Blood Hina (20 page)

Mas felt his stomach turn, once, twice, and then three times over. He hoped Geoff wasn’t looking at him now.

“We were looking for my mom’s ex-fiancé. He’s missing.”

“And you think he’s over in Hanley? Why?”

“It was just a lead, okay. I was just trying to find out the truth. And trying to find those dolls.”

“And so where are those dolls, Dee?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“You know what I’m saying. What pawnshop are they in now?”

“I didn’t take them. I’m trying to find them, dammit.” Dee balled her fists, and Mas winced at the faint yet distinct scars on her lower arms.

“Nice cover, Dee, really nice. I like your new superhero identity. Even my mother halfway believes you’ve gone straight. But not me. I know better.”

“You know nothing about me. You haven’t said two words to me since I’ve come back.”

“What’s there to say? How long is it going to be until you’re back on Skid Row, begging for dime bags? How long will it be before you break your mother’s heart again?”

The men in the back booths had now turned completely around to witness de Groot’s drubbing of Dee. Pico’s face—still no Roberto—was as rapt as if he was watching a prize boxing match. Even the Asian waitresses peered out worriedly behind the pastry display, perhaps imagining dishes flying at any moment.

It was no surprise when their harsh exchange escalated into an obscenity-laden shouting match. Mas thought he should do something, but luckily Clement stepped in.

“Okay, okay.” He stood up and spread his thick arms out as if he were a referee. His intervention silenced Dee for a moment but seemed to further aggravate de Groot’s son.

“You know this woman? My father died because of her. That was twenty years ago. And now my mother has to still suffer because of her gangster friends.”

Dee pulled Geoff away from their audience. She lowered her voice, but Mas and Clement could still hear their conversation. “I had nothing to do with that crash. My father died too, you know.”

“But why were they down there in the first place, Dee? Your empty head has never put that together. There was no need for them to be in Imperial Valley. They were on a drug
run—to protect you, get that ex-boyfriend off your back. Your dad, always the John Wayne, the man wearing the white hat. And my dad right beside him because he didn’t know any better.”

“You have no proof.”

“I saw the money with my own eyes. Stacks of bills, must have been hundreds of thousands of dollars. My dad didn’t mean for me to see, to know. But I did. And you know my dad, he wasn’t one to say two words to anyone, including me, but he told me that he and Uncle Ike had a job to do. That I needed to trust him and not say anything to anybody. And that I was in my twenties, a man now.” The large man’s voice cracked, causing Mas to look up in surprise. “It was almost as if he knew that he was going to die soon.

“So even after they were killed, I didn’t say anything about the money. I wasn’t going to let anyone think Dad was some sort of criminal. I knew he had his reasons. But now when my mother comes to me all upset because some lowlifes are harassing her, I can’t keep quiet. This has to stop. You tell your boyfriend and his homies or whatever you call them to back off or I’ll go after them myself.”

Dee stood frozen, much like the way she responded to her confrontation with Blanco. Mas began to notice a pattern. At the beginning of a fight, the Buckwheat Beauty was as hot and fiery as a coal-burning train engine, but then she inevitably lost fuel, stopped in her tracks, and hightailed it in the opposite direction. And here she did it again, as she turned and escaped through the street entrance of the coffeehouse.

Just able to see the top of her head through the windows
as she ran north, Mas wanted to go after her. But his more Japanese male side kept him tethered to his chair. After all, what did he know of Dee Hayakawa? Yes, they’d spent a good amount of time together yesterday, and he’d experienced her softness and vulnerability. But he didn’t surrender all the reservations he had about the girl. Haruo, after all, had been the main purpose for their long drive to Hanley, and they’d returned empty-handed. Until Mas dug out the truth of Dee’s connection with this Estacio Pena, her actions remained suspect.

De Groot’s son, whose knotted hands had been on his belt the whole time, lowered his arms, as if his gun fight had ended. He shook his head and rejoined his breakfast mates.

Clement, meanwhile, had pushed away his plate, and Mas felt like doing the same. The conflict had robbed them of their appetite. “Do you think my father’s caught in the crosshairs of this?” Clement murmured. “I mean, what kind of family was he marrying into?”

“Sheezu orai. Just sick in a way.”
A little like your father Haruo and his gambling byoki
, Mas thought to himself.

“I’ve spoken to the police about my dad’s disappearance, and some officers may be coming to the market to do some interviews. They want to talk to you again to go over some facts.”

Mas readily agreed.

“Kiyomi and I plan to offer a reward. I’m prepared to do anything, even hire a private investigator.”

“You gotta do whatsu you gotta do,” said Mas, both relieved and a little hurt that Clement wasn’t acknowledging his own detecting efforts. But Haruo was more than three
days missing, and Mas was certainly shaken now to hear about Chuck Blanco’s death. This was no time for
shiroto
, amateurs. It was time to bring in the professionals.

Mas sat by himself at the table for another half an hour, picking at his cold, ketchup-smeared scrambled eggs and rubbery sausage. He thought maybe if he waited long enough, the Buckwheat Beauty would reappear. She hadn’t done anything drastic, had she?

Mas couldn’t believe that Chuck Blanco had been killed apparently only a few hours after they’d seen him face-to-face. He couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible. After all, it was his idea to go to Hanley. But the town did have a few remnants of the Wild West. Couldn’t it be that the attack on Blanco had nothing to do with their visit?

