Pigs Get Fat (Trace 4) (2 page)

San Francisco Airport was on its way to being weathered in, so the jetcraft from Las Vegas made swooping lazy circles in the sky for forty-five minutes. Trace made the most of the time by complaining bitterly about not being allowed to smoke or to get a drink.

The stewardess told him huffily, “It’s for your own protection, you know.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Trace said. “We’re all going to die.”

“Nonsense. Everything is perfectly all right,” the stewardess said. She leaned forward and said softly, “And I wish you’d lower your voice. You might alarm the other passengers.”

“You think this is alarming them, you just wait until I stand up and start singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’ You’ll see alarm.”

“You’re not allowed to stand up,” the stewardess said. “The fasten-seat-belts sign is lit.”

“When we plunge into the ocean, can I take off my seat belt?” he asked.

“Madam, is this gentleman with you?” the stewardess asked Chico, who was trying to hide behind a copy of
Mechanix Illustrated
.

“Much as I hate to admit it,” Chico said.

“Do you think you could calm him down?”

“Can we do coke?” Trace asked the stewardess. “Coke always calms me down.”

Chico dug him in the ribs with her elbow. “I’ll try to restrain him,” she told the attendant.

The stewardess nodded and walked away and Chico snarled at Trace, “Why do you say things like that? You never did coke in your life.”

“Because I like to keep these people on their toes,” he said. “They’re flying serious cargo. Me. She’s a lightweight, Chico, a lightweight. Stewardi all used to be nurses, and then they were all
Playboy
bunnies or something, and now they’re all goddamn file clerks. They don’t make stews like they used to.”

“Actually, neither do you,” Chico said.

“A lot you know,” Trace said. “And why wouldn’t she give me my pair of wings when I finished all my peanuts?”

“Trace, she told you she was out of wings. You’ve got a hundred pairs of plastic wings home from every airline.”

“I always get wings,” he grumbled, and slumped down in his seat.

When they left the plane, the stewardess was waiting at the cabin door wishing everyone a nice day. Chico said, “Thank you.” Trace said, “Lightweight.”

They were almost an hour late touching down and they found Chico’s mother sitting disconsolately near the baggage carousel.

The tiny Japanese woman was wearing a blue pantsuit. Her name was Nobuko but everyone called her Emmie, which Trace could never understand. The resemblance between the woman and her daughter was striking, but the older woman seemed much more delicate. Chico’s late father was an Italian sailor, and the combination of his genes with her mother’s had given Chico a more healthy look than her mother had. The older woman looked as if she should have her face powdered white and be standing stock-still on a stage somewhere; Chico looked as if she should be sweating her way through a difficult ballet.

“Hi, Mom. Sorry we’re late,” Chico said.

“Hello, Michiko. Hello, You.” From the first time she had met Trace, she had addressed him as You, since she thought that both his names—Devlin and Tracy—were basically unpronounceable.

“The Widow Mangini,” Trace said, leaning over to kiss her forehead.

“Why the long face?” Chico asked.

“I thought you not come. I thought I kill myself if you not come,” Emmie said.

“Bad weather. The plane was slow landing,” Chico said.

“We did almost die,” Trace said. “I thought the plane was going to crash.”

“My fault plane almost crash, you come to see me. If plane crash, I kill myself,” Chico’s mother said.

The luggage carousel was empty.

“Your luggage must be in the office,” Trace told Emmie. “I’ll get it.”

“It brew.”

Trace looked at Chico.

“Blue,” she explained.

Trace nodded and asked the woman, “You have one suitcase?”

“No. I have two suits-case.”

“Two suits-case coming up,” Trace said. He left the two women talking in Japanese and found the luggage in the baggage handling office.

A storm was gathering as they rode, three to a cab seat, into San Francisco. The wind seemed to pick up in intensity as they passed Candlestick Park, the baseball stadium a few miles outside the heart of the city, and Trace wondered what kind of genius had decided to build a baseball stadium there.

He had seen the Giants play there once years before. A batter had swung under a ball and hit a high pop fly to the infield. The infielders had all moved in toward the pitcher’s mound to catch the pop-up, and then the wind took over. When the ball came down, it was on the other side of the left-field fence for a home run.

Playing baseball there was like playing Ping-Pong in an open field on a windy day. The weather was always a tenth man, but it was a lunatic tenth and one never knew which side he was playing on at any given moment.

