Mas’s shoulders sagged as if he were melting right there in Judge Parker’s office.
“You think your newspapers will listen to you? I’ve been on the board of Japanese American organizations for decades. Spoke out against the internment. Who’s going to protest, Mas? The only one these people will go after is you. These people owe me. Their loyalty is unfailing.”
Again, osewaninatta. Mas didn’t realize that Judge Parker was so perceptive. He did understand Japanese Americans; and now he was planning to use that understanding against them, or at least against one dead man, Isokichi Sanjo.
“But you kill him anyways.”
“I didn’t necessarily want him dead, Mas. I wanted him to go forward with the trial. But he was a coward. And then his brother fired me. Neither of them realized what was at stake. Our government had abandoned the Constitution; his case could have helped others. But he had given up. I was mad—hell, I was mad. I had every right to be. I had spent hours on that case.
“So, Mas, you ask why I killed Isokichi Sanjo. Well, whatever I may have done, I’ll have God to contend with. But believe me, Sanjo did much worse. He wasn’t thinking beyond himself. If he took a stand, he might have stopped the purging, or at least slowed it down. And Metcalf, he thought he had one over me. What a foolish man. He didn’t know who he was dealing with.”
Mas felt numb, as if he had just experienced a beating. Only the beating wasn’t of his body, but of his mind.
“Mas, I’m happy you stopped by. Feel free to come over anytime. I have a new gardener, you know. He studied horticulture at Cal Poly Pomona. You might learn a thing or two from him.”
Mas left Judge Parker’s office, feeling sick to his stomach. He feared that he would haku right there in the courthouse hallway.
Parker was a man full of ideas and principles. He’d seen Sanjo’s case as the fulfillment of those things early in his career. The only thing was, Sanjo wasn’t an idea. He was a man, a husband and father. A man who was, yes, Japanese, specifically Okinawan, but who wasn’t only defined by his ethnicity. Sanjo hadn’t had any fight left in him, which had enraged Parker. And when the attorney had been fired, he must have confronted Sanjo, yelled and screamed at him, and finally killed him.
Mas didn’t know if it was intentional or accidental, but what happened next was definitely calculated. Parker spent years, decades, working on behalf of Japanese Americans. Each effort was like a baseball umpire extending his arms out—safe, safe, safe. Until maybe today.
Mas stumbled down the corridor and then opened the door to the last room. Wearing a pair of earphones, Detective Alo sat with four other men, including Buchanan Lee, and a woman at a low table filled with tape recorders and other high-tech equipment. Alo removed his earphones. “You did good.”
“I dunno,” Mas said as the woman lifted his shirt and peeled off a microphone taped to his chest. Mas wasn’t sure if Judge Parker had actually confessed. But much of what Parker had said was true. “No Japanese goin’ to go after him.”
Agent Lee stood up. “But you’re forgetting, Mr. Arai. We’re not Japanese.”
After being stripped of his bugging device, Mas went to his next destination with good news. Antonio Gushiken would be released immediately from his holding cell on Terminal Island, according to Agent Lee. “The Department of Justice is only happy to drop it,” he told Mas. Apparently some politicians with close connections to Judge Parker had been the ones putting pressure on certain Homeland Security administrators to go after Antonio, in an attempt to squash Juanita’s investigation of the Sanjo case. Lee suspected that the judge himself had been the one who had planted that antiquated tracking device in Juanita’s wheel well.
That piece of news at least took some of the bite away from what Mas would be experiencing next. Another commemoration of a dead man’s life. He went to more funerals these days than weddings, holiday parties, and anniversary celebrations combined. This one, however, would be new in that they would be gathering at the Los Angeles County Cemetery. As he drove through Evergreen’s entrance, Mas felt a wash of sadness. He had been better about visiting Chizuko’s grave site lately—coming on her birthday, Memorial Day (well, actually, the day before, to beat the crowds), the anniversary of her death, and New Year’s Day (again, one day afterward, to beat the crowds). But still not enough.
