“I wish I knew. What I do know is too complicated to go into on the phone; suppose we let it wait until morning. I can come by your place around nine…”
“I have a business appointment at nine, downtown. With a representative of one of the companies Art and I design for. I could probably break it at the last minute, but…”
“How long do you expect it’ll last?”
“Until noon or so. I should be back here no later than one o’clock.”
“How about if I meet you at your place at one?”
“All right. Are you sure… I mean, there’s nothing I ought to know right away, is there?”
“No. Don’t worry, Mrs. Gage,” I said. “There isn’t anything to worry about.”
And I hoped I was telling her the truth.
Chapter Seventeen
In the morning, first thing, I called the registrar’s office at CCSF and asked the woman who answered if Nelson Mixer had recovered sufficiently-I didn’t say from what-to get back to his classes this week. She told me he had. When I asked her about his schedule she said he had a free period from ten to eleven and that I might be able to find him then in his office in Batmale Hall.
Coffee, two more eggs, and a piece of dry toast passed for breakfast. But my bathroom scale said I’d lost another pound, which made four now, so I was able to choke the food down with less difficulty than usual.
I hung around drinking second and third cups of coffee, waiting for nine-thirty so I could call the DMV. Fletcher wasn’t happy to hear from me again so soon, but when he got done bitching he agreed to run a computer list of all the Wakasas currently holding California driver’s licenses. He’d have it for me, he said, in an hour or so.
I put my overcoat on and went downstairs and out into the new day. Some more rain had fallen during the night, but the sky was clearing now: scattered stratocumulus clouds, intermittent sunshine, a cold gusty December wind. The air had a clean, scrubbed smell, the way it does after a long period of rain. It also had a sharp, crystal clarity; out around the Cliff House you would not only be able to see the Farallone Islands thirty-two miles at sea but you’d be able to make out the exact contours of each of them.
Not hurrying, I started off toward Laguna Street, which was where I’d parked my car last night. I expected to encounter the white Ford somewhere nearby-I was looking for it, in fact-but when I spotted it, parked so that the two kobun could watch both my car and the entrance to my building, I felt myself getting angry all over again. God, they were persistent bastards; throw them off and they came right back with the fixated determination of cats. It gave me a paranoid hunted feeling.
Batmale Hall, on the City College campus, was a rectangular building of grayish stone, several stories high, built into a hillside so that if you entered it on the upper level you were already on the fourth floor. That was the way I came in, at twenty past ten. There wasn’t any directory that I could see, so I stopped a couple of kids and asked them if they knew where Professor Mixer’s office was. One of them did: fifth floor.
Rather than wait for an elevator, I walked up. Mixer’s office was at the rear; I found it easily enough because it had his name framed alongside the door: NELSON MIXER-U.S. AND CALIFORNIA HISTORY. Below that were one listing of his office hours and another of his lecture hours in a different building, Cloud Hall.
The door was closed. I knocked on it, tried the knob, found it unlocked, and opened it and went inside. Mixer was there, alone, sitting behind a desk piled high with papers and books. Books were everywhere in the room-on the chairs and filing cabinets, stacked haphazardly on the floor, stuffed into shelves over two walls. Otherwise, the office was nondescript. Which made Mixer stand out even more than he would have in a crowd, because he was wearing a mauve-colored suit, a lemon-yellow shirt, and a mauve tie, all of which clashed violently with his wild red hair.
His first reaction to my entrance was an annoyed glare. Then he recognized me, and the look metamorphosed into one of persecution. His long scrawny neck seemed to extend out of his shirt collar like a fox’s out of a burrow; his face immediately began to stain the same color as his hair.
“You!” he said. He dropped the pen he’d been scribbling with and bounced up to his feet. “What do you want this time? Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“Take it easy, Mr. Mixer. All I want-”
“For God’s sake!” he said. He came bounding out from behind the desk, dislodging one of the piles of his books in his hurry. The books made a series of thumping noises on the floor, but Mixer didn’t notice; he was already at the door. He poked his head out into the hallway, then retracted it and shut the door and locked it. When he turned to face me he was panting a little. He looked as if he were on the run from a pack of hounds.
“Why don’t you believe me?” he whispered.
“What?”
“I tell you, I never touched her.”
“Touched who?”
“Clara. An intellectual relationship is all we had.”
I was not going to play any more pattycake with him. I took a couple of steps in his direction and waggled a finger under his nose. He cowered back against the door, looking horrified, as if he thought I might be planning to turn him into fox soup.
“Listen, Mixer,” I said, “we’re going to have a talk-a nice, rational talk for a change. No more screwball stuff. You understand?”
“Screwball? Are you insinuating that I-?”
“Shut up,” I said.
He shut up. Just like Artie Gage when Haruko spoke or gave him a look. It seemed I had finally discovered the secret of how to deal with the Mad Lecher.
I curled my lip at him, tough-guy fashion. Then I reached out and flicked some imaginary lint off the front of his mauve jacket. The sudden movement made him flinch, which was what I’d intended. Both Clara and her father, whoever they were, would have enjoyed this. Hell, I was beginning to enjoy it a little myself.
“All right, Mixer,” I said. “Go on over to your desk and sit down. Don’t say anything; just do what you’re told.”
He obeyed. And sat stiffly in his chair, looking up at me with bright, nervous eyes.
“The first thing we’re going to get straight,” I said, “is why I’m here. I’m not working for the father of any woman named Clara; I’m working for Haruko Gage. Is that clear?”
“Haruko who? Oh, the Fujita girl. Yes.”
“So is it clear, or should I say it again?”
“No. I mean yes, it’s clear.”
“Good. Now do you remember why I’m working for Mrs. Gage?”
“Ah… no, I… no.”
“I didn’t think so. I’m working for her because she’s been getting anonymous presents in the mail-pieces of jewelry-and I’m trying to find out who’s sending them.”
“Oh. Yes. Anonymous presents.”
“Now you’ve got it. And I think the person responsible is connected to some Japanese guys named Tamura, Masaoka, and Hama., Those names ring any bells with you?”
He shook his head. His eyes were still bright and nervous, but there wasn’t any guile in them. Still, he was a screwball-and so was the person who had murdered those three Japanese. Screwballs, as any psychiatrist will tell you, can be cunning as hell when it comes to concealing things about themselves.
I asked him, “How about Chiyoko Wakasa? Do you know that name?”
“Is she another of my former students? I’m not very good with names; I deal with so many in my classes…”
“Okay, forget it. What I want from you now is some information on the Japanese relocation camps during World War II.”
That surprised him. Or seemed to. He said, “You do?”
