‘Wouldn’t it be illegal serving a bear beer? You can’t even take a dog in the supermarket back in America,’ Eliza whispered.
‘You can reason with a dog,’ the Magician said, which made as little sense as the bear at the bar drinking beer.
‘Gooda see yuh,’ the bartender said. ‘Everybody calls me Kraft American. I own the place, What’ll it be?’
‘I need something really strong. A piña colada,’ the Magician said. ‘And beer for my friend.’
‘Okay I make that piña colada with Russian rum?’ Kraft American asked.
‘Russian rum?’ the Magician said, somewhat aghast.
‘It’s all I got till my delivery tomorra’
‘Sure,’ the Magician said with a shrug. ‘It fits in perfect with everything else.’
‘Uh ... what’s with the bear there?’ Eliza asked.
‘Yuh mean the one with the hat?’
‘I don’t see any other bear in here.’
‘What can I tell you,’ Kraft American said apologetically. ‘He comes with the store, okay? The guy who owns the place before me, he’s kind of like a patriotic nut. The bear is just one thing. You haven’t gone to the john yet. You sit on the seat, a recording of “God Bless America” plays. Anyways, the deal is, the guy wants out. He offers me the place. The only catcher is, see, the bear stays. And his rah, rah, rah, America hat stays too. And the flag-wavin’ toilet seat, everything.’
‘Does he have a name?’
‘Name’s Harry S. Truman.’
‘Does he often tear a man’s clothes off his back?’ the Magician asked, still annoyed.
‘It was the piano. I woulda warned ya, but I didn’t see yuh siddown to play. Only problem we got with Harry S. is that the goddamn bear goes apeshit when he hears flat musical notes. Hurts his ears or sumpin. That piano ain’t been tuned since they built the Canal. The only way, see, to calm Harry S. down when he gets outa sorts like that, all yuh gotta do is whistle the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
‘You ever know a guy name of Red Bridges?’ Eliza asked.
‘Know him? Shit, yuh. Can’t count the nights I wheeled his ass outa here. Red was in here alla time. He loved Harry S. I mean, they was asshole buddies. Red’d sit there, tell that goddamn bear his troubles, he’d never talk to anybody else. He used to bitch about the dish.’
‘Dish?’ Eliza asked.
‘Yeah, enormous thing, maybe as big around as, uh, half a football field, Like that.’
‘What do you do with it, invite a thousand of your closest friends to dinner?’ said the Magician, looking around for a laugh.
Kraft American laughed. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said. Harry S. belched, then rolled his lips back and smiled at everybody.
‘Actually, what it is, it’s an underwater environment thing.’
‘How come it was so big?’ Eliza asked.
‘Uh, I dunno this fer certain, okay? This is scuttlebutt. But from what I hear, this saucer-type thing could sleep maybe twelve, fifteen people. Had regular apartments in it, like they was gonna live down there. It was designed by that Greek guy, y’know the one does all the underwater shit.’
‘Nicholas Kaginakas?’ Eliza said.
‘That’s the one. He died too. He was here for a while and then he went back to Greece and one day he dropped dead.’
‘What did Bridges make before they started building the dish?’ Eliza asked.
‘He was hot and heavy into the salvage business. Then Red bought about — oh, fifteen, sixteen of those old Liberty ships from World War II. Big, ugly bastards, but they could hold a ton. He worked on them for a while, refitting, putting in tanks.’
‘What for?’
‘Red comes up with the idea that you could gut them, put in storage tanks and use them for oil tankers. He did lotsa business, none of ‘em ever came back to complain. They was very unique, y’know, had ballast tanks in them like a submarine.’
‘Ballast tanks?’ said the Magician.
‘Yeah. I guess so’s they could equalize the way they float, empty and full.’
Harry S. picked up his empty mug between his paws and rapped on the bar, and Kraft American went down and drew him another beer.
‘What d’ya think?’ the Magician whispered to Eliza.
‘Didn’t Danilov say something about killing a man in Greece?’
The Magician nodded.
Kraft American came back with a pina colada and one draft beer.
‘This dish, you know where they took it?’ the Magician asked.
‘Nope.’
‘And Red Bridges died before it was finished?’
‘Yeah. Old Red was gettin’ fed up with the operation. It got bigger than he had planned. See, Red was just a good old pirate, a salvage jockey. He loved lookin’ for old wrecks. If he’d made a fortune dredging up some old treasure ship or a war vessel full of relics, that woulda made him happier than a pig in shit
— pardon the French, lady. But converting old tubs into tankers and building some underwater flyin’ saucer, that wasn’t his thing. That definitely was not his thing. He didn’t wanna be no big-timer.’
‘Did he ever find anything when he was salvaging?’ the Magician asked.
‘Sure. Just before he quit we found an old Jap troopship lyin’ in twelve fathoms off the Volcano Islands south of here. She was running from Iwo Jima in ‘45 and our dive bombers caught up with her. Then he got involved in this big-time shit and he never went back. She’s still down there, rusting away.’
‘Nobody else went back either?’
‘Far as I know, Red never reported the find. He was always planning to go back there when he retired.’
He stopped and shook his head forlornly, then went on, ‘He really agonized over selling the yard, though, after thirty-five years. I heard him tellin’ Harry S. all about it one night. He got a little soused, was unloadin’ on old Harry. Some people he worked with after the war wanted to buy him out. Poor son of a bitch dropped dead before he could make up his mind.’
‘Before?’ said Eliza.
‘Yeah. Two nights before he passed away, he’s in here with a bag on. He’s bitchin’ about gettin’ in a squeeze with the big boys. But what big boys he didn’t say.’
‘And nobody ever said what happened to the dish?’
Nope. Hauled it outa here — shit, must be three, four months ago now. Actually I’m glad it’s gone. Everything was very hush-hush, the guys’d come in, wouldn’t talk shop. That’s about the time they started hiring a lotta Jap guys. Hadda pass security tests, the whole shithouse mouse.’
Harry S. belched again. ‘Ye’re excused,’ Kraft American said.
‘Who owns the shipyard now?’ Eliza asked.
‘Uh, some big outfit over here. Can’t remember offhand, seems t’ me it’s down south somewhere.’
‘AMRAN?’ Eliza ventured.
‘No, sumpin like—’
‘San-San?’ said the Magician.
‘Yeah, you got it, man. That’s it, the San-San Company.’ Harry S. grumbled into his beer.
‘Whatsa matter, Harry, you got the blues?’ Kraft American said.
‘He gets the blues, “know, sits there with his face in the glass like some drunk, moaning.’
‘Maybe he’s horny,’ the Magician suggested.
‘I never thoughta that,’ Kraft American said and moved on down the bar to talk it over with Harry S., who continued to stare bleakly into his glass.
‘It’s beginning to fit together,’ Eliza said. ‘One more thing, Mr Kraft American, did Red ever mention the word “Midas” to you?’
‘Sure, lotsa times.’
‘He did?’
‘Yeah. That’s what they called the dish.’
4
It was almost midnight when he arrived at the house in Kyoto. He slipped through the gate, but the dogs were with him before he got to the garden. They went crazy. The male, Kazuo, threw back his head and groaned low in the throat, like a she wolf serenading the moon. ‘Quiet,’ he said in a hushed voice. He knew Kimura would be asleep by now, and there was no light in Sammi’s room. He went to the house in back. Tana was asleep, curled in a ball on her tatami, her black pigtail in a twist over her shoulder.