Dale Furutani - Death in Little Tokyo

A slight pause, then Johnson said, “I suppose so, if that’s all you want to know. Wait a minute while I look at my file on Matsuda.” There was a several-minute pause while my excitement started growing. Finally, Johnson came back on the line and said, “Matsuda was in the Heart Mountain relocation camp for the duration of the war. Does that mean anything to you?”

I sighed. “No, it doesn’t. I just had a hunch that didn’t pan out. Thanks for your help.” I was sure that Matsuda would have been in Manzanar. Heart Mountain threw me for a loop. More frustration.

That left the woman I saw in Matsuda’s room as the only key I had left to unraveling his murder. I could think of one contact that might be able to help me find her, but I wasn’t sure if her boyfriend really knew where she was anyway. Besides, one encounter with him was enough. I thought of another contact that might be able to help, but didn’t want to pursue that either. Then I finally thought of a third.

Mariko had another AA meeting that night, this time a discussion group on the twelve steps, not one where she would talk. She called me at the office as the boutique was closing to see how I was feeling (still sore) and to remind me she had a meeting. “What are you going to do tonight?” she asked.

“I’m going to see a stripper.”

A long pause. “And …”

“And, indeed. I don’t know. I want to talk to her. I intend to see her after she’s done her act, so I’ll be out late. I’ll see you tomorrow and fill you in on the details.”

I killed a few hours after dinner at my apartment watching TV, but I was anxious to get going and left my house way too early. I drove to the Paradise Vineyard and pulled into the alley behind it. I parked about two hundred feet from the stage door. A weak light illuminated the alley by the door. I waited.

I hoped my second stakeout would be more successful than my first, but despite my excitement I still found it incredibly boring work. It was sort of like fishing, however, in that any little nibble freshened your interest until you realized it wasn’t the fish you were waiting for.

I saw several men walk in through the stage door. Most of them left with women. But I didn’t see the particular person I was looking for. Finally, at around midnight, I saw her come out. She was with a surprisingly well-dressed older man. She was hanging onto his arm and laughing.

I got out of the car and walked over to the couple. At the sight of a stranger approaching them in the alley, they slowed down and watched me warily. At past midnight in a back alley in downtown Los Angeles, it isn’t a good practice to go along blindly when you see a stranger.

“Ms. Martinez?” I called out.

The redheaded Latina recognized me and said something to her companion. He hung back reluctantly, almost as if he didn’t want me to see his face.

Rosie Martinez walked forward to meet me. “What the hell do you want?” she said.

“Well, hello to you, too.”

She looked over her shoulder at her companion. “Look, my gentleman friend is crapping in his pants. He’s afraid we’ll get busted, because I told him you were a cop.”

“I’m not a cop. I told you that before.”

“Well, what do ya want?” she asked.

“I want to talk to Angela Sanchez.”

“Shit, I told you I don’t know where she is. Talk to Fred about that.”

“I talked to Fred and he said he didn’t know where she is. I think he’s lying. I’m not trying to be offensive, Ms. Martinez, but I think you’re lying, too.”

“What the hell…”

“Please don’t get mad at me. Believe it or not, I really want to help Angela. She can help me and I can help her. She doesn’t have to hide. The police caught the two guys that Matsuda was working for.”

“Who’s Matsuda?”

“The guy who was killed at the hotel. The guy Angela was with that night. She doesn’t have to be afraid of them and she doesn’t have to be afraid of me. Believe me, you’ll be helping her by telling me where she is. I really do want to help her, and I think I can.”

Martinez looked at me in the half-light of the alley. “You look like shit,” she said.

“I got beat up,” I said, shrugging. “The two guys who did it were the two guys who were arrested. The same guys Matsuda was working for.”

“They’re in the can?”

“That’s right.”

“I still don’t know nothin’ about Angela.”

“Okay, I’ll come clean with you. I’m trying to collect a reward put up by a Japanese business association. If I can prove my involvement in the case, they’ll pay me the money, but now they’re questioning if I met Matsuda before he was murdered and they’re trying to wriggle out of giving me the cash. Angela can back up my story. I didn’t want to tell you about it because I didn’t want to share it with her. I’m sorry about that, but I guess I’m willing to split it with her if she’ll back me up about meeting Matsuda.”

My lie didn’t even make real sense to me, but the part about money and businessmen trying to wriggle out of payment seemed to make sense to Martinez.

“How much money?” she asked.

This put me in a little dilemma. If I said an amount too large, she would catch on to my lie, but if I said something too small, she might not be interested in spilling what she knew. I picked a figure. “Ten thousand dollars. If Angela backs me up, I’ll give her a thousand.”

“Two thousand, and I get something, too.” She had the heart of an agent.

“Fifteen hundred, and anything you get is between Angela and you.” Maybe I should have just said okay, but my instincts told me she’d expect me to bargain.

She made a quick decision, the kind of decision people make when they’re street smart and used to living by their wits. “Okay. She’s at the Blue Surf Motel in Long Beach. Room 212. She had me bring some stuff down to her. I’m going to tell her about the fifteen hundred, so don’t try to stiff her.”

“All right, Ms. Martinez. Thank you. I appreciate it.”

She nodded slowly and turned back to go with her companion, reassuring him that everything was going to be okay, that he wasn’t going to be busted, compromised, or blackmailed.

The Blue Surf Motel is an old stucco structure off Pacific Coast Highway in north Long Beach. In that section of Long Beach, Pacific Coast Highway is nowhere near the Pacific Coast. It’s miles from the beach as it makes its way toward an infamous traffic circle with a history of so many accidents that I’m convinced it was designed to reduce California’s surplus population. Local legend says the designer of the traffic circle died there in a car accident, but I think this is just an urban legend that was created to inject some justice in the universe.

The pink stucco of the building was chipped, showing white plaster underneath, and I was surprised to see the U-shaped motel was only one-story high. Since I had been told that Angela Sanchez was in room 212, I had expected to find a two-story building. Driving into the U-shaped motel court, I found that the rooms to my left were numbered in the one hundreds, the rooms to my right were in the three hundreds, and the rooms at the far end of the U were numbered in the two hundreds.

I parked my car by the door to room 212, and walked up to it. Inside I could hear the TV. A game show. I knocked, and the volume of the TV was turned down. I knocked a second time.

“Who’s there?”

“My name is Ken Tanaka.”

A pause. “I don’t know you.”

“As a matter of fact, I think you do. I believe we met once, Ms. Sanchez.”

“How the hell did you find me?”

“A friend of yours told me.”