“Stop!” she cried, and Mas pumped down on the brakes. The Ford jackknifed slightly as he eased it to the side of the highway.
Dee jumped out of the truck before Mas could ask why. She ran across the two-lane highway and laid the flower pens on the road like a religious offering. She seemed to be mouthing some sort of prayer. Mas realized that it was here where her father and Jorg had died. For her sake and maybe her father’s, he lowered his eyes as well. As she ran back toward the car, he noticed the wind carrying the rose pens out to the highway. They kept rolling and rolling until a RV going north ran over them, squashing them with its giant wheels and releasing the fabric petals, which flapped for a moment like the severed wings of a butterfly before being buried in dust.
When they reached Hanley, the Buckwheat Beauty guided Mas to the downtown business district, where she instructed him to park in front of a set of buildings hidden behind a Spanish-style facade.
She pointed to the second-floor window where Blanco’s office was supposed to be located. “He’s not any kind of real inspector now, you know. Used to work for the Department of Agriculture and then started his own business inspecting organics. I don’t know why he’s still hung up on my dad’s accident. I guess he thinks it ended his law enforcement career.”
Mas took a couple of gulps of air. He didn’t relish facing Blanco on his own, but it was clear that the Buckwheat Beauty’s presence would lead to more harm than good.
He pulled on the tarnished metal handle of the glass door. Inside, he noted the building directory—little plastic white letters pushed onto a black board. C. BLANCO, INSPECTOR, Room 206. He made his way up the dusty stairs and finally identified the right room. The numbers, each digit a sticker, were curled up from age and hard to read.
Mas rapped on the door with his knuckles.
“Come in.”
Sitting at an old oak desk was a chubby middle-aged man with a bald head and heavy sideburns shaped like two states of California. He immediately smiled when he saw Mas.
“Hashimoto? Onion man, right?”
Mas took off his Dodger cap and shook his head. “Mas. Mas Arai.”
Blanco frowned and flipped through his datebook. “I don’t have any Arais down. When did you call?”
“Didn’t callsu. I’zu here wiz Dee Hayakawa.”
Blanco froze for a moment as if it took him a few seconds to register the name. His face fell and he quickly glanced in back of Mas.
“Sheezu down there.” Mas gestured to the window.
Blanco rose, pulled aside his venetian blinds, and looked out into the street. The Buckwheat Beauty must have been in plain view, because the former detective sunk back into his swivel chair and practically snarled. “How are you connected with her?”
It was hard to explain their relationship, especially in light of Haruo and Spoon’s broken engagement. “Family friend,” Mas finally said. “Friend of an actual friend.”
“How well do you know your friend of an actual friend?” The chair’s single giant spring squeaked from below.
Mah-mah. So-so, Mas thought. But he knew that he had to play a closer relationship or Blanco might lose interest. “I’zu lookin’ for dat actual friend.”
“Well, your friend may be in a better place without the likes of her. She’s all trouble.”
Mas had expected Blanco to rant and rave a little, but nothing like this.
“Let me tell you a little something about that girl. She didn’t tell you anything about her boyfriend, Estacio, did she? The local boy returns to Hanley to deal drugs?”
Mas shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.
“I didn’t think so. He and Dee lived together in L.A. She got busted on drug charges, but for some reason, he went scot-free. By the mid-eighties Estacio was working solo in the valley. He was ruining the streets here. He got teenagers to make drug runs for him. Families were destroyed.
“Then Dee’s father comes to Hanley to make flower deliveries. In the same town where his daughter’s ex-boyfriend is running a drug empire. Is this a coincidence? Give me a break. I don’t know if Estacio was threatening Dee’s father or if the father wanted part of the action. But both Ike and Jorg were making cocaine runs, no doubt about it.”
