Ken's War (15 page)

“Why’d the water go all the way from the
other apartment to my crib?”

Paderson blinked slowly. “Water takes the
path of least resistance.”

Ken swung a questioning look at Wizard.

Wizard nodded.

Sikung Wu was in his usual place at
five-thirty in the morning, moving his arms and legs in slow
graceful arcs. Although the sun hadn’t risen to burn the cool mist
out of the bamboo grove, and Sikung didn’t appear, on the surface,
to be exerting himself, his patched white
jifu
was soaked
with sweat at the armpits, neck and waist.

Ken said, “
Ohayo goziamasu. Buenos días.
Guten morgan. Bon jour. Good Morning.”

“Zao.”

“What’s zow mean?”

“You’ve returned sooner than anticipated. I
hoped to be dead before you came back to flaunt your picayune
knowledge before me.” He’d said this with his eyes closed while
continuing his exercises.

“You sick or something? How old are you?”

“I was born in 1882.”

Ken appraised the man’s erect posture and
fine cashew skin. A lithe body was evident, in spite of the loose
pajama-like outfit covering him. Silver filaments streaked his
black hair. He might be homely, he might be older than, say,
Wizard, but he was pure power and masculinity.

“You’re lying!” Ken bleated. “You can’t be
that old.”

“Do you expect to be lied to?”

Ken kicked at decaying bamboo leaves. Neither
of them spoke for a long time. Before the silence evolved into a
span too embarrassing to break, he said, “I know what the water
principle is.”

Sikung dipped low, sweeping a cupped palm
past his foot and over his head.

“The water principle,” Ken said, “I know what
it is.”

A puppy yapped in the distance. A breeze
stirred among the bamboo trees clattering them like old bones.

“Water takes the path of least resistance,”
Ken told the master.

“True. You can go home now.” Sikung didn’t
open his eyes as he swung his right foot high above his head,
missing Ken’s nose by a puff of air. Ken froze when the master’s
left foot sailed up past his forehead and swooped down to earth
again without the sound of a crunched twig or grunt of exertion
from Sikung.

“But I want to learn that fast stuff you do.
You know. The speed. The force.” He spun around and kicked the air,
his foot coming down hard and skidding on the leaves.

“First you must learn primordial
breathing.”

“I already know how to breathe, elsewise I’d
be dead.” If Sikung’s eyes had been open, he’d have seen Ken
rolling his eyes.

“You come to me uninvited and ask me
questions. I have no contractual agreement to be your teacher,
nevertheless you expect me to proffer free lessons which you spurn
with your disrespect. While many would attest that I am a
charitable person, I am not operating a charity. Do not disturb me
again.”

“If you don’t want to teach me, how come you
gave me homework?”

“You speak nonsense.”

“I’ve been sitting under that dang blasted
waterfall every day!”
You ugly old troll.

Sikung’s eyelids flew open. His palm whooshed
and stopped a millimeter from Ken’s nose. Essence of garlic.
“Monkey boy. What is your motive? Can you examine your motives and
be sure they are pure? Can you promise you will not wantonly
inflict pain to any human, any creature, or nature?”

What motive could exist for learning martial
arts other than to inflict pain, big time pain? “Nah, I’m a
pacifist.” Ken said.

“Sit on that rock,” Sikung said, and he
proceeded to give a lecture and demonstrate proper breathing, which
looked exactly like regular old in-out breathing to Ken. Judging by
the angle of the sun behind the bamboo branches, he should have
headed home a while ago to cook breakfast before his dad’s alarm
clock trilled.

“Do I bore you?” Sikung’s smile was anything
but easygoing.

“No!”

“Attack me.”

“Huh?”

“Did I not speak your mother tongue
correctly?”

“My mother?” Confused, he cut a quick
pirouette, searching for her standing amid clattering bamboo and
stoic boulders. His heart sank.

Sikung nodded as if to say,
Very well
then, attack.

Ken charged at the master and felt himself
flipping in the air. He landed behind Sikung. The impact knocked
the breath out of his lungs. He gasped, lying there on the damp
ground, the sun poking through the green bamboo veil. He brushed
off bits of decayed leaves, walked backwards while bowing, and then
pivoted on the ball of his foot to sprint home.

“That is the water principle,” Sikung shouted
after him.

