The Case of the Russian Diplomat

8

Driving through the streets of Beverly Hills, his car siren howling, Masuto knew only that his lovely, pleasant world of the morning had shattered, leaving an empty hole of sheer terror. He had always lived with a simple acceptance of the fact that fear was not a problem he had to face. An old Zen story told of the student who came to the Zen master and asked the question: “Why should I study Zen, Rashi?” to which the master replied, “Because then you will not be afraid to die.” Masuto was not afraid to die, but the world was full of many other things that were more terrible than death.

“If we pile up and end up in a hospital, Masao,” Beckman said quietly, “you won’t be helping the kid any.” They had just made a two-wheel braking turn into Motor Avenue off Pico Boulevard and were roaring south toward Culver City. “Anyway, we ought to think, and I can’t think at this speed.”

Masuto slowed down. “You’re right, Sy,” he muttered. “You’re right.”

“You’re sure it’s connected?”

“I have a gut feeling.”

“A kid could wander out of a back yard and drift away and just get disoriented, and then the kid is lost. It’s happened before. It happens every day.”

“Not a Japanese child. She wouldn’t leave the garden. I know Ana. Kati knows her. She just wouldn’t leave the garden.”

“Then if she was snatched, you face it and try to think it through. I can’t do your thinking for you,” Beckman told him, almost harshly. “All day yesterday you ran us in circles, with the damn oranges and the lead azide and all the rest of it. What does it add up to?”

Masuto made no reply, and Beckman said more softly, “I got kids, so don’t think I’m not feeling this. But you’re a cop, Masao. Now why would anyone snatch your kid? It’s not money; you don’t have any.”

“It’s a club.”

“Best damn club there is. But if they’re going to clobber you, they got to tell you why.”

“They will,” Masuto whispered. “They will.”

The quiet, cottage-lined, neat and sun-drenched street where Masuto lived belied the thought of violence. The houses were owned, for the most part, by Nisei and Chicano families. They were plain, hard-working people who had put their life effort into owning a home on a small plot of land and the houses and the flower-lined lawns underlined the care and pride that went into that ownership.

Beckman remained in the car when they reached Mas-uto’s house. “I’ll drift around and see if I can turn up anything,” Beckman said. “Just the streets around here. You go in to Kati.”

Masuto nodded and ran into the house. Beckman drove off. Kati had been watching for them, and after she let her husband in, she burst into tears. Masuto took her in his arms and rocked her gently.

“Easy, easy, Kati. Ana will be all right. I promise you that.”

“Who took her, Masao?”

“Stop crying. You must stop crying. We are going to be very calm, both of us.”

“I’ll try.”

“No, you must. Now go into the kitchen and make tea.”

“Tea? Now?”

“Yes, now,” he said firmly. “I will go with you, but I want you to make the tea. Mr. Beckman will be here in a moment, and we will give him tea and cake. Have you cake in the house?”

“Masao!”

“The tea now, please.”

She bowed her head and dried her tears on her apron and went into the kitchen. Masuto followed her. She filled the tea kettle.

“Now tell me again what happened.”

“But I told you.”

“Again, very carefully.”

“She was playing in the garden with her doll, sitting under the acacia tree. I went into the kitchen to do the breakfast dishes. I cleared the table and put the dishes in the sink. Then I looked out of the window-” She choked up.

“Go on, Kati. Think. Exactly as it happened.”

“She wasn’t there. First I tried to see through the window. Then I ran outside.”

“How long was she out of your sight?”

“Maybe three minutes, no more. I had cleared the table before. Then, after you left, I had a cup of tea while Ana had her cereal and hot milk. Oh, Masao-”

The telephone rang.

“Stay here and finish the tea,” Masuto said. He went into the living room then and picked up the phone. It was a singsong voice with a curious accent, a man’s voice.

“This is Detective Sergeant Masuto?” the voice asked.

“Yes. Speaking.”

“Then you will listen to me very carefully, Detective Sergeant Masuto. She has not been harmed. She will not be harmed-so long as you obey our instructions.”

“How do I know you have her? How do I know she’s all right?”

As he said this, the doorbell rang. Kati ran through the living room to the door. It was Beckman. He took Kati’s hand, and the two of them stood there, watching Masuto.

“I will let you talk to her. But quickly.”

“Daddy, Daddy,” came Ana’s voice, “they broke my doll.”

“Are you all right?”

“They broke my doll.”

“You mustn’t cry, baby, you’ll be home soon.”

Kati began to sob. Beckman put his arm around her and whispered, “She’s all right, Kati.”

“That’s enough,” said the voice of the man. “Listen. About the case of the drowned man, you will do nothing. You will leave it alone. Completely alone. You will do nothing. You will make yourself unavailable to the police, and then if you leave it alone, completely alone, your child will be released at seven o’clock this evening. Otherwise, you will never see your child again.” Then a click. It was over.

“Who was it?” Beckman asked.

“The kidnapper.”

“What did he say?”

“What did Ana say?” Kati cried. “Is she all right? Why didn’t you tell him my child is sick?”

“I think she’s all right. She sounded all right.”

“Was she crying? Did they hurt her?”

“I don’t think they hurt her. She said they broke her doll. No, don’t cry anymore, Kati. I told you I will take care of this. I want to talk to Sy now. Would you bring us tea in here, please?”

Kati nodded and went into the kitchen. Masuto dropped into a chair and motioned for Beckman to sit down.

“What do they want?” Beckman asked him.

“As he put it, the case of the drowned man. I imagine that includes Stillman. I am to leave it alone and make myself unavailable to the police. I use his words. If I follow their instructions, Ana will be released at seven o’clock. If I don’t, I will never see her again.”

