Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 20:18:15 -0000
From: Ben Erikson <benerikson17@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Bergman Files Nr 2. The Japanese Garden. Episode 1

The Bergman Files Nr2: The Japanese Garden
A story by Ben Erikson

Episode 1

The house was unbelievable. The genuine antique furniture in the
mahogony-panelled hallway was unbelievable. The authentic glint of the
solid gold ornaments was unbelievable. The jade, the $10,000 carpets, the
discreet state-of-the-art security system were all unbelievable. I took
another look round and it was no good - I still didn't believe my fucking
eyes. If this was what millions - tens, hundreds of millions in the bank
looked like, then I was never likely to see it again so I took my time and
had a good, long look.

I wouldn't have spotted the cameras had I not known what to look for and
despite the dazzle, the incense stink of wealth, the collection of antique
swords which in other circumstances would have interested me very much, it
was the camaras that I searched out. That was the reason, I guessed, that I
had been summoned here - the security system - to give my professional
advice; the reason for my being whisked here at 8.30am on a Sunday morning,
given the full stretch-limo treatment all the way from my downtown office.
I'd asked George the driver - he was full Japanese so George was,
presumably, a professional name - but he'd declined to say exactly where we
were headed and it wasn't till we swept past the signs for Beverly Hills,
discreet and ostentatious all at once, that I figured it out. OK, so the
limo was a clue.

"Mr Tendai will see you now."

The voice soft and polite as anything, the body hard and lithe, way beyond
black-belt. Not George this time, although his body had been much the same,
but a much older Japanese man dressed without any incogruity at all in full
English butler-wear.

I was ushered into a large room, empty except for two high-backed formal
chairs tilted to each other at a disconcertingly intimate angle. The butler
withdrew, leaving me, apparantly, alone. I presumed I was being observed,
maybe even recorded, filmed. The entire floor was covered in a rich blue
carpet, its' fibres deep and luxurious, a Pacific ocean. I wondered briefly
if I should remove my shoes. I settled for standing still and getting my
breathing right.

Eventually, a slight figure, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit of the
subtlest grey-blue moved gracefully towards me from the other end of the
room, his hand outstretched. I hadn't seen him come in from anywhere but
was relieved to see that he was wearing shoes. We shook briefly, his touch
as dry as a desert snake.

"Mr Bergman, thank you for coming."

He gestured me towards one of the chairs and perched himself on the
other. I'd noted carefully the way he'd moved. It was something I always
did - I might need to pick it out in a crowd, that kind of thing. It struck
me that he'd had some training himself and I guessed at aikido. He had a
youthful complexion, could have been sixty or eighty, it was impossible to
tell.

"Mr Bergman" he began once we were both settled.

"I have, I think, no need to tell you who I am. I will tell you first of
all who I am not"

He seemed momentarily pleased with this puzzling little speech and paused a
bit to make sure I was suitable intruiged. He was an arrogant little
bastard, that was for sure and yes I had kind of known who he was before
George or whichever of his henchmen had rung my office last night. But I
knew a damn sight more now. I'd made sure of that before the night was
through.

"I am not a gangster, Mr Bergman. When I came to this country in 1937
things were hard. Very hard. You must try to understand just how hard
things were for us. And then the internment and after that...having to...to
fit in. To integrate. The American Way. Yes?"

Another pause.

"This is old history. A lot of things were done that were..." he trailed
off uselessly, caught up in the corny drama of his own reverie.

"Well, they were done, anyway." he said.

I was beginning to wish he'd get to the point.

"You wish me, I think, to get to the point? Yes?"

His question this time was not, it seemed, rhetorical. He peered at me with
a certain eagerness.

"I had supposed you might want me to look into your security situation. The
cameras, that kind of thing."

He almost laughed. I say almost because I've known what it is to laugh;
have known joy, believe me, all sorts of joy and there was none in this
laugh, only the bitterest aknowledgement of something close to joy, really
quite close, that might just once have been possible a long lifetime ago.

"Mr Bergman" he explained patiently.

