Blood Hina

by Naomi Hirahara

  Wishbone, on the other hand, seemed more interested in the stolen merchandise. “Dolls? These collector items?”

  “For Hina Matsuri. Girls’ Day.”

  “Those dolls worth anything?”

  Mas shook his head. “I dunno nuttin’. Anyways, Haruo had nuttin’ to do with it.”

  “You know what I hear? Haruo been going to the track, regular like.”

  “That guy has a sickness, no doubt about it. Surprised you’re not able to keep him from self-destructing, Mas,” said Wishbone.

  Mas’s fingers pulsed with anger for a moment. One thing that pushed his buttons was sekinin, responsibility. He did try to run from sekinin, but if it ever caught him in a corner, he never backed down. And for Wishbone, of all people, to insinuate that Mas wasn’t being a good friend was more than he could stand. “Came because Haruo tole me to. Made a yakusoku. And now it’s done.” Mas drew out his screwdriver from his pocket.

  “Hang around, Mas. We’ll play some cards at lunchtime, orai?” Stinky said, cocking his ear like a mutt in the pound.

  “Nah, gotta go.” No time for these good-for-nothings. Mas stuck the screwdriver a little too forcefully in the lock, so it took him a few minutes to jiggle it around until the door finally unlocked. He jumped into the seat and held onto the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles began to ache.

  The more Mas thought about Wishbone, Stinky, and the gossip that would no doubt dominate the lunchtime card game, the madder he got. It was like the time Yasuko finally left Haruo after he hit rock bottom. No one at Tanaka’s Lawn Mower Shop seemed surprised. It was one thing to let a man walk dangerously to the edge, quite another for people to be entertained by him falling down.

  Would Spoon and her daughter really report Haruo to the police? Why should Haruo be framed this way? He hadn’t stolen those dolls. And while Haruo maybe could be seduced to the poker table, he never was an out-and-out thief, dorobo. (Mas conveniently forgot that Haruo had stopped making payments to his tanomoshi, informal Japanese bank club, when his gambling problem was in full throttle.)

  Anyway, if Haruo had stolen those dolls, whom would he have sold them to? He didn’t have contacts with wealthy collectors. Mas knew that people these days were selling all sorts of things on the computer, but the most high-tech item Haruo owned was maybe a solar-powered calculator that he’d gotten free at a community health fair in Little Tokyo.

  The whole thing stunk, and Mas regretted that it began with Spoon. She seemed innocent and sweet, but maybe she was actually a confection that had gone bad. Was there any way Mas could reach the Hayakawas before the police did and convince them not to saying anything about Haruo? Maybe Haruo was ready to give up and say, “shikataganai,” but Mas wasn’t going to be so accommodating.

  He headed directly to Montebello, which practically was a straight shot on Garfield Boulevard, past a closed bowling alley that he’d occasionally frequented, past Hong Kong cafes, Vietnamese newspaper offices, and Chinese supermarkets.

  Mas finally reached Spoon’s street. The house was locked up tight, its eyes to the outside world, the windows, closed and draped. No amount of rapping on the door or pushing on the doorbell resulted in evidence of a human presence inside.

  Did the dorobo just come through the unlocked front door? Mas wondered. Or was the thief able to pry open a window? Mas traced the outside of the window frames. The old peeling paint on the sills seemed to have been in the same sorry state for many years. Maybe a back door or other opening?

  Mas didn’t think twice about pushing open the gate to the backyard. After all, yards were his domain. And Spoon’s was apparently the last stop for wounded plants, most likely rejects from her plant delivery business. There was a Japanese maple with burnt-out leaves, hanging on bare branches like dead spiders. Hydrangeas with strange yellowish foliage. Even a cactus with a middle so soft that it was practically collapsing into itself. Mas saw no evidence that anyone was attempting to restore the health of these plants. The backyard was the last way station for reject plants—a shelter where neglected trees and bushes spent their last days.

  Mas couldn’t help pulling out a few dead branches and stems from plant containers as he walked to the house. After brushing the dirt from his fingers onto his jeans, he studied the back windows and jerked on the security gate door to see if it remained locked. Pretty tight, he thought. Not so easy to for an amateur dorobo to break in and out.

