Blood Hina

by Naomi Hirahara

  Four it was.

  “One thing, if youzu gonna hang around the flower market, police gonna be callin’ for you. Maybe betta if you go to them first.” Mas removed Officer Chang’s business card from his wallet and gave it to Haruo.

  Just the mention of the police made Haruo’s scar bulge out. “Izu don’t wanna to talk to them. Don’t they have to arrest me to make me talk?”

  Mas sighed. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for Haruo to avoid the police, at least for a couple of days. When Haruo was nervous, there was no telling what he’d say.

  Pulling a cold Budweiser from the refrigerator, Mas escaped to his bedroom, where he read the Japanese newspaper he got in the mail. When he returned to the living room an hour later, Haruo was already passed out on the couch. Pulling a blanket crocheted by Chizuko over his friend’s pitiful body, Mas couldn’t see the knotted keloid scars. With his face pressed against the pillow in the dark light, Haruo looked normal, like any old man worn out from the day or his whole life.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mas didn’t sleep well, which was always the case when he knew he had to wake up early. Rather than take the risk of oversleeping, asanebo, he preferred to take the route of hardly sleeping at all. As a result, his eyes burned as he concentrated on the dips and turns of the Pasadena Freeway, the oldest operating highway in the nation. The freeway was full of deadman’s curves—bashed guardrails and skid warnings of what lay ahead. Mas was ready to go when his time was up, but he was committed to leave the world alone—no plans to have anyone else’s blood on his hands, especially a friend like Haruo’s.

  Haruo was chattering nonstop, wired from three cups of instant coffee. Usually such urusai talk so early in the morning got Mas in a particularly bad mood, but Haruo didn’t require him to listen, so he didn’t. Mas actually liked having a reason to get up early, like when he had dozens of customers six days a week. Now, because of his bad back and age, that number had dwindled to half a dozen. So it was actually nice to have some kind of purpose to rise before dawn, even if it meant serving as Haruo’s chauffeur.

  Haruo had gotten that job at the flower market a few years ago. He described himself as the right-hand man of Taxie, the manager of Freeway Flowers, but Mas knew that Haruo’s title was closer to grunt. He wrapped flowers into newspaper, helped customers load up their vans and trucks, retrieved handcarts, swept the concrete floor, and bought coffee for the rest of the workers. It was honest and physical work, which Mas had hoped would keep him out of trouble. And so far it had.

  The flower market was already going full throttle at four o’clock in the morning, judging from the line of vans and trucks waiting by the parking kiosk. Most everything around the area was aging concrete—the public lots, neighboring dives, and the flower market itself. It had been the belle of the ball in the 1960s, a sleek everything-under-one-roof building, the biggest of its kind perhaps in the world. But that’s when people still grew flowers in places like Blue Hills, as East Whittier was once called, and Dominguez, which, in its present-day incarnation as Compton, was known more for drive-by shootings than delphiniums. There was no flower growing now in Los Angeles County, aside from a few holdouts in San Dimas and Palos Verdes and, of course, nurseries that grew their plants underneath electrical towers.

  The market still sold blooms, but instead of carnations from Hawthorne and gladiolas from San Diego, the flowers came from towns in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Thailand. From the buyers’ standpoint, a rose was a rose; it didn’t matter whether it sunned itself in a greenhouse in Northern California or outside in a field in South America.

  It was Mas’s turn at the parking kiosk. He rolled down his window, and Haruo scooted over to the driver’s side so far that he was almost sitting in Mas’s lap.

  “Heezu just gonna drop me off, Johnny,” he explained to the parking lot attendant.

  “No, gonna park,” Mas corrected Haruo. “Needsu to talk to somebody.”

  Haruo just seemed happy that Mas would be going into work with him, so he didn’t ask why or whom he was planning to talk to. He navigated Mas through the covered lot to an empty spot between an old van and a shiny SUV.

  After parking, Mas walked sideways in between the van and the Ford, only to discover a couple of alley cats meowing at them.

  “Hallo,” Haruo got down on his knees and greeted them like old friends. Before Mas could warn him not to, Haruo was scratching their chins and nuzzling the matted fur on their cheeks.

  Mas grimaced. “No tellin’ what kind of byoki those cats have.”

