Gasa-Gasa Girl (14 page)

“They don’t want me going over there,” said Lloyd later that afternoon. “Both Mari and I were told not to come to Kazzy’s memorial service. I guess I’m still suspect number one. With Kazzy gone, I guess Phillip now is calling the shots.”

Mas and Lloyd hadn’t spoken about the bullet Mas had discovered on the dirt floor of the shed. Mas had left the bullet on the coffee table, only to have it disappear an hour later while he was taking a shower. It was now the son-in-law’s responsibility, not Mas’s.

“He fire youzu?” Mas asked, fearing that his grandson’s medical coverage would dry up.

“Not yet. But I’ve been asking around for work, just in case. Everywhere seems to have a hiring freeze.”

Mas wasn’t quite familiar with the term “hiring freeze,” but he could figure it out. It was a place that was cold and barren, a place where you had to stay outside. That night he dreamed of ice, Eskimos, and igloos. There was a hole in a frozen lake, where penguins, one after another, seemed to slip and fall right in.

chapter seven

Church seemed to have a strong effect on Mas, more powerful than even a six-pack of foreign beer, as it knocked him out until noon the next day. Lloyd had told Mas to sleep in his and Mari’s bed, since both of them were going to stay at the hospital. Their bedroom was like a bear’s cave, dark and insulated. Mas cursed his son-in-law’s hospitality, and then Haruo’s failure to call him at daybreak. He finally got out the door at one, the time he usually called it quits from work.

Already in a bad mood, Mas felt even more irritated to see another delivery truck parked outside the neighbor’s house. The neighbor, the one who had reported the gunshot to the police, was pacing in the driveway, talking on his cell phone. When he saw Mas, he abruptly ended his call and walked down his driveway. “You’re that Japanese man, the one who’s helping with the garden, right?” he said to Mas.

Atarimae
, of course I’m Japanese, Mas thought, making the mistake of making eye contact.

The man introduced himself as Howard Foster and gestured toward his open front door. “Come over here. I want to show you something.”

“I gotsu work.”

“It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Mas hesitated, but he remembered Elk Mamiya’s theory. That people were out to destroy them. Did this neighbor hate people different from him so much that he had killed Kazzy Ouchi? The only way to know was to get close, and entering the man’s house was one way to do it.

Mas didn’t think Howard would risk his grand lifestyle by killing Mas in broad daylight. So whether it was pure stupidity or a good hunch, Mas climbed up the brick stairs and followed Howard into his wood-framed home.

It was different from the Waxley House—more light, more openness. The hardwood floors were pristine, and all the furniture looked as if it had been created for the space. Chinese vases and plates were on display on cherrywood tables and chests.

Howard went into the dining room area and pointed to a long, narrow screen on the wall. “My prize possession.” It was a Japanese brush painting featuring a ball with bug eyes.

“
Daruma,
” Mas said.

“Yes, this is a Zenga painting from the Edo Era. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Mas usually saw
daruma
figures in Japanese gift stores in Little Tokyo. Made of papier-mâché, the
daruma
’s round figure was all red, while his eyes were blank, missing. When Mari was a child, she asked him and Chizuko if he was a Japanese Santa Claus, but Chizuko explained that
Daruma
had been a Buddhist leader who looked at a blank wall for years and years. After a while, he lost use of his legs, thus turning into a ball. He also became blind, so when you bought a
daruma
figure, you were supposed to make a wish and color in one eye. Once the wish was granted, the other eye would be painted in.

“Nice.” Mas never thought much of art, even though he had a torn screen in his home. But his was the generic kind, with an image of a couple of sparrows resting on a bare tree branch. The screen that this Howard Foster had was the real deal.

Mas circled the core of the house. Unlike the Waxley House, which had a staircase in the middle, a staircase appeared on the side of the building, across from the fireplace. “You here all by yourself?”

“Yes,” Howard said, and then frowned. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Mas replied, but he was actually wondering about the neighbor’s alibi. Sure, he had called in a report about hearing a gun going off at nine that night. But couldn’t he have shot Kazzy first and then called the police when he got back to his house?

Howard stood in front of his prized Buddhist painting. “So, looking at this, would you say that I was a Japan hater? That I’m a racist?”

Mas didn’t know what to say. It reminded him of one of his customers, who had decorated his house with moose heads and bear rugs. Did that mean he was an animal lover?

