“I waited for the other man to say something. But he said nothing. The Ford’s headlights were on, and all I could see was the black outline of his body. He seemed young, as young as a teenager. Then he moved into the light, and I recognized him too—Sanjo’s lawyer, Edwin Parker.
“Afterward, I knew that I probably needed to say something. I even made an appointment with that Isaac Delman, but then Edwin Parker came to my house. He spoke in riddles. He pretty much said that Metcalf was gone now, so there would be no trouble. If I wanted it to stay that way, I would let it go. I remember what he said in English: ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’ Then he patted Alan on the head and said that he hoped that we would be together for a very long time. I knew what he was saying. Open my mouth and be sent away. So I canceled my appointment with Delman and shut my mouth. At that point I knew that he had done away with not only Metcalf, but Isokichi. All I could do was watch Edwin Parker become a big shot over the past five decades.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw him at Mahalo. I think he was surprised too. But he still came up to me and said, ‘Hello, Kinjo, so good to see you.’ Like he was daring me to tell people what I had seen fifty years ago. He couldn’t get me now, but he knew that I had stayed silent all these years. Why should I talk now? And who would believe me?”
The door shook with a firm rap. It was a uniformed officer, his hair the color of newspaper twine. He was young, most likely right out of the police academy, because he reported in a loud voice, “Detective, there’s a hostage situation in a town house in Torrance. They say it may be related to this case.”
chapter fourteen
Alo went into the hallway with the officer, closing the door behind him. Mas’s throat felt so parched, the Dixie cup of water did not do anything to quench his thirst. He walked to the water cooler for more, leaving Agent Lee with Kinjo. What was going on? Hostage situation? Who had kidnaped who? Mas gulped one cupful of water after another.
The door opened, and Alo returned to the table. “I’ll have to speak with you more later, Mr. Kinjo,” he said, retrieving the tape recorder. “I’m going to have to take care of something right now. Mr. Arai—”
Ready to be excused, Mas wiped the excess water from the edges of his mouth.
“I need you to come with me.”
Mas wadded up the paper cup in his fist and threw it into a trash can. Kinjo and Agent Lee looked up, curious.
After Mas followed Alo into the parking lot, the detective explained, “Anmen Sanjo has taken Jiro Hamada hostage in his town house. He has a gun, and he’s asking for you.”
Mas nodded. His heart rattled against his old bones, but he still agreed to accompany Alo to the town house.
Genessee ran out from the building. “You don’t have to go with him, Mas,” she said.
“Izu know,” Mas said. “I want to go.”
The Torrance Police squad car led the way, its siren blaring and the lights flashing. Alo had a brown sedan with its own flashing light in the rear window above the backseat. He was putting all his energy into steering the car and dodging the baka drivers who failed to stop or even slow their cars for the police. Mas knew that this wasn’t the time to ask questions; he would find out what was going on, sooner or later.
Jiro lived in one of these gated cookie-cutter complexes where three-story units were slapped right against each other. They all seemed to follow the same floor plan: garage on the first floor, living room and kitchen with adjacent balcony, second; and bedrooms, third. The main gate was propped open, and another squad car was parked there to keep anyone from entering. A small crowd, including housekeepers and residents, stood outside. Detective Alo slowed his sedan enough to ask an officer, “What’s the latest?”
“No shots fired yet. We think he has three hostages in there. Two men, including the resident, and a woman.” The officer then gazed into the backseat. “Is that Arai?”
Alo nodded.
A nasty pain shot up Mas’s neck. Alo drove through the gates and made a left into a large driveway in between two rows of town houses. About five sheriff’s squad cars were scattered haphazardly in the flat space like mixed-up mah-jongg tiles.
Alo and Mas walked around the squad cars like rats in a maze. A group of officers stood clumped together alongside the last garage door. Their attention was fixed on a unit one row away to the right. “It’s the middle one,” an officer reported to Alo. “The one with the cars parked in front of the garage.” The cars confirmed Mas’s worst fears.
