IT WAS SATURDAY morning and Nessheim rose and showered, then put on a pale linen suit and the silk tie that a rich girlfriend had bought him in Chicago almost a decade before. He left the house and started his car, then went down the hill to Hollywood Boulevard. There was very little traffic at the weekend, though a small black Austin followed him down the hill and along the Boulevard. When he parked his car at the corner of Vine the Austin went right on by. He didn’t get a good look at the driver, though he was pretty sure it was a man. No hat, short hair.
He crossed the Boulevard and went into Albert’s Barber Shop. It had a spinning candy cane barber’s pole in front, and elaborate lettering traced on its wide front window: Men’s Hair Dressing, Toiletries and Shaves. He’d first gone there for a haircut soon after arriving the January before, and now made a habit of coming every Saturday morning for a shave. There were four barber chairs with mirrors on the wall facing them, which made the room seem larger than it was, an effect enhanced by a floor laid out in a chequerboard pattern of large black-and-white tiles. Against the other wall customers could sit and smoke cigars and read the papers in one of a line of comfortable red leather chairs, which had tin ashtrays sunk into their chrome arms. At the back of the shop were two coat-racks and a shoe-shine stand with two chairs – Arthur, the ‘shine boy’ (who looked about a hundred years old), sat on a low stool when he wasn’t making a show of slapping polish on or snapping his chamois rag. Today he was fiddling with the radio for the broadcast of the ball games starting three time zones later back East.
It was less than a mile from the studio, but Nessheim had never seen anyone from the AMP in the barber shop. He liked the place: it seemed an oasis of calm after the hectic craziness of the Ink Well. You’d sit down and Albert would pump the chair up, then tilt it back until you were almost looking at the ceiling. He swathed your face with hot damp towels to soften your beard, lathered the cup of shaving cream, then applied the foaming soap with a soft badger brush that he’d dipped in hot water. You lay back with your eyes closed, sleepy and content to let the man take a lethal straight razor and shave you so close and so effortlessly (never even a nick) that when you stood up five minutes later your face was pink and smooth as a baby’s bottom. You handed over two bits and left the shop a new man, ready for the week ahead.
It was quiet this morning and as Albert stroked the sudsy lather from his throat Nessheim listened to the Braves game, crackling through its various relays.
‘You think that Ted Williams will hit .400?’ Albert asked as he wiped away the remaining bits of soap with a towel.
‘Could do it,’ said Nessheim. ‘I’m a DiMaggio fan myself.’ Jolting Joe had hit in fifty-six straight games earlier that season; if Williams did hit .400 they were two records that looked likely to last a long time.
‘What a year,’ said Albert, wiping his razor between swipes.
‘Enjoy it while you can.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Next year those guys may be wearing a different uniform.’
‘Nah, the Sox would never trade –’ Albert stopped as he suddenly understood. ‘Don’t remind me. I got a boy who’s coming up to draft age.’
Shaved and trimmed, Nessheim drove south, then east on Wilshire towards downtown, where even two miles away he could see City Hall, looming high above its neighbours, the sole building exempt from a city-wide height limit of 150 feet. He turned down Spring Street, and its heavy-set financial office buildings, plonked right in the flat bottom of the bowl which made up most of the city.
He managed to park right outside the Federal Building, since only a few employees worked at the weekend in the Mussolini-style edifice. Inside only one elevator was working – a new automatic one. He took it to the eighth floor, where the guard at reception looked half-asleep as he pushed the sign-in book towards him. He walked down the corridor to the open space where most of the agents had their desks. Looking down he spied the Los Angeles River, swaddled in its new channel of cement, recently poured to control its tendency to flood – it had broken both banks earlier in the year.
His office was a sawed-off desk tucked in one corner, and most of the time he arrived to find that someone had taken his chair. He averaged one visit every other week, so he couldn’t really complain. Now the room was almost empty. In a corner two agents were poring over a map they’d spread out on a desk; another agent, by the window, was on the phone, looking bored. He glanced up and Nessheim gave a casual wave and kept going towards the filing cabinets on the room’s north wall. The long-term files were kept in a locked room down the hall, but more transient stuff, including recent reports from informants, were kept in the bank of three-drawer filing cabinets, next to the SAC’s office. Hood had given him a key only reluctantly, after Nessheim had pointed out that he couldn’t very well keep his files at home – nor at the studio, which, as Hood knew, was full of snooping pinkos.
