LITMIR.BIZ

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the paper, “mentions things I’m sure the other one doesn’t. And I’m afraid there might be a conflict. Here—I think you should read it.” She handed it across the coffee table, and as Jackie took it, she watched the edges dip and rise. The paper was so thin that, even folded, she could make out the dark shapes of her fingers beneath it. The typed words were light, as if the ribbon had been running out of ink. She read:

       September 22, 1964

       I, Franklin Masayuki Sakai, being of sound mind and body, do bequeath the following items upon the event of my death:

      1 My house and savings shall go to my wife, Mary Yukiko Sakai.

      2 My car shall go to my wife.

      3 All of my late father’s possessions, including his great-grandfather’s kimono and katana, shall go to my mother, Masako Sakai.

      4 My books and photographs shall go to my daughters, Rose and Lois.

      5 My baseball cards shall go to John Oyama, Jr.

      6 My jazz record collection will go to Richard Iida.

      7 My store, located at 3601 Bryant St., shall go to Curtis Martindale.

      When she finished reading, she kept staring at the page. This will, this random list, was the kind of thing someone threw together in a panic and then forgot once the moment had passed. Lois, who was afraid of planes, made one every time she had to fly, earnestly telling everyone for days beforehand what she’d bequeathed them in the latest version.

      “This stuff has already been dealt with, hasn’t it? I mean, I don’t know about the smaller things, but you just told me there’s no house. And I know that there isn’t a store.”

      “Right,” Lois said. “He actually gave the cards to John years ago. And Richard Iida died, so Ted and I are going to keep the records.”

      Ted, behind her, winked and gave a thumbs-up sign.

      “You have any idea why he wrote this?” Jackie asked. “He wasn’t about to get on a plane, was he?”

      But her teasing comment missed its mark entirely. “I just figured this out,” Lois said. “He was having an operation to get his appendix removed and, you know, he never trusted doctors after the way they handled his foot.” Jackie thought of the smooth, shortened end of her grandfather’s right foot; it looked as if the toes had been filed down. She remembered his slight limp, the hitch in his step, which might have passed for a jerky strut if he’d been younger.

      “Well, I don’t think you have to do anything. Everything in the will is taken care of.”

      “Not quite,” Lois said, and then she gestured in the direction of the bedrooms. “See, I found this will in a box of papers Dad kept in his closet. I was looking for the poem he read at Mom’s funeral, because I thought we might read it again. Anyway, there was a lot of stuff in it—old pictures and articles, even his war medals. I mean, all kinds of things I’d never seen before. And there was another box, too, which had ‘store’ written on it with a marker.” She looked at Ted, who turned and disappeared down the hallway. Jackie heard a door open and shut; then Ted reappeared, holding a stone-colored box which was big enough for a pair of boots or a hat. He set it down on the coffee table, and Lois nodded for her to open it. Which she did. And saw more money than she’d ever seen before, so much that her first impulse was to put the lid back on. But then she looked at it again, at all that green, all those Andrew Jacksons. “What the hell?” she finally said. “What’s this from?”

      “The store, I guess, according to how he marked it.”

      “How much is in here?”

      “Almost $38,000.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “Thirty-eight grand,” Ted repeated, shaking his head. “Can you believe it?”

      “Just sitting in the closet?”

      “Yeah.”

      Jackie put the lid back on, stood up, and walked across the room. At the entrance to the kitchen, she turned around. “But Lois, I can’t believe he would have just hidden this money for, what, twenty-nine years? Are you sure it’s from the store?”

      “I’m not sure, but it seems to be.”

      “Do we know if it’s mentioned in the current will?”

      “I don’t think so. Like I said, as far as I know, he didn’t have much to leave. And to answer your question from before, the money from the Gardena house is gone. He gave that and the redress money to Rose a few years back, in order to pay for your law school.” Jackie hadn’t been aware of this arrangement. And it was more evidence of what she had taken from Frank—his attention, his money, his time. He was always there to fix her heater, or to build her a set of shelves. She had given him so little in return.

      “Well, this is great,” she said, trying to shake her guilt. “You want to buy a house, right? So here’s your down payment.”

      “You’re missing the point,” Lois replied. “He left the store to someone else. And this looks like it’s the money from the store.”

      “Wait. You think the money should go to—” She looked down at the paper again. “—Curtis Martindale? Who is Curtis Martindale, anyway?”

      “I don’t know.” Lois leaned back against Ted, who was standing behind her, his big hands draped over her shoulders. “Someone from the neighborhood, I think. The name sounds vaguely familiar. I’m guessing he’s pretty young—or that he was pretty young back then. Dad got the store from someone in the neighborhood, you know, before he married Mom. Old Man Larabie practically gave it to him, almost as a gift. He was probably just trying to pass on the favor.” Ted began to rub her shoulders, and she closed her eyes and leaned back. And Jackie remembered how interested Frank always was in her friends and their lives; how good he was with all young people. She thought about mentioning Tony, the security guard, but decided against it; his strong response to Frank’s death made her muted one seem even less defensible.

      “Anyway, there’s no Curtis Martindale in L.A. County,” Lois continued. “I checked information.”

      “Does my mother know who he is?”

      “I haven’t asked her. I didn’t tell her about this.”

      Jackie nodded. Rose had always seemed a bit resentful of the store; one thing she had told Jackie was that Frank had spent most of his time there. Jackie knew her mother would want to invest the money or put it in the bank, and she, for once, would have to agree with her.

      “Lois,” she said, “you could use this money. Why do you want to give it away?”

      “Because he wanted to. And if he meant it for someone else, it’s not mine.”

      Jackie shook her head; she couldn’t believe this.

      “I’m wondering,” Lois said now, opening her eyes, “if you’d be willing to track this guy down.”

      Jackie stared at her aunt. “Me? Why me?”

      Lois frowned. “Because I’m a mess,” she answered in a measured voice, “and I don’t want to deal with this shit right now. There’s so much to do, with the legal will and all of Dad’s things, and the business with the house. Curtis Martindale is one loose end I don’t really have the time for.”

      Jackie tried not to pout, or to remind her aunt that she herself was creating the business with the house. It was bad enough that Lois wanted to give away this money, which was sitting in her apartment, in her closet. But to ask Jackie to be a part of it? No thanks. Not that it would be difficult to make a few calls, to check some records. With this kind of money involved, she’d have Curtis Martindales coming out of the woodwork. It was just the principle of the thing, the idea of throwing away that kind of cash. “Well, if I did do this—which I’m not saying

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