The Case of the One-Penny Orange: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Two) (4 page)

He appeared to have changed the subject aimlessly, but Masuto knew that a man like Ishido did nothing aimlessly or thoughtlessly. “I am Zen. The Soto School.”

“Ah so. A Buddhist seeks for meaning, in his way. A collector, a true collector, also seeks for meaning, very narrowly, very fanatically, but there are no ethical boundaries to his religion. Do you understand?”

Masuto nodded. They sat cross-legged, a low, polished teakwood table between them. Now a young woman appeared with tea things. She wore a kimono and obi and she was very lovely, but Ishido did not introduce her and Masuto knew that his wife was long dead. She set down the tray, poured pale yellow tea, and disappeared. Politely, Masuto made no inquiry. They sipped the tea, and then Ishido said:

“Therefore, I must be suspect.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You are my kinsman.”

“That is no reason. You must ask me whether, for a true collector, there is any stamp worth killing for. Of course, with such a man as Ivan Gaycheck, there could be a thousand motives. Was he connected with the SS? Surely you have inquired at Interpol?”

“Yes.”

“Then any Jew who discovered his identity would feel justified in an act of revenge.”

“I don't think so,” Masuto answered slowly. “That kind of act of violence is not in their pattern.”

“But patterns change — as witness Israel.”

“Perhaps. But I have a simple mind. When a stamp dealer is murdered, I look for a stamp.” Masuto sipped his tea. “Now I will ask you — is any stamp worth an act of murder?”

“Who is to say what will prompt an act of murder? A man is killed in the street for a few dollars. You know that I was a colonel in the Imperial Army — war is a gigantic killing. Who is to say? My own passion is porcelain. I have always dreamed of owning a Bactrian horse of the T'ang dynasty — not the pottery horse, but that almost mythical T'ang horse which is said to have been made of Ch'ai ware, which they describe as being thin as paper, resonant as musical stone, and blue as the sky between the rain clouds. Does it exist? Rumor has it that there is one in Peking and another in the Imperial Palace in Japan — but that is only rumor. I have never spoken to anyone who actually saw such a horse. Would I kill for such a thing? But that would depend on so many circumstances. A man like Gaycheck — I might well kill him, but not for a stamp. I only collect Japanese stamps. Well …” Ishido paused, smiled, and sipped his tea. “Yes, one stamp. In the Dragon series. Two colors with an inverted center. But, you see, Masao — I already have it. So the question is academic.”

Masuto did an unforgivable thing. “Might I see it?” he asked.

Ishido stared at him evenly, his face reflecting Masuto's own carefully controlled indifference. Then he nodded, rose, and went into another room. He returned with a small black album and opened it to reveal what Masuto considered a very ordinary stamp, the dragon in the center inverted.

“How much is it worth, if I may ask so improper a question?”

“You are a policeman,” Ishido said, his simple statement exiling Masuto from his world. “I bought it in Hong Kong twelve years ago. The seller was unsavory. I paid a thousand British pounds. At today's inflated prices — well, over seventy-five thousand dollars.”

Still, Masuto did not go. He would not be invited back to Ishido's house, so whatever questions he would ask must be asked now. Since he was a policeman and no more than a policeman, he would play the policeman's role.

“Is this the most valuable stamp that exists?”

“Hardly. The land of my birth lacks that honor, but one does not judge a country or a person by the worth of his stamps. There is a stamp called the One-Penny 1848 Mauritius. Today, in perfect condition, it might sell for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I do not know whether any other stamp is more valuable.”

It was almost eleven o'clock when Masuto returned to his home in Culver City. Kati was waiting for him. “Was it pleasant?” she asked him. “Were you greeted well?”

“I was greeted well, yes. With great courtesy.”

“Oh?”

“I must make you unhappy, dear Kati. I came as a kinsman, I left as a policeman.”

“Oh, so sorry! Such a pity!”

“I asked improper questions. And as far as my manners were concerned — well, I am a policeman.”

“Who has ever complained about your manners?”