"I have experts to do that kind of work. Extremely well-paid experts, I
might add."

I really was beginning to dislike his arrogance. OK, so I never claimed to
be an expert. Picked up a good few tricks, though.

He settled a little in his seat.

"No, Mr Bergman. I am interested in your own area of expertise. And you
likewise will be extremely well-paid. This morning $50,000 was paid into
your bank account..."

He held his hand up sharply to cut off any interruption. Who was about to
interrupt? This was the bit I liked best.

"...and a further $150,000 will be paid on the succesful completion of your
task."

I waited for him to go on but he seemed to assume that I had sufficient
information for the time being. I let it go; got my breathing right again.
Eventually he relented and began, it seemed, to get down to business
although his studied politeness turned everything surreal.

"Mr Bergman" he resumed.

I had already begun to feel drugged by this whole scene and had to work a
bit on the concentration, the polite tilt of the head, all that body
language crap. Perhaps I was just stunned by the 50 grand I'd so
effortlessly earned.

"Mr Bergman."

Pause.

"For reasons you have no need to know of, my son, my only son is currently
at the mercy of a number of...business rivals. They are not reasonable men,
you understand. They would kill him without thought. That is not your
problem. It is mine and it is being dealt with. I am confident it will be
resolved to my satisfaction in three days time. I have...some...of my own
people working on that now."

He paused; but there was something else this time. I had the feeling it
wasn't just to get my attention, just for the cameras, so to speak. When I
forced myself to look across at him, give him the once over, he had aged,
it seemed, some twenty years or so.

"My grandson, Mr Bergman. Toru, my grandson. He is different. You must
appreciate this. He is different. He is American, Mr Bergman. An American
boy. A good boy."

I was liking the sound of this less and less. Was less and less inclined to
reach out my hand and agitate the dry snake rattle of this family's
affairs. I briefly pictured a dollar bill falling endlessly into the fangs
of a dust-dry canyon; blowing out again on dusty winds.

Tedai was talking somewhere; breaking into my own corny reverie.

"...with your connections, Mr Bergman; with the police, the
establishment. But most of all your personal qualifications. You come
highly recommended, Mr Bergman. Very highly. Dr Suzuki speaks most highly
of your capabilities."

This really brought me round; was designed to, I guess. Suzuki was one of
the most respected martial artists in the US. I'd trained under him for 12
years before he'd moved out to LA. He was the reason I'd moved here myself.

"They'll kill him too, of course."

He let it hang, teasing me again.

He meant Toru, not Suzuki; was testing me, making sure I could follow the
plot.

"Have there been any specific threats against the boy?" I asked.

Pause.

"It is...understood."

We both considered this.

"And you want me to...to take him into protective custody, as it were?"

Tedai brightened visibly. This was a phrase he was evidently familiar with.

"Protective custody. Yes. That is exactly right. As I have said you will be
amply rewarded."

I wondered briefly how much Tedai really thought that my decision, my
saying yes or no depended on being amply rewarded. I wondered some
myself. Dollars. Wind. Dust.

I had been trying to lead up to this, at the same time trying, believe me,
trying hard to avoid it.

"What happens in three days time, Mr Tedai?"

At least I'd kept my voice even, my phrasing polite. In the eternity before
he spoke, I worked some more on my breathing.

"That need not concern you."

All politeness had vanished.

"Forgive me, Mr Tedai, but it concerns me very much. I feel that..."

"I have said it once, Mr Bergman. Not your concern."

This, it seemed, was the end of the matter. I let the air buzz a little
longer before continuing. I was working hard to get the tone right.

"Mr Tedai. Is our conversation being recorded?"

He looked at me as if I were an imbecile. An impertinent
imbecile. Eventually he relented.

"We have camaras. You know, CCTV?"

"Yes" I said, "I know. What I need to know, Mr Tedai. What I really need to
know is why you cannot trust your own people here. Do you have any reason
to mistrust your staff? Do you fear them?"

