“You’re still altering company ledgers?”
“A little. It’s not like the books were locked up, not adequately. No one gets hurt, because the American managers the Japanese might blame are back in the States and out of reach. It’s a harmless ploy, if you will, to create the possibility in the Japanese mind that oil was delivered in a secretive manner to tanks they haven’t located. You know how meticulous and paranoid the Japanese are. This is the sort of thing that drives them crazy. They can’t be so sure an attack will actually locate and wipe out all the oil reserves in Hawaii. Yamamoto understands odds. If he doesn’t think he can nail both the fleet and the oil, he won’t touch Pearl. No Pearl, no war.”
“What happens when the Special Higher Police and the Japanese navy discover that you deluded them?”
“They won’t find that out unless they fly over every valley on Oahu. Anyway, the fact is, I have discouraged them about this piece of information. I tell them over and over how phony it sounds to me. The more I deny it, the more they believe. That’s when you know a sucker is hooked, when you can’t chase him away.”
“Is that it, they’ve swallowed the bait so deep? Then why get on the plane?”
“It’s a stupid gambler who doesn’t hedge his bet. Besides, you’ll be on it.”
“Harry, I despair.”
“Well, it’s worth a try.”
The porthole opened on pivots. Harry found cigarettes and lit one for her, too.
“Have you let Butterfly in on your little game?” Alice asked.
“No, she wouldn’t turn me in, but she might kill me.”
“You don’t find anything the least pathological about your relationship with her?”
Harry considered. “I’d say it keeps me sharp.”
“No doubt.” She looked down as a store clerk blew a cornet to announce a sale of balsa-and-paper gliders that hung like mayflies from a pole. “May I tell you something? I have been in and out of the embassy code room for two years now. We have sent London a steady stream of information that, I am now convinced, is flushed immediately into the Thames. We speak to the deaf. Yesterday we received a cable asking whether German pilots were flying for the Japanese. London doesn’t think the Japanese can fly planes. It’s a matter of eyesight, they say, and thick glasses. The Japanese are as bad; they don’t think Americans can fight. Harry, no amount of information, accurate or inaccurate, makes any difference now. What makes you suddenly want to be a hero? It’s perverse.”
He delivered what he thought was his most ingratiating smile. “Alice, I’m not going to be a hero. It’s not my style. Besides, heroes get caught, that’s what makes them so heroic. I don’t get caught.”
“Harry, everyone gets caught.”
“How about you?”
“I’m a diplomat’s wife. Once war starts, we’ll simply be exchanged for Japanese diplomats.”
“‘Once’? That’s an interesting choice of word.” Harry took her hand and traced the lines of her palm as if they held a secret. “Lady Alice, is there something in the air? Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know when to quit. Harry, I hate it when you look at me like that. Sometimes you are very Japanese.”
“Is that so?”
“I think I finally have you figured out. I have your code, Harry. You’re like a crossword puzzle where every tenth word the answer is in Japanese. Maybe that explains Michiko.”
“Maybe.”
“And it wouldn’t matter if I did know something you didn’t. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”
“Who cares? We’ll be oiling each other in a cabana at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It’s not a safari, but it has its charms. Why are you smiling?”
“Harry, it’s a fantasy. You and I were not meant to be with anyone. It’s sheer incompatibility that keeps us together.”
“We’ll give it a shot.”
“Realistically, how long do you think we would last?”
“I give us six months.”
“Beechum will cut me off, I won’t have a penny.”
“Three months.”
“Will you drink heavily and beat me?”
“Like a gong.”
“Like a church bell, an American would say.”
“Backing out?”
“No. I would like you to do me a favor, however, and help your friend Willie before you go.”
“Willie and Iris? I already said I would. What do you care?”
“I like Willie’s stories. If you’re going to help him, do it fast.”
The gondola descended over the ice-cream stand and pedal-car track and a volley of exuberant cheers from the schoolboys watching the battle in the tank. If the naval engagement was ever in doubt, its outcome now was clear. The Japanese fleet plowed at full speed through the water, guns glowing from the fire of their shells, while the American fleet waddled in disorder, stacks pouring charcoal smoke that signified hits in the engine room. Some American warships were so enveloped by smoke that they seemed to be sinking. The scene suggested wholesale horror and confusion, men diving from the decks and trying to outswim burning oil or the suction of a great ship going under and overcrowded lifeboats circled by sharks. As Harry and Alice emerged from the gondola, he didn’t notice anyone in the crowd watching them. Everyone was too captivated by the battle in the tank. The excitement was so overwhelming that some boys couldn’t stand still. They ran with their arms out like torpedo planes or raised imaginary periscopes. The loudspeaker sang, “Across the sea, water-soaked corpses, we shall die by the side of our lord.” The children chanted, “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”
ALTHOUGH HARRY WANTED to ditch the gun, he assumed he was being followed. Just to see, he detoured through an arcade specializing in pets. The passageway rang with a mixed chorus of canaries, lovebirds, cockatoos and a nightingale that trilled from a shrouded cage. Kittens, their tails bobbed to prevent them from turning into goblins, mewed in a fruit box. A weasel slunk round and round in a basket. There was only one beetle dealer, with a lean wintertime stock.
“What you want is a stag beetle.” The dealer kept his hands in steady motion so that the beetle, a two-inch monster with antlers, walked from the back of one hand to the other. “There is no better investment in insects. A rhinoceros beetle like yours will drop dead after a single mating. What kind of champion is that? A stag beetle fattens off passion. No? Wait, I have more.” He indicated a cage with a six-inch mantis, a green stiletto. “Do you enjoy the educational sight of a wife eating her husband’s head? No?”
Harry didn’t enjoy that or the sight of two plainclothes police squatting by the fruit box to tease the kittens. Two cops on foot and probably two waiting in a car near his. Forget subtlety.
“Do you have trouble sleeping? Maybe you like the bucolic sound of crickets? I have crickets that are genuine songsters. No, you’re not a country boy. You’re Tokyo-bred, like me.” The beetle dealer kept the treadmill of his hands going while he looked Harry up and down. “Then it comes to this. If sports are your interest and you want your money back tenfold, a stag is your best bet.”
Harry bet on horses, not beetles, not since he was a kid. However, he bought a bamboo beetle cage with a bed of wood flakes. He was trying to leave town, and what did he have now, Harry thought. First a gun. Now a beetle. Terrific.
WHEN WESTERN DANCING was declared unpatriotic, a storage company run by yakuza took over the Asakusa Ballroom and covered its parquet floor with stacks of scenery and flats from the surrounding music halls and theaters. The yakuza specialized in the business of theatrical storage because it was a good excuse for men to hang around doing nothing. The ballroom had also become a refuge for the ne’er-do-wells of wartime society, out-of-work dance instructors practicing to the raspy tango of a gramophone, horseplayers with time on their hands since the racetracks were closed. A midday card game was going when Harry arrived. Taro sat holding a box of his brother’s ashes, and although the sumo filled a pair of chairs and was dressed in yards of rich kimono, he looked undone and deflated.