“Do that, Hoop.”

AFTER HOOPER LEFT, Harry found a café to use the restroom, which was a cabinet behind a sliding door. He leaned to one side to feel, inside his shirt, a welt raised like a snake across his back. When he pissed, the toilet bowl turned pink. That wasn’t good, either.

21

AGAWA’S PAWNSHOP was open on Sunday because December was a busy time, when people needed cash for winter house-cleaning and the big blowout at New Year’s. They didn’t like banks; banks transferred mysterious papers around, sign here, sign there. At a pawnshop a person’s goods were safe, redeemable within three months, and shelves were filled with bright stacks of women’s kimonos, toolboxes, movie cameras, tap shoes, ice skates, a golf bag and clubs. A glass case displayed ivory netsuke, a comb and brush set of mother-of-pearl, earrings of black pearl and golden filigree, everything a little chipped, a little shabby, and over it all reigned thin, dyspeptic Agawa at the counter with an abacus, ashtray and pack of Golden Bats.

“That story about Noah’s ark. That was pretty cute,” Agawa said when he saw Harry at the door.

“I knew you were good with numbers. You, saying you couldn’t play cards with Jiro’s ashes there?”

“Well, I find it distracting to play next to a dead man.”

“You’re not so far from there yourself. We’ll just prop you up at the ballroom and deal you a hand.”

“I’d probably still win.” The picture obviously appealed to Agawa. His shoulders shook to indicate that he was laughing. “And I suppose you scratched together some dust for Jiro’s box?”

“We found something appropriate.”

Agawa looked around his shop, at pawned saws and patched umbrellas hanging from the beams, slightly dingy scrolls hanging on the walls, like a personal museum assembled by a man who never dusted. “Want anything here, Harry? Ski poles, telescope, carving of a bear with a salmon in his mouth?”

“No.”

“Good.” Agawa shouted for an assistant who crept in to mind the shop while he led Harry out the back and across a dirt yard populated by hens to a two-story cement tower that looked like the keep of a medieval castle. The tower door was a bank-vault door with a combination lock, and the upper window had iron bars and coffered shutters faced in iron plate. Drop cloths covered everything on the ground floor, although Harry caught a luminous hint of porcelains and the dark stare of a samurai helmet. These weren’t the pawned baubles of the working class, these were treasures of major debt. He followed Agawa up a ladder to the floor above, where the pawnbroker maneuvered a strongbox toward the crosshatched light of the window. Every movement of Agawa’s had been quick and agitated, but in unblocking the box he became nearly reverent, lifting the lid from the rich, swarming glow of gold bars.

The bars were cosseted in red velvet and stacked according to size. Indian tael bars were about the size of calling cards. Chinese “biscuit” bars were six ounces and carried the impression HONG KONG GOLD & SILVER EXCHANGE. Strings of Chinese doughnut coins Harry didn’t bother with. Selling or buying gold was illegal, but there was a rough black-market price both he and Agawa knew: five hundred yen per tael bar, and two thousand yen per Hong Kong biscuit. Biscuits made the pockets sag. Harry laid down three thousand for six tael bars that would be his currency from Hong Kong to America.

“How much for the golf clubs?” Harry nodded back toward the shop. “Keeping in mind that the army’s taking over all the courses and there’s no place to play.”

“A hundred.”

“Twenty.”

“Fifty.”

“Forty.”

“Done.” Agawa spread the bills like playing cards to count them. “Always good to do business with you. Very professional. As long as you let me count the money, not you. Just joking. You know the first time I saw you, Harry, you were running errands for the girls backstage at the Folies. I was interested in a dancer named Oharu, remember her? I wasn’t so old. I was married, but I was still interested. But I could never get her away from that artist. I think she posed for him. Now, there’s a job, painting someone like Oharu. Anyway, I heard that the artist was going to an exhibition out of town, and at once I got over to the Folies in time to catch Oharu and ask her to meet me after the show. She said she had a date. I got the drift, I didn’t have a chance, not with her. I went out and tried to drown my sorrows in drink. Then I went to the movies. I don’t think I ever looked at the screen, because three rows ahead of me was Oharu with you. You were her date. A boy, not even Japanese. I fought a powerful impulse to strangle you. I could feel my fingers closing around your throat. I could feel your breath rattle. You were so friendly with her, so easygoing. I wanted to beat your head against the steps and crush it under my heel.” Agawa rocked with excitement and slowly settled back. “I didn’t, of course. I controlled myself and left the movie theater. I went to a red lantern and got drunk again and calmed down. Although, I have to say, when the earthquake hit soon after and I heard that Oharu didn’t survive, my first reaction was Good, I hope the little gaijin died, too. I didn’t know you had already gone home.”

Harry carefully wrapped the bars in velvet so they wouldn’t click together. He looked up. “I guess those were the good old days.”

“History. Like Noah’s ark. That what you need now, Harry. Noah’s ark.”

HARRY BOUGHT A newspaper and met Goro at a Ginza pastry shop where the reformed pickpocket was squinting through a display case, trying to decide between napoleon or eclair, meringue or tarte citron.

Everyone had expected Goro to become a yakuza like Tetsu. He had the supple fingers of a born dip, but he also had the exquisite mole of an actor. Goro distracted shopgirls while Tetsu lifted the goods, and the two boys were successful thieves until they wandered into a stationery store they had robbed before. The owner at once recognized the mole. She chased Tetsu, locked the door before Goro could escape and could have turned him in to the police. However, she was a widow only ten years older than he, and the more he wept, the more she sympathized. Within a month they married. Goro took her family name as his and never had to steal again, though he still flirted with salesgirls. To get him out of the shop, his wife found him a position at the government printing office, where all he had to do was sort stationery to different ministries. That was still all he did ten years later, except for card games at the ballroom and occasional business with Harry.

“You’re fogging the glass,” Harry said.

“It’s hard to choose between the meringue and the eclair, each has its merits.”

“Then one of each.”

“Excellent. Harry, that’s why we’re still friends.”

Goro had his sweets with coffee, Harry had tea and they took a booth under a mural of cancan dancers kicking on the Champs-Élysées. Harry had met the wife once, and she had used the word “chic” in every other sentence. Goro had padded at her side, to all appearances a well-dressed consort, a neutered cat.

Harry opened the newspaper to the movie times. “I was thinking of taking in an early show. Want to come? You can pick.”

A tael bar sat in the paper’s crease. As Goro pointed to a theater, he incidentally palmed the bar. A moment later he rested his hand in his jacket pocket and let the bar slide down, every move natural and unhurried.

Goro read, “Stanley and Livingstone, what’s that about?”

“Missionary gets lost. Nothing new there.”

“I’m supposed to meet the wife for lunch. She’s very Western, strong-willed. She has me on a diet.”

“I can see.”

“A wonderful woman.”

“Absolutely.” Harry watched Goro stuff his face. “Marriage suits you.”