I was pushing it here, I knew that; knew that if I didn't push for this,
this at least, then I could make a very big mistake. Like saying yes when I
really meant no.

Dust rising in the air. Dollars falling from the sky.

My mouth suddenly dry; dry with the realisation that whatever he said now,
I was going to refuse his offer. The realisation that this whole setup
scared the shit out of me.

He looked me in the eye for perhaps the first time and I saw that he had
regained the youthful poise, the energy I'd noticed earlier; looked younger
still, if anything.

"I fear no man, Mr Bergman. Others fear me. It is others who must fear
me. Would you care for some tea whilst we discuss the details of your
contract?"

****************************

We were held up in traffic at Figueroa and 5th, having just swept past the
curves of the Bonaventure Hotel and got into the correct lane for the next
turning and my office. I would have to make my move soon; the next
forty-five seconds or so. George drummed impatiently on the steering
wheel. Beside me, Toru crammed himself as far as he could into his side of
the wide seat. When we had left the Tedai residence, George had held the
front passenger door open for Toru and gestured kindly for him to get in. I
had had to grab the boy and physically force him into the back with
me. George had given me what he probably thought was a bad look but I
wasn't about to take any chances. If Toru was going to be in my care, then
it was going to be on my terms.

We had set off downtown in a tense silence. Toru was very wary. He was 8
years old, tiny and very beautiful with small, attractive features. He made
up for his almost girlish prettiness by dressing in some kind of hip
skateboarder outfit; trainers, baggy pants, the whole ensemble finished off
with a less-than-cute Eminem T-shirt, three sizes at least too big. An
American boy for sure. He had said nothing so far, not even when introduced
by his adoring grandfather and instructed to follow my every order. I think
he was still sulking over that particular imposition. Eventually he turned
to me and spoke for the first time. He had a sweet voice.

"You some kind of asshole cop?"

At least we were talking.

"Some kind." I agreed and this seemed to satisfy him. I caught George
giving me another sly, dirty look in the mirror.

The traffic began to move at a crawl and we eased forward. Give it another
ten. Another ten seconds. I watched the approaching turn six cars ahead.

"Change of plan, George." I said. "Go straight on here. Straight on, past
the lights and keep going."

He slowed slightly, thinking about this a bit.

"My orders were to take you back to your office."

Three cars now before the turn.

"That was then, George. Like I said, change of plan."

He thought about this for another hour or so, the few seconds he had left
before he had no choice but to keep on. At the very last moment he seemed
to relax and we nosed forward past the lights.

"OK, boss. You're the boss today, OK? No problem." he said. The two of them
sulking now. Fuck them.

I pulled Toru out by the arm a few minutes later, having got a reluctant
George to drop us off only four or five blocks past the lights. He didn't
like it but he wasn't being asked.

"Thanks for the ride, George." I said.

He narrowed his eyes at me, said nothing and eased the limo gracefully into
the traffic.

"Come on, kid." I said. "There's a few things we've gotta do. Let's go."

"Where we going?"

I was hustling him along the sidewalk, keeping a tight grip on his arm as I
steered him through the flow of oncoming pedestrians. He seemed stunned by
the mere fact of being out in the open and I wanted to keep things nice and
easy, as light as possible. I didn't know how much he knew; what alarm
bells were already jazzing up his 8-year old brain. Make a game of it,
that's what I thought. Light as possible. I hadn't known for sure that
George was driving us to some sort of trap or that we had been followed. I
hadn't spotted anything and under normal circumstances, believe me, I would
have. But these were not normal circumstances; a cream stretch limo on a
Sunday morning in downtown LA - you could sit back in your anonymous
rent-a-wreck with the souped-up engine, catch up on the weekend sport and
still keep a decent tail going without being spotted. Come to think of it,
I'd done it myself. More than once.