Blanco swallowed and brushed down one of his sideburns. “I know you don’t believe me. I barely believed it myself. But these past twenty years, I’ve been piecing it all together.” He rose to a tall gray filing cabinet in the corner and opened the second of five drawers. “Look at all of this—” The drawer sagged from the weight of rows of manila folders and white paper. “This is all about Estacio. All the interviews I’ve been doing since the accident in 1986. Photographs of the crime scene. Court documents. Police reports. You know that his biological father is a well-respected politician back in Nicaragua?” He pulled out a couple of black-and-white head shots, the kind movie and sports stars have taken to autograph for their fans. One was of an older man with wavy gray hair in a three-piece suit, the other was a younger version, with the same thin face and piercing eyes. Estacio’s hair was cropped short, and instead of a suit and tie, he wore a black shirt and jacket.
“Promo shot for a new casino in Las Vegas. Estacio was one of the VPs—that is until he got into some trouble.”
Mas was surprised that neither the Buckwheat Beauty nor Spoon had made any mention of this man. “You been talkin’ to Spoon?”
“Dee’s mother? She won’t take my calls. You know that her lawyers filed a harassment suit against me? I’m supposed to stay at least a hundred yards away from her and her daughter. I doubt the daughter even knows what’s going on. She’s had more relapses than Lindsay Lohan.”
Mas didn’t know who this Lindsay was but gathered that the Buckwheat Beauty had been going through drug rehab like a revolving door.
“Estacio was my main target, anyway. The whole police department stayed away from him—no doubt they all were on the take. And then someone plants cocaine in my car. The DA can’t prove that it’s mine, but the damage is done. My career’s over. My marriage’s over. My life’s over. They think I’m going to quit? That’s not what Chuck Blanco is made of.”
“Where’su dis Estacio now?”
“Interestingly enough, he wasn’t charged with a thing here in Hanley. The police couldn’t pin anything on him. Nobody would talk. Spent some time with his father in Nicaragua. But comes back to Las Vegas and invested in some casinos. He was finally picked up in Arizona. It wasn’t a drug violation—assault in a nightclub. Sentenced to a couple of years. He just got out a couple of weeks ago on good behavior.”
Mas’s ears perked up.
“Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if Estacio had contacted Dee. Maybe he’s the one who’s been after those dolls.”
Again, the dolls. Blanco seemed to easily read Mas’s face, because he commented, “Yeah, Mrs. de Groot called me about the dolls. I told her I’d get them, but it was too late. That outfit in San Diego had already sold them.”
“So youzu the guy makin’ bids on the doll.”
Blanco frowned. “Didn’t get a chance to bid. They were already sold to Spoon Hayakawa.”
Then who had been the competing bidder? Maybe this Estacio fellow? As Mas pulled at his shirt collar, the walls of the small, wood-paneled room seemed to inch closer and closer. A ball of sweat dripped from Mas’s forehead onto his short-sleeved shirt.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that those dolls in themselves are barely worth anything. It’s not what on the outside, but the inside.”
Another drop of sweat stained Mas’s shirt.
“There’s something’s in those dolls—either money or drugs. Or maybe something that connects what happened to those two men in 1986 with Estacio Pena.”
Pushing a pair of reading glasses down on his nose, the former detective returned to his open filing cabinet and rifled through the manila folders. Finding what he was looking for, he tossed a couple of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven black-and-white photos on top of his de
sk.
Out of curiosity, Mas leaned forward toward the images, only to immediately regret it. One was of a burnt skeleton pinned against what looked like a melted steering wheel. The other was also a charred body, this one on the side of the road. Both photos were apparently taken at night, because an intense spotlight aimed at the once-human subjects cast menacing, ghostly shadows.
“The death of Ike Hayakawa and Jorg de Groot was no accident,” said Blanco, “at least that’s what I believe. I wanted to send for a specialist to come out from Brawley. I didn’t think the fire started from the engine. I smelled gasoline all around the bodies. But my superiors and my partner at the time shot my request down.
“I really felt that this was either a warning or retribution, most likely from a gang. I’m not sure which it was. I went to Jorg’s son with my theory—thought he might be able to insist that it be investigated. He went ballistic on me! Said that it was an accident and I needed to leave it at that. Soon afterward I had to leave the force.”
The weight of Blanco’s pronouncements overwhelmed Mas. Was Haruo’s disappearance mixed up with drug gangsters? Mas felt his knees shake and start to buckle underneath him. He reached out to the edge of the desk to steady himself.