The SAC’s office door was open and he peered in; there was no sign of Hood. Not unusual for a weekend, since he was a big family man, his desk studded with framed photos of his wife and kids. He advised bachelor agents that they should get married if they wanted to advance at the Bureau.
Nessheim went back to the filing cabinets and unlocked the middle filing cabinet. M, N, O – he pulled back the heavy letter tab and scrutinised the files behind it. Ockermann, Olley, Ormand, then the one he was looking for. He pulled out Osaka and walked back to his corner desk, grabbing a chair on the way. He wanted a coffee, but decided it could wait. Opening the file he took out its pages and read them very carefully.
Billy Osaka had been born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on March 19, 1916, son of Taro Osaka and Mary Osaka (née Mitchie). He had moved to the mainland in 1935 aged nineteen, where he attended UCLA for two years but left without a degree. His two references were teachers there – an English composition lecturer and an Associate Professor of Political Science – though neither had been consulted since Osaka’s work for the Bureau was occasional and hardly top secret.
Billy had begun work as a stringer for the Japanese-American newspaper Rafu Shimpo in 1938, and was first approached by Special Agent Danforth in spring 1939 when fears of a Japanese invasion led the Bureau to start identifying fifth columnists within the Japanese-American community. Osaka had been asked to help identify subversives who might be working for Japanese intelligence, and to serve as a translator. He was put on a retainer of $10 a month, which suggested scepticism about his value; unsurprisingly many of Agent Danforth’s notes of their meetings recorded Osaka’s complaints that he wasn’t paid more.
Not that his intelligence seemed to justify a pay rise: as Danforth noted, most of it was available from public sources. When the Japanese Ambassador Kichisabur
Nomura had visited Southern California earlier in the year, he had been feted at a lunch by Japanese-Americans. Osaka had filed a confidential report saying the Ambassador had held meetings with two local Japanese-American dignitaries. Since both had been openly described in Rafu Shimpo as the organisers of a lunch in Nomura’s honour, Osaka’s disclosures were of limited value to say the least. Particularly since Osaka had written the Rafu Shimpo article.
Nessheim checked that the address Osaka had most recently supplied was the same one in Boyle Heights which he had already visited. He was about to close the file when someone said, ‘Well, if it isn’t Clark Gable himself.’
Nessheim looked up, to find Cohan standing across the desk, his pinched face looking like it had been caught in a trap. ‘Morning,’ he replied, hoping to limit their exchange. Cohan was the SAC’s deputy and Nessheim thought him the worst kind of gung-ho agent, happy to climb the career ladder by kissing the ass on the rung above him, while stepping on all the hands on the rung below. Cohan had got married in spring and spent his honeymoon in Washington; rumour had it that he had taken his new bride to visit the Bureau training facilities in Quantico. Rumour also had it that his wife was rich, which explained why Cohan lived on the edge of Beverly Hills.
‘What gives us the pleasure of your company at the weekend? I’m impressed.’
Nessheim said, ‘I could ask the same of you. Why aren’t you home with your new bride? Something up?’
Cohan said, ‘Nothing you need to worry your sweet buns about.’ But he couldn’t help boasting: ‘We got a spic drug ring in our sights. There’s a raid set for tonight and R.B.’s coming in to check we’re all prepared.’
Nessheim wondered if R.B. Hood was going to lead the raid himself. He was a cautious man, but no coward – and traditionally SACs were first through the door. This added another subtler danger to the obvious one of getting plugged, since a successful raid always made the papers, and the publicity rarely sat well with the Director in D.C. Look at Purvis, after Dillinger’s death: his endorsement had been stencilled on half a million boxes of Wheaties. Within two years Hoover had driven him out of the Bureau.