Chapter
Twelve

~ Thieves at Work ~

Panting, Ken burst into the kitchen.

“Where’ve you been?” his dad asked.

“Just breathing, Dad, just breathing.”

A rapping on the door. Ken opened it.

“Hi, Wizard,” he said. “Want something to
eat?”

“No, thanks. Major Bellamy and Colonel Topker
are waiting in the warehouse.”

Paderson sprang out of his chair, slapped on
his hat and hustled to the warehouse. He’d left the freshly signed
request-for-transfer form on the table. Ken tucked the form in his
pocket and followed his dad and Wizard to the Quonset hut to see
what the hubbub was about. Today was the first time Topker had made
the trip up from Okinawa to review Paderson’s operation.

“Well, well, well,” Bellamy said, wiggling
his eyebrows. “Who’s the girl?” He scissored his fingers at Ken’s
ponytail. Ken raised his hand to bat Bellamy’s fingers away.
Lieutenant Colonel Topker cut in and pumped Ken’s hand.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Ken. My
son, Michael, asked me to give this to you.” He handed Ken a stone
the size of a walnut. “Can you identify it?”

“Rose quartz.”

“That’s correct.” His gravelly chuckle rolled
around the Quonset hut.

Wizard had placed folding metal chairs around
his desk and set to brewing a pot of green tea.

“You got anything else to drink?” Major
Bellamy asked. Ken, on a signal from Wizard, prepared an iced soda
for Bellamy. Then he went to the doorway of the hut, and sat on the
threshold. He leaned over and scratched the outline of a hotrod in
the dirt with a twig.

Topker seemed to be watching particles
floating in his tea. He sighed, flipped his countenance from sad to
stern, and said, “Let’s get this done.” He gave Bellamy a sidelong
flash and nodded.

“Critical supplies are being stolen,” Bellamy
said. “Slope head organized crime, I’d bet.”

“Pull the files, Abernathy!” Paderson barked
at Wizard.

With one ear cocked toward the meeting, Ken
drew curls of exhaust coming out of his hotrod’s tailpipe.

“The files can wait, for the time being,”
Topker said. “The integrity of your depot’s records isn’t in
question, Captain Paderson, at this point in time. Major Bellamy
meant to say that some supplies are missing, and our intelligence
team hasn’t been able to pinpoint where the weak link is.” Topker
wrapped his big paws around the delicate teacup and inhaled. “The
supplies in question are kitted up stateside, shipped to Army bases
throughout Asia, and dispatched to field hospitals.”

“What kind of supplies? Medical supplies?”
Paderson asked. Worry wrinkled his forehead.

Bellamy said, “Hypodermic needles. Malaria
prophylaxis. Anti-diarrheals. Syringes. Penicillin. Antiseptics.
Morphine.”

Ken dragged the stick through the dirt,
obliterating his hotrod. These guys were barking up the wrong tree.
If 9
^th
TAACOM wanted to know about FIFO or provisioning
efficiency, then they had their man, but his dad didn’t know shit
from shinola about intelligence operations or stolen drugs. The
army was wasting its time.

“The perpetrators,” Topker said, “are well
versed in warehousing processes. They’re covering their tracks
somehow, some way. Intelligence thinks it’s an inside job because
the perpetrators are taking pains to substitute pharmaceuticals
with look-alike substances. Outsiders don’t have the time or the
motivation to cover up their tracks so thoroughly.”

“They’re probably selling on the black
market,” Bellamy said.

“The thefts went undetected,” Topker went on,
“until medics administered sugar-water to wounded soldiers in the
field and flour pills to men in recuperation.”

His voice barely audible, Wizard said, “Man,
that’s low.” Heat from the sun climbing up the tree branches
outside made the hut roof tick. Ken stood to walk over to the
bamboo grove, but remained in his tracks when he heard his father’s
voice.

“Keep in mind, sir,” Paderson said, “I’ll be
submitting an RFT403.”

Chicken
, Ken thought. He knew RFT
stood for Request for Transfer. His stomach suddenly hollowed out
with a heavy nothingness. He whapped a stick against a rock,
breaking the wood into small chunks.

“I got the shits from signing them damn
forms.” Bellamy burped soda gas.

