Sayonara Slam (10 page)

“I dunno nuttin',” Mas said, changing to English. “I'zu no soldier. But you'zu two plain too young to knowsu either.”

The mustachioed man cursed him and spit on the ground in front of Mas.

“You just watch out, old man,” the chubby one said. “You don't want to fall down dead like Itai some day.”

As they strolled away, the traffic on the nearby freeway buzzed in Mas's ears. He realized that he'd seen these two before. They were the men following the yellow-haired outfielder, Kii Tanji, back at Dodger Stadium.

Chapter Nine

M
as didn't know if the boy journalist would be answering his phone in the hospital, but he tried calling anyway.

He'd just finished polishing off his second bean-and-cheese burrito—he thought he deserved it, after the encounter with the two
hanakuso
good-for-nothings, little bugger snots that Mas could have quickly brushed aside when he was in his prime. But he wasn't in his prime now, and he knew it.

“Mas-
san
, hello.” There was a lightness to Yuki's voice, a carefree warmth that Mas had never heard before. It didn't surprise him when Yuki reported that Mrs. Kim's condition had stabilized. Tests revealed no cyanide in her bloodstream, although it was possible that other poisons could be present. Unfortunately, testing for unknown chemicals could take days to process in the laboratory.

Mas told Yuki about the two men and the threat delivered by the roly-poly one. “I saw these two
kuso
-heads with Kii Tanji this morning,” Mas said in Japanese. “They were
following him around like hungry dogs.”

“I think I know who you're talking about. Just a minute, okay?” Mas heard Yuki speak to someone, most likely Neko. “Come pick me up at the hospital. I think we need to have a conversation with Tanji-
san
.”

“Maybe police betta handle,” Mas said.

“No, they have no idea what's going on,” Yuki said. “You need to be from Japan to really understand.”

When Mas went to the hospital to pick Yuki up, he noticed Sally Lee standing by the glass doors. As soon as he parked the Impala by the entrance, she crossed her arms and scowled, as if to say,
Didn't I tell you to stay away?

“Whatsu dat lady's problem, anyhowsu?” Mas asked after Yuki got into the car and closed the door.

“Who?” Yuki buckled his seat belt. “Oh, Sally Lee. She's kind of Mrs. Kim's assistant while she's in Los Angeles.”

“Sheezu the one who told me to leave.”

“She's just trying to protect Mrs. Kim. Don't take it seriously,
Ojisan
. She's actually not bad when you get to know her.”

Yah, right
, thought Mas. He'd as soon see flowers bloom from a rock before that ever happened.

Tanji was staying at the Bonaventure like all the
other Japanese team members. Neko had called him, feigning that she needed to talk to him about a very important matter.

Yuki even had his room number, so he and Mas went into the glass tube-like elevator with a clear mission: find out what Tanji was up to. And make sure to warn him to keep his minions far away from Mrs. Kim, who had to remain at White Memorial Hospital for who knows how many days.

Neko chose to stay with her grandmother in her hospital room. It made sense. She and Jin-Won needed to focus their energies on helping their elder get better. Yuki and Mas, on the other hand, had dirty work to do.

Climbing to the twenty-ninth floor, Mas looked out the elevator's glass walls at the downtown L.A. skyline. It was now close to ten o'clock, yet some floors of the office skyscrapers were still lit up, either for the cleaning crews or late-night workaholics. He felt as though he was lifting off into space, until the glass pod shuddered to a stop. It was time to get out and face Tanji.

Tanji was obviously expecting Neko, so he opened the door immediately after they knocked. “
Ara
—” he said, stepping into the carpeted hallway to see if Neko was lagging behind Mas and Yuki.

Yuki pushed Tanji back into his room. Mas was shocked by the audacity but impressed by this new Yuki, transformed after being reconciled with his true love. “We have some questions for you, Tanji.”

“Oh, you do now?” Tanji sneered, revealing crooked teeth. Mas never understood why the young Japanese, even the rich ones, never seemed to fix their teeth. Mas and
Chizuko had spent a small fortune to correct Mari's, and she was no superstar celebrity.

Tanji's room was more expansive than regular hotel rooms, with fancier lighting and furniture. His hair was still wet from the shower, blunting the shock of the blondness.

Sitting on the edge of the king bed, he gestured toward a comfortable chair with a matching ottoman. Yuki took his position on the ottoman and flipped open Itai's computer, which never seemed to leave his side. Mas chose to keep standing.

Tanji took out a cigarette from a pack that he held in his left hand. Mas was surprised to see that it was a brand he recognized from the 1930s. Golden Bat. The cheapest of cheap, and filterless. As Tanji lit his cigarette, Mas almost starting salivating. These young men from Japan would be the death of him. More days of spending time with them, and he'd be back smoking again.

