Snakeskin Shamisen

by Naomi Hirahara

  “Sit down,” said G. I. “Please sit down, Mas.”

  Mas opted for a plush purple chair the color of the felt bag for Crown Royal whiskey. It was his favorite resting spot in G. I.’s house; the chair enveloped and soothed all his rusty joints and sore muscles. G. I. squatted on a black leather couch, barely resting his oshiri. Juanita, meanwhile, was in a room connected to the living room: G. I.’s home office, which was filled with more brown accordion files and fat stacks of paper held together by black metal clips. In the middle of the desk, peering out from the mess, were a computer and a monitor. Juanita was typing on the keyboard, her back toward them.

  “I saw him, Mas. Just lying there. In a pool of blood.” G. I.’s red eyes watered.

  “You findsu him?”

  G. I. shook his head and stared blankly at his open hands. “One of the waitresses found him collapsed by her car.”

  Probably the Tiffany girl, thought Mas. This might have happened only minutes after he had left the restaurant.

  Juanita turned around in her chair, most likely sensing that she would have to take over in disseminating the news. “He was sliced through his neck. Went right through the carotid artery. Whoever killed him knew what he was doing.”

  “Didn’t know Torrance so abunai.” In Mas’s mind, Torrance was a sleepy suburb with more than its share of straight-A Japanese kids. But wayward teenagers and drug addicts knew no geographic boundaries.

  “No, Mr. Arai, this wasn’t a random crime.”

  Mas felt something in the back of his neck go piri-piri. He swatted the back of his head just in case it was a spider and not his nerves.

  “He still had his wallet, his watch,” said Juanita. “The killer had some other motive besides robbery.”

  Mas frowned.

  “Let me show you something, Mr. Arai. C’mon here.”

  Mas went into the small attached room and stood behind Juanita’s swivel chair. “The Rafu Shimpo photographer e-mailed these pictures of the crime scene to us,” she said.

  “I don’t know why you had to have him do that, Juanita.” G. I.’s voice had a hard edge to it. “I don’t want anything to do with those photos.”

  Juanita ignored G. I. “I made a deal with the photographer,” she said. “We’d talk to the Rafu’s reporter if they’d send us a copy of their photos.”

  “You can talk to them. I won’t.” G. I. lay down on the couch and closed his eyes.

  Mas wasn’t sure where his allegiances fell, but he was curious to see the photos. The background was familiar—the parking lot filled with Japanese cars. The photos had been taken close to sundown, so most of them had a brownish tint. A group of people gathered in an empty parking space next to a white Honda. Somebody was kneeling over the collapsed body; all Mas could see of Randy was his outstretched arm. His fingers were curled in, revealing that Randy had been a chronic nail biter.

  Juanita pointed to the back of the man obstructing the view of Randy’s body. “That’s G. I.’s doctor friend, Glenn. He’s a general practitioner in West L.A. He was trying to revive Randy.”

  The dark pool of liquid underneath the doctor’s shoes looked like an oil leak, but Mas knew it was blood. There were white tufts floating in the liquid.

  “Carnation petals,” Juanita explained. From the lei, of course. Next to the pool of blood was something that looked like a crushed box.

  Juanita pressed down on a few more keys, enlarging the object.

  “A-ra,” Mas gasped. “Shamisen.” Indeed, it was the broken face of a shamisen like the ones the musicians had been playing at the restaurant, stripped of its neck and its three strings dangling. The shamisen’s snakeskin covering was peeling off, most likely due to the violence it had just experienced. There was a strange splintered bone next to its neck, and Mas leaned closer to the illuminated monitor to see what it was.

  Juanita nodded. “You can’t see it that well here; the picture’s too dark. But that’s really a bone.”

  Mas grunted. Okashii. Strange.

  “See here, though, up by the neck—the other two pegs are bones, you see?” One of them was black, as if it had been painted or dyed.

  “So-ka,” Mas murmured. The splintered bone must have broken from the shamisen’s neck.

  “I don’t think they’re human.”

  Mas was relieved. “Those guys doin’ music—police look into them?”

