Editor’s note: Bonsai tree theft was back in the news again. This short story explores a related theme but is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anything or anyone real is purely coincidental 😏
‘Knob Cutter’ (in Japanese: ‘kobu kiri hasami’): a steel pruning tool used in bonsai that, to reduce scarring, makes a scoop-like cut into the branch that heals over to be flush with the trunk surface.
Day One
It all started with one of those damn podcasts the kids do these days. I’d heard of them, sure, but never listened to one. I really had no idea anyone would actually listen to it either, so that explains me putting my foot in it. No bones about it—we can put this down to (a) ignorance, (b) stupidity, and (c) me and my big mouth. I’d always been more the silent type, so I guess this is one of those ‘ironic’ tales people talk about. My whole adult life I’d been a cop and then a detective, so I learned a long time ago to let others do the talking. So yeah, I should have just said no to this podcast thing and then I wouldn’t have gotten into this mess. I can’t say I have regrets about how it all ended, just that it started in the first place.
Anyway. I get this call: ‘This is so and so from the local garden club, we’d like to interview you about your bonsai collection.’ As I told the young girl then, I’d been doing bonsai from when I was a skinny kid in the valley. My father owned a garden center, which was a source of endless chores for me and my older sisters. Keeps you out of trouble, my father always said. Cheap labor is what we really were.
He had no patience for styling the little trees, but he tried to make them. It was a time when bonsai had briefly become a fad. We never had much money and I think he saw a future in them, not that he fancied himself as any kind of artist. I was embarrassed by them to tell you the truth. Sad things, they looked nothing like the ones pictured in the Japanese magazine we’d been given—to copy, you see. So I took it on as my own project and that became my thing. As long as it made money, the old man had the girls doing all the center’s chores, and I could focus on styling and potting-up the trees. So you see, it was just a job at first.
You do something long enough though, you learn the way it works. I never sold my best trees, partly because I could get away with it. My father, even after many years, couldn’t tell one apart from the other. Otherwise, I’d never been able to hold onto any kind of collection. There was too much ‘added’ value in those bonsai. He cottoned on to it eventually, I realized, but by then it didn’t matter. He was too physically weak to get that kind of angry at me anymore.
It was probably the third or fourth tree I ever worked on—the one that was stolen. My first Monterey Pine. That was bad luck too you know, the thieves choosing that tree. Well, shit. It wasn’t bad luck at all was it, because I had explained how important that tree was to me in the podcast. They had my name so finding the address wouldn’t have been rocket science. And they put a photo of the tree online too, just to compound the stupidity. There’s another irony right there. Me being a retired detective and all, yet I was totally blind to the idea that anyone would ever think of stealing such a personal thing. Like stealing a man’s dog. Had I known, I could’ve at least made it clear in the interview—you know, my background in law enforcement. That’s not a path you want to travel down to find me.
After I finished school, I went to the academy and started working in uniform full time. So I moved all the trees over to my mother’s place. The garden center was gone and so was my father. Bad heart—forty-five years old. My mother, God bless her, she carried on for another thirty-eight years. A second life really, although she never remarried. Said one husband was plenty more than enough. She was never an avid gardener, but she watered those bonsai trees like they were her own kin. Fertilized them too and did a bit of pruning work on a few smaller ones she was particularly comfortable with. I never had to worry about them; I was lucky. My sisters always said the trees kept her going, and maybe they did. They’re good company, bonsai. Not like a person, of course, but still a part of the family.
Soon after the tree was stolen, I did remember a relevant case I had worked years earlier. I should have paid more attention to the moral of that story. Guy was in his late thirties, or there about. Son of Chinese immigrants. A marital affair was alleged. He denied it. In the meantime, she poisoned his entire collection of bonsai. I’d been asked to get involved, being as I knew something about the victims. Can’t recall exactly how that happened, because it wasn’t common knowledge, my interest in bonsai. Not the kind of thing people understood—at least not other cops. Makes you look soft. Although I can’t recall anyone ever accusing me of that.
