Chapter Twenty

Next morning, Max was at the Town and Country Café first for a meeting with Sam Norton, fresh out of hospital. He sipped on a tepid cup of coffee and read the war news in the Chronicle. The capital of the Dutch East Indies fell to the Japanese yesterday. In England, which had been at war already for two-and-a-half years, the conscription age for both men and women had been raised to forty-five.

Christ, will it come to that here in the States?

Silver lining, he thought: this ever-widening investigation takes the mind off the really bad news. Second silver lining: Philip was not on the front lines. But that thought made him feel alternately relieved and shit-guilty, knowing some other poor sod was worried sick about his boy fighting the Japanese or Germans.

“The good news is on the sports page.”

Max looked up from the paper. Norton was still wearing a white gauze bonnet over part of his rusty red hair and a wry smile on his lips.

“Sit down, counselor. Good to see you up and around.”

Norton grabbed a chair. “I might be up, but not quite around yet,” he said. “I’m glad you called. Gives me something to think about other than my own mortality. Hospitals are morbid places, even for a couple of days.”

A veteran of them after his gunshot wound, Max had to agree with this assessment.

He turned from the newspaper to the menu and they soon ordered. Max had a dual purpose in meeting Norton: first he wanted to catch him up on the status of the James Suzuki investigation. He told Norton about the meeting with Mrs. Friedrich and her denial of having an affair with James.

“Rubbish,” Norton said. “Most of the county knows about it.”

“Not Sheriff McCall, apparently.”

Norton raised his eyebrows at this statement.

“Or maybe he does,” Max said, “and doesn’t give a damn as long as he clears his cases.”

“It’ll catch up with him, though,” Norton said, stirring three spoons of sugar into his coffee. “Our new district attorney, Adam Farleigh, doesn’t much like to prosecute without physical evidence.”

“Well, that’s good to hear. I won’t lose sleep over trying to prove James innocent then.”

“I didn’t say he wouldn’t prosecute. It’s just that Farleigh likes a sure thing when he enters a courtroom.”

Doris delivered their breakfasts—short stack and two eggs over easy for Max and an omelet and toast for Norton. They ate for a couple of minutes in silence; Norton was finally the one to speak first.

“You know, I really do hope to hell I find the bastard who cold-cocked me. I’d like to repay the favor.”

Max nodded. He could understand the sentiment.

“I think it was that cretin, Frank Carswell,” Norton added.

“He’s a good enough choice,” Max allowed.

More silence then as they finished their breakfasts and then Max brought up the second reason he wanted to meet with Norton: Kito Watanabe.

He’d been unable to find the man on the telephone exchange and didn’t think Pinkus would be too eager to supply his worker’s address. So, he had no idea where Watanabe lived. Even the old P.G. & E. trick failed. Last resort was Sam Norton, who seemed to know more about the Japanese community than its own elders did.

As it turned out, Norton had defended Watanabe on a charge of trespass. Actually, it was not Watanabe, but his goat that was the guilty party, eating a neighbor’s prize-winning tea roses. The rose grower was so pissed that she pressed vandalism charges. Norton had found a sympathetic judge and successfully argued that such a charge was misplaced.

Norton filled him in on the basics: Watanabe had come to the U.S. in 1902, about the same time as Tadeo Suzuki. Some said they’d been great friends and then something happened. Others said they were life-long enemies.

Watanabe had spent most of his working life in the fields of Arthur Pinkus, never rising above day laborer. Few friends, no wife, no kids. He was semi-retired now. But that was a euphemism for too old to work regularly, and his was not a put-your-feet-up kind of retirement as Max had seen himself the other day at Pinkus’s office.

That’s the kind of life that can make a man bitter, Max thought. And vengeful. Ready to blame others for his own failures.

So, armed with the directions to Watanabe’s property, Max said good-bye to Norton and headed off for Pulgades Creek, about five miles from the Suzuki strawberry fields. As he drew near the property and parked his Olds on the edge of the road, he could see locust trees lining the banks of the creek. Tall grass grew between the trees and he watched a quail family hurry through it like New Yorkers scurrying for their trains at the end of a busy day.

The forlorn tar-paper shack under the locust trees looked a lonely place. Max made his way to the door of the shack and did not even notice the goat until it was headed straight for him. He leaped out of the way of the charging animal and its prominent horns just in time, but the goat put on the brakes, turned on its hooves, and immediately prepared to charge again.

Shit, he thought, his heart racing. He began looking for a tree with low-lying limbs he might be able to climb. Then the door of the shack opened and a sharp bark of a voice stopped the animal in its tracks.

Max watched as the stooped man he’d seen at Pinkus’ office came out of the shadows of the doorway, his legs bowed and hands a welter of arthritic knots.

“You trespass, Mister.” His voice was a deep, raspy growl.

“Sorry,” Max said. “Sam Norton sent me.” A harmless lie, but this was no time for a meditation on ethics.

Watanabe scowled at this, his face a wrinkled pumpkin with a surprisingly bulbous nose.

“Lawyers.” He spat the word out.

Max saw that the goat was still giving him the evil eye.

“Maybe we could go inside to discuss matters.”

“What matters?”

“Well, I’m working with the Suzuki family—”

Watanabe bared his teeth. “You get hell out, Mister. Suzuki family. Bah.”

“Just a question or two,” Max persisted, though Watanabe’s response took him off guard.