“Dear Kati.” He sighed and walked to the bookshelves, where he took down a volume of the Encyclopedia Americana — the fine set that he had bought for his children only a year ago and of which he was very proud. He riffled through the pages, and then handed the book to Kati. She liked to read to him. Not only did it relax him, it gave her a sense of participating in his thoughts. He pointed to a paragraph and asked her to read to him.

“Mauritius,” she began.

“No, dear wife — so sorry, but Ishido pronounced the word differently. He pronounced it Moreeshius. I am sure his pronunciation was correct.”

“Yes, yes. Moreeshius. ‘A densely populated island in the Indian Ocean about 550 miles east of Madagascar, is an independent nation within the Commonwealth of Nations. Its capital, Port Louis, also administers smaller island dependencies: Rodrigues, 350 miles east, and scattered coral groups, 250 to 580 miles away'” She paused. “The next paragraph is about population. Shall I read that?”

“No. And after that?”

“The land. Then the economy.”

“Are stamps mentioned?” Masuto asked.

“No, nothing about stamps. The next section is entitled ‘History.' Shall I read it to you?”

“Only if it mentions stamps.”

“Nothing about stamps,” Kati said sadly. “But very interesting. Did you know that Mauritius was the home of the dodo bird?”

“The dodo bird is extinct.”

“You mean there are no dodo birds — anywhere?”

“I am afraid not.”

“How sad! But why are you asking about stamps — if it is something you can speak of?”

“Because there is a postage stamp issued in 1848 in that place called Mauritius that is worth in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“A single postage stamp?”

“Yes, Kati.”

“But why? How can a tiny postage stamp be worth so much money?”

“I suppose because it is very rare. I would give a great deal to know whether one exists in Beverly Hills.”

4

RONALD HABER

The telephone burst in on Masuto's sleep like a fire engine gone berserk. As he reached out to pick it up, he saw that the luminous dial of his clock said 4:20. In the background, Kati made small sounds of despair. She could never grow used to the telephone in the middle of the night.

Wainwright was on the phone and he minced no words. “Masao, Haber is dead. Murdered.”

“What? Where? When?” Masuto was still fuzzy with sleep.

“In his apartment on Lapeer. I'm there with the sheriff's men, and I want you to get your ass over here.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“It's four-twenty in the morning.”

“If these lousy deputies could get me out of bed at four in the morning, I can damn well get you out at four-twenty, so get your ass over here and stop yammering.”

While Masuto dressed, Kati put the tea-kettle on to boil, but he was in no mood to wait. He gulped down a glass of milk to settle his sour stomach and then climbed into his car and drove through the night — or morning — for the strange gray thickness of dawn was already beginning. Once again, as so often before, he pondered the geographical insanity that called itself Los Angeles. There was a city of Los Angeles and there was a county of Los Angeles. The city of Los Angeles had its own police force. The county of Los Angeles had a sheriff, with a vast force of deputies. Within the city of Los Angeles were other cities, such as Beverly Hills, which had their own police forces, and also within the city of Los Angeles were unincorporated areas, which were policed by the sheriff's deputies — and while there was a courtesy interchange of the right of movement and information, it did not make for efficiency.

Lapeer Street, where Masuto was bound, was in West Hollywood, an unincorporated area policed by the sheriff's deputies. When he arrived, three sheriff's cars were parked in front of the building, a small, unimpressive apartment house. He showed his credentials to the deputy at the street door. It was five o'clock now, a glint of dawn in the sky, but the stairway was dark, lit by a single weak bulb. The commotion had awakened other tenants, who, many of them half dressed or in robes, were standing curiously in their half-open doorways.

Haber's apartment was a one-bedroom, drably furnished flat. Always, on entering such a place, Masuto relied on his first impression — here a sense of bleakness, indifference, lack of imagination, and a degree of despair; the habitation revealed more than the man, even though the place was in disarray, furniture overturned, a lamp smashed, drawers emptied and dumped on the floor. Three deputies, a fingerprint man, a county photographer, two morgue men, and Wainwright crowded the living room. The morgue men had their rubber sheet still folded, evidently waiting for Masuto to see the body.

