She took a long, slow breath. There was no exit from that garden, except through the buildings.
A shed stood next to the building at the back. A pair of big, old yew trees crowded the space beside it. She looked closely at them.
You’d have to be a monkey to get out that way. And given that barbed wire, a determined one.
A door from the brothel building slid open and the curvy girl draped herself against the door frame. What was her name? Tome. The one called Fusako stood behind her, peering over Tome’s shoulder.
“Want to join us for cards?” Tome’s loose housecoat gapped, revealing generous cleavage.
Fusako gave Miyako a welcoming smile. “It makes the day go faster.”
Miyako had no desire for company, but she couldn’t pass this up. She might learn something useful. “Arigato.”
She followed Fusako and Tome into the common room with its paneled walls and perky curtains. The girls had moved the table aside, and Noriko and Hanae knelt beside a clean playing mat.
“Oh, will you join us?” Hanae said in her harsh Korean accent. The deck of traditional flower cards, small and stiff compared to the deck the gaijin used for poker, blurred between her hands. The soft clacking cadence of their shuffling filled the room.
Miyako preferred the gaijin’s five-card stud. The flower cards haunted her with memories of lazy Sunday afternoons before the war. “What’s the game?”
“Kabu, since there are so many of us.” Hanae passed the deck to Noriko to cut. “You can bet with cigarettes if you don’t have money.”
Kabu. A game for children—and gangsters. But it did allow everyone to join in.
The girls drew for the order of play. Fusako elbowed Tome. “I see you drew the Sake Cup card. That fits.”
“Sake’s my best friend.” Tome got up to find Miyako a cup.
Noriko shuffled, then doled out a face-down card to each of them. She flipped four cards face up on the mat.
Tome scooped up her card and studied it, fingers unsteady. “I’m glad Midori-chan got Yamada-san sent out on an errand. She takes the game too seriously.” She made a pretty pout. “It’s no fun.”
Fusako gave Miyako a sympathetic smile. “It’s not much fun for you here, Midori-chan. Is it?”
“You could say that.” Miyako picked up her own card. A blazing orange and yellow chrysanthemum card—September, worth nine.
Fusako pursed her lips and compared her card with those on the table. “Don’t concern yourself. It’s hard for everyone at first. It gets better.” She shifted her shoulders so her sequined collar glinted. “At least a girl gets to wear nice things.”
Noriko shot her a look. “Yes, but I’ve seen your ledger. You’re as much in debt as when you started. You’ll never leave this place.” Her lips curved in a tight smile. “You’d better hope you win today. I think that loan I gave you is about due, ah?”
Fusako glared at her across the mat, then glanced around at the other girls.
Hanae averted her eyes. “Don’t look at me, dear. I’ve bankrolled your notion of style as much as I can afford.”
Tome took a swig of sake. “Noriko-chan’s the only one with tea money to spare. Better stay on her good side.”
Miyako tapped a single Lucky from a pack Yamada-san had advanced her and placed it on a card. “You’re not in the clear yet, Fusako-chan? How long have you been here?”
Fusako gazed at her card, biting her lip. She put three cigarettes next to the chrysanthemum ribbon card. “Two years.”
Tome put her cigarettes on the peony card. “Fusako came over from China after everything fell apart over there.”
Fusako’s eyes drifted to the mat. “Three days without food can be quite a motivator.”
“That’s how it was then.” Miyako felt a twinge of the ferocious hunger that had knotted her own gut the day she’d let a man in a good suit trick her into the business.
Noriko slapped a new row of cards face-down on the mat. Miyako scooped hers up. Wisteria—April, worth four. Not what she was looking for. She’d have to take another card. “What about you, Tome-chan?”
Tome put two more cigarettes on her card. “They closed my factory, so I went to work as a beer-hall hostess.” She tipped the carafe into her cup, her lighthearted smile fading. “A man asked me out after closing one night. Drunken animal. After he was done with me, well, the money was better as a baishanfu, so what was the point of holding out? That jerk left me with nothing to lose.”
