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Jimmie Sasaki is an elusive figure, as his divergent roles as friend and spy in various stages of Louie’s life evoke questions about Jimmie’s true identity and motivations. When Jimmie first meets Louie at USC, Jimmie is an unassuming presence, quiet and confident enough that no one thinks twice about his claims to be a USC, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale graduate. He grins his way into friendship with Louie, bonding over their taste in music, love for track, and Jimmie’s Japanese Embassy position as a lecturer in Torrance.
However, when Louie is imprisoned during the war at Ofuna, a secret interrogation center, he is shocked to find Jimmie as a member of the Japanese forces and a frequent visitor at the camp. At Ofuna, Jimmie carries the air of a movie star and calls Louie into his office to reminisce about their college days, which Louie is sure serves only to soften him for interrogation. When the expected torture never comes, Louie wonders if Jimmie could be an ally, but his requests for help from Jimmie go unfulfilled. When Louie is eventually asked to be a puppet for propaganda by the Japanese, it is clear that Jimmie’s visits were only to temper Louie in the hopes of his agreement for the role. At the end of the war, Jimmie is sentenced to years of hard labor for his work as a liaison between the Japanese navy and occupying forces. His slick appearance throughout the story is representative of blurred lines between good and evil, and it is never made abundantly clear where Jimmie’s true allegiance lies.