Haruo’s son was gone, leaving a crisp twenty-dollar bill to cover both his and Mas’s breakfast. Normally Mas would have objected and insisted on paying the entire bill instead. But that morning’s excitement had distracted him from his sense of propriety.

Soon after Clement had left, so did de Groot’s son. Geoff de Groot had been rough, too rough, thought Mas. Sure, Dee’s former connections had been
kitanai
, downright dirty, but she was making herself over. At what point could a person finally let go of how she used to be? And when would people allow her to do so? Dee’s and de Groot’s absence now cleared the way for gossip of the most vicious kind—tall tales that took place in lawn mower shops, nurseries, and
backroom poker games.

“Man, Geoff really went off on her. I’ve never seen him that mad,” Mas heard one of the men in the back of the restaurant say.

“He’s been on edge a lot. It even got worse when they found Casey’s body.”

“Geoff never got along with Casey, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s goes way, way back. I think after Geoff’s dad died.”

“Casey must have done something stupid.”

“Wasn’t he trying to horn in on the deal in Imperial Valley? You were around at that time, Pico. What do you remember?”

“Nothing. I see nothing, hear nothing, speak nothing.” The familiar voice.

“That’s a new one.” The whole table erupted in laughter.

“All I know is Geoff won’t give a damn cent toward the funeral money we’re collecting for Casey.”

“That’s messed up.”

“Hey, guys, it’s a free country. At least Geoff isn’t a hypocrite. He didn’t like Casey and ain’t going to pretend that he did now.”

A couple of the men, including Pico, left the table, leaving a still healthy share of gossipmongers.

“Hard to believe that they once were together.”

“What?”

“Dee and Geoff.”

“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me.”

“It was a long time ago, when they were in junior high school.”

“The last time she was clean, I bet.”

A few of the men laughed.

A new voice spoke out. “I think she’s a lot better now.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Mas loudly cleared his throat and spat on his cold eggs. He covered the remains of his breakfast with a wadded-up napkin. The men in the back grew suspiciously quiet as Mas left a few extra dollars on the table for a tip and went out the door to the street.

Going north meant a few steps closer to Skid Row, which was the direction the Buckwheat Beauty seemed to have gone. Following the trail of empty syringes and the stink of urine, he wondered if she had entered a den of temptation. Mas himself had been an addict of tobacco for more than fifty years before he quit cold turkey after spending time with his grandson in New York. It was precisely these times of stress when an addict craved his or her poison. That’s why his fingers imagined bringing a cigarette to his lips. And most likely, that’s what the Buckwheat Beauty was feeling right now about her drug of choice.

Mas stood on a corner, searching for Dee’s thin frame in her oversized T-shirt. A huge black man in a wig and shiny green dress mumbled some words his way, and Mas put on a
shirankao
, a blank face that pretended to be completely unaware.

Mas limited his contact with Skid Row residents as much as he could. He definitely did not look any of them in the eye. But there were times when he had to drive into the Gardeners’ Federation in Toytown to buy some fertilizer or a twenty-pound bag of rice harvested fresh from the San
Joaquin Valley, or maybe reconcile his bill for his federation-sponsored medical insurance. That’s when he ran into some homeless men who expertly guided him through the maze of delivery trucks, boxes from China being carted on dollies, and sedans driven by discount seekers. This was the only time he would poke his hand in his pocket for any loose change to give a homeless guide. They were regulars, after all, offering a service. Mas admired any fellow seeking to be entrepreneurial, as long as they didn’t touch his Ford.

Through the crowd of the walking dead, Mas spied a familiar figure. The man was short, maybe only a few inches taller than Mas. Roberto of El Salvador, the man who was supposed to be wiping the brow of his sick mother. What was he doing here in Los Angeles, and on Skid Row in particular?

Mas followed Roberto, curious what the flower-market worker would find of interest on Skid Row. With the gentrification of industrial buildings, the homeless quadrant had shrunk into a tight ball that was threatening to unravel and implode at any time. And Roberto, his new tour guide, was leading Mas right into the thick of it.

Roberto entered a park with a tall green iron fence. Outside the fence was a full-scale one-person toilet, operational only with the insertion of a quarter. It looked and smelled like most people opted to forgo the fancy toilet and save their quarters for more nefarious purposes.

Every inch of the park seemed to be taken up by people—no blade of green grass in sight. To have wall-to-wall people in this tiny space—a human zoo, or perhaps even worse, a detention camp—made Mas feel woozy and sick. The smell
was full of humanity—layers of
shikko
and
unko
and sweat and vomit and body odor. It seemed to have soaked through the concrete and maybe even the air.

No one seemed to leer or pay attention to Mas, as if he looked like he belonged. In his search for Roberto, for the first time Mas looked into the faces of the homeless. Among the predominantly black and brown faces were women with children, sometimes more than one or even two in tow. Also a few Asian and
hakujin
men who looked in their thirties or forties, their bodies beaten down by drugs.

And then the slim triangle of an elbow—was that the Buckwheat Beauty? Mas squeezed through the crowd, feeling damp, dirt-caked jackets brush against his face.

By the jungle gym, underneath the swing set, he spied Dee and a man who stood only a few inches taller than her. He had a slight build that complimented his fancy black leather jacket and high-tone slacks. His curly dark hair was cropped short, and in the spring sun, something bright glinted off of hone earlobe. It was from a distance, but Mas still felt that he had made a match. The man talking to Dee owned the face that was featured in one of the late Chuck Blanco’s black-and-white glossy photos.