I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness. I told myself I should give them Rita’s address and stop all this. It was easy enough. The address was on a little slip of paper in my pocket and I’d just have to tell them about it. I actually wanted to speak up, but I couldn’t because I was passing out. As I started slumping in the chair, I could hear Mrs. Kawashiri’s voice from our earlier phone conversation ringing in my head. “It’s not right, it’s just not right. .”
My face was being slapped, not brutally, but my cheeks were so bruised that it felt like I was being hit with a red-hot piece of iron. I was being revived from unconsciousness so the beating could start again.
When I was fully revived, the big Yakuza started hitting me again. I groaned from pain.
“Wait a minute,” the small man said. He hopped off the desk and started looking through my pockets. I was almost grateful when he came across the note with Rita’s address and phone number.
“Things are often simple,” the small man said philosophically. “We were able to find the warranty forms in your desk, but I really should have searched you first. We might have been able to save ourselves a considerable amount of time and you a considerable amount of pain and grief. I just hope you’ve been getting some from Rita because I can’t figure out why else you wouldn’t tell us what we wanted to know.”
He exchanged some words in Japanese to the stocky man. Then he said in English, “This is an old building without too many tenants, and it’s nighttime. What I think we’ll do is just leave you here with the doors closed, and I’m sure by tomorrow someone will find you. I don’t think there will be anybody in the building to find you tonight.”
He said a few more words to the stocky man, and they both walked out of the office, closing the door behind them.
I sagged in the chair. It took me several minutes to realize that I was crying. The hot tears ran down my face and dripped to my shirt front, which was splattered with my blood. I couldn’t figure out if I was crying from the pain or from relief that they were gone and that I was still alive.
It seemed a long time before I heard pounding at the office front door. I heard a muffled, “Ken, are you in there?”
“Mariko,” I croaked. My voice sounded oddly muffled, and the effort to shout her name left a strange ringing in my left ear. “Mariko,” I tried again.
I could hear the outer office door rattling. They must have locked it behind them. I hoped that Mariko would be persistent enough to find a locksmith to get the door open.
There was some fumbling with the front door, and a few seconds later the door burst open. Mariko stood there, looking at me in shock and horror. “Oh, Ken,” she said.
“Let me loose,” I said. The words came out mumbled.
Mariko didn’t understand exactly what I said, but she did understand what I wanted. She rushed across the room, and I could feel her fingers tugging at the knots in the belt that bound my hands. After a few seconds she stood up, opened the desk drawer, and rummaged through the desk until she found a pair of scissors. She used the scissors to gnaw at the belt until she finally cut through it and released my hands.
“I got worried when you didn’t show up,” she said. “I’ll get an ambulance.” She reached for the phone.
“No, not yet,” I said. This time she was able to understand me. She looked confused and indecisive, unsure if she should follow my instructions or go ahead with her instincts.
I tried to think, trying my best to remember the phone number Rita had given me. “Got to call Rita Newly,” I mumbled. “Those guys are going there next.”
I put the phone up to my ear and winced as the receiver made contact with my bruised skin. I dialed, trying to think of alternative combinations just in case I didn’t have the number right. I was lucky.
Rita Newly answered the phone on the first ring. “Hello?”
“They’re coming to get you,” I mumbled. “The two guys from the Yakuza.”
“Who is this?”
“Tanaka.”
“You sound funny.”
“I got beat up.”
There was a pause. “Are they going to the address that I gave you earlier today?”
“Yes.”
Another pause. “Get out,” I said.
“That’s not my real address,” she said. “It’s just an address I made up this morning. I didn’t want you to know where I live. The phone number I gave you is for a cellular phone.”
“Damn it. If I had known that, I could have given them that damn address and saved myself a beating.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tanaka. But I still want my property,” she added.
“You’re relentless, aren’t you?”
“It is my property, Mr. Tanaka.”
“Okay. I’ll give you your damn package tomorrow at four o’clock.” I said the first place that popped into my head. “The sculpture garden at UCLA. Meet me there at four o’clock, by the statue of a kneeling woman.”
I wanted to slam the phone down onto the cradle, but I was too weak. Instead I just handed it over to Mariko who hung it up.
“Come on,” she said. “Now I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“No,” I said.
“Are you crazy? If you saw how you looked you wouldn’t be trying to play Mr. Tough Guy with me.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to go see a doctor. Why don’t you drive me down to the emergency room? I just don’t want an ambulance. Then I want you to hunt down your cousin Michael’s home phone number for me. I want to talk to him and get some things settled tonight. By the way, how did you get in?” Although it hurt, my mouth seemed to be working better now.
“I used a credit card to slip the lock on the door. I saw it in a TV movie once.”
I really do have to get a better lock for the front door, I thought.
19
The Franklin Murphy sculpture garden at UCLA is an oasis in the bustling hub of Westwood, a suburb of Los Angeles. It has winding paths, cool trees, and a surprising collection of modern and traditional sculpture, including a Rodin torso, a Matisse collection of bronze plaques, and some pieces that are decidedly more modern, including a sculpture that is a puzzling collection of painted blue tubes welded together.
On Sunday mornings Mariko and I would sometimes go to the sculpture garden to have a picnic. Nestled in the curves of the winding paths of the garden are concrete seating areas that look very much like military bunkers. They’re round circles of cement approximately twenty feet across and four feet high. The center of the circle is empty and a wooden bench hugs the inside curve of the concrete so people can sit and rest. In many of these little enclaves, smaller pieces of sculpture reside, poised on a pedestal in the center of the circle. Entrance into the center of the circle is through a narrow cut in the concrete only a few feet across, and once into the center of the circle, peace and a kind of solitude can be found.
Down a path in the garden, heading toward one of these concrete bunkers, walked Rita Newly and her companion. She wore a pale, lavender summer dress with Porsche sunglasses propped up on her forehead. Under her arm she carried a lavender leather purse to match the color of her dress. The man was tall and muscular. He was wearing gray slacks and a short-sleeve white knit shirt that showed his muscular arms to good advantage. Rita and the man made a smashing couple.
On the grass by Bunche Hall is a bronze statue of a nude woman crouching down and looking over her shoulder. The flesh of the woman is done in sweeping curves, and the expression on her broad, almost Asian face is enigmatic. Rita and her companion cut across the lawn to stand by the statue. She checked her tiny silver and diamond wristwatch. “It’s four o’clock,” she said.