The Pearl Harbor Murders (2 page)

Hully had dared a kiss before she boarded—for once, her mother didn't frown—and, a spring in his step, the young Burroughs rejoined bis father, who was standing with the friend he was seeing off, the reason Tarzan's (and Hully's) daddy had braved the Boat Day crowd.

Colonel Frank Teske of the Army Signal Corps had already seen his wife and infant son aboard to their first-class stateroom, and had returned to invite the Burroughses to join them for refreshments till the "all ashore" was sounded.

"No thanks," the elder Burroughs said in his husky baritone, as Hully fell in beside him. "I'm off the sauce, and, anyway, I couldn't take those corridors reeking with damn leis, it's like dimestore perfume... not to mention the cigarette smoke."

Pop had quit drinking and smoking recently, and was of late displaying a reformer's intolerance for the second habit, if not for the first As for the leis, personally Hully got a charge of the full, fragrant ropes of yellow ilima, the sweet-scented loops of mountain maile; not bad for a quarter apiece.

Colonel Teske was only one of many friends Hully's pop had in military circles. O. B. relished the army bustle of Fort DeRussy, Fort Ruger, Fort Shatter, and Schofield Barracks; a flier himself, he took any excuse for a trip over to Hickam Field. As for the Navy at Pearl Harbor, the elder Burroughs had on the very day Hully arrived taken his youngest boy to Battleship Row for a personal tour of the
California,
courtesy of its captain.

Hully had soon learned that his father was thick with most of the brass on Oahu—Hawaii was easy duty for officers, who had lots of time on their hands, and were more than willing to mix with civilians, particularly one as famous as Hully's pop.

Thirtyish, a knife blade of a man with a pencil mustache, just another white linen suit in the crowd, Colonel Teske said, "I appreciate you coming down like this, Ed. I'm sure going to miss our poker games."

“I'm going to miss winning your money," O. B. said.

In the shadow of his own Panama, the colonel's eyes were tight, and he spoke so softly his words barely registered above the din. "I only wish you'd take my advice and get the hell back to the mainland."

"Come on, Frank," O. B. replied, in his typical staccato fashion. "You know a Jap attack here is a long shot This entire island is a fortress! Every point, every headland fortified... Navy and Army and Navy Air Corps, twenty-five thousand troops! I refuse to worry." "Get yourself on the next boat, Ed." A smirk dimpled Burroughs' cheek. "Well, if a skinflint like you springs for traveling first class, you must mean what you say."

Shaking his head, Teske said, "First Class was the only accommodation available. There's a record number of passengers on this trip—seventy of 'em assigned to cots in the main lounge!"

O. B. pawed the air goodnaturedly with a big blunt hand. "I don't deny war's coming. But Honolulu is one of the safest places under the Flag. Teske, you're a
damn
pessimist!"

Hully wasn't so sure he agreed with his father. After all, me
Matsonia
—the
Lurline's
sister ship—had been recently converted to a troopship; today was the first time in two weeks transportation to California had been available, excluding a few seats on the Pan Am clippers.

"No offense, Colonel," Hully said, "but you told us there'd be an attack by Thanksgiving, and nothing happened. What makes you think—"

"You'll probably be all right till Christmas. Oh hell, who knows?' Teske put a hand on O. B.'s shoulder. "You may be right, Ed—or why else would the brass order me to San Francisco?"

"What are you doing, heading out there, Colonel?" Hully asked. "If you can say ..."

"Same thing I was supposed to be doing hoe—install radar installations, and run simulated attacks by carrier-based planes."

"Now
that
makes sense," Burroughs said. "The San Francisco Navy Yard, there's a target"

Teske shrugged. "Anyway, I'm glad to get out of this madhouse.... Ed, thanks for the send-off. I'll see you in the States."

"One of these days," Burroughs said.

Father and son did not wait around for the
Lurline's
actual departure, avoiding the hoopla of whistle blasts and a brassy "Aloha Oe," hoping to beat the crowd. They had parked three blocks away, noting more police in evidence than usual—further sabotage fear?—and Fort and Bishop streets were jammed with traffic; it was getting as bad as back home in California, Hully thought.

