Rising Sun

Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton
First Night
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Second Day
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Second Night
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Third Day
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Afterword
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Principal Sources
Other Sources

Michael Crichton
Rising Sun

   To my mother, Zula Miller Crichton




   We are entering a world where the old rules no longer apply.

Phillip Sanders



   Business is war.

Japanese motto



Los Angeles Police Department
Confidential Transcript of Internal Records

   Contents: Transcript of Video Interrogation
   Detective Peter J. Smith
   March 13-15

   Re: “Nakamoto Murder” (A8895-404)

   This transcript is the property of the Los Angeles Police Department and is for internal use only. Permission to copy, quote from, or otherwise reproduce or reveal the contents of this document is limited by law. Unauthorized use carries severe penalties.


   Direct all inquiries to:
   Commanding Officer
   Internal Affairs Division
   Los Angeles Police Department
   PO Box 2029
   Los Angeles, CA 92038-2029
   Telephone: (213) 555-7600
   Telefax: (213) 556-7812

   Video Interrogation: Det. P.J. Smith 3/13—3/15

   Case: “Nakamoto Murder”

   Description of interrogation: Subject (Lt. Smith) was interrogated for 22 hours over 3 days from Monday, March 13 to Wednesday, March 15. Interview was recorded on S-VHS/SD videotape.

   Description of image: Subject (Smith) seated at desk in Video Room #4, LAPD HQ. Clock visible on the wall behind subject. Image includes surface of desk, coffee cup, and Subject from the waist up. Subject wears coat and tie (day 1); shirt and tie (day 2); and shirtsleeves only (day 3). Video timecode in lower right corner.

   Purpose of interrogation: Clarification of Subject role in “Nakamoto Murder.” (A8895-404) Officers in charge of the interrogation were Det. T. Conway and Det. P. Hammond. Subject waived his right to an attorney.

   Disposition of case: Filed as “case unsolved.”


Transcript of:
March 13 (1)

   INT: Okay. The tape is running. State your name for the record, please.
   SUBJ: Peter James Smith.
   INT: State your age and rank.
   SUBJ: I’m thirty-four years old. Lieutenant, Special Services Division. Los Angeles Police Department.
   INT: Lieutenant Smith, as you know, you are not being charged with a crime at this time.
   SUBJ: I know.
   INT: Nevertheless you have a right to be represented here by an attorney.
   SUBJ: I waive that right.
   INT: Okay. And have you been coerced to come here in any way?
   SUBJ: (long pause) No. I have not been coerced in any way.
   INT: Okay. Now we want to talk to you about the Nakamoto Murder. When did you first become involved in that case?
   SUBJ: On Thursday night, February 9, about nine o’clock.
   INT: What happened at that time?
   SUBJ: I was at home. I got a phone call.
   INT: And what were you doing at the time you got the call?

First Night

   Actually, I was sitting on my bed in my apartment in Culver City, watching the Lakers game with the sound turned off, while I tried to study vocabulary for my introductory Japanese class.
   It was a quiet evening; I had gotten my daughter to sleep about eight. Now I had the cassette player on the bed, and the cheerful woman’s voice was saying things like, “Hello, I am a police officer. Can I be of assistance?” and “Please show me the menu.” After each sentence, she paused for me to repeat it back, in Japanese. I stumbled along as best I could. Then she would say, “The vegetable store is closed. Where is the post office?” Things like that. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate, but I was trying. “Mr. Hayashi has two children.”
   I tried to answer. “Hayashi-san wa kodomo ga fur… futur…” I swore. But by then the woman was talking again.
   “This drink is not very good at all.”
   I had my textbook open on the bed, alongside a Mr. Potato Head I’d put back together for my daughter. Next to that, a photo album, and the pictures from her second birthday party. It was four months after Michelle’s party, but I still hadn’t put the pictures in the album. You have to try and keep up with that stuff.
   “There will be a meeting at two o’clock.”
   The pictures on my bed didn’t reflect reality any more. Four months later, Michelle looked completely different. She was taller; she’d outgrown the expensive party dress my ex-wife had bought for her: black velvet with a white lace collar.
   In the photos, my ex-wife plays a prominent role—holding the cake as Michelle blows out the candles, helping her unwrap the presents. She looks like a dedicated mom. Actually, my daughter lives with me, and my ex-wife doesn’t see much of her. She doesn’t show up for weekend visitation half the time, and she misses child-support payments.
   But you’d never know from the birthday photos.
   “Where is the toilet?”
   “I have a car. We can go together.”
   I continued studying. Of course, officially I was on duty that night: I was the Special Services officer on call for division headquarters downtown. But February ninth was a quiet Thursday, and I didn’t expect much action. Until nine o’clock, I only had three calls.
   Special Services includes the diplomatic section of the police department; we handle problems with diplomats and celebrities, and provide translators and liaison for foreign nationals who come into contact with the police for one reason or another. It’s varied work, but not stressful: when I’m on call I can expect a half-dozen requests for help, none of them emergencies. I hardly ever have to roll out. It’s much less demanding than being a police press liaison, which is what I did before Special Services.
   Anyway, on the night of February ninth, the first call I got concerned Fernando Conseca, the Chilean vice-consul. A patrol car had pulled him over; Ferny was too drunk to drive, but he was claiming diplomatic immunity. I told the patrolmen to drive him home, and I made a note to complain to the consulate again in the morning.
   Then an hour later, I got a call from detectives in Gardena. They’d arrested a suspect in a restaurant shooting who spoke only Samoan, and they wanted a translator. I said I could get one, but that Samoans invariably spoke English; the country had been an American trust territory for years. The detectives said they’d handle it. Then I got a call that mobile television vans were blocking fire lanes at the Aerosmith concert; I told the officers to give it to the fire department. And it was quiet for the next hour. I went back to my textbook and my sing-song woman saying things like, “Yesterday’s weather was rainy.”
   Then Tom Graham called.
   “It’s the fucking Japs,” Graham said. “I can’t believe they’re pulling this shit. Better get over here, Petey-san. Eleven hundred Figueroa, corner of Seventh. It’s the new Nakamoto building.”
   “What is the problem?” I had to ask. Graham is a good detective but he has a bad temper, and he tends to blow things out of proportion.
   “The problem,” Graham said, “is that the fucking Japs are demanding to see the fucking Special Services liaison. Which is you, buddy. They’re saying the police can’t proceed until the liaison gets here.”
   “Can’t proceed? Why? What have you got?”
   “Homicide,” Graham said. “Caucasian female approximately twenty-five years old, apparent six-oh-one. Lying flat on her back, right in their damn boardroom. Quite a sight. You better get down here as soon as you can.”
   I said, “Is that music in the background?”
   “Hell, yes,” Graham said. “There’s a big party going on. Tonight is the grand opening of the Nakamoto Tower, and they’re having a reception. Just get down here, will you?”
   I said I would. I called Mrs. Ascenio next door, and asked her if she would watch the baby while I was gone; she always needed extra money. While I waited for her to arrive I changed my shirt and put on my good suit. Then Fred Hoffmann called. He was watch commander at DHD downtown; a short, tough guy with gray hair. “Listen, Pete. I think you might want help on this one.”
   I said, “Why is that?”
   “Sounds like we got a homicide involving Japanese nationals. It may be sticky. How long have you been a liaison?”
   “About six months,” I said.
   “If I was you, I’d get some experienced help. Pick up Connor and take him downtown with you.”
   “Who?”
   “John Connor. Ever heard of him?”
   “Sure,” I said. Everyone in the division had heard of Connor. He was a legend, the most knowledgeable of the Special Services officers. “But isn’t he retired?”
   “He’s on indefinite leave, but he still works cases involving the Japanese. I think he could be helpful to you. Tell you what. I’ll call him for you. You just go down and pick him up.” Hoffmann gave me his address.
   “Okay, fine. Thanks.”
   “And one other thing. Land lines on this one, okay, Pete?”
   “Okay,” I said. “Who requested that?”
   “It’s just better.”
   “Whatever you say, Fred.”

   Land lines meant to stay off the radios, so our transmissions wouldn’t be picked up by the media monitoring police frequencies. It was standard procedure in certain situations. Whenever Elizabeth Taylor went to the hospital, we went to land lines. Or if the teenage son of somebody famous died in a car crash, we’d go to land lines to make sure the parents got the news before the TV crews started banging on their door. We used land lines for that kind of thing. I’d never heard it invoked in a homicide before.
   But driving downtown, I stayed off the car phone, and listened to the radio. There was a report of a shooting of a three-year-old boy who was now paralyzed from the waist down. The child was a bystander during a 7-Eleven robbery. A stray bullet hit him in the spine and he was—
   I switched to another station, got a talk show. Ahead, I could see the lights of the downtown skyscrapers, rising into mist. I got off the freeway at San Pedro, Connor’s exit.
   What I knew about John Connor was that he had lived for a time in Japan, where he acquired his knowledge of Japanese language and culture. At one point, back in the 1960s, he was the only officer who spoke fluent Japanese, even though Los Angeles then had the largest Japanese population outside the home islands.
   Now, of course, the department has more than eighty officers who speak Japanese—and more, like me, who are trying to learn. Connor had retired several years before. But the liaison officers who worked with him agreed he was the best. He was said to work very fast, often solving cases in a few hours. He had a reputation as a skilled detective and an extraordinary interviewer, able to get information from witnesses like nobody else. But most of all, the other liaisons praised his even-handed approach. One said to me, “Working with the Japanese is like balancing on a tightrope. Sooner or later, everybody falls off on one side or the other. Some people decide the Japanese are fabulous and can do no wrong. Some people decide they’re vicious pricks. But Connor always keeps his balance. He stays in the middle. He always knows exactly what he is doing.”

