Summer of the Big Bachi Read Online Free PDF Page B

waved a shiny magazine titled Cosmopolitan and pointed to a mailing label. Mas walked over, and sure enough it had a name, Junko Kakita, and a North Hollywood address.
     
     
Mas tried to make out the numbers and letters without his drugstore reading glasses, which he’d left in the truck. “Sank you, ne, ” he said, reciting the address in his head.
     
     
The tadpole-eyed woman stood close behind them. “Oh, Rumi- chan .” Keiko finally became aware of the woman’s presence. “This man is looking for Joji- san, Junko’s friend.”
     
     
The young woman froze, aside from her left eye, which began to twitch. Mas was close enough to also see that her hands were trembling.
     
     
Keiko didn’t seem to notice. “Tell Haneda- san that I hope he’s feeling better,” she said to Mas. “And come again.”
     
     

     
Mas went back to the truck and pulled out his Thomas guide, which was under some rope behind the seat. It was 1987, published before the Century Freeway, but good enough for North Hollywood. He pulled his glasses out of the glove compartment, flipped through the pages, and found the street. It was a small one, and dead-ended before it could get anywhere.
     
     
Driving over to Junko Kakita’s, he saw more of the same, plain apartments that looked like mini-motels. He finally spotted the address, a two-story unit with a line of doors and windows. Must be a Japanese owner, thought Mas, looking at the shaped juniper trees, or at least a Japanese gardener.
     
     
“Numba D,” Mas muttered to himself. He looked at the line of metal mailboxes. There were only eight; the fourth one over bore the name KAKITA.
     
     
It was on the second floor. A couple of rolled-up advertisements were hanging from the screen door. Heavy curtains were drawn. Mas tried to peek through the window but heard a male voice behind him. “She’s not there.”
     
     
A Latino man in his fifties and about Mas’s height stood against the second-floor railing. “She left a couple of days ago.”
     
     
Again, Mas didn’t know what to say. The whole thing looked suspicious, he was the first to admit. If he had caught a dried-up old Japanese man looking through his customer’s windows, he would have kicked him out, right on the spot.
     
     
“You the one who going to take care of her plants, right?” the man, probably the manager, said.
     
     
Before Mas could respond, the manager was opening the door and leading him inside. The living room was dark, aside from light coming through the open door and the edge of the drapes.
     
     
The manager walked over to rows of at least twelve bonsai plants arranged on wooden planks over cinder blocks by the window. “Why she make such a fuss over those little plants?” he said. “Last time she accuse me of killing two of them. Said she was going to take fifty dollars out of her rent. I told her, ‘Next time, find someone else.’ ”
     
     
Mas stuck his finger into the soil of one of the planters. Pretty dry. As he walked over the kitchen, he made a mental note of everything on the counter, table, and floor. Roll of aluminum foil, rice cooker pot soaking in the sink, stack of newspapers in the corner, with, yes, crib notes from Hollywood Park racetrack on the top. He filled an empty water jug with lukewarm water and proceeded to water the plants. There were juniper, pine, even a miniature maple. To look further authentic, Mas got out his pruner, which was dangling from his belt, and clipped some wayward leaves.
     
     
The manager soon got bored waiting for Mas and went outside for maybe a smoke or who knows what. This was Mas’s only chance. He quietly crept down the hall. As he passed by the yellow tile bathroom, a smell hit his nostrils. Menthol, strong enough to burn the insides of your lungs. Mas knew that smell well. Salon Pas— thin pads that old gardeners like him stuck to sore backs and battered knees. Would a woman named Junko use those for her achy joints?
     
     
Her bedroom was a typical woman’s,