‘When’s SAC due in?’ he started to ask, but then the man himself appeared. The agents called Hood ‘Dick Tracy’ behind his back, with respect if not affection. He was tall and ramrod straight and as prudish as a small-town minister, which made sense given that his father had been one in Kansas. Hood Junior didn’t smoke, drink or swear. His one concession to human weakness was a vanity about his appearance. Today he wore a khaki suit and a panama hat with a band the colour of smoke. He saw Nessheim and stopped. ‘Where’s your report?’
‘Sorry, boss,’ said Nessheim. He was damned if he’d call Hood ‘sir’, and Hood was never going to invite Nessheim to call him ‘R.B.’. ‘Something’s come up – one of my sources has blown. I can’t find him anywhere.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Billy Osaka.’
R.B. frowned. ‘I told you he was no good. It’s a waste of time worrying about him. You can’t trust the Japs. Their loyalty is to a different country, whatever they tell you.’ He paused. ‘By the way, there’s some Red shindig I want to know about. It’s raising funds for the Communist brethren in Moscow. You’d think it was a little late for that – too late if you read the papers. Still, it’s worth finding out who’s behind it. You have good sources – use them.’
‘Okay,’ said Nessheim, whose ‘sources’ amounted to gossip overheard in the Ink Well and Elsie’s Diner. It looked like he would have to go to the Writers for a Free World benefit after all. But there was a silver lining, he realised – he’d ask Lolly to go with him. Why not? he asked himself, since he was no longer spoken for.
Hood went into his office and Nessheim put the Osaka file back, then walked to the other end of the floor, where the typists sat in an open bullpen. There was a small working library by the window and the view here was a spectacular one of the Santa Monica Mountains to the west and north. He could just make out the dip of Laurel Canyon.
He found a Bureau Directory, wondering if there would be a field office in Hawaii – it was just a territory after all, not even a state. But it was listed, along with the SAC’s name: Robert Shivers. He found a piece of typing paper in the bullpen and wrote out his message in block capitals: INFORMATION REQUIRED ON LA INFORMANT BORN IN HAWAII NAME OF WILLIAM OSAKA. He gave Billy’s date of birth, his parents’ names, then asked for details of Osaka’s upbringing and education in Hawaii, any known addresses where he resided, any living relatives, and any criminal record. It was standard stuff, a Scoop search as it was called in the Bureau. He signed the sheet and stuck it in the Work Waiting basket.
He left the building and got into the Dodge. Driving east, he crossed over the Los Angeles River on Olympic Boulevard and went past the Sears Roebuck Building, an immense concrete tower, one of nine depositories across the country. He’d grown up with the company’s catalogue, remembered how his mother would read through it in the evenings, carefully choosing those items she couldn’t find in the general store in Bremen.
Boyle Heights was north according to the map so he swung left, entering a neighbourhood of small streets with shabby old houses and little bungalows, just east of the river. Boyle Avenue, the main street, was bustling with people. There were fruit and vegetable stalls, fresh produce piled high, and the array of small shops were almost all Mexican or Jewish. He crossed Fourth Street, then drove into the quiet residential neighbourhood on First Street, with its pale stucco houses and brick apartment buildings, a school and a Catholic church.
He parked, took off his tie and left it on the passenger seat. He didn’t want to be taken for a bill collector, or a detective. As he approached the tall wood-frame house, a young woman came out and stood on the porch. She wore baggy shorts, a pink shirt and bobby socks, the dress of a classic American girl, except that she was clearly Japanese. She looked upset, like she had been crying; seeing Nessheim she wiped her eyes, then quickly came down off the porch and cut across the front lawn, heading away from him. He watched her, but she didn’t turn around.
He went upstairs to Billy’s apartment and knocked, but no one answered and he couldn’t hear any sound from inside. He tried the other upstairs apartment, but the couple he’d seen on his previous visit weren’t in, so he went downstairs and knocked at a door on the ground floor. An old Japanese lady answered the door, wearing a housecoat and oversized slippers that had fluffy balls on their toes.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ Nessheim began, then realised from her uncomprehending expression that she didn’t know English. He was about to make his excuses and go when a man’s voice called from inside the apartment.