   John Connor lived in the industrial area off Seventh Street, in a large brick warehouse alongside a diesel truck depot. The freight elevator in the building was broken. I walked upstairs to the third floor and knocked on his door.
   “It’s open,” a voice said.
   I entered a small apartment. The living room was empty, and furnished in the Japanese style: tatami mats, shoji screens, and wood-paneled walls. A calligraphy scroll, a black lacquer table, a vase with a single splash of white orchid.
   I saw two pairs of shoes set out beside the door. One was a man’s brogues. The other was a pair of women’s high heels.
   I said, “Captain Connor?”
   “Just a minute.”
   A shoji screen slid back and Connor appeared. He was surprisingly tall, maybe a hundred and ninety centimeters, well over six feet. He wore a yukata, a light Japanese robe of blue cotton. I estimated he was fifty-five years old. Broad-shouldered, balding, with a trim mustache, sharp features, piercing eyes. Deep voice. Calm.
   “Good evening, Lieutenant.”
   We shook hands. Connor looked me up and down, and nodded approvingly. “Good. Very presentable.”
   I said, “I used to work press. You never knew when you might have to appear in front of cameras.”
   He nodded. “And now you’re the SSO on call?”
   “That’s right.”
   “How long have you been a liaison?”
   “Six months.”
   “You speak Japanese?”
   “A little. I’m taking lessons.”
   “Give me a few minutes to change.” He turned and disappeared behind the shoji screen. “This is a homicide?”
   “Yes.”
   “Who notified you?”
   “Tom Graham. He’s the OIC at the crime scene. He said the Japanese were insisting on a liaison officer being present.”
   “I see.” There was a pause. I heard running water. “Is that a common request?”
   “No. In fact, I’ve never heard of it happening. Usually, officers call for a liaison because they have a language problem. I’ve never heard of the Japanese asking for a liaison.”
   “Neither have I,” Connor said. “Did Graham ask you to bring me? Because Tom Graham and I don’t always admire each other.”
   “No,” I said. “Fred Hoffmann suggested I bring you in. He felt I didn’t have enough experience. He said he was going to call you for me.”
   “Then you were called at home twice?” Connor said.
   “Yes.”
   “I see.” He reappeared, wearing a dark blue suit, knotting his tie. “It seems that time is critical.” He glanced at his watch. “When did Graham call you?”
   “About nine.”
   “Then forty minutes have already passed. Let’s go, Lieutenant. Where’s your car?”
   We hurried downstairs.


* * *

   I drove up San Pedro and turned left onto Second, heading toward the Nakamoto building. There was a light mist at street level. Connor stared out the window. He said, “How good is your memory?”
   “Pretty good, I guess.”
   “I wonder if you could repeat for me the telephone conversations you had tonight,” he said. “Give them to me in as much detail as possible. Word for word, if you can.”
   “I’ll try.”
   I recounted my phone calls. Connor listened without interruption or comment. I didn’t know why he was so interested, and he didn’t tell me. When I finished, he said, “Hoffmann didn’t tell you who called for land lines?”
   “No.”
   “Well, it’s a good idea in any case. I never use a car phone if I can help it. These days, too many people listen in.”
   I turned onto Figueroa. Up ahead I saw searchlights shining in front of the new Nakamoto Tower. The building itself was gray granite, rising up into the night. I got into the right lane and flipped open the glove box to grab a handful of business cards.
   The cards said Detective Lieutenant Peter J. Smith, Special Services Liaison Officer, Los Angeles Police Department. Printed in English on one side, in Japanese on the back.
   Connor looked at the cards. “How do you want to handle this situation, Lieutenant? Have you negotiated with the Japanese before?”
   I said, “Not really, no. Couple of drunk driving arrests.”
   Connor said politely, “Then perhaps I can suggest a strategy for us to follow.”
   “That’s fine with me,” I said. “I’d be grateful for your help.”
   “All right. Since you’re the liaison, it’s probably best if you take charge of the scene when we arrive.”
   “Okay.”
   “Don’t bother to introduce me, or refer to me in any way. Don’t even look in my direction.”
   “Okay.”
   “I am a nonentity. You alone are in charge.”
   “Okay, fine.”
   “It’ll help to be formal. Stand straight, and keep your suit jacket buttoned at all times. If they bow to you, don’t bow back—just give a little head nod. A foreigner will never master the etiquette of bowing. Don’t even try.”
   “Okay,” I said.
   “When you start to deal with the Japanese, remember that they don’t like to negotiate. They find it too confrontational. In their own society they avoid it whenever possible.”
   “Okay.”
   “Control your gestures. Keep your hands at your sides. The Japanese find big arm movements threatening. Speak slowly. Keep your voice calm and even.”
   “Okay.”
   “If you can.”
   “Okay.”
   “It may be difficult to do. The Japanese can be irritating. You’ll probably find them irritating tonight. Handle it as best you can. But whatever happens, don’t lose your temper.”
   “All right.”
   “That’s extremely bad form.”
   “All right,” I said.
   Connor smiled. “I’m sure you’ll do well,” he said. “You probably won’t need my help at all. But if you get stuck, you’ll hear me say ‘Perhaps I can be of assistance.’ That will be the signal that I’m taking over. From that point on, let me do the talking, I’d prefer you not speak again, even if you are spoken to directly by them. Okay?”
   “Okay.”
   “You may want to speak, but don’t be drawn out.”
   “I understand.”
   “Furthermore, whatever I do, show no surprise. Whatever I do.”
   “Okay.”
   “Once I take over, move so that you’re standing slightly behind me and to my right. Never sit. Never look around. Never appear distracted. Remember that although you come from an MTV video culture, they do not. They are Japanese. Everything you do will have meaning to them. Every aspect of your appearance and behavior will reflect on you, on the police department, and on me as your superior and sempai.”
   “Okay, Captain.”
   “Any questions?”
   “What’s a sempai?”
   Connor smiled.
   We drove past the searchlights, down the ramp into the underground garage.
   “In Japan,” he said, “a sempai is a senior man who guides a junior man, known as a kōhai. The sempai-kōhai relationship is quite common. It’s often assumed to exist whenever a younger man and an older man are working together. They will probably assume it of us.”
   I said, “Sort of a mentor and apprentice?”
   “Not exactly,” Connor said. “In Japan, sempai-kōhai has a different quality. More like a fond parent: the sempai is expected to indulge his kōhai, and put up with all sorts of youthful excesses and errors from the junior man.” He smiled. “But I’m sure you won’t do that to me.”
   We came to the bottom of the ramp, and saw the flat expanse of the parking garage ahead of us. Connor stared out the window and frowned. “Where is everybody?”
   The garage of the Nakamoto Tower was full of limousines, the drivers leaning against their cars, talking and smoking. But I saw no police cars. Ordinarily, when there’s a homicide, the place is lit up like Christmas, with lights flashing from a half-dozen black and whites, the medical examiner, paramedics, and all the rest.
   But there was nothing tonight. It just looked like a garage where somebody was having a party: elegant people standing in clusters, waiting for their cars.
   “Interesting,” I said.
   We came to a stop. The parking attendants opened the doors, and I stepped out onto plush carpet, and heard soft music. I walked with Connor toward the elevator. Well-dressed people were coming the other way: men in tuxedos, women in expensive gowns. And standing by the elevator, wearing a stained corduroy sport coat and furiously smoking a cigarette, was Tom Graham.

1

   When Graham played halfback at U.S.C. he never made first string. That bit of history stuck like a character trait: all his life he seemed to miss the crucial promotion, the next step up a detective’s career. He had transferred from one division to another, never finding a precinct that suited him, or a partner that worked well with him. Always too outspoken, Graham had made enemies in the chief’s office, and at thirty-nine, further advancement was unlikely. Now he was bitter, gruff, and putting on weight—a big man who had become ponderous, and a pain in the ass: he just rubbed people the wrong way. His idea of personal integrity was to be a failure, and he was sarcastic about anybody who didn’t share his views.
   “Nice suit,” he said to me, as I walked up. “You look fucking beautiful, Peter.” He flicked imaginary dust off my lapel.
   I ignored it. “How’s it going, Tom?”
   “You guys should be attending this party, not working it.” He turned to Connor and shook his hand. “Hello, John. Whose idea was it to get you out of bed?”
   “I’m just observing,” Connor said mildly.
   I said, “Fred Hoffmann asked me to bring him down.”
   “Hell,” Graham said. “It’s okay with me that you’re here. I can use some help. It’s pretty tense up there.”
   We followed him toward the elevator. I still saw no other police officers. I said, “Where is everybody?”
   “Good question,” Graham said. “They’ve managed to keep all of our people around back at the freight entrance. They claim the service elevator gives fastest access. And they keep talking about the importance of their grand opening, and how nothing must disrupt it.”
   By the elevators, a uniformed Japanese private security guard looked us over carefully. “These two are with me,” Graham said. The security man nodded, but squinted at us suspiciously.
   We got on the elevator.
   “Fucking Japanese,” Graham said, as the doors closed. “This is still our country. We’re still the fucking police in our own country.”
   The elevator was glass walled and we looked out on downtown Los Angeles as it went up into the light mist. Directly across was the Arco building. All lit up at night.
   “You know these elevators are illegal,” Graham said. “According to code, no glass elevators past ninety floors, and this building is ninety-seven floors, the highest building in L.A. But then this whole building is one big special case. And they got it up in six months. You know how? They brought in prefab units from Nagasaki, and slapped them together here. Didn’t use American construction workers. Got a special permit to bypass our unions because of a so-called technical problem that only Japanese workers could handle. You believe that shit?”
   I shrugged. “They got it past the American unions.”
   “Hell, they got it past the city council,” Graham said. “But of course that’s just money. And if there’s one third we know, the Japanese have money. So they got variances on the zoning restrictions, the earthquake ordinances. They got everything they wanted.”
   I shrugged. “Politics.”
   “My ass. You know they don’t even pay tax? That’s right: they got an eight-year break on property taxes from the city. Shit: we’re giving this country away.”
   We rode for a moment in silence. Graham stared out the windows. The elevators were high-speed Hitachis, using the latest technology. The fastest and smoothest elevators in the world. We moved higher into the mist.
   I said to Graham, “You want to tell us about this homicide, or do you want it to be a surprise?”
   “Fuck,” Graham said. He flipped open his notebook. “Here you go. The original call was at eight thirty-two. Somebody saying there is a ‘problem of disposition of a body.’ Male with a thick Asian accent, doesn’t speak good English. The operator couldn’t get much out of him, except an address. The Nakamoto Tower. Black and white goes over, arrives at eight thirty-nine p.m., finds it’s a homicide. Forty-sixth floor, which is an office floor in this building. Victim is Caucasian female, approximately twenty-five years old. Hell of a good-looking girl. You’ll see.
   “The blue suits stretch the tape and call the division. I go over with Merino, arriving at eight fifty-three. Crime scene IU and SID show up about the same time for PE, prints, and pics. Okay so far?”
   “Yes,” Connor said, nodding.
   Graham said, “We’re just getting started when some Jap from the Nakamoto Corporation comes up in a thousand-dollar blue suit and announces that he is entitled to a fucking conversation with the L.A.P.D. liaison officer before anything is done in their fucking building. And he’s saying things like we got no probable cause.
   “I go, what the fuck is this. We got an obvious homicide here. I think this guy should get back. But this Jap speaks excellent fucking English and he seems to know a lot of law. And everybody at the scene becomes, you know, concerned. I mean, there’s no point in pushing to start an investigation if it’s going to invalidate due process, right? And this Jap fucker is insisting the liaison must be present before we do anything. Since he speaks such fucking good English I don’t know what the problem is. I thought the whole idea of a liaison was for people who don’t speak the language and this fucking guy has Stanford law school written all over him. But anyway.” He sighed.
   “You called me,” I said.
   “Yeah.”
   I said, “Who is the man from Nakamoto?”
   “Shit.” Graham scowled at his notes. “Ishihara. Ishiguri. Something like that.”
   “You have his card? He must have given you his card.”
   “Yeah, he did. I gave it to Merino.”
   I said, “Any other Japanese there?”
   “What are you, kidding?” Graham laughed. “The place is swarming with them. Fucking Disneyland up there.”
   “I mean the crime scene.”
   “So do I,” Graham said. “We can’t keep ‘em out. They say it’s their building, they have a right to be there. Tonight is the grand opening of the Nakamoto Tower. They have a right to be there. On and on.”
   I said, “Where is the opening taking place?”
   “One floor below the murder, on the forty-fifth floor. They’re having one hell of a bash. Must be eight hundred people there. Movie stars, senators, congressmen, you name it. I hear Madonna is there, and Tom Cruise. Senator Hammond. Senator Kennedy. Elton John. Senator Morton. Mayor Thomas’s there. District Attorney Wyland’s there. Hey, maybe your ex-wife is there, too, Pete. She still works for Wyland, doesn’t she?”
   “Last I heard.”
   Graham sighed. “Must be great to fuck a lawyer, instead of getting fucked by them. Must make for a nice change.”
   I didn’t want to talk about my ex-wife. “We don’t have a lot of contact any more,” I said.
   A little bell rang, then the elevator said, “Yonjūsan kai.”
   Graham glanced at the glowing numbers above the door. “Can you believe that shit?”
   “Yonjūyon kai,” the elevator said. “Mōsugu de gozaimasu.”
   “What’d it say?”
   “ ‘We’re almost at the floor.’ “
   “Fuck,” Graham said. “If an elevator’s going to talk, it should be English. This is still America.”
   “Just barely,” Connor said, staring out at the view.
   “Youjūgo kai,” the elevator said.
   The door opened.

