Death in Little Tokyo

12

When I was done at Mrs. Okada’s I decided to stop at my apartment in Silver Lake to kill time until my appointment with Michael. As I drove I had a lot to think about. Evan didn’t know much more about Matsuda’s Yakuza connection, so the discussion ended soon after his remark about the sword being a Yakuza weapon. Funnily enough, some of the things that Mrs. Okada had told me affected me more than the stuff Evan Okada told me.

It was my first personal conversation with someone about the camp experience, even though most of the older Japanese-Americans I know on the mainland must have been in a camp. Most simply don’t talk about it. From the books, I knew the recitation of facts about the camps, but hearing that something like boiled squid had been served ad nauseam made the experience seem more real.

Also from the books, I knew that at the beginning of World War II over one hundred twenty thousand people had been herded into U.S. camps based solely on their Japanese racial background. About two-thirds of them were American citizens, and many of the ones who weren’t citizens were actually prevented from becoming citizens by Asian exclusion laws. In 1922 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that naturalization for citizenship was only open to whites and people of African descent. Since Asians were neither, the Court said it was constitutional to pass laws that prevented them from becoming citizens or even owning land. The last of these laws were on the books until 1952.

J. Edgar Hoover, hardly a liberal, advised against the camps because the FBI couldn’t find a single case of disloyal activity in the Japanese-American community. Ironically, Earl Warren, who was then governor of California and later known as a liberal chief justice of the Supreme Court, pushed for the camps. Even the American Civil Liberties Union, despite the protest of a couple of local chapters, supported the camps.

All people of color have a hard time in our country. We’d like to think that isn’t so, but unfortunately it is. I think Asians have had an especially tough time in U.S. culture because for over a century an Asian face has been the face of the enemy.

First were the Chinese. The Chinese were imported to the U.S. to build the railroads and to wash the laundry, but they were soon branded as the “Yellow Peril” and viewed with hatred and suspicion when they dared to think that they could share the American dream.

Then came the Filipinos. As a result of our annexing the Philippines as part of the Spanish-American War, we became engaged in a vicious guerrilla war in our newly acquired colony. The fanatic charges of Filipinos caused the U.S. Army to adopt the.45 caliber automatic as the standard handgun, because this pistol had the stopping power to drop a man in his tracks. Some of the things we did in the Philippines at the turn of the century foreshadowed our worst actions in Vietnam.

Then came the Japanese and World War II. The attack on Pearl Harbor was truly an infamous act, but an equally infamous act was herding Japanese-Americans into camps based on the notion that an Asian face meant a traitor’s face.

Then came the Korean War, where even the people we were supposed to be helping (the South Koreans) were “gooks” to our troops, just like the North Korean enemy.

Eventually the Southeast Asians got their turn with Vietnam. That war is too close for me to even understand my feelings about it. Like a lot of Americans, I thought the war was wrong. And like a lot of young American men, I still went to war because I couldn’t define what courage really meant.

I guess to some people we will never be “real” Americans because our faces remain Asian, even though our hearts belong to the United States. That’s a sad fact that gnaws at us. By the time I got home I was depressed. I got more depressed when I played the messages on my machine. Detective Hansen had called. I dialed the number he left.

“This is Police Detective Hansen.”

“This is Ken Tanaka. Did you want to speak to me?”

“Yes. I’m wondering if I could ask your cooperation in something.”

“Yes?” This was a new development, asking me for help.

“None of the clubs downtown have a dancer that matches your description, but when I went to the Paradise Vineyard they had three redheads dancing there. None of them would admit to knowing Mr. Matsuda, so I’d like you to go down there this evening before their first show to see if you can identify the woman you saw with Mr. Matsuda two nights ago.”

“What time?”

“Five o’clock.”

“Can you make it five-thirty?” I didn’t want to cut my appointment with Michael at three-thirty short. His office was in the mid-Wilshire district and the traffic might be a problem.

“Okay.”

“Can you pick me up in front of the office building where you first met me?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then. Good-bye.”

I hung up the phone. The police not finding the woman who was with Matsuda was not a good sign.

Michael’s office was in one of the glass cube office buildings that dot Los Angeles. I suppose the first one of these had some style, but now there’re so many of them that they sort of blend into the horizon. After going through the preliminaries with the receptionist, I was ushered into Michael Kosaka’s domain.

Michael had a raffish beard that made him look like a pirate, an image that isn’t totally inappropriate for a single practice attorney. From the gray in his hair I’d say he was in his early forties, and he had a hint of a middle-aged paunch gently pressing against the belly of his light blue shirt.

His office was decorated in highly polished rosewood furniture, and on his walls he had Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Two were Hiroshiges, and another was a triptych of Yoshitoshi’s flute player: expensive antiques.

Japanese woodblocks are interesting. In the 1700s and 1800s they were made to be sold for literally pennies. That’s why there are series of woodblocks like “100 Views of the Moon” or “100 Views of Edo (Tokyo).” The artist wanted you to collect all one hundred so he could turn a reasonable profit on things that sold so cheaply. Now a masterpiece by a Hokusai or a Hiroshige, which originally sold for pennies, can fetch enormous sums of money. Something inexpensive and new eventually turns into something expensive and old. It’s a kind of alchemy.

To make a woodblock, individual cherry wood blocks are carved for each color in the print. The blue color has its own block, the red its own block, and so forth. When a piece of mulberry paper is printed with all the blocks, the image emerges. All the blocks have to be in perfect alignment, or register, for the picture to come out clearly. Sometimes when you see a block for just one color, it’s hard to see what the picture is. It occurred to me that unraveling crimes is a little like woodblock printing. Layer after layer is put together until the total picture emerges, and everything has to fit together properly if the picture is going to look clear.