“What that big thing, You?” Trace’s mother asked, pointing to the stadium.

“Candlestick Park,” he said.

“If park, where trees?”

“It stadium,” Trace said. “Where they play
beisboru
.” When he was with Emmie, he found himself talking in pigeon English with his four words of Japanese thrown in. It was not condescension, but an honest effort to make his speech simple so she could understand.

“Oh, yes.
Beisboru
,” Emmie said. “I like
beisboru
. Hot dogs, fat undertakers, beer commercials.”

Trace looked at Chico again. “Don’t tell me, umpires, right?”

“Blue suits. Fat undertakers, right,” Chico said.

“I loot for Pittsburgh Pilots,” Emmie said.

“God, I ruv you,” Trace said.

“I ruv you too, You.”

“Should I reave?” Chico asked.

Their hotel was a new modern structure on the fringe of San Francisco’s compact and clean Chinatown. Trace stayed with the luggage to make sure the bellhop didn’t steal anything while Chico checked them all in.

A large red-and-white sign across the lobby read WELCOME, JAPANESE-AMERICAN GUESTS, and then presumably repeated the same message in Oriental characters beneath the large English letters.

“I got us adjoining rooms,” Chico said softly to Trace as they waited for the elevator.

“Is that wise?” Trace said.

“Why not?”

“Well, if your mother’s staying right next door to us, what about your little squeals of ecstasy? Don’t you have any modesty?”

“It’s been so long since I had a little squeal of ecstasy that I didn’t even make it a factor in my planning,” Chico said.

“There’s always a first time,” Trace said.

“Actually, I had sort of a different arrangement in mind,” Chico said.

“Namely?”

“Here’s the elevator,” she said.

As soon as the door slid open on the third floor, Trace knew with an alarming clarity what arrangement Chico had in mind. She was staying in a double room with her mother. Trace was in the single room adjoining theirs. Chico came into unpack his suitcase.

“This is suckful,” Trace said. “I hate this already.”

“I can’t just stay in your room. Not when we’re traveling with my mother.”

“Why not? She knows we live together in Las Vegas.”

“That’s different. She’s not
in
Las Vegas.”

“You mean if she lived in Las Vegas, you and I wouldn’t live together?”

“Not without benefit of clergy. I’d live with her,” Chico said.

“That is one fine how-the-hell-do-you-do,” Trace said.

“Leave your door unlocked; I’ll try to sneak in some night,” Chico said.

“Knock first. I might be entertaining guests,” Trace said sullenly.

“What ho! Smelling strangeness. What’s this?” Chico said. She held up Trace’s small tape recorder, which she had just ferreted out of the bottom of his suitcase.

“It looks like my tape recorder. How’d that get there? I thought you weren’t going to pack it.”

“Don’t lie to me, you goddamn barbarian. Why’d you bring this thing?”

“I confess. I don’t know why. I just always feel better when it’s around,” Trace said.

“That’s the first strike against our vacation, having this thing around,” she said.

“You know I told Groucho no, I’m not working. You know that. I don’t know why, I just brought it.” He tried to smile, but her departing back did not seem to notice.

A few minutes later, Emmie came into Trace’s room through the connecting door, just as he was turning on the television.

“How you like your loom?” she asked.

“I like yours better,” Trace said.

“You want switch looms? I stay here, you stay with Michiko?”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Trace said.

“She dumb sometime. You two live together. You. Why not you stay together on vacation?”

“I know what you’re up to,” Trace said. “You want this room so when you pick up strange men, you’ll have a place to bring them to without Chico seeing you.”

“Very funny, You. But not bad idea,” she said.

“Well, I’m not helping you become a fallen woman. Get back in your own room,” Trace said.

“Okay. Just asking,” she said.

She went back into the other room and Trace heard her tell Chico, “He said he not want to stay with you.”

“Why not?” Chico asked.

“He say if I stay alone, I fall down,” Emmie said.

“I said ‘fallen woman,’” Trace shouted.

“Right. Fall down,” said Emmie.

Trace closed the door between the rooms with a sigh.

For this vacation and this vacation alone, Chico had lifted the restrictions on Trace’s drinking, so he had room service send up two bottles of vodka.