   Graham was right: it was a hell of a party. The whole floor had been made into a replica forties ballroom. Men in suits. Women in cocktail dresses. The band playing Glenn Miller swing music. Standing near the elevator door was a gray-haired, suntanned man who looked vaguely familiar. He had the broad shoulders of an athlete. He stepped onto the elevator and turned to me. “Ground floor, please.” I smelled whiskey.
   A second, younger man in a suit instantly appeared by his side. “This elevator is going up, Senator.”
   “What’s that?” the gray-haired man said, turning to his aide.
   “This elevator’s going up, sir.”
   “Well. I want to go down.” He was speaking with the careful, over-articulated speech of the drunk.
   “Yes, sir. I know that, sir,” the aide replied cheerfully. “Let’s take the next elevator, Senator.” He gripped the gray-haired man firmly by the elbow and led him off the elevator.
   The doors closed. The elevator continued up.
   “Your tax dollars at work,” Graham said. “Recognize him? Senator Stephen Rowe. Nice to find him partying here, considering he’s on the Senate Finance Committee, which sets all Japanese import regulations. But like his pal Senator Kennedy, Rowe is one of the great pussy patrollers.”
   “Oh, yeah?”
   “They say he can drink pretty good, too.”
   “I noticed that.”
   “That’s why he’s got that kid with him. To keep him out of trouble.”
   The elevator stopped at the forty-sixth floor. There was a soft electronic ping. “Yonjūroku kai. Goriyō arigatō gozaimashita.”
   “Finally,” Graham said. “Now maybe we can get to work.”

2

   The doors opened. We faced a solid wall of blue business suits, backs turned to us. There must have been twenty men jammed in the area just beyond the elevator. The air was thick with cigarette smoke.
   “Coming through, coming through,” Graham said, pushing his way roughly past the men. I followed, Connor behind me, silent and inconspicuous.
   The forty-sixth floor had been designed to house the chief executive offices of Nakamoto Industries, and it was impressive. Standing in the carpeted reception area just beyond the elevators, I could see the entire floor—it was a gigantic open space. It was about sixty by forty meters, half the size of a football field. Everything added to the sense of spaciousness and elegance. The ceilings were high, paneled in wood. The furnishings were all wood and fabric, black and gray, and the carpet was thick. Sound was muted and lights were low, adding to the soft, rich quality. It looked more like a bank than a business office.
   The richest bank you ever saw.
   And it made you stop and look. I stood by the yellow crime-scene tape, which blocked access to the floor itself, and got my bearings. Directly ahead was the large atrium, a kind of open bullpen for secretaries and lower-level people. There were desks in clusters, and trees to break up the space. In the center of the atrium stood a large model of the Nakamoto Tower, and the complex of surrounding buildings still under construction. A spotlight shone on the model, but the rest of the atrium was relatively dark, with night lights.
   Private offices for the executives were arranged around the perimeter of the atrium. The offices had glass walls facing the atrium, and glass walls on the outside walls as well, so that from where I was standing you could look straight out to the surrounding skyscrapers of Los Angeles. It made you think the floor was floating in midair.
   There were two glass-walled conference rooms, on the left and right. The room on the right was smaller, and there I saw the body of the girl, lying on a long black table. She was wearing a black dress. One leg dangled down toward the floor. I didn’t see any blood. But I was pretty far away from her, maybe sixty meters. It was hard to see much detail.
   I heard the crackle of police radios, and I heard Graham saying, “Here’s your liaison, gentlemen. Now maybe we can get started on our investigation. Peter?”
   I turned to the Japanese men by the elevator. I didn’t know which I should talk to; there was an awkward moment until one of them stepped forward. He was about thirty-five and wore an expensive suit. The man gave a very slight bow, from the neck, just a hint. I bowed back. Then he spoke.
   “Konbanwa. Hajimemashite, Sumisu-san. Ishiguro desu. Dōzo yoroshiku.” A formal greeting, although perfunctory. No wasted time. His name was Ishiguro. He already knew my name.
   I said, “Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Sumisu desu. Dōzo yoroshiku.” How do you do. Glad to meet you. The usual.
   “Watashi no meishi desu. Dōzo.” He gave me his business card. He was quick in his movements, brusque.
   “Dōmo arigatō gozaimasu. “ I accepted his card with both hands, which wasn’t really necessary, but taking Connor’s advice, I wanted to do the most formal thing. Next I gave him my card. The ritual required us both to look at each other’s cards, and to make some minor comment, or to ask a question like “Is this your office telephone number?”
   Ishiguro took my card with one hand and said, “Is this your home phone, Detective?” I was surprised. He spoke the kind of unaccented English you can only learn by living here for a long time, starting when you’re young. He must have gone to school here. One of the thousands of Japanese who studied in America in the seventies. When they were sending 150,000 students a year to America, to learn about our country. And we were sending 200 American students a year to Japan.
   “That’s my number at the bottom, yes,” I said.
   Ishiguro slipped my card into his shirt pocket. I started to make a polite comment about his card, but he interrupted me. “Look, Detective. I think we can dispense with the formalities. The only reason there’s a problem here tonight is that your colleague is unreasonable.”
   “My colleague?”
   Ishiguro gave a head jerk. “The fat one there. Graham. His demands are unreasonable, and we strongly object to his intention to carry out an investigation tonight.”
   I said, “Why is that, Mr. Ishiguro?”
   “You have no probable cause to conduct one.”
   “Why do you say that?”
   Ishiguro snorted. “I would think it’s obvious, even to you.”
   I stayed cool. Five years as a detective, and then a year in the press section had taught me to stay cool.
   I said, “No, sir, I’m afraid it’s not obvious.”
   He looked at me disdainfully. “The fact is, Lieutenant, you have no reason to connect this girl’s death to the party we’re holding downstairs.”
   “It looks like she’s wearing a party dress—‘
   He interrupted me rudely. “My guess is you’ll probably discover that she has died of an accidental drug overdose. And therefore her death has nothing to do with our party. Wouldn’t you agree?”
   I took a deep breath. “No, sir, I wouldn’t agree. Not without an investigation.” I took another breath. “Mr. Ishiguro, I appreciate your concerns, but—“
   “I wonder if you do,” Ishiguro said, interrupting me again. “I insist that you appreciate the position of the Nakamoto company tonight. This is a very significant evening for us, a very public evening. We are naturally distressed by the prospect that our function might be marred by unfounded allegations of a woman’s death, especially this, a woman of no importance…”
   “A woman of no importance?”
   Ishiguro made a dismissing wave. He seemed to be tired of talking to me. “It’s obvious, just look at her. She’s no better than a common prostitute. I can’t imagine how she came to be in this building at all. And for this reason, I strongly protest the intention of Detective Graham to interrogate the guests at the reception downstairs. That’s entirely unreasonable. We have many senators, congressmen, and officials of Los Angeles among our guests. Surely you agree that such prominent people will find it awkward—”
   I said, “Just a minute. Detective Graham told you he was going to interrogate everybody at the reception?”
   “That is what he said to me. Yes.”
   Now, at last, I began to understand why I’d been called. Graham didn’t like the Japanese and he had threatened to spoil their evening. Of course it was never going to happen. There was no way Graham was going to interrogate United States senators, let alone the district attorney or the mayor. Not if he expected to come to work tomorrow. But the Japanese annoyed him, and Graham had decided to annoy them back.
   I said to Ishiguro, “We can set up a registration desk downstairs, and your guests can sign out as they leave.”
   “I am afraid that will be difficult,” Ishiguro began, “because surely you will admit—“
   “Mr. Ishiguro, that’s what we’re going to do.”
   “But what you ask is extremely difficult—“
   “Mr. Ishiguro.”
   “You see, for us this is going to cause—“
   “Mr. Ishiguro, I’m sorry. I’ve just told you what police procedure is going to be.”
   He stiffened. There was a pause. He wiped some sweat from his upper lip and said, “I am disappointed, Lieutenant, not to have greater cooperation from you.”
   “Cooperation?” That was when I started to get pissed off. “Mr. Ishiguro, you’ve got a dead woman in there, and it is our job to investigate what happened to—“
   “But you must acknowledge our special circumstances—“
   Then I heard Graham say, “Aw, Christ, what is this?”
   Looking over my shoulder, I saw a short, bookish Japanese man twenty meters beyond the yellow tape. He was taking pictures of the crime scene. The camera he held was so small it was nearly concealed in the palm of his hand. But he wasn’t concealing the fact that he had crossed the tape barrier to take his pictures. As I watched, he moved slowly back toward us, raising his hands for a moment to snap a picture, then blinking behind his wire-frame spectacles as he selected his next shot. He was deliberate in his movements.
   Graham went up to the tape and said, “For Christ’s sake, get out of there. This is a crime scene. You can’t take pictures in there.” The man didn’t respond. He kept moving backward. Graham turned away. “Who is this guy?”
   Ishiguro said, “This is our employee, Mr. Tanaka. He works for Nakamoto Security.”
   I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The Japanese had their own employee wandering around inside the yellow tapes, contaminating the crime scene. It was outrageous. “Get him out of there,” I said.
   “He is taking pictures.”
   “He can’t do that.”
   Ishiguro said, “But this is for our corporate use.”
   I said, “I don’t care, Mr. Ishiguro. He can’t be inside the yellow tape, and he can’t take pictures. Get him out of there. And I want his film, please.”
   “Very well.” Ishiguro said something quickly in Japanese. I turned, just in time to see Tanaka slip under the yellow tape, and disappear among the blue-suited men clustered by the elevator. Behind their heads, I saw the elevator doors open and close.
   Son of a bitch. I was getting angry. “Mr. Ishiguro, you are now obstructing an official police investigation.”
   Ishiguro said calmly, “You must try to understand our position, Detective Smith. Of course we have complete confidence in the Los Angeles Police Department, but we must be able to undertake our own private inquiry, and for that we must have—“
   Their own private inquiry? The son of a bitch. I suddenly couldn’t speak. I clenched my teeth, seeing red. I was furious. I wanted to arrest Ishiguro. I wanted to spin him around, shove him up against the wall, and snap the cuffs around his fucking wrists and—
   “Perhaps I can be of assistance, Lieutenant,” a voice behind me said.
   I turned. It was John Connor, smiling cheerfully. I stepped aside.

