Summer of the Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara Page B

wrinkled hand.
     
     
“Change my mind,” said Mas. While Tug was introducing himself to Wishbone, Mas examined the room, which was cloudy with smoke. A light hung from the ceiling over a card table. Mas didn’t recognize most of the faces, young ones with shaven heads and tattoos, some even with zigzag scars. There were paler Japanese with meticulously oiled hair and expensive suits. A few hakujin men— one with a pitiful wisp of a mustache— looked like they hadn’t bathed for at least two days. This crowd was a rough one. Mas could smell the scent of jail time and illicit activity. This wasn’t what Wishbone was bargaining for, Mas knew.
     
     
“Where is he?” Mas asked.
     
     
“I’ll get him.”
     
     
Mas meant Haruo, but Wishbone was speaking to another man in a corner. The man turned, and Mas felt like his heart had stopped. It was the same man in the photos in the North Hollywood apartment, but this one had been reduced to skin and bones. His cheeks, even his eyes, seemed sunken into his skull. His hair was cropped short, and age spots marked his bare skin like raindrops.
     
     
The man was walking toward Mas, coming closer and closer, and then the face, once a composite, now was real flesh and bones. The reality now hit Mas squarely. He could no longer think of this man as other than who he really was.
     
     
“Riki,” Mas whispered.
     
     
“Haneda,” the man said. His voice was gravelly, the sound of work boots crushing pebbles and sand. “You call me Haneda.”
     
     

     
Somehow thinking of Riki Kimura as Joji Haneda all these years had slowly erased the painful memory of the real Joji. But having Riki Kimura standing in front of him changed everything. Time had not been kind to him, that was for sure. Mas didn’t know if it was because of the decades of hard living. Or maybe the decay of Riki’s insides had finally grown to reach his outsides. Whatever it was, Mas didn’t want to be anywhere near Riki, but he had to, at least for this night.
     
     
Tug, who had been surveying the room, approached Mas and Riki. “Tug Yamada,” he said, sticking out his hand.
     
     
“Joji Haneda,” Riki said easily, slipping a fresh cigarette in the side of his mouth. “You a friend of Arai’s?”
     
     
Mas stepped in front of the two men, his back toward Riki. “Haruo,” he said to Tug. “Check table.”
     
     
Tug nodded, looking a little confused. Here good manners don’t count for anything, Mas said to himself. You may be bigger than most of the men here, Tug, but you’re way out of your league. Watching Tug’s white head disappear in the crowd, Mas turned his attention to Riki. “People are comin’ ’round, askin’ about Joji Haneda.”
     
     
“So I heard.” Riki lit his cigarette with a match and grinned, fifty years falling from his face. Other than the stained brown teeth, it was the same man. He took a drag of his cigarette, and Mas could see him in the middle of that Hiroshima boulevard, teenagers and children crowded around barrels of fire.
     
     
“You betta leave, go back to Ventura.”
     
     
“Oh, yah?” Riki extinguished the match with his fingers.
     
     
“They gonna find out.”
     
     
“What? That thousands of people die in Hiroshima? Thatsu no secret, Masao- san. ”
     
     
“You make him die.”
     
     
“America, heezu country, your country, killsu him. You say I killsu him— where’s the evidence?”
     
     
“They gotsu a drawing, a picture.”
     
     
“A picture?” Riki laughed. Brown tobacco stains had darkened his teeth like an ancient Japanese harlot. “Whatsu that suppose to prove?”
     
     
“Itsu Haneda, wiz your name on him.” Mas remembered the crudely drawn jumble of maggots, the strange circle by the body.
     
     
“Oh, yah?” Riki smirked. “What the harm? Whole family’s dead. He was almost dead when we found him.”
     
     
“Well, Akemi’s not dead. Alive.”
     
     
Riki took another drag from his cigarette, but Mas noticed that his spotted fingers trembled.
     
     
“Gonna come