Pop drove, as usual—he loved to drive—and they both tossed their Panamas on the floor in the backseat, as otherwise the wind would have whisked the hats away; the top was down on the sporty white '37 Pierce Arrow, a twelve-cylinder with chrome wheel covers. They were heading Waikiki way along the Ala Moana (Sea Road), and traffic had let up some.

As they glided by the United States Army Transport docks, across from which was the Hawaiian General Depot and the Air Depot, Hully asked, "What exactly does Colonel Teske do?"

His blacksmith's hands gripping the steering wheel, O. B. glanced over at his son, blue eyes hard. "Besides talk a lot of pessimistic baloney? He's with the Army Signal Corps. Commander of the Army's aircraft warning system in Hawaii."

Hully had not been privy to the conversations between Teske and his father, but he knew the colonel had arrived only about a month ago, and was a recent addition to the roster of his pop's military pals.

"So what's this about radar?" Hully asked. They were passing the Myrtle and Healani Boat Clubs.

"Well, you know what it is, don't you?"

"Sure."

"Frank brought radar to the islands, and it's a damn good idea, too. Look at the role it played in the Battle of Britain." O. B. shrugged, wind whipping the white linen of bis jacket. "And I guess I can't blame Frank for his attitude—both the military
and
the civilians have given him one load of horseshit after another."

"How so?"

"Well, General Short thinks mobile radar stations aren't worth operating on a twenty-four-hour basis. To him, they're just a good training tool for the lower ranks."

Rather enjoying the wind rustling his hair, Hully asked, "What good does radar do if you're not using it all the time?"

"None—that's Frank's point."

Just ahead was the entrance to Fort Armstrong, one of five Coast Artillery Defense Batteries on Oahu.

"You said civilians were giving him crap, too," Hully said. "What do civilians have to do with it?"

"Plenty, when it's the governor. Him, and the National Park Service. They won't let Frank put his radar setups on mountain peaks, where they'd be most effective—it might ruin the view."

"Hell," Hully said, snorting a laugh. "I can see why Colonel Teske is frustrated."

"So can I, son, but he's still wrong about a Japanese air raid on Oahu. And most military personnel, and informed civilians, agree with me, in considering that a remote possibility."

They were nearing Kewalo Basin, home of sampans in the water and out—several Japanese boatbuilding firms sat along the artificial harbor with its fleet of marine-blue sampans, blending with the water they bobbed in.

"The threat here," his father said, casting an eye toward the man-made Japanese harbor, "isn't from above—it's from within."

"Sabotage."

He nodded, his expression grave, his thick hands tight on the wheel. "I know you don't agree with me on this, Hully, but you can't deny the reality—better than one out of three Hawaiians are of Jap heritage."

"Come on, O. B.—the majority of them are hardworking, conservative souls—"

"With relatives living back in Japan," his father finished. "A good number of these
issei
and
nisei
are Japanese citizens...."

Issei
were first-generation immigrants, ineligible for U.S. citizenship, and
nisei
were born in Hawaii, and as such were U.S. citizens.

Trying to rein in his irritation, Hully said, "The
nisei
hold dual citizenships, Pop. You know that."

O. B. frowned over at his son. "Yes, and if war breaks out, what flag will they serve under?"

Hully gave his dad a sarcastic smile. "And I suppose you think sweet Mrs. Fujimoto is just waiting for a signal from the homeland to slit our throats in the night."

The junior Burroughs was referring to their efficient, kindly, obviously loyal maid, who happened to be the mother of a friend of Hully's; it was his close friendship with a
nisei
that had got these occasional near arguments going between father and son.

Despite the absurdity of it, O. B. said, "How do you know she isn't? How do you know your friend Sam won't stab you in the back?" "Because he's my friend, Dad." This was an old argument, and father and son fell into an awkward silence, punctuated by the whistle of wind and the flaglike flapping of white linen.

Along this stretch of the Ala Moana, a fantastic, breathtaking view presented itself, including Punch Bowl and Round Top and Tantalus and Kaimuki and Diamond Head, the tower of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel peeking over the tops of coconut and date palms like a kid over a fence.

Finally Hully said, "Jeez, Pop, I never saw so many women in one place in my Me, as on that dock today." His father nodded. "Wives of servicemen, mostly, I suppose," Hullysaid.

"Some of 'em. Most of them were prostitutes."

Hully, not sure his father was serious, looked at him, saying, "What? Really?"