By the time I got the chance to make the call I needed to make, we had
criss-crossed town three times in three different taxis and I was clean out
of change. If we were being followed they would have had to be
exceptionally good. Along the way I'd picked up a couple of packages from
separate safe-deposit boxes at two separate locations. One contained a set
of car keys and four valid air tickets: LA-Washington, LA-Houston,
LA-Chicago and LA-Vancouver. The other contained a false passport and a
loaded revolver stuffed into a scruffy TWA flight bag. Each of them
contained $5000 dollars in cash. I'd got Toru to look the other way. The
second time, when his curiosity seemed about to get the better of him, I
threatened to leave him there and then, let him find his own way home. He
soon got the idea. Listen, I didn't claim to be a child psychologist, OK?
Only, believe me, it was better that way. The less he knew, the better.

I'd become increasingly worried about our profile. One tall, 40-year-old
grey-blond westerner in suit and tie dragging by the arm a more or less
reluctant and increasingly bewildered 8-year-old Japanese kid in full
hip-hop gear. I needn't have bothered. You know what? You know what? What
really bugs me now looking back on this whole sorry mess? Go on, have a
guess. No? OK, I'll tell you. Not one person. Not one. Not one person in
the whole damn city even gave us a second glance. Not you. Not your friend.
Not your wife or brother-in-law or your brother-in-law's wife's pimp.
No-one gave a flying fuck. Think about that next time your kid's late home.

Sorry.

Had to get that one off my chest. Like I said, looking back, it was one
damn sorry mess.

But that was later.

Back then, things were just fine. Face to face across the cafe table - Coke
buckets bubbling, the remains of burgers and fries. Ketchup. Lots of that.
I'd eyed Toru across the table, his beautiful face, dark eyes. We still
hadn't said much, hadn't spoken really, not yet got to know each other;
least of all built up any kind of trust, formed any bond. I knew he was
scared as hell. I wondered if he was thinking the same about me. He
wouldn't have been wrong, you know. Only, I knew what I was doing.

Very slowly, my eyes on his, I drew out my mobile and flipped it open. I'm
perfectly well up on the latest techno stuff; know what a modem is, all
that. But texting was something new. I hadn't really had the chance to
practice much. Only I didn't want to talk in front of the kid. Like I said,
the less he knew the better. So I sat there pressing buttons, fiddling,
getting it wrong, wrong again and then right whilst Toru sat watching me,
playing with his straw, sucking into the last bits of ice. It was a short
message anyway, more a pre-arranged signal.

I was thinking about tonight, pretty sure we were OK for now. Thinking
about what happened in three days time. I let my eyes scan the entrance,
the new faces just in. Nothing there. I lingered a bit over the long mirror
to my left, watched the back exit in the reflection, the passage leading to
the kitchen, the mens room. Felt like some teenager aching to follow
someone in, not daring to move.

"Let's go." I said.

"I want to go home."

"You tired? Tired of this game?"

He seemed to consider this. Really consider it quite deeply.

"If you hurt me" he said, "my grandfather will have you killed. My father
will have your head cut off."

He paused.

"And thrown in the river."

I thought about this, about how much I could let slip.

"Toru" I said as gently as I could. "I'm not going to hurt you, OK? Your
grandfather is paying me to look after you. Like a bodyguard."

I immediately regretted that last bit.

"Just for a couple of days. Like he said. Then you can go home. I'll take
you home. I wouldn't hurt you, you understand? And listen, if I did - your
father can chop my head off. OK? Deal?"

He looked at me blankly.

"You're too old. And anyway this isn't a game. They'll kill you and then
they'll kill me."

This was getting out of hand, was going places I didn't want him to go;
places I didn't want to go myself.

"Listen. No-one's going to hurt you. Not while I'm around. Think about
it. Would your grandfather have asked me to look after you if he thought I
was too old? He's old. And he could probably kick my ass from here to
Laurel Canyon."

Again I regretted my choice of words right away but they seemed to have the
desired effect. Slowly a shy grin spread across the boy's face and he
actually began to laugh.

"You bet he could old man." he said.

We looked at each other, silently recognising that some agreement had been
reached this last minute. I grabbed the flight bag.

"Let's go" I said.

