Dale Furutani - Death in Little Tokyo

“This is not the smoothest time to bring this up,” I continued, “but are you going to stop by my place tonight?”

“I’d stop by, but tonight is Thursday. I’ve got rehearsals.”

Mariko was involved with the East West Players theater group in Hollywood. Thursday nights she went to classes and rehearsals. Before class the group met to clean up the theater, build sets, and do other maintenance.

“Can’t you skip it tonight?”

“You know I’d like to, but you also know that I’m up for a part and I’m not going to get it without pulling my weight around the theater. That’s how little theater works, Ken.”

“Okay. But your theatrical ambitions are sure putting a dent in my love life.”

“I know it’s tough,” she said. “But between theater and AA, a good chunk of my life isn’t my own. If you really need me to, I could stop by after rehearsal.”

I bit my lip and said, “No. Better not. I might be able to arrange to pick up that package tonight. Rita said she wanted me to have it by tomorrow.”

Before Mariko could launch into another protest over my picking up the package, Mrs. Kawashiri came into the back room. She was a short, plump woman who still looked stylish. She was a good advertisement for the clothes normally carried in the shop. Her husband was totally incapacitated by a stroke and she needed the shop as much for human contact as for financial support. She sort of adopted the helpers that worked for her in the shop, and she was always very kind to Mariko. Somehow by extension she had adopted me, too. When she saw me, a smile came across her broad face.

“Ken-san,” she said. “Seeing Mariko again?”

“He’s just here bothering me, Mrs. Kawashiri. I was about to kick him out so I could come help you in the shop,” Mariko said.

“Nonsense. You never take your breaks, so you should spend a little time when your boyfriend visits.”

“You tell her, Mrs. Kawashiri,” I encouraged. “She always ignores me.”

“You shouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Kawashiri said. “Look at him. He looks like he’s been losing weight. Have you been eating right, Ken?”

“He didn’t eat much of a breakfast today,” Mariko said. “He said he bought sushi for breakfast!”

I laughed, but Mrs. Kawashiri took all talk about eating seriously. She rushed to a shelf and grabbed a plastic bag. It had a couple of pastries bought from the bakery a few doors down. “Here, you have these for breakfast.”

“I can’t take this, Mrs. Kawashiri. Mariko was just teasing.”

“You take this anyway,” she said, thrusting the bag into my hand. “You have to eat right. You bachelors don’t take care of yourself. What you need is a good wife to take care of you,” Mrs. Kawashiri added, not too subtly. She fancied herself a matchmaker.

“You’re right,” I answered. “But don’t you think Mr. Kawashiri is going to object when I steal you away from him for myself?”

Mrs. Kawashiri laughed and slapped my arm. “Be careful with this one,” she said to Mariko. “He’s such a devil that if you do marry him, you’re going to have to watch him every second.”

“That I agree with. The question is, is it worth putting up with watching him every second?” Mariko asked.

“Don’t kid yourself. He’s such a cutie-pie that it will probably be worth all the trouble he’ll give you.”

Blushing furiously, I asked, “Can I use your phone?”

“Of course, Ken-san! I don’t know why you even bother asking. Please use it.”

I beat a hasty retreat to the relative safety of the telephone hanging on the wall. I got the number of the Golden Cherry Blossom Hotel from information and dialed it as Mrs. Kawashiri returned to the customers in the shop. I heard the phone ring like some distant bee at the other end of the line.

“Hello, Golden Cherry Blossom Hotel.” The voice had the professional cheerfulness of a well-trained operator.

“Can you tell me if you have a guest named Susumu Matsuda staying at the hotel?”

“Just one minute, please.”

After a slight pause, the operator came back on the line. “Yes, we do. Would you like me to ring the room?”

“Yes, please.”

The phone rang several times with no answer. I hung up. “No one home,” I told Mariko. “I’ll have to try later this evening.”

Iworked at the office until early evening, setting up the clues that would be used for the upcoming mystery weekend. I dashed out to the Ginza Gardens Coffee Shop for a bowl of noodles for dinner and returned to the office to work some more.

Each of the clue givers in a mystery weekend has an instruction sheet written up for him or her. The sheet gives biographical information about their character, what their attitude is about the crime, and what key pieces of information they’re supposed to give to the people trying to solve the mystery. Except for the “murderer,” the clue givers normally don’t know the total picture, so they can’t give away too much inadvertently. Sometimes the player has to ask the right question, or to mention the right person or event to get the information. This means you have to juggle a lot of different elements when writing up the individual “rap sheets” for the clue givers.

Frankly, my mind wasn’t really on the fictitious case I was creating. Instead, it kept drifting to the very real events of the day and the commission I received from Rita Newly. I turned her story over and over in my mind, and came to the conclusion that either Rita’s story was genuine, or I was being set up to act as a courier in a drug buy or some similar illegal activity. Either possibility gave me a jolt of excitement tinged with fear. Against my better judgment, I welcomed both.

Going through with the package pickup for Rita Newly had the possibility of real danger. Some people might think that living in L.A. is dangerous enough, but for a lot of reasons I needed something more in my life, and this need clouded my judgment. Except for my relationship with Mariko, I was drifting. It was not a comfortable position to be in.

Like the generation before me, I had expected to reap the rewards of my education and experience in my forties. Instead, I was facing an uncertain future and the potential for increasingly difficult employment opportunities as I aged. It sometimes made me frustrated and angry. Frustrated and angry people sometimes do foolish things, like welcome a whiff of danger.

I told myself I’d be cautious, and seek out the police if it looked like I was involved in anything shady, but the truth is I found the aroma of real adventure an intoxicating perfume that dulled my senses. Maybe I should have taken up bungee jumping.

When I finished working on the clues I walked over to the Golden Cherry Blossom Hotel and entered the lobby a little after eight. It was close to the office so I didn’t call ahead. The compact lobby was elegant and reminded me of a ship, with dark green carpet, dark wood panels, and fittings of polished brass.

“Can I help you, sir?” The Japanese behind the desk was impeccably dressed in a gray and green uniform. Wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and perpetually upturned eyebrows gave his face a quizzical expression.

“Do you have a house phone? I’d like to call one of your guests.”

“Certainly, sir. Right over there.”

I walked to the house phone and picked it up.

“May I help you?” the operator’s voice cut into the dial-tone.

“Would you ring Mr. Susumu Matsuda’s room, please?”

“Certainly, sir.”

The phone rang three times before it was picked up. “Yes?” The voice was remarkably free of accent. Since Rita said Matsuda came from Japan, I expected him to have more of a Japanese accent. Instead his English was flawless.