Naomi Hirahara - Gasa-Gasa Girl

K-SAN

“So businesslike,” commented Lloyd. “I mean, that’s the way Kazzy was, but even this seems too cold for him.”

“Maybe because Kazzy knowsu already he gonna die.”

“That’s true,” Lloyd said. “But why didn’t Anna just hand this over to the police?”

Mas couldn’t answer that for Lloyd. He wouldn’t understand. He probably grew up learning to trust the people in power. Anna Grady and Mas knew different. That sometimes people in uniform were to be feared.

Mas silently read the note again. One thing had been nagging at him on the bus ride back to New York City. “K- san, that was on the suicide note, too. Kazzy’s MIS buddy, dis Jinx Watanabe, he tellsu us Kazzy was chanto man.”

“ Chanto, that means proper, right? Yeah, that was Kazzy, all right,” Lloyd said.

“But no chanto Japanese put ‘ san ’ on his own name.” That was an honorific reserved for other people or, in the case of Anna Grady, for cats.

Lloyd waited a beat. “That’s true. I never thought of it. Wait a minute, I have some notes from Kazzy.” Lloyd shuffled through papers on his overburdened desk and found at least six old memos. Every single one of them was typed in capital letters; every single one of them ended with one letter, a single K. No san added.

“If Kazzy so chanto, he chanto till the end,” said Mas.

“You think someone else wrote this note to Anna Grady?”

“And jisatsu note.”

“Suicide letter,” Lloyd repeated in English.

Phillip was the first person who came to Mas’s mind. And then the teenager behind the red door. Mas shared his thoughts with Lloyd.

“You think this Riley may have been the one who followed you and Mari in Seabrook?”

Mas nodded. The physical description fit, and based on the gun he’d shoved in Mas’s face, he had the temperament.

“Tomorrow,” said Lloyd, “we’ll go pay this Riley a little visit. You and I, Mr. Arai.”

The next morning, even before Takeo had a chance to cry from behind the bedroom door, Mas called Haruo.

“Mas, I just getsu home. Whatsu goin’ on with the dead man?”

“Two dead people now. Ouchi- san and a woman.”

“Woman? Toshiyori or a young one?”

“ Toshiyori. Nisei. Sheezu about our age.”

“Thatsu nasakenai. How she die?”

“Thrown over her balcony. Seventeen stories high.”

“Catch the guy?”

“ Mada. But soon.” Mas could at least hope. “Anyhowsu, I needsu your help, Haruo.”

“Anytin’, Mas, anytin’.”

One thing about Haruo, he knew a lot of people. To describe someone like him, the Japanese said Kao ga hiroi, “Your face is wide,” and Haruo’s face was one of the widest among Mas’s friends. “You gotsu any contact wiz museum?”

“Which museum, the one in Little Tokyo?”

“Yah.”

“Come to think of it, my counselor, her sista work ova at the museum. Why, Mas?”

“There’s sumptin’ I wantchu to take a look at.”

Mas was eating breakfast when the rest of the family came out of the bear’s lair and settled in the living room.

“You’ll need to stay home with Takeo today,” Lloyd told Mari, who was giving the baby his morning bottle.

“Was planning on it anyway. And I’m expecting that call back from Dr. Bhalla. What’s up?”

“Your father and I have some things to do. Then I’m going to go to the Ouchi Foundation board meeting.”

“They’re not going to let you in.”

“They’ll have to. I’m now officially on the board. That’s why Becca had to legally inform me of the meeting.”

“But they think we killed Kazzy.”

“Charged, but not convicted. Anyhow, that’s you, not me.”

Mari gave her husband a shocked look as if she were a trout pulled straight out of the water.

“That didn’t come out quite right,” Lloyd corrected himself. “You know what I mean.”

“Why does my dad have to come with you?”

Mas looked up from his bowl of dry shredded wheat, curious about how Lloyd would answer.

“I need him,” Lloyd said, “for moral support.”

M ore than a physical place, New York City was a feeling. Mas was learning that to get around in the city, he couldn’t get too stuck on maps and street names. The best way for him was to depend on his intuition.

In L.A., this approach would never work, namely because you could start driving in one direction on a hunch and suddenly be in either Nevada or Mexico. If you took a wrong turn in New York City, you eventually hit the water, so you then just backtracked in the opposite direction. Mas relied on his inner compass to get to the red door. They got out at Times Square Station and then walked west. Mas knew that they were going in the right direction when the buildings became grimier.

“This area’s called Hell’s Kitchen,” said Lloyd after they had traveled for several blocks.

“Get hot ova here?”

“It’s not that. Actually, I’m not sure why it got its name. It used to be a real rough area, but now they are cleaning it up. Making restaurants and nightspots out of the old factory buildings.”

When Mas described the drugs that he had seen in the back room behind the red door, Lloyd nodded his head. “Your boys were probably selling Ecstasy. That’s the popular drug in these clubs down here.”

Ecstasy, hiropon, didn’t make much difference to Mas. Names and chemicals could be changed, but drugs had the same general effect. To give temporary sweetness to a life that was bitter and hard to take. In Mas’s case, he was lucky that he preferred the bitter to the fake sweet.

It was early morning, and that wasn’t doing Hell’s Kitchen any favors. It was like shining light in a drunk’s face: the area, rather than menacing, seemed pitiful. Pedestrians moved in slow motion, as if walking too fast would cause their heads to roll off.

They passed a couple of brick factory buildings, syringes and torn condom packages scattered on the sidewalk. Mas then pointed down an alley, toward a faded red door. “Thatsu it,” he said.

Just as Mas had, Lloyd moved the trash can next to the door and climbed on top so that he could see through the window above the door. Mas sidled up to the trash can, waiting for Lloyd’s scouting report.

“I just see a man sleeping on the couch.”

“Whatsu he look like?”

“Actually, he looks kind of familiar. Brown hair, pork-chop sideburns-you know, like Elvis.” Lloyd told Mas to knock and call the teenager over to the door. Mas didn’t know if this was a good idea, but he complied.

Mas hammered the door with his fist.

There were noises of someone moving around in the room and then a shuffling of feet.

“What?” A voice slightly muffled by sleep, yet still undeniably male and young. “Who the hell is it?!”

Mas placed his mouth near the crack in between the door frame and the door. “Mas Arai. Itsu Mas Arai.”

“Who?”

“I was here dat day. Wiz Phillip Ouchi.”

Mas grimaced as he saw Lloyd reach for the metal light fixture above the door. Who did he think he was? Yojimbo? Some lone-gun bodyguard?

Mas could hear the locks being loosened.

The door opened a crack, just enough for Mas to see Riley’s bloodshot eye, and then BOOM! Lloyd’s long legs smashed open the unlocked door, knocking Riley down onto the floor of the back room.

Lloyd had landed on Riley’s legs, and now his long fingers were around Riley’s thick neck. Mas looked around the room, and he grabbed the first weapon he could find, a state-of-the-art hedge clipper, and pressed down on the handle so the clipper’s metal jaw opened.

Riley was gagging as Lloyd pressed down on his Adam’s apple. “I want you to stay away from my wife. And the rest of my family.” Riley pulled at Lloyd’s arms-the teenager had more muscle, but Lloyd had more heart. Lloyd’s hands remained in their position underneath Riley’s chin.