  “These cats so kawaii, how can they be sick?”

  Mas spit on the concrete. Yah, cuteness can fool you, draw you, and before you know it, it can even kill you. That was the case with old men and young girls. And, who knew, maybe with kittens.

  “These neko work hard, you know? Catch a bunch of rats each day, most likely. I feedsu them eberyday before I go home.”

  “C’mon.” Mas gestured to the entrance of the flower market. “Youzu gonna be late.”

  Punctuality for Mas and most men and women of his generation and background was paramount. There was no excuse for being late. Bad traffic, accident, death in the family, earthquake, even a police investigation—it didn’t matter. The hands on the clock and the digital numbers on a watch ruled their world.

  They walked down an expansive hall, past offices for orchid traders, a wholesale florist supply center, and a store selling pots, down the escalator onto the main floor, the air thick with a mixture of car exhaust and the fragrance of flowers. It was such a powerful punch that it almost set Mas back a few stairs up the escalator. Haruo, on the other hand, had become immune to it. Whether it be bad or good, if you lived with the same thing day after day, your body just took it for granted.

  Mas followed Haruo through a maze of open-air stalls. Signs with the number and name of each business dangled from above via chains. He saw the greens man, with stalks of shiny banana leaves, furry ferns, and striped crotons; the tropical flower outfit, with long boxes full of magenta dendrobrium leis and stalks of lobster-claw heliconia; and a local grower of misshapen sunflowers and gypsophila, resembling a rain of dandruff.

  Each stall had a different specialty, and each was in a war—albeit a friendly one—with each other. Standing orders for regular customers had been bunched together hours earlier and sat in buckets of water. Florists and event planners trolled other stalls to see if any offerings struck their fancy. Many times it wasn’t only about only the beauty of their products but also their price. By the end of the morning, there were deals to be had, because flowers weren’t like cans of beans—they had a limited shelf life, usually less than forty-eight hours.

  As they turned the corner around some chrysanthemum growers from Carpinteria, Mas came face to face with just about the last female he wanted to see. She was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and was casually leaning against a cart filled with pompon chrysanthemums. On her feet was a pair of old-fashioned Converse basketball high-tops, the kind that Mari used to wear. “I’m getting some new wheels soon,” Mas couldn’t help but hear her boast to an Asian man in his forties.

  Mas blocked Haruo from her view and told him to get the hell out of there. As Haruo slipped away to report to Freeway Flowers, Mas knew he had to confront the Buckwheat Beauty. He stood right in front of her, his eyes reaching the top of her chin. “You gotsu it all wrong,” he said.

  The man she’d been talking to became busy with a customer, and Mas gave her no space to avoid him.

  “Haruo didn’t have nuttin’ to do wiz those dolls,” he declared.

  Dee folded her arms. “Then why did he run in the opposite direction when he saw me right now? And why isn’t he talking to the police?”

  “Maybe he don’t like being accuse. Youzu already tellsu police he did it. Now he gotta prove he didn’t.”

  “Well, then who did? No locks were broken. Somebody most likely got in with a key. Haruo has one.”

  And you do to
o, Mas thought, staring into the Buckwheat Beauty’s eyes. They were bloodshot and even tinged with yellow. These were a sick woman’s eyes, an addict’s eyes.

  Before they could continue their verbal sparring, a woman wheeling pots of hydrangea required them to move, effectively breaking up Mas and Dee like a referee in a boxing match. Dee went into her corner and made her getaway with her carts of pompons. Good riddance, he thought. Run away, run away, Buckwheat Beauty.

  Mas searched for Haruo, but Taxie was the only one manning Freeway Flowers. He was talking to a man in a button-down shirt and slacks. A leather case for his cell phone hung from his belt like a holster.

  “Where’s Haruo?”

  “Went to get some coffee. Hey, Mas, I want to introduce you to somebody. Felipe Rodriguez, he owns the Rose Emporium down there. This is Mas Arai, you know, the one that Haruo always talks about.”

  “So you are that Mas?” Felipe’s eyes grew big. His voice sounded heavy, and Mas could tell his native country was somewhere south of California. “Mas, Mas, Mas. More, more, more, yes, in my language?” He laughed, but Mas didn’t understand what the man found funny.

