Snakeskin Shamisen

by Naomi Hirahara

  “Anmen gone,” Mas said.

  “What?”

  “Heezu gone.”

  G. I. went to the window and looked at the parked cars. “Dammit,” he cursed. He surveyed the living room. He lifted the blanket he had given Anmen and then pulled at piles of dirty clothes and the bags and containers from the Cuban restaurant. “That shithead took Juanita’s shamisen.”

  “Honto?” Could it be?

  Mas went into the kitchen, just to make sure. But other than the small Formica table, a couple of metal chairs, and a bag of Haruo’s persimmons, nothing. But something was on the table. A note. In Japanese.

  G. I. joined Mas at the table. His breath smelled awful, like something green, gelatinous, and left out too long, but Mas knew that his own wouldn’t be much better. Surely the amount of garlic they had consumed the night before didn’t help.

  “What’s it say?”

  Mas had left his reading glasses in the truck, but G. I. handed him a magnifying glass instead. The glass was a heavy-duty one with a rectangular black frame.

  G. I. rubbed his mustache stubble. Mas spent a few minutes trying to make out Anmen’s writing. He’d obviously been in a hurry and maybe even writing in the dark. “Itsu say heezu sorry. He not a kinda man to stay until the end.”

  “So, basically, he’s a coward.”

  Mas shook his head. “Heezu used to runnin’. Can’t stop, even if he wants to.”

  “Did he mention anything about the shamisen?”

  Mas read the note over again. “Nutin’ about shamisen.”

  “Well, he’s an asshole, a thief, and maybe a killer.”

  Mas frowned. “Youzu think he killsu somebody?”

  “Maybe. Why has he been incognito for all these years? I’m going to call the rental car company. Maybe they can trace his whereabouts.” G. I. then went back to the living room and cursed again.

  “Whatsamatta?” Mas asked from the doorway.

  “That guy took my address book. Must have thought it was a wallet.” G. I. then went on a tear in his closet. More cursing. “He also took my gun.”

  “Thought police take away.”

  “They took my knives, but I convinced them to leave my gun.”

  Mas then recalled what he had overheard at the Torrance Police Department. “Police know where knife sold.”

  “What?”

  Mas repeated the information he had learned. A store in Vegas. Cash. Asian buyer.

  “Kermit was looking at knives in Vegas,” G. I. said softly. His face was pale. “You know, I haven’t heard from him in a couple of days. Ever since Randy’s death, he’d been calling once, even two times, a day.”

  G. I. got on the phone in the living room, and Mas heard him leave a message for Jiro and then Detective Alo.

  As G. I. made his calls, Mas was feeling damp and sweaty, in need of some heavy-duty cleaning. He also needed a strong cup of coffee to shake up his brain, but he refrained from being a nezumi, a rat, scurrying through G. I.’s kitchen cabinets and refrigerator. Something was nagging at him. Didn’t he have to go somewhere this morning? And then—a-ra! His appointment with Olivia Feinstein. Mas turned the twine on his Casio watch to see its face. The appointment was forty-five minutes from now.

  Mas removed the address that he had written on the back of an old receipt in his wallet. The attorney’s daughter lived in zip code 90210, Beverly Hills, maybe only five miles away from G. I.’s address.

  G. I. apparently struck out on his calls, because he returned to the kitchen table in a bad mood.

  “I gotsu to go,” Mas told him. “Appointment with dat lawyer’s daughter.”

  G. I. offered Mas his second car, an old Volvo whose muffler was held up by wire. “I wish I could go with you, Mas. But I have to see if I can find Jiro. He’s supposed to be at work, but he hasn’t come in. And Juanita and I were supposed to go to that concert at the Okinawa Association. Actually you should be there, Mas. I know that Kinjo is involved somehow; I’m sure of it. It all goes back to that sanshin. You need to get some straight answers from Kinjo, even if you have to confront him onstage.”

  “I try to make it,” Mas said. In the meantime, he would need to use G. I.’s shower and borrow a clean set of clothes. He was sorry to be such a meiwaku, but going to Beverly Hills required being a bother. He couldn’t visit a fancy lady in clothes he had just slept in, not to mention the smell of garlic permeating from his mouth and skin.