Miyako looked at her in silent compassion. It was true. Once you’d been raped, what was left?
Tome’s cup sloshed as she brought it to her lips. “But I’ll warn you. Imai-san charges your account for the least little thing. You keep busy every night. Thinking you’re making good money. Thinking you’re getting ahead. But she shows you your ledger at the end of the month and all you ever do is break even.” She slammed the empty cup on the mat.
Miyako looked around at the others. Noriko gave her cards a fixed stare. Hanae nodded, lost in thought. Fusako dropped her eyes, pulled her housecoat tighter.
For a moment, jail didn’t sound so bad.
Haruko-chan poked her head in the door. “Was someone looking for Yamada-san? She’s here.”
“We can hold the game for a minute.” Tome’s tone was a shade too perky.
Miyako eased onto her feet and made her way into the front room. Yamada-san was shedding her coat.
Miyako bowed. “Welcome back. Were you able to find Kimi?”
“I stopped by the Abeno. I asked some of the girls. They seemed to think Kimi was with a client, unfortunately. I left your message with a girl named Asagi-san.”
Miyako tried not to wince. She couldn’t blame Yamada-san, but relying on Asagi to get word to Kimi was hardly a recipe for success.
17 June 1942, China Sea
59 Days Captive
Three days of trains and ferries. Three days of staring at the other airmen and wondering how these guys fell into enemy hands. How much did they tell the Japs? Three days of bellowing guards squelching any attempt at conversation.
More than once, Dave turned to find Vitiollo giving him a dark look. Or maybe his mind was playing tricks? After everything they’d been through, maybe his marbles were a little loose.
The first moment it seemed the guards weren’t looking, he whispered to Nielsen, “You guys find the landing strip?”
Nielsen’s expression sagged. He shook his head. “Crashed off the coast.”
“Your enlisted men. Where are they?”
Nielsen looked away. “Crash was bad. Didn’t make it to shore. Neither of ’em.”
“Bum luck.” He couldn’t help glancing at Vitty to see if he’d absorbed that bit of news on how Green Hornet’s enlisted men died. But Vitty probably hadn’t heard.
Toward the end of their third long day of travel, the locomotive wheezed to a ponderous stop. Guards blindfolded and handcuffed the men, and rifle butts directed them off the train. Glimpses under Dave’s blindfold revealed throngs of shoes and ankles—a bustling station.
The guards pushed and prodded them through the crowd, across a sidewalk and into a waiting black sedan. The drive took no more than minutes. They emerged from the car onto a broad stretch of asphalt. The breeze carried a wild tang of fish and salt water. Seabirds screeched.
It smelled like freedom, but it wasn’t. Guards conducted them across what had to be a wharf and onto a gangplank. Over the gangplank and onto an expanse of gently rocking steel. Down through a hatch. They removed Dave’s blindfold at the entrance to a dank cabin.
No porthole. Not a stick of furniture. Just eight bodies with a stench that soured Dave’s stomach, and four steel walls. A pair of latrine buckets sat in the corners opposite the door. The only light came from a bare bulb. He plunked onto the steel deck, slid along the wall and into the corner farthest from the buckets—out of splash range.
The deck above their heads resonated with activity. The engine thrummed to life and the
whole vessel hummed. A moment later, the ship swayed. They were off, presumably to China.
The door swung closed. Two narrow slots in the door—exactly like in the cells in Tokyo—spoke to the fact that this cabin wasn’t new to brig duty.
The gargoyles had left both slots closed. The prisoners had the space to themselves.
Bob Meder tried to get comfortable on the hard floor. “Look at this,” he murmured through a bushy beard that bore no resemblance to the neat mustache he’d sported on Hornet. “No guards.”
They stared at each other, waiting in silence for someone on the other side of the door to respond to Meder’s talking.
Nothing. It was hard to grasp that they might actually be left alone.
Hallmark spoke next, a little louder. “Everyone okay? Any major injuries?”
Watt shifted his weight again. “Reckon I’ll make it.”
“They haven’t killed me yet.” That was Braxton.
