Death in Little Tokyo

3

Mariko was the proverbial struggling actress. For her to put up three hundred dollars for a joke was, in itself, a joke. I decided to talk to her.

Mariko disdained the standard actor’s job as a waitress and she worked at a dress boutique in Little Tokyo. It was only a few blocks from the rented detective office, so I committed what passes for a peccadillo in Los Angeles and walked. The Kawashiri Boutique is part of a tourist complex on First Street known as Japanese Village. It was designed by a Korean, so it looks like a Korean’s version of what a Japanese Village in Los Angeles should look like. That’s America.

The entrance to Japanese Village is marked by a three-story yagura, or fire tower. A yagura was used in ancient Japan as a watchtower to look for the incipient signs of smoke in crowded cities. The yagura in L.A. is made from bolted together telephone poles, so it would hardly qualify as a museum piece, but I suppose it could be used to spot a tourist bus and the incipient signs of cash.

A cluster of new buildings radiate out from the tower: numerous restaurants, gift shops, bakeries, toy stores, souvenir shops, and a couple of dress shops, including the Kawashiri Boutique. As I walked in, Mariko was helping a couple of customers.

Mariko had on a simple navy dress with a colorful red and gold scarf draped over her shoulder. She’s only five feet three inches tall, but that isn’t a particular handicap in a shop that caters to older Japanese women. It is a handicap in her acting.

Her face is round with a small pointed chin. She has a cute button nose and wide brown eyes. Japanese faces have a wide variety of types (at least to other Japanese). Mrs. Kawashiri, who owned the boutique, has a broad flat face that wouldn’t look out of place on a Korean, Mongol or Eskimo. Mariko has the same kind of features as me, which look more Southeast Asian.

Mariko’s black hair is shoulder length, and she usually wears it with a sweeping lock across her forehead. Her smile has a special magic for me. Her even white teeth give mute testament to the wisdom of her parent’s investment in braces when she was a kid. (She told me once how she hated the braces. Selfishly I thought only of the results instead of the process.)

Her figure is trim, but with a nice swell to her hips and beautifully straight legs, not the daikon legs that so many Japanese women complain about. Daikon is a large, long, and lumpy white radish used in Japanese cooking, and the comparison of legs to radishes is not a flattering one.

I’m forty-two. Mariko is in her mid-thirties, and like me she’s had a failed marriage. Also like me, her first marriage was to a Caucasian. That’s a topic we’ve talked about many times with no good resolution.

At the time of her divorce, Mariko was both an alcoholic and working as a loan officer in a bank. I don’t know if the two were related. When she hit thirty she decided life was too short to continue working for the green eyeshade crowd. She also decided that her drinking was controlling her, not vice versa. She started alternately attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and taking acting lessons. When she worked up the courage, she quit her job and started acting full-time. She also got a divorce from her husband.

She told me she was pretty miserable when she first split up with her husband, but not miserable enough to get back with him. She said he’s an alcoholic, too, although he hasn’t recognized it yet. When they were first married it was fun to party and be drunks together, but as the drinking became more serious it ceased being fun. Since the divorce both her sobriety and acting career have had their ups and downs. She slipped once on her drinking during her first year in AA, but she’s been sober for almost four years. She’s appeared in several plays and one TV commercial, but she isn’t able to make a living just acting so she works at the dress shop.

The owner of the dress shop, Mrs. Kawashiri, is really good about letting Mariko leave for auditions, and it’s a comfortable relationship. Besides, Mariko gets her clothes at a discount, although most of her clothes are special orders because Mrs. Kawashiri, who is in her sixties herself, caters to a much older clientele.

When she was able to take a break, Mariko and I went into the boutique’s back room and I gave her a quick rundown on my encounter with Rita Newly. “I thought you set up the whole thing as a joke,” I said as I finished, “But when she laid these on me,” I flashed the three one-hundred-dollar bills, “I thought that something was very wrong.”

Looking at the money, Mariko said, “I did set up the whole thing, and I’ll thank you to hand over my money.” She solemnly extended her hand.

Surprised, and a little hesitant, I almost handed over the cash. I peered at her and said, “Are you teasing me?”

She laughed. “Of course! Do you think I’d hand over three hundred bucks just because I have nothing better to keep me amused? Besides, you seem a little too interested in this woman. You have a thing for blondes.”

My ex-wife was a blonde. We were moving into uncomfortable territory. I did what most men try to do in similar circumstances: I changed the subject. “So what do you think I should do about the package?” I said.

Mariko gave me an appraising look. I don’t think she was fooled by such an obvious ploy, but she took pity on me and played along. “What do you mean?”

“Well, she’s paying me five hundred dollars to pick it up, so I think I should go over and do it. Although I’m still living off my severance pay, the bottom line is that I’m unemployed and I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

She got serious on me. “Ken, this isn’t a gift horse. It’s some kind of job. It’s nuts for you to go ahead and do it.”

“What’s so nuts about it?”

“You’re not a private eye. Repeat after me: ‘I am not a private eye.’ You shouldn’t go ahead and run her errand. What kind of person would pay that much for an errand, anyway?”

“Are you sure you didn’t set the whole thing up?”

She sighed. “Number one, I don’t have hundreds of dollars I can use just to play a joke on you. Number two, her story stinks. Number three, her story really, really stinks! I’d be much more clever than that. Do you think she’s serious about this picture business?”

“Do you think it’s someone in the L.A. Mystery Club setting things up to play a joke on us? You know, sort of a mystery within a mystery.”

Mariko shrugged. “You know the other members better than me. But three hundred dollars is a lot to put up. How do they know you won’t just spend it and not play along with the gag?”

“It’s a puzzle, isn’t it?”

“Why don’t you try calling her and see if she has any more to say,” Mariko suggested.

I looked at Mariko sheepishly. “Well actually I didn’t get a phone number or address from her.”

“Very astute,” Mariko said dryly. “So what are you going to do?”

“I think I’ll go and pick up the package.”

“What if it’s drugs or something?”

“I’ll worry about that when I see the package. If it’s something like that, I’ll just turn it over to the police. It’s possible that Rita is telling the truth, and I don’t mind picking up five hundred dollars just for being a messenger boy.”

“Ken, nobody pays five hundred dollars and goes to a P.I. if they just need a messenger. Messengers cost a lot less than that. Haven’t you been listening to me? There’s got to be something involved here that we don’t understand. I can’t believe this. Even though you’ve got the office and the fancy raincoat, you are not a private investigator. You don’t have a P.I.'s license and you haven’t been trained. I enjoy participating in the L.A. Mystery Club weekends with you, but those weekends are fantasy, and you shouldn’t confuse fantasy with reality. You might get hurt.”

“Relax,” I said with bravado. “I’m not going to get hurt. I’m just going to act as a messenger boy and collect five hundred bucks for my troubles. Some people in this town have more money than brains. Five hundred bucks to them is like five dollars to you or me.” My pride was stung by Mariko’s tone and warning. I’m a Vietnam veteran with a bronze star and a purple heart. I was confident of my abilities.

Mariko reached over the table and placed her hand on my arm. It felt small but warm through the sleeve of my shirt. “I’m just worried about you. Please don’t be so silly. Let’s call the police about this.”

“I don’t know what I’d be calling them about. Besides, remember, she wants to keep things quiet because she’s getting married to some rich guy soon. I think she made a mistake and took me for a real P.I., but for five hundred dollars I’m going to shut up and do what she tells me.”

Mariko put her hands to her head in mock frustration. At least I think it was mock. She rolled her eyes to the heavens and said, “Arrrgh!”

“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.”