The memorial service was actually Itchy Iwasaki’s idea. He thought every death needed to be remembered formally at least once. And, of course, these remembrances would, conveniently, be good for his business.
Although the Los Angeles County Cemetery was only accessible through Evergreen, Mas had never been there before. He drove down a sloping path to a simple chain-link fence. A huge pile of reddish dirt, crisscrossed with the tracks of a forklift, sat inside. On one side of the fence were the collapsed wooden frames of old floral arrangements. A granite Japanese headstone lay abandoned next to a stack of white caskets. Mas’s gut felt queasy. Surely Isokichi Sanjo, master sanshin player, had not been in such a place for fifty years.
After Mas passed the first metal gate, he entered a grassy area shaded by a massive pine, a willow, a eucalyptus, and even a couple of fruit trees next to a white wood-framed chapel. Itchy was there, wearing a suit and white gloves. It was a small crowd—the son, Brian Yamashiro; G. I.; Juanita; and himself. Gushi-mama would have made it if she could have, but she’d said that she would send a representative. No such representative had arrived.
Little round cement markers the circumference of soup cans pockmarked the Bermuda grass. They each had two numbers designating row and column, a grave site graph. The small party stood underneath the pine tree, where Isokichi’s ashes were apparently buried underneath 5/2.
Itchy read a short biography on Isokichi Sanjo. Date of birth and date of death. And not much else.
“Does someone want to say something?”
Brian kept his eyes on the numbered marker.
“Mas? You know something about him,” G. I. said.
Mas looked around. Strange thing was, he did know more about Sanjo than anyone else there. “Heezu a man who loved shamisen—well, sanshin. He care about his wife. His boysu. He care about America. He fight so hard, in the end, all fight gone.”
Mas heard sobbing beside him. Brian’s shoulders were shaking. Monster tears dropped down the sides of his face. Itchy was right. It was ones you least expected to crack that did so at times like this.
Brian would now have to go back to Hawaii and have a funeral for his brother. Sorrow on two sides of the Pacific.
G. I. looked distressed. He began to curve his arm around Brian’s back and then thought better of it, and returned this arm to his own side. Mas bit down in agreement. Right now, Brian didn’t need anyone’s sympathy. He had to learn to hang on to his dignity. He needed to find that hard place inside that would center him like the middle of a compass. Throughout his life, the needle would point in various directions, but he would have to know where he stood. Brian Yamashiro now had an uncle that he had never known existed, but for all intents and purposes, he would still be alone.
Making arrangements to meet later at a restaurant in Chinatown, they walked toward their cars.
“My father is going to be released tomorrow,” Juanita said. “I owe you so much, Mas.”
Mas shuddered, hearing those words. “No, no. But I gotsu a favor—don’t say no more Izu some kind of detective.” He said this loud enough for G. I.’s benefit. “I gotsu a bad hyoban to begin with. If people thinkin’ Izu some kind of spy, I keep gettin’ into trouble.”
Before leaving the cemetery, Mas had something to do, namely to make sure Chizuko’s resting place was free of dead leaves and dirt. And also to think about whether he missed his wife so much that he was seeing her face everywhere, even in an African Okinawan American professor.
Mas was a few steps away from the Ford when he saw a lone figure by the cemetery’s chapel.
“Hallo, Kinjo-san.”
“Gushi-mama told me t
o come.”
Mas nodded. The old lady was conniving, yet she knew what she was doing. The Uchinanchu needed to come together. G. I. and Brian had already recognized that, as they had agreed to donate Randy’s Las Vegas winnings to the Okinawa Association to begin a center for the study of the sanshin in the United States.
“I didn’t want to jama and disturb the service. I’m sure Isokichi’s son doesn’t want to see me.”
Mas was glad that Kinjo had exercised discretion. Gushi-mama might have expected an immediate reconciliation, but people’s feelings weren’t like wooden blocks you nailed together.
