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Do the Right Thing • James C. Clar “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” ~ General Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese Imperial Navy ~

It was an uncommonly muggy late November in Honolulu, the kind that glues your shirt to your back and makes your bourbon sweat in the glass before it hits your lips. I was nursing one of those bourbons in my office on Hotel Street. The fan overhead clicked like a metronome. I kept time with my foot as it dangled off the edge of my desk where it was propped. I wasn’t particularly busy that day. Or any day, lately, for that matter.
That’s when she walked in.

Tall, dark hair pinned back like it was hiding secrets worth searching for. Her dress said she had money and trouble … and maybe not in equal doses. She had the kind of eyes a guy could fall straight into and drown. I couldn’t fall fast enough.
“You’re Eddie O’Brien?” she asked, voice like smoke from a distant wildfire mellowed with silk.
“That’s what it says on the door,” I replied, gesturing nonchalantly toward the frosted glass. “Though some days I wish it didn’t. This isn’t one of those days.”
She didn’t laugh. If she had, I probably would have tossed her out of the office. Eyes or no eyes.

“My name’s Mayumi Higa. I think my brother is missing.”
I sat up. The name was Japanese. So was she. Not popular with the locals lately, to say the least. War drums could be heard all the way from Washington, and even the trigger fish around Pearl Harbor and Sand Island seemed nervous.
“What makes you think he’s missing?”
“He hasn’t come home in days. His name’s Haruki. He’s a translator at the Japanese consulate up on Nuuanu. Lately he’s been jumpy. Secretive. More so than usual, I mean. He said he had to tell someone something important, and then … nothing.”

I should’ve said no. Sent her packing with a shrug and a “terribly sorry, Ma’am”. But she had that look. The one that makes you feel like if you don’t help, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been, could’ve been, should have been. Inevitably, I said …
“I’ll poke around. But no promises.”
No promises. I should add that line to my business card!

After Mayumi Higa left, I practiced my foot dangling for another hour or so. I was getting pretty good at it. Through the open window, I could smell the faint tang of iodine from Honolulu Harbor a few blocks to the south. A liner must have been pulling into Pier 39. I caught the sound of its steam whistle as it maneuvered its way into port.

I closed up and headed over to Smitty’s for a burger and a beer, dodging streetcars along the way. Food tasted like it always did. The beef had probably been fresh at some point, like maybe a month or so ago when they bought it. The beer was flat and had that certain je ne sais quoi of taps that hadn’t been cleaned since Roosevelt was president; Teddy, that is. I paid up and left.

First place I looked was Haruki’s apartment. Mayumi had given me her brother’s address in Pearl City. The place was clean. Too clean. Someone had swept through, and with something more than just a broom. But they’d missed it. A matchbook cover used as a bookmark in a cheap copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls. “Red Chamber Lounge – Waikiki,” it read. I knew the place. It was a jazz joint frequented by Navy boys and others you definitely wouldn’t want anywhere near your daughter.

I went that night. It had just started to rain when I arrived. The wind was up and the palm trees along the walkway in front of the place shook themselves like wet dogs after a turn in the rinse cycle. This was Waikiki, all right, but on the fringes. Out here, things could still get interesting.

The Red Chamber Lounge was full of smoke, booze, broken hearts and half-truths. It took me thirty minutes or so, and a couple more bourbons, but eventually I found someone who knew Haruki. It was a sailor named Phil Dodd. I had helped him out of some “girl trouble” a few months back. He’d never gotten around to paying me. You could say he owed me one.
“You must be psychic or something, O’Brien” Dodd said as he wiped foam from his lips with the back of his hand. “The Jap kid was just in here. Met with some guy in a gray suit. Talkin’ real quiet, serious-like. Haruki looked like a man with a thunder and lightning storm bangin’ around in his head.”
“You catch any of what they were talking about?”
Dodd frowned. He was trying to remember. The beer was making it more of a challenge than usual.
“Something about a ‘Sunday’ and a ‘signal.’ Then a bunch of numbers. Who knows? They mentioned a warehouse out near John Rogers Airport. Near the Keehi Lagoon, I think. To be honest, I wasn’t payin’ much attention. “
Dodd paused, pointed.
“See that red head sitting all alone at the other end of the bar? I was more interested in her. Anyhow, that’s all I caught before they took off.”

It didn’t add up – until, of course, it did.
I thanked Dodd, bought him another round, and slipped back outside. It was still raining. If anything, it was even more humid than it had been earlier in the day.

I checked a dozen warehouses near the airport until, around midnight, I hit pay dirt. From the next to last building in the compound, I heard their voices and saw light leaking out from around the edges of a steel door that was only partly closed. The frame had sagged and wasn’t level. The light reflected off the wet macadam and gave the whole scene an almost festive air. I guessed there was nothing festive about what was going on inside.

I worked my way around the back of the structure until I found an open window. Convenient. Standing on an empty oil drum, I let myself into a back room that may or may not once have been the manager’s office. Peering around an old filing cabinet I had a good view of the warehouse floor.

