in the hospital to look as though he did, and to make friends with you. We wanted you to have your own bodyguard, and somebody on hand when you decided to tell us more. We wanted to know what you could find out about Mrs. Frankl, and how she felt about her son and also about Joyce Frankl.