He stood with a hand on Smith’s jacket.
Vitty was going through the jewelry. “Look,” he said in a low voice. A set of dog tags dangled from his fingers.
“Whose are those?” Dread narrowed Dave’s throat. Dog tags only came off for one reason.
Vitty’s jaw worked. “Braxton’s.”
It was true, then. Dean Hallmark, Peter Braxton, and Robert Smith no longer required their personal effects.
Dave closed his eyes for a long moment. Moisture blurred his vision when he looked up at Watt.
Nielsen’s voice resonated with determination. “If the Japs killed those men in cold blood, they’ll pay. We will survive this thing somehow, and they will pay.”
Dave turned away, speechless. No words would bring those heroes back. And no words could capture the violent rage that swelled through his chest.
Dave studied the contents of his wallet until his cell grew so dark he couldn’t see them.
A photo of Eileen. Her bright eyes and engaging smile on the front. Her spidery scrawl on the back.
Dear Dave,
So excited to be your bride!
Love, Eileen
April 1941
He ran a finger over the ink. He’d been a lucky man, once. That must have been a million years ago.
A license to drive the blue Ford coupe she took off in.
A library card. How little he’d appreciated what a treasure that was. How many books did they have in the Cook County library? Thousands? Maybe tens of thousands. What he’d give for even one of them now. Wouldn’t matter if it was Nancy Drew.
About three bucks in coins. Enough for a drink or two. More than enough to take Eileen to that movie she wanted to see. Maybe he could still do it someday.
Lord, are you up there somewhere listening?
Distant as the possibility of taking his wife to a movie seemed, it was more hope than Hallmark, Smith, or Braxton had now. And Dave was determined to cling to it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Friday, December 31, 1948
Osaka, Japan
Tome went to fetch the rest of the girls. Miyako and Noriko cleared the breakfast table. They’d just spread out the playing mat when the others joined them.
Yamada-san bowed her greetings. “Turned a good profit last night, did you?” she said to Noriko.
“Hai.” Noriko bowed back. Her lips took on a mocking twist. “I trust you won’t win it all away.”
Yamada-san snorted. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
Miyako avoided the quick glance the older woman gave her. This was the craziest thing she’d ever attempted. How many winning hands would the ancestors have to furnish to convince Yamada-san to keep her side of the bargain?
They played the first round through to the last hand—Fusako’s. Yamada-san sat with her face stony, holding an anemic total of two. She would need to see either an eight or nine to collect on her bet.
This was a calamity. Miyako took a long pull on her cigarette and looked at anything but Yamada-san.
Fusako dealt herself a card with a soft thwack. A gleaming white moon rising from a verdant field of silver-gray pampas grass. Hachi, eight.
Miyako had never been more delighted to see that moon. Fusako held the worst hand in the game. Eight plus nine plus three—ha-kyuu-san. It added up to zero. The fabled “bad hand” from which the yakuza derived their name.
Yamada-san was going to collect on her two-hundred-yen bet after all. They all were.
Yamada-san’s face crinkled into a grin. The woman shot Miyako a glance. She returned an innocent smile, but her gut twisted. Yes, Yamada-san had won. Yes, she should be happy. But it was an obvious stroke of luck.
How in the world do I take credit for that?
The dealer’s role shifted to Noriko. She fixed a fresh cigarette in her holder and shuffled, her blood-red nails a blur. She snapped the cards on the mat then sat back, a supercilious smile on her ruby lips.
Miyako needed to give Yamada-san some direction. Needed to maintain the pretense she was helping her. But the cards weren’t telling her what the lady should do. She closed her eyes and lifted an urgent prayer to the Matsuura ancestors.
Wait. The gift from her dream. The vase with the spray of blossoms. Perhaps that gift would come to her rescue again. She signaled Yamada-san to bet on cherry.
Yamada-san scowled, deliberating. She put down four more markers. She had six smooth white stones—three hundred yen—riding on the cherry card.
Miyako sucked in her breath. The highest bet she’d seen at the Oasis.
“Ah.” Noriko gave Yamada-san an appraising look. “You feel fortune is with you.”
“I think it’s my turn, ah?”
Noriko arched an eyebrow and dealt the face-down cards. “Another card, Yamada-san?”
“Hai,” Yamada-san replied without hesitation.
Miyako clamped her mouth shut to keep a gasp from escaping. What was the woman thinking? She hadn’t waited for the signal. It took a full second to work it out. Miyako had been biting her lip while she mulled the odds. Yamada-san thought she saw the signal.
Miyako’s head spun with disbelief. Three out of ten. The odds Yamada-san would improve her hand were only three out of ten.
Despair sank long black talons into her heart. She watched Yamada-san’s third card descend in slow motion.
She barely heard Noriko ask her if she wanted another card herself. Barely managed to shake her head no.
With all the cards dealt, Yamada-san flipped up her third card and crowed. “Three cherries. Three of a kind!” She spread her cards out on the mat.
Miyako stared, then broke into a slow smile. The hand was so rare it was an instant winner.
Noriko’s jaw gaped like a koi. She counted out Yamada-san’s winnings, her voice pitched high with disbelief.
