House of the Red Fish (20 page)

“Haw!” I said, hopping around like a fool.

I helped Billy and Jake drag the first of the two canvas bulks off the trailer.

“Hey, busta, good, nah?” Billy said, just like Grampa Joji. “This Saturday we go to work.”

“ Those things are
heavy,
“ I said.

Jake snickered. “Especially if you have to carry them. You might need about twelve guys.”

“Twelve?”

“Maybe more, if they’re scrawny like you.”

Mr. Davis leaned against the side of the trailer and shook his head. “I have to give you boys credit for dreaming this whole thing up. After all you’ve been through up to this point, I hope it works.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Sure you’re up for this job?”

“I’m not sure of anything.”

Mr. Davis chuckled and tapped my shoulder. “Somehow I think you just might pull this off, son.”

“Hey,” Billy said. “I got something else to show you.”

I followed Billy around the trailer. He stopped and opened his hands toward the garage where the black Ford was, the one Jake had been fixing up. Only it wasn’t the Ford in there. It was Sanji’s truck.

“Ho,” I said. “How’d you get it here?”

“Jake and Dad went down and towed it up yesterday afternoon.”

“How’d they get air in the tires?”

“The fish place, the warehouse shed. Remember the guy said he had an air pump?”

“What about the battery?”

“Jake’s recharging it now.”

“About time something went right.”

“What do you mean?” Billy said. “Everything is going right … it’s just not easy.”

“You want easy?” Jake said, appearing behind us. “I got just the thing, something for you two dimwits to do while Dad and I return the trailer.”

He put one hand on my shoulder and one on Billy’s. “I’ll roll it out and you can wash it.”

“Five hundred pounds,” Billy said, a day later. “That’s what each of these pontoons weighs.”

I was standing around with Billy in his driveway, the pontoons exactly where we’d left them the day before. In the garage, Sanji’s truck was as clean as I’d ever seen it, because Sanji had never washed it once. Jake was sitting in the driver’s seat, running his hand over the steering wheel. “He’s falling for it,” Billy said. “If he had the money he’d buy it himself.”

“When’s that guy coming to look at it?” I asked.

“Tonight.”

I turned toward the rubberized canvas pontoon cases. “Five hundred pounds,” I mumbled.

“You should have seen us trying to get these into the trailer over in Kaneohe.”

I whistled. “Must have been fun. How are we going to get them down to the canal?”

“We’ll figure something out. Jake drives, and he said he’d help us.”

“Really? Jake said that?”

“He can be decent every now and then.”

“Crazy world, huh?”

Billy snickered.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s see what we got—we got you, me, Jake, Rico, Mose, and Ben and Calvin, if we can get them.”

“They’ll come.”

“Good … and maybe we can get some of those Kaka’ako baseball giants.”

“Them too. We’re in good shape, I think.”

“If the Wilson creep stays away,” I said.

Billy looked at his feet. “That’s a tall order.”

“Hey, did you know Mr. Wilson had a cousin who was killed at Pearl Harbor?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Charlie. Your dad knows.”

“He does?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

I shrugged. “Maybe Mr. Wilson said to keep it to himself.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

On the way back to my house Little Bruiser popped out of the bushes and blocked the path, staring at me. I stopped. Was he still on his rope? I hoped so. I picked my way around him through the trees and weeds. When I popped out in my
yard, there he was again. He trotted toward me. I would have sprinted to the house except for one thing—he was trotting, not charging. I stood my ground.

Little Bruiser came up and stood less than two feet away.

Then started nubbing the weeds.

“Well, well,” I said.

***

I went over to Billy’s house later that evening. Me, Billy, and Jake sat out on the grass in the fading light, waiting for the guy who wanted to see Sanji’s truck.

“Me and that goat got a new understanding,” I said.

“Yeah?” Billy said.

“He’s stopped charging me.”

“How come?”

“I think he likes me now.”

Jake humphed. “Maybe he’s been in your yard so long you’re starting to look like another goat.”

Billy and I both laughed.

“Tomi,” Jake said, more seriously. “About your dad’s boat … you be careful, okay?”

“Yeah, sure … but why?”

Jake frowned. “Just watch out, is all I’m saying. A lot of guys at school are pretty worked up about … about … listen, this isn’t everyone, for sure, but some guys still have this anti-Japanese thing going on that’s kind of spooky. I mean, like Wilson? They aren’t very understanding about … you know … anything Japanese, including boats.”

Jake turned to look at me.

I studied him a moment. “You mean like the BMTC guys?”

“Exactly. Mr. Wilson’s one of them, you know.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“Little Wilson thinks he’s one too,” Jake said.

“He does?”

“Sure he does. Whatever big Wilson wants, that’s what little Wilson wants, and that, my friend, is a formula for trouble.”

What was he saying? Did he know something he wasn’t telling me? No, he’d tell me if he did. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“You too, little brother. They got you pegged as a—”

“Traitor?” Billy said.

Jake nodded.

Billy frowned. “Fools,” he mumbled.

We sat for a while in silence. It troubled me to know that all this bad stuff went beyond just Keet Wilson to other guys in his school. I scowled at the grass, my arms crossed over my knees.

Forget it, I thought. Think about something else.

“So, Jake,” I said. “What did the ad say? How much you ask for?”

“Well, first I said, 1933 Ford truck, good condition, one known owner—”

“One
known
owner?” I said.

“You know of anyone else who owned it before Sanji?”