The old lady said something and seconds later a man appeared. He was Japanese, in thick, blue work pants and a T-shirt, and looked about ten years older than Nessheim. He was stockily built, with powerful arms. His hunched stance suggested he was a stoop labourer, days spent in back-breaking labour picking strawberries, melons, asparagus and squash, crouched down with a stem knife. ‘What do you want?’ the man demanded. A grain of rice hung off his upper lip and he wiped it off impatiently. His lack of any accent suggested that he was American-born.
‘I’m looking for Billy Osaka.’
‘You come round before?’
Nessheim nodded. ‘I was looking for him then too.’
‘What kind of trouble is he in?’
‘He isn’t. I’m a friend of his. We were supposed to meet up, but Billy didn’t show. I haven’t been able to get hold of him since.’
The man looked dubious. ‘You want me to tell him you came by?’ he asked.
‘Please,’ said Nessheim and the man looked surprised.
‘Who do I say it was?’
‘Tell him Nessheim.’
The man nodded. ‘I’ll tell him.’
‘Sorry to trouble you.’
He was halfway through the front door when the man called out. ‘You tried his grandmother’s?’
What grandmother? According to the file, Osaka’s family was in Hawaii. ‘I don’t know where she lives.’
‘In Little Tokyo. Above a restaurant; a fish place. That’s why he moved out here – he couldn’t stand the smells. He said his grandmother didn’t mind it. She used to ask for the fish guts and use them as fertiliser for her window boxes.’ He gave half a smile.
Nessheim nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said, thinking that there were quite a lot of restaurants in Little Tokyo.
‘I hope you speak Japanese.’
‘Like a native.’
The man laughed. As Nessheim started to leave he added, ‘Or you could try Ferraro’s.’
‘The restaurant?’ A fancy place on Wilshire Boulevard, with a menu so expensive it didn’t have prices. It didn’t sound like Billy’s kind of place.
‘Yeah, but he doesn’t go there for the food.’ He looked at Nessheim meaningfully. ‘The game’s in the back.’
Nessheim drove home and spent the afternoon in the relative coolness of his study reading What Makes Sammy Run, which had done the rounds of the Ink Well in spring. At 7.30 he ate a liverwurst sandwich and drank a bottle of beer. Then he changed into his best lightweight suit – a grey, double-breasted number he had bought after he’d been promoted to agent. Six years before, yet it seemed an age. He put on a white shirt with a semi-stiff collar and carefully tied his tie – a striped one, maroon and white. From the inner pocket of a jacket in his closet he unearthed a roll of fifty-dollar bills and peeled off six of them, which he folded in half and put in his trouser pocket. Then he went through his wallet, taking out his badge, Bureau identity card and driving licence, substituting a different licence with a Chicago address. He left his gun behind.
Ferraro’s was not an average spaghetti-and-meatballs Italian joint. Its entrance was on Vine and had a wide yellow stucco front with smoked glass that allowed customers to look out, but did not extend the privilege in reverse to the hoi polloi on the sidewalk. There was a doorman and valet parking, but Nessheim put his car a block away. He didn’t expect to have to make a quick getaway but he wasn’t taking any chances.
The doorman stood in front under an awning, wearing a full-length coat, which had gold-braided epaulettes on each shoulder, and a commander’s white cockaded hat. Nessheim walked past him, nodding politely. A neatly trimmed privet hedge ran parallel to the sidewalk, and when he came to a gap in it he went through the opening. Ahead of him stretched a colonnaded walkway, running along the side of the restaurant and ending at a squat single-storey annexe in the back, behind the restaurant kitchens.
‘Can I help you?’ It was the doorman. He was quick to have caught up to Nessheim so fast.
Nessheim turned round and let the doorman scrutinise him.
‘I was told there was a game tonight.’
‘Are you expected, sir?’
Nessheim forced a wry smile. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’
The doorman was shaking his head, so Nessheim reached into his jacket side pocket and brought out a fin. Folding it with his fingers he tucked it into the breast pocket of the doorman’s coat. ‘Jackson told me about the game.’
