Gasa-Gasa Girl (17 page)

M
as walked across the street, trying remember the sumo wrestler’s full name. Larry something. Larry Perry. Larry Ball. What the hell was it? Something with the letter P. Pauley, like UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion basketball arena.

He entered the building’s lobby, which reminded him of a deluxe funeral home’s mausoleum. Everything was dead quiet and empty, other than a coffin-shaped desk in the middle. On one side of the granite wall was a list of departments and floors. Mas took out his reading glasses and looked at the directory in the lobby for a good ten minutes. Finally the receptionist, wearing a blue blazer and a floppy striped bow tied underneath the collar of a crisp white shirt, left her coffin desk and came to Mas’s assistance. She told him that Larry Pauley was vice president of public relations on the eleventh floor. What was public relations, anyway? Well, Mas was part of the public, so perhaps Larry would make time for him.

Mas took an elevator to the eleventh floor, where another receptionist sat. Too many women sitting in comfortable chairs doing nothing, thought Mas. “Mr. Larry Pauley,” he said.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

Mas shook his head. “But very important.”

The receptionist took down Mas’s name (she asked for the spelling three times) and then relayed it to someone over the phone. Like a secret password, Mas’s name opened a door. The receptionist told him to go through it to a hall to the left.

The whole office looked like a maze for rats, cubicles in the middle stuffed with people, papers, and computers. Mas knew that those in the center were the actual workers, while the ones in the outer offices were the queen bees. That’s the way it was for insects and employees, Mas figured.

Larry Pauley had a corner office that overlooked Central Park. From eleven floors above, the trees looked like dried-out shrubs ripe for a bonfire.

“Mr. Arai, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Larry spoke easily, words dripping out like oil from a leaky engine. How was it that this big shot in New York City was talking to Mas like he was an old friend?

Larry wasn’t wearing a jacket, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his beefy biceps. Mas noticed the edge of a tattoo on his left arm. It was one thing for Lloyd, a miserable gardener, to have a wedding ring tattoo, but quite another for a vice president of a company with two sets of receptionists to be marked on his arm muscle. Mas could smell blue-collar, and that’s where this Larry Pauley came from.

To see that Larry himself might not be as high-tone as his corner office gave Mas added strength. “Came about Takeo,” Mas explained.

“Your grandson.”

Mas nodded. “Izu afraid of all dis board thing. Don’t want my grandson to be mixed up with dis mess.”

Larry’s eyes gleamed like charcoal briquets ready for a steak barbecue.

“Is that so, Mr. Arai?”

Before Mas could respond, a thin man knocked on his half-open door. “Mr. Pauley—” he said, and then noticed Mas. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a guest.” He handed Larry a Styrofoam box—lunch?—and then at least a half dozen shiny gold strips of paper. Even though Mas hadn’t seen them before in New York City, his gambling instincts kicked in. Lottery tickets.

Mas never played the lottery in California. The odds were too big. Sure, some fools told him, you’ll never win if you don’t try. But these guys tried every week and had nothing to show for it. Mas thought the poker tables were a safer bet, where you relied more on your wits to get ahead.

Larry quickly took the lottery tickets and slipped them into his top desk drawer as the male clerk left. It didn’t look good for a big shot vice president to play a fool’s game. “Please have a seat,” Larry said, extending his huge palm toward a black leather chair held together by metal bars. Larry sat behind his mahogany desk, his Styrofoam box on the desk’s top right side like a postage stamp on a letter.

Mas instead circled the office once around. He stopped at a framed oil painting of galloping horses and glanced at a collection of commemorative beer steins with various logos of racetracks from around the nation.

“Like horses?” Mas asked.

“Just a little hobby.”

Mas pointed at a beer stein decorated with purple San Gabriel Mountains, horses, the smiling face of Laffit Pincay, Jr., and the words Santa Anita Racetrack. “Have dis one at home,” he said. Mas was partial to Pincay; he had made at least five thousand dollars by betting on the jockey throughout the years.

“You’re a track man, too, Mr. Arai?” Larry’s voice went up an octave higher.

Mas nodded.

“Here, let me show this to you,” Larry called Mas over to his desk. Mas edged behind Larry’s chair and almost choked on his strong cologne. A man would only soak himself in fake scent to mask his natural bad skunk smell, Mas figured. With a clear view of Larry’s wide forehead, Mas noticed a funny scar just below his receding hairline. A result of a childhood accident or a more recent incident? Mas didn’t want to ask.

Larry took out a file from his top drawer and opened it to the centerfold. A beautiful black racehorse, its coat and muscles taut and shimmering in the sun. It had a necklace of roses tossed over its neck and a jockey at its side.

“Good-lookin’ horse,” Mas managed.

“I’m buying her next week. Her name’s Last Chance.”

Last Chance. Not much of a name, thought Mas. But maybe it had some special meaning for Larry. Mas knew that some gamblers just went for the names of horses, whichever one gave them a tingle of hope and possibility.

Larry closed the folder and Mas finally sat down in the leather chair, safely escaping Larry’s scent. “Anyway, you were talking about your grandson?” Larry said.

Mas swallowed and prepared to cast his line. In lake fishing, you waited to see ripples on the surface of the water. Mas thought he saw some movement in Larry’s mind, and lowered the bait. “Yah, Waxley Garden. Don’t think Takeo should be involve—too danger, you knowsu, with Mr. Ouchi’s death and all.”

“I understand, Mr. Arai. I completely understand.”

“So I’m tellin’ Lloyd and Mari, get Takeo outta there.”

