Death in Little Tokyo

23

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.”

“Fred?”

“No, someone else.”

The door opened a crack. The safety chain was on. Through the narrow opening, I saw a three-inch strip of her face, and red hair. One eye peered through the opening of the door. “It’s you!” she said with surprise.

“That’s right. I told you we met once.”

“Are you the one with the reward?”

“I’d like to talk to you about that. Can I come in?”

Silence. Her eye continued to study me. I couldn’t get a reading on the expression on the rest of her face. Finally, “What the hell happened to your face?”

“I got beat up. You should have seen it before the swelling started going down. Two guys that Matsuda worked with did the beating. But now they’re in jail. That’s one of the reasons they’re in jail and one of the reasons I helped put them in. Now I think I can help you. Can I come in? I’d really like to talk to you.”

The eye studied me for a few more seconds, then the door closed. I could hear the safety chain rattling. The door opened once again. “Come in,” she said.

I walked into a crowded motel room. Three suitcases were piled in a corner. The bed was messed up where she had been lying watching TV. An open, half eaten two-pound box of See’s Candies lay on the bed. On the wall was a painting of a sunset done in oranges, reds, and whites. It was a boat on the water. It looked like the sort of thing that’s painted by machines.

“There’s no chair,” she said. “Sit down.” She pointed at the bed. On her hands she was still wearing the multitude of rings.

I sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, and so did she.

“What the hell do ya want?” she asked.

“I want to talk about the night you were with Matsuda. I even went to your apartment and tried to talk to your boyfriend.”

“Armondo. He’s an asshole. He acts like Mr. Macho, but he ain’t worth shit. That’s why I dumped him and hid out here. What’s this about a reward?”

Her boyfriend seemed plenty tough to me, but I wasn’t going to argue the point. Besides, it was time to ‘fess up.

“There actually isn’t a reward. I just had to talk to you, and Ms. Martinez wasn’t going to tell me where you were without some reason other than my wanting it.”

She gave me a look that said that being lied to by a man was pretty much what she expected. It made me feel crummy. I tried a different tack. “What’s got you so scared?”

“Shit. You heard ‘bout what they did to that guy?” she said.

“I heard about what somebody did to Matsuda.”

“I’m next.”

“Who told you that?”

No answer.

“Look, there’s no reason for you to be scared, and there’s no reason for you to hide. The police want to talk to you, but not as a suspect in the murder of Matsuda, just to hear your story of what went on that night. I’ve got an interest because I want you to confirm that I was in and out of his hotel room. The police don’t suspect me in the murder anymore, and I don’t think they ever suspected you.”

“The cops ain’t the only ones I’m worried about.”

“If you’re worried about the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, I told you the two guys that Matsuda worked for are already in jail. You don’t have anything to fear. They weren’t after you, anyway.”

“That’s not what I was told.”

“By who?”

More silence. She stared at me, her face not giving away her emotions. Finally she said, “Fred Yoshida.”

“I know that Fred is very good to you. He probably helped you with your act and your dancing. But he’s got his own interests in this affair, and what he has to hide has nothing to do with you.”

“He told me they’re out to get me,” she said all at once. “It’s some kind of Japanese thing. They’ll cut me like they cut that guy up. Fred said the only way to save my ass is to stay here and then move out of town. He even paid for this room, and he said he’ll help me scrape up enough money to move.”

“What happened that night?”

“When that guy was killed?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. But Fred said they thought I knew and that’s why the Japanese Mafia is after me.”

“Fred lied to you.”

She received this assertion in silence. I tried again. “After I left you that night, what happened?”

She gave a half smile. “Ya want all the dirty details?”

I smiled back and shook my head. “No, I mean after you and Matsuda were done. What happened?”

She shrugged. “We went to the Paradise. Matsuda picked me up in a bar between shows. I like to turn a trick when I can,” she said matter-of-factly. “Japanese businessmen are always good Johns; they’re clean, not often kinky, and good tippers.”

“So Matsuda didn’t know that you worked at the Paradise Vineyard?”

“No. Like I said, he met me in a bar. After we were done, I told him to come to the theater to see the show. I thought he’d be a good John to keep in touch with, because he said he came to L.A. a lot. It doesn’t hurt to have a regular bunch of tricks. He came backstage with me and saw Fred. He just about shit. He said they hadn’t seen each other for fifty years. They said they were in some kind of concentration camp together during World War Two.”

“And?”

“And then I did my act. The next day some guy from the cops shows up at the theater wanting to know who was with Matsuda the night before. I was scared and didn’t say nothin’, so he said he’d be back with someone who could identify me. I suppose that was you.”

I nodded.

“Fred came after me and told me to get out, that it ain’t just the cops looking for me, that this Japanese Mafia wanted me, too. He told me Matsuda was cut to pieces, and it scared the piss out of me. He helped me get this room, and he’s been helping me pay for it. I’ve been bored here, but scared shitless to leave until Fred told me it was safe.”

I nodded. “I think it’s safe, now.”