“My legs are asleep,” someone said. Dave joined the rest in a tension-relieving laugh.
The door rattled. “Damare.” They fell silent for a moment. But the thirst to hear a friendly voice was overwhelming.
“Thugs break your nose?” Dave stage-whispered to Nielsen.
“No, our landing did that. But a daily fist in the face didn’t help.”
“Korah! Damare!” The door rattled harder, but the bolt didn’t move.
Meder gave a low whistle. “I don’t think they’re gonna come in here.”
Grins broke out slowly around the cabin.
“Okay. So here’s my question.” Dave used a whisper he was confident wouldn’t pass through the door. “How do we get through that steel door, past those guards, and take control of this ship?”
Hallmark gave a thoughtful nod. “I like how you think,” he whispered. “But how big’s the ship? How many Japs on board?”
Watt glowered. “Lousy blindfolds. No way to know.”
“Anyone ever pilot a boat?” Meder asked.
Nielsen shrugged. “How hard can it be? Doesn’t fly. Only two dimensions to worry about.”
Dave leaned forward. “I was serious, guys. We used to keep a boat on Lake Michigan. I can skipper this thing.”
Watt elbowed Vitty. “You any good at reading Jap charts?”
Not sure he’s any good at reading our charts.
Vitty squared his jaw and fixed Dave with a frigid glare. “Now there’s some brilliance for you. Where do we take the ship, once we get control of it? We ain’t sailing to Hawaii. What happens when we reach shore? Where does your grand plan leave us?” He scowled, picking up steam. “I’ll tell you where. Lost, in Jap territory. The same pickle we were in when some idiot parachuted us into this mess.”
Meder bristled. “Show some respect to your C.O., Lieutenant.”
Watt threw in his two cents. “No disrespect intended, Lieutenant, but Vitty’s got a point. Plus, this time there’d be a bigger group of us wandering the landscape. Harder to hide.”
The door rattled, louder. “Damare, baka!”
Dave brought the volume level down. “We’re all here, aren’t we? My idiot decision may have saved your life, Vitty.” He took an involuntary glance at Hallmark, who’d lost two men to the waves.
Vitty stood and leaned against the wall. A storm brewed across his face. “Sure. Right. We’re all here.” He exchanged glances with Watt.
Watt picked up his thread. “But look at us. Some great life it is. And we’re under a death sentence anyway, for all we know.”
“That’s my point.” Dave kept his voice low but flooded each syllable with conviction. “Yes, there are unknowns on the other side of that door. But I know one thing. If we sit here and do nothing, we’ll start dying off anyway.”
Hallmark weighed in. “So we get one of them to come in here. We swarm him and grab his weapon, somehow.”
“All they have to do is yell, and there are eight more of them right outside that door.” Vitty swore and slammed the side of his fist against the wall.
The slot slid open. The guard on the other side roared. “Korah!”
Vitty lunged across the small space and hammered at the eye slot. “Korah you!”
A command rang out in Japanese. An officer pushed in through the door, grimacing and brandishing a long knife in a brass-tipped wooden scabbard. He swung it and smacked Vitty across the temple with the scabbard.
Vitty roared like a bull. He clenched the weapon and yanked.
Both men froze. Vitty had the scabbard, but the officer still held the knife. The bare blade glinted inches from Vitty’s stomach.
Chapter Nineteen
Wednesday, December 29, 1948
Osaka, Japan
After the game, Haruko helped Miyako carry the things Yamada-san had brought her to her room.
As soon as the girl left, she seized the tin where she kept her cash. She held her breath while she popped it open. George-san’s money was all there. Relief washed over her for an instant before a deep melancholy took its place. As she fingered the bills she saw the soft sheen of his cropped blond hair against the pillow. Heard his sleep-thickened voice.
She knelt to put the tin behind the vanity and her eyes lit on her reflection in the mirror. She caught her breath. The sight of her own battered face still startled her.
Her affair with George-san was over.
“Hello in there.” The shoji cracked, and Fusako appeared. “We’re going shopping.” Her voice carried a happy lilt. “Do you need anything?”