   Connor faced Ishiguro, bowed slightly, and presented his card. He spoke rapidly. “Totsuzen shitsurei desuga, jiko-shōkai wo shitemo yoroshii desuka. Watashi wa John Connor to mōshimasu. Meishi o dōzo. Dōzo yoroshiku.”
   “John Connor?” Ishiguro said. “The John Connor? Omeni kakarete kōei desu. Watashi wa Ishiguro desu. Dōzo yoroshiku.” He was saying he was honored to meet him.
   “Watashi no meishi desu. Dōzo.” A graceful thank you.
   But once the formalities were completed, the conversation went so quickly I caught only an occasional word. I was obliged to appear interested, watching and nodding, when in fact I had no idea what they were talking about. Once I heard Connor refer to me as wakaimono, which I knew meant his protégé or apprentice. Several times, he looked at me severely, and shook his head like a regretful father. It seemed he was apologizing for me. I also heard him refer to Graham as bushitsuke, a disagreeable man.
   But these apologies had their effect. Ishiguro calmed down, dropping his shoulders. He began to relax. He even smiled. Finally he said, “Then you will not check identification of our guests?”
   “Absolutely not,” Connor said. “Your honored guests are free to come and go as they wish.”
   I started to protest. Connor shot me a look.
   “Identification is unnecessary,” Connor continued, speaking formally, “because I am sure that no guest of the Nakamoto Corporation could ever be involved in such an unfortunate incident.”
   “Fucking A,” Graham said, under his breath.
   Ishiguro was beaming. But I was furious. Connor had contradicted me. He had made me look like a fool. And on top of that, he wasn’t following police procedure—we could all be in trouble for that later on. Angrily, I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked away.
   “I am grateful for your delicate handling of this situation, Captain Connor,” Ishiguro said.
   “I have done nothing at all,” Connor replied, making another formal bow. “But I hope you will now agree it is appropriate to clear the floor, so the police may begin their investigation.”
   Ishiguro blinked. “Clear the floor?”
   “Yes,” Connor said, taking out a notebook. “And please assist me to know the names of the gentlemen standing behind you, as you ask them to leave.”
   “I am sorry?”
   “The names of the gentlemen behind you, please.”
   “May I ask why?”
   Connor’s face darkened, and he barked a short phrase in Japanese. I didn’t catch the words, but Ishiguro turned bright red.
   “Excuse me, Captain, but I see no reason for you to speak in this—“
   And then, Connor lost his temper. Spectacularly and explosively. He moved close to Ishiguro, making sharp stabbing motions with his finger while he shouted: “Iikagen ni shiro! Soko o doke! Kiiterunoka!”
   Ishiguro ducked and turned away, stunned by this verbal assault.
   Connor leaned over him, his voice hard and sarcastic: “Doke! Doke! Wakaranainoka?” He turned, and pointed furiously toward the Japanese men by the elevator. Confronted with Connor’s naked anger, the Japanese looked away, and puffed anxiously on their cigarettes. But they did not leave.
   “Hey, Richie,” Connor said, calling to the crime unit photographer Richie Walters. “Get me some IDs of these guys, will you?”
   “Sure, Captain,” Richie said. He raised his camera and began moving down the line of men, firing his strobe in quick succession.
   Ishiguro suddenly got excited, stepping in front of the camera, holding up his hands. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, what is this?”
   But the Japanese men were already leaving, wheeling away like a school of fish from the strobe flash. In a few seconds they were gone. We had the floor to ourselves. Alone, Ishiguro looked uncomfortable.
   He said something in Japanese. Apparently it was the wrong thing.
   “Oh?” Connor said. “You are to blame here,” he said to Ishiguro. “You are the cause of all these troubles. And you will see that my detectives get any assistance they need. I want to speak to the person who discovered the body, and the person who called in the original report. I want the name of every person who has been on this floor since the body was discovered. And I want the film from Tanaka’s camera. Ore wa honkida. I will arrest you if you obstruct this investigation further.”
   “But I must consult my superiors—“
   “Namerunayo.” Connor leaned close. “Don’t fuck with me, Ishiguro-san. Now leave, and let us work.”
   “Of course, Captain,” he said. With a tight, brief bow he left, his face pinched and unhappy.
   Graham chuckled. “You told him off pretty good.”
   Connor spun. “What were you doing, telling him you were going to interrogate everybody at the party?”
   “Aw, shit, I was just winding him up,” Graham said. “There’s no way I’m going to interrogate the mayor. Can I help it if these assholes have no sense of humor?”
   “They have a sense of humor,” Connor said. “And the joke is on you. Because Ishiguro had a problem, and he solved it with your help.”
   “My help?” Graham was frowning. “What’re you talking about?”
   “It’s clear the Japanese wanted to delay the investigation,” Connor said. “Your aggressive tactics gave them the perfect excuse—to call for the Special Services liaison.”
   “Oh, come on,” Graham said. “For all they know, the liaison could have been here in five minutes.”
   Connor shook his head. “Don’t kid yourself: they knew exactly who was on call tonight. They knew exactly how far away Smith would be, and exactly how long it would take him to get here. And they managed to delay the investigation an hour and a half. Nice work, detective.”
   Graham stared at Connor for a long moment. Then he turned away. “Fuck,” he said. “That’s a load of bullshit, and you know it. Fellas, I’m going to work. Richie? Mount up. You got thirty seconds to document before my guys come in and step on your tail. Let’s go, everybody. I want to get finished before she starts to smell too bad.”
   And he lumbered off toward the crime scene.

   With their suitcases and evidence carts, the SID team trailed after Graham. Richie Walters led the way, shooting left and right as he worked his way forward into the atrium, then going through the door into the conference room. The walls of the conference room were smoked glass, which dimmed his flash. But I could see him inside, circling the body. He was shooting a lot: he knew this was a big case.
   I stayed behind with Connor. I said, “I thought you told me it was bad form to lose your temper with the Japanese.”
   “It is,” Connor said.
   “Then why did you lose yours?”
   “Unfortunately,” he said, “it was the only way to assist Ishiguro.”
   “To assist Ishiguro?”
   “Yes. I did all that for Ishiguro—because he had to save face in front of his boss. Ishiguro wasn’t the most important man in the room. One of the Japanese standing by the elevator was the jūyaku, the real boss.”
   “I didn’t notice,” I said.
   “It’s common practice to put a lesser man in front, while the boss stays in the background, where he is free to observe progress. Just as I did with you, kōhai.”
   “Ishiguro’s boss was watching all the time?”
   “Yes. And Ishiguro clearly had orders not to allow the investigation to begin. I needed to start the investigation. But I had to do it in such a way that he would not look incompetent. So I played the out-of-control gaijin. Now he owes me a favor. Which is good, because I may need his help later on.”
   “He owes you a favor?” I said, having trouble with this idea. Connor had just screamed at Ishiguro—thoroughly humiliating him, as far as I was concerned.
   Connor sighed. “Even if you don’t understand what happened, believe me: Ishiguro understands very well. He had a problem, and I helped him.”
   I still didn’t really understand, and I started to say more, but Connor held up his hand. “I think we better take a look at the scene, before Graham and his men screw things up any more than they already have.”

