Gasa-Gasa Girl (22 page)

Inu.
Dog. Cheat. How could he sell out Mari like that? Mas felt his whole world turn. Had he misjudged Lloyd that badly? He had given that bullet to Lloyd because the son-in-law was the main man in his daughter’s life. It was his responsibility to keep his family safe.

He wasn’t supposed to give it to the authorities. Perhaps Lloyd was tired of Mari, had a woman on the side. Did he want Takeo to himself? If that was his plan, it wouldn’t happen without a fight from Mas.

“Look, guys, we have to focus here.” Jeannie spread her fingers on the surface of the table. “Apparently an anonymous source has been feeding Ghigo information. First someone called about Lloyd having an argument with Mr. Ouchi, and then made mention that Mari had filed a complaint with her independent filmmakers’ union that Kazzy had been sexually harassing her.”

“Who told Ghigo that?”

“That’s the thing,” Jeannie explained to Lloyd, “it’s a-non-y-mous. Ghigo doesn’t even know. They used a voice-altering device, so we don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman.”

Mas was surprised that Jeannie had so much inside information. So was the son-in-law. “Ghigo told you that himself?”

Two pink marks like those atop baked rice cakes appeared underneath Jeannie’s eyes. “Yes,” she said, and then attempted to change the subject. “Is there anyone who would be out to get you or Mari?”

“Who are we? Nobodies. We have nothing,” said Lloyd.

Mas grunted in support.

Lloyd raised his head. “Why would anyone think that we would be any kind of threat?”

Mas pushed his tongue against a space in between the roof of his mouth and his dentures. “Phillip, the son, he no good.” Didn’t want the garden in the first place, wasn’t that what he had said?

“Yup, Ghigo’s looking into that.” Again, the girl lawyer seemed one step ahead. “These charges against Mari won’t stand up. No judge wants to waste the taxpayers’ money going through with this. This won’t go past a preliminary hearing.” Jeannie shot words like machine-gun fire throughout the room. “They just need someone to hang the crime on, since it’s gotten so much media attention.”

“Media? You meansu
Post
?”

“The
Post
started it, but now it’s beginning to get some national news coverage. You have to admit that it has a sexy angle: business tycoon killed in a Japanese garden in New York.”

Mas saw nothing sexy in that, especially since he was the one who had seen the dead body.

“They are playing it as a hate crime, and that’s the last thing the NYPD or the tourist industry wants. They need to arrest someone, quick and fast. With Mari’s connection to the gun, she’s a logical suspect.”

Mas was getting angrier by the minute. So Mari was a convenient scapegoat, is that what the attorney was saying?

Jeannie picked up a pen and began scribbling on papers in a manila folder. “Oh, yeah, there’s also the matter of the bail.”

“Will they give her bail?” Lloyd asked.

“Well, I figure that with her clean record, good reputation, and, of course, being the mother of a sick baby, the judge will be lenient.”

“How much?”

“I think that we have to be prepared for fifty thousand dollars.”

Mas gulped.

“You’d need something worth at least fifty thousand for collateral. And then ten percent of that in cash. Could you come up with that?” Jeannie pushed back her headband, and Mas noticed that her hairline was shaped like a vampire’s. An American ghoul who sucked blood.

“Look around, Jeannie. Does it look like we have that kind of money?”

“How about relatives? Friends?”

Mas shifted in his seat. “Izu put my house up.” To hear himself say it even shocked Mas, not to mention probably Lloyd.

“No, no, Mr. Arai. We can’t have you do that. There’s got to be a better way.”

“Anybody else?” asked Jeannie.

“My parents,” said Lloyd. “I can ask my parents.”

Why not? thought Mas. Go to the husband’s side.

“Good. We’ll get Mari out of there right after the arraignment.”

After Jeannie left, Mas felt his belly get cold and hard. The last thing he wanted was to be alone with Lloyd, the traitor.

“Mr. Arai, this will just blow over, I know it,” said Lloyd, oblivious to Mas’s aloofness.

That night Takeo cried continuously. In Lloyd’s gangly arms, Takeo looked as compact as a football. Lying on the couch, father rested son on his shoulder, then his chest, and finally his belly. Mas couldn’t take the noise anymore and reached for the baby.

Takeo’s face was as red as the ripest tomato. He had little bumps on his body—Mari said that he had problems with dry, itchy skin. He slept with mittens on his hands so that he didn’t scratch himself.

“
Nen nen kororiyo okororiyo,
” Mas sang, then paused. He couldn’t remember the rest of the old lullaby. So he kept repeating it.
Nen nen.
Sleep.
Kororiyo okororiyo.
Rock, rock. Yet Takeo didn’t sleep. He kept crying, hungry for only one person, his mother.

T
he next day, Lloyd left with a driver in a Lincoln Town Car for the arraignment. No babies allowed in the courthouse, so Mas was the one who would have to stay behind with Takeo. It was just as well, because Mas couldn’t stand to see his handcuffed daughter in an oversized jumpsuit, standing in front of a judge.

Mas had slept maybe three hours, if you combined the little snatches of sleep here and there. His sweater, in fact, was damp with tears, sweat, and
hanakuso
from Takeo’s eyes, overheated body, and nose. The grandson was finally sleeping in his crib, although every half an hour his legs and arms would jerk as if he was having a bad dream. That he inherited from the Arai side, thought Mas, wondering what kind of nightmares a baby could have.