He was lying on his bed, drinking and watching a
Ben Casey
rerun on television. He decided that if he were ever really sick, he wanted a doctor just like Ben Casey. The hell with his being nasty; at least he was trying to keep patients alive. Doctor Kildare was good for upset stomachs; Marcus Welby might keep you alive through a cold, but if he got really sick, send out the call for Butcher Ben. “Screw hospital rules, Dr. Zorba. You go draw diagrams on your blackboard and let me save this degenerate’s life.”

The telephone rang.

“Mr. Tracy?” The woman’s voice was vaguely familiar.

“Yes.”

“Hold on, please, for Walter Marks.”

The call took Trace so much by surprise that he didn’t have time to hang up before Marks was on the phone.

“Trace. I’m glad I found you.”

“How’d you track me down? You didn’t tell my ex-wife and the two savages where I am, did you?”

“No. And I won’t either,” said Marks with unaccustomed warmth.

“You’re up to something,” Trace said. “How’d you find me?”

“A hunch. I had my secretary check all the hotels near Chinatown.”

“That’s a lot of work to go to just to ruin my vacation,” Trace said.

“This is important,” Marks said. “Listen, Trace, I’d like you to do me a favor.”

“I can’t believe my ears. You’re asking me for a favor?”

“That’s right.”

“If I weren’t lying down already, I’d have to sit down,” Trace said.

“Take it anyway you want,” Marks said.

“I know how hard this must be for you.”

“I have a friend in San Francisco,” Marks said.

“And you want me to kill him so your no-friend record can be unblemished again?” Trace said.

“No. I just want you to talk to him.”

“He’s your friend?” Trace said.

“Yes.”

“Then what would we possibly have to talk about?”

“This fella needs some advice,” Marks said.

“You’re willing to have me give him advice? He must be some friend,” Trace said.

“He is. We were in school together.”

“What’s he do? What kind of advice?”

“He’s an insurance man with us,” Marks said. “He thinks he might have a problem with a policy.”

“I don’t know anything about insurance,” Trace said.

“But you know something about missing people and policework. This might be a police problem. You see, he just wrote a big insurance policy on some guy and now the guy seems to be missing.”

“The cops looking for him?”

“No, not yet,” Marks said. “That’s what he wants advice about.”

“I don’t know. I’m here on vacation,” Trace said.

“How long can it take you? I’m asking you as a favor. Talk to Mike.”

“Mike?”

“Michael Mabley. That’s the name of his agency,” Marks said.

“I don’t know.”

There was a long silence over the telephone. Finally, Marks said, “Please.”

“Please?” Trace said.

“Please.”

“What’s his number?” Trace said.

They were at the convention welcoming dinner, sitting at a table of ten, surrounded by another five hundred people clustered around other tables of ten. The sign over the dais said it was the fortieth anniversary of the Japanese-American Unity Association. Trace figured that the organization had been founded in 1945, the same year Japan surrendered to end World War II. Most likely, Trace thought, it had started the day after the surrender.

“Look, there’s one,” he said to Chico. “And there’s another.” He pointed across the room.

“One what?” she said.

“A Jap without a camera,” he said. “There’s another. Whoever said all Japanese carried cameras?”

“Easy on the Jap stuff,” Chico said. “These people will sliver you into sushi.”

“That’s another thing. This rooms smells like raw fish,” Trace said.

“And white people smell like kielbasa,” Chico said. “Why are you so grouchy anyway?”

“I didn’t think everyone was going to speak Japanese,” Trace said. “I don’t speak Japanese.”

“What’d you think they were going to speak at a Japanese convention?” she asked.

“English, dammit. We’re in America. Well, San Francisco anyway.”

“Go with the flow,” Chico said. “Try to blend in with the natives.”

“How can I blend in with the natives when I’m fifteen inches taller than the next biggest native?”

“Make friends. The guy next to you looks nice,” Chico said.

Trace looked at the elderly Japanese man next to him. He wore a nametag that read, MISTER NISHIMOTO. No first name. Under it were Japanese kangi characters. The man was staring at his plate of colorless salad, seemingly absorbed.

“Looks like fun,” Trace said. “If we get to be real good friends, maybe someday I could just call him Mister.”

“Very funny,” Chico said. “It was a lot funnier than your writing Dev-rin Tlacy on your nametag.”