3

   It’d been almost two years since I worked the detective division, and it felt good to be around a homicide again. It brought back memories: the nighttime tension, the adrenaline rush of bad coffee in paper cups, and all the teams working around you—it’s a kind of crazy energy, circling the center where somebody is lying, dead. Every homicide crime scene has that same energy, and that finality at the center. When you look at the dead person, there is a kind of obviousness, and at the same time there is an impossible mystery. Even in the simplest domestic brawl, where the woman finally decided to shoot the guy, you’d look at her, all covered in scars and cigarette burns, and you had to ask, why tonight? What was it about tonight? It’s always clear what you are seeing, and there’s always something that doesn’t add up. Both things at once.
   And at a homicide you have the sense of being right down to the basic truths of existence, the smells and the defecation and the bloating. Usually somebody’s crying, so you’re listening to that. And the usual bullshit stops; somebody died, and it’s an unavoidable fact, like a rock in the road that makes all the traffic go around it. And in that grim and real setting, this camaraderie springs up, because you’re working late with people you know, and actually know very well because you see them all the time. L.A. has four homicides a day; there’s another one every six hours. And every detective at the crime scene already has ten homicides dragging on his backlog, which makes this new one an intolerable burden, so he and everybody else is hoping to solve it on the spot, to get it out of the way. There is that kind of finality and tension and energy all mixed together.
   And after you do it for a few years, you get so you like it. And to my surprise, as I entered the conference room, I realized that I missed it.
   The conference room was elegant: black table, black high-backed leather chairs, the lights of the nighttime skyscrapers beyond the glass walls. Inside the room, the technicians talked quietly, as they moved around the body of the dead girl.
   She had blond hair cut short. Blue eyes, full mouth. She looked about twenty-five. Tall, with a long-limbed, athletic look. Her dress was black and sheer.
   Graham was well into his examination; he was down at the end of the table, squinting at the girl’s black patent high heels, a penlight in one hand, his notebook in another.
   Kelly, the coroner’s assistant, was taping the girl’s hands in paper bags to protect them. Connor stopped him. “Just a minute.” Connor looked at one hand, inspecting the wrist, peering closely under the fingernails. He sniffed under one nail. Then he flicked the fingers rapidly, one after another.
   “Don’t bother,” Graham said laconically. “There’s no rigor mortis yet, and no detritus under the nails, no skin or cloth fibers. In fact, I’d say there aren’t many signs of a struggle at all.”
   Kelly slipped the bag over the hand. Connor said to him, “You have a time of death?”
   “I’m working on it.” Kelly lifted the girl’s buttocks to place the rectal probe. “The axillary thermocouples are already in place. We’ll know in a minute.”
   Connor touched the fabric of the black dress, checked the label. Helen, part of the SID team, said, “It’s a Yamamoto.”
   “I see that,” Connor said.
   “What’s a Yamamoto?” I said.
   Helen said, “Very expensive Japanese designer. This little black nothing is at least five thousand dollars. That’s assuming she bought it used. New, it’s maybe fifteen thousand.”
   “Is it traceable?” Connor asked her.
   “Maybe. Depends on whether she bought it here, or in Europe, or Tokyo. It’ll take a couple of days to check.”
   Connor immediately lost interest. “Never mind. That’ll be too late.”
   He produced a small, fiber-optic penlight, which he used to inspect the girl’s scalp and hair. Then he looked quickly at each ear, giving a little murmur of surprise at the right ear. I peered over his shoulder, and saw a drop of dried blood at the pierced hole for her earring. I must have been crowding Connor, because he glanced up at me. “Excuse me, kōhai.”
   I stepped back. “Sorry.”
   Next, Connor sniffed the girl’s lips, opened and closed her jaw rapidly, and poked around inside her mouth, using his penlight as a probe. Then he turned her head from side to side on the table, making her look left and right. He spent some time feeling gently along her neck, almost caressing it with his fingers.
   And then, quite abruptly, he stepped away from the body and said, “All right, I’m finished.”
   And he walked out of the boardroom.
   Graham looked up. “He never was worth a damn at a crime scene.”
   I said, “Why do you say that? I hear he’s a great detective.”
   “Oh, hell,” Graham said. “You can see for yourself. He doesn’t even know what to do. Doesn’t know procedure. Connor’s no detective. Connor has connections. That’s how he solved all those cases he’s so famous for. You remember the Arakawa honeymoon shootings? No? I guess it was before your time, Petey-san. When was that Arakawa case, Kelly?”
   “Seventy-six,” Kelly said.
   “Right, seventy-six. Big fucking case that year. Mr. and Mrs. Arakawa, a young couple visiting Los Angeles on their honeymoon, are standing on the curb in East L.A. when they get gunned down from a passing car. Drive-by gang-style shooting. Worse, at autopsy it turns out Mrs. Arakawa was pregnant. The press has a field day: L.A.P.D. can’t handle gang violence, is the way the story goes. Letters and money come from all over the city. Everyone is upset about what happened to this fresh young couple. And of course the detectives assigned to the case don’t discover shit. I mean, a case involving murdered Japanese nationals: they’re getting nowhere.
   “So, after a week, Connor is called in. And he solves it in one day. A fucking miracle of detection. I mean, it’s a week later. The physical evidence is long gone, the bodies of the honeymooners are back in Osaka, the street corner where it happened is piled high in wilted flowers. But Connor is able to show that the youthful Mr. Arakawa is actually quite a bad boy in Osaka. He shows that the street-corner gangland shooting is actually a yakuza killing contracted in Japan to take place in America. And he shows that the nasty husband is the innocent bystander: they were really gunning for the wife, knowing she was pregnant, because it’s her father they wanted to teach a lesson. So. Connor turns it all around. Pretty fucking amazing, huh?”
   “And you think he did it all with his Japanese connections?”
   “You tell me,” Graham said. “All I know is, pretty soon after that, he goes to Japan for a year.”
   “Doing what?”
   “I heard he worked as a security guy for a grateful Japanese company. They took care of him, is what it amounted to. He did a job for them, and they paid off. Anyway, that’s the way I figure it. Nobody really knows. But the man is not a detective. Christ: just look at him now.”
   Out in the atrium, Connor was staring up at the high ceiling in a dreamy, reflective way. He looked first in one direction, and then another. He seemed to be trying to make up his mind. Suddenly, he walked briskly toward the elevators, as if he were leaving. Then without warning, he turned on his heel, and walked back to the center of the room, and stopped. Next, he began to inspect the leaves on the potted palm trees scattered around the room.
   Graham shook his head. “What is this, gardening? I’m telling you, he’s a strange guy. You know he’s gone to Japan more than once. He always comes back. It never works out for him. Japan is like a woman that he can’t live with, and can’t live without, you know? Myself, I don’t fucking get it. I like America. At least, what’s left of it.”
   He turned to the SID team, which was moving outward from the body. “You guys find those panties for me yet?”
   “Not yet, Tom.”
   “We’re looking, Tom.”
   I said, “What panties?”
   Graham lifted the girl’s skirt. “Your friend John couldn’t be bothered to finish his examination, but I’d say there’s something significant here. I’d say that’s seminal fluid oozing out of the vagina, she’s not wearing panties, and there’s a red line at the groin where they were ripped off. External genitals are red and raw. It’s pretty clear she had forcible intercourse before she was killed. So I’m asking the boys to find the panties.”
   One of the SID team said, “Maybe she wasn’t wearing any.”
   Graham said, “She was wearing them, all right.”
   I turned back to Kelly. “What about drugs?”
   He shrugged. “We’ll get lab values on all fluids. But to the eye, she looks clean. Very clean.” I noticed that Kelly was distinctly uneasy, now.
   Graham saw it, too. “For Christ’s sake, what are you hangdog about, Kelly? We keeping you from a late-night date, or what?”
   “No,” Kelly said, “but to tell you the truth, not only is there no evidence of a struggle, or of drugs—I don’t see any evidence that she was murdered at all.”
   Graham said, “No evidence she was murdered? Are you kidding?”
   Kelly said, “The girl has throat injuries that suggest she may have been into one of the sexual bondage syndromes. She has signs beneath the makeup that she’s been tied up before, repeatedly.”
   “So?”
   “So, technically speaking, maybe she wasn’t murdered. Maybe she experienced sudden death from natural causes.”
   “Aw, Christ. Come on.”
   “It’s quite possible this is a case of what we call death from inhibition. Instantaneous physiological death.”
   “Meaning what?”
   He shrugged. “The person just dies.”
   “For no reason at all?”
   “Well, not exactly. There’s usually minor trauma involving the heart or nerves. But the trauma isn’t sufficient to cause death. I had one case where a ten-year-old kid got hit in the chest with a baseball—not very hard—and fell down dead in the school yard. Nobody within twenty meters of him. Another case, a woman had a minor car accident, banged into the steering wheel with her chest, not very hard, and while she was opening the car door to get out, she dropped dead. It seems to happen where there is neck or chest injury, which may irritate the nerves running to the heart. So, yeah, Tom. Technically, sudden death is a distinct possibility. And since having sex is not a felony, it wouldn’t be murder.”
   Graham squinted. “So you’re saying maybe nobody killed her’?”
   Kelly shrugged. He picked up his clipboard. “I’m not putting any of this down. I’m listing the cause of death as asphyxiation secondary to manual strangulation. Because the odds are, she was strangled. But you should file it away in the back of your mind that maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she just popped off.”
   “Fine,” Graham said. “We’ll file it. Under medical examiner’s fantasies. Meanwhile, any of you guys got an ID on her?”
   The SID team, still searching the room, murmured no.
   Kelly said, “I think I got a time of death.” He checked his temperature probes and read off a chart. “I register a core of ninety-six point nine. In this ambient room temperature, that’s consistent with up to three hours postmortem.”
   “Up to three hours? That’s great. Listen Kelly, we already knew she died sometime tonight.”
   “It’s the best I can do.” Kelly shook his head. “Unfortunately, the cooling curves don’t discriminate well for under three hours. All I can say is death occurred sometime within three hours. But my impression is that this girl has been dead a while. Frankly, I would say it’s close to three hours.” Graham turned to the SID team. “Anybody find the panties yet?”
   “Not so far, Lieutenant.”
   Graham looked around the room and said, “No purse, no panties.”
   I said, “You think somebody cleaned up here?”
   “I don’t know,” he said. “But doesn’t a girl who’s coming to a party in a thirty-thousand-dollar dress usually carry a purse?” Then Graham looked past my shoulder and smiled: “Well, what do you know, Petey-san? One of your admirers to see you.”