It was not a pretty sight. Haber lay in a corner, as if he had been flung there.

“Beaten to death,” Wainwright said to Masuto.

“Animals,” said one of the deputies. “This place is lousy with animals.”

“Can we take him away, Sergeant?” one of the morgue men asked Masuto. He nodded. They put Haber's body on a stretcher, covered it with the rubber sheet, and marched out. Masuto stood silently, his eyes wandering around the room.

“Well?” Wainwright demanded.

Masuto shrugged. “Violence is the disease of our times. The sickness is not restricted to West Hollywood.”

“I'm not asking for your damn philosophy.”

“He's dead.”

“Great! Brilliant! How does it tie in? It's sure as hell a different M.O.”

“Murderers are not required to be consistent.”

“You give me a pain in the ass,” Wainwright said. “I ask you to clean up one lousy killing and now we got two.”

“This one's in West Hollywood — theirs.” Masuto nodded at the deputies.

“That's sweet.”

“You gave me until tomorrow. It's not tomorrow yet.”

“Tomorrow's today,” Wainwright said. “All right. I'm sorry. This happened at about three
A.M., SO
I got no sleep at all. I'm edgy. For God's sake, Masao, what have we got here?”

“I don't know,” Masuto said thoughtfully.

One of the deputies said to Masuto, “Captain Wainwright here tells me that Haber worked for the dealer who was shot in Beverly Hills yesterday. Do you have a connection?”

Masuto was prompted to assure the deputy that there was a connection between every living creature and every event on earth; but he thought better of it and simply shook his head.

“Hell, Sergeant, you're not telling me it's a coincidence? Because if you are …”

“It's not a coincidence.”

“You just said …”

“You asked me whether I have a connection. I shook my head,” Masuto interrupted, almost with irritation. He disliked deputies, not out of any specific behavior on their part but simply because he did not have a high opinion of their intelligence, and it irritated him that he should be disturbed by something that was almost a common affliction of mankind. “I did not say there was no connection. There is. But what the connection is, I don't know.”

Grinning, the fingerprint man said, “I got some beauts, Sarge. You want to see them?”

“What?”

“The prints. I took a set of Haber's. I got a dozen that don't belong to him.”

“No, thank you,” Masuto muttered.

“He's a lover,” the fingerprint man said to the deputy at the door. Hurt, he was on his way out.

“Didn't you know, Billy,” said the deputy, “they got nothing but smartass cops in Beverly Hills. All class. It ain't no asshole, like this place.”

The fingerprint man departed. Another deputy said to the deputy at the door, “Just keep your mouth shut and stop being a horse's ass.” Then he went over to Masuto. “I'm sorry, Sergeant. But a night detail's lousy, and around this time everyone gets edgy. My name's Williams, and I'm on night Homicide. Any help you and Captain Wainwright can give us, we appreciate.”

“Balls,” the deputy at the door muttered.

Williams gave him a stony look. Wainwright said nothing. He was watching Masuto with interest. They had worked together for too long for him to question anything Masuto said or did.

“You questioned the neighbors?” Masuto asked Williams.

“All of them.”

“They were all awake?”

“There was a hell of a fight and racket in here. One of them called us. A young girl, name of Cindy Lang.”

“Just one? How many tenants in the place?”

“Four on this floor. Those were the ones who heard it.”

“And only one called you?”

“That's the way it is, Sergeant.”

“Did any of them see anything?”

“They claim no.”

“They're lying,” said another deputy.

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Williams said. “Nobody wants to get involved.”

“Running feet? That could tell something. Two feet sound one way. Four feet sound different.”

Williams turned to the deputy at the door, who shrugged and said, “I never asked them that.”

“Well, goddamn it, ask them!” Williams snapped. The deputy left, and Williams said to Masuto. “They heard a car start.”

“They always hear a car start.”

“Did they hear anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Voices.”

“Men's voices. Nothing very clear.”

“Any of the tenants know Haber?”