After ten more minutes, it was time to leave the garden. Mas and Lloyd passed through the turnstile while Mari rolled Takeo’s stroller through an adjoining gate. They had reached the ticket booth when they saw Detective Ghigo, the flaps of his overcoat blowing back from the wind: a black crow bringing bad news. He was with another man, short and bald. “Mari Jensen,” Ghigo said. “We have a warrant for your arrest.”
In the time it took Mas to blink, a pair of metal handcuffs was fastened on Mari’s skinny wrists.
“Whatthe-” Mas felt like someone was peeling away at his heart.
“Get the hell away from my wife!” Lloyd went for the bald detective, but Ghigo stopped him.
Mari’s eyes widened like those of a squid waiting for its head to be lopped off. Her skinny legs were planted next to the stroller. No set of handcuffs was going to keep her away from her son.
“Itsu suicide,” Mas blurted out, even though he didn’t believe it. “Ouchi- san killsu himself.”
Ignoring Mas, Ghigo recited some police language in Mari’s ear, including something about murder and a lawyer.
“We callsu Jeannie,” Mas declared.
Mari nodded. “And get Takeo right home.”
The attorney, Jeannie Yee, didn’t waste any time. She was at the front door of the underground apartment soon after she had stopped to see Mari at the police station. “It’s all circumstantial evidence,” she said after she settled herself on a chair in the kitchen.
Mas looked blankly at Jeannie. Instead of a suit, she was wearing a plain white shirt. A plastic headband kept her thick hair away from her face.
Jeannie tried again. “I mean, they have the gun-which, by the way, they did trace to the half-rate production house that Mari had worked for-and they have the bullet-”
“Bullet,” Mas couldn’t help but murmur.
“Yes, the bullet. Aren’t you the one who found it, Mr. Arai?”
Lowering his head, Lloyd squeezed his wedding ring tattoo. “I had to turn it in, Mr. Arai,” he finally said. “They would have found out sooner or later.”
Inu. Dog. Cheat. How could he sell out Mari like that? Mas felt his whole world turn. Had he misjudged Lloyd that badly? He had given that bullet to Lloyd because the son-in-law was the main man in his daughter’s life. It was his responsibility to keep his family safe.
He wasn’t supposed to give it to the authorities. Perhaps Lloyd was tired of Mari, had a woman on the side. Did he want Takeo to himself? If that was his plan, it wouldn’t happen without a fight from Mas.
“Look, guys, we have to focus here.” Jeannie spread her fingers on the surface of the table. “Apparently an anonymous source has been feeding Ghigo information. First someone called about Lloyd having an argument with Mr. Ouchi, and then made mention that Mari had filed a complaint with her independent filmmakers’ union that Kazzy had been sexually harassing her.”
“Who told Ghigo that?”
“That’s the thing,” Jeannie explained to Lloyd, “it’s a-non-y-mous. Ghigo doesn’t even know. They used a voice-altering device, so we don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman.”
Mas was surprised that Jeannie had so much inside information. So was the son-in-law. “Ghigo told you that himself?”
Two pink marks like those atop baked rice cakes appeared underneath Jeannie’s eyes. “Yes,” she said, and then attempted to change the subject. “Is there anyone who would be out to get you or Mari?”
“Who are we? Nobodies. We have nothing,” said Lloyd.
Mas grunted in support.
Lloyd raised his head. “Why would anyone think that we would be any kind of threat?”
Mas pushed his tongue against a space in between the roof of his mouth and his dentures. “Phillip, the son, he no good.” Didn’t want the garden in the first place, wasn’t that what he had said?
“Yup, Ghigo’s looking into that.” Again, the girl lawyer seemed one step ahead. “These charges against Mari won’t stand up. No judge wants to waste the taxpayers’ money going through with this. This won’t go past a preliminary hearing.” Jeannie shot words like machine-gun fire throughout the room. “They just need someone to hang the crime on, since it’s gotten so much media attention.”
“Media? You meansu Post?”
“The Post started it, but now it’s beginning to get some national news coverage. You have to admit that it has a sexy angle: business tycoon killed in a Japanese garden in New York.”
Mas saw nothing sexy in that, especially since he was the one who had seen the dead body.
“They are playing it as a hate crime, and that’s the last thing the NYPD or the tourist industry wants. They need to arrest someone, quick and fast. With Mari’s connection to the gun, she’s a logical suspect.”
Mas was getting angrier by the minute. So Mari was a convenient scapegoat, is that what the attorney was saying?
Jeannie picked up a pen and began scribbling on papers in a manila folder. “Oh, yeah, there’s also the matter of the bail.”
“Will they give her bail?” Lloyd asked.
“Well, I figure that with her clean record, good reputation, and, of course, being the mother of a sick baby, the judge will be lenient.”
“How much?”
“I think that we have to be prepared for fifty thousand dollars.”
Mas gulped.
“You’d need something worth at least fifty thousand for collateral. And then ten percent of that in cash. Could you come up with that?” Jeannie pushed back her headband, and Mas noticed that her hairline was shaped like a vampire’s. An American ghoul who sucked blood.
“Look around, Jeannie. Does it look like we have that kind of money?”
“How about relatives? Friends?”
Mas shifted in his seat. “Izu put my house up.” To hear himself say it even shocked Mas, not to mention probably Lloyd.
“No, no, Mr. Arai. We can’t have you do that. There’s got to be a better way.”
“Anybody else?” asked Jeannie.
“My parents,” said Lloyd. “I can ask my parents.”
Why not? thought Mas. Go to the husband’s side.
“Good. We’ll get Mari out of there right after the arraignment.”
After Jeannie left, Mas felt his belly get cold and hard. The last thing he wanted was to be alone with Lloyd, the traitor.
“Mr. Arai, this will just blow over, I know it,” said Lloyd, oblivious to Mas’s aloofness.
That night Takeo cried continuously. In Lloyd’s gangly arms, Takeo looked as compact as a football. Lying on the couch, father rested son on his shoulder, then his chest, and finally his belly. Mas couldn’t take the noise anymore and reached for the baby.
Takeo’s face was as red as the ripest tomato. He had little bumps on his body-Mari said that he had problems with dry, itchy skin. He slept with mittens on his hands so that he didn’t scratch himself.
“ Nen nen kororiyo okororiyo, ” Mas sang, then paused. He couldn’t remember the rest of the old lullaby. So he kept repeating it. Nen nen. Sleep. Kororiyo okororiyo. Rock, rock. Yet Takeo didn’t sleep. He kept crying, hungry for only one person, his mother.
The next day, Lloyd left with a driver in a Lincoln Town Car for the arraignment. No babies allowed in the courthouse, so Mas was the one who would have to stay behind with Takeo. It was just as well, because Mas couldn’t stand to see his handcuffed daughter in an oversized jumpsuit, standing in front of a judge.
Mas had slept maybe three hours, if you combined the little snatches of sleep here and there. His sweater, in fact, was damp with tears, sweat, and hanakuso from Takeo’s eyes, overheated body, and nose. The grandson was finally sleeping in his crib, although every half an hour his legs and arms would jerk as if he was having a bad dream. That he inherited from the Arai side, thought Mas, wondering what kind of nightmares a baby could have.