   Striding toward me was Ellen Farley, the mayor’s press secretary. Farley was thirty-five, dark blond hair cropped close to her head, perfectly groomed as always. She had been a newscaster when she was younger, but had worked for the mayor’s office for many years. Ellen Farley was smart, fast on her feet, and she had one of the great bodies, which as far as anyone knew she retained for her own exclusive use.
   I liked her enough to have done a couple of favors for her when I was in the L.A.P.D. press office. Since the mayor and the chief of police hated each other, requests from the mayor’s office sometimes passed from Ellen to me, and I handled them. Mostly small things: delaying the release of a report until the weekend, so it’d run on Saturday. Or announcing that charges in a case hadn’t been brought yet, even though they had. I did it because Farley was a straight shooter, who always spoke her mind. And it looked like she was going to speak her mind now.
   “Listen, Pete,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but the mayor’s been hearing some pretty strong complaints from a Mr. Ishiguro—“
   “I can imagine—“
   “And the mayor asked me to remind you that there is no excuse for officials of this city to be rude to foreign nationals.”
   Graham said loudly, “Especially when they make such large campaign contributions.”
   “Foreign nationals can’t contribute to American political campaigns,” Farley said. “You know that.” She lowered her voice. “This is a sensitive case, Pete. I want you to be careful. You know the Japanese have a special concern about how they are treated in America.”
   “Okay, fine.”
   She looked through the glass walls of the conference room, toward the atrium. “Is that John Connor?”
   “Yes.”
   “I thought he was retired. What’s he doing here?”
   “Helping me on the case.”
   Farley frowned. “You know the Japanese have mixed feelings about him. They have a term for it. For somebody who is a Japan lover and goes to the other extreme, and turns into a basher.”
   “Connor isn’t a basher.”
   “Ishiguro felt roughly treated.”
   “Ishiguro was telling us what to do,” I said. “And we have a murdered girl here, which everybody seems to be forgetting—“
   “Come on, Pete,” she said, “nobody’s trying to tell you how to do your job. All I’m saying is you have to take into account the special—“
   She stopped.
   She was looking at the body.
   “Ellen?” I said. “Do you know her?”
   “No.” She turned away.
   “You sure?”
   I could see she was rattled.
   Graham said, “You saw her downstairs earlier?”
   “I don’t—maybe. I think so. Listen, fellas, I’ve got to get back.”
   “Ellen. Come on.”
   “I don’t know who she is, Pete. You know I’d tell you if I did. Just keep it cordial with the Japanese. That’s all the mayor wanted me to say. I’ve got to go now.”
   She hurried back toward the elevators. I watched her leave, feeling uneasy.
   Graham came over and stood beside me. “She’s got a great ass,” he said. “But she ain’t leveling, buddy, even with you.”
   I said, “What do you mean, even with me?”
   “Everybody knows you and Farley were an item.”
   “What are you talking about?”
   Graham punched me on the shoulder. “Come on. You’re divorced now. Nobody gives a shit.”
   I said, “It’s not true, Tom.”
   “You can do what you want. Handsome guy like you.”
   “I’m telling you, it’s not true.”
   “Okay, fine.” He held up his hands. “My mistake.”
   I watched Farley at the other end of the atrium, ducking under the tape. She pressed the elevator button, and waited for it to come, tapping her foot impatiently.
   I said, “You really think she knows who the girl is?”
   “Damn right she does,” Graham said. “You know why the mayor likes her. She stands by his side and whispers everybody’s name to him. People she hasn’t seen for years. Husbands, wives, children, everyone. Farley knows who this girl is.”
   “Then why didn’t she tell us?”
   “Fuck,” Graham said. “Must be important to somebody. She took off like a shot, didn’t she? I tell you, we better figure out who this dead girl is. Because I fucking hate being the last one in town to know.”
   Connor was across the room, waving to us.
   “What does he want now?” Graham said. “Waving like that. What’s he got in his hand?”
   “Looks like a purse,” I said.

   “Cheryl Lynn Austin,” Connor said, reading. “Born Midland, Texas, graduate of Texas State. Twenty-three years old. Got an apartment in Westwood, but hasn’t been here long enough to change her Texas driver’s license.”
   The contents of the purse were spread out on a desk. We pushed them around with pencils.
   “Where’d you find this purse?” I asked. It was a small, dark, beaded clutch with a pearl clasp. A vintage forties purse. Expensive.
   “It was in the potted palm near the conference room.” Connor unzipped a tiny compartment. A tight roll of crisp hundred-dollar bills tumbled onto the table. “Very nice. Miss Austin is well taken care of.”
   I said, “No car keys?”
   “No.”
   “So she came with somebody.”
   “And evidently intended to leave with somebody, too. Taxis can’t break a hundred-dollar bill.”
   There was also a gold American Express Card. Lipstick and a compact. A pack of Mild Seven Menthol cigarettes, a Japanese brand. A card for the Daimatsu Night Club in Tokyo. Four small blue pills. That was about it.
   Using his pencil, Connor upended the beaded purse. Small green flecks spilled out onto the table. “Know what that is?”
   “No,” I said. Graham looked at it with a magnifying glass.
   Connor said, “It’s wasabi–covered peanuts.”
   Wasabi is green horseradish served in Japanese restaurants. I had never heard of wasabi–covered peanuts.
   “I don’t know if they’re sold outside Japan.”
   Graham grunted. “I’ve seen enough. So what do you think now, John? Is Ishiguro going to get those witnesses you asked for?”
   “I wouldn’t expect them soon,” Connor said.
   “Fucking right,” Graham said. “We won’t see those witnesses until day after tomorrow, after their lawyers have briefed them on exactly what to say.” He stepped away from the table. “You realize why they’re delaying us. A Japanese killed this girl. That’s what we’re dealing with.”
   “It’s possible,” Connor said.
   “Hey, buddy. More than possible. We’re here. This is their building. And that girl is just the type they go for. The American beauty long-stemmed rose. You know all those little guys want to fuck a volleyball player.”
   Connor shrugged. “Possibly.”
   “Come on,” Graham said. “You know those guys eat shit all day long at home. Crammed into subways, working in big companies. Can’t say what they think. Then they come over here, away from the constraints of home, and suddenly they’re rich and free. They can do whatever they want. And sometimes one of them goes a little crazy. Tell me I’m wrong.”
   Connor looked at Graham for a long time. Finally he said, “So as you see it, Tom, a Japanese killer decided to dispatch this girl on the Nakamoto boardroom conference table?”
   “Right.”
   “As a symbolic act?”
   Graham shrugged. “Christ, who knows? We’re not talking normality here. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’m going to get the fucker who did this, if it’s the last goddamned thing I do.”

4

   The elevator descended rapidly. Connor leaned against the glass. “There are many reasons to dislike the Japanese,” he said, “but Graham knows none of them.” He sighed. “You know what they say about us?”
   “What?”
   “They say Americans are too eager to make theories. They say we don’t spend enough time observing the world, and so we don’t know how things actually are.”
   “Is that a Zen idea?”
   “No,” he laughed. “Just an observation. Ask a computer salesman what he thinks of his American counterparts, and he’ll tell you that. Everyone in Japan who deals with Americans thinks it. And when you look at Graham, you realize they’re right. Graham has no real knowledge, no first-hand experience. He just has a collection of prejudices and media fantasies. He doesn’t know anything about the Japanese—and it never occurs to him to find out.”
   I said, “Then you think he’s wrong? The girl wasn’t killed by a Japanese?”
   “I didn’t say that, kōhai,” Connor replied. “It’s very possible Graham is right. But at the moment—“
   The doors opened and we saw the party, heard the band playing “Moonlight Serenade.” Two party-going couples stepped into the elevator. They looked like real estate people: the men silver-haired and distinguished looking, the women pretty and slightly tacky. One woman said, “She’s smaller than I thought.”
   “Yes, tiny. And that… was that her boyfriend?”
   “I guess. Wasn’t he the one in the video with her?”
   “I think that was him.”
   One of the men said, “You think she had her boobs done?”
   “Hasn’t everybody?”
   The other woman giggled. “Except me, of course.”
   “Right, Christine.”
   “But I’m thinking about it. Did you see Emily?”
   “Oh, she did hers so big.”
   “Well, Jane started it, blame her. Now everyone wants them big.”
   The men turned and looked out the window. “Hell of a building,” one said. “Detailing is fantastic. Must have cost a fortune. You doing much with the Japanese now, Ron?”
   “About twenty percent,” the other man said. “That’s way down from last year. It’s made me work on my golf game, because they always want to play golf.”
   “Twenty percent of your business?”
   “Yeah. They’re buying up Orange County now.”
   “Of course. They already own Los Angeles,” one of the women said, laughing.
   “Well, just about. They have the Arco building over there,” the man said, pointing out the window. “I guess by now they have seventy, seventy-five percent of downtown Los Angeles.”
   “And more in Hawaii.”
   “Hell, they own Hawaii—ninety percent of Honolulu, a hundred percent of the Kona coast. Putting up golf courses like mad.”
   One woman said, “Will this party be on ET tomorrow? They had enough cameras here.”
   “Let’s remember to watch.”
   The elevator said, “Mōsugu de gozaimasu.”
   We came to the garage floor, and the people got off. Connor watched them go, and shook his head. “In no other country in the world,” he said, “would you hear people calmly discussing the fact that their cities and states were sold to foreigners.”
   “Discussing?” I said. “They’re the ones doing the selling.”
   “Yes. Americans are eager to sell. It amazes the Japanese. They think we’re committing economic suicide. And of course they’re right.” As he spoke, Connor pressed a button on the elevator panel marked EMERGENCY ONLY.
   A soft pinging alarm sounded.
   “What’d you do that for?”
   Connor looked at a video camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling and waved cheerfully. A voice on the intercom said, “Good evening, officers. Can I help you?”
   “Yes,” Connor said. “Am I speaking to building security?”
   “That’s right, sir. Is something wrong with your elevator?”
   “Where are you located?”
   “We’re on the lobby level, southeast corner, behind the elevators.”
   “Thank you very much,” Connor said. He pushed the button for the lobby.