He saw a filthy car full of junk. Anmen Sanjo’s rental. Next to it was a red Toyota truck.
“Juanita,” he murmured.
Alo nodded. “We think Miss Gushiken and your friend George Hasuike are being held. Along with Jiro.”
Detective Alo picked up a white megaphone from one of the squad cars. He pressed down on a button, and Mas was surprised at how loud and clear his voice sounded. “Mr. Sanjo, this is Detective Alo of the Torrance Department. I’m here with your friend. Mas Arai.”
Mas objected to the use of “friend,” but it was no use to make a big deal out of words now. Alo handed Mas the megaphone, and he was surprised at how heavy it was. A couple of tries and Mas finally got it to work. “Sanjo-san,” Mas called out. His voice, magnified tenfold, echoed down the driveways. He felt like a fool.
“Tell him to give himself up,” Detective Alo said in Mas’s ear.
Mas held the megaphone with both hands. “No good, yo. Da-me. Better give up.”
There was a hush over the complex. And then Anmen spoke. “I want to talk to you, Arai,” he called out in Japanese from the balcony. “But just you. No one else.”
“He saysu he wants me to go ova there. Just me,” Mas told the detective.
Alo murmured, “That’s unacceptable.” The other deputies shook their heads no. They convened again, and Mas heard a deputy say, “There’s no telling what he will do.”
Mas didn’t know what it was. Maybe that Anmen had specifically requested his presence. Or it could have been plain stupidity, or ego. But Mas heard himself volunteer to meet Anmen in the town house.
“I think it’s too dangerous, Mr. Arai. Too dangerous,” Alo said.
What did Mas care? He was closer to death than the beginning of life, more so than any of the police officers, Juanita, G. I., or Jiro.
“I try. Itsu orai. No sue,” he told Alo.
Alo smiled briefly. “I’m not worried about you suing us. But it’s not normal protocol to send a civilian in full range of a gunman.”
“Get him to give up.”
“We should just wait him out.”
They then heard the motor and blades of a helicopter flying above. Some movement on the balcony. And then a gunshot so loud that it hurt Mas’s ears. Silence. And then another voice. Jiro’s, his voice sounding sharp and desperate. “Back off,” he pleaded. “Please.”
The officers spoke into their walkie-talkies, and the helicopter lurched back up into the sky.
The captain said nothing, but Mas heard others cursing behind him.
“I go,” Mas said. “He wantsu me.”
Alo’s round eyes stared at Mas, measuring whether a seventy-two-year-old man could weather the stress of facing a hostage situation.
“Put a jacket on him,” Alo instructed.
Mas felt a heavy weight around his chest and back as a deputy outfitted him in a black bulletproof vest. It was cumbersome and awkward, but Mas wasn’t complaining.
Alo picked up the megaphone and aimed his voice toward Anmen. “I’m sending Mr. Arai to you, but he can’t go alone. I’m coming with him. Unarmed.”
Silence, just the faint drone of traffic in the distance.
“Mas, you better translate.”
Mas sent the same message in his broken Japanese.
“Mr. Sanjo, did you hear me?” Alo asked.
“Hai. Orai.”
Alo removed a gun and a holster from around his shoulder, but shoved something down in his sock. Mas moistened hi
s lips. He feared that this would end badly, not only for himself but most likely for Anmen.
The garage door then opened, revealing a mess of boxes, multiple packages of toilet paper and paper towels, as well as stacks of bottled water. Jiro was a big-box shopper, stocking up for the big earthquake or another future disaster to befall Los Angeles County.
As they slowly approached the garage, Mas heard the officers position themselves, their rifles cocked and ready. His legs felt so darui, weak, that he thought he would collapse in the middle of the driveway.
“Mr. Sanjo—” Alo called as they stepped into garage. He then peered up the stairs leading up to the second floor. “Why don’t you come down so we can talk?”
“Arai, come up.” Mas could hear Anmen’s voice.
