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Authors: Robert Crais
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after lunch and another attendant had come on duty, an older man who looked at me once and didn’t seem to care if I stayed or left or homesteaded. No one had gone into Ishida’s shop or come out or touched the little CLOSED sign. Maybe nobody would, ever again.
At ten minutes after five the cop who had made me in the yakitori grill walked past carrying a large white paper bag and a six-pack of diet Coke. The Grateful Dead tee shirt was gone. Now it was ZZ Top. I got out of the car and watched him saunter down Ki Street andturn into a doorway next to the yakitori grill. I waited to see if he would come out and when he didn’t I did a little sauntering myself and took a look. He and a cop I hadn’t seen before were across from Ishida’s in a State Farm Insurance office above the yakitori grill. Those sneaky devils.
Who watches the watchers?
I walked back along Ki, crossed over at the little side street, and turned up the alley behind Ishida’s shop. It looked the way it looked when I drove past six hours earlier. Empty. I went up to the loading dock doors and didn’t like the lock and went over to the people door and took out the wires I keep in my wallet and opened it. If the cops had had the rear of the place staked out there would be trouble, but all the cops were on the street side eating cheeseburgers.
I let myself in, eased the door shut behind me, and waited for my eyes to adjust. I was in a dim, high-ceilinged freight room. Dirty light came through the little window beside the door and a skylight twenty feet up, but that was it. Boxes and crates were stacked ten feet up the wall. Some were wooden but most were cardboard, and most had Styrofoam packaging pellets or shredded Japanese newspapers spilling out. There was a metal stair against one wall that went up to a steel-grate catwalk and loft. There were more boxes and crates up there and a little office. If the Hagakure were here it should only take about six years to find it.
I went through a hall at the head of the freight room and past shelves of bamboo steamers and into the showroom. The two desks were still there but the Hagakure hadn’t been left sitting on them. No one had left a note suggesting a safe place to store the manuscript or a photograph of the new owner with his prize collectible. There were memo pads and paper clips anda little purple stapler and assorted pens and pencils and a Panasonic pencil sharpener and an old issue of
Batman
with the back cover gone. I was hoping for a clue but I would have settled for Ishida’s home phone and address.
Nada
.
I went into the brighter light near the front of the shop, put my hands in my pockets, and wondered what to do. From the edge of the shadows you could see into the insurance office above the yakitori grill. The cop I didn’t know was sitting a few feet back from the window with his feet up, drinking a diet Coke out of a can with a straw.
I went back into the freight room. Ishida had come from the back. Maybe the little office on the catwalk was where he worked. Maybe there would be a little desk with pictures of the kids and a note to bring home some sushi and a Rolodex or some personal correspondence that would tell me where he lived.
I climbed the steel stair and went along the narrow catwalk and opened the white door with the pebbled glass panel in it and smelled the blood and the cold meat and the death. It’s the smell that comes only from a great quantity of blood and human waste. It can sting your nose and throat like a bad smog. It’s a smell so strong and so alive that it has a taste and the taste is like when you were a kid and found a nickel in the winter and the metal was cold and you put it in your mouth to see what it would be like and your mother screamed that you would die from the germs and so you spit it out but the cold taste and the fear of the germs stayed.
The little office was heavy with shadow. I took out my handkerchief and found the light switch and snapped it
At ten minutes after five the cop who had made me in the yakitori grill walked past carrying a large white paper bag and a six-pack of diet Coke. The Grateful Dead tee shirt was gone. Now it was ZZ Top. I got out of the car and watched him saunter down Ki Street andturn into a doorway next to the yakitori grill. I waited to see if he would come out and when he didn’t I did a little sauntering myself and took a look. He and a cop I hadn’t seen before were across from Ishida’s in a State Farm Insurance office above the yakitori grill. Those sneaky devils.
Who watches the watchers?
I walked back along Ki, crossed over at the little side street, and turned up the alley behind Ishida’s shop. It looked the way it looked when I drove past six hours earlier. Empty. I went up to the loading dock doors and didn’t like the lock and went over to the people door and took out the wires I keep in my wallet and opened it. If the cops had had the rear of the place staked out there would be trouble, but all the cops were on the street side eating cheeseburgers.
I let myself in, eased the door shut behind me, and waited for my eyes to adjust. I was in a dim, high-ceilinged freight room. Dirty light came through the little window beside the door and a skylight twenty feet up, but that was it. Boxes and crates were stacked ten feet up the wall. Some were wooden but most were cardboard, and most had Styrofoam packaging pellets or shredded Japanese newspapers spilling out. There was a metal stair against one wall that went up to a steel-grate catwalk and loft. There were more boxes and crates up there and a little office. If the Hagakure were here it should only take about six years to find it.
I went through a hall at the head of the freight room and past shelves of bamboo steamers and into the showroom. The two desks were still there but the Hagakure hadn’t been left sitting on them. No one had left a note suggesting a safe place to store the manuscript or a photograph of the new owner with his prize collectible. There were memo pads and paper clips anda little purple stapler and assorted pens and pencils and a Panasonic pencil sharpener and an old issue of
Batman
with the back cover gone. I was hoping for a clue but I would have settled for Ishida’s home phone and address.
Nada
.
I went into the brighter light near the front of the shop, put my hands in my pockets, and wondered what to do. From the edge of the shadows you could see into the insurance office above the yakitori grill. The cop I didn’t know was sitting a few feet back from the window with his feet up, drinking a diet Coke out of a can with a straw.
I went back into the freight room. Ishida had come from the back. Maybe the little office on the catwalk was where he worked. Maybe there would be a little desk with pictures of the kids and a note to bring home some sushi and a Rolodex or some personal correspondence that would tell me where he lived.
I climbed the steel stair and went along the narrow catwalk and opened the white door with the pebbled glass panel in it and smelled the blood and the cold meat and the death. It’s the smell that comes only from a great quantity of blood and human waste. It can sting your nose and throat like a bad smog. It’s a smell so strong and so alive that it has a taste and the taste is like when you were a kid and found a nickel in the winter and the metal was cold and you put it in your mouth to see what it would be like and your mother screamed that you would die from the germs and so you spit it out but the cold taste and the fear of the germs stayed.
The little office was heavy with shadow. I took out my handkerchief and found the light switch and snapped it
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