So I showed up on the scene: a domestic. At first, I couldn’t see why I’d been called in. Nobody was dead, at least not yet, and I was done with that kind of work—you know, ‘He said, she said’. So the gentleman—he was the one who called the cops—he ushers me out back and there was no mistaking it. I think it was June and all the foliage on the bonsai trees was brown, or at least was making a good start of it. The man was apoplectic.
My first impression was that petrol had been sprayed on the foliage and the trees had been set on fire. But they were dying from the roots upward I found, so it was pretty clear what’d really happened. At least to me. The other officers just scratched their heads. Not that I could prove it, mind you. This was years ago, so you couldn’t exactly get a cheap forensic workup the way you could today. Killing potted plants was no major crime in any case, regardless of their vintage.
I didn’t say much but I did feel for the guy. From the way he looked, I think he’d rather have had his dick cut off. The whole neighborhood smelled of Roundup, it being Summer, but I still thought I could smell glyphosates in the soil. Things escalated from there. I was supposed to write up a report but before I could get that done, they found the woman dead. Bonsai work requires special tools, and a few had been used on her. I wouldn’t say she’d been styled, exactly—it was a hell of a mess—but you could make a good guess at who’d done the pruning. It was my case after that.
I didn’t take much pity on him then. Looking back on it now, having stood in a similar pair of shoes, I guess you could say I understand his motives better. Out of fairness, the law can’t always take the full measure of the value of things. Not that I’m begging for forgiveness myself. But you can steal a gold necklace and be charged with felony theft or strike dead the yappy dog next door and be charged with a misdemeanor. All depends on the amount the neighbors paid for the dog. Sometimes that doesn’t quite fit with a person’s sense of justice. Even if the woman didn’t see it coming, I sometimes wonder if maybe I should have. I certainly do today.
The pine that was stolen—that happened right under my nose. As I think I said, I was blind to the possibility, so it was my mistake. No question. It’s possible I was angry with myself for that, and that made things worse. I was a detective and something more valuable than just about anything else in my life was snuck right out from under me. I wasn’t angry—not at first, anyway. I was just real determined to get the tree back before any harm came to it. Whatever it took. You don’t expect a thief to be horticulturally sophisticated, so I could feel the clock ticking.
Whether or not you’ve ever seen a bonsai in your life, a sixty-year-old tree in a garden pot is not something ordinary. You don’t mistake it for something someone was perhaps going to throw away or leave out as a curb-side freebie. I’d been mowing the front lawn and had just put the mower back in the shed. Walking from the rear of the yard on my way to the house, an empty space in my peripheral vision drew my attention. At this stage I had twenty-three bonsai and one was clearly missing: the original Monterey.
At first my mind ran through all the logical explanations: it was soaking in the trough; I’d left it in the workshop; it was borrowed by the bonsai club. This took about fifteen seconds, at which point I had to confront the full weight of the situation. I had a lot of experience with people facing loss and trauma, so I knew not to get emotional. But to have the tree taken in broad daylight while I was home—who would think to carry out such a caper? It all comes down to that damn podcast, with me putting the idea in someone’s head. Clearly the old geriatric they heard being interviewed had given the wrong impression. That tree was a mortal hazard to the health of any stranger who laid a finger on it.
But I didn’t make the connection immediately—although I did take note of the fact that only one tree had been taken. This puzzled me, so I immediately searched the surrounding streets and alleys in case I’d interrupted a theft in progress, and they were waiting in the wings to return. I didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious—and I would have, had there been anything.
It was about this time that I remembered the podcast. I felt hope slipping away then. Desperate to make sense of what I was facing, I even entertained the idea that my junior colleagues from the force had heard the podcast and were staging one of their practical jokes. Try as I might to find hope in this, it seemed a dim possibility. They were known to do some stupid pranks for a laugh, but take the actual tree? No. It would be seen as too fragile and thus too risky to safely manage.
