Rising Sun: A Novel (21 page)

When the traffic began to slow up, I stuck my flasher on the roof, and pulled into the right-hand breakdown lane.

I got to the concrete embankment about thirty seconds after the Ferrari hit it flat out at a hundred and sixty kilometers an hour. I guess the gas tank had exploded on impact, and the flames were jumping fifteen meters into the air. The heat was tremendous. It looked like the trees up on the hill might catch on fire. You couldn’t get anywhere near the twisted wreck of the car.

The first of the fire trucks pulled up, with three more black and whites. There were sirens and flashing lights everywhere.

I backed up my car to make room for the trucks, then walked over to Graham. He smoked a cigarette as the firemen began to spray the wreck with foam.

“Christ,” Graham said. “What a fucking cockup.”

“Why didn’t the backup patrolmen stop him when he was in the garage?”

“Because,” Graham said, “I told them not to shoot at him. And we weren’t there. They were trying to decide what to do when the guy drove away.” He shook his head. “This is going to look like shit in the report.”

I said, “Still, it’s probably better you didn’t shoot him.”

“Maybe.” He ground out his cigarette.

By now, the firemen had gotten the fire out. The Ferrari was a smoking hulk crumpled against the concrete. There was a harsh smell in the air.

“Well,” Graham said. “No point staying around here. I’ll go back up to the house. See if those girls are still there.”

“You need me for anything else?”

“No. You might as well go. Tomorrow is another day. Shit, it’ll be paperwork until we drop.” He looked at me. He
hesitated. “We in sync about this? About what happened?”

“Hell, yes,” I said.

“No way to handle it differently,” he said. “Far as I can see.”

“No,” I said. “Just one of those things.”

“Okay, buddy. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Tom.”

We got into our cars.

I drove home.

Mrs. Ascenio was snoring loudly on the sofa. It was three forty-five in the morning. I tiptoed past her and looked in Michelle’s room. My daughter lay on her back, her covers tossed aside, her arms flung over her head. Her feet stuck through the bars of the crib. I tucked the covers around her and went into my own room.

The television was still on. I turned it off. I pulled off my the and sat down on the bed to remove my shoes. I suddenly realized how tired I was. I took off my coat and trousers and threw them onto the television set. I lay down on my back and thought I should take off my shirt. It felt sweaty and grimy on my body. I closed my eyes for a moment and let my head sink back into the pillow. Then I felt a pinching, and something tugging at my eyelids. I heard a chirping sound and thought in a moment of horror that birds were pecking at my eyes.

I heard a voice saying, “Open your eyes, Daddy. Open your eyes.” And I realized that it was my daughter, trying to pull my eyelids up with small fingers.

“Yuuuh,” I said. I glimpsed daylight, rolled away, and buried my face in the pillow.

“Daddy? Open your eyes. Open your eyes, Daddy.”

I said, “Daddy was out late last night. Daddy is tired.”

She paid no attention. “Daddy, open your eyes. Open your eyes. Daddy? Open your eyes, Daddy.”

I knew that she would continue saying the same thing, over and over, until I lost my mind, or opened my eyes. I rolled onto my back and coughed. “Daddy is still tired, Shelly. Go see what Mrs. Ascenio is doing.”

“Daddy, open your eyes.”

“Can’t you let Daddy sleep a while? Daddy wants to sleep a little longer this morning.”

“It’s morning now, Daddy. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”

I opened my eyes. She was right.

It was morning.

What the hell.

“Eat your pancakes.”

“I don’t want any more.”

“Just one more bite, Shelly.” Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window. I yawned. It was seven o’clock in the morning.

“Is Mommy coming today?”

“Don’t change the subject. Come on, Shel. One more bite. Please?”

We were sitting at her kid-size table in the corner of the kitchen. Sometimes I can get her to eat at the little table when she won’t eat at the big table. But I wasn’t having much luck today. Michelle stared at me.

“Is Mommy coming?”

“I think so. I’m not sure.” I didn’t want to disappoint her. “We’re waiting to hear.”

“Is Mommy going out of town again?”

I said, “Maybe.” I wondered what “going out of town” meant to a two-year-old, what sort of image she would have of it.

“Is she going with Uncle Rick?”

Who is Uncle Rick?
I held the fork in front of her face. “I don’t know, Shel. Come on, open up. One more bite.”

“He has a new car,” Michelle said, nodding solemnly, the way she did whenever she was informing me of important news.

“Is that right?”

“Uh-huh. Black one.”

“I see. What kind of car is it?”

“Sades.”

“A Sades?”

“No.
Sades.
”

“You mean Mercedes?”

“Uh-huh. Black one.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

“When is Mommy coming?”

“One more bite, Shel.”

She opened her mouth, and I moved the fork toward her. At the last moment she turned her head aside, pursing her lips. “No, Daddy.”

“All right,” I said. “I give up.”

“I’m not hungry, Daddy.”

“I can see that.”

Mrs. Ascenio was cleaning up the kitchen before she went back to her own apartment. There was another fifteen minutes before my housekeeper Elaine came to take Michelle to day care. I still had to get her dressed. I was putting her pancakes in the sink when the phone rang. It was Ellen Farley, the mayor’s press aide.

“Are you watching?”

“Watching what?”

“The news. Channel seven. They’re doing the car crash right now.”

“They are?”

“Call me back,” she said.