“Arigato, but no.” Miyako sighed. “Must be nice to be on Imai-san’s trusted list.”
“You’ll get there soon. She let you have your own clothes. That’s the first step.”
Tome spoke up from behind Fusako. “You made a pretty good showing at cards today. Turned one cigarette into five.”
Miyako bowed. “Fortune favored this humble person.” She straightened and smiled. “But it helps to think through the odds.”
“Is that so? You might explain it to Yamada-san.” Fusako tittered, her fingers demurely poised across her lips. “She loves to play, but the cards don’t love her.”
Tome glanced around and lowered her voice. “Here’s the true secret of No-chan’s success here. She beats Yamada-san at Eight-Nine. That’s why she always has cash.”
“It makes Yamada-san furious,” Fusako added, still laughing.
Miyako bowed and arigato’d them down the corridor. How she yearned for the freedom to walk past Imai-san and out the front door.
17 June 1942, China Sea
59 Days Captive
The officer growled something over his shoulder. Two more Japanese filled the doorframe. One of them turned and yelled along the hall.
Vitty grunted. Softened his knees into a fighting stance. Blood trickled from a new gash in his temple.
I don’t owe Vitty anything. As this thought went through Dave’s mind, big “Jungle Jim” Hallmark stood and moved into a crouch at Vitty’s elbow.
Except...as his C.O. It was like someone else’s words in his head. His legs moved beneath him, and he found himself standing in a spot behind Vitty’s other elbow, facing down the Jap.
Now we’re in for it. He’d been praying that the Lord would preserve his men. Perhaps he was part of the answer.
They stood, frozen in place. The deck swayed like a hammock. The officer flitted his eyes back and forth, sizing the three of them up. Dave knew they had to separate the officer from that knife. But he saw no way to do it.
Boots clattered their way. Several more Japs, from the sound of it. So much for the element of surprise.
The deck lurched. Vitty stumbled back and away.
The Jap held his weapon steady, pointed at Vitty. “Suware.”
Vitty sank onto his place on the floor, eyes never leaving the man’s face. Dave and Hallmark followed suit.
The officer gave Vitty a slow nod. “You be quiet and forrow orders, horyo.” He reached forward and wrenched his scabbard out of Vit
ty’s hand. Stuffed it on his blade with a muffled clank. He took one final look around, then—unaccountably, and in contrast to anything they’d come to expect—backed out of the cabin. He swung the door closed behind him.
A beat passed, and then it seemed like they all exhaled in unison. Vitty leaned back, crossed himself, and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
Braxton gave a low whistle. “Ho-leee Moses. How’d you get out of that one alive? You’ve got more lives than a cat.”
“Heck if I know.” Vitty ran a hand through his dark waves of hair. His shoulders heaved with something that looked like a cough but turned into a disbelieving chuckle. One after another, the rest of the men joined him.
Watt mused. “That guy wasn’t unreasonable. He could have come down on you hard. Maybe we are going to get better treatment in China.”
Vitty looked at Dean Hallmark. “Thank you, sir.” And then straight at Dave. “And thank you. Sir.”
That night was a long one. All those weeks of Japanese hospitality had reduced the prisoners to flesh and bones. Their butts gave them little padding on the hard deck, and there was no room to change position.
At least the guards gave up on enforcing the no-talking rule.
Dave turned to Hallmark. “What happened to Dieter and Fitzmaurice?”
Hallmark rocked his head back against the steel cabin wall. “We ran out of fuel. Tried a crash landing in the water, but it was rough. Fitz and Dieter didn’t make it.”
Dave frowned and looked at his navigator. Told you that southern route looked dangerous.
A pained wince flicked across Vitty’s features. He crossed himself, then looked straight at Dave.
At least I haven’t lost a man.
Yet.
Nielsen gave Hallmark a grim look and took over the storytelling. “We came down hot and hit hard. I remember hearing Dieter holler in the nose cone. And that’s all I remember, until I came to, in frigid water up to my waist. I managed to crawl up and out through the broken windshield.
The Plum Blooms in Winter Page 17