Southland (3 page)

Jackie was about to ask her aunt why Frank had given up the store when Ted Kanda appeared, his booming voice filling the room. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said to Jackie. “What’s cooking?”

“Breakfast was, I guess,” Jackie replied. “Not that you saved me any.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and sounded it. Ted was a big man, shaped exactly like Lois although a good foot taller, and it was funny to see his strong, wide shoulders fall into an exaggerated slump of remorse.

“You didn’t miss much, believe me,” Lois said. “He burned the omelet so badly I had to throw half of mine out.”

“I’m a
good
cook, usually,” he insisted to Jackie, who knew differently. “I’ve cooked for some very important people.”

Lois rolled her eyes. “He served some pasta to Jerry Brown once in the dining hall in college. To hear him tell it, he made a ten-course gourmet meal for heads of state.”

He turned toward Lois, his ponytail swinging. “You be quiet. Or next time I’ll slip some rat poison into the food.”

“Well, at least it would improve the taste.”

Again, Jackie thought her aunt was doing better; Lois almost smiled at this last exchange. But Ted could do that for her, only Ted. He wasn’t really Jackie’s uncle—he and Lois had never married—but they’d been together for almost twelve years now. And Jackie, after not knowing what to make of Ted at first, had grown to adore him, although her parents still regarded him with a kind of half-benign suspicion. Rose acted like he was a grunting, dirtcaked cowboy, swinging his lasso in their living room, endangering their lamps, and her father, Richard, was more friendly, but still bewildered. The fact that Ted was an engineer for TRW did nothing to improve their opinion of him. They were also displeased with Lois’s living situation, especially after Frank moved in (presumably he’d be offended by his daughter’s scandalous domestic arrangement), although Jackie couldn’t imagine that they’d like Ted much better if he and Lois ever got married.

Now he turned to Jackie and asked, “So did Lois tell you that we’re looking at houses?”

“Yes, she did. You have an appointment for today?”

“Yeah, you wanna come? It’s a three-bedroom place off of Braddock. We don’t know if we can afford it, though. I just bought a computer program that’s supposed to help us figure out what we can borrow and what kind of mortgage we should get. I have to install it later. Which reminds me.”

“Oh, right,” Lois said, pulling the scattered paper out from under the cat, and sounding somber again. “Jackie, can you cancel Dad’s online account? Ted couldn’t figure it out.”

“Sure,” she responded, shrugging. “I can try. But I don’t know if I can do any better.” It amused her that Ted, who understood the inner workings of engines and robots, could hardly find his way around a personal computer. Now, suddenly, she thought of a part of the past she
did
know about and remember. “If you’re looking for a house, what about Grandpa and Grandma’s old place? What ever happened to that?”

“I’m not crazy about Gardena,” Lois said. “Anyway, it’s gone—he sold it right after Mom died.”

“But the money from the sale…” Jackie didn’t want to ask what had happened to it, because it brought up, awkwardly, the question of the will, which was going to be read that coming Tuesday.

Lois clearly caught the drift, though. “I don’t think he left much, but we’ll find out on Tuesday.” Now she and Ted exchanged a glance, which Jackie caught.

“What?”

“Actually,” Lois said, “the reason I wanted you to come over today has something to do with all that.”

Oh, God, Jackie thought. There’s going to be a problem. She and Rose disagree about something as usual, and it’s all going to explode over the will.

Lois stood and walked over to her desk, where she picked up a spiral notebook. Carefully, she pulled out a folded piece of paper, and then came back over and sat across from Jackie. “I’m wondering about the validity of a will,” she said, “written in 1964.”

“Whose?”

“Dad’s.”

“Is that what the lawyer’s going to read on Tuesday?”

“No,” Lois said. “This is a different one.”

Jackie wanted to ask her what exactly she meant, but Lois was acting so strange, looking at Ted again, that she decided to sit tight and wait.

