Mas was making salami sandwiches when Lloyd and Mari finally came home. He had picked Takeo up from the neighbor’s place, and the baby was fast asleep. Before peppering them with questions, he gave them a chance to see Takeo and change out of their dirty clothes.

Mari was the first to emerge from the bedroom. “Thanks for putting up the house,” said Mari.

“Jail pretty bad?” Mas had gone to visit someone at a jail in L.A. for the first time last year and hadn’t relished the experience.

“We don’t need to talk about it right now.” She picked up one of the salami sandwiches and ate it musha-musha, as if it were the best thing next to pickled mackerel sushi.

The phone rang and Mari answered, with a ball of salami sandwich bunched up in her left cheek. She stopped chewing and asked a few questions. Her dark eyebrows furrowed like a wire spring pressed together too tight.

“That was Anna Grady,” she said, getting off the phone. “Seiko is dead.”

chapter eleven

Mas had been truly afraid only three times. The first time was, of course, when he stood in the black rain of the Bomb; the second, watching Chizuko being eaten by the cancer; and the third, when the Bomb returned from its hiding place in his memory. In those instances, fear slapped him square in the face and kept his legs from moving. The tangle of Kazzy’s murder was different. Here now fear slowly seeped in, causing him to run faster and faster. Hayaku, hayaku, just like the pace of the city.

He was now in Fort Lee on the thoroughfare by the bus stop in the plaza, passing familiar cafés with lit candles on the tables.

Anna Grady said that she wanted to talk to Mari, face-to-face, but there was no way Mari could risk bail by leaving New York City. Lloyd was ready to go. News of Seiko Sumi’s death had altered his thinking. Lloyd had said he thought that the run-in with the Impala in Seabrook was more a case of road rage than anything else. Apparently Mari had gotten in her share of shouting matches and short-term chases when she was behind the wheel of a vehicle. But now, with another dead Nisei, you couldn’t help but make certain connections.

But Mas told Lloyd to stay home. If Anna had taken a fancy to Kazzy, a half-Japanese man, maybe she would open up to Mas.

It was no problem locating the exact high-rise building. Three police cars, lights flashing, were parked at the loading zone, radios squawking out numbers and addresses over the crackle of static. In spite of the late hour-nine, ten?-there was a small crowd of men and women surrounding the parking lot, cordoned off by familiar yellow police tape. Huge lights had been propped up, as if it were a location for a movie shoot. Mas knew about these things because he had driven past his share of production sites in L.A.; hell, one director had paid him one hundred dollars to park his Ford gardening truck in the background of a scene.

The figure of a body was outlined on the concrete ground. The coroner’s department must have carted away the body, but had left behind a puddle of blood. Under the bright lights, the blood glistened, still wet with floating chunks of body parts-was that part of a brain? Mas felt his dinner come to his throat, but he pushed it down.

He couldn’t believe that only this remained of the chawan -haired woman so prim and precise.

The same security guard was outside with the crowd, so in spite of the high-rise being the scene of a bloody death, Mas found it easier to get to the elevator, and then to Anna Grady’s floor. The apartment door was open, more radio voices. A long, colorful ribbon decorated the knocker. Mas hadn’t noticed that before.

Police officers, men in suits and ties, and women in sweaters and slacks walked into and out of rooms, talking among themselves and taking notes. Again, no one seemed to pay attention to Mas.

The sliding-glass door was ajar, letting a cool breeze in. Mas could smell the sourness of an overworked river. A wind chime shaped like a Buddhist bell tinkled from the top of the balcony. Most of the plants had been overturned, soil dumped out, roots exposed.

“Mr. Arai, you came.”

Mas turned. Anna Grady was wearing a tight black dress with part of her chichi s showing. At her age, her breasts should have drooped down to her heso, belly button, so either she had on one amazing piece of underwear or else her body was still in tip-top shape. “Please, over here-” She gestured to a small dining room table in the corner.

Mas sat with Anna in silence for a few minutes. The display case was busted open, glass shards everywhere, and the journal and clothing were gone. They watched as police officers went from place to place-door, light switch, telephone-collecting evidence.

“That’s all they took,” Anna finally said, gesturing to the display case. “Seiko’s mother’s things. They left my jewelry. Seiko’s money-she had at least a thousand dollars in cash in her closet. All of that, untouched.”

“Book.” Mas kept staring at the destroyed display case.

“Yes, the journal’s gone. Do you think that’s what they were after?”

Mas recalled the detailed questioning by the bail bondsman. “What happen, exactly?”

Anna crossed her legs. “I was out with a friend. We went out to a concert in the city. When I came back, the police were already here, and Seiko’s body-” Anna covered her face with her hands. Her fingernails were filed and painted a funny tan shade the color of garden snails.

“Sorry, so sorry.” Mas wished that he could leave. He could barely stand it when any woman cried. He didn’t know what was worse-when it was a stranger or your wife.

“They say that she was thrown off the balcony. Why would anyone do that to Seiko?” She dabbed the corner of her eyes with her fingers and took a deep breath, making the top of her dress move up and down. “I asked for you and your daughter to come, because she had asked me about the note I sent Kazzy.”

She then leaned over to Mas, so close that he could feel the softness of her chichi s. “I’ll tell you what happened as long as you tell no one,” she whispered. “Especially Becca.”

Becca? What did she have to do with Anna Grady?

She placed a folded-up note in Mas’s hand. “Read this later,” she whispered. “Kazzy wrote me back. He messengered it to me the same day. Thursday. The day he died.”

Mas stuffed the note in his jacket pocket.

“With Kazzy dead and now Seiko, what am I going to do?” She leaned her head against Mas’s arm, and Mas could feel her soft hair on his chin.

“Mr. Arai, what the hell are you doing here?” Mas pulled away from Anna to see Detective Ghigo standing in the middle of the noisy living room.

Mas felt the blood drain from his face. Was Ghigo, the crow, ever present?

“We can ask you the same question, Detective,” Anna said. Kazzy’s ex-girlfriend knew Ghigo? “Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction?”

“Like I told you before, Mrs. Grady, the New Jersey police is working with us on the murder investigation of Kazzy Ouchi. Since we were just here interviewing you, we were called in. Just to see if there’s some kind of connection.”

“Well, there’s no connection; I can tell you that.”

“We’ll see.” Ghigo turned his attention back to Mas. “So how do you know Mr. Arai?”

“He’s a friend. Old friend.” Anna put her hand on Mas’s shoulder, snail-colored fingernails in full view.

“That’s interesting,” said Ghigo, “especially since he just arrived in New York last week.”

Before the detective could say more, his bald-headed partner called him over to the balcony. “Don’t go anywhere, Mrs. Grady,” he said.

While Ghigo’s back was turned to them, Mas rose. “I betta go.”