HE DROVE WEST on Sunset Boulevard, limning the bottom of the northern hills, passing the green sign for the Beverly Hills Hotel at the intersection with Crescent Drive, where he had turned to go to Buddy Pearl’s house. Parking on the eastern edge of the UCLA campus, he walked across a long new bridge with three Romanesque arches that were sunk deep into one of the regional arroyos, gulches which filled with racing water when the rains came late in the year, but were otherwise desert dry. Two logging trucks passed him, spewing dust, and ahead he could see construction workers laying the foundations for another university building. One day the campus would be stunning, he thought, perched on an elevated small plateau west of Beverly Hills with distant views of downtown LA.
Royce Hall was at the hub of the projected campus and had the merit of being finished – a handsome ornate building with two high campaniles that looked like they belonged to an Italian church. Entering it he found the registrar’s office and got directions to the Political Science faculty, which was housed further along a large plaza of chewed-up, muddy grass that would presumably one day be lawn. Nessheim almost broke an ankle angling across it, then made it to the safety of some duckboards that led to a new brick building.
He knocked at an obvious door in the corridor running off the building’s atrium and found a trio of giggling typists drinking coffee inside. They pointed him upstairs, resuming their giggling as he left. He followed students up the stairwell to the second floor, then found himself alone reaching the third, where a long corridor ran either way from the central landing. He picked a side and walked slowly, examining the little cards taped to each doorway. Four doors down he found the name he was looking for and knocked.
‘Come in,’ said a high-pitched voice. When Nessheim opened the door he was surprised to find a man his own age; he’d expected someone weighed down by wisdom and years. The man stood up from behind his desk: he was as tall as Nessheim, but skinnier, the gauntness of his frame evident even under his jacket, which he wore with a check plaid shirt and a brown tie. He looked like a lumber thinner who read books.
‘Professor Larson?’ Nessheim asked, somewhat surprised. It was what the card taped to the door had said.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ The man looked a little nervous.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Are you taking 103?’ the man asked, flicking back his hair. It was sandy-coloured and ran over his ears. Nessheim figured Albert could do a lot for the guy.
‘I’m not a student,’ he said. ‘I’m with the FBI.’
Larson sat down again. On the wall behind him hung a framed daguerreotype of a man in a frock coat and black bow tie. He had a moustache and long beard that dated him by at least half a century, never mind the black and white grain of the print.
Larson said, ‘Usually you guys call ahead.’
‘Usually?’
‘This isn’t the first time someone from the Bureau’s come to see me.’
‘If you help me out, Professor, maybe it can be the last.’
‘I told your colleague everything he wanted to know. I’ve got nothing more to say about my time in Berkeley, and I won’t talk about other people there. And if there are complaints about my teaching, raise them with the Dean.’
‘I’m not here about any complaints,’ said Nessheim calmly. He pointed at the daguerreotype. ‘Nice picture.’
‘Some people think it must be one of my ancestors. Your colleague did.’
‘I doubt that you’re descended from Engels.’
Larson looked impressed. ‘Is that part of your training at the FBI – you know, spot the Red?’
‘Nah,’ said Nessheim, shaking his head. ‘I’m from Wisconsin. We had a socialist governor.’
‘Hah.’ Larson laughed despite himself. ‘I’m from Minnesota myself. Where’d you go to college?’
‘Northwestern.’
‘What did you major in, Accounting?’ His smile only reinforced his patronising tone.
‘Political Science.’
Larson looked at him more closely. ‘Did you know Professor Harrison?’
‘I wouldn’t say “know”, but I took his course on political philosophers.’ Pol Sci 330. Harrison had been brilliant. If Nessheim had ever had any latent disposition to political extremes – right or left – a semester of Harrison’s withering analysis had quashed it for good.
‘Really?’ asked Larson. ‘Then why are you persecuting the likes of me?’
‘Because I didn’t graduate.’
Larson chuckled. ‘I was Harrison’s student at Berkeley. He didn’t approve of my politics, but he taught me a lot. God knows why he moved to Northwestern.’
‘Maybe he wanted a milder climate.’
Larson laughed again. ‘Okay, so what do you want?’
‘I’d like some information about one of your former students.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up – I teach two hundred of them a year.’
‘It’s a guy named Osaka. Billy Osaka. I don’t know what course of yours he took.’
Larson looked at him stonily and Nessheim saw this was one student the teacher remembered. But then, as Teitz has said, everybody knew Billy Osaka.
Nessheim added, ‘He listed you as a reference on an application.’
‘He did? He never asked me,’ Larson said crossly.
‘So you do remember him.’
‘What was he applying for?’
Nessheim paused, savouring the moment. ‘A part-time job with the Bureau.’ If Osaka was dead, letting this out wasn’t going to matter; if Billy were alive, Hood had made it clear he wasn’t going to be working for the Bureau again.
‘So what do you want to know?’
‘What was he like? Was he a good student?’
‘Yes,’ Larson replied simply. For a minute Nessheim thought that was all the man was going to say, but Larson went on: ‘He came to me in his sophomore year and asked if he could take a seminar I teach. It’s called “Democracy in America”, though personally I’d rather call it “The Lack Thereof”. Normally it’s limited to majors – that would be juniors and seniors – but I was impressed by his eagerness, so I let him enrol.’
‘Did he do well?’
‘Not at first. He struggled with the written work. It was okay, but he talked a lot smarter than he wrote. So we met once a week to go over his writing.’
‘Did it improve?’
‘Yes, a bit. He worked pretty hard, but he was always busy doing other things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘He worked part-time on an English-language paper in Little Tokyo. He did shifts at various factories; those that would have Japanese workers anyway.’
‘Maybe. But he also played in a softball league and taught Japanese kids to swim. Anything but hit his books.’
‘What about politics? He must have been interested or he wouldn’t have taken your course.’
‘He was interested in a classic immigrant’s way. He wrote his thesis on Japanese arrivals here and their Americanisation.’
‘That seems normal enough.’
Larson grew impatient. ‘Don’t you know the laws we have about the Japanese? They can’t own property any more, they can’t bring brides over from Japan, they’re subject to every kind of exploitation, and other than agriculture and fishing, most industries won’t employ them. It will take a lot more than efforts to assimilate for them to get their full rights.’
‘But Billy’s only half-Japanese.’
‘That’s more than enough. Look, Billy’s a charming guy and he seems to think that charm is enough. But it’s not. I told him he might do better going back to Hawaii. Most of the population is Japanese, so they can’t be kept out of professions the way they are here. He could have been whatever he wanted out there – maybe even a lawyer. But he wasn’t having any of it – it was the only time I ever saw him angry.’ Larson shook his head; he seemed exasperated on behalf of his former student.
‘So he wanted to stay here.’
‘Yes. He had a misplaced belief in the American Dream.’
‘When in fact a revolution is required?’
‘Mock me if you like.’
Nessheim decided to leave ideology alone. ‘Did Billy ever talk about his family?’
‘Not much. He grew up in Hawaii. I know his father died when he was little. When his mother died he came over here. His grandmother was already in LA, I think.’
Nessheim tried to sound wistful: ‘What I don’t get is why he left Hawaii. Like you say, life’s a lot better for the Japanese there.’
Larson said, ‘I think he had a cousin – some guy who was like an older brother to him when they were growing up. The cousin came over here and he persuaded Billy to follow.’
‘Was this cousin called Osaka too?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘Did Billy ever talk about his girlfriends?’
‘Not much. There was one I remember, though. One he seemed to care about.’
‘Do you know this girlfriend’s name?’
‘Nope. She was Nisei, I know that, and she worked for a bank. And, Special Agent, that’s really all I have to say.’