  “I saw them being interviewed, but it’s not the same shamisen. See this picture?” Juanita pointed to a printout of the group photo from earlier, and yes, Mas’s teeth were indeed clenched. “The shape of the musicians’ shamisen on the stage was rounder, and the pegs are made of polished wood—no bones. And the snakeskin on their instruments was new and shiny—see how worn-out the snakeskin here is?” Juanita pointed back to the battered shamisen left at the murder scene.

  “Ole shamisen worth sumptin’?”

  Mas remembered watching the public television show where ordinary people brought in old metal toys and wooden furniture rotting in their garages and attics. What they discovered, more often than not, was this junk could be sold to some fool for thousands of dollars. Maybe the shamisen was this kind of valuable junk, so valuable that it was worth killing for.

  “Not sure,” said Juanita.

  “His shamisen?” Or the killer’s? wondered Mas.

  “He didn’t have it when we left for the restaurant. We went together,” said G. I., now sitting up. “He was staying with me. Actually, he slept on this couch.” G. I. patted his hand on the leather cushion underneath him as if it still held the warmth of his friend’s body.

  “Whatsu dis man’s work?” Mas asked.

  “He worked in the post office on Oahu,” G. I. replied.

  Government worker. Not a rich man, but collected a steady paycheck. “Wife?” Mas asked.

  “No,” said G. I. “He’s divorced. No kids. I thought both of his parents were dead—that is, until I got a strange phone call yesterday.”

  “You didn’t tell me about any phone call,” said Juanita, swinging the computer chair toward the living room.

  “Yeah, I didn’t have time to tell you. But I mentioned it to Detective Alo. It was an old man. Kibei, I think. Couldn’t speak English too well. He wanted to speak with Randy. He claimed to be Randy’s father.”

  “What did Randy say?”

  “You know Randy. Poker-faced Randy. He stayed on the phone with the guy for only a few minutes. Afterward, he said it was an old guy talking smack, but he then left for a couple of hours. I didn’t think much of it. I guess I should tell Randy’s brother.”

  “Brian finally came to the restaurant, G. I. After you left. He borrowed forty bucks from me for his cab fare. Can you believe that?”

  Mas remembered the chubby Sansei getting out of the taxi. “He from ova here?”

  “No, he lives in Oahu, too, but he’s been in L.A. on business. He was supposed to show up for the party; I don’t know what happened.”

  “That whole thing is kind of weird, G. I.,” Juanita said. “I mean, here he is on the mainland, and he’s a no-show. What kind of relationship did they have?”

  “Randy never said too much about Brian. Just that he was his kid brother. I guess he thought that their grandparents favored him. You know, typical sibling rivalry.”

  Juanita turned the chair back to the computer. “Shoot,” she said. “I can’t open up this one file.” Her slender fingers quickly poked the keys on the keyboard. G. I., meanwhile, had risen from the couch and was gesturing for Mas to follow him. Once Mas reached the living room, G. I. pulled him into his bedroom, a plain square with a turntable and stacks of albums in orange crates all against one wall. On the opposite side was a futon on the floor, sheets crumpled below two pillows. Mas narrowed his eyes as he spotted something moving beside the bedsheets. A cat with black and white cow markings that was meticulously licking its paws.

  “Listen, I need your help.”

  Mas waited with dread. Why did he get the feeli
ng that this favor would surpass anything he owed G. I.?

  “Juanita is going gung-ho with her ‘independent’ investigation.”

  That was obvious, but what could Mas do about that?

  “I need you to work with her. Keep her even-keeled. Watch over her.”

  Mas furrowed his brow. If G. I. couldn’t control his own girlfriend, what made him think Mas could?

  “I know this is a big imposition. I would ask someone else, Kermit even. But Juanita can’t stand him.”

  Kermit? Mas didn’t know any Kermits.

  “Jiro, I mean,” G. I. corrected himself. “You know, that other guy in our Vietnam group. The short one.”

  Mas nodded. Jiro he knew.

  “Oh yeah, well, we call him Kermit. Like Kermit the frog on that kids’ show Sesame Street? He looks like a frog, right? We started calling him Kermit at training camp.”