********************************

It was nearly three hours later, three hours since the Coke, the bubbles,
the breaking ice. It was late afternoon now and I was grateful for the new
coat. We'd made one last stop to shop for clothes. I'd hastily grabbed a
basketful of little-boy stuff - underwear, T-shirts, socks; some long
trousers, a padded and hooded jacket and a winter coat for myself. It
wasn't winter, was mid- September in LA but an unseasonal chill had
descended from the hills these last two days and wouldn't shift. Believe
me, I was grateful for the coat. Toru had point-blank refused to try
anything on. We didn't really have time anyway so I just guessed at sizes
and snatched up whatever we'd need.

We'd done a lot of walking and I was having to drag him along a bit. He
wore his jacket and carried the bag with his other clothes. He hadn't
spoken since we'd left the shop, not even on that final taxi ride; shown no
curiosity at all heading towards Westwood. I put it down more to tiredness
than to fear but, like I said, I'm no child psychologist.

We followed the path, the signs for the Powell Library and made a final
turn left and were facing the entrance. UCLA. I thought again of what a
strange pair we must have made, pushing on through the fading light, too
old and too young to look anything but way out of place here. I was
scanning the area carefully, watching the way people moved, that kind of
thing.

Toru slowed a bit and automatically squeezed my hand a little more
tightly. The man was about fifteen yards away and was clearly watching us,
was moving towards us. I could make out his features; not full-Japanese for
sure and his build was something else. He was young, only about 20 or so
but looked like a tough guy.

A few seconds before, before Toru had really noticed him, I'd said:

"See him? Looks like a tough guy to me. Think he could take me?"

That was when he'd squeezed my hand.

"Please." he said, "Please don't."

He dragged me to a stop and looked up at me.

"He could kick your ass from here to Laurel Canyon."

The way he said it, he wasn't kidding, had caught the potential gravity of
our situation. He looked round in deperation, expecting, apparantly, to
find us surrounded. It occured to me that he knew something I didn't.

"Hey, you! Old man."

He squared up to me and examined my face, my form.

"Not bad shape for an old man" he said.

In an instant he had covered the space between us and I saw his arm shoot
forward, felt his strong fingers grab my neck. He was very fast and I could
feel the strength of his body as it thumped into mine. His head came down
and he seemed briefly to rest it on my shoulder.

"Good to see you, Mike" he said. "Oh man, it's so good to see you. So
good!"

I embraced him clumsily, one hand keeping tight round the flight bag, the
other tight round Toru's little fingers. By the time we disengaged, the kid
was staring wide-mouthed at me, struck dumb.

"Anything?" I asked, keeping it short, code-like.

"Clean as a whistle. I watched you sinced the taxi dropped you off. You're
clean Mike."

He turned suddenly serious.

"Who's the kid? You never said anything about no damn kid."

There was a trace of disappointment, petulence even, in his voice.

I'd thought about this on and off, how to play it. I'd decided that he
might as well know, that he deserved to know the truth.

"James" I said, "meet Toru. Toru Tedai. Toru meet James Ozawa."

For a moment or two they just stared at each other.

"You're kidding me." said James

"'Fraid not, my friend."

"Shit."

Recovering quickly from this, James stuck out his massive hand.

"I mean - pleased to meet you, Toru. If you are a friend of Mike Bergman,
then you are my friend also."

Toru put his hand out carefully as if expecting some trick. They shook
briefly, formally and when they were done, Toru burst into tears. James and
I looked at each other, then at Toru. He snuffled a little longer and wiped
his snotty face on the sleeve of the shiny new jacket I'd just bought him
but he too recovered quickly from his own faux-pas and even bowed slightly
at James.

"I am pleased to meet you." he said simply.

"Well, kid." James said. "You sure got a funny way of showing it."

"Where's your car?"

Clean or not, I wanted out of here, away from the public gaze.

"This way" said James.

I took Toru by the hand again, gave him a little re-assuring squeeze and we
followed James round the side of the library building and towards a half
empty car park at the rear. James drove and Toru and I relaxed in the
back. For the first time that day, I felt I really could relax.


To be continued...