  “You have some time? Come, come see my flowers.”

  Mas had seen a lifetime’s worth of flowers and had no desire to see more. But this Felipe was hard to refuse, so he agreed to stop by the Rose Emporium after he had a private word with Taxie.

  “Police gonna call you to talk to Haruo,” Mas whispered in his ear.

  Taxie’s mouth fell open. “Didn’t know it was so serious. Weren’t they only dolls that were taken?”

  Mas nodded. “But these no regula dollsu. Worth three thousand dolla.”

  Taxie looked as shocked as Mas. “And they suspect Haruo?”

  “Thanks to Dee Hayakawa. She tellsu police to watch out for him.”

  Taxie wrapped some gerber daisies in newspaper. “I don’t know why she’s been against Haruo ever since she came back to work here. Seems like she’s jealous of him, like he was taking her mother away from her.”

  “Anyway, Haruo scared to talk to them right now. Cantcha send him down somewhere to clean out storage or sumptin? At least until everytin’ calm?”

  Taxie looked conflicted. “Easter’s coming up pretty soon, so I’ll need him on the floor. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  Two middle-aged women in T-shirts stood in front of Freeway Flowers carrying five bunches of dripping bouquets. Mas knew this was his signal to leave and excused himself to take a tour of Rose Emporium.

  Felipe Rodriguez’s space was the size of three stalls. If the man’s worth was based on the sheer number of his flowers, his bank account must be bursting at the seams.

  “I opened up my business here in the eighties,” Felipe explained. “Importing from Latin America. Colombia. It was when the United States gave Colombia money to grow flowers instead of drugs. One old-timer—I think he had spent some time in Japan—he called it.…” Felipe rested his hand on his belt. “What’s the Japanese word for flowers, again?”

  “Hana.”

  “Yes, he called it the Hana War. That the American flower growers were being attacked by Latin America. And then Southeast Asia. Imports were taking over. People here didn’t want to let me into the flower market. Some folks like Taxie and others welcomed me. They knew Latin America was the future. In my country, flowers grow like weeds. You don’t need fancy lighting equipment or expensive greenhouses. The climate is perfect. The flowers just grow under the sun. Beautiful.”

  Mas toured the flowers with his eyes. The stems were long and upright, the flower petals tight and unblemished. They were indeed impressive. Except for one thing—they didn’t smell, perhaps due to strong chemicals used overseas. Mas preferred the gangly, insect-bitten roses, full of thorns, that weighed heavy on bushes in his customers’ yards. In spite of their visual imperfection, they were full with scent.

  “I’ve gotten used to Japanese Americans. One thing I know at least from the guys here is they don’t B.S. They don’t like me, they don’t deal with me. They like me, they give me free food.”

  Haruo poked his head in the stall. “Been lookin’ for me?”

  “Haruo, I’ve been talking to your friend,” Felipe said.

  Haruo smiled. “Hallo, Felipe,” he said, then turning his attention back to Mas. “So-ka, forgot to tellsu you, but G.I. and Juanita want to eat dinner early wiz us ova at Juanita’s place. Taxie gonna drop me off. You can come, desho?

  Before Mas could answer, someone else called out his name.

  “Hey, Mas, whatchu doing here?” Casey Nakayama was originally from Hawaii, and one side of his lip was always swollen and limp as if a dentist had shot it up with too much novocaine. He was tall and shuffled when he walked. He had been working for a flower grower for over forty years, and even though he was semi-retired, he kept coming to the market. Subterranean life suited him, Mas guessed.

  “Had to drive Haruo ova. Heezu livin’ wiz me.” Mas turned to where Haruo was standing, but he had mysteriously disappeared.

  “What about a round of liar’s poker? A bunch of us play on our break at ten in the supply department.”

  Liar’s poker wasn’t played with cards but with the serial numbers on dollar bills. It was kid’s stuff, but it was an opportunity to dig out what was really going on behind the scenes. Gambling, even liar’s poker, often brought out the truth in Mas’s circles. So he agreed.

  Promptly at ten, Mas went into a separate room called the supply department. Up front was a display of florists’ tape, Styrofoam cylinders and cones of different sizes, plastic and glass vases, metal wire, and baskets.