  G. I. was about fifteen pounds lighter and five inches taller than Mas, but he was able to find a loose Hawaiian shirt and a pair of dark pants that Mas could fit into. In the shower, naked, with the water pounding down on him, Mas tried to think.

  To use Lil’s word, Anmen was most definitely a yogore. And there Mas, hearing about caves and explosions, had felt sorry for the man. Why had Anmen Sanjo left in the middle of the night with a stolen gun? And this Olivia Feinstein, what could she possibly shed light on? What would she know that Edwin Parker hadn’t told Mas already?

  The shower didn’t provide any answers. Mas got out, dried himself off, and got into G. I.’s clothes. He combed his hair back and, for the hell of it, splashed some cologne from the medicine cabinet on his neck for good measure. G. I. gave him a disposable razor and a toothbrush. Mas also requested fizzy water, which he used to soak his dentures for five minutes.

  Mas then left the bathroom to put on his socks and loafers in the living room. The legs of the pants were too long, so Mas folded over the cuffs two times. If G. I. was serious about Mas confronting Kinjo, he had to have reinforcements. Mas discussed with G. I. who those people needed to be.

  Before he left, Mas asked G. I., “By the way, whysu Kinjo’s band at your party?”

  “I don’t know. I figure the restaurant handled it all.”

  Mas didn’t have many opportunities to go into Beverly Hills. His gardening route was limited to the northeastern side of Los Angeles, so he rarely strayed beyond the west side of downtown. Mas remembered an old-time gardener telling him that during the Great Depression of the thirties, some people in Beverly Hills tried to pass a law that banned all Japanese gardeners from the city. Out-of-work hakujin had entered the gardening trade, and they didn’t want to face competition in a free enterprise economy. But as it turned out, while a single Japanese gardener might usually be quiet, when you got a thousand of them together, they could make quite a racket. And that’s what happened; the gardeners got together and formed a Japanese gardeners’ association in response to the proposed ban, and the law was killed.

  That was a long time ago, however. Beverly Hills had gotten its bachi, or comeuppance, as it was now populated with as many immigrants as hakujin. Still, Wilshire Boulevard hadn’t changed a whole lot. The ivy-covered Beverly Wilshire Hotel was still there. And sure, fancy stores might have different names, labels, and models, but they were still selling top-of-the-line products.

  Mas parked the Volvo on a small street three blocks off Wilshire Boulevard. He had expected a fancy mansion and instead got rows of fourplexes that looked as if they’d been constructed in the forties. The lawns and gardens were immaculate, and Mas knew that the new men and women who tended them weren’t Japanese but most likely newcomers from Latin America with their own sets of dreams.

  Olivia Feinstein lived in a back unit. The gardener had shaved a boxwood hedge into the shape of a mouse, with another matching one cut like Swiss cheese, holes and all. Very clever, Mas thought disdainfully; he preferred geometric designs over Disneyland in his topiary.

  At the first ring of her doorbell, Olivia opened the door. Her bobbed hair was completely white, but with a silvery sheen. Like the hedges outside her door, she looked recently primped and groomed. She smiled widely, and Mas could see the schoolgirl in her. It didn’t matter if you were three or ninety—a woman could go a long way with an attractive smile.

  “Hello, Mr. Arai.” Olivia welcomed Mas inside.

  Mas pulled down on G. I.’s Hawaiian shirt. Hawaiian shirts weren’t Ma
s’s thing; in fact, he had never worn one in his life Luckily, there weren’t any bikini-clad wahines on the shirt. The only remotely Hawaiian touch was a pattern of surfboards that resembled the shape of leaves. Leaves, Mas could deal with.

  Olivia Feinstein left Mas in the living room, which had rounded corners and alcoves. She had a white carpet, which made Mas nervous. He couldn’t remember if he had properly wiped his shoes on the welcome mat. The Japanese had the custom of leaving your shoes at the door, which only made sense. Why bring the dirt and the foreignness of the outside into your home? But the hakujin were quite married to their shoes, Mas understood. It was as if the loss of height, style, or status would lessen their power in a room. Shoes, whether they be a man’s wingtips or a woman’s stilettoes, were like calling cards. Stockinged feet, on the other hand, were too human and vulnerable.