“No, but he didn’t buy it new,” I said. “He didn’t have that kind of money.”

“Still, we only know
he
owned it, so that wasn’t a lie.”

Billy grinned and pulled up a hank of grass.

“You hear something?” Jake said, perking up.

A car drove up the driveway, its blue-painted headlights on. Parked. A guy got out. He nodded to us. He was about Mr. Davis’s age, thin with cheeks that sagged a little, and kind of startled-looking.

“Evening,” he said. “I came to look at the truck. I spoke to a Jake Davis about it.”

Jake pushed himself up and brushed the back of his pants off. “I’m Jake,” he said. “The truck’s in the garage.”

We went over in a clump. The guy was dressed nicely, like he had plenty of money to buy Sanji’s truck.

“Billy,” Jake said, when we were in the garage. “Pull down the blackout tarp.”

Billy did, and Jake flipped on the garage light. “This is it,” Jake said, running his hand over the newly washed fender.

“Hmmm,” the guy mumbled, walking around it, gazing at it first, then touching the paint, the seats. “How’s it run?”

“Good,” Jake said.

“Start her up, let me hear it.”

Jake flipped off the light and nodded to Billy, and Billy rolled the tarp back up. Jake jumped into the truck. It started instantly. That Jake was a car genius, I thought. He backed it out of the garage and let it idle, headlights newly painted blue.

“Can I drive it?” the guy said.

Jake jumped out.

The guy drove it out to the street, the sound of the engine fading away until there was only silence.

“I hope he comes back,” I said.

“If he doesn’t we have his car.”

“Oh, yeah. Good.”

Fifteen minutes later the guy drove back up. He parked and shut down the engine. “Works great,” he said. “What’d you say you wanted for it?”

“One hundred fifty,” Jake said, cool as a businessman.

The guy nodded. “I’ll give you seventy-five.”

Jake stared at the guy, said nothing. Man, was he cool.

“All right, eighty-five.”

“It’s worth more than that, mister.”

“You got papers for it? A title?”

Jake shook his head. “Nothing.”

“That’s a problem. Somebody might think I stole it.”

Jake shrugged. “That’s why we priced it so cheap.”

The guy snickered. “Well, where’d you get it? You steal it?”

Jake gave him a steel-eyed gaze, and the guy backed off. “Okay, that was a joke. Whose truck is this, yours?”

“It belonged to a Japanese fisherman.”

“What do you mean belonged? He doesn’t own it anymore?”

“He died. We’re selling it for his wife.”

The guy thought a moment, nodding, his eyes on the truck. He ran a hand over the fender. “Tell you what. If this is just some dead Jap’s truck, you sell it to me for ninety dollars, keep twenty for yourself and tell the wife you could only get seventy for it, how’s that sound?”

Jake continued to stare the guy down, only the guy didn’t seem to be aware of it. Or he didn’t care if Jake was giving him some bad stink-eye.

“Now I’ll tell
you
what,” Jake finally said. “I’ll sell it to you for three hundred dollars and tell the dead Jap’s wife I could only get three hundred for it, how’s that sound?”

The guy’s eyes narrowed down into a squint. He stepped closer to Jake, but Jake didn’t budge. “You got a smart mouth, kid, you know that?”

“ Time to leave, mister. The truck’s not for sale.”

“How about I talk to your father before I go?”

“No need to do that,” Mr. Davis said.

We all turned. Mr. Davis was standing in the darkened garage with his arms crossed. “My son’s right, the truck’s not for sale.”

The guy crushed three shrubs and left a muddy track on the grass as he fishtailed down to the street.

When Billy asked Jake if he could borrow back that trailer to take the pontoons down to the harbor, Jake slapped the side of his head. “What are you, stupid? What do you think we got sitting in the garage? A bicycle?”

I laughed.

“I didn’t think we could use the truck,” Billy said, rubbing his head.

“Why?” Jake said.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, now you know, so let’s load up.”

It was early afternoon after a half day of school on the Thursday after Jake had told the creepy buyer to take a hike. Summer vacation was just a week away. Teachers were getting ready for final exams. We had all the way until Monday to study—or bring that boat up.

Dragging those five-hundred-pound monsters into the bed of Sanji’s truck was going to be a killer. But at least we had a way to get the pontoons down to the canal.

“Okay,” Jake said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Jake pulled, Billy pushed, and I shoved those things up a wood-plank ramp into the bed of Sanji’s truck, grunting and complaining all the way. Jake wasn’t kidding when he said we’d need twelve guys to carry them. Made me cringe to think of that huge dirt field we had to cross, unless we could find a way to get the truck through the trees and bushes and drive them out to the canal. If we couldn’t, we’d probably have to hide the pontoons until we could get more guys. One thing was sure, if we did hide them and somebody found them and wanted to steal them, they wouldn’t get one inch before they stopped and said, “Forget this.”

Actually, that would be funny to see.

Mr. Davis came out from the dark garage into the sun. “Seeing you boys working so hard does my heart good,” he said, enjoying the show.

Billy stood with both pontoon cases at his feet in the truck bed. Jake jumped out and closed the gate. “It was nothing, old man. Piece of cake.”

Mr. Davis chuckled. “Take care, all right? Drive slowly. That truck might shimmy some if you get going too fast.”

“Got it,” Jake said.

We headed out, slowly, all three of us crammed into the front seat.

“Your dad’s a good guy,” I said.

“So’s yours,” Billy said.

“True. I guess we’re lucky.”