A Bullet Apiece (16 page)

This was the scene: the bar was empty and dimly lit, save for the colored lights above the bar mirror. Officer Downing whirled around to face me. There didn't seem to be anyone else around, but I wasn't able to take an inventory as Downing pointed his gun at me and cocked it.

“Downing, it's Ed Darvis. Don't shoot. Don't shoot!” I spoke in a hissing whisper that gained an octave. He kept the gun on me, and his expression didn't change. Then oddly, he brought a finger up to his lips and jerked his head towards the red curtain that separated the bar from the kitchen. I stayed glued to my spot and listened. Then I heard a female voice, muffled, so I couldn't understand what was being said. It might have been Kira, but her voice sounded high and sing-songy. After a moment, I realized it was her, and that she was speaking Japanese.

Downing seemed to notice my gun for the first time. His eyes widened behind his glasses, then narrowed. I pointed the gun at the floor and raised my left hand in a gesture of no-harm. He raised two fingers in a victory sign, then pointed with the same hand at the red curtains. I understood him to mean two people and I nodded. I crept closer to him. He kept his gun on me and watched.

I got close enough to him to whisper. He was tense and sweating. “Officer, what's going on?”

He held the gun steady, almost touching it to my gut.

“Kira Harto is back there. With her brother.”

He spoke so quietly I wasn't sure I heard him right. Brother? What brother? In all the years I'd know Jimmy and Kira, I never heard anything about a brother.

 
“Look,” I whispered, as though ignoring what he had said. “I was just by Tim Hamill's place. Yeah, the cabbie.” I waited to see how he would react. His expression betrayed nothing.

“He's dead. Strangled.”

He only nodded and looked at me as though I had read him yesterday's headline.

“You do it?” I asked. There's no way to be nonchalant with that question.

“No,” he whispered. He was trembling slightly. Another voice in the kitchen distracted us. It was a man's voice, also speaking in Japanese. Kira interrupted him, but the man I assumed was her brother shouted over her. Then we heard a smack. The brother must have slapped his sister. Or knowing Kira, the other way around. Then silence.

I raised my eyebrows at Downing. He turned from me and tiptoed to the hinged part of the bar top. I came to his side as he raised it. When it was up, he held up three fingers. He folded his ring finger down, and I nodded in understanding. Next came his middle finger. As he folded his pointer I grasped the curtain and yanked it aside. Downing pushed through the entrance and yelled, “Police! Hands up! Don't move! Do not move!”

I jumped in alongside him and also yelled, “Don't move!” I felt a little foolish, even in the midst of the adrenaline wash. Downing was in charge.

Kira Harto, dressed to the nines under an immaculate apron, her mouth agape, stood there in shock. Her brother cowered in front of her, clutching his jaw.

“Hands up!” Officer Downing commanded. “Now!” Seeing our revolvers, both complied. I backed up into the doorway. The curtains pestered me and I yanked them down, not taking my eyes off the two.

“Hands on top of your heads. Do it! Now, come this way. Slowly. I said
Slow
!”

Downing backed up beside me. I, too, backed up into the main room and pulled out two chairs. Downing stayed behind the bar while Kira and her brother walked toward me. Downing waved his gun toward the chairs. “Now, sit!” They did, their hands still on top of their heads. “Sit on your hands. All the way under! Under!” Kira looked up at me. I expected to see hatred. Her eyes were blank, like someone staring off into space. Her brother whimpered and said something in Japanese.

Keeping my gun pointed in Kira's direction, I told Downing I was going to lock the door. I didn't know where Jimmy or Simple Simon were, or, for that matter, where anyone else who was involved in this might be. Last thing I needed was someone like my Uncle Charles to come wobbling through the door.

I came back to Downing's side. Kira was composed. Which suggested she wasn't going to say much. She was smart enough not to implicate herself in anything. Her brother, on the other hand, I wasn't so sure. He continued to whimper, and maybe not just because of the slap. He looked like a child who had just broken the cookie jar and then stepped on a shard just as his Mommy walked in. Fat tears laid on his cheeks. He mumbled something in Japanese, drawing a harsh look from Kira, along with a rebuke. Downing focused his attention on Kira.

“Now, Miss Harto. Start from the beginning. And I better hear the truth.”

Kira looked from me to Officer Downing and then shrugged. With her hands tucked under her thighs, she looked like a schoolgirl. Not an innocent one, but one who knows which boy stole from the teacher, and how she would blackmail him.

“The whole truth?” she sneered.

“You know what I mean,” Downing snapped. I didn't. So I was anxious to hear what she had to say.

I cut in and pointed my gun at the whimpering man. “Just to be sure, Kira, who's he?” Downing looked at me like I was an idiot.

“He's my brother. Ichiro. Say hello to the nice detective, Ichiro.” Ichiro didn't respond. He kept sulking, his head down. She yelled something in Japanese, and then he looked at me with bleary eyes. “Heh-roh,” he managed. Kira smiled at me. “Trouble with his
r
's.”

A switch went off in my head and sent a cool message down my spine.
Trouble with his
r
's
. Why was that familiar? Had someone mentioned that to me recently? My mind fluttered and failed me.

“Enough of that.” Downing broke in. “Spill it.”

“All right,
Officer
. My brother is here from California. He's been in Missouri for six months. It didn't take him long to get a nice job. With Yellow Cab.” She looked at me again and smiled—the smile of an executioner. “He got to know Tim Hamill very well. Tim trained him, and he wasn't too much of a bastard to a, a slant-eye, right? You see, we—Tim and my brother—and I—all had something in common. George Reynolds.”

I didn't understand why she was so quick to tip that much. Then, I glanced over at Officer Downing. He'd turned pale.