  Olivia Feinstein brought a tray of tea and placed it on the table in front of the couch. Mas tried to the refuse the tea, but she still poured him a cup from a flowered teapot. A bowl of sugar cubes and a small pitcher of milk remained on the tray. Mas would have accepted a cup of green tea, which would at least have had some grit to it. But sweet tea and milk—Mas couldn’t take that much civility today.

  Olivia dropped a sugar cube in her tea with a pair of mini tongs and stirred. “Now, Professor Howard was telling me that you’re interested in my father and one of his cases during the 1950s?”

  Mas licked his lips. He wasn’t quite sure how to begin, so he merely blurted out, “Isokichi Sanjo.”

  “He’s a past client, right? I think I recall his name.” Olivia removed a box from the table and thumbed through some index cards. “S-A-N…” She waited.

  “J-O.”

  “Yes, yes, here it is—the Sanjo case, one of the Japanese deportees. Now I remember. I’m editing my father’s memoirs right now. He regretted not being able to help him more. Didn’t Edwin Parker take over the case?”

  Mas nodded.

  “There was something about this one.” Olivia tapped the edge of her three-by-five card. “Was this the one in which the deportee was found dead a few days after being arrested?”

  Olivia was a sharp one. Mas felt his pulse quicken. Maybe this trip to 90210 would be worth it.

  “They weren’t able to locate the INS agent, Henry Metcalf, involved in the arrest, right?” Her face grew more animated. “My father wrote pages and pages about Metcalf. A horrible man. He thought it was his personal mission to get rid of all immigrants, especially those of Mexican, Jewish, and Asian descent. He viewed them to be un-American, and joined the bandwagon to deport those with any connections to the Communist Party. It was the Cold War, of course, and we had to be protective of our national security, but Metcalf took it too far. Even his own agency, the INS office in L.A., was troubled; they didn’t know what to do with him. When he disappeared, everyone suspected foul play—that either he had committed a crime or a crime had been committed against him. In terms of the theory that he had been killed, there was a whole line of suspects. My father was even questioned. In private, he said that he would have gladly taken credit for Metcalf’s disappearance if only he could have had experienced the pleasure of doing away with him. But no pleasure, no credit.”

  Mas had trouble following Olivia, but he understood the gist of her comments: that more than one person had wanted this Agent Metcalf dead. And judging from her comments, Mas figured she had not yet heard about Metcalf’s bones being unearthed from downtown L.A.

  “There was something else,” Olivia added. “Wasn’t there an informant?”

  “Man from Sanjo-san’s band.”

  “I remember Edwin talking about this case.”

  Edwin?

  Olivia blushed the slightest shade of pink. “I was seeing Edwin Parker at that time. We dated for a few months until I broke it off. I was very cruel, actually. I told him that he was more enamored with my father than me. I’m still embarrassed when I see Edwin and his wife at social functions.”

  Olivia crossed her legs, and Mas noticed they were still slim, with only a faint web of varicose veins visible underneath her nylons. “But I remember hearing about this informant. Unreliable, to say the least. I think that he certainly had other motives in cooperating with immigration services. Some of these informants lied. Some were even planted by the INS. It’s amazing what some people are willing to do if the price is high enough.”

  The lawyer’s daughter then spent a few minutes reading notes on her index cards. “The informant had made an appointment with my father after the deportee’s death. But he then canceled; never gave a reason why.”

  Mas looked down at his watch. If he wanted to make a stop before the concert, he would have to leave now. “I gotsu to go. Sank you very much.”

  “You didn’t touch your tea.” Olivia Feinstein looked disappointed. Unfortunately, Mas had spent his life disappointing women; one more wasn’t going to make a whole lot of difference.

  Mas went back to the beginning. Where it all started. Mahalo, the Hawaiian restaurant in Torrance.

