ROBERT GARDNER -- The Verdict

This paper recently ran two very nice stories about Soto Nishikawa,

who, before World War II, operated a curio shop at the corner of Main

Street and Bay Avenue on Balboa Peninsula. I wish to add two postscripts

-- one funny, one not so funny.

Before World War II, there was something called a “Delimitation

Agreement,” by which matters of espionage, sabotage and subversion were

divided between the FBI and the Office of Naval Intelligence. The FBI

handled all cases involving civilians, except for the Japanese ones,

which belonged to Office of Naval Intelligence. I was the Orange County

representative of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

And so it was that one fine day a whole carload of very large FBI

agents came to my home on the peninsula. They said they had information

that Soto Nishikawa had a stash of machine guns in his curio shop. I

expressed some disbelief. “That’s a bunch of hysterical crap,” I think I

said, but I agreed to go along with them. We arrived at Soto’s shop, and

the FBI agents became increasingly tense.

Unconcerned, I asked Soto if he had any machine guns. To my surprise,

but validating FBI suspicions, he confessed he had lots of them. The FBI

agents immediately pulled their guns. However, just before they killed

the poor guy in a fusillade of gunfire, something occurred to me. I asked

Soto if we could see the guns.

So, surrounded by FBI agents with drawn pistols, Soto reached into a

large box and pulled out a toy machine gun, with which he shot down all

the FBI agents with sparks to my ill-restrained glee.

So much for the funny part of the Soto story. Now to the unfunny part.

Come World War II, Soto went to a horrific relocation camp on the

Colorado River, near Poston, where the temperatures hovered around 110

degrees. I went overseas to the Pacific and almost single-handedly

brought the empire of Japan to its knees with my pencil. And so the war

came to an end. We won, by the way. I folded my uniform as a lieutenant

commander, USNR, and picked up the shambles of a career.

Then one night, I got a call from the Orange County Hospital. A

patient, one Soto Nishikawa, wanted to see me. I went to the hospital,

and there was Soto, very ill but looking to the future, asking for

information on the condition of his shop. I stalled and said I’d be back

in the morning when he wasn’t so tired. There ensued one of the longer

nights of my life because Soto’s shop no longer existed. The landlord had

leased the place to someone else. What should I tell him? I still wasn’t

sure when I arrived at the hospital, but fate and the passage of a few

hours bailed me out. Soto died during the night.

The end of a not very funny story.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.