  Mas gave G. I. a blank look.

  “Anyway, she’s always talking shit about him. But he’s harmless, really. Has a good heart. Got into a little trouble after ’Nam. Drank a little too much, public disturbance violations, a few fights. But he pulled his life together and went through nursing school.”

  Mas remembered Jiro blubbering in the bathroom. “What happen ova there in the restaurant? Whyzu you kenka, fight?”

  G. I. pulled the door shut. “This is just between you and me, right, Mas?”

  Who else was in the room? The cat?

  “Randy was beating the crap out of Kermit. I don’t know why. They’ve always been kind of funny about their relationship.” G. I. swallowed. “I even asked Randy about it recently, when we were in Vegas, but he wouldn’t say.”

  That didn’t surprise Mas. Even though he had just met Randy, he could tell that he had been a man who didn’t reveal secrets.

  “But they were close. Real close. Randy trusted Kermit more than his own brother. You didn’t say anything about Jiro to the police, did you?”

  “No,” Mas lied, feeling shame creep into his gut.

  “I’m just glad that he wasn’t around to see Randy’s body. He had already left to go to work, the six o’clock shift. He’s a nurse at Little Company of Mary Hospital, right in Torrance. Juanita thinks he’s a jerk. He just doesn’t know how to speak with women; he always manages to insult them. He can’t help himself. When something gets into Juanita, she can’t drop it. She doesn’t trust anyone, especially authority figures. I guess that goes with her background—”

  Before he could say what her background was, the bedroom door swung open.

  “So you guys having some kind of secret meeting in here?” Juanita had one hand on her hip. She was the type who didn’t run from confrontation but chased after it.

  “No, no,” said G. I. “Just talking.”

  “Yeah, right. I bet.” Juanita wasn’t convinced.

  The doorbell rang, tinny and cheap, followed by banging on the wood frame of the glass door.

  “Now, who the hell could that be?” G. I. went back to the living room and drew back his drapes. Looking out his window, he muttered, “Shit.”

  “Who is it?” Juanita asked, following G. I. down the stairs in the entryway. The cat was next, and Mas, not wanting to be outdone by a cat, went down too.

  On the other side of the glass door were Detective Alo and a couple of uniformed police officers.

  “What’s going on?” G. I. asked.

  “We need to do a full search of your residence.” Alo’s voice had become even softer, barely audible.

  “Look, your men were already here to pick up Randy’s belongings. What more do you need?”

  “We’ve found some evidence back at the murder scene. We have probable cause.”

  “Do you have a search warrant?”

  “We thought that you’d cooperate, Mr. Hasuike.”

  “Listen, it’s late. I just lost one of my best friends. I’m wiped out, guys. I don’t want you ripping up my place. You get a search warrant; better yet, you tell me what you are looking for, and I’ll be more than happy to cooperate, really.”

  Alo and G. I. went back and forth like those tennis pros that Mas occasionally saw on TV while flipping channels. Except what Alo and G. I. shot back and forth were words, legalese that Mas didn’t quite understand but still feared. G. I. must have won this match, because Alo was gesturing for the officers to return to their cars.

  “We’ll be back, Mr. Hasuike.” Detective Alo’s voice was breathy, but they all could still feel the power of his threat.

  The three of them watched the police cars leave the street through the glass door.

  “What was that all about?” Juanita asked.

  “They found something at the restaurant. Something that implicates me.”

  “But what?”

  Mas then remembered the discovery in the rubbish bin by the bank. “Katana,” he blurted out.

  “What?”

  “Knife. Police found knife in trash. I see it.”

  “What kind of knife?”

  “Big one.” Mas held up his hands about a foot apart. “Someone say like in ’Nam.”

  “Must have been a bayonet,” G. I. murmured.

  “So that’s the murder weapon?” said Juanita. “What the hell? So what were they going to do, try to find a knife in the house?”

  “There’s two of them here, Juanita. Not to mention my thirty-eight.”

  “Shit. Well, get rid of them. Where are they?”