“This one,” Lois continued, lifting the paper, “mentions things I’m sure the other one doesn’t. And I’m afraid there might be a conflict. Here—I think you should read it.” She handed it across the coffee table, and as Jackie took it, she watched the edges dip and rise. The paper was so thin that, even folded, she could make out the dark shapes of her fingers beneath it. The typed words were light, as if the ribbon had been running out of ink. She read:

September 22, 1964

I, Franklin Masayuki Sakai, being of sound mind and body, do bequeath the following items upon the event of my death:

1. My house and savings shall go to my wife, Mary Yukiko Sakai.
   
2. My car shall go to my wife.
   
3. All of my late father’s possessions, including his great-grandfather’s
   kimono
   and
   katana
   , shall go to my mother, Masako Sakai.
   
4. My books and photographs shall go to my daughters, Rose and Lois.
   
5. My baseball cards shall go to John Oyama, Jr.
   
6. My jazz record collection will go to Richard Iida.
   
7. My store, located at 3601 Bryant St., shall go to Curtis Martindale.
   

When she finished reading, she kept staring at the page. This will, this random list, was the kind of thing someone threw together in a panic and then forgot once the moment had passed. Lois, who was afraid of planes, made one every time she had to fly, earnestly telling everyone for days beforehand what she’d bequeathed them in the latest version.

“This stuff has already been dealt with, hasn’t it? I mean, I don’t know about the smaller things, but you just told me there’s no house. And I know that there isn’t a store.”

“Right,” Lois said. “He actually gave the cards to John years ago. And Richard Iida died, so Ted and I are going to keep the records.”

Ted, behind her, winked and gave a thumbs-up sign.

“You have any idea why he wrote this?” Jackie asked. “He wasn’t about to get on a plane, was he?”

But her teasing comment missed its mark entirely. “I just figured this out,” Lois said. “He was having an operation to get his appendix removed and, you know, he never trusted doctors after the way they handled his foot.” Jackie thought of the smooth, shortened end of her grandfather’s right foot; it looked as if the toes had been filed down. She remembered his slight limp, the hitch in his step, which might have passed for a jerky strut if he’d been younger.

“Well, I don’t think you have to do anything. Everything in the will is taken care of.”

“Not quite,” Lois said, and then she gestured in the direction of the bedrooms. “See, I found this will in a box of papers Dad kept in his closet. I was looking for the poem he read at Mom’s funeral, because I thought we might read it again. Anyway, there was a lot of stuff in it—old pictures and articles, even his war medals. I mean, all kinds of things I’d never seen before. And there was another box, too, which had ‘store’ written on it with a marker.” She looked at Ted, who turned and disappeared down the hallway. Jackie heard a door open and shut; then Ted reappeared, holding a stone-colored box which was big enough for a pair of boots or a hat. He set it down on the coffee table, and Lois nodded for her to open it. Which she did. And saw more money than she’d ever seen before, so much that her first impulse was to put the lid back on. But then she looked at it again, at all that green, all those Andrew Jacksons. “What the hell?” she finally said. “What’s this from?”

“The store, I guess, according to how he marked it.”

“How much is in here?”

“Almost $38,000.”

“
Excuse
me?”

“Thirty-eight grand,” Ted repeated, shaking his head. “Can you believe it?”

“Just sitting in the closet?”

“Yeah.”

Jackie put the lid back on, stood up, and walked across the room. At the entrance to the kitchen, she turned around. “But Lois, I can’t believe he would have just hidden this money for, what, twenty-nine years? Are you sure it’s from the store?”

“I’m not sure, but it seems to be.”

“Do we know if it’s mentioned in the current will?”

“I don’t think so. Like I said, as far as I know, he didn’t have much to leave. And to answer your question from before, the money from the Gardena house is gone. He gave that and the redress money to Rose a few years back, in order to pay for your law school.” Jackie hadn’t been aware of this arrangement. And it was more evidence of what she had taken from Frank—his attention, his money, his time. He was always there to fix her heater, or to build her a set of shelves. She had given him so little in return.

“Well, this is great,” she said, trying to shake her guilt. “You want to buy a house, right? So here’s your down payment.”

“You’re missing the point,” Lois replied. “He left the store to someone else. And this looks like it’s the money from the store.”

