Max Collins - The Pearl Harbor Murders

"This won't take long-I just want to chat for a few minutes. May I come in?"

"I have company."

Burroughs pushed the door open and shouldered past Morimura. At a low table, three Japanese girls wearing nothing at all were sitting on tatami mats. They were lovely of face and form, though their frozen embarrassment was painful to see.

"Put your kimonos on, girls," Burroughs said, "and take a break."

The pretty trio made sounds that mingled distress with giggling as they quickly got into their kimonos, which had been folded neatly on the floor behind them. This was another sparsely decorated, oak-lined, cream-walled room; a row of big picture windows looked out onto the ocean … and Pearl Harbor, Ford Island visible to the west, the Army's Hickam Field just to the left. A powerful telescope on a stand awaited any … tourist… who might want a better, closer look.

The now-clothed geishas scurried out past Morimura, who stood near the door with his arms folded, his face blank.

The consul said, "You are a rude and foolish man."

Burroughs strolled over and touched the telescope admiringly. "Maybe it's just cultural differences. Besides, I don't think you're a fool-even if everybody else seems to."

"Perhaps all Americans are foolish."

"They are if they don't think you're a damn spy."

Morimura smiled, almost gently. He gestured to the low table and the tatami mats. "Sake, Mr. Burroughs?"

"No thanks. I'm on the wagon."

"Wagon?"

"Never mind. But I'll sit with you, while you drink."

They sat across from each other at the low table; neither partook of the pitcher of sake.

Morimura's arms were again folded. "I am not a spy, Mr. Burroughs-I am a diplomat. Any information I have obtained has been through strictly legal means. Blame your own… American openness. Much can be gleaned from your daily newspapers, for example-and is there a law against looking through a telescope at a restaurant's lovely view?"

"Did you kill Pearl Harada?"

Morimura blinked, and his expression became one of horror. "What? What a ridiculous question!"

"Did you?"

"No. Certainly not I barely knew her."

"Do you… 'barely' know her, the way you 'barely' know those three geisha girls?"

"No. The singer and I were not romantically involved."

"How about carnally?"

"No."

"Then why were you arguing with her, in the Niumalu parking lot, the night of her murder?"

Morimura's eyes widened-obviously, he didn't know he and Pearl had been seen.

"Her uncle asked me to speak to her."

"Her uncle? The grocer?"

"Yes. He heard rumors she was planning to marry an American boy. A sailor. He disapproved. I merely conveyed this message to her, and she was….disrespectful, both to me and in speaking of her uncle."

"Why didn't her uncle tell her this himself? He was around the Niumalu in the afternoon."

Morimura glared at Burroughs. "Why are you curious? What business is it to you, the murder of this girl?"

"I helped put the cuffs on Harry Kamana… I caught him at the beach with his hands bloody."

The diplomat nodded. "This I have heard."

"Between the two of us, you and me, we really nailed the poor bastard."

"The two of us? Nail? Your meaning escapes me."

"You called Otto Kuhn in the middle of the night, and had him pretend to be an eyewitness. You had him finger that musician."

"Nonsense."

"Kuhn told me himself."

Morimura frowned. "If so, he lies. When did he say this?"

"Just now, in the parking lot. I don't blame you for trading his company in on those geishas… no comparison. Anyway, Otto admitted you called him, and had him play eyewitness. You see, Otto receiving a call last night, well… that's a known fact."

"Really? I understood there was no switchboard at the Niumalu."

Burroughs grinned. "How interesting that you'd know a trivial detail like that, Mr. Morimura, considering you're not at all involved in this. By the way, don't take it out on Otto-he's afraid you'll kill him, or have him killed, because of what he told me."

"Did you bribe the German?"

"Hell no."

"Ah." Morimura's eyes narrowed. "I see the scrape on your knuckles. You beat it out of him." Morimura stood. "Perhaps you would care to try taking that… very American approach to seeking information… with me."

The consul moved away from the low table and struck a martial-arts pose. A single eyebrow raised, tiny smile on his thin lips, Morimura said, "Judo."

Burroughs rose and took the L?ger out and pointed it at him and said, "Gun."

Eyes flickering with fear, the supposed diplomat slowly raised his hands. "Shoot me if you wish, Mr. Burroughs ….but I will say nothing more. I am not like Otto Kuhn. I am not weak."

"And I'm not a murderer," Burroughs said, and slipped the gun in his pocket, and went out.

The exceptionally beautiful weather and the lopsided victory in this afternoon's football game coalesced into a night of rampant partying, excessive even for a Saturday in Honolulu. The city was rife with private parties and public revelry, and alive with music, from radios bleeding syrupy Hawaiian strains, seemingly designed to make lonely men feel even lonelier, to a lively battle of the bands at the Naval Receiving Station at Pearl Harbor, where the U.S.S. Arizona band was going over big, with the upbeat likes of "Take the A Train." Hotel ballrooms, like the Royal Hawaiian and the Ala Moana, were offering fox-trots, while swing music emanated from the town's less stodgy bandstands, like those at the Niumalu or the dance hall at Waikiki Amusement Park.

Swing also jumped from jukeboxes up and down Hotel Street, where sailors and soldiers swarmed in ribbons of white and khaki. A fleet of rickety taxis, wheezing buses and rattletrap jalopies charged down the two-lane highway connecting Pearl Harbor and Honolulu, conveying the invading horde to their dropping-off spot: the Army and Navy YMCA, at the eastern end of Hotel Street, a suitable starting point for an evening of good-natured debauchery.

Awash in garish neon, flickering under the strobe of fluorescent bulbs, Hotel Street was a glorified alleyway lined with low-slung stucco buildings wearing tin awnings like gambler's shades. To boys longing for home, the midway that was Hotel Street seemed to echo carnivals and state fairs, this rude collection of taverns, trinket counters, massage parlors, photo booths, pool halls, shooting galleries, curio stores, tattoo artists, and dime-a-dance joints.

Along the narrow sidewalks of every block were one or two barbershops, the barbers invariably young attractive Japanese women, and at least one lei shop, with pretty Hawaiian girls stringing flowers. Other sorts of "leis" were available, as well: hotels whose rooms all had the shades drawn-the Rex, the Anchor, the Ritz-attracted lines down the block of sailors and soldiers waiting to choose between two varieties of "room": three dollars for three minutes, or five dollars for an extended stay, up to ten. Relatively safe, too: the local police, in turning a blind if well-paid eye, insisted on weekly blood tests for these unofficially sanctioned soiled doves.

Hully and Jardine had recruited Sam Fujimoto to join on their Hotel Street expedition. Sam knew both

Ensign Bill Fielder and Corporal Jack Stanton, the former better than the latter, but in either case enough to recognize either in this sea of uniforms. Starting at the west end, Hully and Jardine, who were on a first-name basis now, took one side of the street, while Sam took the other-they had agreed to rendezvous at the Black Cat Cafe in an hour and a half.

"You figure whoever killed Pearl Harada," Hully said to the Portuguese detective, "killed Terry Mizuha, as well."