Tanji must have noticed the longing in Mas's eyes, because he held out the pack of Golden Bats to both him and Yuki. Mas hesitated but still shook his head. Once the smoking started, it could not be stopped. Besides, wasn't this hotel nonsmoking like all the other ones? Tanji was a bigwig who obviously considered himself immune to rules. Yuki was still busy trying to find something on the laptop.

“Interesting slogan,” said Tanji, smoke coming out of the gaps between his teeth. He gestured toward the sticker—sure enough, he was talking about the characters for
teia,
, on the back of the computer.

“You know what that means?” Mas asked in Japanese.

Tanji shook his head. “No idea.”

“This is Itai-
san
's computer,” Yuki finally said. “There are some very interesting things on here. Like this.” He turned the laptop around, and even Mas was taken aback. On the screen was a photo of Tanji with the same two men who'd confronted Mas in East L.A. “Can you explain this to us? Itai-
san
took it the day before he was killed.”

Tanji's face didn't change expression. Mas was looking very carefully for signs. He thought he saw a very brief shadow cast over Tanji's eyes, but the darkness quickly left, like the grayness below fast-moving storm clouds. “What of it? It's just me with two local fools.” He'd already finished one cigarette and started on his second. Mas didn't know how these star athletes could compete with so much damage to their lungs.

“Why are you spending so much time with them?”

“I don't see how it's your business.”

“They threatened my driver here,” Yuki said. “They told him they might kill him if he was sympathetic to the
ianfu
issue.”

“
Ianfu
? I don't get it.” Tanji, at least to Mas, seemed genuinely perplexed.

“Jin-Won's grandmother is an
ianfu
. She's in the hospital right now, perhaps a result of somebody's dark mischief.”

“Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Really, I am. But I had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing.”

“Then why spend time with these ‘fools,' as you call them?”

Good question, Yuki
, Mas thought.

Tanji dropped his second cigarette into an empty beer can. “If I tell you, you can't write this, Kimura. At least not now. I'll give you the green light when it's official.”

Yuki didn't agree, but he didn't disagree, either. His silence gave tacit approval to Tanji's offer.

“I'm retiring from baseball after this season and going back home to Kagoshima. I plan to run for an open spot in the Lower House.”

“I'd heard some rumors,” Yuki said. “But how does your political campaign have anything to do with those characters?”

“I'm not hanging out with them, okay? They're from my prefecture. They've been following me around town. I can't chase them away….”

“Because that wouldn't be smart politically.”

The blond would-be politician nodded. “I'm worried about the future of Japan. We used to be a world economic and political power. Our automobile industry may soon be overtaken by other Asian countries. What can we offer? The best anime and manga out there? The most gorgeous sushi? There's got to be more.”

Both Yuki and Mas remained silent. Tanji had a point.

Tanji continued to address Yuki. “You're young. You know how it is with your friends. All these young men and women unemployed. Lost in a fantasy world with their computers. They're afraid to come out of their rooms. Is this our Japanese future? Trapped on our little island?”

“But surely we can't go back to Imperial Japan? Look how damaging that was to us, the rest of Asia, the world.”

“That was the past. We have to look to the future.”

“Maybe not making peace with that past is what's keeping us back,” Yuki said.

“Now you sound like Itai. He was always crying about what happened sixty, seventy years ago. How does that help us today? It just crushes our spirit. Just look at Zahed. He has no idea who he is, how much talent he has. I try to egg him on, to encourage him to be strong, but he doesn't seem like he can take the pressure.”

Mas was surprised to hear Tanji say this. Wasn't he the one who'd said disparaging things about the young man's pitching record in the minors? But then again, that was the traditional way of doing things in Japan. To scold and correct the younger ones, the
kohai
—not because you lorded over them, but because you wanted the best for them.

“Ah—” Mas interrupted. He remembered then that Tanji had approached Itai in the press box dining room on Itai's last living day. Mas had forgotten to tell Yuki; he reported what he'd heard right now.

Yuki's face grew still as he listened to Mas. He turned to Tanji. “What did you two talk about?”

Tanji's jaw tightened, and Mas expected him to repeat
None of your business
. He instead took a deep breath. “He asked to see me. He wanted me to ease up on Zahed. Said that my approach wasn't helping him play better.”

“And you said?”

“I refused, of course. I'm not going to let a tabloid journalist tell me what to do on the field.”

“And these two guys?” Yuki again flashed the computer
image of the mini-thugs who had bothered Mas. “What are their intentions?”