“Well, I’m not a racist,” Howard answered his own question. “Just a man who takes pride in his house. Can you imagine if they make the Waxley House into a museum? There’ll be visitors coming through there every day. I want peace and quiet, not crowds. That’s all that I was doing with that petition. Now I’m getting crank calls, angry letters. Being harassed by the police. Somebody even threw eggs at my house a couple of days ago. So tell your people to back off.”

What people? thought Mas. He had no people besides Mari, Lloyd, and Takeo. And they were too preoccupied to be thinking about throwing raw eggs at the neighbor’s house.

“Youzu talk to Becca. Thatsu best way,” Mas finally said.

“I can’t talk to her. She’s crazy. Unbalanced.”

Mas headed for the door, attempting to make his escape.

“Tell them to back off,” Howard repeated. “Stop telling lies, slandering me. I told the police that I’m going to file a grievance against the Ouchi Foundation, and I won’t stop there, if you know what I mean.”

O
nce Mas arrived at the Waxley House, he decided to forgo seeing Becca at the front door and went straight for the garden. He’d been up for only two hours, and he’d had enough of people already.

Like all gardens, Lloyd’s garden looked different in the early afternoon than in the morning. Mas preferred the early hours, when there was a hush over the trees and bushes, as if the insects hadn’t fully awakened yet. He checked the tape on the wounded cherry trees and was happy to see that the tight blossoms, mini baby fists, were ready to break open at the first sign of sun. He raked a few dead leaves and clipped off the unruly sides of a pine. He even began moving the rocks from the pile by the shed to their proper places around the pond. Walking to the far north side of the pond, Mas noticed that Lloyd had installed a
tsukubai
, a stone washbasin. The stone was the size of a bowling ball, the top and middle hollowed out to hold water. A piece of bamboo served as the water spout, but of course everything was still dry, because the pumping system had not been fully installed. This kind of
tsukubai
was used by followers of the tea ceremony. Mas was no expert on the tea ceremony, but had a former customer, a
chado sensei
, who had a special tatami room beside her kitchen for her classes every Tuesday. She made her students cleanse their hands in a makeshift
tsukubai
outside her screen door. Mas was told it was for purification purposes, but he just enjoyed seeing the women, even the old ones, in brightly colored, stiff kimono once a week.

Mas walked from the
tsukubai
to the bridge over the pond. The yellow police tape was still haphazardly draped over the gourd-shaped concrete floor. Mas squatted down to get a better look at the inscription Becca had been trying to show him that first day. Carved on the side, probably with the end of a stick while the concrete was still fresh, were the
kanji
characters
,
ko
, and
, short for
ikiru.
“Child lives”? Strange. What had Kazzy’s overeducated father been trying to say with this message? These artistic
erai
types had all kinds of sayings that made no sense to Mas.

Next was Sylvester the sycamore. Mas tentatively made his way to the toolshed. As he reached down for the handsaw, he couldn’t help but feel for the small indentation that had once held the bullet. Armed with the saw, Mas set up the ladder by the sycamore and went straight to work. The handsaw was old, probably from the seventies. Years of rain had seeped into the wooden handle, so Mas should have seen it coming. But he didn’t. With each push and pull of the saw, the wooden handle jiggled and the metal blade curved back and forth, instead of remaining straight. Seeing little result from his effort, Mas cursed under his breath and dragged the blade forward with all his might. The handle burst free, the blade sinking its rusty teeth into the soft tissue of his left hand, in between his index finger and thumb. A streak of blood immediately dripped down his hand. The wound burned so badly that Mas feared that he would do
shikko
in his pants. Mas was too stunned to even hear himself yell.

“Mr. Arai!” Becca poked her head from the upstairs window. “What have you done to yourself?”

B
ecca wrapped Mas’s hand in a dish towel and guided him up the staircase to the second floor of the Waxley House. Once they reached the top of the stairs, Mas could see that there were two rooms at opposite ends of the hallway, perfectly symmetrical like a set of weights on a barbell. Both doors were wide open. A TV set and fancy electronic equipment were stored in the room on the right, while an old-fashioned desk and typewriter sat in the left. They headed to the bathroom that was right smack in the middle.

“I’m so sorry,” said Becca. Mas sat on the closed lid of the toilet. “I should have told you not to bother with Sylvester without the proper tools.” Becca made Mas keep his hand elevated. She opened up the medicine chest and took out a plastic bottle of antiseptic and a tube of Neosporin. From the cabinet at the bottom of the sink came a roll of gauze bandage and some white tape.

“I think I’d better take you to the hospital. You might need some stitches. And definitely a shot for tetanus.”