“You can sit down,” Blanco said, referring to a folding chair on the side. His voice had lost its initial edge, and he sounded genuinely concerned.
“I’zu go,” Mas said, tentatively loosening his grip on the desk.
“No, you wait.” Blanco sighed and returned to the window, which he hoisted open with the tips of his fingers. “Hey you, Hayakawa,” he shouted down the street. “Get up here and get your friend.”
At that point, Mas sank into the folding chair, feeling immediate relief in his knees and legs.
Within minutes they heard the bang-bang of footsteps ascending up the stairs. “What did you do to him?” The Buckwheat Beauty was so mad that Mas was almost flattered.
“I’zu orai,” said Mas.
Dee didn’t even acknowledge Mas, now making him question her initial reaction.
“I was telling your friend all about you and your boyfriend.”
“I haven’t seen him for close to twenty years.”
“But you’ve spoken to him, haven’t you? Pretty recently, I bet.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dee attempted to keep her voice steely and strong, but both Mas and the former detective picked up on a slight faltering in her words.
“Estacio’s back in Southern California.”
CHAPTER TEN
There was no expression on Dee’s face, aside from a rosy flush on her freckled cheeks. It was as if she had not fully absorbed Chuck Blanco’s announcement that her former lover had returned to Southern California.
“You don’t seem surprised.” Blanco articulated Mas’s thoughts.
“I’m not Estacio’s keeper. I don’t keep tabs on him.”
“But I bet he’s keeping tabs on you, to get ahold of those drug dolls.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dee lowered her gaze and fixed her eyes on Blanco’s desk. The two black-and-white photos, the ghost skeletons.
The Buckwheat Beauty dropped her mother’s car keys on the floor and covered her mouth with her hands. The room became dead quiet. Mas thought he heard a scratching through the flimsy walls. A rogue rat? Giant cockroach?
Blanco slowly removed the photos and returned them to their home in the filing cabinet. As he pushed the drawer closed, the cabinet let out a high-pitched screech, during which the Buckwheat Beauty slipped out of the room.
His legs feeling much more stable, Mas rose to make his exit as well.
“I didn’t mean for her to see those photos,” said Blanco. “I don’t trust Dee Hayakawa, but I also don’t think she set her father on fire.”
That seemed like the most complimentary statement the former detective could say about the Buckwheat Beauty. Mas bent down and retrieved the keys. As the attached wallet flipped open, Mas remembered the group photo with Haruo. “Dis Haruo Mukai. My friend,” he said to Blanco, placing a dirty fingernail right below Haruo’s face. “Heezu missin’ two nights.”
Blanco examined the photo for a long minute. “He actually could be any of these old-time farmers around here, except for the scar, of course. We pretty much know all the Asians in the area, or at least we used to. There’s been talk of an old Asian man who’s recently been involved in the drug scene here in the Imperial Valley. They call him the Chinito. Other than him, same old, same old. So this friend of yours knows Dee?”
“Suppose to marry her motha.”
Blanco blinked. “Oh, I see,” he said.
“First those dollsu gone, then my friend.”
“He didn’t take them, did he? I mean, maybe that would explain his disappearance.”
Why did everyone suspect Haruo of wrongdoing? Mas was actually starting to wonder about his friend as well. He tugged down on the bill of his cap before he went out the door.
“I’d take care, Mr. Arai. And if you find your friend around here, he should take care too. Strangers don’t do well in Hanley, as Mr. Hayakawa and Mr. de Groot found out.”
When Mas returned to the truck, the Buckwheat Beauty was back in the passenger seat. Her eyes were red and swollen, and Mas knew she’d been crying.
“I had to come down here with Mom to identify the body,” she said after Mas climbed behind the steering wheel. “Or rather his personal belongings. His melted belt buckle. His wedding ring. They looked like they’d gone through a nuclear bomb blast.”
Mas stuck his key in the ignition and turned the steering wheel. He drove down the street, passing a taqueria and a doughnut shop. Men and women sauntered down the sidewalks as if they were ruled by a different clock than the rest of the world.
“The police said we didn’t have to see the actual body—unrecognizable. This was the first time I’ve seen those photos.”
