Death in Little Tokyo Read Online Free Page A

simple navy dress with a colorful red and gold scarf draped over her shoulder. She’s only five feet three inches tall, but that isn’t a particular handicap in a shop that caters to older Japanese women. It is a handicap in her acting.
    Her face is round with a small pointed chin. She has a cute button nose and wide brown eyes. Japanese faces have a wide variety of types (at least to other Japanese). Mrs. Kawashiri, who owned the boutique, has a broad flat face that wouldn’t look out of place on a Korean, Mongol or Eskimo. Mariko has the same kind of features as me, which look more Southeast Asian.
    Mariko’s black hair is shoulder length, and she usually wears it with a sweeping lock across her forehead. Her smile has a special magic for me. Her even white teeth give mute testament to the wisdom of her parent’s investment in braces when she was a kid. (She told me once how she hated the braces. Selfishly I thought only of the results instead of the process.)
    Her figure is trim, but with a nice swell to her hips and beautifully straight legs, not the daikon legs that so many Japanese women complain about. Daikon is a large, long, and lumpy white radish used in Japanese cooking, and the comparison of legs to radishes is not a flattering one.
    I’m forty-two. Mariko is in her mid-thirties, and like me she’s had a failed marriage. Also like me, her first marriage was to a Caucasian. That’s a topic we’ve talked about many times with no good resolution.
    At the time of her divorce, Mariko was both an alcoholic and working as a loan officer in a bank. I don’t know if the two were related. When she hit thirty she decided life was too short to continue working for the green eyeshade crowd. She also decided that her drinking was controlling her, not vice versa. She started alternately attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and taking acting lessons. When she worked up the courage, she quit her job and started acting full-time. She also got a divorce from her husband.
    She told me she was pretty miserable when she first split up with her husband, but not miserable enough to get back with him. She said he’s an alcoholic, too, although he hasn’t recognized it yet. When they were first married it was fun to party and be drunks together, but as the drinking became more serious it ceased being fun. Since the divorce both her sobriety and acting career have had their ups and downs. She slipped once on her drinking during her first year in AA, but she’s been sober for almost four years. She’s appeared in several plays and one TV commercial, but she isn’t able to make a living just acting so she works at the dress shop.
    The owner of the dress shop, Mrs. Kawashiri, is really good about letting Mariko leave for auditions, and it’s a comfortable relationship. Besides, Mariko gets her clothes at a discount, although most of her clothes are special orders because Mrs. Kawashiri, who is in her sixties herself, caters to a much older clientele.
    When she was able to take a break, Mariko and I went into the boutique’s back room and I gave her a quick rundown on my encounter with Rita Newly. “I thought you set up the whole thing as a joke,” I said as I finished, “But when she laid these on me,” I flashed the three one-hundred-dollar bills, “I thought that something was very wrong.”
    Looking at the money, Mariko said, “I did set up the whole thing, and I’ll thank you to hand over my money.” She solemnly extended her hand.
    Surprised, and a little hesitant, I almost handed over the cash. I peered at her and said, “Are you teasing me?”
    She laughed. “Of course! Do you think I’d hand over three hundred bucks just because I have nothing better to keep me amused? Besides, you seem a little too interested in this woman. You have a thing for blondes.”
    My ex-wife was a blonde. We were moving into uncomfortable territory. I did what most men try to do in similar circumstances: I changed the subject.