There was a young Japanese man, had to be Haruki. He was alive, but frantic. He looked and sounded like he was scared shitless. He was arguing with a man in a gray suit. Cleary government cut but no insignia that I could see. Haruki held a folder. I edged my way out of the office, still in the shadows.
“I won’t be part of this,” I heard Haruki say. “I didn’t sign up to help kill Americans. I’m a Japanese citizen, a translator.  You have to do something now that I’ve told you what I know!”
“Oh, we’re going to something,” the G-man snapped. “Of that I can assure you. We’re going to let things run their course.”

At that moment, I stepped on the fragments of a broken bottle. I might as well have set off a fire alarm. Both men turned. Haruki’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth. I never got to hear what he was going to say. The shot came from somewhere behind me. Haruki Higa dropped like a prize fighter eating that last punch, the one that sends you on the great vacation.

The man in the gray suit paid me no attention whatsoever. He bent down and, as though he had all the time in the world, picked up the folder Higa had been holding. He took out a Zippo and lit the damn thing on fire. He dropped it on the floor once the flame reached his fingertips.
That’s when the lights went out. Someone sapped me from behind.

I woke up in the back seat of a car that would’ve fit nicely in an airplane hangar. I was flanked by two men who looked like they were carved out of old stone. They reeked of cheap whiskey and missed promotions. The man in the gray suit was sitting in the front seat. He started talking. He didn’t bother to turn around. Some guys have no manners.
“You’re in way over your head, O’Brien,” he told me.
“Occupational hazard,” I fired back. “Story of my life.” I was so woozy from the sapping, it never dawned on me to ask how he knew my name. Then again, his type knew everything.
“Wise guy, huh? Well, I’ll tell you one thing, wise guy, you’re going to forget everything you’ve seen and heard tonight.”
“Says who?” I croaked.
“Says that part of the government that knows how the world really works. We’re counting on you to do the right thing.”

The right thing. I laughed. Couldn’t help myself. It was at that moment that I began to glimpse what this was actually all about.
“You’re gonna’ let it happen,” I said. I strained forward. The goon on my left put a restraining hand on my shoulder. It felt more like a vise.
“You’re gonna’ let them hit Pearl.”
The man in the front seat spoke like he was talking to a particularly obtuse child or an elderly grandparent gone senile. “Of course we are. The American public won’t support a war unless it gets hits hard first. Like it or not, it’s what we need to do. It’s what the world needs us to do. It’s the right thing … the only thing.”
I stared at the back of his head. My jaw was tight.
“Haruki. He learned about the attack from his work at the consulate. He committed treason trying to get you to stop it.”
“Right. So don’t make the same mistake he did. Besides, unlike our late Japanese friend, you got no proof.”
The gorilla to my right opened the back door and edged out of the car. I didn’t wait for an engraved invitation.

The next day, I drank. A lot. The booze didn’t help. Neither did the sound of ordinary folks going about their business like nothing was coming.
Mayumi came to my office again.
“Well?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper. “I haven’t heard from you.” Anger and disappointment in equal measure.
“Your brother’s dead,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

She stared at me the way a baby does when it knows you’re talking to it but doesn’t quite understand what you are trying to say. I wanted to tell her the truth, but I just couldn’t do it. I made up some bullshit story instead. She knew I was lying. She slapped me. Hard. I couldn’t blame her. Her eyes bore their beautiful way through the back of my head.

Was I doing the right thing? Or was I just a coward? You tell me. Either way, I never saw Mayumi Higa again.

It was an early Sunday morning, a few weeks later. I went up onto the roof of my apartment building to watch the sunrise with a cup of ‘Joe. I hadn’t been sleeping very well, was already awake.  I figured, why not just get out of bed. I had to at some point anyhow. Not that I had any real reason to.

It was quiet. Too quiet. The quiet that plays hide-and-seek in a gun barrel just before someone pulls the trigger. Orange and purple light bathed the Koolau Mountains to the East. The color reminded me of a bruise, the kind that takes weeks to dissipate. I spotted a squad of airplanes coming in from the West. I figured it was a shipment of B-17’s from the mainland. They’d been sending a lot of them our way over the past few months. Often, they’d circle around from that direction and make their approach over the Waianae.

As the aircraft drew nearer and started to descend, I noticed red suns painted on their wings. Then the sky tore open. Off in the distance, Pearl Harbor lit up like it was 4th of July, not December 7th.

It took me forever to get to my office. Once inside, I sat there and listened to the ceiling fan spin and the sirens wail. The city was in chaos. I poured myself a drink but didn’t touch it. I was numb already. Doing the right thing was supposed to count for something. It was supposed to make things right. This time, all it seemed to do was get a harbor full of boys burned alive.

It took me less than a minute to make the decision I did sitting in the back of that car outside of the warehouse the night Haruki Higa died. Now, I had a lifetime to live with the consequences.

I signed up a week later. The recruiting officer said I was maybe a little old; with my experience I could probably sit this one out. They’d find something else useful for me to do.  

Told him, this time, I’m gonna’ do the right thing.

© James C Clar - July 2025

BIO: James C. Clar is a teacher and writer who divides his time between the wilds of Upstate New York and the mean streets of Honolulu, Hawaii. Most recently his work has appeared in Sudden Flash, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Blotter Magazine, the Magazine of Literary Fantasy and Sci-Phi Journal.

By the Book
James C. Clar 2.22.24
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Raina
James C. Clar 8.1.23
The body in question

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