Get my truck? Mas blinked hard and adjusted his baseball hat. Sonafugun. The Ford was still around. So nutin wrong with it, huh?
I didnt say that. I dont know the condition of your car; you got to go to their impound lot for that. But they did find it. How did you get here, anyhow?
Mas gestured toward Tugs pickup in the driveway. My friends. I just come to see the broken branches.
Well, Mas, you dont have to worry about that. I called in some tree people, heavy-duty guys with tractors and that sort of thing. I knew you were recuperating, and I had to get moving on the house.
So you gonna move for sure.
Yep. Sure looks like it. Even found a condo in Colorado Springs. Its for old people. Retirees.
Mas wrinkled his forehead. Neither Mrs. nor Mr. Witt Mas had seen him recently on a television commercial had aged gracefully. They were barely sixty, if even that, and their skin had lost all its luster.
Im working on a project now, tie-dyed pajamas for my grandkids.
Thatsu nice. Mas didnt know what else to say.
So, you are coming back, right? Theres loads to be done. Ive got algae all over my koi pond, and hedges have to be recut. I want to put the house on the market by August.
Next week, said Mas. After I getsu my truck.
Mrs. Witt seemed satisfied and headed back toward the brick house. By the way . . . She turned. How are you doing?
Mas reached up and grabbed hold of the tiny persimmon. Fine, he said, pulling down. Just fine.
The police headquarters in South Pasadena had recently been renovated. It was in a desert style, with a fake adobe facade and tile in green and blue, looking more like a Southwestern Holiday Inn than a den of cops and robbers. Mas had been there once, when he needed to get information on getting a license to work in the city. A young girl, her brown hair tied up in a ponytail, sat behind the glass window. Wearing a black uniform, she spoke through a slotted plastic circle. On the other side, sir, in City Hall.
This time, there was no ponytailed girl, but a dark boy who looked like a Hawaiian. Mas followed the boy, whose leather holster squeaked as he passed by a couple of offices and then entered a wide room lit up by long fluorescent bulbs. Detective Benjamin, this is the owner of the truck that was found this morning, the Hawaiian boy said before returning down the hall.
Detective Benjamin was a solid man with damaged red hair like Pacific Ocean seaweed. His face was marked with a million freckles, which from a distance made him look tanned. Mr. Arai, is it? Here, have a seat. He pulled out a hard wooden chair next to his metal desk.
Mas felt nervous guilty, even. Im the one whose truck was stolen, he reminded himself. This isnt about the money.
The detective rummaged through a pile of files in a wire basket and pulled out a manila folder. Well, a 1956 Ford, huh? he said, holding the folder open. A classic. One of my friends restores these beauts. Even provides the cars for our annual Fourth of July parade.
Izu my truck here? Mas squeezed the sides of the wooden seat.
No, we had to send it down to the impound in Alhambra. But Ill get to that in a second.
Mas bit down on both lips and waited.
Yep, your truck was just collecting parking tickets on the edge of town near the L.A. border. They did get some fingerprints off the vehicle. Detective Benjamin flipped through the pages in his file.
Well, heres one suspect. The detective tried to smooth out a flimsy piece of paper on the flat surface of his desk. Recognize him?
Mas squinted and wished he had his five-dollar reading glasses from Thriftys. It was a typical mug shot, photographed against a white background. A
hakujin
man in his fifties with dirty-blond hair.
Daniel Hawthorne, the detective said. Also known as David or Dale.
Hawthorne. The man who had visited Haruo in the beginning of summer.
Has a record. Detective Benjamin read from his folder. Filed phony immigration papers. Accused of identity fraud but not convicted.
I-den-ti-ty
Ya know, identity theft, like stealing money from credit card accounts. False identities and so on.
False IDs? Mas tried to keep himself from laughing. There was no doubt that this Mr. Hawthorne was in league with Shuji Nakane. Probably wear fancy shoes, Mas mumbled.
Excuse me? the policeman asked, and Mas just pretended that he was clearing his throat. The detective continued to go on about police procedures, but Mas was more interested in the found truck. My lawn mower not in there?
Lawn mower? Detective Benjamin laughed harshly. No lawn mower. Actually, I dont think youll find any extras on your vehicle.
Mas swallowed. Phones rang on other metal desks. Other men slurped down mugs of coffee and chewed crumbling cake donuts while taking notes.
Here. The detective slipped a piece of paper with a yellow attachment in front of Mas. This is the release form. Show me some identification, sign it, and then you can get your car.
Mas tried to prepare himself for the worst. He imagined the trucks body almost stripped, the door handles yanked off. The smog was especially thick that day, and Mas could barely read the hand-painted sign on Main Street in Alhambra. He circled the fenced lot and parked a block away from Sauls Towing, almost afraid that the impound would suck in Tugs truck like a gigantic magnet.
