Summer of the Big Bachi

by Naomi Hirahara

  Mas pictured the lawyer, G. I., as being large, bigger than life. But the man in front of them was reed thin, almost emaciated. He must have been in his late forties, yet there was a fresh crop of pimples around his chin. His hair was thin and he wore thick glasses. Files and papers littered his office. Bright-colored posters with Asians holding rifles and picket signs decorated his humble square space.

  G. I. removed a mountain of files from one of the chairs in front of his desk and gestured to both of them. “Please,” he said, “sit down. So, what can I do for you?”

  Akemi, in her precise, clipped English, explained that she was Yukikazu Kimura’s grandmother. She had just arrived from Hiroshima and naturally was concerned about Yuki’s case. “I want to know,” Akemi said. “What are his chances of going to jail?”

  “Little, Mrs.—”

  “Kimura.”

  Mas stayed quiet. He would have to ask Akemi about her last name later.

  G. I. twirled the middle of a pencil around his index finger. “He was there. That’s been established.”

  “Otha people there, too,” Mas blurted out.

  “Yes, we realize that.” G. I. seemed surprised to hear from Mas. “Miss Kakita, shall I say, has had an active social life. We are investigating different pieces of evidence in the apartment.”

  No doubt Nakane’s business card, thought Mas.

  “If this woman led that kind of life, there would be various suspects, I imagine,” Akemi said. “Then why pinpoint Yuki?”

  “The blood on his hands. That’s the problem. It did check out to be her blood type. I guess they could do a full DNA test, but I don’t think they’re willing to spend the money.”

  “Blood?”

  “Yeah, I guess he touched the body. Held the woman’s hand—yes, that’s what he told police.”

  “Why would he hold her hand?”

  “That’s the thing. He wouldn’t be in the mess he is in now.”

  “And how about the woman? She’s still alive, right? What does she say?”

  “She has suffered a lot of head trauma. Goes in and out of consciousness.”

  Akemi looked at a couple of diplomas on the wall. They hung crookedly between two posters. “Mr. Hasuike—”

  “G. I., please.”

  Akemi pressed her lips together before speaking again. “G. I., where did you go to law school?”

  “UC Davis.”

  “UC Davis—isn’t that for agriculture?”

  Mas colored. Akemi’s tone was a familiar one. In her voice he heard Mrs. Witt’s asking him why the rosebushes near her fishpond were dying.

  “I’m not actually a criminal lawyer, Mrs. Kimura. But my partner is. If this case goes any further, you can be assured that my partner will take over. I’m doing this as a favor to Wishbone.”

  “Wishbone?”

  “Wishbone Tanaka. I handled a case for him a couple of years ago. I believe he is a friend of yours.”

  The attorney turned to Mas.

  Akemi pressed her lips together again and sat still, like a computer churning up facts and numbers and coming up with only a bunch of minuses.

  As soon as they left the cavernous parking structure and paid fifteen bucks, Akemi made a declaration. “We need to find Yuki a new lawyer,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “One with money, clout. Did you see that office?”

  Mas clicked on the Honda’s turn signal and watched as a river of cars traveled up Flower Street.

  “Someone who’s gone to the Ivy League. Harvard. Yale. Someone like that.”

  Mas was concerned, too, but he had little to do with lawyers, aside from a slip-and-fall attorney he hired when someone had crashed into his truck at a red light.

  “Money. I just need to get hold of some money.” Akemi pressed her pocketbook against her stomach.

  “Weezu gotsu Japanese banks in Little Tokyo.”

  “No, you don’t understand. We’re having some, well, financial problems. I can’t get to our funds right now. That’s why Yuki’s staying at that awful hotel.”

  Now, that made sense to Mas. So it had been a lack of money—not any kind of independent spirit—that had taken Yuki to the Empress. “Akemi-san,” he finally said. “He’ll be orai.”

  “Why don’t I feel like it will be all right? Her blood was on him, Masao-san. Why did he even touch her?”

  “Maybe he checkin’ if she dead or alive. The lawyer talks like he knowsu whatsu goin’ on. No sense in changin’ right now. If it getsu bad, we getcha a new lawyer.”

  “I can’t lose him, Masao-san.”

