Rising Sun: A Novel (43 page)

The interview continued, but nobody asked him about MicroCon. So he steered it: in reply to a question, he said, “Americans should be able to criticize Japan without being called racists or bashers. Every country has conflicts with other countries. It’s inevitable. Our conflicts with Japan should be freely discussed, without these ugly epithets. My opposition to the MicroCon sale has been termed racist, but it is nothing of the sort.”

Finally, one reporter asked him about the MicroCon sale. Morton hesitated, then he leaned forward across the table.

“As you know, George, I have opposed the MicroCon sale from the beginning. I still oppose it. It is time for Americans to take steps to preserve the assets of this nation. Its real assets, its financial assets, and its intellectual assets. The MicroCon sale is unwise. My opposition continues. Therefore, I am pleased to say that I have just learned Akai Ceramics has withdrawn its bid to purchase the MicroCon Corporation. I think this is the best solution all around. I applaud Akai for its sensitivity on this matter. The sale will not go forward. I am very pleased.”

I said, “What? The bid was withdrawn?”

Connor said, “I guess it is now.”

Morton was cheerful as the interview drew to a close. “Since I’ve been characterized as so critical of Japan, perhaps
you’ll let me express my admiration for a moment. The Japanese have a wonderful lighthearted side, and it shows up in the most unlikely places.

“You probably know that their Zen monks are expected to write a poem close to the moment of death. It’s a very traditional art form, and the most famous poems are still quoted hundreds of years later. So you can imagine, there’s a lot of pressure on a Zen
roshi
when he knows he’s nearing death and everyone expects him to come up with a great poem. For months, it’s all he can think about. But my favorite poem was written by one particular monk who got tired of all the pressure. It goes like this.”

And then he quoted this poem.

All the reporters started laughing. “So let’s not take all this Japan business too seriously,” Morton said. “That’s another thing we can learn from the Japanese.”

At the end of the interview, Morton shook hands with the three reporters and stepped away from the set. I saw that Ishiguro had arrived in the studio, very red-faced. He was sucking air through his teeth in the Japanese manner.

Morton said cheerfully, “Ah, Ishiguro-san. I see you have heard the news.” And he slapped him on the back. Hard.

Ishiguro glowered. “I am extremely disappointed, Senator. It will not go well from this point.” He was clearly furious.

“Hey,” Morton said. “You know what? Tough shit.”

“We had an
arrangement
,” Ishiguro hissed.

“Yes, we did,” Morton said. “But you didn’t keep your end of it, did you?”

The senator came over to us and said, “I suppose you want me to make a statement. Let me get this makeup off, and we can go.”

“All right,” Connor said.

Morton walked away, toward the makeup room.

Ishiguro turned to Connor and said,
“Totemo taihenna koto ni narimashita ne.”

Connor said, “I agree. It is difficult.”

Ishiguro hissed through his teeth. “Heads will roll.”

“Yours first,” Connor said. “
Sō omowa nakai.
”

The senator was walking toward the stairway going up to the second floor. Woodson came over to him, leaned close, and whispered something. The senator threw his arm around his shoulder. They walked arm in arm a moment. Then the senator went upstairs.

Ishiguro said bleakly,
“Konna hazuja nakatta no ni.”

Connor shrugged. “I am afraid I have little sympathy. You attempted to break the laws of this country and now there is going to be big trouble.
Eraikoto ni naruyo, Ishiguro-san.”

“We will see, Captain.”

Ishiguro turned and gave Eddie a frosty look. Eddie shrugged and said, “Hey, I got no problems! Know what I mean, compadre? You got all problems now.” And he laughed.

The floor manager, a heavyset guy wearing a headset, came over. “Is one of you Lieutenant Smith?”

I said I was.

“A Miss Asakuma is calling you. You can take it over there.” He pointed to a living-room set. Couch and easy chairs, against a morning city skyline. I saw a blinking telephone by one chair.

I walked over and sat in the chair and picked up the phone. “Lieutenant Smith.”

“Hi, it’s Theresa,” she said. I liked the way she used her first name. “Listen, I’ve been looking at the last part of the tape. The very end. And I think there may be a problem.”

“Oh? What kind of a problem?” I didn’t tell her Morton had already confessed. I looked across the stage. The senator had already gone upstairs; he was out of sight. Woodson, his aide, was pacing back and forth at the foot of the
stairs, a pale, stricken look on his face. Nervously, he fingered his belt, feeling it through his suit coat.