‘Jackson?’
‘Yeah. Tell them Jackson from the studio.’ He figured there had to be a Jackson at a studio somewhere.
‘Wait here a minute,’ said the doorman. He looked back at his post and swore. ‘Where’s that crazy carhop?’
‘Don’t worry. You go find him,’ said Nessheim.
The doorman shook his head. ‘No can do. You better come with me.’
They walked back to the entrance of the restaurant, where under the awning a lectern stood in a corner with a house phone and a drawer for the customers’ car keys.
The doorman picked up the phone. ‘Susie,’ he said, ‘put me through to Ike.’ He waited a moment. ‘Hi, it’s Dave in front. I got a guy who wants to join the game. Says Jackson sent him.’ He paused. ‘That’s right – Jackson. From “the studio”.’ He paused again and eyed Nessheim’s suit. ‘Yes, he is.’ Then he hung up the phone. ‘You’re in,’ he announced.
Nessheim went through the opening in the hedge for a second time and down the colonnaded walk, which had a line of stout agave in large pots on either side. He came to a large metal door; it looked heavy as a vault. Next to it he pushed the buzzer and after a moment the door swung open.
‘Come on in,’ a balding man in a tuxedo said. He looked like a maître d’.
Nessheim stepped through the doorway into a large room that was bathed in golden light coming from two oversized chandeliers dropped from a high ceiling. There were perhaps two dozen people in the room. Closest to Nessheim, two men with blonde wives in tow were playing blackjack under the disinterested eyes of a pudgy-faced dealer, who slid the cards out of the shoe with stubby fingers. Nearby a small group was watching a big man with an open-necked shirt throw craps down the wooden alley, and around the roulette table half a dozen people squealed when the wheel stopped on zero. Everyone was well dressed; even the waitresses were classy-looking, with black skirts and crisp white blouses.
‘Are you here for the poker?’ the maître d’ man asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘Both tables are full right now. Why don’t you sit and have a drink at the bar? There’ll be a space free soon.’
He went and sat on a wooden-backed stool. The bartender wore a white shirt and black bow tie, but no jacket. He was Nessheim’s height, but squarer in the shoulder – he wouldn’t need a bouncer if there was trouble.
‘What’ll it be?’ asked the bartender.
‘Bourbon and branch.’
‘Branch?’ He looked amused. ‘Where you from, buddy?’
‘Chicago.’
‘What brings you west?
Nessheim said, ‘Poker.’
‘First time here?’ Nessheim nodded and the bartender chuckled. ‘You’ll find a good game in the back room.’
A few minutes later a man walked out through a curtain at the back of the room and the maître d’ came over. ‘You’re on,’ he said and Nessheim followed him through the curtained doorway.
Here in a much smaller room five men sat around a round table with cards and chips on its baize. Nessheim took the one empty chair and watched in silence as the hand was played. The tubby man on his left won a small pot with King high.
‘Chips?’ asked the dealer with a smoker’s rasp. He wore a tuxedo too.
Nessheim pushed all three hundred dollars across the table and got stacks of five-dollar chips pushed back. There were fifty-seven of them, so the club was taking 5 per cent off the top. It didn’t seem unreasonable.
‘Ante up,’ said the dealer. Everyone threw in a chip while he shuffled the cards.
‘So what are we playing?’ asked Nessheim, his voice all innocence.
The dealer looked surprised and momentarily stopped shuffling. ‘Five-card stud.’
‘You got any better ideas?’ asked the tubby guy next to him.
‘No, I’m happy,’ said Nessheim.
‘Oh good,’ said Tubby. ‘He’s happy, Fred, so you can deal now.’
Fred dealt and the cards came shooting out, sliding eel-like across the felt until they halted just short of the waiting hands. One down, then one face up.
Nessheim showed a deuce and held a four in the hole. He folded at the first bet and did the same for the next three deals. He was trying to feel his way in. The college poker he’d played had been social rather than serious: five-card draw, which made it less a matter of calculation than of blind hope – almost any hand, however poor, could be redeemed at the last minute by a drawn card. Stud was different – immoveable odds and everything down to betting and bluffing.