  “I have nothing to hide. Probably half of the guys at the party own guns and knives. This is L.A., after all.”

  “G. I., you are their prime suspect. A bunch of people saw you arguing with Randy.”

  “I was trying to calm him down, I tell you. He just had too much to drink.”

  “You have to think, G. I. Think about your law practice. It won’t look good for a lawyer to be arrested. Doesn’t matter if the charges are eventually dropped, or you’re declared not guilty at trial. It’ll be all over The Rafu Shimpo. Your career will be over in a flash. No Nisei grandma will be calling you about her HMO problems. No Sansei’s going to be hiring you on his DUI case. And you know the Japanese—they never forget.”

  G. I. picked up the cat and stroked its fur as Juanita continued. “I spoke to Alo at the restaurant. Told him that he needed to look into the sanshin. He said they had a lead on it, that I didn’t need to worry about it. He practically patted my head, G. I. They weren’t taking me seriously.”

  “The police could know something that we don’t.”

  “I know, I know. They probably do. But there’s something about that sanshin. Why was it there? Randy was a postal worker and Vietnam vet. He didn’t identify with being Okinawan. I know; I spoke to him about it. There’s something behind it. Something more than the police have discovered.”

  G. I. finally nodded. “All right, you win, Juanita. Stay out of the cops’ way, but check out the angles they might overlook. You know, the shamisen—”

  “Sanshin,” Juanita corrected him. “That’s what the Okinawans call it.”

  G. I. chose not to argue with Juanita. “And take Mas with you.”

  “Why?” Juanita then looked down at Mas, slightly embarrassed. “No offense, but I can do this myself. It’s my job, after all.”

  “But Mas can speak Japanese. He can really help you out with the Japanese people. People always talk to Mas.”

  G. I. was right. Mas, for his part, was usually dead quiet. It was the other party who would go on and on like a broken faucet. Many times, these people were just looking for buckets to fill with their stories. But buckets were limited in space, and the overflow usually resulted in a mess that wasn’t helpful to anyone.

  “My parents can speak some Japanese.”

  “But Mas can deal with a different crowd.” G. I. shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “He’ll know the earthy ones.”

  Mas didn’t know what “earthy” meant, but he figured that it had to do with the people who lived close to the bottom rather than the
top.

  Juanita crossed her arms over her tank top as if she were hugging her tiny breasts. “Okay, he can tag along. But you’re going to talk to the Rafu Shimpo reporter. Off the record, of course.”

  “I’ll throw her a few bones. But anything you find, report it to Alo, okay?” G. I.’s phone began to chirp. “I better get this,” he said. “Thanks for coming all the way, Mas.” He flipped open his phone and held it to his ear while walking back upstairs.

  “I’ll walk you back to your car, Mr. Arai.” Juanita grabbed a hold of Mas’s elbow and practically led him out the door and down the concrete steps. Once they were outside, Juanita released his arm. “I know what G. I.’s up to. He wants you to watch out for me, right?”

  Mas was too tired to deny Juanita’s claims. He felt mucus rise up in his throat and spit on the side of the walkway.

  “Well, that’s fine. As long as we have an understanding. That we go after who did it, no matter who it might be.”

  Mas hesitated. That wasn’t part of the deal. “Yah, yah,” he said. Mas thought his daughter was urusai, but Juanita was making Mari look like a harmless little lamb.

  Mas fumbled for his screwdriver in his pocket and then remembered that he had given it away to Detective Alo. He had parked underneath a streetlight, and the truck’s yellow interior glowed like the peel of a ripe banana.

  “That’s your truck?” Juanita said like she didn’t quite believe it.

  Mas nodded. He silently dared Juanita to insult his automotive friend, but she was smart enough to back off.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Mr. Arai.”

  Mas grunted. When he got back into the truck, he realized that he hadn’t given her his address and phone number. She’s the detective, Mas thought to himself, she can figure it out.

  The next morning, Mas called Haruo again. Haruo worked on Mas like a human Alka-Seltzer. He cleaned up any pain in Mas’s gut and cleared his head of any early-morning cobwebs.