Recalling the podcast clarified the situation but left me with no direction to turn. Any other person would contact the police at this point, but I knew not to bother with that. I still had friends on the force, but this was a personal matter. I went back into the house and sat down at the kitchen table to think it through. I poured a glass of water and put my detective hat back on.
Before this mess, never had anything untoward happened to any of my trees—not anything unnatural I mean. Trees died, that happened to all who worked with plants. But theft? Not at my mother’s or afterwards, when I retired and took the trees back to my place. I’d fixed up a workshop and a watering system, then built some bonsai stands and a more secure perimeter, so you wouldn’t see the trees from the street.
My mother kept a few of the small ‘Shohin’ trees for a while, before going into a home about a year later. Included among these was one other—the old Monterey. It was becoming a big, hulking tree by this time, but she said she just couldn’t part with it, and hoped I’d understand. That was fine with me. I told her it was hers as far as I was concerned.
I guess you could say all this trouble started with a question: the young gal interviewing me had asked which bonsai I felt was most special and instead of answering, I told her about the pine and what it represented to my mother. She had a bond to that tree that you can’t really explain. Other than to say that she’d always taken notice of it when visiting the garden center, starting from when it was a juvenile. She liked delicate trees that weren’t too showy. We had a secret joke about my father accidentally mistaking it for some ordinary bonsai and letting it go for a cheap bottle of Scotch.
When she was in the home and nearing the end, she asked me for a favor. I could see she was hesitant to ask but I told her that whatever it was, it was fine. So she told me her wish—that when she was gone, would I be so generous as to take her beloved pine and return it to the ground, back into nature, so it could live on into the distant future. It wasn’t about setting it free or any ridiculous idea like that. She knew bonsai were as well-loved as any plant. It was just as I said—that she wanted to know it would be alive and well, long after the rest of us had perished. It would live on in our stead.
I liked the idea just fine, although it surprised me at first. She was to be cremated so there was no question of having the tree on or near her grave. That is nothing like what she had in mind. She said there was no rush, but that I shouldn’t leave it too late. So I did some walks in the woods after that, not too far away, looking for a patch that was clearly favorable for a radiata pine and where it wouldn’t be found by anyone—that was of vital importance it turns out. As I said previously, even in a forest setting this tree would stand out.
Now you can see the situation I found myself in, sitting at the kitchen table. It was not a new experience of course, having been a detective for so many years. But this hit close to home and that interfered somewhat with my thought processes. That and the fact that as far as I was concerned, this was a hostage situation. So time was of the essence.
No matter how many times I reminded myself of the time factor, sitting there in a cold sweat, I couldn’t find any way forward. After a short while I called up the president of the local bonsai club, asking him to ask around and to keep an eye out. Later I learned they had mobilized an impressive citywide blitz for the tree but turned up nothing. Talking to him that afternoon I learned, to my dismay, that bonsai thefts were no rarity at all, and that some believed there was an organized network for grabbing the trees and taking them out of state, to sell. Hearing this really set me off, for a whole lot of reasons.
Whether this was good or bad news, I couldn’t tell. Maybe they would keep it alive if they were knowledgeable about bonsai and planned to sell it. But if that was so, they would be moving the tree out of the area, making it impossible to find. Hardly anyone had ever seen that tree and there was no way to connect it to me. These thoughts left me a lot less hopeful and a lot more angry.
Still, I sat there, you know, hoping for the kind of breakthrough you see on TV or read in crime novels—but that rarely happen in real life. Sadly, my case was no exception. The most I could do was to ensure the other trees were safe and hope the criminal masterminds who stole the pine would come back for more.
I would be waiting, and they would not get away a second time.