He watched in bewilderment as a forty-dollar pot went to a pair of threes, and then as an Ace high, bet aggressively by Tubby, got a showing pair at the end of the table to fold. Two hands later Nessheim lost sixty dollars when he tried to bluff Tubby, and lost with King-eight against the other player’s King-Queen. Despite this, Nessheim felt more confident now, and was doing his best to show it, talking a little too much, ordering another bourbon and water when the waitress came round.
Then he got some cards. He won a hand with a pair of tens, though all but one player folded and he only won twelve bucks. On the next hand he held an Ace in the hole. Tubby had King showing, and further up the table a man with brillantined hair also showed a King. He bet twenty dollars and Tubby and Nessheim seed him. Through the next two rounds no one showed a pair, but Tubby bet so aggressively that Brillantine man folded, King notwithstanding.
With the final card to play there were almost three hundred dollars on the table. With that kind of money at stake, Nessheim figured Tubby didn’t bluff, so he was ready to fold after the last card came out. Instead he found his heart beating like a drum when he was dealt another Ace.
Tubby pushed two neat stacks of chips into the middle of the table and grinned at Nessheim. ‘Raise you another two hundred.’
‘I haven’t got enough cash left to call,’ Nessheim protested.
Tubby gestured at the dealer. ‘He’ll take your note. But I feel bad taking your money.’ Not that Tubby looked very upset. ‘You can raise me to the moon and I ain’t gonna fold. Fish don’t fly over rainbows in this part of the world.’
Nessheim nodded at the dealer who counted out two hundred dollars in stacked chips and pushed them over to him. Nessheim thought fleetingly of Guttman – and tried not to imagine the expression on his face when he saw Nessheim’s next expenses.
‘I’ll call you,’ said Nessheim suddenly. ‘With the two hundred in lieu.’
Tubby slowly turned over his hole card. Sure enough, he had another King. He looked momentarily jubilant – until Nessheim turned over his second Ace.
There was a little gasp of admiration at the far end of the table. As Nessheim raked in the chips, he glanced at Tubby, who was staring at him angrily. Tubby said in a mimicking voice, ‘So what are we playing?’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘You been around a bit, buddy. Where you from?’
‘Here and there.’
Nessheim finished stacking his winning chips. ‘A guy I met told me about the game. He said he played here a lot. Funny-looking fellow – kind of Japanese. Billy something.’
No one said anything. Noise from next door suddenly seemed louder. Tubby put his hands on the table, nodding thoughtfully. Nessheim saw he had a scar the size of a stick of gum running along one side of his neck. When Tubby spoke he almost spat out the words. ‘You’re telling me you heard about this game from Billy?’
‘Something wrong with that?’
Tubby shook his head at Fred the dealer. ‘Count me out. I need a drink.’
Without Tubby the game seemed to lose its intensity and the betting was more restrained. When he turned to summon the waitress, Nessheim saw Tubby standing by the door, talking with the maître d’. After another round, in which Nessheim folded early, the maître d’ appeared at Nessheim’s side. ‘Could I have a word in private please?’
‘What about?’
‘I’ll explain in a minute.’
The other players weren’t looking at him any more. When he stood up, Fred pointed to his chips. ‘They’ll be safe there,’ he said.
The maître d’ led the way towards the back of the room and into a small corridor where they found a closed door. When the maître d’ knocked a voice called out ‘Come in.’
They entered a small dark office that was lit only by a table lamp on a desk. A man sat behind the desk, dressed in a grey banker’s suit with thick pinstripes and a scarlet silk tie. He looked about fifty years old and had a handsome face, though a birthmark sat in a small red patch under one eye. His hair was slowly going a distinguished grey.
‘Have a seat,’ he said, pointing to the empty chair on the other side of his desk.
Nessheim sat down and the maître d’ left the room. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked. ‘I was doing okay out there.’
‘Don’t worry – you got plenty of time to lose it.’ The man leant back in his chair until only the very front of his face was in the lamp’s light. ‘George tells me you were asking about somebody.’