Yamada-san chuckled. “I think I’m done for the day.” She folded and tucked eight crisp fifty-yen notes into the bosom of her kimono.
Miyako stood and stretched, doing her best to look casual.
The ancestors had heard her. The weapon from her dream had proven its worth. But would Yamada-san see it that way?
Yamada-san left the common room, avoiding Miyako’s eyes. Miyako checked the old courtesan’s bedroom a few minutes later and didn’t find her. She wandered along the corridor and overheard Yamada-san carrying on a hushed conversation with Imai-san.
Fortunately for Miyako’s sanity, Yamada-san sought her out a few minutes later. She tried to stutter out a few words of explanation, but the older lady preempted her. “It was tonight you wanted to go, ah? Make sure you’re ready by seven-thirty.” She compressed her lips, turned on her heel, and marched away.
Miyako stared, stunned, at Yamada-san’s departing back. What did it mean? The woman had elected to keep her side of the bargain, but why?
It did mean one thing. She needed to get busy.
18 October 1942, Kiangwan, China
182 Days Captive
The square of light from the window had reached it at last—the precise spot on the floor it had to hit before they’d bring around Dave’s rice-blob lunch. The cell door’s top slot opened, followed seconds later by the lower food slot. Right on schedule. He stood to collect his tray. He took a quick glance into the eyes behind the slot—
And did a double take. The corners of those eyes crinkled with a smile.
He stopped short and stared. All he could make out of the eyes’ owner was a broad forehead and a pair of unnaturally strong cheekbones.
“Douzo omeshiagari.” The man gave him a slight bow. Dave wasn’t sure what the words meant, but they sounded friendly.
Someone behind the door yelled, “Damare.” The slot slid shut and the eyes were gone.
He blinked a couple times, then sat. He balanced the tray and its nondescript contents across his thighs, his gut coiling with anxiety.
Guards didn’t smile unless it involved some form of torment.
He took a deep bre
ath to relax, lifted his regulation tin cup and took a sip—a small one, to make the tepid liquid last. He set the cup on the tray and gnawed at the flavorless rice ball. Picked up the cup again.
A tiny triangle of folded paper fluttered from the bottom of the cup and landed on the floor. He almost dropped the cup in his surprise.
On reflex, he looked at the door. Both slots were closed.
He picked up the paper. It felt moist—a bit of spilled tea had glued it to the bottom of the cup. He unfolded it with trembling fingers, careful not to rip it.
Block letters. Pencil. In English. Blurred a bit by the moisture, but legible.
You’re kicking the Japs out of the Solomons.
I think the tide has turned.
Questions barraged Dave’s sluggish brain.
What?
Who?
And finally, Is it true?
Unless the contents of his wallet counted, he hadn’t seen an English word in writing since he bailed out of Payback. And now here were lines on a snippet of damp paper. Someone reaching out to him.
It took a moment for an image to come to mind. Chiseled features, a gaunt frame. The Asian prisoner who’d interpreted the warden’s speech the day they’d arrived at Kiangwan.
Without a doubt, that was the fellow he’d seen through the slot. Who was he and why would he take this kind of risk for a gaijin?
The young man had seemed sympathetic—like he didn’t buy into the insults he was echoing in his solid but accented English.
Dave read the note again. His hands shook when he threw it into his benjo.
The tide has turned. We might get home. His whole being longed to believe it.
Brief messages kept arriving with Dave’s meals. Each flashed a strobe of hope into his dismal cell.
Japanese paper reports big battle off Guadalcanal. I think they lost.
And then—
Don’t be afraid. You’ll go home soon.
Since their new friend always delivered their meals right under a guard’s nose, the airmen didnt learn much about him. They code-named him Tom.
Apart from Tom’s messages—which meant more to Dave than he could have put in words—weeks went by with little change. It got colder. They all got sicker.
Dave developed a dry cough that wouldn’t stop. If he sat too long, he couldn’t feel his feet. Frost formed on his windowsill. He chipped tiny icicles from the snarls of his beard when he woke each morning.
It happened with as little explanation as anything else. One day after exercise the guards didn’t return them to their cells. Instead, they herded them into a single nine-by-twelve room. Their personal effects had been taken from their cells and piled in one corner of the new quarters, along with a pile of fifteen blankets—three blankets each.
Nielsen looked around. “I guess this is our new home? It’s gonna be close quarters.”
Watt whistled. “This is their idea of how we’re going to beat the cold? Body heat?”
Meder rummaged through their piled-up property. “So what? Sure beats solitary.”
This was greeted with, “Yes, sir,” “You bet,” and a solid “Amen,” from Watt.
“Darn straight.” Dave felt giddy with relief. Being the ranking officer, he took the lead. “Okay, men. I see five stations around the perimeter. Two against the wall beside the benjo and three against the opposite wall.”
Watt made a suggestion. “We could do rock-paper-scissors for initial position.”
But Vitty sank to the floorboards, a pained expression on his face. He leaned against the wall with his arms around his knees and started a gentle side-to-side rocking.
Meder was quick to crouch beside him. “Vitty, what’s wrong?”
