Gasa-Gasa Girl (16 page)

“Izu seventy.” Mas felt his knees shake, but he still managed to stay standing.

“You hear that—he’s seventy,” the ringleader announced to his friends. He then looked at Phillip. “So, Mr. O., you got punked by a seventy-year-old.”

All the young men began laughing.

Phillip brushed the seat of his pants as though the condition of his clothes were more important to him than the teenagers’ jeers.

The ringleader turned his attention back to Mas. He had lowered the gun, and Mas managed to swallow. “So why were you following me?” the teenager asked.

“I see youzu get money. Tryin’ to figure out why.”

“He’ll probably go straight to the police, Riley,” Phillip said. So Riley, that was the kid’s name.

Mas shook his head. “Die on drugs, I no care.”

“Then what do you care about, old man?”

“Kazzy Ouchi. How he die.”

Riley’s face turned instantly darker, like clouds before a summer shower. “Had nothing to do with that. I told you,” he said to Phillip.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Phillip said. “His daughter and son-in-law are suspects, so he’s just trying to point the finger at anyone he can.”

Riley took hold of Mas’s right wrist. The wooden slat clattered to the ground. The teenager had taken note of Mas’s injury, because he gestured for one of his other
chinpira
to grab Mas’s bandaged left hand. This one knew what he was doing, because he pressed into the very softness of the wound. Water sprang to Mas’s eyes, but he kept from dripping tears down his face. He wouldn’t give any of these sonafuguns the satisfaction of seeing him cry.

“I don’t want to hurt you, grandpa. Just forget you’ve seen anything, and you’ll have no problems,” Riley said.

Mas knew that the ringleader was talking about the drugs, so he nodded.

“And drop the whole thing with the dead man in the pond. It was suicide, you got it? The old guy shot his own brains out.”

Mas nodded again, but he had no intention of going along with the boy’s demands on that one. They released his hands, and Mas noticed that the bandage around his left palm was now bright red from a flow of fresh blood.

“And you,” Riley said to Phillip, “get the hell out of here. I’ll need an extra grand now with this complication.”

Phillip looked like he was going to protest, but he must have realized that he was physically overmatched. He stumbled down the alley, a stain visible on the back of his pants.

One by one, the young men returned to the room behind the red door, the last one being the tall teenager with his long and skinny weapon. With the light above the door, Mas could finally see that it was not a lead pipe but actually a shiny new top-of-the-line Weedwacker.

M
as barely made it back to the underground apartment. His left hand had finally stopped bleeding, but both hands were still trembling. Those sonafuguns had stolen the equipment from the garden, Mas was convinced. The beanie cap boy had claimed that he had nothing to do with Kazzy’s death, but he was a damn
usotsuki
, a liar of the worst kind.

He dropped his dentures into one of Mari and Lloyd’s drinking glasses and gritted his gums together. This was too much for him, he finally had to admit. He collapsed onto the couch, hoping for even nightmares to take over his reality.

chapter eight

“I thinksu I needsu to go home now,” Mas said to Haruo the next morning. He hated to admit defeat, but enough was enough.

“Mari still needsu you. Garden not finished. You can’t leave sumptin’
chutohampa
.”

Half-done, so what? No different from when I came, thought Mas. He poked at the soiled bandage around his left hand. More blood had seeped through during the night.

“And whaddabout Ouchi-
san
’s death?” Haruo continued. “You can’t leave dat alone.”

“Police, they figure it out. I’m dead, Haruo. Ole man. Not cut out runnin’ around in a place I have no business in.”

“
Gambare.
” Haruo tried to encourage Mas to carry on. “You tough, Mas. You the toughest guy Izu eva know.”

“Dat a long time ago.” Weren’t most of their friends one step away from their graves? Back in L.A., Mas was going to a funeral every other week. You were expected to bring
koden
—maybe twenty, thirty dollars—each time. These dead people were making Mas go broke. The only good thing about dying was that at least families would be returning all the money you had paid out over the years. The bad thing was that you weren’t alive to see it.

“Listen, Mas, us gardeners, we work when othas give up. Weezu the ones out there when itsu a hundred degree,
desho
? All otha people can’t handle it. But weezu neva give up.”

