“I told you that Larry Pauley wasn’t here anymore.” The woman pulled at her hair. “I guess he didn’t take leaving too well.”

By the time Mas returned to the hospital, most of Mari and Lloyd’s shaggy-haired friends had left the waiting room. Mari was walking in the hallway, carrying a steaming cup of coffee.

“Where’ve you been, Dad? I was looking for you. Didn’t know if you wanted a bite to eat from the cafeteria.”

“Howzu Takeo?”

“Good, real good. Lloyd’s with him. Tug’s around, too. I think the transfusion has really perked Takeo up. We started off with Lloyd’s supply-he gave about a week ago. Apparently, I can’t give any blood right now.” Mari’s eyes became wet and shiny. “I’m anemic, Dad. Low iron.”

No wonder Mari’s color looked bad, thought Mas. Here he thought it was just age, but it was actually some medical reason.

Mari sipped her coffee and then leaned against the wall. “Seems like I can’t do anything right for him now.”

“Youzu a good mother.”

“You think? I’m trying. I really am. Lloyd says that I’ve been doing too much. After Takeo was born, I’ve tried to slow down, you know.”

“Not be so gasa-gasa.”

“Yeah. But that’s in my genes.”

“You like your mom.”

“Actually, Mom always said that I was like you.”

Mas shuffled his feet and looked down at his loafers. Mas knew that he had to mention his trip to Waxley Enterprises. “Izu try to see Larry Pauley,” he announced. “I thinksu heezu fired.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I didn’t get a chance to talksu to Lloyd, but I think itsu has to do wiz the books.”

“The books?” Mari looked confused.

“I checksu all the bills: don’t make sense. One lawn mower company belly-up, no around anymore. But still listed in the records.”

“What?”

“And they put down chemical fertilizer, but I knowsu Lloyd use all natural. Don’t make sense. Overcharge for bamboo. And toro, too. They pay two thousand dolla for dat. No way dat toro two thousand.”

“So you think Miss Waxley figured that out as well? Maybe he’s been doing that at Waxley Enterprises, too, huh. Maybe that’s why he was fired.” Mari furrowed her eyebrows. “Oh, I forget to tell you. Haruo called yesterday for you. Wanted our fax number. What’s that all about?”

Before Mas could explain, he felt another presence beside him. The eccentric man he had met at the church, Elk Mamiya. He was a couple of inches shorter than Mas, most likely a pure five feet tall, so Mas could see right into his magnified eyes. Little globs floated in the whites of his eyes like curds in spoiled milk. Elk must not have been sleeping well.

“Mamiya- san,” Mas said, wondering if some kind of health problem had brought the Nisei to the Brooklyn hospital.

“Heard about your grandson through the pipeline at church,” Elk said. Gossip traveled fast in New York City, thought Mas, as fast as in Los Angeles. Tug must have mentioned the blood drive to the church ministers.

“Sank you, ne,” Mas said.

Mari extended her hand. “Yes, we really appreciate your help.”

“No, no, I’m not here to give blood.” Elk shook his head, sparse tufts of white hair sticking out of his ears. “I’m here to tell you I figured it out.”

Mari crinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad.

“I’ve been doing research into this Hirokazu Ouchi-”

“That’s Kazzy’s father,” Mari said.

“Yes, an Issei, born in Nagano Prefecture. Married to Emily, an Irishwoman. Don’t you think it’s quite a coincidence that he died shortly after his wife died giving birth to a stillborn child?”

“What are you getting at?” Mari thinned her eyes.

“What I’m getting at”-Elk began to raise his voice-“is that somebody killed him off. Somebody wanted him dead, and then they killed off Kazzy.” Elk turned to Mas. “I told you, back at the church. They’re out to destroy us.”

“Ah, Kazzy’s father died in the 1930s. I doubt that has anything to do with Kazzy’s death today.” Mas didn’t know why Mari kept talking to the man. It was obvious that he was not in his right mind. Mas had met his share of men who had fallen off the edge. Some had been scarred by the camp experience, others from surviving the Bomb. He didn’t know why certain people were able to piece themselves together and even flourish, while the weaker ones languished like plants without water. It was a slow death, a process that Mas preferred not to watch, because it reminded him of his own disintegration.

Mari visibly frowned, and Elk apparently noticed. “So don’t believe me. What the hell do I care?” Elk focused back on Mas. “I just wanted to warn you-watch your step. They’re watching.” With that, he left, the fluorescent lights reflecting blue on top of his bald head.

“Who was that?” Mari asked.

“Ole man from Tug’s church.” Mas was going to add that he was kuru-kuru-pa, but thought better of it. Elk Mamiya was apparently acting out of his convictions. He had come all the way to Brooklyn to protect a fellow Japanese American, and Mas should at least be grateful for that.

Tug then turned the corner, a cotton ball taped to the inside of his forearm.

“Uncle Tug, were you with Takeo?” asked Mari.

“Looking good. That’s what I told the doctor.”

“Yeah, Dr. Bhalla has been a godsend. Don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“Bhalla? No, this was a big, tall man. Couldn’t really see his face, covered up with a mask. He had a scar on his forehead.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he was with Takeo when I walked in.”

“Lloyd?”

“No, no sign of Lloyd,” said Tug. “Come to think of it, that struck me as kind of strange.”

Big and tall, with a scar on his forehead. Could only be one man. Larry Pauley.

Mari took off first, splashing her coffee onto the floor and wall. Her thin legs churned forward, her feet working so fast that her tennis shoes hardly touched the squares of linoleum floor. Mas followed through the maze of hallways and heavy unlocked doors. Women and men in pastel gowns holding clipboards watched them go-most likely not knowing if they should help or stop them.

They stormed through a wing of small rooms with large windows. Even though the door was closed, Mas could hear Takeo bawling. What did they say about parents and grandparents: that your ears became so in tune with your baby’s cry that you could hear it when others couldn’t. Takeo was lying on a high bed with metal sides, his face scrunched up and puckered like a pickled plum. Tubes were hanging loose, and the blood from the bag was dripping onto the floor. Multiple alarms sounded off in the room-some as soft as the beeping from a microwave, others as loud as the warning noise from a work vehicle backing up. Nurses and doctors crashed in, surrounding Takeo and eventually pushing Mari out of the way.

No sign of the giant gardener. Mas then spotted that the door of the bathroom was cracked open, not by a doorstop but by a size-eleven shoe, toe up. Sure enough, it was Lloyd-still breathing, but out cold on the tile floor.

With Mari and the team of doctors aiding Takeo and Lloyd, Mas ran out into the hallway of the neonatal ward. An old man, perhaps another grandfather of a broken child, was looking down the hall toward a stairway door that was swinging shut. Mas caught the door and entered the stripped-down stairway. He heard the echo of footsteps banging against metal stairs. Down, down. Mas followed the echo, his knees aching, his heels smarting, lungs low on air, until he landed up in the fancy, hotel-like lobby. Was it the tail of a white lab coat disappearing out the automatic doors?

Mas ran outside and then across the street. He wasn’t quite sure if he was heading in the right direction. But then there was the white medical jacket, crumpled on the sidewalk next to the entrance of a Chinese restaurant. Mas knew enough not to touch the jacket. He went through the restaurant, a fancy kind with tablecloths and cloth napkins. As he stared into the faces of the diners, their backs stiffened. They probably thought that he was an aging busboy reporting for the swing swift or perhaps a senile old man who had lost his way.