5

   The security office of the Nakamoto Tower was a small room, perhaps five meters by seven. It was dominated by three large, flat video panels, each divided into a dozen smaller monitor views. At the moment, most of these were black rectangles. But one row showed images from the lobby and the garage; another row showed the party in progress. And a third row showed the police teams up on the forty-sixth floor.
   Jerome Phillips was the guard on duty. He was a black man in his midforties. His gray Nakamoto Security uniform was soaked around the collar, and dark under the armpits. He asked us to leave the door open as we entered. He appeared noticeably uneasy to have us there. I sensed he was hiding something, but Connor approached him in a friendly way. We showed our badges and shook hands. Connor managed to convey the idea that we were all security professionals, having a little chat together. “Must be a busy night for you, Mr. Phillips.”
   “Yeah, sure. The party and everything.”
   “And crowded, in this little room.”
   He wiped sweat from his forehead. “Boy, you got that right. All of them packed in here. Jesus.”
   I said, “All of who?”
   Connor looked at me and said, “After the Japanese left the forty-sixth floor, they came down here and watched us on the monitors. Isn’t that right, Mr. Phillips?”
   Phillips nodded. “Not all of ‘em, but quite a few. Down here, smoking their damn cigarettes, staring and puffing and passing around faxes.”
   “Faxes?”
   “Oh, yeah, every few minutes, somebody’d bring in another fax. You know, in Japanese writing. They’d all pass it around, make comments. Then one of ‘em would leave to send a fax back. And the rest would stay to watch you guys up on the floor.”
   Connor said, “And listen, too?”
   Phillips shook his head. “No. We don’t have audio feeds.”
   “I’m surprised,” Connor said. “This equipment seems so up-to-date.”
   “Up-to-date? Hell, it’s the most advanced in the world. These people, I tell you one thing. These people do it right. They have the best fire alarm and fire prevention system. The best earthquake system. And of course the best electronic security system: best cameras, detectors, everything.”
   “I can see that,” Connor said. “That’s why I was surprised they don’t have audio.”
   “No. No audio. They do high-resolution video only. Don’t ask me why. Something to do with the cameras and how they’re hooked up, is all I know.”
   On the flat panels I saw five different views of the forty-sixth floor, as seen from different cameras. Apparently the Japanese had installed cameras all over the floor. I remembered how Connor had walked around the atrium, staring up at the ceiling. He must have spotted the cameras then.
   Now I watched Graham in the conference room, directing the teams. He was smoking a cigarette, which was completely against regulations at a crime scene. I saw Helen stretch and yawn. Meanwhile, Kelly was getting ready to move the girl’s body off the table onto a gurney, before zipping it into the bag, and he was—
   Then it hit me.
   They had cameras up there.
   Five different cameras.
   Covering every part of the floor.
   I said, “Oh my God” and I spun around, very excited. I was about to say something when Connor smiled at me in an easy way, and placed his hand on my shoulder. He squeezed my shoulder—hard.
   “Lieutenant,” he said.
   The pain was incredible. I tried not to wince. “Yes, Captain?”
   “I wonder if you’d mind if I asked Mr. Phillips one or two questions.”
   “No, Captain. Go right ahead.”
   “Perhaps you’d take notes.”
   “Good idea, Captain.”
   He released my shoulder. I got out my notepad.
   Connor sat on the edge of the table and said, “Have you been with Nakamoto Security long, Mr. Phillips?”
   “Yes, sir. About six years now. I started over in their La Habra plant, and when I hurt my leg—in a car accident—and couldn’t walk so good, they moved me to security. In the plant. Because I wouldn’t have to walk around, you see. Then when they opened the Torrance plant, they moved me over there. My wife got a job in the Torrance plant, too. They do Toyota subassemblies. Then, when this building opened, they brought me here, to work nights.”
   “I see. Six years altogether.”
   “Yes, sir.”
   “You must like it.”
   “Well, I tell you, it’s a secure job. That’s something in America. I know they don’t think much of black folks, but they always treated me okay. And hell, before this I worked for GM in Van Nuys, and that’s… you know, that’s gone.”
   “Yes,” Connor said sympathetically.
   “That place,” Phillips said, shaking his head at the memory. “Christ. The management assholes they used to send down to the floor. You couldn’t believe it. M.B. fucking A., out of Detroit, little weenies didn’t know shit. They didn’t know how the line worked. They didn’t know a tool from a die. But they’d still order the foremen around. They’re all pulling in two hundred fucking thousand a year and they didn’t know shit. And nothing ever worked right. The cars were all a piece of shit. But here,” he said, tapping the counter. “Here, I got a problem, or something doesn’t work, I tell somebody. And they come right down, and they know the system—how it works—and we go over the problem together, and it gets fixed. Right away. Problems get fixed here. That’s the difference. I tell you: these people pay attention.”
   “So you like it here.”
   “They always treated me okay,” Phillips said, nodding.
   That didn’t exactly strike me as a glowing endorsement. I had the feeling this guy wasn’t committed to his employers and a few questions could drive the wedge. All we had to do was encourage the break.
   “Loyalty is important,” Connor said, nodding sympathetically.
   “It is to them,” he said. “They expect you to show all this enthusiasm for the company. So you know, I always come in fifteen or twenty minutes early, and stay fifteen or twenty minutes after the shift is over. They like you to put in the extra time. I did the same at Van Nuys, but nobody ever noticed.”
   “And when is your shift?”
   “I work nine to seven.”
   “And tonight? What time did you come on duty?”
   “Quarter to nine. Like I said, I come in fifteen minutes early.”
   The original call had been recorded about eight-thirty. So if this man came at a quarter to nine, he would have arrived almost fifteen minutes too late to see the murder. “Who was on duty before you?”
   “Well, usually it’s Ted Cole. But I don’t know if he worked tonight.”
   “Why is that?”
   The guard wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and looked away.
   “Why is that, Mr. Phillips?” I said, with a little more force.
   The guard blinked and frowned, saying nothing.
   Connor said quietly, “Because Ted Cole wasn’t here when Mr. Phillips arrived tonight, was he, Mr. Phillips?”
   The guard shook his head. “No, he wasn’t,”
   I started to ask another question, but Connor raised his hand. “I imagine, Mr. Phillips, you must have been pretty surprised when you came in this room, at a quarter to nine.”
   “You damn right I was,” Phillips said.
   “What did you do when you saw the situation?”
   “Well. Right away, I said to the guy, ‘Can I help you?’ Very polite but still firm. I mean, this is the security room. And I don’t know who this guy is, I’ve never seen him before. And the guy is tense. Very tense. He says to me, ‘Get out of my way.’ Real pushy, like he owns the world. And he shoves past me, taking his briefcase with him.
   “I say, ‘Excuse me, sir, I’ll have to see some identification.’ He don’t answer me, he just keeps going. Out the lobby and down the stairs.”
   “You didn’t try and stop him?”
   “No, sir. I didn’t.”
   “Because he was Japanese?”
   “You got that right. But I called up to central security—it’s up on the ninth floor—to say I found a man in the room. And they say, ‘Don’t worry, everything is fine.’ But I can hear they’re tense, too. Everybody is tense. And then I see on the monitor… the dead girl. So that’s the first I knew what it was about.”
   Connor said, “The man you saw. Can you describe him?”
   The guard shrugged. “Thirty, thirty-five. Medium height. Dark blue suit like they all wear. Actually he was more hip than most of them. He had this tie with triangles on it. Oh—and a scar on his hand, like a burn or something.”
   “Which hand?”
   “The left hand. I noticed it when he was closing the briefcase.”
   “Could you see inside the briefcase?”
   “No.”
   “But he was closing it when you came in the room?”
   “Yes.”
   “Was it your impression he took something from this room?”
   “I really couldn’t say, sir.”
   Phillips’s evasiveness began to annoy me. I said, “What do you think he took?”
   Connor shot me a look.
   The guard went bland: “I really don’t know, sir.”
   Connor said, “Of course you don’t. There’s no way you could know what was in somebody else’s briefcase. By the way, do you make recordings from the security cameras here?”
   “Yes, we do.”
   “Could you show me how you do that?”
   “Sure thing.” The guard got up from the desk and opened a door at the far end of the room. We followed him into a second small room, almost a closet, stacked floor to ceiling with small metal boxes, each with stenciled notations in Japanese kanji script, and numbers in English. Each with a glowing red light, and an LED counter, with numbers running forward.
   Phillips said, “These are our recorders. They lay down signals from all the cameras in the building. They’re eight-millimeter, high-definition video.” He held up a small cassette, like an audio cassette. “Each one of these records eight hours. We change over at nine p.m., so that’s the first thing I do when I come on duty. I pop out the old ones, and switch over to the fresh ones.”
   “And did you change cassettes tonight, at nine o’clock?”
   “Yes, sir. Just like always.”
   “And what do you do with the tapes you remove?”
   “Keep ‘em in the trays down here,” he said, bending to show us several long, thin drawers. “We keep everything off the cameras for seventy-two hours. That’s three days. So we keep nine sets of tapes all together. And we just rotate each set through, once every three days. Get me?”
   Connor hesitated. “Perhaps I’d better write this down.” He produced a small pad and a pen. “Now, each tape lasts eight hours, so you have nine different sets… .”
   “Right, right.”
   Connor wrote for a moment, then shook his pen irritably. “This damn pen. It’s out of ink. You have a wastebasket?”
   Phillips pointed to the corner. “Over there.”
   “Thank you.”
   Connor threw the pen away. I gave him mine. He resumed his notes. “You were saying, Mr. Phillips, that you have nine sets…”
   “Right. Each set is numbered with letters, from A to I. Now when I come in at nine, I eject the tapes and see whatever letter is already in there, and put in the next one. Like tonight, I took out set C, so I put in set D, which is what’s recording now.”
   “I see,” Connor said. “And then you put tape set C in one of the drawers here?”
   “Right.” He pulled open a drawer. “This one here.”
   Connor said. “May I?” He glanced at the neatly labeled row of tapes. Then he quickly opened the other drawers, and looked at the other stacks of tapes. Except for the different letters, all the drawers looked identical.
   “I think I understand now,” Connor said. “What you actually do is use nine sets in rotation.”
   “Exactly.”
   “So each set gets used once every three days.”
   “Right.”
   “And how long has the security office been using this system?”
   “The building’s new, but we’ve been going, oh, maybe two months now.”
   “I must say it’s a very well-organized system,” Connor said appreciatively. “Thank you for explaining it to us. I have only a couple of other questions.”
   “Sure.”
   “First of all, these counters here—“ Connor said, pointing to the LED counters on the video recorders. “They seem to show the elapsed times since the tapes began recording. Is that right? Because it’s now almost eleven o’clock, and you put in the tapes at nine, and the top recorder says 1:55:30 and the next recorder says 1:55:10, and so on.”
   “Yes, that’s right. I put the tapes in one right after another. It takes a few seconds between tapes.”
   “I see. These all show almost two hours. But I notice that one recorder down here shows an elapsed time of only thirty minutes. Does that mean it’s broken?”
   “Huh,” Phillips said, frowning. “I guess maybe it is. ‘Cause I changed the tapes all one after another, like I said. But these recorders are the latest technology. Sometimes there are glitches. Or we had some power problems. Could be that.”
   “Yes. Quite possibly,” Connor said. “Can you tell me which camera is hooked to this recorder?”
   “Yes, of course.” Phillips read the number off the recorder, and went out to the main room with the monitor screens. “It’s camera four-six slash six,” he said. “This view here.” He tapped the screen.
   It was an atrium camera, and it showed an overall view of the forty-sixth floor.
   “But you see,” Phillips said, “the beauty of the system is, even if one recorder screws up, there are still other cameras on that floor, and the video recorders on the others seem to be working okay.”
   “Yes, they do,” Connor said. “By the way, can you tell me why there are so many cameras on the forty-sixth floor?”
   “You didn’t hear it from me,” Phillips said. “But you know how they like efficiency. The word is, they are going to kaizen the office workers.”
   “So basically these cameras have been installed to observe workers during the day, and help them improve their efficiency?”
   “That’s what I heard.”
   “Well, I think that’s it,” Connor said. “Oh, one more question. Do you have an address for Ted Cole?”
   Phillips shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
   “Have you ever been out with him, socialized with him?”
   “I have, but not much. He’s an odd guy.”
   “Ever been to his apartment?”
   “No. He’s kind of secretive. I think he lives with his mother or something. We usually go to this bar, the Palomino, over by the airport. He likes it there.”
   Connor nodded. “And one last question: where is the nearest pay phone?”
   “Out in the lobby, and around to your right, by the restrooms. But you’re welcome to use the phone here.”
   Connor shook the guard’s hand warmly. “Mr. Phillips, I appreciate your taking the time to talk to us.”
   “No problem.”
   I gave the guard my card. “If you think of anything later that could help us, Mr. Phillips, don’t hesitate to call me.” And I left.