Alo led the way, hugging his body against the wall up the stairs. He reached the second floor first, and Mas could see him raising his arms in surrender. Mas then emerged in the doorway. Anmen, still in the same clothes he had slept in, was standing with a gun to Jiro’s head. Jiro’s lip was swollen as if he had been banged in the face a few times. Mas looked down the hall to the living room, where Juanita and G. I. sat in chairs, duct tape wound around their mouths, arms, and legs. Even from that distance, Mas could see Juanita’s eyebrows. They said it all. She was afraid. And also mad as hell.
“I didn’t want to kill him,” blubbered Jiro. “Mas, tell him in Japanese. I was trying to stop Randy from killing.”
“Damare!” Anmen whipped the back of Jiro’s head with the gun. He pushed Jiro down to his knees onto the hardwood floor. “I saw this man with my nephew. Lying there in his blood.”
Then why didn’t you say anything? Mas thought. But he knew the answer. Anmen was a wanted man. “Honto, yo,” Mas said to Anmen in Japanese. “He speaking the truth. Randy the one who was going to commit murder.” It all made perfect sense to Mas now. The knife. Randy’s special request—no, demand—for Kinjo and Son. The premeditated murderer here was not Jiro, but Randy. “He going to kill Kinjo. For getting his father in trouble.”
Anmen’s eyes remained frozen on Mas’s face. He understood Randy’s hatred. Because he held the same hatred himself. “He couldn’t have done that because of me,” Anmen murmured.
“What?” Mas asked.
“I told him that Kinjo had been the one who got his father in trouble.”
Mas took a deep breath. By giving his nephew this information, Anmen had launched his revenge. But it had boomeranged, and led instead to his nephew’s demise.
“We get you a bengoshi, lawyer. Good one. Number one best. Ichiban,” Mas added for good measure.
“Why don’t you put down your weapon, sir, and we can all talk this out,” Alo said in his calm, soothing voice.
Anmen was obviously distressed. His hands were shaking, and the gun along with it. It was only a few inches from Jiro’s throat. One slip of his hand, and Jiro’s head would be shot off. The detective extended his arm as if to shield Mas from any oncoming gunfire. The arm moved ever so slowly toward the sock with the hidden weapon.
“Sanjo-san,” Mas called out loudly. “Da-me. No more. This has to stop. You have another nephew. Ikiteru. He alive. He just lose oniisan. You can’t do this to him.”
Anmen’s eyes softened. Perhaps the mention of a big brother made Anmen think of his own. The gun then fell on the hardwood floor, and Anmen hid his eyes in the crook of his arm.
Alo pulled the gun away from Anmen’s feet and then quickly secured Anmen’s wrists with heavy-duty plastic ties. He pushed Anmen forward to the balcony and waved his arm, signaling that he had caught his man. The police officers then swarmed into the town house like worker ants.
Mas watched as an officer took custody of Anmen. From the balcony, Mas could see Anmen’s head being pushed down into the back of a patrol car. A wire cage separated Anmen from the front seat. From this moment on, he would have to get used to looking at the world from barred windows and fences.
Back in the living room, some officers were delicately removing the duct tape from Juanita’s and G. I.’s faces, arms, and legs.
Juanita was the first one to be set loose. “Mas, you were unbelievable! You handled it like a pro. Better than a pro, even.”
G. I., meanwhile, was more concerned about Jiro, who was being led down the stairs. “Wait, that’s my client. I need to talk to him in private.”
He called Mas over to stand watch by the bathroom door, which was in the second-floor hallway. “Stay close to the door, Mas. Don’t let anyone come near,” G. I. said before he and Jiro disappeared inside.
Mas felt silly standing guard. The town house, including the bathroom door, was made of flimsy material. Mas could hear everything, whether he wanted to or not.
“I don’t know how all of this happened, G. I.,” Jiro was saying. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It happened so fast. In a split second. I tried to stop him. But he was out of control.
“It all started in Vegas after he won the jackpot. I told him not to buy any knives there. Would only lead to trouble. But he said that he needed self-protection. From what? I was so worried that I called Brian and told him to get to the mainland, fast. I told him that Randy was losing it again.
