Snakeskin Shamisen

by Naomi Hirahara

  Mas could see the numbers being tabulated in Itchy’s head. This would be a charity case, done for a future favor from Mas. All this investigating was going to cost Mas—maybe not hard dollars today but a complimentary tree-cutting or sprinkler job tomorrow.

  Itchy had to take a call from another customer. “We can make changes if we tell the newspaper by ten,” he said. More squeaks from the chair. “If ‘girlfriend’ is unacceptable, how about ‘lifetime partner’?” Squeak, squeak. “‘Friend’? Okay, ‘friend,’ and mention her last. I got it.”

  Mas studied the linoleum squares covering the floor of Itchy’s office. A huge black scuff mark remained on one square, like a tire skid on the freeway after an accident.

  While Itchy continued to negotiate the language of obituaries, Mas heard footsteps on the rubber-covered stairs and then voices in the front office. G. I. appeared with Randy’s brother, who was wearing a pink polo shirt and jeans and had a cell phone case clipped to his belt. Mas noticed that he was thick around the middle like Randy—only his brother had been more solid, while Brian’s belly seemed squishy, as if he were resting a pillow inside the front of his shirt. G. I. made the introductions, and Mas was surprised to see Brian smile widely. Mas could see his teeth lined up prettily, like a string of pearls. “Thanks, eh, for all you doin’ for us,” he said to Mas. Brian had a lilt to his voice, and as he spoke, a dimple appeared on his left cheek.

  He certainly didn’t look like a grief-stricken brother. His shirt looked freshly pressed, and so did his jeans. Who had time to iron when you were on the road, not to mention planning the transportation of your brother’s dead body?

  Itchy ended his phone conversation, and finally the four of them got to business.

  “We’ll pick up the body from the coroner’s office after they are done with their report,” explained Itchy. “In cases like this, we can also provide shipping services. I can put the body in a recycled box and shave off about twenty dollars.”

  “How about cremation?” Brian put the tips of his fingers together. He wore a gold bracelet, the kind with two magnetic balls that rested inside one’s wrist where a nurse might take your pulse.

  “Cremations are cheapest way to go,” replied Itchy.

  “Cremation is good enough, I think.”

  G. I.’s thinning eyebrows were pinched together. “But don’t your relatives want to see the body?”

  “What relatives? Got no family over in Oahu. Mom, grandparents died years ago. And my father—who knows where that guy’s at? Have some distant uncles, aunts, but they’re over in the Big Island. Wouldn’t come to a funeral in Oahu.”

  This still didn’t seem to sit right with G. I. “Did you clear this all with police?”

  “They know what I’m doing. The coroner already completed his investigation.”

  “Once you cremate him, there’s no going back,” G. I. continued. “Maybe you need to think about it for a couple of days.”

  “I don’t need to think about it,” said Brian. “Cremation.”

  G. I. clutched his knees in his seat, and Mas noticed that a blue vein on his forearm was distended. “I don’t know if I mentioned this. But an old man called a few days ago. Said that he was your father.”

  “That’s a good one. He left us when we lived here in L.A. Mom, with two of us kids, had nowhere to go. So she went back to her folks’ house. I doubt our old man is alive. And if he still is, he’s dead to me. Probably just called about the money.”

  Yes, the money, thought Mas. It had been on Mas’s mind, and most likely on G. I.’s. And now they knew that it had been on the brother’s mind as well.

  “I saw Randy was in the newspaper,” said Brian. “Crazies come out of the woodwork, eh, when you talking about half a million dollars.”

  Itchy nodded, squeak, squeak. Mas snuck a look at G. I. He didn’t look happy. But G. I. had no real say—this was a family matter, a decision that only blood relatives could make. If they were in Hawaii, the door would have been closed to both G. I. and Mas. They were allowed in here only because they were locals, and Randy had died thousands of miles away from home.

  Brian signed some papers and then shook Itchy’s hand. “Well, I guess we’re ready to go,” he said to G. I. “If we get back to the hotel by eleven, I’ll be able to make my lunch appointment.”

  Itchy’s telephone rang and he excused himself to answer it. Brian, on the other hand, went down the hall to the restroom.

  After Brian had disappeared from view, Mas felt G. I.’s breath against his ear. “I can’t believe this SOB,” he hissed. Water was seeping from the sides of his eyes, and Mas could see bits of hanakuso stuck in the hairs of his nostrils. G. I. was still suffering; there was no doubt about that. “There is something fishy about this brother.”