“I wanted to blend in. I didn’t think it was going to be like this. I feel like a hairy savage sitting here.” On the other side of Chico, her mother was talking high speed to a Japanese woman, and Trace said, “What are they talking about? I bet they’re talking about me.”

“My mother is telling everyone that you’re Ainu, one of the poor Japanese whites.”

“I know what Ainu is,” Trace said.

“Why are you just picking at your food?” Chico asked.

“I always pick at my food. It’s goddamn octopus. I’m lucky it isn’t picking at me.”

“It’s not octopus; it’s squid. Eat. It’s good for you.”

“I don’t want to eat,” Trace said. “This is the most rotten vacation I was ever on. This is worse than my honeymoon with the Hulkster.”

“We just got here,” Chico said placidly. “We haven’t had enough time yet to make it rotten. Is something bothering you?”

“I thought we’d spend some time together. We’re not going to spend any time together. All of you are going to be down here talking about the Battle of Midway. I’m about as welcome as a survivor from the Bataan Death March.”

“Bataan,” the man next to him said aloud. His face broke into a big smile. “You in Bataan too?”

“Yes,” Trace lied.

“I too. I not see you.”

“I spent most of my time hiding in a ditch.”

“Sorry I missed you,” Mr. Nishimoto said. He smiled again.

“Don’t you think he knows I was too young for World War Two?” Trace asked Chico softly.

“No. All you whites look alike to us,” Chico said.

“Us?” Trace said.

“Us.
Adiós
, kemo-sabe,” Chico said.

“Go ahead. Spend your time with your mother,” Trace said. He pushed his salad around the plate with his fork. He had insisted upon a fork even though everyone else was eating with chopsticks.

“Try saving a few minutes for me,” Trace said.

“What a baby you are. After Momma goes to bed tonight, you and I will sneak out,” Chico said.

“I don’t want to go
out
,” Trace said.

Chico’s mother leaned across to speak to him. She put her hand on his wrist.

“You?” Emmie said.

“Yes?”

“Have good time?” she asked.

“Wonderful,” Trace said.

“Good. I have good time too. These people all Japanese,” she said as if he might not have noticed.

Trace got up to leave between the raw fish and the speeches.

“I’m going to the bar,” he told Chico.

“They’re opening a bar here. You don’t have to go,” she said.

“I don’t want to drink rice wine,” he said.

“Be civilized, though. Don’t drink like a lunatic,” she said.

“See you later,” he said.

“Try
oyasumi nasai
. That means good night,” Chico said.

“Try
sayonara
,” Trace said. “That means good-bye forever.”

Mr. Nishimoto’s face brightened again. “Oh?” he said, looking at Trace. “
Sayonara. Sayonara
.” And before Trace had fully vacated it, he was sliding into Trace’s seat next to Chico.

Trace growled and left.

One of the worst things about changing your drinking habits, Trace had decided, was that the changes could become a new habit, just as imperious as the last.

For years he had drunk only vodka, vodka from Finland, vodka by the tubful. And then, in a flurry of guilt, remorse, and henpecking, he had switched to wine to please Chico, who was worried that someday his liver might explode.

That had been months ago and now he had gotten used to wine. But Trace never got used to the looks bartenders gave him when he ordered it without thinking. They regarded wine drinkers differently from how they regarded vodka drinkers.

“They think I’m a wimp,” he told Chico.

“Who cares what bartenders think?” Chico had said.

“I do,” he said. “Bartenders are my only friends.”

“That’s all changing now,” she had said. “And once you sober up, more people will like you. New vistas will open for you. You’ll rub shoulders with people who have a first language.”

If he expected a curious look when he walked into the hotel bar and asked for a carafe, he could have forgotten it. This was San Francisco, and the bartender looked like the kind who poured wine drinks all day long. He wore a headband, earrings in both ears, and had tattoos on the backs of his hands. A key ring jangled at his belt.

“Red or white, sir?” he asked. God, yes, he lisped.

“Vodka,” Trace said. “Finlandia.”

When he settled down with the drink, he had the bartender bring him a telephone and he dialed Michael Mabley’s number.

The phone rang three times and a tape-recording clicked in.

“Hello, this is the phone number of Michael Mabley and the Michael Mabley Insurance Agency. Even insurance men need some time off, and since this is the weekend, none of us is available. But if you’ll leave your name and number and a brief message, we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Our regular office hours, which are the best time to call, are nine to five, Monday through Friday, and nine till noon on Saturday. Speak at the signal.”