The clerk was most likely the owner of the lot, judging from the way he flipped down his reading glasses and studied Mass paperwork with weathered hands. Seventy-dollar charge for the tow, and fifteen dollars a day. Thatll be eighty-five dollars. The clerk wrote the figure on a white form complete with carbons in pink and yellow.
Eighty-five dolla? But my truck was stolen. The police brought it ova here. Mas pressed his work boot against the foot of the counter. It was a high counter that reached up to Mass chin. He noticed that it was bent in a few places.
The clerk held on to the forms. Did they get who did it?
They found fingerprints. Thatsu all.
Well, sue him, then. But you still have to pay the fee.
Mas felt the anger rise to his head. What the hell? Why did he have to fork out the money to retrieve his own property? He felt like adding another dent to Sauls counter.
Look, someones gotta pay, said Saul. Im offering the service, but Im not doing this for free. You cant expect the police to pay. Thats taxpayers money. That leaves you. You want the car, pay for it. Think of it as a deduction on your income taxes.
Letsu me see the truck. Keys hung in rows from nails on the wall behind the clerk.
Saul shook his head. Look, this is not a used-car lot. Im not doing this for my health.
Mas pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He already knew that he had only two twenty-dollar bills and a couple of George Washingtons, but he looked anyway. His thumbs extended the torn lining of the wallet. I dont have eighty-five dollars right now.
Saul shrugged. Nothing I can do for you, sir. Just come back with the cash. We accept Visa, Mastercard, too. And remember, its an extra fifteen bucks each day.
* * *
Mas returned to the house and rummaged in his closet for his Yuban coffee can. His stash was down to almost nothing, but he was still able to put together sixty bucks. With the forty in his wallet, he was covered. The Ford was going to come home.
Mas drove back to Alhambra and reentered the one-room office of Sauls Towing, where an oily-faced kid had replaced the middle-aged owner. After handing the kid his paperwork and cash, he waited in the gravel-covered driveway. He looked down at the toes of his work boots. They were getting worn out; hed be needing a pair by this fall, he thought, and then heard a familiar squeak of metal hitting metal. The Ford.
The engine sounded the same, but the body had gone through hell. The kid jumped out of the drivers seat, like he was tumbling out of a hay ride, when Mas noticed there was no door on the drivers side. Or the passengers, either. Sonafugun. Sonafugun, Mas muttered, as if he were saying magic words to turn the Ford back to the way it was. The front grille had been ripped off, as well as the front bumper. Wires that had been attached to the headlights had been cut and now poked out like slashed veins. The Ford had been blinded.
Mas circled the truck. The flatbed was still in place, but the tailgate had been disconnected. Aside from a rake that hung from a wire clip Mas had installed, all the equipment, including the Trimmer, was gone.
Mas was afraid to look inside the cab. They had tried to carry out the seats, but failed. The steering wheel, nicks and all, was still in place, but the end of the stick shift was missing. And the ashtray what the hell were they going to do with that?
As he surveyed each piece of destruction, Mas felt the rage build up inside of him. It was like they had stripped him naked and paraded him around the city. Their grimy hands had gone through the glove compartment, the seats, and the bed of the truck. Even though Mas couldnt see their fingerprints, he felt them everywhere.
Please sign, sir. The oily-faced boy had left the engine running and now held out a final piece of paper on a clipboard.
Mas carefully guided his signature with skinny loops beside the X on the bottom.
Its all yours, the boy said, glancing at the hood, which was bent in the middle as if the thieves had tried to pry it open with a crowbar. Well, at least it still runs. Most of them dont, you know.
Mas remembered how Mari and her friend had accidentally smashed the hood when they had jumped from their neighbors fence. The hood had never been the same; Mas was the only one who had mastered the trick of opening it.
Mas hit the left side of the hood three times and lifted it open. There, in the center, was the magnificent, greasy engine like a black pearl in the middle of an oyster shell. It whirled and purred, the valve cases and air cleaner all intact. Mas had to laugh. Those sonafugun vultures had stripped the Ford, but left behind the most valuable part. The heart of the machine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Naomi Hirahara is a writer and editor of nonfiction books. She previously worked as an editor of
The Rafu Shimpo,
a bilingual Japanese American daily newspaper in Los Angeles.
Summer of the Big Bachi
is her first novel. She and her husband reside in Southern California, where she is at work on her second Mas Arai book. Visit her Web site at www.naomihirahara.com.
Copyright Page
SUMMER OF THE BIG BACHI
A Delta Trade Paperback / April 2004
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the authors imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
