The Nokia slipped free as I checked for signal bars. 

Its first contact with the motor snapped it shut. The compact black brick bounced through the engine compartment with the energy of a pinball. My hand chased it halfway through the power labyrinth before something metal bit my finger. The reactive backward jerk of my paw sliced a bright red line into the black grease along my forearm. 

“Son of a buck daddy!” I surveyed the pinstripe of missing skin under the drop light that hung from the Datsun’s hood.

“Sounds like you’ve stumbled upon a dilemma,” Akira said into my ear.

I lurched upward, hitting my skull on the car’s hood for a second time that morning. 

“What the hell, boss?” I rubbed the bump, smearing grit into my hair. “Can you put a bell around your neck or something?”

“Ninja skills,” he said. “Can’t control them.”

“Funny.” I scanned the bench along the back wall for the aspirin bottle and then decided tough guys didn’t need painkillers. “No dilemma. I can’t afford a mountain vacation to play Inspector Clouseau for my ingrate sister.”

“She has a puzzle she cannot solve,” Akira said. “You are good at solving puzzles. And she is family.” Even at a head shorter, the power of his decency knocked me back.

“She abandoned us,” I rebutted, sprawling on the floor to scoop the Nokia from beneath the Datsun. “Try to start it.” I slid the phone against my chest and rose to my knees. 

Akira padded noiselessly to the driver’s door and disappeared into the cab.

The starter kicked over, but the engine remained mute.

On my feet again, I pondered the inline 6-cylinder. “What is—”

Akira pushed me gently aside and reached for the distributor. “She left because she was hurting.”

I shook my head with resignation. “She’s always hurting, always has a problem, always wounded. I’ve tried. I can’t fix her.” 

“You might could solve her puzzle. Would this help her?” 

“I don’t know old man. The only part that tempts me is her story about a child lost in the woods.” I touched the swollen spot on my skull. “But you know Renée. She gets ahold of a dramatic moment and squeezes it until a giant bubble appears like a boil on a leper. Probably, there’s nothing to it at all.”

“She’s still your sister.” He removed the low-voltage connector and scratched at the leads with the long fingernail of his remaining pinky. 

“Okinawan magic trick?” I asked.

“You try. We see.” 

His linguistic humor made me snigger. I hopped inside the tight compartment and gave the key a crank.

The engine fired. The little sportster howled with joy. 

“Okay!” I hollered, slapping the steering wheel with such glee it stung my hand. “I tried everything, ballast, ignition switch, ignition fuse.” A rev to five thousand rpm confirmed the motor was running top-notch. “Figured she was good as junk,” I said as the car idled down. “What did I miss?”

Akira shrugged. “What we cannot see is hidden by what is in front of us.” 

“Kung-fu shrewdness? That’s your answer? Because that didn’t make a lick of sense to us earthlings.” 

“First, no kung-fu. Me no Chinee. Me Okinawa. Karate-fu.” He gave a subtle laugh. 

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You got me, sir. Tell me true.”

“Low-voltage connection.” He pointed out the problem. “Rust blocked the signal.”

I swiveled to plant my dress shoes on the shiny cement. Dark blue slacks bloomed from beneath undersized coveralls. My hand swatted at a smear of grease on the hem of the slacks. “Figures. It’s always the simplest answer. I should have got it.”

“Don’t like it when someone else solves the crime?”

I rubbed the blotch on my pants leg. “That’s me. Disgruntled gumshoe.”

“You could use that girl’s expertise with numbers to close the Martin package up tight,” Akira said. “Go help her and she will be obliged to return and assist you.”

“She’s out. Wants no part of us. Nothing I can do for her.” Her betrayal forged my heart into an engine block imprisoned within my chest. My eyes searched the large space my father had built, with its four mechanic bays and computerized auto repair stations. Anything to avoid eye contact with Akira.

The older man’s roughened fingers grabbed my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes. “I say do the math, young man. You need her help, she needs your help.” 

Shame poured over the hardened block of steel jammed inside my chest cavity, melting it like acid. I pulled away, unable to hold his gaze. 

“You like your job?” I asked with defensive pride. “I got to sell those Tundras if you want to keep it.” A quick scan of his face revealed his disappointment. “Besides, the kid’s got parents. They need a chance to prove themselves. It’s their job to take care of her. You gotta let a child know they matter and you gotta let that child know that other people matter, too.” I gave my head a hard shake. “Mess up that job, and you mess up the whole damned world.”

“I remember,” Akira said, tone filled with the rarefied mist of ultimate loss. 

My hands rested on the finely molded curve of the Datsun’s radiator cowling, head slumped to count the buttons on the dress shirt partially visible in the spread of my coveralls. The mystery came rushing back. Akira, Dad’s contribution to a more inclusive world, hired as lead mechanic some time after I’d absconded to the Air Force. 

“This is not the same, Akira. We don’t know them.” One button did not match, and I couldn’t recall when Nansi had replaced it. 

“She’s someone’s daughter.” His voice was soft. “She needs to be found.”

“There must be people up there looking for her.” The words came out loud and echoed my defeatism. 

It was impossible to deny him the admonishment. He’d asked me to reach out to his long-lost daughter when I returned to Okinawa. 

And I’d found her. But too late.

He stood here beside me now, trying to brush away the torment over a little girl, his child, lost to poor choices and circumstance. His story was forcing me to make a choice I could not make. Not until the deal with Johnny Horton Martin was done.

“I can’t go, old man. There’s not enough evidence for Renée’s story. And you know there’s too much at stake here on the home front.” 

Akira had turned his attention to the grease spots on the Datsun’s fender, rubbing them methodically. “I’ll keep the store while you’re gone.”

I imagined him scrubbing away anger at the internment of his family during WWII that resulted in a sojourn to Okinawa, his parents’ birthplace. His hand rotated over the spot, cleansing his righteous decision to join the Yakuza for a teenage frolic and defy the American system that had criminalized their racial background. He shifted attention to another oily smudge and worked to erase it, probably remembering a girl, a pregnancy. But a falling out with the Yakuza gangsters had subsequently alienated Akira from ever knowing his child. 

“I should have gone to her,” he continued, voice breaking with pain. “Waiting was not good.”

“You’re right, old man.” I used a quiet voice, remembering how I’d carried his hopeful letter overseas. His daughter had only been dead a year, drowned in the East China Sea, when I found her mother. I’d had no news to send him, other than her last message to the world—a final goodbye before allowing the ocean to swallow her unrelenting sorrow.

“I’ll call them, check out Renée’s account.” I gave him a stern look. “But I have to finish the sale, or we’ll all be out of work.”

“We will be fine here without you.”

“Sure. Keep Mother on a leash, too.”

Akira shifted backwards a quick step and snapped the shop rag he held at my shoulder. The knotty end stung me like a bee.

With teeth clenched, I poked at the hole it left in my sleeve. “What’s that for?”

“Respect. She birthed your oversized head, young Pierce.” His dark eyes smoldered. 

“Point taken.” I touched the tiny wound that held big pain. “Still not leaving town until this deal is done.” The whiny sound of my own voice ricocheted and hit me in my ego. 

“Maybe take you two, three days,” Akira added.

Johnny Horton Martin’s battered Ford F-250 pulled onto the dealer lot. 

“Nice work on the Datsun,” I told Akira as I hustled for the door. “I need to sell a car and save this business.”