“Yah, yah,” Mas said. Haruo could be one of those silly male cheerleaders at the UCLA football games. Or, better yet, a mascot in a bear costume, constantly waving to children even though his team was getting pummeled by its rival. Mas hadn’t finished his
monku
, his list of complaints. “Tug wanna go to all these flowers shops. Look for dat Mystery Gardenia.”

“Let him do most of it, Mas. In meantime, you rest. No sense in gettin’ sick. Gotta lean on otha people sometime.”

“Yah, yah,” said Mas, attempting to cut the conversation short. Haruo sounded like he was going to launch into his counseling hocus-pocus. That would just make a bad mood go worse.

W
hen Tug called later that morning, Mas was in a better mood. He thought about what Haruo had said.
Gambare.
Never give up. Mas wasn’t a quitter, and he wasn’t the type to let others pinch-hit for him. The police had their case, and he and Tug had theirs. The Mystery Gardenia meant something; Mas was sure of it.

They met at Happy Ikeda’s Midtown store. “Good thing I brought these tennis shoes, Mas.” Tug pointed to a pair of all-white sneakers with inch-thick rubber soles. “Lil and I got these on sale from Barstow.” Gamblers traveling to Vegas always stopped by Barstow, a desert city along Highway 15 with two sets of factory outlets. Only, in the case of the Yamadas, Barstow’s factory outlets were their final destination, not the bright lights of Vegas.

Mas, on the other hand, had on the same pair of penny loafers that he had purchased from the now-defunct Asahi shoe store in Little Tokyo fifteen years ago. His feet were sore, his legs weak. When he walked, he cradled his injured left hand in his right. His lower back also had a kink, probably from throwing down Kazzy Ouchi’s useless son.

Happy kept immaculate records, both computerized and by hand, all of which he made available to Tug. “Sometimes the computer makes mistakes,” Happy said unsmilingly. On Thursday, there had been a delivery of fresh gardenias in a round glass bowl to a women’s luncheon at a members-only club on the Upper East Side. Some gardenia corsages for a wedding anniversary in Chinatown. And a special gardenia bouquet for a performer at the Metropolitan Opera House.

They had no luck at Happy’s and then struck out three more times at the other florists that Haruo had mentioned in his phone message. Some florists said the information was confidential, with all the executives and celebrities who were their customers. Others didn’t keep detailed records, but just mentioned that gardenias were not hot sellers in the wintertime.

The only shop left was back in Brooklyn Heights. They should have started out with that one, but they wanted to meet with Happy first in Manhattan. A mistake, perhaps, but Tug was the one who had meticulously mapped out their whole path on his AAA map like he was leading a reconnaissance offensive. Chizuko had traveled the same way, so Mas was used to following. Besides, he wasn’t thinking that straight today.

“So, Mas, you going to tell me what happened yesterday to get you so jittery?” Tug and Mas walked south alongside Central Park, its bare trees full of crows.

Mas had almost knocked down a fake plastic pillar at one shop and stepped in a planter full of peat moss in another. There was no doubt that he was shaken by the run-in with Phillip and the drug dealers. He had said nothing to Mari and Lloyd, but went over it with Haruo early this morning over the phone. Who was this hired gun, Riley? He and his gang had probably stolen the gardening equipment from the Waxley Garden, so did that mean they killed Kazzy as well? If not, why had Riley insisted it was suicide?

Mas spilled the beans once again to Tug, every single part of it, including his conversation with the neighbor who complained too much. “I don’t think Foster do it,” Mas said. “Just an
urusai
neighbor. A dime a dozen. Don’t think he’d kill to get his way. Type to drive people
kuru-kuru-pa
and make them want to shoot him.”

“Well, how about the son, Phillip?”

“Well, I think he hire the boy to do some kind of
itazura.
I just don’t know what, exactly.”

“Well, Lil always tells me to get a second opinion. Maybe I’ll have a talk myself with this Phillip Ouchi.” Tug walked over to a pay phone and lifted a New York phone book attached by a flexible cord. The pages were all curled up and shrunken from repeated soakings of rain, sleet, and snow. “Ouchi Silk, Inc., right?”