  Mas gripped the steering wheel as they stopped at an intersection.

  “He’s all I have. My son died. His wife ran off years ago with the money. Said that I was too overbearing. Imagine that.”

  Mas pressed down on the gas pedal.

  Akemi was quiet for a few blocks and then laughed. She sounded like her old self again. “I know what you’re thinking, Masao-san. I know I say things too clearly at times. But that’s my nature, right?”

  Mas said nothing. It wouldn’t be smart to agree.

  “You’re just the same. Not the type to run off at the mouth. I always liked that about you, Masao-san. I knew that I could trust you.”

  Mas felt his face grow hot. He remembered how he had abandoned her during the war. She had sat by the gate of her house and called out to him. But he couldn’t help her. He had forsaken her as much as he had forsaken her brother.

  Akemi was silent for a while as Mas drove up the Pasadena Freeway. Then she said, “Do you know what hospital that woman is in?”

  “Kakita?” Mas thought back to his earlier telephone conversation with Haruo. “Kaiser, I think. The one on Sunset in Hollywood.”

  Akemi sat on the edge of the passenger seat of the Honda, her hands resting on the warm cracked dashboard. She looked like she was ready to jump out at any moment.

  “Orai, orai,” Mas finally said. He signaled right, toward the interchange to the Hollywood Freeway.

  Mas had gone to that Sunset hospital years ago. A longtime customer, a widow in her nineties, had spent her last days there. Although she had two children and half a dozen grandchildren, Mas and Chizuko were her only regular visitors. “How are the peach blossoms doing?” Mrs. Blancher had asked, pressing her cold, papery hands in Mas’s tough ones.

  “Comin’ out, Mrs. Blancher. Looks real nice.”

  That seemed to comfort the widow more than any other painkiller that the nurses brought in tiny paper cups. Mas even visited her once on his own after working her yard. He brought some daffodils straight from her garden and placed them in water in a drinking glass on her eating tray. She wasn’t talking by this time, but Mas thought he saw a tear seep down the side of her nose.

  The hospital was a lot different now. As it was apparently being renovated, there was scaffolding everywhere and wooden barriers in front of mounds of dirt. Akemi and Mas wandered from building to building until they located the intensive care wing. As they approached the nurses’ station, Mas was surprised to see a beefy black policeman sitting in front of one of the open rooms. Seated, he was about the same height as Mas standing on his tiptoes.

  Akemi apparently knew what to do. She went straight to the policeman and nodded toward the hospital bed within the guarded room. “We are friends of the family. The Arais.”

  Mas was stunned. What had he gotten himself into? The policeman looked over Akemi and then Mas. “I need to see some ID.”

  Akemi nudged Mas, and he reluctantly pulled out his worn wallet from his jeans pocket and handed over his driver’s license. The policeman studied Mas’s photo and glanced at Mas’s leathery face. “Go on,” he said.

  Mas walked slowly into the small room. All the walls were of glass, and thick fabric curtains were drawn on both sides. The mistress lay in a small heap in the middle of the hospital bed. Her face was badly swollen, and a large bruise like a ripe plum marked her cheek below her left eye. Her head was
now shaven of its wild long hair, and a white gauze bandage was taped over her forehead. Without her heavy makeup, she now looked like a featherless newborn bird, the kind with bulging purple eyelids.

  Akemi brushed past Mas’s shoulder and didn’t seem to care that the mistress’s eyes were closed. “Kakita-san, Kakita-san,” she hissed. “This is very important. I need your attention.”

  Mas could take a lot, but disturbing the rest of a beaten woman was too much. “Akemi-san. Dis not a good idea.”

  “What am I supposed to do? See Yuki get carted off to jail? I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “Nanda—” The mistress’s voice was faint, slightly muffled by the edge of her pillow.

  There was no deterring Akemi now. “Kakita-san, please listen. A young man’s future is at stake. You need to tell us. Who did this to you?”

  The mistress’s eyes fluttered, her sparse eyelashes like the damaged wings of a butterfly. “Who?”

  “I am Yuki Kimura’s grandmother. I know that he didn’t do this to you. But you have to tell me who did.”

  “Kimura—” The mistress hesitated, and then looked beyond Akemi to Mas. “You.”