  “Glad you were able to make it,” Casey said, his fingers wrapped around an unlit cigarette. There was no smoking in the flower market, but having tobacco close by comforted any addict. Mas followed Casey past the cabinets to a storage area filled with giant boxes that could easily hold a body of a man Mas’s size. Casey gestured toward a folding table and chairs next to the door. Mas sat down.

  “Neva knew about this place back here,” Mas said.

  “Well, it’s either here or the dungeon.”

  Mas scrunched up his nose.

  “The dungeon’s over by the coffeehouse. Secret little room where the rats live. We chose here instead.” He explained that the police had been making their rounds in the market, so there was reason to be careful. He eased himself into a seat across from Mas. “Noticed you were talkin’ to the Hayakawa girl.”

  Mas nodded.

  “She’s trouble. Always has been. Spoon’s been crying her eyes out over that one.”

  At that point, two men appeared from behind some boxes. Casey made the introductions: the short man from El Salvador was named Roberto, and he’d just started working there, and the hakujin man, Pete, was a veteran. “We call him Pico,” explained Casey. “And Roberto doesn’t speak much English.”

  Mas hated silly nicknames, especially those that made no sense. A white man named Pico? Okay, he’d go along, because he didn’t have much of a choice. Roberto and Pico claimed the two other seats.

  “Haruo want in?” Pico asked. Even though the hair on his head was graying, his five o’clock shadow was the color of old pennies.

  “He quit gambling, remember?” Casey said.

  “Oh, yeah, I re-mem-ber.” Pico drew out his syllables like stretching taffy, and Mas grew suspicious. What did Pico know? Was that behind Haruo’s sudden disappearing act—that he feared his dubious gambling associations may be revealed by Casey?

  “Everyone ready?” Casey asked. They nodded simultaneously and pulled out dollar bills from their wallets. Mas had to pull out his glasses to read the number on his bill. It was in green ink on the side of George Washington’s face: 65994144. A pair of nines and three fours. In front of his number was the letter L.

  Roberto had the lowest letter, G, so he started things off. After reminding everyone that 1 was an ace and 0 was a 10, he said, “Tres sixes.”

  “Three eights,” said Ca
sey.

  “Four twos,” said Pico.

  Whatthehell, Mas thought. Liar’s poker was all about lying. “Four threes.”

  Roberto paused for a second, a second too long from Mas’s taste. “Cuatro cuatros.”

  Casey had picked up on Roberto’s hesitation. “Challenge,” he said.

  “Challenge,” said Pico.

  “Challenge,” Mas echoed.

  Roberto cursed in Spanish and showed his bill. Only one four.

  They found another bill in their wallets and started the betting all over again.

  “That’s too bad about Haruo and Spoon, huh?” said Casey.

  “What do you mean?” Pico seemed curious.

  “They split up.”

  “No kiddin’.”

  “Yah, Mas will tell you all about it. You were supposed to be the best man, right?”

  Mas shrugged his shoulders. “Yah, suppose to be. But some trouble.” The minute Mas mentioned “trouble,” he regretted it. In a pool of sharks, “trouble” was fresh blood.

  “What kind of trouble, anyhow?” asked Pico. “Heard that Haruo stole something of Spoon’s to feed his gambling addiction.”

  “Haruo didn’t steal nuttin’. Just some dolls gone missin’.”

  “Dolls?” Pico asked.

  “Doesn’t seem worth calling off a wedding for dolls.”

  “Those special Japanese dollsu. Hina dollsu.”

  “Sounds like collector’s items,” said Casey.

  “Yah, police may be comin’ by. If you see them, let Taxie know, orai?”

  “Police,” Casey murmured. He was clutching his dollar bill so hard that it was starting to crinkle on one side.

  “Those dollsu belong to Spoon’s husband. The first one, I meansu.”

  The storage room grew quiet, and Mas felt the oppressiveness of the stacks of boxes surrounding them.

  “Casey doesn’t like talking about Ike Hayakawa and especially the de Groots.”

  Mas lowered his dollar bill. What was Pico saying?

  “Shaddap, Pico.” Casey’s lisp seemed to become more evident under stress.

  “Well, ever since Geoff de Groot tossed you out of his father’s funeral.”