Mas didn’t want to see Phillip Ouchi again, especially so soon after the incident at the factory building with the red door. He didn’t know what Tug was hoping to prove. Phillip could have contacts with other
chinpira
, that was for sure.

Ouchi Silk, Inc., had an office in the Garment District and then on Broadway. Tug called both to find out where Phillip Ouchi’s office was located. It was on Broadway, just south of Central Park.

O
uchi Silk, Inc., was in a modern steel building about ten stories tall. Each floor seemed a little narrower as you went higher; at least that’s what it looked like to Mas from the sidewalk. Mas tried to talk Tug out of going inside the building, but it was no use. Mas knew that during World War II, Tug had been in charge of his squad’s fifteen-pound Browning automatic rifle because of his great size. Just like in Europe, Tug was on a mission in Manhattan, and there was no stopping him.

Mas opted to wait outside. Tug must have thought Mas was losing his nerve, but actually Mas desperately needed a cigarette. Resting his tired back against a parking meter, he pulled out his next-to-last Marlboro and clicked a flame on his Bic lighter. He remembered how he once delighted Mari with smoke rings. “More, more, Daddy,” she’d beg from the dinner table. He’d let the smoke fill the cup of his closed mouth, round his lips, and then blow out perfect rings in descending size. The line of rings eventually distorted, broke down, and disappeared in a swirling tail of smoke.

Mari had also become a chain-smoker during her college years. But Mas saw no signs of tobacco in the apartment, so she must have broken the habit.

He also needed to quit someday, Mas knew. But this morning was not the day. Just for good measure, he walked the length of the block, blowing out a series of smoke rings, which seemed to hold their shape longer because of the cold air. He crossed the street. Parked against the curb in a no-parking zone was a Cadillac, the boy with the eel-like hair and red waffle-sole shoes leaning against the driver’s-side door.

“Hallo,” Mas said. What was the driver’s name again, J-O? J-Y?

“Hey.” The driver looked up. “I remember you from the Waxley House. I never got your name.”

“Mas. Mas Arai.”

“Hey, Mas, good to see you. J-E, remember?”

Mas nodded and, without J-E even asking, handed him a fresh cigarette. Mas would even use his last Marlboro to get in the driver’s good favor. “So your boss ova here?”

“Yeah, she has some kind of meeting with Kazzy’s son.” So now Phillip was working on Miss Waxley, was he? He had said himself that he wanted to stop the garden project before it bled more money. Becca, the sea urchin, and the sumo wrestler all seemed to be on the other side. Perhaps Phillip and Miss Waxley were conspiring to recruit one of the others to vote to get rid of the garden, once and for all. “You goin’ to Mr. Ouchi’s memorial service? Right after lunch.”

Mas shook his head. He had forgotten about the service.

J-E blew out some smoke from his cigarette and looked toward the Cadillac. “I wish I could quit this gig. But can’t afford to go back to taxi driving. I have a kid and all.”

“Oh, yah?”

“Ten months old.” J-E was wearing gloves again with the fingertips cut off. He dug his right hand into his coat pocket and produced a photo of a fat baby, in an oversized football jersey, drooling on a toy football.

Mas grunted. A baby was a baby, unless it was your own. Or your daughter’s, Mas added silently.

“You know who was over here, too? Howard Foster. And those other jerks, Penn and Larry. But they already took off.”

“Oh, yah.” Mas pretended not to care.

“Yeah, Waxley Enterprises’s just across the street.”

Sure enough, on the other side of Broadway stood a tall coral-colored building with lettering in gold, Waxley Enterprises.

“Those two are assholes, man. Always telling me to take them places. They know that I’m hired by old lady Waxley. She’s the ones who pays me, and they don’t tip, neither.”

Mas stared at the gold lettering on the building across from them. “You gonna be here for a while?”

“At least an hour.”

“Do me favor,” Mas asked. “If you see a Japanese ole man with white hair wandering around, tell him Izu ova there.” Since Tug hadn’t emerged from the building, he must have gotten a meeting with Phillip.

“Sure thing, Mas.” J-E nodded, the cones on his head trembling.