After returning to Charleston, she went to the office-supply store owned by Ken and Betty Norbert. She and Betty volunteered time to a dog-rescue nonprofit and were in the same quilting club. Ken Norbert and Mr. Nozawa were tennis buddies and members of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce. If someone other than the Norberts had owned the business, Mrs. Nozawa would most likely have known them, too.
In addition to business supplies, the store offered private mailboxes for rent, which was an almost unknown business in those days, at a time when the closest competition were mail drops where you had to wait at the counter for a clerk to take your mail from a bank of pigeonholes and personally hand it to you. The boxes were in demand, because the local post offices never had enough available. It was here that a box had been rented in the name of Douglas Atherton, to which the cruise line sent the ticket for the Caribbean holiday.
In order to avoid renting to someone who might be engaged in fraudulent or otherwise dishonest business, the Norberts required two forms of identification from those who wished to secure one of their ninety-six mailboxes. In those more innocent times, however, almost any two items had been accepted, and photo ID hadn’t been essential.
Ken had left for the day when Mrs. Nozawa arrived; but Betty was there with two employees and her Labrador retriever, Spencer Tracy.
The store kept a ledger of mailbox activity: the name of each renter, type of identification provided at time of rental, street address, and confirmation of payments. Concerned about liability, Ken never threw away old ledgers. Huddling over the volume for 1961, the two quilting enthusiasts found that Douglas Atherton had rented a box on the first of June, paying in cash for a full year’s rental. For ID, he provided a Social Security card and a Student Activity card from Eastern Illinois University, located in Charleston.
Mrs. Nozawa copied the pertinent information and then showed the Xerox of the yearbook page to her friend. The name Douglas Atherton didn’t appear under any of the cadet photos of course, and after nearly six years, Betty couldn’t identify any of the eight faces on the page as that of the man who had rented the box.
When Mrs. Nozawa returned to her Cadillac and got behind the wheel, Toshiro Mifune couldn’t stop trying to sniff her hands, for while in the store she had several times petted Spencer Tracy.
The dog’s late-afternoon feeding time had arrived, after which he expected to be walked for half an hour. Because Mrs. Nozawa at all times had her priorities right, she wouldn’t delay that feeding or cheat Toshiro out of even a portion of his walk time. Thereafter, she needed to change for dinner out with her husband and another couple.
From the office-supply store, she drove home, intending to continue in the morning with her inquiries on behalf of Mr. Yabu Tamazaki of the Daily News. She had promised only to get back to him no later than the close of business the following day, and he had not indicated that she needed to proceed more urgently. Between walking the dog and changing, she managed to call him to report her progress, and she was pleasantly surprised when Mr. Tamazaki praised her cleverness and efficiency, referring to her as “a real Sam Spade.”
On the way to dinner, Mr. Nozawa wondered if she might be in any danger because of these inquiries. His wife replied that both of her precious parents and both of Mr. Tamazaki’s were Issei, first-generation immigrants, and even among strangers, certain bonds were sacred obligations. He agreed. According to Mrs. Nozawa, he usually did. He encouraged her to exercise her skills at description by preparing that written report, for which I owe him.
56
During the past six weeks, since we’d moved out of the walk-up and had come to live with Grandpa, Mr. Yoshioka had called a couple of times, always during the day when I would be home alone, to ask if I was well and still practicing the piano. I told him what little had been happening in my life, and he shared what news there was of life in the apartment building we had left.
That busy Wednesday, after Malcolm and Amalia left, before Mom and Grandpa came home, at 4:15, Mr. Yoshioka called again. “Has the day been gentle with you, Jonah?”
I thought of Miss Pearl—her advice, her warning, her revelation that she was the soul of the city made flesh, her big purse and its astonishing contents—and I said, “Well, I guess it kinda bruised me a little.” I had told him everything except about Miss Pearl, and if I ever did tell him about her, it would have to be in a face-to-face conversation. Before he could ask what had happened, I said, “But I’m good, I’m great, I met these cool kids across the street.”
He had called with a purpose, not just to chat. “Have you seen today’s newspaper? The Daily News?”
“It came but I didn’t look at it. The news isn’t all the news there is.”
“On the front page is a photo of the demonstration at City College on Monday. Among those in the photo are Mr. Smaller and Miss Delvane.”
“I saw them on TV.”
“As you know, I have no television, and the prospect of seeing Mr. Smaller on it does little to motivate me to make the purchase.”
“I was watching … and I saw my father there, too.”