Day Two
I didn’t sleep that night. Standing guard— ‘sitting guard’ to be fair—I was struck by how peaceful the night was. I didn’t want peace and quiet but that’s what I got. Instead of stewing over the stolen tree all evening, I thought about my mother. I thought about how distressed she would be by this situation. I knew she would forgive me, but I didn’t know if I could forgive myself. I also reflected on all the years visiting her—our weekly chats while I carefully cared for the trees, rain or shine. I suppose I cared for her some as well. Thinking about it all reminded me of how the bonsai had kept us together for so long. They were an excuse to visit but also a shared experience. We grew old together. Suffice it to say, none of this improved the prognosis for whoever stole the tree. If only I could get the scent of who it was.
I made breakfast, then made some more calls. People promised to get back to me. I was a lame duck, going nowhere. I went to the back yard and napped in the shade, asking myself whether I, the hot-shot detective, would solve my last case. It was about 11am when I heard the doorbell. It could have been anybody but somehow, I knew it was connected to the tree. I didn’t get many visitors.
Opening the front door I saw before me a FedEx delivery man, except it was a woman. She handed the package over and told me where to sign. No return address and she had it in her hand-held computer that the narrow box was the pre-paid type. It also told her the box had been deposited in a downtown drop-box that received hourly pick-ups on weekdays. I took the package and thanked her, not knowing if the box even meant anything.
Inside the white carton was another, smaller box. Like something a fancy pocketknife might be sold in. Along with the small box was a fat piece of white chalk and a piece of white printer paper, folded in half. I felt like a child who’d been signed up for a scavenger hunt. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ is what I said when I saw the computer-printed ransom. Might have been a few cuss words as well. The note said:
We have YOUR tree, bonsai man. We know its value to YOU. Want it back alive? Pay $15,000 or say goodbye. Think of your mother.
Write your cell phone number on your sidewalk every hour all day until it gets dark. We’re watching so no funny stuff, old man. Get the cash and wait for our call.
We don’t take checks!
In the actual note they spelled bonsai with a ‘z.’ It wasn’t much of a clue; it also didn’t give me much confidence in the people I was dealing with. I considered the possibility of catching whoever would come for my phone number, but it was a busy road, and anyone might pass by.
So I read the note a second time, not really believing it, and then I opened the box. In it I found what most folks would think was just an old stick of wood. About three inches long. Totally inconsequential. I looked it over and was not amused. In bonsai practice we call this kind of carved wood a ‘jin,’ which is an old, dead branch left on the tree to signify age. More than just age, really. It suggested a history—that the tree had been around, had its own experiences, you see.
I suspected the reason they chose to remove it was because they knew I’d recognize it. A kind of signature you could say, since it had my own, unique carving—no doubt they spotted this. They probably also figured it wouldn’t deface the tree as much as losing some other tree parts I’d recognize. It confirmed my belief that they planned to keep the tree regardless of my adherence to their instructions.
I picked up the removed ‘jin’ and looked at the cut end, wondering if it had been snapped off the tree, or perhaps removed with a saw. Instead, I found it’d been removed with a tool used in bonsai to remove living branches, called a knob cutter. What gave this away was that the end of the branch was somewhat rounded rather than flat—like the top of the femur bone. A ball joint. I guess most people wouldn’t have paid much attention to these details, but to me they were clues. Whoever took the bonsai either knew about bonsai trees, and had the tools to work them, or took it to someone who did.
The only other potential clue was the rank odor. The small box and ransom note reeked of marijuana. I felt this also narrowed down who I was dealing with. Not the Serbian mob, or local gang bangers. I had a hard time believing it myself, but the scented stationery meant I was looking for some thieving, reefer-addled bonsai collectors. I reminded myself that I might be taking the evidence too far. I had done that before, but it was all I had.
Once I had taken a minute to absorb what I was looking at, the fog began to lift. I could see a path forward. Sure, paying the ransom would have been an option. If recovering the tree was a certainty, and if I wouldn’t have had to worry about such nonsense happening all over again. I could have lived with that. But from experience I knew they’d take the money and keep the tree. I considered it a certainty. If they had the tools, there was no reason to part with a tree they desired. Immoral enough to steal a family heirloom but moral enough to return it when the ransom was paid—as a former cop, I saw no logic in that. As if they hadn’t already burned their bridges. In any case, I certainly wasn’t about to let my one chance slip away.