  A dog barked a few doors down, most likely sensing a stranger’s presence in the neighborhood. Yakamashii, thought Mas. Too noisy, foolish dog. He checked around the air-conditioner unit connected to the living room wall when he heard behind him, “Hold it, police.”

  The words clanged in Mas’s head, which was feeling quite hollow right now. Then a feeling of dread seeped from his head to his gut. No, this couldn’t be happening. This was a bad dream.

  “Put your hands in front of you, palms up.”

  Mas slowly began to turn, but the woman’s voice became more forceful and louder. “Hands in front, palms up.”

  Mas shot his arms in front of him as if he were one of those comic sleepwalkers in cartoons. He angled his open palms so they faced the sky. He felt a gentle hand pat his sides, his pant pockets, and finally his legs. Mas was thankful that he had left his screwdriver in the unlocked trunk.

  Another female voice, this time speaking a language other than English. Mas thought he recognized the tones and rhythms from the Chinese television programs he flipped through on his way to find his Japanese soap operas on Sunday evening.

  “Can’t speak Chinese,” Mas interrupted. “I’m Japanese.” Well, really he was American-born, but this was no time to split hairs.

  Mas was allowed to finally face his captors. He was surprised. They were two uniformed policewomen, looking as young as teenagers. The first had a boyish haircut but an unmistakably feminine face, while the Chinese one had long hair that was clipped back in a ponytail. Why would their parents allow them to do such dangerous work?

  “My friend Haruo lives here,” Mas explained. “Well, gonna live here. Well, was gonna live here.” The police officers frowned, trying to make sense of Mas’s story. The Chinese policewoman asked to see Mas’s ID, and he quickly located his driver’s license.

  “When you say Ha-RU-yo, are you talking—” The officer with the short hair pulled out a small notebook from her back pocket. “About Ha-RU-yo Mukai?”

  It was a couple of minutes before Mas realized that the policewoman was referring to Haruo. Why would Haruo be known to the Montebello Police Department? It could be only one reason—he was a wanted man, and that realization weakened his knees. Both officers came to his aid before he fell, setting him down in one of Spoon’s lawn chairs.

  The two of them must have had a soft spot for old men, because they let Mas catch his breath before peppering him with questions.

  The first one, of course, was: What he was doing there?

  Waiting to talk to Spoon, or Sutama, as she was known to strangers.

  The second one: Did he know about the burglary that had occurred there sometime within the past twelve hours?

  Mas didn’t know how to answer that one. They obviously were on a search to find Haruo, and Mas didn’t want to give them any ammunition to shoot him down.

  Sure enough, Haruo’s name came up again. “We understand that he’s moved out of his apartment and has no access to a telephone.”

  Mas swallowed.

  “Have you been in touch with him today? We sure would like to talk to him.”

  “Oh, well—” Chizuko often said that Mas looked like a fool most of the time, and he hoped that attribute was in full force now.

  “We understand that he works at the flower market, so we’ll be contacting him there. But if you happen to see him.…”

  Before Mas could agree to anything he might regret, a familiar figure appeared from behind a stubby palm tree and bug-infested Chinese plum tree.

  “What’s going on here?”
Spoon asked. She apparently had noticed the police car out front. “What has happened?”

  “Hello again, Mrs. Hayakawa,” the short-haired officer said. The three of them started to banter like old friends. “We received a call from someone in the neighborhood that there was an intruder on the premises. We found this man here in your backyard.”

  “He says he knows you,” said the Chinese policewoman, who Mas learned was Officer Chang.

  “Yes,” Spoon murmured. “He’s a friend of the family.”

  I’m no friend of your family, Mas thought.

  “He’s fine,” Spoon said. “I was actually expecting him this afternoon.” She averted Mas’s eyes, choosing instead to study her overgrown St. Augustine grass.

  The other officer, Gallegos, referred back to her notes. “Mas Arai. This was the man who drove you home from the dinner last night. We heard you were admiring the dolls.”

  Mas was stunned. The Buckwheat Beauty had sold him out. What was she implying? That he and Haruo had been working together?