Another sharp bark from Watanabe and his goat was pawing the ground like a bull ready for the toreador.

“Hold on, here,” Max said. “I’m a private investigator—”

“And I am Watanabe. Private citizen with private property. You leave, now!” The harsh growling voice turned into another bark, a gnarled forefinger pointed to the road.

It was not a complicated calculation for Max. No act of valor was going to save the silliness of this situation.

“Okay, okay. I’m leaving. I was just wondering why you and Tadeo had a grudge.”

Watanabe suddenly transformed from a stooped old man to an upright, full-chested human mad enough to kill.

“You leave. Now!”

This transformation was startling. Max didn’t argue. Getting to the car and putting the key in the ignition, he said aloud, “That worked out well.”

But it did answer one question. Watanabe was full of enough hate and rage to kill.

Before Philip left that morning, Elizabeth offered to get Hiram’s taxi to take him into town to pick up his car.

“No, that’s okay, Mom. It’s a good day to walk.” He glanced at a side table behind the sofa. A chess board and pieces sat there; Max’s long-distance game with a chess friend back in New York. The pieces moved at glacial pace as letters were sent back and forth describing the next move.

“Tell Dad rook to queen’s pawn six.”

“Tell him yourself.”

“Wouldn’t want to spoil his fun.”

At Carlyle Motors, the paperwork took five minutes—CIC arranged the car lease under a shell company claiming to be military procurement. To his parents, Philip was supposed to be a wounded warrior; to the general public he was commissioned to research possible sites for a coastal watch installation. Having two cover stories was a mistake—much too complicated and as it turned out impossible for Philip to maintain with his parents. He still had a lot to learn about espionage tactics.

“How sweet of you,” Suzy said. “But I brought my lunch with me.”

“Save it for tomorrow,” Philip said, trying to sound much more confident than he felt.

“Well, I’ll just do that,” Suzy said.

She rented a tiny corner office in the Grummond Building on Fairweather Avenue close to the beach and had it organized with meticulous care. Customer files were arranged alphabetically in metal racks on one wall, call logs by date on the opposite wall with a large picture window on the wall in between that offered a glimpse of the Pacific and a patch of blue sky dotted with wheeling seagulls. Suzy had placed her desk and phone along the fourth wall, and she sat in her desk chair smiling up at him as he lingered by the office door.

“I hope you brought a sandwich for yourself.” When she smiled, her sky-blue eyes lit up. There was a small space between her front teeth that made her more human to Philip. He felt reassured by this imperfection on her beautiful face.

He pulled a tuna sandwich wrapped in wax paper out of his jacket pocket, bought at the café along with her club sandwich just in case she asked him to join her.

“I know you’ve got to be here all day in case someone calls for one of your customers, so I figured why not join you?”

Now he was beginning to feel like an idiot, explaining too much.

“You don’t have be cooped up in here on a beautiful day like this.”

“I know.”

“Grab a chair, then,” she said.

There was a ladderback by the window. He moved it to the desk and joined her.

A book lay open, spine up, on the desk; one of the new Pocket Book editions. Wuthering Heights. He liked the fact that Suzy was a reader. He wasn’t much of one himself; his father read enough for the entire family, his mother liked to say. But you’d never get Dad to sully his hands or eyes with a pocket edition. It had to be hardback or none.

She noticed his glance. “You like to read?”

“I think it skipped a generation with me. Movies are more my thing.”

“But when you’re off at war and there are no movies available, what then?”

“Sure. Books. Mysteries mostly. I sort of like this Simenon guy. You heard of him?”

“Heard of him! I’ll say I have. I love to read him. Keep a secret?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“I like to read him in the original French.”

“Why’s that a secret?”

She pulled a face. “Come on. It’s like people who speak a second or third language are dangerous. Most folks around here think English is the only language in the world.”

Which got them started on a conversation of where she learned French, and Suzy—between bites of her sandwich and answering a call for Dr. Morgan whose office was closed for lunch—explained to him how she had grown up in Quebec and came to the United States as an adolescent when her physicist father, Gabriel Varkon, took a post at Cal Berkeley.

Philip watched her closely as she spoke lovingly of a youth spent in the countryside of Canada not far from Quebec City, and thought if he were an artist, he would try to get down the fine lines of her nose, her wide eyebrows, the complex color of her hair—not auburn, but sometimes dark red, at other times brown, as the light played on it.

By the end of the story Philip had learned several things: that Suzy was about his age, that she had a relationship with her parents similar to his own, that they both tried college for a time and opted for independence instead, and that his initial attraction was turning into something deeper, stronger.

Which complicated matters, as he could not be completely honest with her.

She finished her sandwich and looked at him.

“Just so you know, I’m not asking any questions.”

“What do you mean?”

“About why you didn’t call like you said you would…”

“But I—”

She put a forefinger to his lips to stop him. “Or why a young man who seems very healthy in body and mind is either alternatively on sick leave from the military or checking out sites for a coastal watch station. You and your parents really should get your story straight.” She smiled again. “I don’t ask my father about what he’s working on now, either, locking up his research in his desk, flying off to New York and Chicago for mysterious conferences. It’s war, and we all adapt. So I won’t ask, just don’t lie, okay?”

He inched his hand on the desk towards hers, finally reaching out and squeezing it softly, a glowing sensation in his chest. “Okay.”