“And then, when we got back to L.A., Randy got that call from that shithead Anmen, looking to fleece him out of his jackpot money. Goes out. And when he comes back, he’s loaded. You were out meeting with a client, but I heard it all. He says his money’s finally safe, out of his hands. And then he keeps talking about Kinjo. Kinjo, Kinjo, Kinjo, he says. If Kinjo took his father away from him, he would take him away from his son. I thought I’d talked him out of it, but then at the party, I heard the name of the band, Kinjo and Son. I knew that Randy was up to no good.
“I confronted him in the bathroom at Mahalo’s, and that’s when I saw the knife poking out of his shirt. I knew what he was up to. I told him that he was crazy, that I was going to tell you what was going on.”
“Shit, Kermit, why didn’t you?”
“G. I., you’re the only one of us who made it, man. Randy looked up to you. He told me if I said anything to you, he would never forgive me. And I couldn’t have other people see Randy as being bad or evil. He wasn’t, man. Just lost.”
Mas didn’t hear anything for a while. Just a catch of a throat like a hiccup. And then the door finally opened.
“Remember, let me do all the talking,” G. I. whispered to Jiro. “Don’t say anything to anyone.”
Mas clenched his false teeth. He disagreed with G. I. There had been too much silence. It had to finally stop.
chapter fifteen
Mas couldn’t keep his hands from shaking. He tried to breathe deeply. I can do this. I can do this, he told himself. And then he knocked on Judge Parker’s door.
“Hello, Mas. I’ve been expecting you.”
What does that mean, he’s been expecting me?
Judge Parker gestured toward a chair, but Mas wasn’t going to fall for that trick again. He pulled at his windbreaker, making sure that it hid the extra weight he was carrying.
“I heard about Anmen Sanjo being arrested.” Parker sat in his black leather chair, his back as erect as ever. “Kidnaping and shooting a firearm in a public place. Initiating a ponzi scheme. He’s in quite a bit of trouble. I don’t know what I can really do to help.”
Did Parker really think that Mas had come to beg for his mercy on Anmen? Mas could have handled this a number of ways, but he decided to go for the bull’s-eye first. “Whyzu you kill Isokichi? And why youzu following Juanita Gushiken?”
Parker’s face visibly darkened and his eyes narrowed like slits. He waited before responding. “Do you know what is the Japanese American’s strongest trait?”
Mas wasn’t about to fall into the judge’s verbal trap.
“Loyalty,” Parker answered. “That’s why the internment was such an irony: why would these people turn on the U.S.? Most Nisei were true believers, more patriotic than myself. And their parents—it d
idn’t matter whether they were born here or not. Even if secretly, deep down inside, these Issei felt connected to Japan, rooted for them, they wouldn’t have done anything. For one thing, they didn’t have any power. Even Japan didn’t take them seriously. Only the misfits, minor-league men and women, went to America from Japan. And secondly, these misfits felt obligated to America for giving them a second chance in life.”
Mas’s forehead was wet with sweat. He didn’t know where the judge was leading him, but it was too late to break loose now.
“You see, white Americans—hakujin Americans like me—we can’t see beyond the color of one’s skin or hear beyond words and accents. We’re stupid, really, if you think of it. We act like we own America. We were the ones who came here first, right, on the Mayflower. Forget about the Native Americans who lived here off the land. Forget about all the Mexicans who lived in California and Texas way before the Mayflower. Those folks don’t count.
“If we say American, we don’t mean Native American, Canadian, or South American, or anyone with remotely brown skin and brown eyes. We mean good ole U.S. of A., and only the Caucasian ones and not the blacks. Those same whites could be one degree separated from Germany, Holland, Ireland, and they would still be considered full-fledged American. But not you. Not your friends. And not your children and not your grandchildren.”
The judge put his hands together like he was praying and put the tips of his index fingers on his lips. “Anyway, what can you do? You could have Kinjo go after me. Or have your friends in the coroner’s department make some accusations. That’s not going to get you very far. Who’s going to care about your man Isokichi?”
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