“I think it would be for the best.” Larry smiled wide for the first time for Mas. His smile was a dazzling white, as if he had used a bottle of Clorox to bleach his teeth. The cologne, the white teeth, what was real about Larry Pauley? Mas thought that it might lie in that hint of a tattoo.

Larry went on to say that he would be more than happy to assist Mas in any way, because it was Takeo’s welfare they were thinking about, yes? Mas nodded like a Tommy Lasorda bobble-head doll, a big grin pasted on his face. He was glad there were no mirrors in Larry’s office, or else he would be making himself sick at this point. Larry didn’t want Takeo and probably Lloyd to have anything to do with the garden. The question was, why? Larry finally said that he had another appointment to go to, so Mas rose from the chair.

“Youzu goin’ ova to memorial service?” Mas asked.

“Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it,” said Larry without a tinge of regret.

Before Mas left the office, he turned to Larry. “Mr. Ouchi not a track man,” Mas stated more than questioned.

“Kazzy? Are you kidding me? His Highness would never rub elbows with commoners.”

M
as went back to the sidewalk, only to find the Cadillac gone. Tug was not around, either. A few minutes later, Tug appeared. “You didn’t tell me that Mr. Ouchi’s memorial service is today, Mas.”

“Yah, I forget.”

“So Phillip was in a rush to leave. He was pretty upset to hear that I was a friend of yours. I told him that I meant no harm, that I was sorry about his father’s death. He didn’t look too good.”

Tug explained that Ouchi Silk was on the fifth floor of the metallic building. “I think they are downsizing, because half of the offices were vacant. They must be having economic troubles.” Mas remembered how Tug’s son, Joe, was going through the same thing at his job back in California. This downsizing was an epidemic.

“
Warukatta.
Sorry I putcha in a bad position.”

“No problem, Mas. That’s just part of the job.”

What job? Mas wondered. Since retiring, Tug had devoted himself to fixing broken objects in his house and Mas’s. It was obvious that he was now trying to fix broken people.

Even on the train ride back to Brooklyn Heights, Tug wasn’t acting himself. A man entered the train car holding a carton of chocolates. Mas didn’t give it a second thought. Everyone was selling something in New York, and subway passengers were a captive audience. Even the homeless stood up in the train car, sharing their woes and tribulations so eloquently that Mas was almost moved to place a buck in their empty hats. Almost moved, but not quite.

Now the chocolate seller was making his spiel. “My church is hoping to get your support. We are a small church, no building to speak of, but we have the spirit inside of us,” he said, pacing the length of the car and holding up 100 Grand and Nestlé Crunch bars.

The man was selling a load of garbage, but Mas was surprised to see Tug taking two dollars out of his wallet and giving it to the man for two 100 Grand bars. Tug handed a candy bar to Mas.

“Could be poison, Tug,” Mas warned.

“Let’s live dangerously,” Tug said, tearing off the wrapper.

“
Orai,
” said Mas. He sensed that Tug, away from Lil for the first time in a long while, was transforming into a rebellious teenager. There was a Japanese term,
heso magari
, that mothers called such children.
Heso
meant belly button;
magari
, crooked. In New York City, Tug’s belly button was moving away from the middle.

“Go for broke,” Tug said before taking a large bite.

T
he 100 Grand bars didn’t kill them, but gave Mas a mean stomachache. It was from not eating all day, Mas figured. And at least the stomachache somehow lessened the pain in his hand and lower back. Tug had purchased a fancy Brooklyn Heights map and had highlighted their path to the last flower shop, one with a fancy French name.

“This place reminds me of Paris,” Tug said as they neared the corner storefront. Sometimes Mas took Tug for granted and thought of him as a simple man whose most worldly adventures went as far as discovering cockroach infestation in an all-you-can-eat buffet. But Tug had actually been to exotic places like Rome and Paris, Mas had to remind himself.

The shop was painted a golden yellow, with upside-down bouquets of dried flowers hanging from the ceiling like whisk brooms. On the floor sat cement angels and rabbits in between baskets of ribbon and vases of pink and lavender tulips. A fresh-faced girl stood behind the counter, her blond hair tied back in a high ponytail.

Tug licked his lips. “Let me take the lead on this,” he said. Mas clutched his belly, happy to oblige.

“Hello, can I help you?” Even though it was past lunchtime, the girl was enthusiastic. Must be new at this, thought Mas.

“Ah, actually, I was referred to you by Happy Ikeda, you know, of Happy’s Floral Design in Midtown?” Tug said.

The girl looked blankly at Tug. Mas guessed that Happy’s name didn’t have much weight in the fifty-and-under crowd.

“Anyway, I know that you order Mystery Gardenias from California. San Juan Capistrano, in fact.”

“Oh, yeah.” The girl became more animated. “They are so beautiful. Gigantic ones.”

“Yes, well, I know that this is a strange request. But do you have records on who bought any of those gardenias on Wednesday, Thursday?”

“Why?”

“Well, you see”—Mas cowered to see what Tug was going to come up with next—“we’re investigating a murder.”

“Murder?” The girl looked him up and down. She seemed to take note of Tug’s well-kept beard, his button-down shirt, the casual yet expensive designer jacket his kids had most likely purchased him for Christmas. Good thing she couldn’t see Tug’s bargain tennis shoes. Then her eyes moved to Mas.

Tug quickly displayed something from his wallet. “I’m an investigator,” he said, and then pointed at Mas. “This is Inspector Arai. From Japan. He doesn’t speak much English.”

Mas was ready to protest, but then thought better of it. Tug was pretty sly when he wanted to be. This way Mas didn’t have to open his mouth and make fools out of both of them.