It seemed that whoever stole the tree didn’t realize the seriousness of the situation they’d put themselves in. They should have. They clearly had heard the story of why the tree was important, and they were happy to use it against me. This is not some general appliance. If you take something someone would risk their life to protect, you’re all in, and you’d better have a winning hand. It’s obvious, at least to me, that I might be in a special kind of mood should I get my hands on them. So they wouldn’t be taking too many chances with this old man. I’d get a call with a time and location and if I didn’t do exactly as they said, it was goodnight to the bonsai.
I returned the ransom note to the FedEx package, chalked my number on the sidewalk and went to the bank. I doubt they figured me as someone with $15k in the house, so no point in taking any unnecessary risks. I felt it unlikely, but they might be watching me. Plus, I’d need some cash to get some information from the street.
I considered my plan as I drove, making sure I wasn’t followed. Then my phone rang: some little girl saying, ‘Mister, why is your phone number on the sidewalk?’ I told her to hang up because it was police business. That usually worked and it did. After the bank withdrawal of $3000, I drove around looking for one of my old downtown snitches who might have the right connection to what I was looking for. I wasn’t being followed but I also wasn’t having much luck. My detective days were long passed, and I knew how quickly things changed downtown. It was almost two hours before I got back to the house to make sure the phone number was still there and visible. Then I set out again, hoping the call would not come too soon. I wouldn’t say I was the nervous type but that didn’t keep me from getting nervous. In six hours, the sun would be down, so the window was closing.
This time around I found someone downtown I recognized. They didn’t remember me, and driving an old Honda SUV didn’t jog their memory any. But for $100 they knew where I might find my snitch. It appeared he was still kicking around. Thirty minutes later there was old Eddie at one of the corners that’d been suggested. Fortunately, he recognized me straight away, offering a smile and a hello before asking me what’s up. I didn’t tell him much, figuring he wouldn’t know which end of a bonsai tree was up. Just that I was looking for someone with a special talent—someone who could take a scent of marijuana and tell me it’s source. I was hoping for a unique cultivar with a unique scent to put me on a trail that led to my entrepreneurial tree collectors. There was always the possibility that any name Eddie provided would lead to the thief or even a group of related thieves, but I had to take the chance. It seemed to me unlikely. If I’d had more time, I would have rented a car and changed my look. But there was no time for that now.
‘You want the canine nose of a true rasta genius, and I have just the hombre for you, my man. Know just where he might be, too, which has gotta count for extra, no?’ I told Eddie money was not a problem as long as the intel was good. I was pressed for time. He gave me the name and suggested a home of record that turned out to be a workplace. I asked him if this ‘hombre’ was deep into anything more dangerous than marijuana and he said he didn’t think so. Unless you consider sneakers dangerous, he said with a laugh. ‘Not his style. Far as I know, the reefer man always comes in peace.’ I thanked Eddie with a generous $300 and set about finding my hound. He wasn’t downtown so I had some driving to do.
The address was a commercial strip mall—a clothing store of some sort. I went in carrying my FedEx box and looked for someone who might be Ronaldo. The fluorescent lights buzzed and the place glowed white. I needed sunglasses. The thumping reggae music gave me a headache, but it also gave me hope that I was in the right place. I was starting to realize I no longer had the detective look I once had because nobody took any notice of me. I was too old to be a threat to anyone who wasn’t in a hurry. A man behind the counter told me Ronaldo had stepped out but before he could tell me more, Ronaldo stepped back in. ‘The devil himself,’ said the employee, gesturing in the direction of an arriving black gentleman, quite tall, who I assumed was Ronaldo. Stereotypes don’t always serve a cop, but the dreadlocks did not escape my notice.
