“Death to spies!” Go said.

The cane whistled down on Kawamura, the bamboo spitting blood. The accountant seized up, mouth agape, eyes trying to escape their sockets.

Shozo asked, “What do you think, Harry? Do you think the Long Beach ledgers were altered by the manager before he went home to America, or by someone else at a later date?”

“How would I know?”

“Is there anything you can tell me that would relieve the suffering of this poor man?”

“I wish I could.”

Kawamura twisted back toward Harry to glare. Go put Harry in mind of how chefs cut up fish alive. The man enjoyed his work.

“Tell me about the Magic Show,” Shozo said.

“I just have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You altered the Long Beach books, Harry.”

“No.”

“How many books have you altered?”

“What do you mean?”

“The ledgers from Petromar and Manzanita Oil. Did you change those, too?”

There was no point in acting dumb about the oil-company names, Shozo obviously knew too much. Harry felt as if the prison were sinking into the earth and taking him with it.

“I’ve been helping the navy. I’m a friend of the navy the same way I’m a friend of Japan.”

“Helping to examine the books of American oil importers?”

“That’s it.”

“Setting a thief to catch a thief?”

“Let’s say a skeptical eye.”

“A thief who counterfeited official papers in Nanking to release Chinese agitators from Japanese authority. A gambler, an extortionist, a moneylender. Who do you think I’m going to believe, you or Kawamura?”

“Me.”

“You must be very good at cards, Harry. You don’t even blink, although I know everything about you.”

Bullshit, Harry thought. Shozo had played Nanking like a man showing two queens, as if that proved he had a lady in the hole. Well, fuck you, to use an expression of the late Al DeGeorge. If Shozo knew instead of suspected, Harry would be on the rack in Kawamura’s place. Not that Shozo had to prove anything. Although Harry had navy connections, it was true anywhere in the world that possession was nine tenths of the law. Equally disturbing, it was also becoming clear that Shozo had his own connections in the navy. How else could he have come up with Petromar and Manzanita?

Harry said, “I looked at the books of certain oil importers at the request of the Japanese navy. The navy seemed to think that I was helpful.”

“More than helpful. You discovered much more than anyone expected.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Then I can tell you. You discovered hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil diverted from Japan to Hawaii, and no one else discovered any. And you alone know where that oil went.”

“I wish I did.”

Go flexed his wrists like a batter ready to hit the ball out of the park, shifted his weight from side to side and whipped the cane down. Taken by surprise, Kawamura lost the air in his lungs and turned blue.

“You cheated,” Harry told the corporal. “You didn’t ask him a question, you just hit him. You’re supposed to ask a question first.”

Go shrugged as if the omission were negligible.

“Ask next time,” Harry said. “Give him a chance.”

“Relax, Harry. Harry Niles, humanitarian,” Shozo said. He offered Harry a Japanese-made Cherry, a cigarette of sweepings, which Harry accepted to stay on a polite footing. “Men have been looking for those secret oil tanks in Hawaii that you talked about. They can’t find them.”

“Because the tanks probably don’t exist. I don’t think they exist. I met a drunk at a bar in Shanghai who said he helped put in some tanks in Oahu. I think he was lying, but I had to report it. Now you know as much as anyone else.”

“It’s important to know about those tanks.”

“I doubt they exist.”

“But they would be a wise precaution for the American navy?”

“I suppose.”

Kawamura passed out, hair pasted to his face.

Shozo said, “We wouldn’t worry about those tanks except for your report. Why should the Japanese navy take the word of a gaijin?”

“I’m not the enemy. There’s no war yet.” Harry caught a smirk on Go’s face. “Look, your navy asked me to do a job and I did, although I was not paid and my efforts on behalf of Japan were not appreciated by other Americans.”

“It’s confusing. The five-hundredth piece of the puzzle is still missing. Why would you concoct a story about missing oil or secret tanks in Hawaii? What is in it for Harry Niles?” Shozo paused to watch Go twist his chubby fingers into Kawamura’s hair and force his head into a pail of water. The accountant came up blubbering. “My suspicion,” Shozo said, “is that we have the wrong Harry Niles.”

“How is that?” Harry asked.

“When we went into your apartment, do you know what struck me? I thought, Harry’s home is more Japanese than mine. It’s true. My wife and I have two rooms, and one is entirely Western. We have the usual middle-class pretensions, a Western table, tasseled lamps. A piano. Except for your gramophone and records, your rooms are entirely Japanese. A simple shrine, a hanging scroll of Fuji, straw mats. A low table of fine lacquer. A typewriter but also a brush and inkstone. A tea set. A vase with a single flower. I said to myself, This is the real Harry. There is the Harry who lives for money and the Harry who takes time to see a soldier off to the front. On the outside is the vulgar American, but inside is someone else. The American would never stand up to the Japanese army in Nanking, but the someone inside would.”

“There were plenty of Americans who rescued people in Nanking.”

“But they were priests and ministers. Is that what you are, a religious man? I don’t think so. You know the expression ‘Every man has three hearts’? One he shows the world, one he shows his friends and one he shows no one else at all. I think that’s the case with you. I think that deep within you is an honorable part that is Japanese. That’s the part of you that so dislikes being responsible for the beating of another man.”

“Sergeant Shozo, it sounds as if there is part of you that doesn’t like to do the beating.”

“Harry, you’re too sly, too sly. But I do believe in the value of confession. My work is done only when a criminal sincerely analyzes and confesses his crimes. I have something for you. Remember how we talked on the boat about the truth, how it wasn’t even worth taking the confession of a gaijin because it would be so insincere. Can I treat you like a Japanese, Harry, treat you honorably? Do I dare do that?” From his briefcase, Shozo brought a school composition book, to which he added his own uncapped Waterman pen, the present from his wife. The stiff cover of the book read “The Statement of Harry Niles.” Harry opened it. The pages were blank except for ruled vertical lines and the smell of schooldays. “Can you be honest, Harry? How many company ledgers did you alter?”

Harry knew what Shozo meant. Kawamura had been treated like a Japanese, and look at him. Hamburger. But Harry understood the sincerity of the option, and it took him a second to say, “Not any.”

“Are there any secret oil tanks in Hawaii?

“I have no idea.”

“Or did you just make them up to cause confusion?”

“What confusion?”

Shozo sighed as if a prized student had failed.

Go was infuriated for the sergeant’s sake. “You should be ashamed! An opportunity like that? To be treated right?”

“Back off,” Harry said. He’d had it with Corporal Go. “What confusion?” he asked Shozo. Although he was half in the maw of Sugamo Prison, this new element had his attention. Uncertainty, yes, but why confusion?

“Just a word,” said Shozo.

“A very particular word.” Harry tried to get around Go to the sergeant. “Who wants to know?”

“You don’t ask the questions. We ask the questions,” Go said and broke the cane across Harry’s back.

My mistake, Harry thought. Never provoke police, especially in jail. And never let violence get started. The pain radiated through Harry’s body from kidney level, and he slid down the wall to his knees.