  Mas looked nervously through the glass wall toward the large seated body of the policeman.

  “You,” she repeated. The mistress was out of breath, and the electronic monitor began to emanate a high-pitched noise.

  “We betta leave, Akemi-san.” Two nurses, one in a flowered uniform, another in all green, were rushing toward Kakita’s room.

  Akemi didn’t want to leave, but when the policeman rose from his seat, she finally relented. As the nurses entered, Mas and Akemi slipped out, unnoticed as usual.

  So you know this woman Kakita?”

  They were heading east on the Hollywood Freeway, toward downtown Los Angeles.

  Mas wasn’t sure how much he should reveal to Akemi. It was obvious that she would do anything to protect her grandson.

  “Met her one time.”

  Akemi waited.

  “But not the waysu you think. She a friend of a friend.”

  As Mas exited Los Angeles Street, passing the Federal Building and then the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, the signal blinked yellow, forcing cars to slow down before they accelerated down the quiet street. It was way after five, and most of the government workers had left for their homes in the suburbs.

  “You know, I’m sorry,” Akemi finally said. “I should have never forced myself on that poor woman. I crossed the line.”

  Mas was surprised to hear an apology, much less one from Akemi.

  “It’s just that I’m so worried. I feel so helpless. I have to do something, for Yuki’s sake. I guess this attitude is what gets me in trouble. I should have learned when Hikari’s wife left.” Akemi’s voice cracked. She took out a handkerchief from her pocketbook and pressed it to her eyes.

  Mas couldn’t stand to see Akemi cry. “He didn’t do anytin’,” he said. “He be innocent. In a few days, both of youzu be back on a plane to Hiroshima.”

  Akemi nodded. That much they were agreed upon.

  When they returned to the hotel room, Yuki still had not returned. “I wonder where he is,” Akemi said.

  Mas looked at the shabby furniture and the worn bedspread. Muffled voices could be heard on the other side of the wall. “You can’t stay here anymore,” he said. “You come to my house.”

  “But Yuki?”

  “Him, too,” Mas said before he realized it. “I leave my address.”

  Mas hadn’t had a woman stay at the house since Chizuko had died. Now that Akemi was with him, Mas began to see the house with her eyes. The pitiful lawn full of dandelions. The cracked driveway. Dingy windows. Mas was almost afraid when he opened the front door. The smell was the same. The rot of nothingness, like boxes that had been stored away for decades.

  “Wait a minute,” Mas said, leaving Akemi in the hallway. He approached the room he never entered. He stopped for a moment and then turned the doorknob. Nothing. Then he remembered. The door was always getting stuck. Hadn’t Mari always complained that he needed to fix it? After he pressed down and turned the knob, Mas fell back in time. Posters of orange, purple, and blue with hakujin and black men holding microphones. High school banners. A record player. Twin bed with the same bedspread. They were all there, all in place. Untouched for twenty years.

  Akemi was at the doorway.

  “You stay in here,” Mas instructed.

  Akemi looked around. “Your daughter’s?”

  Mas nodded. “Long gone. She in New York.”

  “Really?” Akemi looked genuinely impressed. “I’ve always wanted to go to New York. How is it?”

  “I neva go.”

  “Married?”

  Mas hesitated and only grunted. He went into the linen closet in the hallway and brought in fresh sheets for the bed.

  As they stripped the old sheets from the mattress, Akemi asked, “Did you know this man who calls himself Joji Haneda?”

  Mas balled up the sheets. “Yah, I knowsu.”

  “Is he, Mas?”

  Mas’s heart thumped. Something seemed stuck in the back of his throat. “Heezu not your brotha.”

  Akemi’s face fell.

  “But I knowsu him, Akemi-san.” Both of us do, in fact, he thought.

  “Oh.” Akemi folded her hands in her lap.

  Before Mas could spit out the name Riki Kimura, Akemi stopped him. “Don’t say anything more, Masao-san. I don’t need to hear anything more.”

  “But I needsu to tell you. Part my sekinin, too.”

  Akemi shook her head.

  “Your land. They gonna take away your land.”