Mas didn’t know what to think. He came to the Imperial Valley for answers, but he was only more confused. Did Dee have an angle? It was obvious that this Chuck Blanco suspected her of some kind of complicity, wrongdoing. Why hadn’t she spoken of this Estacio Pena before? Mas didn’t understand their relationship—she certainly didn’t deny knowing him in some capacity. Maybe that’s why she was sticking so close to Mas, to ensure that he wouldn’t stray too close to the truth.
“Your Mexican friend callsu you,” Mas finally said rather than asked.
The Buckwheat Beauty bit down on the insides of her cheeks. “Okay,” she finally said, “Estacio did get in touch with me after getting released. But I told him I never wanted to hear from him again. I swear. I didn’t say anything to you because I don’t want my mother to know. She’d be devastated. I’ve never spoken Estacio’s name to her since Daddy’s death.”
“Blanco saysu your Daddy may have been killed.”
Dee’s face darkened. “He claims that some drug dealers were trying to scare me off from testifying against Estacio. Only problem is, no one was threatening. I didn’t know anything, so there was nothing to tell. And by the way, Estacio is not Mexican, okay? He was born here. His father is from Nicaragua.”
Mas didn’t care about Estacio’s personal history or citizenship, just if he was involved in Haruo’s disappearance in some way.
Mas got back on the highway. The sun was now ablaze, and the inside of the Ford sweltered like a tin oven. Sweat dripped from the heads of the truck’s two passengers. Mas finally placed his soaked cap on the seat as hot air from the open window blew on his earlobes and through his thinning hair.
The emotion of the day must have weighed heavily on Dee, because she started nodding off. It was just as well, because Mas needed to take a detour through Niland without dealing with any prying questions.
As the Ford shook from the bumps on the highway, Mas couldn’t help but be mad at Haruo for falling for this mother-and-daughter charade. There was Spoon, locking up her secrets, and there was Dee
, holding back the truth. Even more than ever, Mas had to find his friend to tell him what a bakatare, a stupid fool, he had been.
But what if he couldn’t find Haruo? Mas desperately searched the landscape as if the earth could talk to him. Bunches of clouds gathered above like stuffing torn out from a pillow. The skyline made Mas’s gut shrivel into loneliness. All he heard was that nature, like man, could be both beautiful and brutal.
He drove past an irrigation ditch half full of water and furrows of dirt being prepared for spring planting. He wasn’t on the lookout for fresh produce, but rocks. Rocks didn’t come easy in L.A.—not unless you were willing to shell out some serious dough. And while Mas was consumed with worry about Haruo, he’d still reserved one sliver of his heart for Genessee Howard.
The land was barren and dry, with no signs or demarcations of the farm where Mas used to work. He’d gone there with a gang of other Kibei men, those virtually without a country. They slept together in chicken-coop shacks and worked alongside Filipino men—some younger and other older bachelors. A couple of the Filipinos had even fought for America during World War Two and were citing promises from the U.S. government. “We can become citizens now,” they said, only to later discover that those promises were easily broken. All of them worked from sunrise to sunset, six days a week, but it had not been a chore for teenage Mas. He didn’t mind hard work; he actually craved it. And there was always time in between to learn to throw a football and watch the Filipino men dig underground pits for the most delicious pork barbecue.
Spying a small pile of rocks, Mas pulled over to the side of the road. He saw pieces of sandstone, jagged and broken like decaying teeth. These shards had no sense of peace or wholeness; their place was here in a desolate and abandoned land and not in the backyard of a retired music professor seeking rest. After studying the empty horizon, Mas got back into the truck and drove home, the Buckwheat Beauty sleeping in the passenger seat, occasionally crying out unintelligibly with each unexpected pothole and turn in the road.
As soon as Mas had returned home from dropping Dee off at her sister’s house, he heard the phone ringing. Apparently one or even two days of a missing Haruo didn’t command his children’s attention, but seventy-two hours set off a red flag. Funny thing was Mas thought the daughter, Kiyomi, would be the one to come around first, but it turned out to be the botchan, the mama’s boy.
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