  Mas waited to hear more.

  “The whole time on the drive over here, he’s on the cell phone. Talking business with his colleagues. Nothing about Randy.”

  Before he could go on, Brian was walking down the hall toward them. “Come to the house later on,” G. I. said to Mas. “We need to talk more.” He then brushed away his tears and straightened his back. It was clear that G. I. did not want to reveal any weakness to Brian.

  Itchy returned to the group, a little bit of tension in his sad eyes. “There’s a bit of a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” Brian pulled at his golden bracelet.

  As usual, Itchy didn’t sugarcoat his message. “The police are refusing to allow you to take the body for cremation. Says that you’re a prime suspect in their murder investigation.”

  “Whatthe—?”

  “Did the police actually say that?”

  “Well, it’s my friend in the coroner’s department, Hajime Kaku.”

  That was a name that Mas had not heard for decades. Hajime Kaku had worked for the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office since the fifties. “Hajime still alive?”

  “Still kicking. Kind of putters around the office. But my best source of information,” Itchy explained. “I was trying to figure out what the hang-up was in getting the body released. I guess they don’t want the evidence getting burned up.”

  “This is messed up. I did everything for my brother. Saved his ass I don’t know how many times. And now the police think I killed him?” Brian’s brow was furrowed and a large crease connected one eye to another. “What’s this guy’s name again—Kaku?”

  “He has nothing to do with it,” Itchy said, seeking to protect his messenger. “Call the police. They’ll let you know.”

  “You bet I’ll call them.” Brian opened his nylon case on his belt for his cell phone and charged down the stairs without saying thanks or good-bye.

  “Well, Mas, I’ll catch you later,” G. I. said, his voice now a couple of octaves lower.

  When they were finally alone, Mas turned to Itchy. “Boy’s okashii. Heezu brotha’s dead and he trying to make some bizness deal. Maybe he did have sumptin’ to do with the murder.”

  “You never know, Mas. He may not show it right now, but when he’s alone, it’ll hit him. It’ll hit him hard.” Mas had to give some credit to Itchy’s judgment. He dealt with grief-stricken faces on an hourly basis—he could probably smell a faker a mile away.

  Mas then remembered his conversation with Lil. “Oh, yah, I hear Wishbone’s at Keiro.”

  “Yeah, big surprise. He was so genki, huh, but then all of a sudden got struck down with a cold that turned into pneumonia and then fell down. Luckily he just hurt his ankle. But after he lost the lawn mower shop, he hasn’t been himself.”

  With all the big-box home improvement centers, how could a shack like Tanaka’s Lawnmower Shop survive? Mas knew that the loss was most keenly felt among old gamblers rather than any working gardeners. And now, because of Stinky, Wishbone would have to brace himself for another loss.

  “He’s been asking about you, Mas. You should stop by and say hello sometime.”

  chapter five

  When Mas had first
met Wishbone Tanaka, in the fifties, Wishbone had a ducktail that looked like wild beach grasses gone awry in the wind. He’d parted his pitiful matted hair down the back of his head and then greased it plenty with dabs of Brylcreem. The ends were folded onto the top of his head, resembling a bowing Buddha. Most Nisei and Kibei sported a crew cut or flattop. Itchy, with his straight-as-pins hair, had been a flattop man and still was (no wonder his earlobes kept getting sunburnt). Mas hadn’t been foolish enough to go with a ducktail back in those days, but when he’d had a full head of hair, he did carry a bit of a pompadour, which he held in place with his standard hair cream, Three Flowers oil.

  Wishbone was as unmanageable as his hairstyle. While everything had been well stocked and arranged in his lawn mower shop, you couldn’t tell him what to do regarding anything else in his life. He had a short fuse, and Mas did his share of lighting it. The other guys were a bit wary and afraid of Wishbone, but Mas didn’t hold back when necessary.

  Mas had had a falling-out with Wishbone years ago. He swore that he would never step foot in Tanaka’s Lawnmower Shop again, and he didn’t. But when it was closed and resurrected as a hair salon, Mas had to admit that he’d felt a pang of regret. Hair salons were a dime a dozen; a lawn mower shop, full of decades of memories, card games, and the juiciest gossip in town, was irreplaceable.