  Akemi seemed surprised that Mas had heard of the property battle. “Land is just that. Dirt. I wanted to leave it to Yuki, but not at the expense of my peace of mind. His peace of mind.”

  Mas didn’t understand. This Joji Haneda had no claim on the property. Mas could testify, go to court if he had to.

  “Please, Masao-san, I beg of you. My first priority is making sure Yuki is cleared. And then I can take him home.” Akemi stared at the yellow shag rug. “We won’t speak of this again. Agreed?”

  Before Mas could answer, they heard the rumble and screech of a powerful car. Mas looked out through Mari’s drapes, caked with dust. Sure enough, it was the grandson in a large Jeep, frowning and looking in need of some explanations.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I’m taking you to a hotel, Obaachan,” Yuki said as he barged through Mas’s front door. Mas and Akemi emerged from Mari’s bedroom into the hallway.

  “Empress Hotel—no, thank you,” said Mas.

  “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Akemi scolded her grandson, “Yuki-kun, don’t talk to Arai-san like that.”

  “Obaachan, this man is a liar.”

  “Yuki!”

  “He knows a lot more than he lets on.”

  “He’s an old friend.” Akemi fingered the top button on her blouse.

  “He mentioned none of that. I even mentioned your name straight out.”

  Mas kept quiet.

  “I got a room at a better hotel. I can’t permit you to stay here, Obaachan.”

  “You can’t permit me?”

  The boy’s brown cheeks reddened slightly.

  “What happened, Yuki-kun? Were you with the police?”

  Yuki’s eyes grew big, and he cursed, using words that Mas was familiar with, and new ones, as well. “You told her, didn’t you?”

  “It was me,” Akemi said. “I forced him to. I needed to know. Now, how much trouble are you in?”

  “I can’t leave Los Angeles yet. At least until she clears me.” Yuki pulled at some limp clumps of his red hair. “She’s conscious now, you know.”

  “So—that’s wonderful.” Akemi glanced at Mas, who looked down at the worn boards of the hardwood floor.

  “The police showed pictures of me to her. She says she can’t remember what happened.”

>   “Can’t remember,” Akemi murmured.

  “The consulate may get involved. This may turn into some international incident. Some reporter with Asahi Shimbun was even waiting for me beside my rental car.”

  A reporter from a real newspaper, thought Mas.

  “He was asking me if I thought I might be used as an example.”

  “Example?” Akemi repeated.

  “I don’t know. I guess a lot of Japanese students are coming here and getting into trouble.”

  As Yuki spoke, Mas tried to stay quiet and still. But Yuki wasn’t fooled, and circled back to him. “Damn old man. You know what’s going on. You know who did that to her.”

  Mas waited for Akemi to defend him, but she seemed lost in her thoughts.

  “I dunno. But I gotsu my ideas,” Mas finally said.

  “It’s that mystery man, isn’t it? The man who calls himself Joji Haneda.”

  Mas hesitated. For some reason, Akemi had asked him to keep quiet about Joji Haneda, and he owed her that much. “Shuji Nakane went ova to the mistress’s house,” he offered instead.

  That got Akemi’s attention. “Nakane-san is here in Los Angeles?”

  “Yes, I saw him at the exams,” Yuki explained. “I practically spit in his face, and he left.” He turned back to Mas. “Why do you think he had something to do with the lady?”

  “His meishi. It was in her apartment. Kitchen table.”

  Yuki and Akemi exchanged looks, worried ones, noted Mas. “She knowsu sumptin’.” He added, “About your land.”

  The boy put two and two together. “It’s that Joji Haneda. He’s the one who’s in the middle of this. I know you know him, Ojisan. Who is he?”

  “Yuki-kun,” Akemi interrupted, “let’s get some sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.”

  The boy was on the verge of protesting, but his grandmother had already turned toward Mari’s room.

  Mas gestured toward the couch. “I getsu some blankets.”

  “Don’t worry,” Yuki snapped. “I’ll sleep in the car.”

  * * *

  The boy kept his word, and stayed in his car the entire night. “He’s fine,” said Akemi as Mas looked out the screen door in the morning. “He’s been backpacking in Africa. Spent the night on concrete and dirt, sleeping next to crocodiles. A big car like that is a luxury for him.”