Blood Hina by Naomi Hirahara

Author:Naomi Hirahara [Hirahara, Naomi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938849206
Publisher: Prospect Park Books
Published: 2013-08-16T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Making other people believe that Haruo was in big trouble was a larger challenge than Mas bargained for. The Buckwheat Beauty wouldn’t leave his house, but he wasn’t going to let her stop what had to be done. First was a call to G.I. Hasuike and Juanita Gushiken, the closest thing to a crime-fighting duo that he knew of. But G.I. and Juanita, both busy with their respective lawyering and private investigating, were unmoved.

“Why would anyone want to kidnap Haruo?” asked G.I. over the phone.

A very good question, Mas thought, a good question that he didn’t have an answer for. Haruo had no money, no house, and no working car. His children, both teachers, weren’t rich. His ex-wife had indeed remarried, but to a television repairman who’d retired his shingle as soon as people started paying companies to take old broken TV sets off their hands.

“And those men who were at Spoon’s neighbor’s house—are you sure they weren’t just kids causing trouble?” asked Juanita on the other line.

No, no, no, Mas tried to tell them. In spite of the ski masks, he knew the difference between a wild gangly teenager’s build and a grown man’s. Plus they had threatened Sonya, not only in person but in telephone calls—but he had promised the old lady that he wouldn’t breathe a word about that.

“Well, you can file a report with the sheriff’s department. When they find out about Haruo’s background—I just don’t know, Mas. If that neighbor woman goes to the police about her intruders, it might be a different story.”

Next on Mas’s list was Kiyomi, Haruo’s daughter, who also didn’t seem to understand the gravity of what was being told to her. “Missing?”

“Ka-re burnin’ right on the stove.”

“Oh.”

Why, just oh, thought Mas, his temper rising.

“Did he ever tell you how he left the house while he was filling up the bathtub when we were children? Our hardwood floors got all warped.”

This has nothing to do with an overflowing bathtub, Mas wanted to yell. He saw a chunk of Haruo’s hair in the driveway. What else was being done to him right this moment?

The daughter was so passive that Mas had to move on to the son. He knew from the get-go that Clement would not be happy to hear from Mas, much less about his estranged father.

“Are you sure he’s not back at it?”

Mas gritted down on his dentures. It had been indeed a mistake to call the son, but he didn’t know what else to do.

“You know what I’m talking about. Did you check the card clubs in Gardena, the Indian casinos in Temecula? Las Vegas, even?”

Mas had no answer.

Apparently the son distinctly remembered pulling his father back from those tables, time after time. “When you search all those places and you still can’t find him, I’ll know something’s wrong. But until then, don’t bother calling back.”

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