  “I don’t care about no dollsu,” Mas declared truthfully. “Datsu girlsu stuff, anyhowsu.”

  The two officers exchanged glances—a smile creeping on Chang’s lips.

  “Well, since we’re here again,” said Gallegos, “you were going to get us the contact information of where you purchased the dolls in San Diego.”

  “Oh, Hina House,” Spoon replied, mispronouncing hina like hy-nah, instead of hee-na. “I have their website and address in the house.”

  Was the Montebello Police Department’s investigation going to spread to San Diego, at least a hundred and fifty miles away? These officers seemed thorough and tenacious, which perhaps would not bode well for Haruo.

  While Spoon was in the house to retrieve the information, Officer Gallegos reminded Chang, “We have to also verify how much the dolls are worth.”

  “A little less than four hundred—that’s what she said this morning.”

  “Yeah, but I mean from the vendor directly.”

  Mas sat on the lawn chair pondering the amount of the purchase. Where did Spoon get four hundred dollars to buy something as nonessential as dolls? Haruo himself said that his future bride was hurting for money. Why would she go out and pay so much for two lousy dolls?

  The radios connected to the officers’ belts, which had been buzzing with static, now clearly broadcast a female voice reciting numbers and a street address.

  Gallegos straightened her uniform. “We have to get going,” she said to Mas. “Can you tell Mrs. Hayakawa to contact us with the information?”

  Chang handed her business card to Mas. “And tell your friend Haruo to call us.” Leaving the backyard through the side door, she added, “And stay out of people’s yards, okay?”

  Mas didn’t say anything in reply. He had to be in people’s yards; that was his livelihood. Who was the bakatare who had reported him as some kind of thief? They should have known with his gardening truck that he was legitimate.

  Mas followed the two officers out to the front yard and watched them drive away in their black-and-white squad car. Meanwhile, a woman across the street scurried back into her house. He couldn’t make out the details of her face, but there was no missing the twine-brown hair that had been spun into a bird’s nest on top of her head.

  Spoon came outside holding a piece of paper. “Where did they go?” she asked.

  Mas didn’t want to waste any time with explanations and, in fact, attempted to delay the inevitable. “They found Hina House information,” he lied, taking the paper from Spoon’s hand. “Why youzu tell them about Haruo?”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t even want to file a police report. But Dee insisted. She’s so attached to those dolls, you see. They were her father’s. I told her that Haruo had nothing to with the theft, but she’s been against him ever since she moved back home and started work at the flower market. She thinks he’s going to hurt me, just like her ex-husband hurt her. She can’t believe that Haruo’s past problem with gambling is just that, in the past. You’d think she’d be more understanding about addiction problems—” Spoon stopped herself as if she might have revealed too much.

  She looked wistfully across the street at the house into which the woman with the beehive hairdo had disappeared.

  “Who live there?” Mas asked.

  “Sonya de Groot.”

  “You think sheezu the one who called the police?”

  “She could have. I don’t know. We don’t speak to each other anymore. We used to be very, very close. They even moved to this street because we lived here. After our husbands died, we were like sisters, you know, with everything we’ve been through.”

  Spoon went on to explain that the de Groots had taken care of their route business and even visited them when the Hayakawas were in Manzanar.

  “But then we got into this awful silly fight—”

  Mas waited.

  “Over those dolls.”

  Sonya had been the one who told Spoon that the dolls had been sold at an auction in the first place.

  “So I contacted the buyers—they were actually doll dealers in San Diego, and the dolls were on their website. With the business, I can get around the computer, and I started bidding on them. I didn’t know Sonya would be interested. I mean, they were Ike’s, right? Yes, they were in Jorg’s safe-deposit box. But she didn’t know that they even existed before.

  “She insisted that she had to buy them back from me, that her son absolutely wanted them for some reason. I told her no, I wanted to keep them for Dee. Dee was always so taken by them, since she was little.”

  The whole thing was curious. Here was a do-gooder, who had stuck her neck out for a friend during the war and who now was ready to sever ties over a doll.

  “She hasn’t spoken to me for a couple of weeks and for what? I miss her,” said Spoon, her eyes watering.