  And now Wishbone, like his dead enterprise, was being cast aside. Mas could have laughed and announced, You got your big bachi, payback, for all the meanness you sowed. But what was the use? They both were cut from the same cloth, and Mas knew that what had visited Wishbone would visit him someday.

  After checking in with a nurse at Keiro, Mas made his way down a corridor, its clean floor covered in linoleum. A few residents, trapped in wheelchairs, were out in the hallway like lonely space satellites, not connected to anyone. Mas found Wishbone’s room and poked his head through the doorway. There were two beds, both with mint green curtains to one side. The roommate was obviously somewhere else, but Wishbone, slumped in a wheelchair, was looking out the window toward the flatlands of Lincoln Heights.

  “Wishbone.”

  Wishbone jerked up, startled. He slowly turned toward Mas.

  “Who’s dead?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Well, someone must be dead or close to it for you to be here. Who you come to see?”

  “You.”

  “Who told you? Lil?”

  Mas wasn’t going to mention Stinky’s name; he didn’t want to get in the middle of that fallen deal.

  “That Yamada lady has a big mouth. Volunteers are supposed to keep their traps shut about who’s in here.”

  “Well, Itchy tole me too.”

  “Itchy? Well, I was right, somebody must have died. You over at the mortuary today?”

  Mas gave in. “Actually G. I.’s tomodachi. From Hawaii.”

  “The guy who won the Spam jackpot. Got knifed in Torrance.”

  Mas was surprised. Even within the confines of a nursing home, Wishbone was at the height of his gossip game.

  “Saw it in today’s Rafu Shimpo,” Wishbone said. “Ugly goddamn photos.” In the old days, The Rafu Shimpo used to be delivered by paperboys on bicycles and in cars, but with the Japanese sprinkled all throughout the Southland, now the U.S. post office was the better way to go. Obviously Keiro’s mail service was a lot faster than Mas’s.

  “Yah, kinda helpin’ G. I. find out what happened,” Mas said, immediately regretting that he was revealing his activities to Wishbone, of all people.

  “Well, the Rafu had the photo of the shamisen right on the front page. It was the talk of lunch today. This old Okinawan lady was going on and on that she knows who owned that shamisen.”

  Mas pressed down on a small, painful bump on his hair-line. Did Wishbone say Okinawan? “Gushiken?” Mas asked.

  Now it was Wishbone’s turn to be impressed. “You know the old lady?”

  “Hear about her. You knowsu?”

  “Sure, sure, she’s down the hall. Follow me.” Wishbone wheeled himself toward the open doorway. At first Mas thought about helping to push Wishbone forward, but he realized the last thing Wishbone would want was help.

  “Hey, Gushi-san, somebody wants to meet you,” Wishbone called out down the hall. He was fast with his wheelchair, and Mas noticed that Wishbone’s shoulders were still pretty toned. His hands, as worn as a workingman’s gloves, advanced the wheelchair into another residential room.

  A slight, pigeon-faced woman was resting on one of the beds. “Where’s Gushi-mama?” Wishbone asked.

  Mas hated to be meiwaku, a bother to anyone, especially anyone who was trying to get some shut-eye on a quiet afternoon. Wishbone, on the other hand, was known to blow so much hot air into something that it would burst at the seams.

  “Terebi,” the woman said, pointing to the next room.

  The room next door had a couch and chairs facing a large television playing an NHK soap opera straight from Japan. Mas preferred samurai series to this type, which starred teary-eyed women and salarymen in blue suits.

  Two women were watching the soap opera, and Wishbone wheeled right in front of the one knitting a rainbow-colored blanket.

  “Gushi-mama, this guy here wants to talk to you. About that shamisen in The Rafu Shimpo.”

  Gushi-mama raised her head from her knitting. Her face looked progressively sunken, like a muffin that had failed to rise. Either she had forgotten to wear her dentures or at the age of 106 it was a grooming detail reserved for only special occasions. Her black and white hair shot out from her head like dried-up desert brush.

  “Who you?” she asked.

  “Mas. Masao Arai.”

  “I dunno you.”

  “Izu a friend of Lil Yamada. You know, she come here all the time.”

  “Yamada-san. Nice, nice lady.”