But O. B.'s expression was matter-of-fact; so was his tone. "Sure. And that's the only thing that makes me think Frank Teske might not be entirely nuts."

"Why is that?"

"Well, when the prostitutes around a military base panic, and start headin' for the mainland, you gotta wonder—who is more sensitive to the military mind than a hooker?"

They were rambling across a long wooden bridge over the Ala Moana Canal, which emptied the city's waste water into the ocean. Their lodgings would be coming up soon, and when the wind blew from the south, no one went down to the hotel's beach to swim—at such times O. B. tended to refer to the otherwise comfortable Niumalu Hotel as "Hovel-on-Sewer."

Soon they were passing what appeared to be an old Southern mansion set stylishly among the lush shrubbery; but it was actually a Japanese teahouse called Ikesu Villa.

“Take that place," O. B. said with a nod. "It looks American, but it's Japanese through and through."

Shortly after, at a fork in the road, Hully's father turned right, into that part of Waikiki which still most nearly remained in its native state.

"You know," O. B. said reflectively, the antagonism suddenly gone from his voice, "the funny thing is... this is as close as I've ever been to war. I've always been the kind of guy who's late for the thrill—I always seem to get to the fire after it's out."

Hully took a long sideways look at his rugged, bronzed fattier—a man's man who had been a cowboy and a gold miner, who had served the United States Cavalry in Arizona, who had sailed the Panama Canal. But who—as the creator of Tarzan—had never been to Africa, and not so long ago, when MGM announced its next Weissmuller epic would be shot on the Dark Continent, Hully's pop had been invited to accompany the expedition... only the war in Europe and Africa had changed all that. Africa was off.

"And now I'm too old," his father was saying, wheeling into and up the Niumalu's crashed coral drive. "One last war, and I'm too damn old."

For the first time in several weeks, Hully heard the familiar despondency in his father's voice, reminding him why he'd come here for mis "vacation"—a fear in his family that his father might be contemplating suicide.

And wasn't mat ironic, Hully thought: what a Japanese thing for O. B. to be considering.

TWO
A Nazi at the Niumalu

The mile of romance, the Tourist Bureau called it: that white stretch of sand known as Waikiki, extending from the Halekulani Hotel and the adjacent inns and cottages to the concrete War Memorial Natatorium in whose saltwater pool that former screen Tarzan, Buster Crabbe, had set records, warming up for the Olympics.

Only one major beachfront hotel rested outside those limits, sequestered from the rest of Waikiki by Fort de Russy: the Niumalu, literally Spreading Coconut, loosely Sheltering Palms, of which the lavishly landscaped grounds, six acres' worth, certainly had their share... and the hotel's hand-lettered sign was rather informally nailed to one leaning palm, establishing a casual tone that permeated the place.

Thirty clapboard guest cottages were scattered about the Niumalu's pleasant jungle, with all crushed-coral roads leading to an impressive if squatty-looking white stucco main building typical of the Hawaiian style of architecture prevalent since the late twenties, with its lampshadelike double-pitched roof, and a porte cochere supported by columns of lava stone evocative of leopard spots.

The lodge, as the guests referred to the central building, had an open interior with a central rock-garden courtyard just off a nightclublike dining room with a large dance floor and bandstand. The lobby's large, missionlike arched portals also looked out onto the courtyard, and the effect was open and airy, the wicker furnishings adding to a porchlike effect.

Edgar Rice Burroughs had been Very happy here, with his wife Florence—his second wife—and he had thought she felt the same.

Burroughs had well known the risks of marrying a younger woman. He had been sixty and Florence thirty-one—as his daughter Joan had cruelly pointed out, Florence was younger than the duration of her parents' marriage. Everyone seemed to be making the assumption that he was discarding his fifty-nine-year-old, overweight wife for the slender shapely former actress, out of the usual crassly selfish, male, sex-driven reasons.

The truth was more complex. Emma had always been plump, pleasantly so in her young, vivacious days, a "dumpling," as the old parlance went. In the early years of the marriage, even as her tendency toward stoutness increased, her intelligence and charm had made up for her excess weight After all, they had faced hardship, poverty and adversity together, theirs had been a marriage of closeness, of sharing. Emma would read his work and intelligently comment; his triumphs, his failures, had been hers—theirs, Jane to his Tarzan.