‘I was?’
‘Evidently. Guy called Billy Osaka.’
Nessheim was thinking how to answer when there was a knock on the door and George the maître d’ reappeared. ‘We got company,’ he said.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘It’s Foyle again. And some of his men.’
‘Christ. Better send him in.’
As George went to get the visitor, the man behind the desk looked at Nessheim. ‘Sit tight. This won’t take a minute.’
A few seconds later the door swung open and a cop came in, wearing a peaked cap and a double-breasted uniform coat lined with brass buttons. His face was big-boned and Irish and – when he looked at Nessheim – very unhappy. The last thing Nessheim needed was to be busted in a raid by the local cops, carrying a phoney identity card.
The man behind the desk said, ‘This is an old associate, Commander.’
‘I don’t care who he is. You’re late, Ike.’
Ike shrugged, and the cop looked at him angrily. ‘I’ve told you, and told you to tell your boss: this isn’t Cleveland. So don’t fuck around. When I name a date, you keep to it, got it?’
‘Okay. But I’ve got this for you,’ said Ike. He reached in his top drawer and brought out an envelope. ‘Or do you want to turn it down and stay pissed off?’
The cop called Foyle hesitated, then reached out for the envelope and grabbed it like a candy bar. Nessheim looked down at the floor as the cop shoved it into his inside jacket pocket. ‘It better all be there,’ he said.
‘Of course it is. With a double sawbuck thrown in for late delivery.’
‘Next time … on time. Got it?’
‘You bet,’ said Ike cheerfully, and the cop went out the door, banging it shut behind him.
Ike looked at Nessheim and shrugged. He didn’t seem fazed. ‘I’ve creased palms in a lot of towns, but the LAPD take the biscuit. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, you were asking after Billy Osaka.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is he a friend of yours?’
‘I wouldn’t say that. I’m looking for him, though.’
Ike stared at Nessheim and pursed his lips. Then he said, ‘You mind my asking why?’
‘Maybe.’ Ike continued to stare at him and Nessheim relented, since otherwise he wasn’t going to get anywhere. ‘I’ve got business with him.’
‘Join the crowd. Don’t tell me: he owes you some money.’
‘Something along those lines.’
Ike nodded and his mouth hinted at a smile. ‘He could be hard to find. Some people think Japs all look alike.’
‘Not Billy. Maybe because he’s only half-Jap.’
‘That’s true,’ said Ike, and Nessheim realised he had been checking that he really did know the guy. ‘But it would still be pretty easy for him to disappear in Little Tokyo. There must be twenty thousand people living there.’
Nessheim didn’t react, and Ike said, ‘You know the neighbourhood?’
‘A bit,’ he allowed.
‘Well, that’s more than I can say.’ He sat up a little in his chair and put his hands on its arms. ‘So here’s the thing: I got my own wish to see Osaka, and I want to piggyback on your search for the guy. I’m offering you a thousand dollars to let me know where he is. It’s got to be reliable – don’t just give me rumours. But if it’s real, you get a grand.’
‘I want to see him first.’
‘Okay, but I don’t want damaged goods when it’s my turn. Understood?’
‘Sure – I want the money he owes me, not his hide.’
Ike nodded. ‘And another thing: I don’t want any trouble with the Tokyo Club. They’ve got their turf and we’ve got ours, and that suits me just fine; I’ve got no bone to pick. But I can’t have Osaka coming here to play, then not clear his debts. Make sure they understand that’s what it’s about – nothing more, nothing less.’
‘Got it,’ he said, though he hadn’t.
‘So we have an understanding?’
‘It sounds that way to me.’
Ike extended his hand across the desk and as Nessheim shook it, asked, ‘You got a name, pal?’
‘Rossbach.’
‘A Kraut, huh?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘Okay Mister Rossbach, is there a way I can reach you?’
‘I’ll give you a phone number.’
There was a pad on the desk and he reached for it and wrote down his home number, then slid it over to Ike, who looked at it and said, ‘You got an address maybe?’
Nessheim shook his head. ‘It’s Osaka you’re looking for. Not me.’