The L.A. County Museum of Art has an example of the same Yoshitoshi flute player that I saw on Michael’s wall. It’s a three-panel print of a flute player walking across a marshy plain under a full moon. Behind some marsh grass a robber waits to attack the traveler and kill him. As I recall the legend, the music of the flute so enchanted the robber that he let the traveler go. The example in the museum’s collection is pretty ratty and soiled, but Kosaka’s example was in excellent condition, with still-vibrant colors. I decided the first thing I better talk about was his fee. The office, furniture, and especially the art all spelled money.

After the usual hellos, I said, “Did Mariko explain my financial condition to you?”

Kosaka laughed. “She said if I charge you more than two hundred fifty dollars, I’ll have to sit at the kiddies table the next time the family gets together for Thanksgiving.”

I smiled both at the threat and the fact that I could swing $250, even though it was probably what Michael got per hour. “That I can handle financially,” I confirmed, and I launched into my story about Rita Newly, Matsuda, and my gaff about the package. Kosaka sat there listening to me intently, occasionally making notes on a pad of paper with a very elegant gold fountain pen and nodding his head or making encouraging murmurings.

When I was done he sat back in his chair for a moment and thought. “Where’s this package?” he asked.

“Actually, Mariko has it where she works.”

Michael thought a little more. Then he leaned across the desk and said to me, “It’s easy to understand how anyone could get confused after several hours of questioning, especially about such a horrible crime. Is that why you misspoke about what happened to the package?” He looked at me and raised one eyebrow. Well, I don’t need a ton of bricks to hit me. I said, “Yes, I just got confused.”

He leaned back into his chair, pleased. “Of course. Very understandable. And at the first opportunity, you’re going to march in and correct your mistake.”

I checked my watch. “That could be in seventy minutes or so. That detective wanted me to go with him to a theater to identify the woman I saw at the hotel.”

Kosaka pursed his lips. “If he asks you about the package again, you’ll of course tell the truth and explain you got confused. But if he doesn’t ask you, I think tomorrow will be soon enough to correct your mistake. Let me call a friend of mine in the D.A.'s office to ask, in a general way, the best approach to correcting your mistake. That may take a day or two if my friend’s not in the office. This detective may not be the best person to go to with your correction. So just sit tight for a couple of days until I contact you.”

“Okay, I’ll wait for your call before doing anything else.”

“And Ken. .”

“Yes?”

“This is really none of my business, but you might also think about stopping this adventuring. That detective sounds like a jerk, but he is right about your meddling. This is a brutal murder case, and whoever did it may not like an amateur poking his nose in. That obviously goes for the police, as well.”

That was good advice. I wish I had heeded it.

Hansen was about ten minutes late when he picked me up at the office to go to the Paradise Vineyard. He was driving a big green American sedan. . what passes for an unmarked police car for the LAPD. The drive from the office to the Paradise Vineyard Theater took about twenty minutes in downtown traffic, so I decided to make small talk.

“Have you been in Los Angeles long?”

“Eleven years,” Hansen said. He didn’t volunteer more.

“Where are you originally from?”

“Walnut Creek.”

“Up by San Francisco?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you get involved in police work.”

“My first choice didn’t work out.”

“What was that?”

“Professional football.”

“Really? What college did you play for?”

“San Jose State.”

“What position?”

“Linebacker.”

“Did you go directly from college to the Police Academy?”

“First I was in the marines.”

“So how did you get involved in police work?”

“My uncle was the police chief of Walnut Creek.”

“And he got you involved?”

“Yeah.”

It was not a stimulating conversation. I thought about working in my army record in the conversation to show I could be macho, too, and I immediately felt shame. Why was I was seeking approval from someone that I shouldn’t need approval from?

I have a Bronze Star and Purple Heart from Vietnam, but they were earned in what I think is a truly embarrassing way. Three weeks after I arrived in Vietnam my squad became engaged in a fire fight. My squad leader told me to make my way down a steep ravine to see if I could flank the enemy and engage him in enfilade fire. As I made my way down the side of the ravine I didn’t realize how steep it was, and I slipped and fell to the bottom. I hit right on my tailbone. I heard a sickening, crunching sound, and the world around me literally started turning black. The sound of gunfire up the hill from me was muted by a red fog of pain and a need to vomit.

I don’t know if I actually blacked out, but I do know that when I tried to move a few minutes later, the pain in my spine was so intense it literally took my breath away. Now comes the really stupid part. Instead of lying down and obeying my body, I continued down the ravine and to the side of the enemy. I managed to flank the enemy and I started firing. To be honest, I was in so much pain that I didn’t even aim. I just shot in the general direction and made a lot of noise.

It worked. The enemy withdrew, and several hours later they got me to a field hospital. I walked into the hospital on my own, and they immediately took X rays. I remember the look on the doctor’s face as he got on a field telephone to talk to a specialist someplace. I didn’t hear the whole conversation, but I do remember the doctor saying, “I can’t believe this guy walked in here on his own. He’s lucky he’s not paralyzed.” That scared me. A lot.

I had crushed my second lumbar vertebra, and the splintered bones could have severed my spinal cord and paralyzed me permanently. Instead the result was seven months in a body cast, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. I figure I got both for literally busting my ass and not having enough sense to realize it. I had spent less than a month in Vietnam.

I seldom talk about the experience because I still find it silly and disturbing. And I never go to veteran reunions and similar events, because I feel that with my Asian face I’m looked at as the enemy, not a comrade. One positive effect of my being at these events is that the number of “slope” stories get curtailed, but this effect is not worth the discomfort.

Now I was going to talk about this experience with a stranger I didn’t much like, just because I was insecure about my own manhood. We’re funny and sometimes lamentable creatures. I quit talking, and we covered the rest of the way to the theater in silence.