We exchanged greetings and I presented him with a glimpse of the cash and my query. I figured I had three pieces of information to offer: the podcast, the bonsai theft, and the pungent ransom note. It was all I had. Three points were necessary for triangulation to work, so that was my thinking. As I explained my problem, I observed Ronaldo for any signs of deception. But nothing rang false.
Ronaldo looked at me and said I’d come to the right place. ‘Ronaldo‘s nose always knows—you know,’ he said. I handed him the ransom note and he crushed it up into a ball and cupped it in his hands and then over his face. It was a performance I had not seen before. Breathing deeply, in and out, he nodded in understanding as though reading the secrets of tea leaves or decanting a fine wine.
Watching him work, an old, familiar feeling surfaced, which was the pleasure of having Eddie’s trusted intel. He had come through so often in the past, I found myself praying he would come through this one last time. Finally, Ronaldo finished his olfactory analysis: ‘A clumsy but unique blend, indeed sir. I deem your suspicions warranted. This is a trifecta of tastes that, based on the information you kindly provided, can only point to one individual with whom I am acquainted—a malcontented little man he is, too.’ He smiled and raised his black, bushy eyebrows.
Then he added in a quiet voice, that only under the most unusual of circumstances would he give up the name of a fellow ‘rastaman’, but that this ‘homeboy’ had been carrying out a string of ill-deeds and had his comeuppance coming. Making sure nobody was taking notice, he wrote down a first name and a place on the crumpled ransom note, while at the same time thanking me out loud, before the entire store, for returning the ‘wrongly addressed’ package. Then he whispered that I should put the $1000 in the box. I did as he asked and told him he was welcome and to have a good day.
As I left the store, Ronaldo caught up to me and pulled me aside. He was concerned that I had plans of taking matters into my own hands and assured me this was a very bad idea. I told him I had no such intentions and that I would rely on the police. He praised my wisdom, as well as my future discretion regarding our dealings, and returned to his store, singing along with the reggae music… ‘It's gonna be a bright… bright… bright… sunshiny day…’
Back in the car I reflected on where the rising tide was taking me. The fluorescent lights and the blaring music had left me feeling disoriented. I asked myself if I was indeed a has-been who was in over his head. When I had finished my self-assessment, I had come to a different conclusion: that my whole life had prepared me for this emergency and that I would not let myself, or my mother, down.
I used my phone to search for the place and I arrived there, coping with the traffic, forty minutes later. The sun was going down, but I could easily make out that it was a car mechanic’s shop specializing in custom jobs, including low riders. It had a Latino vibe that made me think gang bangers, not Rastafarians. I thought perhaps Ronaldo used the brotherly term liberally and that this could be the right place.
I didn’t think I would find my tree here, but I was out of time and options so I parked down the street and waited. The garage doors were closed but the lights were still on. I took a minute to think of who in the force I could contact if I needed the garage owner’s home address. There were several cars in the lot, scattered about, any or all of which could have been his or customers’. There was no sign of life. After about twenty minutes the interior lights went out and a minute later a scrawny man in work overalls, smoking a cigarette, left the building. He was white, about thirty-years-old with a knitted cap. Pleased, I saw the unmistakable dreadlocks. He locked up and walked over to a small Toyota 2-door, got in, and squealed away in a puff of gray smoke. I followed.
There was no shortage of traffic to help avoid detection. A few minutes later my suspect pulled over next to a roadside taco stand. I’d eaten there before: ‘The Blessed Taco’. Good food. After coming back around and parking, I watched him walk up to the window and order. I was just thinking how being there was making me hungry when my phone rang. I looked back to my suspect across the street, hoping to see him on the phone, but disappointingly, he wasn’t.
