Gen asked Shozo to take Kawamura outside.

“Let me.” Go gathered the accountant.

“Just a dupe,” Harry reminded the corporal.

“No Japanese should be duped,” Go shouted back as he dragged Kawamura through the door. “All Americans are spies!”

On his way out, Shozo said to Harry, “I take it back. You would have made a good policeman, too.”

The instant the door shut behind the sergeant, Gen slapped the desk. “God, that was fun.” He dropped into a chair and put his feet up. Sometimes Gen’s slovenliness struck Harry as virtually American. “I remember, as a kid, watching you do the change-from-a-hundred-yen-note scam, wondering how you always walked away with more money than you started.”

“It’s just how you count, forward or back. How did Shozo and Go know about this meeting?”

“I told them. It was for your protection. They were going to pick you up, so I had to show them how valuable you were.”

“You could have warned me.”

“No time. Everything’s happening so fast.”

“Like what?”

“Life.” Gen leaned forward to spear a cigarette from Harry. “Did I ever tell you how I got in with the C in C?” The commander in chief of the Combined Fleet was Admiral Yamamoto. Naval personnel reverently called him the C in C.

“No.”

“It was thanks to you. I was in the mess with some other officers, and suddenly the C in C himself was at the hatch asking whether anyone played poker. You know how it is with junior officers, one wrong answer can ruin a career. Guys played bridge, but no one was going to admit they gambled. Without even thinking, I said yes. He almost grabbed me by the neck to get me out of there, then I had to race to stay up with him to the senior mess, where there was a poker game of admirals and commanders, the C in C’s inner circle. One had to go, and they needed a fourth. It’s not much of a game without at least four players. The C in C gave me half of his own chips and said two things. First, that he didn’t trust any man who wasn’t willing to gamble. Second, that there was no point in playing except for money. That’s what you always say, too.”

“God’s truth. So, how did you do?”

“Won a little. The C in C asked where I learned to play poker like that. I said Cal. He learned at Harvard. Anyway, from then on, whenever they needed a fourth, they called on me.”

“Cal and Harvard? Wow, were you in the same fraternity? Both smoke briar pipes?”

“Come on, Harry.”

“In other words, you gave me no credit for teaching you the most valuable thing you ever learned.”

“Harry, you’re the ace I keep up my sleeve.”

“Shozo asked about the Magic Show.”

“Oh, he did? What did you say?”

“That I didn’t know what he was talking about. That’s what I always say.”

“Good. First the police know about it, then the army knows about it, then we’re all in the drink.” Gen pulled a folder tied with a red ribbon from the dispatch bag to signal a change in subject. He undid the ribbon and opened to a loose page that he stared at as if it were half in code: “This is the new total. With shortages of two hundred thousand gallons of oil from Petromar, and two hundred and forty thousand from Manzanita Oil added to Long Beach, altogether four hundred eighty-five thousand barrels of oil seem to have been diverted from Japan to Hawaii. There are enough tanks at Pearl Harbor to hold about four million gallons. We estimate they are already full. Where are they putting the extra oil that you have found? And if you found some, there is probably much more. There must be other tanks in Hawaii, and the only information we have on where they are is your story about an American contractor you met in Shanghai who claimed to have put reinforced tanks in a valley behind Waikiki.”

“He was drunk. We were in a bar. He could have made it up.”

“Why that story, though?”

“Gen, it’s all stories. Books were altered, so what? Books are always altered, and mistakes are always made. The same with Manzanita and Petromar. It’s fun to run Kawamura in circles, but we can’t prove anything. Let me ask you this, have your people ever found those mysterious tanks? Why stick them in a valley? When did they build railroad tracks or oil pipes or access roads? The man was drunk. We were at the Olympic Bar in Shanghai, longest bar in the world, ten languages going at the same time, with two Russian girls who didn’t understand a word, so I don’t even know why he was boasting. You’ve been to the Olympic, it’s a mob scene. I didn’t get his name or his company, and he didn’t draw a map on the back of a cocktail coaster. It’s all smoke, Gen.”

“It’s four hundred and eighty-five thousand gallons, Harry. At least.”

“I suppose it’s a lot of oil. But it’s just a story, that’s all.”

“If you could remember anything else. What he looked like?”

“He was fat and loud and drunk.”

“Anything else?”

“What I know, you know. The only way to prove it is to fly over every valley in Oahu. Until then it’s a rumor, a glass of fog. Why believe it at all?”

Gen released a smile with Pepsodent dazzle. “Because of the Magic Show. You nailed someone who had everyone else fooled.”

“All I said was I saw a magician in China. I could have been wrong.”

“You weren’t. And the place you met him was the Olympic Bar in Shanghai, the same place you met this contractor. So we can’t ignore anything you say happened there.”

“Has this been good for your career? Get you more attention from the C in C?”

“It hasn’t hurt.” Gen was still smiling. “And I take care of you in return.”

“Well, that’s what I want to talk about.” Harry mashed one cigarette and tapped out another. “You know what’s more important to me than spies?”

“What?”

“My neck.”

It took Gen a second. “What are you talking about?”

“Ishigami’s back from China. I don’t mind going over the company books from Long Beach Oil or Manzanita, you name it, anything to help an empire in need. Now I need some help. You do remember Ishigami?”

Gen’s smile went flat. “The name is familiar. He’s been in China, right?”

“Most of all, Nanking. His picture was in the paper yesterday. I’m surprised you missed it.”

Gen put the ledger and folder back together and returned them to the dispatch bag. “Nanking was four years ago. You’ll have to remind me what you were doing there. Or should I say, the scam?”

“For the Japanese government, looking for river tankers, trying to find them before they were scuttled. I was along in case there were any Americans on board. I might have liberated a car or two.”

“You just never give it a rest, do you, Harry? You can’t pull that around Ishigami.”

“Well, he holds a grudge, and now he’s after me. Call him off.”

Gen threw on his leather coat, slipped the dispatch bag over his shoulder, pulled on his gloves. “He’s in the army. The army and navy don’t even talk to each other. The army spies on me. They spy on the C in C. Anyway, I understand they brought Ishigami back to do propaganda. After all, he is a hero.”

“He’s homicidal.”

“Right now everybody’s tense. We’ll all be pulling together soon enough.”

“That old team spirit?”

“You got it. In the meantime, our job is to protect the C in C from the crazies.”

Harry followed Gen out the door to a Harley the size of a pony with a teardrop tank and low-slung fenders. There was something about the way Gen swung onto the bike, how he kicked the starter and twisted the throttle so that the bike ached to race away, that disquieted Harry.

“The C in C is a good gambler,” Harry had to shout over the sound.

“Better than you, Harry. He broke the bank at Monte Carlo. They say he could have been a professional gambler. He really considered it.”

Harry had heard the same stories. “Roulette is a tough game, okay. You don’t play other players, you play the house, and the house odds are inexorably against you. You know about odds?”