At about eleven-thirty, the phone rang, and Mas felt his heart lurch. What had happened with Mari? As he expected, Lloyd was on the other line. “There’s a snag here on the bail situation, Mr. Arai,” he said.

“Whatcha talkin’ about?” Mas felt his head and fingers go
piri-piri
with a bad tingling sensation.

“Bail’s set higher than Jeannie expected. A hundred thousand dollars. My parents don’t want to provide any money for bail. We’re flat broke. In fact, we’re in the hole. We’re almost maxed out on our credit cards.”

“Youzu take my house,” Mas said. He had bought it back in the sixties for three grand, but with the rising L.A. housing prices, the house had now far exceeded the three-hundred-thousand-dollar mark in value.

“You wouldn’t have to give it to us. Just put it up for collateral. But we would need probably ten thousand dollars in cash. We’d pay you back, every penny.”

Mas squeezed the phone receiver so hard that sweat was dripping down his arms. He listened carefully as Lloyd told him to take Takeo up to Mrs. Knudsen, the neighbor, then go to an office in Brooklyn. “Worm’s Bailbonds,” Lloyd said. “He’ll be expecting you.”

W
orm Lewis was like a human snowman—everything about him was perfectly round—his belly, head, and green eyes. Even the silver buttons on his vest were round balls. But instead of a coal smile and pipe, he wore a frown, which held an unlit cigar.

“So you’re the father?” Worm looked through round-framed glasses at Mas. They sat on opposite sides of Worm’s metal desk, surrounded by stacks of white papers, manila folders, and brown accordion file holders.

Although it had cooled to fifty degrees outside, the one-room office was hot and suffocating. The walls were covered in wood paneling; the floors, linoleum. A space heater two feet away glowed with coils of bright orange.

Mas felt sweat drip into his ears. He had already taken off his jacket and wanted to do the same with his sweater. He wouldn’t dare to get half-naked in front of Worm Lewis, however.

“Yah, Izu Mas Arai.”

“Where you from?”

“California,” said Mas. “Altadena. Whatsu dis gotta—”

“Listen, you want to post bail, I need information.” The unlit cigar remained in Worm’s thick lips.

Mas smoothed out a piece of paper that he had folded up into his pocket. “Dis all information I have.”

Worm began typing on a keyboard connected to a computer that seemed to have seen better days. Red duct tape held together its rectangular hard-drive case.

“Hmm, first-degree murder, this is a bad one. So what happened?”

Why do I have to give play-by-play? Mas wondered. He was too afraid to question the bail bondsman. This was Worm’s world, not his, and Worm had the key to set Mari free.

“Dis guy Kazzy Ouchi shot dead. Last Thursday.”

“Kazzy, what kind of name is that?”

Well, what was Worm? thought Mas, practically biting his tongue. “Kazuhiko heezu full name, I think. Anyhowsu, American. Born here.” Like me, Mas added silently.

“So what connection did he have with your daughter?”

“My son-in-law’s boss.”

Worm shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth. The cigar was half-chewed, and Mas wondered if he had had it in his mouth all day. “Some kind of love connection?”

Mas felt his mouth go dry. “Heezu old man. Older than me.”

“Happens all the time. I’ve seen it all, you know.” Worm typed Mas’s residence into his computer. “How much equity do you have in the house?”

“Paid off,” Mas said.

Worm printed out some paper and pointed to sections where Mas had to sign. “Now, you realize if your daughter hightails it out of here, you’ll have to forfeit the house, right? We’ll take a hundred thousand from the sale.”

Mas closed his eyes. The McNally house, the small ranch-style home. Two bedrooms. One bath. Porch with a Japanese pine and rocks in the front. The only house he had ever owned.

Mas opened his eyes and stared into Worm’s round face and noticed a large wart on the side of his left nostril. “Yah, I understand.”

“So, I’m going to need ten percent. That’s our fee.”

Even though Lloyd had told him to be prepared, it was still a shock to hear it. Worm stapled a set of papers together. “Ten thousand dollars,” he said. “Cash, credit card, or some kind of loan agreement through us.”

Mas looked at stickers of different credit card companies stuck to the side of the desk. Visa, MasterCard, American Express. Even a credit card from Japan.

Mas pulled out his new credit card, never been used. How was it that he had come to New York City with a fifteen-thousand-dollar line of credit and a paid-off house and a few days later was ten thousand dollars in the hole and in danger of losing his home? This is a sacrifice for Mari, he told himself. This is for my daughter.

M
as was making salami sandwiches when Lloyd and Mari finally came home. He had picked Takeo up from the neighbor’s place, and the baby was fast asleep. Before peppering them with questions, he gave them a chance to see Takeo and change out of their dirty clothes.

Mari was the first to emerge from the bedroom. “Thanks for putting up the house,” said Mari.

“Jail pretty bad?” Mas had gone to visit someone at a jail in L.A. for the first time last year and hadn’t relished the experience.

“We don’t need to talk about it right now.” She picked up one of the salami sandwiches and ate it
musha-musha
, as if it were the best thing next to pickled mackerel sushi.