“What day is it?”
“I don’t know.” Meder glanced up at Dave. Dave shrugged.
Vitty stopped rocking and stared at them, whites showing around his irises. “What day is it?” Louder this time.
“Hey, that’s what you usually tell us.” Meder chuckled a little. Then he went solemn. “Oh. I see.”
Dave stared at the two of them, mystified. “See what?”
“Vitty’s been keeping that calendar on his wall. On his wall. In his old cell. It’s gone now.”
Nielsen looked at Vitty, brow furrowed. “You don’t remember what day it was on your calendar?”
Vitty banged his shoulders against the wall, then bit his lip and gave his head a slow shake. He looked up at Watt. His eyes glistened.
Watt sat on Vitty’s other side. “Hey, don’t worry, pal. We’ll figure it out.”
“We will.” Meder patted Vitty’s shoulder.
Watt scratched his chin beneath his unkempt beard. “Tom passed me a birthday note—December 3. Who knows how he knew, God love him. It wasn’t yesterday. Was it the day before?”
Nielsen shook his head in wonder. “The risks that man takes. Unbelievable.”
“They’ll beat the snot out of him if they catch him. That’s for sure,” Watt said. “Wonder if he had anything to do with our getting moved back together.”
“Maybe he did.” Dave had added Tom to his mental Hall of Heroes.
Meder watched Vitty for a long moment. He stood, leaned against the wall, and looked around at the others. “Do you guys feel like we’re all getting a little erratic? The strain of the way we’re living—nothing to do, hour after hour, day after day. I think it’s getting to us. Lack of focus. Losing track of things. Irritability.”
Nielsen grinned. “So you’re saying it’s not just that Watt’s a mean cuss.”
Watt growled.
Meder cracked a tight smile. “Well, that’s a given.” All serious again. “But don’t you feel like you’re losing your grip a little? Look, Delham, how many presidents can you name?”
“Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge...Roosevelt again...Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson...Adams...” He paused, no more names coming. “I haven’t thought about it in years.”
“Okay, fair enough. Watt, recite the Declaration of Independence for me.”
“Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers...No, our fathers set...”
Bob shook his head. “It starts with When in the course of human events.”
“Oh. Dang!”
Nielsen jumped in. “Something about certain unalienable rights—”
Watt rattled off the next phrase. “Yes. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
“Vitty?” Bob’s voice was gentle. “You remember any of it?”
Vitty thought for a moment. He shook his head.
“See?” Bob looked around. “That’s important stuff. It’s what we fought for.”
Dave had to agree—he’d felt this too. He glanced at the men. All nodding. All looking to Meder. Dave might be the one with the rank, but Meder was the real leader.
He went stiff. “What do you propose, Lieutenant?”
Bob gave him a crisp nod. “I think we need a mental workout program. Everyone should pick some mental exercise and work on it every day. Consistent and deliberate.”
Watt leaned forward. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something you care about. Design and build something—the more complex the better. Write a poem and recite it. I’ve started an essay on a problem I heard about in philosophy class that has always intrigued me. I’m writing the essay—and by that, I mean typing it out word for word—on a typewriter in my mind.”
“I see.” Dave gave a slow nod.
He looked around at the men. Their eyes gleamed cautious enthusiasm above gaunt cheeks and sagging jowls. He stared at Nielsen, and the man’s expression summoned a memory—a baby monkey he and Jenny had seen years before at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Bright eyes shining out of a solemn little face, it had studied him for a long moment before swinging up on its mother’s back, trusting her to lift it to safety.
The monkeys faded into another image—one he’d seen only in his thoughts. Meder grunting and gasping in the night-black surf, spending his last ounc
e of strength to tug a waterlogged corpse from the China Sea.
Yes, Dave had the rank, but it was Meder who had what it took to pull the men through this. Rapport. Meder had earned it. What Bob Meder had to offer now—Dave needed it as much as anyone.
Tough to give away what you didn’t have.
He took a deep breath, then chimed in to support Meder’s proposal. “How about a model airplane? When I was a kid, Uncle Verle and I used to build them. That Camel we put together was a real beaut. Is that the kind of thing you’re after?”
“I built one of those.” Vitty actually smiled a little. “Painted it fire-engine red.”
Meder gave Vitty a nod. “Could you reconstruct her in your mind, strut by strut?”
“Sure.”
“That’s the ticket.” Bob beamed at Vitty. “Any other takers?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Friday, December 31, 1948
Osaka, Japan
Friday evening at seven-forty, Miyako finally walked out to the freedom of the street. Damp and dismal as the evening was, she still wanted to skip across the sidewalk and fling her arms around the nearest lamppost.
After descending down an endless flight of cement stairs, Miyako stood on the Midosuji Line platform, Yamada-san at her elbow. The old courtesan ventured a sidelong glance at her. A dry chuckle formed in her belly and gathered strength until it burbled out.
“That was something unexpected this morning. You with all your signals.” Yamada-san laughed in earnest. “Oh, I know you didn’t mastermind that three-of-a-kind, so don’t even pretend.”
Miyako opened her mouth to protest, but the glower Yamada-san shot her stopped her.
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