Topker rose. “The men involved in this racket
are enemies of the United States of America as much as the Vietcong
and Communist aggressors are. I’m assigning you to the
investigation team, Paderson. Your task is to design strategy,
devise tactics and advise the intelligence commander. You do what
is necessary to catch the perpetrators. I’ve chosen you because you
are the best man for this job.” He patted the stack of U.S. Army
Logistics and Supply Correspondence Course binders. “You wrote the
book.” The men said goodbye and Bellamy and Topker drove off in the
jeep, spewing dust clouds from the tires.

Ken opened the notebook at the top of the
stack of binders Topker had patted. On the inside cover of Vol. I,
in small print under the course title were words, words he’d
overlooked before:
by Captain A. Paderson.
Methodically, he
opened each binder, picking up speed as he progressed through Vol.
II, III, IV...and saw the same byline on every frontispiece.

Paderson returned from seeing Topker and
Bellamy off. He squatted beside Ken.

“Do you think you can manage a few days
without me, soldier?”

“Sure, Dad.”

“I have to meet with the intelligence team
for a briefing. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Abernathy will be
here if you need anything.”

Ken looked at Wizard who gave him a thumbs
up. “Don’t worry, Dad.”

“OK. You help Abernathy hold down the fort
here.” Paderson gave Wizard a flurry of orders. “Get me the supply
chain master flowchart and the up-dated logistics personnel
directory. Call HQ for clearance to review personnel PF-16 reports.
Ring Kelso at 9
^th
TAACOM for copies of
pharmaceutical-related supply forms for the past twelve-month
period, and original copies of authorizing signatures. I want duty
rosters for every depot with medical supply throughput.”

“Yes, Captain.” Wizard hopped to it. Paderson
trotted to the house to pack his duffel bag.

Ken began scratching a hangman’s noose with
his finger in the dust by the door, but scuffed the drawing away.
Hangman required two players.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

The buoyant voice carried hints of America on
it. He swung around to see who owned that voice, but saw only the
Japanese girl from the
ofuro
. She was wearing a tan dress
with a blue bow at the collar. The western dress struck him as out
of place, the garment’s foreignness highlighted by traditional
Japanese white
tabi
and
zori
on her small feet.

“What do you want?” he asked. Her brows
contracted; the expression helped Ken remember his manners. “Good
morning,” he said in English and again in Japanese.

“You speak Japanese extremely well,” she
replied in American English with no trace of a Japanese accent.
“You don’t need to use the honorific when speaking to a girl my
age. It seems you learned Japanese from a female holding a service
position.”

Ken stuck his head in the warehouse and
searched for Wizard to explain what the hell was going on here with
this girl, but Wizard was on the phone telling some poor sucker he
didn’t give a rat’s ass who would be inconvenienced, he needed
those PF-16s yesterday.

Ken closed his eyes and tried breathing into
his abdomen, the way Sikung had instructed him. Breathing deeply
helped him focus, even if he wasn’t inhaling quite the way the
master had demonstrated.

The girl walked to the ledge and looked out
over the rice paddies and toward the mountain. No wonder he hadn’t
heard her approach. Unlike other Japanese who shuffled along in
their
zori,
making him want to shout, “Pick yer feet up!”
she curled her toes, holding the
zori
close to her soles. If
you listened, though, you could hear occasional faint whisking
sounds when she walked. She was a puzzle piece that he couldn’t
force-fit into the picture.

“Are you Japanese or what?” he asked.

Her ebony hair fanned out when she spun
around. “I am an
Issei.
” He must have put on his stupid face
because she added, “The majority of my friends and acquaintances
don’t know what that means either. An
Issei
is an immigrant
of Japanese ancestry.”

He knew he still looked stupid.

She smiled gently. “I’m American. I live in
America with my family.”

What’s she doing here in Japan if her family
had immigrated to the States? He chewed on that and concluded that
the genetic code for clear explanations was lacking in her DNA.

“No big deal,” he said, not knowing what else
to say. “My dad runs this warehouse. Well, it’s more of a shack and
nothing much happens, except today—” He shut up. You couldn’t be
too sure who was or was not in on the drug ring.

She stepped up and gave him a firm handshake,
which surprised him. No other Japanese person had done that. But
then she wasn’t Japanese, she was American, or Issei or some such
thing. “I am Yasuko Watanabe. It’s nice to meet you. I hope we can
meet again soon.” She spoke like a character in a storybook
illustrated with sunbeams and too many paragraphs starting with “By
and by.”