“If I had known what would happen, I would have never gone to Metcalf.”
Kinjo didn’t have to explain anything to Mas. Mas had made his share of mistakes and knew that it didn’t help airing them to either friend or foe.
“What can I do? I’ve already agreed to testify against Parker. Send money to Isokichi’s son? Donate money in memory of Isokichi’s name to the Okinawa Association?”
There was also explaining himself to Isokichi’s brother, Anmen. But the hope of that conversation was slim to none. Some relationships were so severed that no intervention—even that of a 106-year-old matriarch—could rectify them.
Mas looked beyond Kinjo to the chapel, whose doors were ajar. “Sing his songs.”
“What songs? The songs he wrote in the band?”
Mas shook his head. He didn’t literally mean Isokichi’s songs, but the subjects he wrote about. The fallen tears while earning pennies in the fields. The love for his sons. Isokichi’s last song had been a farewell, but they needed a new song that would bridge the past to the present.
Mas tried to explain as best he could, when Kinjo interrupted. “Do you know what’s strange, Arai-san?”
A breeze blew through the cemetery, causing brown pine needles to drop on the Ford.
“I miss him. I never let myself miss him before.”
The following week went fast, because there was nothing to look forward to. Mas stopped by Eaton’s Nursery: Mr. Patel had recently heard of the feng shui merits of an indoor money tree, the small tabletop plants with multiple trunks twisted together, and seeking good luck, he wanted a few for his restaurants. Eaton’s wasn’t the cheapest, but it was the closest, and these days convenience was worth more than it used to be.
It was a half hour before closing time. Mas wasn’t surprised to see the gang of five beginning to unearth their Budweisers from the bottom of their coolers. What did surprise him was that behind the counter, instead of the kind, welcoming face of Kammy, was a craggy, shrunken fellow with a limp. Wishbone Tanaka.
Wishbone saw Mas’s surprise in his eyes. “I broke out of Keiro,” he said, grinning. “Nah, my doctors figured out that causing trouble is good for my health. But it’s bad for everyone else. So they kicked me out.”
“You workin’ here now?”
“Have to, to pay off my investors.” Wishbone leaned on his good foot. “Yup, that’s the deal we’re trying to make. No one wants to get involved with a lawsuit, anyhows. It’s the lawyers that always win.”
Mas couldn’t argue with that.
“Saw Anmen in the slammer this week.”
“Oh, yah?”
“He’ll be out once he makes bail. All these musicians in Okinawa are sending money to him—he’s going to get the best lawyer in L.A. If he only had known, huh? This could have been his best scam yet.”
So the gears of the legal system were slowly turning. Mas had heard from G. I. that Jiro was already out on bail. Hopefully, with Kinjo’s testimony, Jiro wouldn’t have to do any jail time. But, as with anything involving lawyers and judges, you couldn’t take anything for granted.
Mas walked over to a display and selected the six money trees with the healthiest leaves and most beautiful braided trunks.
“Everybody is going wild over these,” Wishbone said, helping Mas carry them to the counter. “I guess everyone wants to be rich.”
Mas grunted, opening up his wallet. He knew the real reason for the plant’s popularity. It was no muss, no fuss. No fertilizer, and just a sprinkle of water a week. It was plain easy to keep them alive.
The following Monday night meant dinner at the Yamadas’, and this time Mas did not come empty-handed. He drove all the way down to a Hawaiian restaurant in Monterey Park to bring back a set of eight Spam musubi, all wrapped in cellophane.
Lil had said that the dinner would be a celebration in his honor, so she had invited G. I. and Juanita, Haruo and Spoon. That made three couples, six people, plus Mas to make it an odd seven, but Mas figured he could always eat two people’s worth of musubi.
He was the last to arrive. He recognized Haruo’s mini Honda, the red Toyota truck, but a-ra—a green-tea-colored VW Bug? Mas looked into the window, and instead of an orange gerber daisy in the vase holder on the dashboard, he saw a white stephanotis. Stephanotis—fragrant, star-shaped blooms—were popular for weddings, Haruo had told Mas.