I went into the bedroom and turned on the television. A voice was saying, “—reported a high-speed chase on the Hollywood freeway southbound, which ended when the suspect drove his Ferrari sportscar into the Vine Street overpass, not far from the Hollywood Bowl. Observers say the car hit the concrete embankment at more than a hundred miles an hour, instantly bursting into flames. Fire trucks were called to the scene but there were no survivors. The driver’s body was so badly burned that his glasses melted. The officer in charge of the pursuit, Detective Thomas Graham, said that the driver, Mr. Edward Sakamura, was wanted in connection with the alleged murder of a woman at a downtown location. But today, friends of Mr. Sakamura expressed disbelief at this charge, and claimed
that police strong-arm tactics panicked the suspect and caused him to flee. There are complaints that the incident was racially motivated. It is not clear whether police intended to charge Mr. Sakamura with the murder, and observers noted that this was the third high-speed pursuit on the 101 freeway in the last two weeks. Questions of police judgment in these pursuits have arisen after a Compton woman was killed in a high-speed pursuit last January. Neither Detective Graham nor his assistant Lieutenant Peter Smith was available to be interviewed, and we are waiting to hear if the officers will be disciplined or suspended by the department.”

Jesus.

“Daddy …”

“Just a minute, Shel.”

The image showed the crumpled, smoking wreckage being loaded onto a flatbed truck for removal from the side of the highway. There was a black smear on the concrete where the car had struck the wall.

The station cut back to the studio, where the anchorwoman faced the camera and said, “In other developments, KNBC has learned that two police officers interviewed Mr. Sakamura earlier in the evening in connection with the case, but did not arrest him at that time. Captain John Connor and Lieutenant Smith may face disciplinary review by the department, with questions being raised of possible procedural violations. However, the good news is there are no longer delays for traffic moving southbound on the 101. Now over to you, Bob.”

I stared numbly at the TV.
Disciplinary review?

The phone rang. It was Ellen Farley again. “You get all that?”

“Yeah, I did. I can’t believe it. What’s it about, Ellen?”

“None of this is coming from the mayor’s office, if that’s what you’re asking. But the Japanese community has been unhappy with Graham before. They think he’s a racist. It looks like he played right into their hands.”

“I was there. Graham acted correctly.”

“Yeah, I know you were there, Pete. Frankly, it’s unfortunate.
I don’t want to see you tarred by the same brush.”

I said, “Graham acted correctly.”

“Are you listening, Pete?”

“What about this suspension and disciplinary review?”

“That’s the first I heard of it,” Ellen said. “But that would be internally generated. It’s coming from your own department. By the way, is it true? Did you and Connor see Sakamura last night?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t arrest him?”

“No. We didn’t have probable cause to arrest him when we talked to him. Later on, we did.”

Ellen said, “Do you really think he could have done this murder?”

“I know he did. We have it on tape.”

“On tape? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. We have the murder on videotape from one of the Nakamoto security cameras.”

She was silent for a while. I said, “Ellen?”

“Look,” Ellen said. “Off the record, okay?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t know what’s going on here, Pete. There’s more than I understand.”

“Why didn’t you tell me who the girl was, last night?”

“I’m sorry about that. I had a lot to take care of.”

“Ellen.”

A silence. Then: “Pete, this girl got around. She knew a lot of people.”

“Did she know the mayor?”

Silence.

“How well did she know him?”

“Listen,” Ellen said. “Let’s just say she was a pretty girl and she knew a lot of people in this town. Personally, I thought she was unbalanced, but she was good-looking and she had a hell of an effect on men. You had to see it to believe it. Now there’s a lot of irons in the fire. You saw the
Times
today?”

“No.”

“Take a look. If you ask me, you want to be very correct,
the next couple of days. Dot your
i
’s and cross your
t
’s. Do everything by the book. And watch your back, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Ellen.”

“Don’t thank me. I didn’t call.” Then her voice got softer. “Take care of yourself, Peter.”

I heard a dial tone.

“Daddy?”

“Just a minute, Shel.”

“Can I watch cartoons?”

“Sure, honey.”

I found her a station with some cartoons and walked into the living room. I opened the front door and picked up the
Times
from the mat. It took me a while to find the story on the last page of the Metro section.

CHARGES OF POLICE RACISM
CLOUD JAPANESE FETE

I skimmed the first paragraph. Japanese officials of the Nakamoto corporation complained about “callous and insensitive” police behavior, which they said detracted from a starstudded opening night at their new skyscraper on Figueroa. At least one Nakamoto official expressed the view that the police actions were “racially motivated.” A spokesperson said: “We do not believe the Los Angeles Police Department would behave in this fashion if a Japanese corporation were not involved. We feel strongly that the actions of the police reflect a double standard for treatment of Japanese at the hands of American officials.” Mr. Hiroshi Ogura, chairman of the board of Nakamoto, was present at the party, which drew such celebrities as Madonna and Tom Cruise, but he could not be reached for comment on the incident. A spokesman said, “Mr. Ogura is deeply disturbed that official hostility should mar this gathering. He very much regrets the unpleasantness that occurred.”

According to observers, Mayor Thomas sent a staff member to deal with the police, but with little result. The police did not modify their behavior, despite the presence of the
special Japanese liaison officer, Lieutenant Peter Smith, whose job is to defuse racially sensitive situations.…