  The hostess—could it be Tiffany?—greeted Mas with a menu in her hand. “Aloha! How many in your party?”

  Mas rechecked her name badge. These pretty young girls all looked alike. But sure enough, the badge read TIFFANY. “Youzu the one at G. I.’s party.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The day the man killed.”

  Tiffany finally recognized Mas. Her face turned pale in spite of her tan. She looked nervous. “You were the guy outside with the screwdriver. What do you want?” she asked.

  A family walked in, and Tiffany took a few steps toward these real customers and then stopped, glancing nervously back at Mas. She was rescued by a young man who had also worked that night at the party, the one whose short black hair was gelled up like porcupine quills. His name was apparently JOSH.

  “Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

  “The day Randy Yamashiro killed, you have Okinawa band. Whysu you use dat band?”

  The young man frowned. “May I ask why you need that information?”

  “Just needsu to know why youzu pick them.”

  “The restaurant had nothing to do with it.”

  “Youzu sure?”

  Josh must have been eager to get rid of Mas, because he finally said, “Look, I’m the one who took the phone call. I remember because it was at the last minute—the night before the event. The guy planning the party—the one who was killed—told us that we had to book that band, that Kinji and Son.”

  “Kinjo.”

  “Yeah, Kinjo and Son. I told him that I couldn’t promise him anything—not enough advance notice—but he said that he would pay extra. Even double their usual fee. I didn’t understand why it was so important, but we did it. You know—the customer is always right.”

  Josh then turned his attention to another couple who was waiting to be seated. He obviously didn’t want to waste any more time with Mas, which was fine, because he was late to the concert.

  The Okinawa Association parking lot was full, so Mas parked two blocks away. He didn’t know which building to enter, so he first went into the newer one, glossy with a mirrored outside, but the glass door only led to a spiral staircase to the second floor and a long hallway leading to offices. No sign of a concert there. It was also dead quiet, aside from the hum of the air conditioner.

  The door to the second was locked, but a door to the third was held open with a metal chair. It went right into a heavy-duty steel kitchen with a professional-looking stove and a springy rubber floor mat. A couple of Japanese women were by the sink, their hands wet and their hair freshly coiffed and sprayed. Seeing Mas, they smiled and nodded as if they knew him. Mas pressed his lips together, managing the best grin he could.

  Hearing the music coming from the other side of the kitchen, Mas knew that he was at the right place. He walked into a large hall, which was filled with at least two hundred people seated at long tables assembled in rows in front of a
wooden platform. Three sanshin players, all middle-aged women in orange and yellow kimonos, stood behind microphones, singing. Each one of them had a black cone-shaped wig attached to the top of her head.

  One of the women from the kitchen pushed Mas toward a side counter that was filled with food. She held out a paper plate and motioned for him to serve himself. He was a stranger, yet she wanted to feed him. This much kindness made Mas suspicious, but not suspicious enough to refuse the food.

  The line of dishes represented a typical Japanese American potluck, including the Okinawan dango, which Chizuko herself used to make on special occasions, dozens of fried round donuts in different trays and pans. Someone had placed the dango in a round bowl; they resembled the backs of sparrows huddled together in a nest.

  Less familiar to Mas were the trays full of cut-up pork and goya, bitter melon. Chizuko had had an Okinawan hair-dresser who always gave her bagfuls of goya. It was a funny-looking melon, green, bumpy, and long like a cucumber—like something you might find in the toy section of a pet store or perhaps on another planet. But sliced and cooked, the goya, which was a brilliant yellow inside, with orange seeds, was pretty, the outside ridged like the petals of a flower. Here the goya and pork were stewed together. Mas was in the mood for bitter, so he scooped up a huge spoonful and placed it next to his Okinawan dango, macaroni salad, and Spam musubi.

  The women were still singing, so Mas remained standing on the side.

  “Please sit.” One of the ladies from the kitchen gestured toward the long tables. But most of the seats were filled.

  Mas opted to wait rather than disturb people during the musicians’ performance. After ten minutes, he felt the bottom of his paper plate grow soggy and heard his stomach grumble. The song finally ended, releasing Mas to make his move.