Clearing my head to think through my options, I didn’t see any, so I just went ahead and answered the phone. I suppressed the thought that things were unraveling. Whoever was calling was trying to distort their voice and I couldn’t make out a word he was saying. I knew from experience—it was amateur hour. I told him I couldn’t understand him, and he removed whatever was causing the muffled voice. He told me an exact place and time for leaving the money—in a cardboard box I would find there. I was hardly shocked. I played my part by asking what assurances I had of getting my tree back unharmed. I thought it best to make an effort to sound submissive and dispirited. He repeated the information and hung up.
I put the phone down and scolded myself for having no plan B. If I dropped off the money or pretended to—since I didn’t have it—I would be lucky to leave the scene and return back quickly enough to find or follow whoever claimed the money. This might be one thing the movies get right: paying a ransom is a fool’s errand. In any case, I needed help, but it was too late to call in the armed forces.
I had about an hour to show up there with a better plan. I was no longer hungry, but I was tired and needed to eat. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. As I was about to open the car door, I noticed movement across the street. There was another man suddenly in view who I was sure exited from the passenger side of the Toyota. He walked up to my guy, and they began conversing. Once their food was ready, they took it back to the little rice-cooker and ate.
This was good news. I took a very deep breath, I’ll freely admit. But I also saw this turn of events as a warning. I had screwed up. The second man must have been waiting in the car the entire time I was staking out the garage. Probably just waiting for his accomplice to lock up and leave. I hadn’t seen him, and I could have easily given myself away. My SUV would probably be known to them. I can’t say I was impressed with myself, but I took the warning for what it was and refocused on what was ahead.
Giving up on the food, I waited until they finished theirs and got back on the road. I followed from a good distance, and it was about halfway to the drop site that the Toyota turned left up a side street for a few blocks and then pulled into a driveway. I continued past the house and then turned back a block up and returned. After a few minutes of waiting and watching, the men got out. The passenger got into the driver’s side and started backing out as my main suspect watched.
This happened fast and I had to fall back on my detective instincts to make a quick decision to stay or go. There was nothing I could do at the drop site. My only chance was to stay here at this place and hope that either my tree was here or the man standing before me knew where it was—and I could get it out of him. I reminded myself that there was no way the pine would have fit in the little Toyota hatchback, so somewhere there was another vehicle involved and that was possibly where the tree remained. My appetite was back and I looking forward to sorting these people out.
No lights were on in the small, one-story house until the man entered, so I could safely assume he was there alone. I got out of the car to have a look around, but cautiously. It would be about thirty minutes before he would get the call telling him I was a no-show, so I knew the time I had. This had to be done before the other man returned; if he returned. I didn’t like the idea of my house and bonsai trees sitting in darkness, and now there was a second man to deal with. I’d seen plenty of set-ups and had no interest in being part of one.
I circled back so I could cross the street and do a walk by. I couldn’t see him inside but now more lights were on, and the door was open. Only a screen door stood between me and him. I did another pass by, this time slower, looking into the neighboring yards as possible entry points. I needed access to his backyard. One neighbor’s house was lit so I entered the yard of the other and inspected the gap between the two houses. They were all crammed together and were old enough to have a lot of trees and shrubs obscuring any views deeper into their yards. Feeling ridiculous standing there without a plan, I had the sudden impulse to return to the suspect’s house and walk on in through the front door. But not knowing his location, or even whether he was really connected to the theft at all, I resisted. You could end up killing a man who was only defending himself and his property or get killed yourself. I had seen both tragic outcomes in my time. I wasn’t going there. I knew not to let desperation dissolve into downright stupidity. At least I thought I did. Things were happening and any moment they could turn on a dime.
After a few more minutes of hesitation, I assured myself the kid was hardly expecting me, so I investigated the picket fence framing in his back yard. Although it was getting dark now, my night vision was improving. There was a gate and latch, so I checked the mechanism, and it was free. I used a pen from my pocket to softly lift the latch, opened the gate, and stepped through. Nothing happened. No sound.