“You’re sure he said you? You, Masao? One person? He didn’t say both of you?”

“What are you getting at, Sy?”

“If he had someone watching the house or watching the station, he would have said both of you. You and your partner.”

“Yes. Of course. I’m not thinking.” Masuto took a deep breath. “I have to think. I have to think clearly. It’s not a game anymore.”

“Why do you say game? That’s not like you, Masao.”

“Game. Yes.”

Kati came in with a tray, which she put down on the coffee table. “What do they want, Masao?” she asked pleadingly. “Why did they take my child? We don’t have money. Children are kidnapped for money.”

“They want me to stop what I’m doing.”

“But what are you doing?”

“Kati, do you trust me? I love Ana as much as I can love. But you must trust me. Will you, please? And I will bring Ana back to you today. I promise that.”

“And will you stop what you are doing? Will you listen to them?”

“I will find Ana.”

“How can you find her?”

“I will find her. I promise you. Now I want you to leave us alone. We must talk.”

“What shall I do?” she asked woefully.

“I think you should lie down for a little while. You’ve had a bad shock. Lie down and rest. There’s nothing else you can do for Ana.”

She nodded and left the room. Beckman looked at Masuto thoughtfully, and said, “There’s been a kidnapping, Masao. You know what the procedure is. We notify the Culver City police, and then we bring in the F.B.I.”

Masuto didn’t answer. He poured two cups of tea, and Beckman noticed that his hand did not shake.

“Do you want anything in your tea?”

“No.”

Masuto lifted the cup to his lips in what was almost a formal gesture and sipped at the tea. Then he put the cup down.

“You heard me, Masao.”

“I heard you, Sy. Here is the way it’s going to be. We do not notify the Culver City police and we do not call in the F.B.I. This is for me. If you want to help me, I’ll be grateful. Otherwise, you can have out of it.”

“That’s a lousy thing to say.”

“I apologize. I’m sorry. We’re in this together.”

“And you’re making that same stupid mistake that the parents of every kidnapped child make. Ana’s seven years old. If she saw them, she can identify them. Do you think there’s a chance in the world that they’d let her go alive?”

“Not much chance, no.”

“Then what?”

“We have to find her.”

“How? Where? If you think this Binnie Vance was involved with the drowned man, then she had help. Is that it? Does she know where the kid is?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. We can’t even place her at the Beverly Glen Hotel. She only fits with a lot of guesswork-and there’s no reason, no motive, no sense in the whole thing.”

“We could pick her up and sweat it out of her.”

“Pick her up for what?”

“We could try to sweat it out of her.”

“She’s not the kind of a woman you could sweat anything out of. You know,” said Masuto, “there was something damned strange about that voice on the phone.”

“What?”

“Adverbs.”

“You just lost me.”

“Adverbs. They’re part of what makes English an impossible language. An uneducated man faults his adverbs. So do foreigners. The man on the phone said, ‘you will listen to me very carefully.’ Why didn’t he say, listen careful? Then he used the word unavailable. That’s a fancy word. He could have said, get lost. Stay away. Forget it. Drop it. But he said unavailable. Then the adverb again. Leave it completely alone or something like that. But he said completely.”

“What does it add up to?”

“It was a young voice, high pitched. I’ll tell you what it adds up to. It adds up to a student.”

“And there’s got to be maybe ten thousand foreign students just in L.A. alone.”

“It’s a game!” Masuto blurted out. “It’s a crazy, sick, monstrous game. The games children play-the bloody, stupid games! Sy, there’s only one way to go. We have to find the drowned man’s clothes.”

“Why? For Christ’s sake, why?”

“For the same reason that they were hidden. Because they make a connection, and right now we have no connection. None. I could make guesses. I could put the whole thing together-or at least I think I could-but now they’ve pulled Ana into their insane game, and I want my child. I want her alive.”

“All right, Masao. It’s a quarter to eleven. We have eight hours.”

“No. We have five hours.”

“Why only five?”

“Four, five, six-somewhere in there, believe me.”

“All right, five hours. We got the second largest metropolitan district in the United States. Where do we look?”

“In the hotel. Those clothes never left the Beverly Glen Hotel.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m not sure of anything, but that’s where we look.”

“And right now Mr. Arvin Clinton, the pride of the F.B.I., is sitting in his office downtown waiting for you to show up and kiss his ass.”

“We’ll just let him wait.”

Masuto went into the bedroom, where Kati lay huddled on the bed. He sat down beside her and touched her cheek gently.

“Kati.”

“Masao, if anything should happen to her-”

“Nothing will happen to her.”

“Or to you. Then I would surely die.”

“Nothing will happen to me. I will find Ana and bring her home. I promised that. I want you to stay here. I still have a son, and he will look for his mother when he comes back from school. He is not to know anything about this. No one is. Even if Captain Wainwright calls, you must tell him nothing, except that you do not know where I am. And you must say that to whoever calls.”

“Then you will do what they ask?”

“I will do what has to be done.” He bent over and kissed her. “Lock the doors. Remain in the house. If the man who took Ana calls again, you must tell him that I am carrying out his wishes.”

“And Uraga?” she asked. “What can I tell my son? He will see my face.”

“Then you must compose your face. Ura is nine years old. He is old enough to behave like a man and accept the fact that his mother is not always smiling and laughing.”

“He will ask about Ana.”

“I took her to the doctor. Tell him that, and also tell him that he must remain in the house.”

“How do I know he’s all right?”

“He’s all right. If you wish, call the school, but don’t let them know that anything is wrong. I’m sure he’s all right. I’ll call you later. From here on, Kati dear, every minute is precious to me. Let me depend on you.”

She sat up and nodded, her face tear-stained. “Yes, I will do as you say.”