  No one could dispute that fact. The Yamadas, with their stellar reputations, often served as Mas’s calling card. A friend of Tug and Lil Yamada’s was seen to be a person who could be a friend to just about anyone.

  “Tell him,” Wishbone interrupted, inching the wheelchair so close to Gushi-mama that the blanket was almost underneath one of its wheels. “Tell him what you were saying about the shamisen.”

  “Youzu see dat shamisen?”

  Gushi-mama nodded. “Kinjo-san’s sanshin. He played with Sanjo Brothers.” Kinjo sensei had mentioned that somebody in his band had stolen his shamisen.

  “Kinjo, whatchu knows about him?” Mas asked.

  Gushi-mama shook her head. “No good. No good. But thinks he good.” The old lady balled up her freckled hands into fists and placed them one alongside the other on the end of her nose. “Hana ga takai,” she said, and Mas understood instantly. Kinjo’s nose, or hana, was tall, stuck up in the air—too much pride.

  “Always say he has connection to kings. Oh, yah? I say, ‘Show me.’ But nothing.”

  “Howzu about Sanjo?”

  “The niisan Sanjo, big brother, best sanshin player around. Ichiban, yo.” She lifted a bent finger in the air to simulate the number one and peered into Wishbone’s face for emphasis. Wishbone retreated a few inches back. “Everywhere he go, everybody like him. Good-lookin’, too. Big brother’s name was Isokichi. He got into trouble before war. Aka.”

  “Aka,” Mas repeated.

  “Red?” Wishbone translated out loud. So something from Wishbone’s Japanese school experience had stuck in his brain.

  “You know, aka,” Gushi-mama said to Mas.

  Mas nodded. A Red. A communist. He didn’t know how to say it in English, so merely murmured, “Trouble.”

  Gushi-mama nodded back.

  “What happen to Isokichi?” Mas asked.

  Gushi-mama returned to her knitting.

  “Gushi-san, what happened to Isokichi?” Wishbone repeated loudly in Gushi-mama’s ear.

  But Gushi-mama continued her knitting as if they weren’t in the room.

  A nurse in a smock dotted with flying elepha
nts appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Gushiken, you ready for your sponge bath?”

  “Yah, yah,” she said, rolling up the remnants of her knitted blanket.

  “Waitaminute,” Mas said, trying to stall. “Sanjo name. Whatsu kanji?”

  Wishbone crinkled his nose. “Why do you need to see the Japanese character for it?”

  “Please, dis one thing, then I no bother no more,” Mas insisted.

  Gushi-mama looked up, attempting to judge whether Mas would keep his end of the deal. “Orai.” She finally gave in.

  Mas handed her a felt-tipped pen and a piece of scratch paper from a craft table in the corner. Gushi-mama bent her head, revealing a bald spot in the center of her grizzled hair. Using her half-finished blanket as a surface, she carefully maneuvered the pen on the paper and created two complete Japanese characters—one for san and the other for jo. After completing the final stroke, she presented the writing to Mas. She then waited like a queen as the nurse took hold of the handles of her chair and wheeled her out of the television room.

  Mas examined the paper. Gushi-mama’s scrawl was difficult to read, but sure enough, there was the first character, mountain. The second one, castle.

  “You got a lead on something?” Wishbone asked. Wishbone was like any other self-respecting Nisei—he didn’t know how to read and write Japanese. Mas himself hadn’t been much of a student in Japan, but he had caught on enough to know the basics. One was that the reading of a Japanese name was unique to its holder. The same two characters could be read a dozen different ways. And the most common reading of the two characters in front of Mas was not Sanjo, but Yamashiro.

  “Izu don’t think Yamashiro their real names.” Mas was back in G. I.’s Crown Royal purple chair, a beer at his side. He watched as G. I. paced back and forth on his hardwood floor. His cat, Mu, squeezed himself in between G. I.’s legs. At first Mas thought Mu was named Moo, as in the sound of a cow, but found out later that G. I. was using the Japanese word mu—nothingness, a philosophical notion that hakujin hippies and Sansei baby boomers like G. I. subscribed to. In some ways, Mas preferred Tug’s straightforward religion better. They had concrete symbols—the cross, the silver fish on the back of people’s cars, and sometimes the statue of the lady with the outstretched hands. G. I.’s beliefs, on the other hand, didn’t seem to take much shape or form, just the smell of incense and silly cat names.