6

   Connor stood at the pay phone in the lobby. It was one of those new standing booths that has two receivers, one on either side, allowing two people to talk on the same line at once. These booths had been installed in Tokyo years ago, and now were starting to show up all over Los Angeles. Of course, Pacific Bell no longer was the principal provider of American public pay phones. Japanese manufacturers had penetrated that market, too. I watched Connor write down the phone number in his notebook.
   “What are you doing?”
   “We have two separate questions to answer tonight. One is how the girl came to be killed on an office floor. But we also need to find out who placed the original call, notifying us of the murder.”
   “And you think the call might have been placed from this phone?”
   “Possibly.”
   He closed his notebook, and glanced at his watch. “It’s late. We better get going.”
   “I think we’re making a big mistake here.”
   “Why is that?” Connor asked.
   “I don’t know if we should leave the tapes in that security room. What if somebody switches them while we’re gone?”
   “They’ve already been switched,” Connor said.
   “How do you know?”
   “I gave up a perfectly good pen to find out,” he said. “Now come on.” He started walking toward the stairs leading down to the garage. I followed him.
   “You see,” Connor said, “when Phillips first explained that simple system of rotation, it was immediately clear to me that there might have been a switch. The question was how to prove it.”
   His voice echoed in the concrete stairwell. Connor continued down, taking the steps two at a time. I hurried to keep up.
   Connor said, “If somebody switched the tapes, how would they go about it? They would be working hastily, under pressure. They’d be terrified of making a mistake. They certainly wouldn’t want to leave any incriminating tapes behind. So probably they’d switch an entire set, and replace it. But replace it with what? They can’t just put in the next set. Since there are only nine sets of tapes all together, it would be too easy for someone to notice that one set was missing, and the total was now eight. There would be an obvious empty drawer. No, they would have to replace the set they were taking away with an entirely new set. Twenty brand-new tapes. And that meant I ought to check the trash.”
   “That’s why you threw your pen away?”
   “Yes. I didn’t want Phillips to know what I was doing.”
   “And?”
   “The trash was full of crumpled plastic wrappers. The kind that new videotapes come wrapped in.”
   “I see.”
   “Once I knew the tapes had been replaced, the only remaining question was, which set? So I played dumb, and looked in all the drawers. You probably noticed that set C, the set Phillips removed when he came on duty, had slightly whiter labels than the other sets. It was subtle, because the office has only been active two months, but you could tell.”
   “I see.” Somebody had come into the security room, taken out twenty fresh tapes, unwrapped them, written new labels, and popped them into the video machines, replacing the original tapes that had recorded the murder.
   I said, “If you ask me, Phillips knows more about this than he was telling us.”
   “Maybe,” Connor said, “but we have more important things to do. Anyway, there’s a limit to what he knows. The murder was phoned in about eight-thirty. Phillips arrived at quarter to nine. So he never saw the murder. We can assume the previous guard, Cole, did. But by a quarter of nine, Cole was gone, and an unknown Japanese man was in the security room, closing up a briefcase.”
   “You think he’s the one who switched the tapes?”
   Connor nodded. “Very possibly. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this man was the killer himself. I hope to find that out at Miss Austin’s apartment.” He threw open the door, and we went into the garage.

7

   A line of party guests waited for valets to bring their cars. I saw Ishiguro chatting up Mayor Thomas and his wife. Connor steered me toward them. Standing alongside the mayor, Ishiguro was so cordial he was almost obsequious. He gave us a big smile. “Ah, gentlemen. Is your investigation proceeding satisfactorily? Is there anything more I can do to help?”
   I didn’t get really angry until that moment: until I saw the way he toadied up in front of the mayor. It made me so mad I began to turn red. But Connor took it in stride.
   “Thank you, Ishiguro-san,” he said, with a slight bow. “The investigation is going well.”
   “You’re receiving all the help you requested?” Ishiguro said.
   “Oh, yes,” Connor said. “Everyone has been very cooperative.”
   “Good, good. I’m glad.” Ishiguro glanced at the mayor, and smiled at him, too. He was all smiles, it seemed.
   “But,” Connor said, “there is just one thing.”
   “Just name it. If there is anything we can do…”
   “The security tapes seem to have been removed.”
   “Security tapes?” Ishiguro frowned, clearly caught off guard.
   “Yes,” Connor said. “Recordings from the security cameras.”
   “I don’t know anything about that,” Ishiguro said. “But let me assure you, if any tapes exist, they are yours to examine.”
   “Thank you,” Connor said. “Unfortunately, it seems the crucial tapes have been removed from the Nakamoto security office.”
   “Removed? Gentlemen, I believe there must be some mistake.”
   The mayor was watching this exchange closely.
   Connor said, “Perhaps, but I don’t think so. It would be reassuring, Mr. Ishiguro, if you were to look into this matter yourself.”
   “I certainly will,” Ishiguro said. “But I must say again. I can’t imagine, Captain Connor, that any tapes are missing.”
   “Thank you for checking, Mr. Ishiguro,” Connor said.
   “Not at all, Captain,” he said, still smiling. “It is my pleasure to assist you in whatever way I can.”

   “The son of a bitch,” I said. We were driving west on the Santa Monica freeway. “The little prick looked us right in the eye and lied.”
   “It’s annoying,” Connor said. “But you see, Ishiguro takes a different view. Now that he is beside the mayor, he sees himself in another context, with another set of obligations and requirements for his behavior. Since he is sensitive to context, he’s able to act differently, with no reference to his earlier behavior. To us, he seems like a different person. But Ishiguro feels he’s just being appropriate.”
   “What burns me is he acted so confident.”
   “Of course he did,” Connor said. “And he would be quite surprised to learn that you’re angry with him. You consider him immoral. He considers you naive. Because for a Japanese, consistent behavior is not possible. A Japanese becomes a different person around people of different rank. He becomes a different person when he moves through different rooms of his own house.”
   “Yeah,” I said. “That’s fine, but the fact is he’s a lying son of a bitch.”
   Connor looked at me. “Would you talk that way to your mother?”
   “Of course not.”
   “So you change according to context, too,” Connor said. “The fact is we all do. It’s just that Americans believe there is some core of individuality that doesn’t change from one moment to the next. And the Japanese believe context rules everything.”
   “It sounds to me,” I said, “like an excuse for lying.”
   “He doesn’t see it as lying.”
   “But that’s what it is.”
   Connor shrugged. “Only from your point of view, kōhai. Not from his.”
   “The hell.”
   “Look, it’s your choice. You can understand the Japanese and deal with them as they are, or you can get pissed off. But our problem in this country is that we don’t deal with the Japanese the way they really are.” The car hit a deep pothole, bouncing so hard that the car phone fell off the receiver. Connor picked it up off the floor, and put it back on the hook.
   Up ahead, I saw the exit for Bundy. I moved into the right lane. “One thing I’m not clear about,” I said. “Why do you think the man with the briefcase in the security room might be the killer?”
   “It’s because of the time sequence. You see, the murder was reported at eight thirty-two. Less than fifteen minutes later, at eight forty-five, a Japanese man was down there switching the tapes, arranging a cover-up. That’s a very fast response. Much too fast for a Japanese company.”
   “Why is that?”
   “Japanese organizations are actually very slow to respond in a crisis. Their decision-making relies on precedents, and when a situation is unprecedented, people are uncertain how to behave. You remember the faxes? I am sure faxes have been flying back and forth to Nakamoto’s Tokyo headquarters all night. Undoubtedly the company is still trying to decide what to do. A Japanese organization simply cannot move fast in a new situation.”
   “But an individual acting alone can?”
   “Yes. Exactly.”
   I said, “And that’s why you think the man with the briefcase may be the killer.”
   Connor nodded. “Yes. Either the killer, or someone closely connected with the killer. But we should learn more at Miss Austin’s apartment. I believe I see it up ahead, on the right.