As he tried not to think about his son-in-law in jail, the metal doors opened, bringing in cold air and a heavy Latino man, who Mas overheard was a pickpocket victim. One after another they came, telling stories of missing Toyotas and broken noses. They were all given papers to fill out and sign. “Then come back here again,” instructed the clerk.

The pickpocket and car robbery victims had finished first; then a young Asian woman breezed in. Her hair was cut bluntly past her shoulders, as if it had been shorn by a pair of hedge clippers. She clutched a leather briefcase. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she called out to the clerk. “I’m here to see Lloyd Jensen. I’m his legal counsel.”

Her voice was deep and throaty like that of a woman who drank and smoked too much.

“Miss, I’m going to have to have you wait in line.” The rest of the victims nodded and hooted in agreement.

“No, I will not wait in line.” The girl then began to speak faster and faster, using words that Mas had never heard of. Her voice became even more guttural; she seemed to be transforming into an oni, one of those red demons with knobby horns in Japanese fairy tales.

Finally the clerk sighed. Apparently the attorney’s incantations had worked. “I’ll be right with you,” she said, leaving her post once again.

The attorney then turned around, and her black eyes met Mas’s. Her face immediately softened and looked nothing like a red oni that Mas imagined. Her skin was as smooth as mochi, pounded rice, and her eyes, although not that big, were bright. When she held out her hand to shake his, Mas couldn’t help but take a step back. “You must be G.I.’s friend,” she said. “I’m Jeannie Yee.”

Jeannie Yee was originally from Torrance, California, a suburb thirty miles south of downtown L.A. That’s where the well-to-do Japanese moved to in the 1970s after exhausting the charms of Gardena, the working-class town next door.

She was a hapa, too, half-Japanese and half-Chinese. Later she would joke that her Sansei mother had mixed sticky and long rice together, half and half, to appease both sides of the family. She had gone to UCLA for her BA, and then gone on to Columbia, Mari’s alma mater, for her law degree. Mas couldn’t imagine this young high-tone girl being connected with G. I. Hasuike in any way, but she explained that she had received a scholarship from his professional group, the Japanese American Bar Association, years ago. And although she had lived in New York City for seven years, her heart was still in L.A.

“Damn, I’ve got to get back. Can’t take this weather.” Jeannie had taken off her black overcoat, revealing a lavender suit the color of jacaranda blossoms. She tossed her coat over one of the chairs beside her.

Tug was the one to make most of the small talk with the girl lawyer. Her father was an engineer with the city of Los Angeles; Tug had been a county health inspector. They shared a world outside of Mas’s. The most Mas could do was pull her overcoat higher up on the chair so the bottom did not drag on the linoleum floor.

“So, your son-in-law, is he a hapa?” Jeannie finally asked Mas.

Mas shook his head. “Hunnerd percent hakujin. Dat mean you won’t help him?”

“Well, we don’t discriminate,” said Jeannie, “although we can’t take every case. But since you know G.I., I’ll take him on. We charge a sliding scale based on income.”

“Next-to-nuttin’ income, I think.”

“Well, then,” said Jeannie. “You’ve probably come to the right place.”

Finally, the clerk called Jeannie’s name and the lawyer was allowed through a door beside the counter.

“Cute girl,” Tug said after Jeannie had left. “Said she was named after that TV show in the sixties, remember, the one with the blond genie in the bottle.”

Mas, whose television tastes tended toward Westerns and detective stories, merely shrugged his shoulders and made himself comfortable in the seat Jeannie had abandoned. He folded his arms and closed his eyes. He couldn’t block out the noises and murmurs of crime and tragedy, but at least he could escape seeing it for a few moments.

Finally, Tug nudged his elbow. “They’re back,” he said.

Lloyd had been the first to appear from the door next to the counter. Remnants of a frown still remained on his forehead. He seemed so happy to see Mas that he almost bent down to hug him; he caught himself, however, and placed his hand on Mas’s shoulder instead. “Didn’t know you had connections with defense lawyers,” he said.

Mas bit down on his lower lip. This was one connection that he preferred not to have. But his need for criminal defense lawyers only seemed to deepen, as if he had stepped into a secret sinkhole that had no bottom.

The door banged open again. “Ghigo, I really expected better of you,” said the girl lawyer, whose overcoat was now folded over her arm.

Detective Ghigo was right behind her. “Jeannie, I’m telling you, we were just having a conversation.”

“Give me a break,” Jeannie snapped back. “You were trying to intimidate him. He has a right to representation.”

Even after he had stopped talking, the detective’s mouth was still open halfway. In Mas’s line of work, he had seen his share of stray dogs go after penned ones day after day. It was obvious that this stray, Detective Ghigo, had sniffed Jeannie before and wanted something more.

Mas stood next to Jeannie. “We gotsu to go,” he said. Tug nodded behind them in agreement.

“Mr. Arai.” Ghigo put on a fake smile. “Good to see you again.”

Mas grunted. He waited until Lloyd, Tug, and Jeannie were safely out the door before he turned to leave himself.

“Oh, Mr. Arai,” Ghigo called out, “about that flower-”

Mas stopped midstep and waited.

“Just got that lab result. The hair wasn’t human. Animal hair, most likely a deer’s. Don’t figure a deer shot a bullet through Mr. Ouchi’s head, do you?”

chapter five

Mas never understood why people wanted to make a fool out of him. In Japanese, there were two types of fools: bakatare and aho. You called someone a bakatare if he forgot to turn off the stove so that the teakettle became bone-dry and its bottom burnt black. The same went for using an edger much too close to the sidewalk and dulling the blade.

But aho was different. You were an aho when a gas blower salesman told you a fancy upgrade was quiet as a mouse, and you believed him, only to find out the expensive upgrade was not only loud but a piece of junk, too. Sometimes you couldn’t help being bakatare, but there was no excuse for being an aho.

Detective Ghigo’s announcement about the deer hair was supposed to make Mas feel like an aho. In that sense, the detective had succeeded. Mas didn’t know why he had told the detective to take a second look. It had probably wasted some valuable time in finding clues to Kazzy’s real killer.

“That Detective Ghigo probably thinkin’ I makin’ him run around for no reason,” Mas said to Haruo on the phone that night.

“No worry, Mas. You always gotsu good hunches.”

“I tellin’ you, Haruo, that gardenia a giant one. Neva saw nutin’ so big.”

For once, Haruo didn’t interrupt, and let his friend go on until he ran out of gas.

While Mas slept in the underground apartment that night, he dreamt of deer grazing in a lush green valley and then the valley on fire, the deer ablaze.

Both Mari and Lloyd were staying at the hospital, so Mas found himself on his own again the following morning. He planned to check on the cherry blossom trees after eating a bowlful of dry shredded wheat. There was no real milk in the refrigerator except for a carton of the soy kind. Mas liked tofu in his miso soup, but stopped short of putting milked soybeans in his breakfast cereal.