Slowly I carried on until I was in the backyard, making sure not to stumble over or bump into anything. But it was too dark to see much. I certainly didn’t see any bonsai. Looking inside from the backyard, I could see the home’s interior. The man had showered and was in the living room with the TV on, toweling off his dreadlocks. His back was to me, and I had a perfect view of the wall-mounted TV. There was also a large, black velvet painting of a bonsai in silhouette, leaning against the wall. That certainly caught my eye. Probably it had hung where the TV now was. He had slid the ranch slider’s glass door open to get a draft coming through. I was sure I could hear the television as well as he could. I waited. I knew the call would come if I was at the right place. If I could listen in on that call, I would get the confirmation I needed. So I relaxed and waited.
After a while my mood improved further as a waft of marijuana smoke drifted past. It smelled familiar, but I was hardly an expert. Still, I waited. Either the second man was very patient, or something was amiss.
A familiar nervousness was returning when I heard a phone ringing. The man muted the TV and I edged up closer to the screen door to listen. I missed the first part, but it was clear enough that the kid was displeased. The first words I did comprehend was my suspect telling the second man that, no, he should not call the ‘old man’ again, who probably didn’t show because he’d fallen asleep. My phone was on silent, but I still didn’t like the idea of getting that call. Then I heard something not easily forgotten. He said, ‘Go to your place, get the truck, and bring that fucking tree back here. We have work to do. We’re paying a dead man a late-night visit.’
Before I could even consider moving away, a flood light at the rear of the property was switched on. Now I could see all of the backyard. The perimeter was lined with tall trees, and the yard was deeper than it had first appeared. At the rear, across the length of the back fence, I could make out a collection of bonsai trees scattered about on the ground and on makeshift plinths of various kinds. Nothing professional. Some were small but a good many were large and mature. A few were on boxes or even on stacked tires. I was not impressed, and it annoyed me further that this moron had stolen my tree. I couldn’t make out their quality, but I felt certain that most or all were stolen.
With all the evidence right before me I reacted with little meditation. The path ahead was clear. I kept my sights on my suspect, put on my gloves, and waited to see his intentions. For a few minutes he just stood there, brooding and cussing to himself.
Next thing I knew he flung the screen slider open and stepped out in a hurry. I didn’t have to move a step. I punched him hard in the stomach and he buckled over. Then I kicked him upright in the head. Hard. My frustrations were reflected in the man’s altered state: he was unconscious, or worse. I looked at him with a mix of emotions, glad to have avoided any philosophical discussion about his fate. He still had a pulse, so I removed his shoelaces and tied his hands together and then tied them to his feet. His heart would no longer have to work as hard because his circulatory system had just gotten smaller. After I gagged him with a cloth I found on the deck, I searched inside for the switch to the outside light and shut it off, throwing the yard back into darkness.
The remainder of what happened is not terribly interesting. I suspect you get the picture. The accomplice didn’t strike me as an important part of the operation so when he arrived, I knocked him out, took his phone—to go with the one I took off my prisoner—gagged him, and left him behind, tied up. The next day he would be found, along with the bonsai collection, by the police. I knew just who to pass the information through: Eddie.
You might think he was a potential witness, but he didn’t see anything, and I left no material evidence behind. The truth is, given the way they viewed me, I doubt he’d even consider me as potentially involved. I was sure there were plenty of other enemies to choose from.
Meanwhile, I was pleased to find the tree unaffected—it had been watered and the needles told me the foliage hadn’t overheated. At least the imbeciles got one thing right.
I backed the SUV up the drive and loaded up my thief, thanking Christ he wasn’t heavyset. He was wrapped up in a tarp and folded up alongside my repossessed pine, my pickaxe, a few other useful tools, and a shovel. The knob cutters I kept on the passenger’s seat.
My anger had diminished quite considerably by that point, but it didn’t change the outcome. I already knew just the place I was going. I’d been there before, several times. And now I had a perfect, slow-release fertilizer, too.
— THE END