wanted to know who was calling; he sounded timid and wary. I told him. “Oh, right,” he said, and the wariness was gone and he sounded timid and unhappy. “Well, she had to go out for a few minutes, but she’ll be back before long. I’m her husband. Art Gage?” He made his name into a question, as if he wasn’t sure who he was.
“What is it your wife wants to see me about, Mr. Cage?”
“These presents she keeps getting.”
“Presents?”
“In the mail. It’s driving us crazy.”
“What sort of presents are you talking about?”
Pause. “I guess I’d better let Haruko tell you. It was her idea to hire a private detective.”
“All right. I’ll call back a little later, then-”
“No, no,” he said, “why don’t you just come over to the house? She’ll be back by the time you get here.”
“Where do you live, Mr. Gage?”
“On Buchanan, just off Bush.” He gave me the number. “It’s on the fringe of Japantown.”
The address was only about ten minutes from my flat. I looked out through the bedroom window to see if it was still raining so hard. It wasn’t, so I said, “I think I’ve got time to stop by. Give me about half an hour.”
“I’ll tell Haruko you’re coming.”
We rang off, and I put some dry clothes on and combed my hair. Then I called the outfit where my office stuff was stored and made arrangements for them to deliver it to O’Farrell Street tomorrow afternoon. And then I went back into the kitchen to eat those goddamn eggs.
Chapter Two
Japantown was just off Geary Boulevard in the Western Addition, a few minutes from downtown-a miniature ginza where a high percentage of San Francisco’s 11,000 citizens of Japanese descent lived and worked, and where a good many Nippon tourists either stayed or congregated. Its hub, the Japan Center, was a five-acre complex built in 1968 that housed restaurants, a large hotel, a theatre, Japanese baths, art galleries, bookstores, banks, plenty of shops, and a pedestrian mall that was supposed to look like a mountain village in the old country, complete with a meandering stream, plum and cherry trees, and fountains. On the dozen or so other blocks of Japantown, you found small businesses, hotels, a bowling alley, a couple of Japanese-language newspapers, apartment houses, and not a few old-and for the most part refurbished-stick-style Victorian houses.
But the area surrounding the Nihonmachi wasn’t anywhere near as pleasant. There were a lot of low-income housing projects, and a lot of anger and frustration to go with them; Japantown and its residents and visitors were prime targets for young hoodlums. Security measures had been taken and police patrols increased, but it was still one of the city’s high-crime districts. That was a damned shame for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that the Japanese were a polite, friendly, and law-abiding people. They could have given lessons to too many of the white and black population.
There wasn’t much doing in Japantown this afternoon because of the weather. Street parking was usually at a premium, even up around Bush and Buchanan, but I found a place half a dozen doors down from the address Art Gage had given me. That block of Buchanan was quiet, tree-shaded, flanked by well-kept Victorians painted in bright colors in the modern fashion. The Gage house was one of an identically restored group, like a row of architectural clones: light blue walls and stoop, dark blue trim, with accents in red and gold.
I hustled up onto the narrow porch, shook rainwater off my hat, and rang the bell. The door opened pretty soon and I was looking at a slender, almost fragile blondish guy of about thirty. He was handsome in an undistinguished sort of way, or he would have been if he hadn’t had a weak chin, liquidy blue eyes, and the too- white skin of a shut-in. He was wearing Levi’s, moccassins, and a blue Pendleton shirt.
He said, “You’re the detective?”
“Yes.”
“Come on in. Haruko’s in the front room.”
He took my coat and hat, then led me down a short hall and through an archway into 1920. Chairs with tufted velvet cushions, little round tables with fringed gold cloths, rococo lighting fixtures, a tiled Queen Anne fireplace above which were mirrored glass panels. There was too much furniture: china cabinets and a highboy and a secretary desk and a claw-footed mahogany couch, in addition to all the chairs and tables. It had the look of a room designed for show rather than comfort, like a private museum exhibit. But the problem was, none of the furnishings appeared to be a genuine antique; even I could tell that. They were an oddball mixture of reproductions, simulations, and garage-sale junk.
The woman sitting on the claw-footed couch looked out of place among all that ersatz Victorian stuff. She was in her mid-twenties, not much over five feet tall, small-boned, inclining to plumpness, with classically pretty Japanese features and silky black hair that would hang to her waist when she was standing. But there was none of the delicacy that you usually found in small Oriental women. I sensed instead a willful strength, a kind of sharp- edged Occidental determination. If appearances were accurate, there wasn’t much doubt as to who ran the Gage household.
She stood up as her husband and I crossed the room. Gage performed the introductions, and she gave me her hand and a small solemn smile. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you called back; I had to deliver some designs to one of our customers.”
“Designs?”
“We’re artistic designers,” Cage said. “And creative consultants for several large firms-”
She looked at him and said, “Art,” and he shut up. Then she said to me, “My husband likes to glorify what we do. The truth is, we design wallpaper.”
“Ah,” I said, a little blankly.
She laughed. “It’s one of those odd professions most people aren’t aware of. They look at wallpaper, even the most intricately patterned kind, and they take it for granted; they don’t realize someone has to have designed it.”
“It’s not simple work, either,” Gage said. He sounded defensive. “It takes a lot of talent, you know.”
“I’m sure it does, Mr. Gage.”
“Besides, it pays very well-”
“Art,” she said.
He quit talking again and took a package of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and set about getting one lighted. He didn’t look at either his wife or me while he did it.
She asked me, “Would you like some tea? I’m going to have a cup.
“Well… I’d prefer coffee if you have it.”
“Of course. Art, will you put the water on? Make my tea the lemon grass, all right?”
He gave her a look like a housewife reacting to a bossy husband. But he didn’t say anything. And he went out of the room almost immediately, the cigarette hanging out of his face.
Haruko sat on the couch again. I sat on one of the fake Victorian chairs; it was about as comfortable as sitting on a fence. The rain made a steady thrumming noise beyond the room’s velveteen-draped bay windows. Out in the kitchen, Gage banged pots and cupboard doors-angry sounds in the stillness.
I said, “What was it you wanted to see me about, Mrs. Gage? Your husband mentioned something about presents, but he didn’t elaborate.”
“I’m glad he didn’t. He gets emotional on the subject.”
“What sort of presents are they?”
“Expensive ones. Different pieces of jewelry. The latest was a white jade ring.”
“Who’s sending them to you?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“That’s the problem,” she said. “That’s why I want to hire you — to find out who’s doing it.”
“Let me get this straight. These gifts come in the mail?”
“Yes. First-class.”