The cellophane-wrapped musubi were slippery in Mas’s hands. He rang the doorbell and Tug answered, a sloppy grin on his face. Everyone, except Lil and Tug, was already seated at the Yamadas’ dinner table. G. I., Juanita, Haruo, Spoon, and, yes, Genessee.
“Hello, Mas.” Everybody seemed to talk at once; they were so happy to see him. As if he were a hero of some kind.
Lil appeared, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “We were waiting for you. Have a seat.” She gestured toward an empty seat between Genessee and Haruo. Tug returned to his place at the table while Mas presented the Spam musubi before sitting. He should have noticed a little bit of hesitancy on Lil’s part as she accepted his gift. He soon discovered what the problem was when she tentatively set out each musubi on its own plate at each seat.
“What’s this, Mom?” Tug grimaced, creating an ugly face that Mas was not used to seeing on his friend.
“Spam musubi,” she said, presenting a fake smile. “Mas brought it.”
“Sorry, ole man. I’m just not a fan of Spam. We had it all the time in the army. Just seeing it gives me a stomachache.”
“Tug!”
“Orai, orai.” Mas almost started to laugh. Chizuko always said that Mas had a healthy dose of shitsurei, rudeness, and, in contrast, held up Tug as a modicum of gentility. To see Tug mixed up with shitsurei amused Mas to no end.
“Here, you have mine, okay, Mas?” Tug nudged the plate over to Mas’s side of the table.
No problem on Mas’s part. He knew enough to wait before he started. “Bikuri, surprise,” he commented to Genessee beside him. She was wearing a soft white eyelet blouse, which made her skin look luminous, like a fresh-roasted chestnut. “Didn’t expect to see youzu.”
“Well, hope it’s a good bikuri.”
Mas was too embarrassed to nod yes.
Tug then called for his ritual of grace, and each person opened their hands to their neighbors. Mas quickly wiped his right palm on his jeans before he extended it to Genessee. Her hand was as smooth as an ocean stone polished by thousands of waves. Tug ended his prayer with an amen, which Mas could hear Genessee repeating under her breath.
“Ittakimasu,” G. I., the latent Buddhist, then announced. It was now officially time to eat.
Lil had made roast beef and potatoes, but Mas chose to start his meal off with his appetizer. He unwrapped the cellophane from the musubi and then opened his mouth wide, letting his dentures squeeze down on the grilled Spam, soft vinegared rice, and strip of black seaweed. The salty firmness of the processed meat, sweet tang of the soft rice, and dryness of the nori all merged together in a great taste symphony, signaling that for a moment, everything was all right.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NAOMI HIRAHARA is the Macavity Award nominated author of two previous Mas Arai mysteries, Summer of the Big Bachi and Gasa-Gasa Girl. A writer, editor, and publisher of nonfiction books, she previously worked as an editor of The Rafu Shimpo, a bilingual Japanese American daily newspaper in Los Angeles. She earned her B.A.
in international relations and spent a year at the Inter-University Center for Advanced Japanese Studies in Tokyo. She and her husband reside in her birthplace, Southern California. For more information and reading group guides, visit her Web site at www.naomihirahara.com.
Also by Naomi Hirahara
Summer of the Big Bachi
Gasa-Gasa Girl
FOOTNOTES
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SNAKESKIN SHAMISEN
A Delta Trade Paperback / May 2006
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2006 by Naomi Hirahara
Delta is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hirahara, Naomi
Snakeskin shamisen / by Naomi Hirahara.
p. cm.
0605
1. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 2. Japanese Americans—California—Los Angeles—Fiction. 3. Gardeners—Fiction. 4. Gamblers—Fiction. 5. Mystery.
PS3608.I76 S63 2006
813'.6 22
2005056007
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-440-33589-4
v3.0
Snakeskin Shamisen Page 23