Without Kerry there, the apartment felt incomplete. It also made me feel doubly deprived-but then, I only had myself to blame for my sexual frustration. Falling asleep like that… my God! The next step was probably lapses of memory and eccentric behavior, and the one after that would be commitment to a home where a battery of nurses could take turns wiping the drool off my chin.
Time to go to work, I thought. Busy hands are happy hands and all that crap. I put the coffee cup in the kitchen, rinsed it out, got my coat, locked the apartment door behind me with Kerry’s spare key, walked downstairs and outside, started toward where I had left my car-and came to a sudden standstill.
Across the street and fifty yards down the block was a familiar white Ford with two Japanese guys sitting in it.
It made me more angry than anything else The first thing I thought was that they’d followed me here from my flat last night, even though I’d been watching and hadn’t spotted them. Then I remembered that Kerry’s name had been in the news story about Tamura’s death, and that she was listed in the telephone book. After I’d surprised them yesterday, they must have switched tactics and gone to tail her instead.
I put my hands in my overcoat pockets so the two guys wouldn’t see me clenching them. Then I walked over there, not doing it in any hurry. It wasn’t raining at the moment, although the sky was heavy with clouds, and I could see them both clearly through the windshield. They didn’t do anything except watch me in return-didn’t even move their heads.
When I came up onto the sidewalk in front of them I saw that the driver’s window was rolled down. So I kept on going until I was abreast of it and then stopped and squatted down and looked in at them. The one with the nose like a blob of putty was behind the wheel today; he stared back at me with an expression as blank as an erased slate. The other one ran a finger slowly and rhythmically over his mustache and looked straight ahead, trancelike, as if he were a Buddhist monk trying to achieve Nirvana.
“Something I can do for you boys?” I said.
Neither of them responded. The putty-nosed one kept on staring through me; I might have been a lamppost or a fire hydrant, or not there at all.
“Yesterday morning, out by China Beach,” I said. “You followed me there and I spotted you and got your license number. Remember?”
Silence.
“I don’t like to be followed,” I said. “And I especially don’t like having friends of mine followed. If you want something from me, suppose you just cut out the crap and get right down to it.”
Silence. The putty-nosed one turned his head slightly and I saw his eyes flicker to the CB radio unit mounted under the dash.
“Go ahead,” I said, “call up whoever you’re working for. Tell him I’m here waiting. Tell him to come talk to me so we can get this business finished.”
More silence. The other guy quit stroking his mustache, but that was all that happened. They just sat there. I had the thought that if I reached in and smacked one or the other they wouldn’t even try to retaliate. Not without orders.
There wasn’t anything more for me to say. I straightened, put my back to the Ford, and recrossed the street to where my car was parked. When I got inside I rolled the window down and adjusted the side-view mirror so I could watch them while I started the engine and let it warm up. The putty-nosed guy was talking into the CB microphone; I could see the handset and the cord even from this distance.
Ten to one they get the same orders they got yesterday, thought. Cease and desist-for the time being.
But I would have lost the bet. Damned if they didn’t pull out behind me as I drove off, and damned if they didn’t follow me all the way to my flat in Pacific Heights.
The Department of Motor Vehicles was open half a day on Saturday. I got through to Harry Fletcher at nine-forty, spelled out the two names that had been on the back of the photograph, told him their approximate ages, and asked him to get me addresses for all California residents who matched up. Neither name seemed particularly common, although I was no expert on Japanese nomenclature. Fletcher wasn’t either; he said to give him an hour, just in case.
I decided there were better things to do with that hour than hang around the flat. I checked the answering machine, discovered that nobody had called me since last evening, and went back out to my car. When I glanced up at the rear-view mirror after half a block, the white Ford was right there in my wake again.
I considered trying a few maneuvers to shake them. But I was too old for fast driving games; and I would have had to detour all the way downtown to try shaking them in traffic. Besides which, they would only show up at my flat again later on. Or worse, go bother Kerry again. The best thing to do was to let them tag along and see that I wasn’t doing anything sinister or thrilling, and maybe that would convince them to go away. If not, I would have to find some way to deal with them later on.
So I drove straight out California Street without paying much attention to the Ford. Number 2610 was an old, beige, stucco apartment house a few blocks this side of Children’s Hospital-the kind with a wide front stoop and fire escapes zig-zagging down its facade like livid scars. There was a bus zone in front of it; I parked there illegally. The two kobun drove on by, turned the corner, and stopped alongside a fire hydrant, which was even more illegal.
I went up onto the front stoop of 2610 and hunted among the mailbox nameplates until I found K. Yamasaki, Apt. 7. I pushed the button next to that one and kept my finger on it for fifteen seconds or so. Nothing happened, except that an elderly Japanese lady came down the flight of stairs inside, opened the door, and stepped out.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “Do you know Ken Yamasaki?”
She gave me one of those looks people reserve for strangers who might also be insurance or household accessory salesmen: half wary, half blank. “Yes?” she said.
“He doesn’t seem to be in. Would you happen to know where I can find him?”
“Yes?” she said.
“Where would that be?”
“Yes?”
“Ma’am… do you speak English?”
“Yes?”
“Terrific. Sorry to have bothered you.” I started down the steps, paused, and said, “Uh, sayonara. ”
“Yes,” she said, without the question mark this time, and bobbed her head and grinned as she followed after me.
I was pretty slow this morning: It didn’t occur to me until I was getting into the car that she probably did speak English and had been putting me on the whole time.
I stopped at a Chevron station out near Park Presidio Drive, and while an attendent fed the car I went to the phone booth nearby and rang up the DMV again. There were two sixtyish Kazuo Hamas living in California, Fletcher told me, only one up here in the northern part of the state; that one’s residence was Hama Egg Ranch, Rainsville Road, Petaluma. Petaluma was close to San Francisco-about forty miles away to the north. The other Kazuo Hama lived in Orange County, in some town I had never heard of. I took down his address too.