“Wait. You think the money should go to—” She looked down at the paper again. “—Curtis Martindale? Who
is
Curtis Martindale, anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Lois leaned back against Ted, who was standing behind her, his big hands draped over her shoulders. “Someone from the neighborhood, I think. The name sounds vaguely familiar. I’m guessing he’s pretty young—or that he
was
pretty young back then. Dad
got
the store from someone in the neighborhood, you know, before he married Mom. Old Man Larabie practically gave it to him, almost as a gift. He was probably just trying to pass on the favor.” Ted began to rub her shoulders, and she closed her eyes and leaned back. And Jackie remembered how interested Frank always was in her friends and their lives; how good he was with all young people. She thought about mentioning Tony, the security guard, but decided against it; his strong response to Frank’s death made her muted one seem even less defensible.

“Anyway, there’s no Curtis Martindale in L.A. County,” Lois continued. “I checked information.”

“Does my mother know who he is?”

“I haven’t asked her. I didn’t tell her about this.”

Jackie nodded. Rose had always seemed a bit resentful of the store; one thing she
had
told Jackie was that Frank had spent most of his time there. Jackie knew her mother would want to invest the money or put it in the bank, and she, for once, would have to agree with her.

“Lois,” she said, “you could
use
this money. Why do you want to give it away?”

“Because
he
wanted to. And if he meant it for someone else, it’s not mine.”

Jackie shook her head; she couldn’t believe this.

“I’m wondering,” Lois said now, opening her eyes, “if
you’d
be willing to track this guy down.”

Jackie stared at her aunt. “Me? Why me?”

Lois frowned. “Because I’m a mess,” she answered in a measured voice, “and I don’t want to deal with this shit right now. There’s so much to do, with the legal will and all of Dad’s things, and the business with the house. Curtis Martindale is one loose end I don’t really have the time for.”

Jackie tried not to pout, or to remind her aunt that she herself was creating the business with the house. It was bad enough that Lois wanted to give away this money, which was sitting in her apartment, in her closet. But to ask Jackie to be a part of it? No thanks. Not that it would be difficult to make a few calls, to check some records. With this kind of money involved, she’d have Curtis Martindales coming out of the woodwork. It was just the principle of the thing, the idea of throwing away that kind of cash. “Well, if I did do this—which I’m not saying I will—do you have any ideas about where I would start?”

“Actually, yes,” Lois said. “A couple of people from the funeral. Especially that woman Loda, who caught us right when we came in. She grew up in Crenshaw and I think she still works there. Do you remember her? The older black lady in that dark green suit?”

Jackie did. The woman Lois referred to had been crying herself, she was so worked up about Frank. She was a tall, black-gloved woman with neat marcelled waves in her hair, and she’d hugged them both as they entered the church. She’d told them Frank had once found and sheltered her child when she’d run away from home; said it made sense the Lord had called Frank home when he was giving somebody a hand. She’d insisted repeatedly that they should get in touch with her if they needed anything.

“Yeah,” Jackie answered. “I think so.”

Lois reached into her purse, which was sitting on the floor, and pulled out a business card. It was one of many they’d both received that day, from people who wanted to document their presence, or to help. They’d also been deluged with
koden
, condolence money, in small white envelopes with black and silver ribbons, offered mostly by older Japanese. Over and over, the same routine—the checkbook-sized envelope held out with both hands; the offerer avoiding eye contact, bowing low, saying, “It’s nothing. I’m ashamed to give it to you.”

Jackie took the card reluctantly. It was white, the print black and gold, and it informed her that Loda Thomas was the Adult Literacy Coordinator at the Marcus Garvey Community Center. She dropped it on top of the shoebox as if it carried a disease. “I don’t know,” she said. Both Lois and Ted looked at her expectantly, and to escape their gaze, to avoid the question, she returned to an earlier topic. “So, do you want me to take care of Grandpa’s AOL account?”

Lois looked startled, and then disappointed. “Yeah,” she said, throwing her hands up. “Sure.”

Jackie fled down the hallway, glad to leave Lois and Ted and the box of money behind. The door to her grandfather’s room was closed. It had never been closed when she’d come over before, and she paused now, standing in front of it, fighting the urge to knock. The cat stood at the end of the hallway, swishing his tail, staring at her accusingly, as if he, too, was aware of how much she’d taken Frank for granted. She wanted to shut him out, along with the questions her aunt had raised and the project she’d been given, so she pushed the door open, stepped inside, and closed it again behind her.