  Spoon wasn’t the crying kind, so Mas knew that the widow was genuinely out of sorts with the loss of this friendship. But shouldn’t she be crying over her broken engagement instead?

  Witnessing Spoon’s misplaced sorrow over the loss of her friendship with her neighbor stirred up Mas’s anger. How about some tears for Haruo?

  Spoon must have sensed Mas’s feelings, because she seemed to cave in a couple of clothing sizes. “Have you seen Haruo? How’s he doing?”

  “No good,” Mas said. He didn’t bother to mention that Haruo had been found doing something as mundane as changing his car oil. “Gonna have to find a new place to live, you know.”

  “Maybe he could room with you for a while?”

  Mas scowled, feeling any last bit of respect for Spoon evaporate. “He neva have dis problem in first place. He orai on his own before.”

  Pink splotches erupted on Spoon’s usual pale face. “I wasn’t the one who pushed to get married, Mas. It was all Haruo’s idea.”

  “If youzu not ready, you shoulda tell him.”

  “I tried.” Spoon’s eyes were getting watery so Mas knew that he needed to back down. “I told him that happily ever after doesn’t happen for old fogies like us.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Mas and Chizuko’s only daughter, Mari, became a teenager, she temporarily transformed into an ohina-sama: a pimple-faced princess who suddenly was above washing the dishes and taking out the trash unless Chizuko’s nagging hit a high enough crescendo. At the time Mas wondered if it was his fault. After all, during Mari’s early childhood, he often went through his customers’ trash, looking for discarded picture books or toys that featured a hina, an empress or princess, or any woman wearing a crown. Had he inadvertently sealed her fate by giving her one too many used Cinderella stories? Luckily, the ohina-sama phase turned out to be short-lived, although perhaps not short enough for Chizuko.

  Now Mas was once again on the hunt for a hina, or at least two dolls of royalty. They weren’t in a metal trash bin but in San Diego.

  Turns out Hina House wasn’t in the ramshackle part of San Diego that
Mas was used to. A navy town, San Diego had a downtown that had once been full of sailors wandering through dives and dirty streets, their hands wrapped around the necks of beer bottles or women. Now the Gaslamp District was lined with fancy restaurants and stores that would make the Las Vegas Strip blush. Even the area around Sea World seemed to have had a facelift. Mas passed an airport (who knew San Diego would have such a high-tone one?) and came to a pretty, hilly area right next to the water. It reminded him of a cleaner version of San Francisco or even Nagasaki (even though he hadn’t been back there in fifty years). The sky was a brilliant blue—not the kind that makes you take a few steps back in wonderment but so piercingly clear that it almost hurts your eyes.

  This part of San Diego—Point Loma—resembled scenes on postcards Mas had received from time to time from his customers on vacation in France or Spain. In fact, the house on the hill had curved stucco archways and red Spanish tile, just like the European ones.

  Outside in the yard were succulents of every type: ocotillo, with little scarves of red poking out of its giant pipe-cleaner spindles; jumper cacti glowing like radioactive teddy bears; and plenty of medicinal aloe, its healing balm dripping from torn rubbery leaves. In the middle of this desert garden was a wooden doll attached to a wooden stake and a sign, HINA HOUSE.

  Mas parked the truck on a slope, pulling at what remained of his emergency brake. Why was he here? He had pondered that as he drove on the 5, past the immaculate sheen of Orange County, the impressive shell of Angel Stadium, and the sand-colored mini-malls scattered along the freeway. Only when he saw the water when he reached San Diego County did he feel more at home. The familiar dome of the nuclear power plant and the yellow sign warning of immigrant families who might be running across the highway suggested danger and desperation, two feelings he easily related to. There was just something about Spoon’s dolls. Perhaps it was how their pupils followed his, or maybe the care that their creator had taken to make them as beautiful and refined as possible, not necessarily for monetary gain, but just for art and craft. Were they really that valuable? Enough for two old buddy-buddy women to split their friendship? Enough for someone to break into a house and take them? A piece of the puzzle was missing, and to help clear Haruo, Mas would have to drive two and a half hours south to find it.