“If you could remember anything else. What he looked like?”
“He was fat and loud and drunk.”
“Anything else?”
“What I know, you know. The only way to prove it is to fly over every valley in Oahu. Until then it’s a rumor, a glass of fog. Why believe it at all?”
Gen released a smile with Pepsodent dazzle. “Because of the Magic Show. You nailed someone who had everyone else fooled.”
“All I said was I saw a magician in China. I could have been wrong.”
“You weren’t. And the place you met him was the Olympic Bar in Shanghai, the same place you met this contractor. So we can’t ignore anything you say happened there.”
“Has this been good for your career? Get you more attention from the C in C?”
“It hasn’t hurt.” Gen was still smiling. “And I take care of you in return.”
“Well, that’s what I want to talk about.” Harry mashed one cigarette and tapped out another. “You know what’s more important to me than spies?”
“What?”
“My neck.”
It took Gen a second. “What are you talking about?”
“Ishigami’s back from China. I don’t mind going over the company books from Long Beach Oil or Manzanita, you name it, anything to help an empire in need. Now I need some help. You do remember Ishigami?”
Gen’s smile went flat. “The name is familiar. He’s been in China, right?”
“Most of all, Nanking. His picture was in the paper yesterday. I’m surprised you missed it.”
Gen put the ledger and folder back together and returned them to the dispatch bag. “Nanking was four years ago. You’ll have to remind me what you were doing there. Or should I say, the scam?”
“For the Japanese government, looking for river tankers, trying to find them before they were scuttled. I was along in case there were any Americans on board. I might have liberated a car or two.”
“You just never give it a rest, do you, Harry? You can’t pull that around Ishigami.”
“Well, he holds a grudge, and now he’s after me. Call him off.”
Gen threw on his leather coat, slipped the dispatch bag over his shoulder, pulled on his gloves. “He’s in the army. The army and navy don’t even talk to each other. The army spies on me. They spy on the C in C. Anyway, I understand they brought Ishigami back to do propaganda. After all, he is a hero.”
“He’s homicidal.”
“Right now everybody’s tense. We’ll all be pulling together soon enough.”
“That old team spirit?”
“You got it. In the meantime, our job is to protect the C in C from the crazies.”
Harry followed Gen out the door to a Harley the size of a pony with a teardrop tank and low-slung fenders. There was something about the way Gen swung onto the bike, how he kicked the starter and twisted the throttle so that the bike ached to race away, that disquieted Harry.
“The C in C is a good gambler,” Harry had to shout over the sound.
“Better than you, Harry. He broke the bank at Monte Carlo. They say he could have been a professional gambler. He really considered it.”
Harry had heard the same stories. “Roulette is a tough game, okay. You don’t play other players, you play the house, and the house odds are inexorably against you. You know about odds?”
“I know the odds.” Gen slipped his goggles over his eyes. The glass spread his eyes like a mask.
“Do you? America outproduces Japan in oil by seven hundred to one. How do you like those odds?”
“That’s why it’s important to get all the oil we can.”
“Really? Do you think a few extra drops of oil in Hawaii make any difference?”
“Every drop makes a difference.”
Harry reached and turned the throttle down.
“No. Listen to me. What makes a difference is Standard Oil and Royal Shell. What makes a difference is a fountain, a flood of oil. Japan used to get ninety percent of its oil from America, sixty percent from Standard and Shell alone. That’s five million gallons a year. Japan hasn’t gotten one drop from Shell or America since June. Most of the oil in Japan goes to the navy, and the navy doesn’t have enough oil to complete an exercise at sea. Don’t ask how I know these things, you know they’re true. Cut off oil and everything will come to a stop. I would guess six months. If Japan goes to war, it has to win by then. The odds? Fifty to one. Worse than Monte Carlo. I know how Naval Operations works. A lot of the planning is done by junior officers like you. Tell them the damn odds.” No deal. Gen could have been a statue on a horse. “I’m only saying, let them know the odds. If there’s a war, it won’t be won with blood and sweat, it’ll be won by the side that has the oil, that’s all.” Still no reaction from Gen. “Okay, try this. Aviation fuel is eighty-nine octane, which the United States has an endless supply of. Japan doesn’t, so it designs the Zero, a wonderful fighter, to fly on piss. American planes will fly faster and farther not because of the pilots but because of the fuel. It won’t be a matter of courage or skill, it will just be better fuel.” Gen might have been stone. Not a word had penetrated.
“The difference is spirit and men,” Gen said.
“Right. By the way, remember Jiro from our gang in Asakusa, how much he wanted to die for the emperor? He made it. He’s in heaven now. I lit a stick for him today.”
“If he died for the emperor, I am happy for him.”
No American sis-boom-bah now, Harry thought. Just pure Japanese.
Gen milked the throttle again and seemed to regard his old friend from a great distance. “I’ll do what I can about Ishigami. You know, Harry, Nippon Air came to me about putting you on the plane to Hong Kong. I backed you up. You shouldn’t be spreading defeatist propaganda.”
“Just numbers, Gen, forget I mentioned them. I appreciate everything you did to get me on the plane.”
“When is it taking off?”
“Monday the eighth.”
“Two days. Okay, I’ll see about Ishigami. You stay out of trouble.”
Gen put the Harley into gear. His hair snapped back as the bike surged and chased its noise along the dock. Across the bay under Yokohama’s verdant bluff, Harry saw ships offloading the wealth of empire: bales of cotton from China, bags of rice from Thailand, sugar and sweet tropical fruits from semitropical Formosa and, from Manchuria-now the Japanese creation of Manchukuo-iron ore and lumber. A German blockade-runner, a gray freighter with a tarp over a forward gun, stood off by itself. The ships of Yoshitaki Lines were everywhere, there wasn’t enough waterfront to go around. Sampans and barges swarmed to other freighters anchored out, the barges loaded until they shipped water. Through the sheer physical effort of a single oarsman, a sampan could move a half-ton of goods. Along the Bund, stevedores in straw hats and padded jackets swung on hooks, clambered up nets and trotted with handcarts between railway cars, men in motion everywhere. The scene put Harry in mind of a drunk bingeing on his last full bottle. But the days when Yokohama swallowed a full measure of sweet Maracaibo crude or clean American diesel the color of honey, those days were gone.
ON THE WAY back to Tokyo, Harry drove by Haneda Field. In the far distance was a white tower and hangars. Harry was tempted to visit Nippon operations and see the plane they were flying to Hong Kong, a DC-3 with a full bar and sleeper seats, but he quelled the urge when soldiers appeared along the edge of the road, and decided it wouldn’t do for a gaijin to show too much interest in an airport. On the other side of the road, however, were ballplayers on a field. It was a small field with grassy slopes for bleachers and a little scoreboard beside a bottle-shaped sign for Asahi beer, but Harry recognized the team’s gray flannel uniforms with black and orange piping even from his car, and he rolled up to a clubhouse of cinder blocks painted green. The ticket window was shut. Harry walked through the turnstiles to the batting screen and joined a couple of reporters who were arguing over who was paid more money, Bob Feller or Satchel Paige. Feller was the biggest star in American baseball, but Paige sneaked around that fact by playing both the Negro league and winter ball.