Trace waited for the beep and said, “My name is Devlin Tracy and I wanted to buy a ten-million-dollar life-insurance policy. I’d like to do business with you, but since I’ve offended you by calling on a Sunday night, I apologize and I’ll call another agency. However, if you decide you would like to handle this matter on this weekend day, you can try to reach me at…” Trace read the hotel telephone number and extension off the instrument, then hung up.

The bartender reached for the telephone, but Trace held up his hand.

“I’m expecting a call back in a moment,” he said. “Fill it again please.”

Before the glass was topped, the telephone was ringing. The bartender answered, then said, “Your name Tracy?”

Trace nodded and took the phone.

Michael Mabley spoke fast, as if he was worried about being interrupted.

“Mr. Tracy, this is Michael Mabley. I got your message about the insurance policy. Sorry I couldn’t pick up the telephone right away, but I was working with a client. I don’t like to get on the phone when I’m with a client ’cause I like to give them my undivided attention. That’s the way we operate here at the Mabley agency. Every client is number one in our book. Número Uno. That’s the way this agency’s been built and that’s why we’re the 287th largest agency in California, not counting car-insurance agencies.” He finally paused for breath and Trace said, “Very commendable.”

“You said something on the telephone about a policy?” Mabley said.

“Yes, but that was a lie,” Trace said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“That was a lie. I just wanted to get your attention,” Trace said. “I’m Devlin Tracy Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“No. Should it?”

“I’m with Garrison Fidelity. Marks asked me to call you.”

“Oh. You’re the investigator he mentioned.”

“What did he say about me?” Trace asked.

“He said you worked for them sometimes.”

“Did he seem pleased with my work?”

“He sort of said that you had a personality problem, actually,” Mabley said. “Nothing serious, mind you. Just that you were difficult to get along with sometimes.”

“Good,” Trace said. “That’s the way I always want Groucho to think of me. He said you had a problem.”

“Groucho. That’s a hot one. Is that his nickname?”

“No. Actually Walter is his nickname,” Trace said. “His real name is Groucho, but he doesn’t like to use it because…well, you know the insurance business. People are pretty conservative. They might not feel right handing their money to somebody named Groucho Marks. But he really loves the name. It was a favorite of his father, Karl, too. Next time you talk to him, tell him I told you. So what’s your problem?”

“I don’t think it’s a real big problem,” Mabley said. He had the voice of a natural insurance man, Trace thought. It treaded through life’s waters, never judgmental, never anything but monotone. It was a voice without a bone in it. He was saying, “Just a problem about procedure, but I don’t know what’s the best thing to do. That’s why I called Walter.”

“Groucho. Remember. Groucho,” Trace said.

“Right. I’ve got to remember that. Groucho Marks. That’s a good one.”

“So what’s the problem?” Trace repeated.

“Listen, could I see you tomorrow? It’s too complicated maybe to go into on the telephone.”

“That’s kind of a pain in the ass,” Trace said. “You see, I’m at this real swinging convention and I’d hate to miss a moment of it.”

“I’m in the city,” Mabley said. “I could meet you. I’ll buy you lunch.”

“Your restaurant doesn’t serve octopus, does it?” Trace asked.

“I don’t think so. I could probably get them to get some for you, though, if it’s real important.”

“No, no,” Trace said. “Just leave things the way they are. I’ll come down tomorrow. Around noontime.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting for you.” Mabley gave Trace an address in San Francisco’s rundown Mission District and said, “You can’t miss it. There’s a big sign of a hand over the front door.”

“Open, no doubt,” Trace said.

“That’s a hot one,” Mabley said, and Trace hung up.

He had many drinks more while waiting for Chico. She never did come into the bar. When he went up to his room just after “last call,” he listened at the adjoining door. Trace could hear two sets of little Japanese snores, mother and daughter, and he went to bed annoyed and frustrated.

First, though, he took a piece of hotel stationery, wrote a note, and slid it under the door.

It read: “Chico, Please don’t disturb us. We’ll probably sleep late.”

In the morning he found a note under his side of the door: “Dear Trace, The four of us didn’t see your note until this morning. Hope we didn’t make too much noise. Love, Bob and Chico and Ted and Emmie.”