Kira continued. “In contrast to my brother, who, as you can see, is a rather meek young man. George Reynolds was a brute. And not just in the boxing ring. Did you know that he served in World War II, Officer Downing? You must have been a little boy then. But he didn't go overseas. He was stationed in California, policing an internment camp. You know what those were, don't you? Where they kept all those pesky little Japs who
might
support the enemy? I doubt your comic books told you as much.”

Downing's face reddened. “Make it good, Kira,” he said lamely. His non sequitur only seemed to empower her further.

She continued to smile, although it was more a smirk. “Oh, it's good, Officer Downing. You see, George Reynolds, the bastard, took a shine to my mother. She was in the camp. Ichiro was just seven years old then—old enough to know things were bad. Only he didn't know how bad. Until he began to hear things at night. Our
okasan
. Crying. A man's voice—a loud, obnoxious American voice—yelling and cursing at my mother when she didn't do what he wanted. And he heard him slap her. Beat her.” Kira had stopped smiling.

I didn't know how much English Ichiro understood, but he had stopped whimpering and stared at the floor, as if in a trance.

“Reynolds had her—took my mother—for close to a year. Almost every night, except those nights when another woman was his prey. And on those nights, Ichiro and our
okasan
held each other. And waited, in the dark. Afraid. Always afraid. Would he come tonight anyway? Would she be given a night of reprieve? But they were not alone. There was a girl there, Ichiro's sister. She was older than him by eight years. She, too, heard the slaps, the cries of pain. Fear. She was old enough to know what was happening and she shielded her brother from that knowledge. That their mother was abused, raped. But it was hard to keep up.”

Downing and I kept our guns rigid in front of us. I felt like a hostile audience slowly thrust into doubt at some avant-garde play. And I was in awe that Kira spoke of herself as if she weren't there. That the girl in the camp was someone else.

Kira continued. “Eventually, George Reynolds was replaced by another soldier. This one had returned from a tour of duty in the Pacific. He was so bent on destroying the Japanese, no matter they were Americans, that he did a turn at the internment camp. But he was different. He didn't have eyes for our mother. The daughter, she was fifteen and beautiful. She learned and spoke English very well when studying in Hong Kong, at a British-run academy, where she lived until she was eight.”

“Why Hong Kong?” I croaked. My throat was dry. I realized I hadn't swallowed since Kira began her tale.

“Mr. Darvis, my father was an esteemed researcher, and his work took him internationally. Just because I'm Japanese doesn't mean I'm strictly from Japan. But do you really care?” She examined me, her mouth a flat line. I could stamp Ugly American on my forehead later.

“I apologize,” I said, finding my voice. “Please, continue.”

“This other man, he came at night and took the daughter instead. But he was gentle. No slaps. No harsh words. And because the mother was spared the violence, and the brother was no longer scared, the daughter let the soldier think that he had seduced her. That she might love him. When the war ended and we Japanese-
Americans
were set free, with no money, no jobs, no homes, he offered to provide a home for the daughter's family in California. But under one condition. That the daughter be his bride and return with him to a city she had never heard of before—St. Louis.

“The offer was too good to refuse. The offer could
not
be refused. And at their separation, the daughter promised her mother's son that she would send for him. When he was older. When he was a man.” She paused a moment. “And revenge could be served.”

Kira had resumed all the loveliness and poise of this morning. When I asked, “So, how does Tim Hamill fit into this?” it sounded inane.

“Like I told you, he trained Ichiro to drive a cab. And he also knew George Reynolds. The Beef fought Hamill's father in the late forties. He'd knocked him out while they fought in the ring. Gave him a concussion. The concussion led to a coma days later. Hamill's father became a vegetable. What more do you need to know, Detective?”

I looked at her and then at Officer Downing. His gun had moved from Kira and her brother to me.

“What's this? We're on the same side here.”

“Drop your gun.” His face was again pale, and he was sweating profusely. I crouched down slowly with the gun extended out from my body. “Drop it!” he yelled. I let go of it inches from the floor and stood back up. “Now, sit down. Sit! Sit!” He was borderline hysterical. I pulled out a chair and sat down next to Ichiro, who continued to stare at the floor. It was as if he hadn't registered anything that had been said.

Kira spoke again. “Won't you let me finish my story, Officer Downing?”

I studied her face. The composure. The secret knowledge. Despite the danger of Downing's gun, I felt moved by her story and her beauty, as though the two together might save this recondite and damned world.

“You've said enough,” Downing muttered.

“I haven't heard nearly enough,” I volunteered.

“You shut up!” Downing ordered.

 
“Why not let him hear it? Since you're the only one pointing the gun here now, what will it hurt if I continue?”

Downing looked as though he didn't know what to do. He looked outside the window, then returned his attention to each of us. I thought about the call I had made to the police station. Now would be a good time for the cops to show up. Kira took Downing's silence as the advantage to keep talking.

“You see, Detective, many people had reason to want George Reynolds dead. Even Officer Downing here.”

“You shut up!” Downing shouted. He brought back a hand to strike Kira. She looked up at Downing and held still. She didn't even flinch.

Downing slowly lowered his hand, and when he did she yelled, “No, I won't! You're just as guilty as my brother! As guilty as Simple Simon! As guilty—” She never got to finish. Downing struck Kira with the butt of his gun. She recoiled from the blow and closed her eyes. Ichiro's spell was broken. He began weeping again.

Now, Downing's chest heaved, and he issued a ragged breath. My gun lay on the floor a foot away from me. If only I were just a little closer. Downing must have sensed my thoughts. He pointed his gun at me and came forward, and then kicked my .38 to the other side of the room. He stepped back to the open space where the hinged bar top still stood open. That's when I heard a noise from the kitchen. Downing didn't seem to notice.

“Now what?” I asked plainly, trying to distract him.

“Just be quiet!” Downing barked.