The Pearl Harbor Murders

Fielder, who sat and read them, while Sterling and Burroughs waited. The pergola was so near the water, the view of the surf and its riders was particularly peaceful; the silhouette of Diamond Head seemed so tranquil, the concerns the FBI man had been expressing were absurd in contrast.

But Burroughs had seen a dead girl on these white sands, the night before, and was inclined to pay attention.

The chief of Army intelligence, however, was not overawed. Handing the transcript back, Fielder said, 'It seems like quite an ordinary message. Sounds like just the sort of mundane stuff a newspaperman would need for a feature story on life in present-day Honolulu.'

'Colonel,' Sterling said, 'I can't agree-I know nothing here can be clearly defined as manifestly dangerous to security … but the general tone of the conversation, in light of suspicious activity by a German 'sleeper' agent, and the Jap Consulate burning their papers … Wooch, damnit, man-I have a sick feeling about this.'

Fielder crushed his cigarette out in a little metal ashtray. He was nodding. 'Fair enough. I'll tell General Short you want an appointment, Monday morning.'

'No-tonight. As soon as possible.'

The colonel looked up, sharply. 'I told you, Adam-the general has plans for the evening.'

'Then I'll meet with him on his goddamn front porch. I have to insist, Colonel. These Moris are on my list of potentially disloyal Japs. I'm positive this call means something-something's definitely in the wind.'

Fielder sighed heavily. He finished off his rum punch and said, 'All right, you stubborn s.o.b. Can you meet me at my quarters at six o'clock?' 'Yes. Absolutely.'

Nodding, Fielder rose; the two men shook hands. 'See you there.'

And Colonel Fielder headed toward the tavern and its parking lot. 'I think you're doing the right thing,' Burroughs said.

'Hell,' Sterling said with a laugh. The FBI man gulped down the rest of his rum punch. 'I was just hoping I was full of crap.'

NINE

Chinatown

For a Coast haole (as mainlanders were referred to), Hully Burroughs had a better-than-average understanding of Hawaii's Japanese community.

He knew that Japanese owned many of the restaurants in Honolulu, that they repaired most cars and built most houses, that they worked behind most retail counters. And, anyway, you didn't have to be terribly aware to notice the dozens of Japanese teahouses, or the kimono shops, or the sake breweries, the Japanese-language newspapers, fish-cake factories, movie houses….

Still, much of mis eluded the average haole, particularly the typical tourist, because on the one hand, Hawaii worked hard at its Polynesian image-Waikiki wallowed in it-and on the other, Hawaii was insistent upon its American status, indignantly reminding forgetful mainlanders that they were in the United States, not some foreign land.

Hully had gained his awareness, limited though it might be, through his friendship with Sam Fujimoto, the son of their maid at the Niumalu. Sam-a senior in prelaw at the University of Hawaii-had shown Hully the local ropes, when the mainlander had first arrived.

This afternoon, Hully needed his friend's help, for two reasons. First, he needed wheels-his father had taken the Pierce Arrow to the Shriner game. Second, he needed a tour guide-because, despite whatever scant familiarity he had with local Asian customs, Hully felt that would not be enough for where he needed to go.

Chinatown. The Oriental neighborhood had been staked out many decades before by Chinese workers fleeing the sugar and pineapple plantations, marking off this triangle of downtown Honolulu-Nuuanu Street on the southeast, North Beretania Street on the northeast, South King Street as the hypotenuse-for small retail businesses and restaurants.

But despite the name, in Chinatown, the Japanese (and the Filipinos, too, for that matter) vastly outnumbered the Chinese, though the white tourists, coming and going from the main port at the foot of Nuuanu Street, rarely knew the difference, much less noticed how the Japanese and Chinese merchants kept their distance from each other, even when jammed side by side.

Coast haoles saw only the Orient, a nonspecific Asia crammed into a few blocks- sleazy storefronts and Shinto shrines, silk shops and tattoo parlors, bathhouses and Buddhist temples, live chickens and dead ducks, coffee shops and chop suey joints, incense and strangely aromatic spices mingling with the sickly- sweet perfume of the nearby pineapple canneries and the salty stench of the marshlands below the city.

'What do you think her uncle's likely to know?' Sam Fujimoto asked.

The slender, smoothly handsome nisei-black hair trimmed military short (he was in ROTC at the Manoa campus)-was casual at the wheel of his dark blue '38 Ford convertible sedan; his sportshirt was a lighter blue, his trousers white, his shoes the slippers so common on the island (Hully was wearing a pair himself).

'You and I, we only knew Pearl through the Niumalu,' Hully said. 'The only people in her life that we know, too, are musicians, hotel staff and guests.'

'And boyfriends like Bill and that Stanton character, who met her there.'

'Right, Sam. But she used to live with her uncle, in Chinatown, when she first moved to Oahu-that could open up a whole new world of friends and acquaintances.'

'Maybe it is worth talking to him.' Sam had never dated Pearl, but he knew her a littie, had spoken to her a few times. 'But it'll probably be a dead end. My feeling is, she distanced herself from anything… overtly Japanese.' He shrugged. 'A lot of my generation do.'

'Pearl sure seemed like an all-American girl.'

One hand on the wheel, Sam gave Hully half a smile. 'She was one-she was born in Frisco, right?'

'Right.'

The convertible was bouncing along Fort Street. They crossed Nuuanu Street, where the Liberty Theater- home to a Chinese stock company that went in for horrific flights of fancy-was at the left.

'I think I've seen this guy around the Niumalu,' Sam said, referring to Yoshio Harada, Pearl's grocer uncle. Though he didn't live at the hotel, Sam had spent his share of time there, what with his mother's work and his friendship with Hully.

'I saw him just yesterday,' Hully said. 'Helped him unload, a little. Bivens buys fresh seafood and fruit and vegetables from Harada. Seems like a nice enough little guy … You would think he'd be heartsick, today.'

'His niece murdered, I should say.'

Actually, Hully had his doubts, though he said, 'Maybe he won't even be working.'

'Oh, he'll be working,' Sam said with a knowing smile. 'Guy like that doesn't miss a Saturday at the market.'

Hully knew Sam was right-knew that Harada was indeed working today. Since Hully hadn't had an address for the grocer, he'd stopped at the front desk and checked with manager Fred Bivens, who'd said, 'Funny thing is, you just missed him. He made a delivery not ten minutes ago.'

'Really? Gosh, he delivered a boatload of stuff just yesterday-I helped him unload some of it.'

'I remember-but sometimes Mr. Harada makes unscheduled stops when he has something nice for me-like the swordfish he dropped by with, just now.'

'How's he doing?'

'Doing?'

'His niece was murdered last night, Fred. How is he doing?'

'Oh. Well, he's doing fine. I paid my sympathies, he thanked me, we both said what a sad awful thing it was, and… frankly, then we did business.'

'So Pearl's uncle isn't holed up in some funeral home or church, mourning, then.'