Then I heard Connor say, “Ah,
shit!
” and he broke into a run, sprinting across the studio toward the stairs. I stood up, surprised, dropped the phone, and followed him. As Connor passed Woodson, he said “You
son of a bitch
,” and then he was taking the stairs two at a time, racing upward. I was right behind him. I heard Woodson say something like, “I
had
to.”

When we got to the second floor hallway Connor shouted “Senator!” That was when we heard the single, cracking report. It wasn’t loud: it sounded like a chair falling over.

But I knew that it was a gunshot.

The sun was setting on the
sekitei.
The shadows of the rocks rippled over the concentric circles of raked sand. I sat and stared at the patterns. Connor was somewhere inside, still watching television. I could faintly hear the newscast. Of course, a Zen temple would have a television set on the premises. I was starting to become accustomed to these contradictions.

But I didn’t want to watch TV any more. I had seen enough, in the last hour, to know how the media was going to play it. Senator Morton had been under a great deal of stress lately. His family life was troubled; his teenage son had recently been arrested for drunk driving, after an accident in which another teenager had been seriously injured. The senator’s daughter was rumored to have had an abortion. Mrs. Morton was not available for comment, although reporters were standing outside the family townhouse in Arlington.

The senator’s staff all agreed that the senator had been under enormous pressure lately, trying to balance family life and his own impending candidacy. The senator had not been himself; he had been moody and withdrawn, and in the words of one staffer, “He seemed to have been troubled by something personal.”

While no one questioned the senator’s judgment, one colleague, Senator Dowling, said that Morton had “become a bit of a fanatic about Japan lately, perhaps an indication of the strain he was under. John didn’t seem to think accommodation with Japan was possible anymore, and of course we all know that we have to make an accommodation. Our
two nations are now too closely bound together. Unfortunately, none of us could have known the strain he was really under. John Morton was a private man.”

I sat watching the rocks in the garden turn gold, then red. An American Zen monk named Bill Harris came out and asked me if I wanted tea, or perhaps a Coke. I said no. He went away. Looking back inside, I saw flickering blue light from the tube. I couldn’t see Connor.

I looked back at the rocks in the garden.

The first gunshot had not killed Senator Morton. When we kicked open the bathroom door, he was bleeding from the neck, staggering to his feet. Connor shouted “Don’t!” just as Morton put the gun in his mouth and fired again. The second shot was fatal. The gun kicked out of his hands and went spinning across the tile floor of the bathroom. It came to rest near my shoes. There was a lot of blood on the walls.

Then people started screaming. I had turned back and I saw the makeup girl in the doorway, holding her hands to her face and screaming at the top of her lungs. Eventually, when the paramedics came, they sedated her.

Connor and I had stayed until the division sent Bob Kaplan and Tony Marsh. They were the detectives in charge, and we were free to go. I told Bob we’d give statements whenever he wanted them, and we left. I noticed that Ishiguro had already gone. So had Eddie Sakamura.

That had bothered Connor. “That damn Eddie,” he said. “Where is he?”

“Who cares?” I said.

“There’s a problem with Eddie,” Connor said.

“What problem?”

“Didn’t you notice how he acted around Ishiguro? He was too confident,” Connor said. “
Much
too confident. He should have been frightened and he wasn’t.”

I shrugged. “You said it yourself, Eddie’s crazy. Who knows why he does what he does.” I was tired of the case, and tired of Connor’s endless Japanese nuances. I said I thought Eddie had probably gone back to Japan. Or to Mexico, where he had said earlier that he wanted to go.

“I hope you’re right,” Connor said.

He led me toward the rear entrance to the station. Connor said he wanted to leave before the press arrived. We got into our car and left. He directed me to the Zen center. We had been there ever since. I had called Lauren but she was out of the office. I called Theresa at the lab but her line was busy. I called home, and Elaine said that Michelle was fine, and the reporters had all gone. She asked if I wanted her to stay and give Michelle dinner. I said yes, that I might be home late.

And then for the next hour, I watched television. Until I didn’t want to watch any more.

It was almost dark. The sand was purple-gray. My body was stiff from sitting, and it was growing chilly. My beeper went off. I was getting a call from the division. Or perhaps it was Theresa. I got up and went inside.

On the television set, Senator Stephen Rowe was expressing sympathy for the bereaved family, and talking about the fact that Senator Morton had been overstressed. Senator Rowe pointed out that the Akai offer had not been withdrawn. The sale was, so far as Rowe knew, still going through, and there would not now be any serious opposition.

“Hmmm,” Connor said.

“The sale is back on?” I said.

“It seems it was never off.” Connor was obviously worried.

“You don’t approve of the sale?”

“I’m worried about Eddie. He was so cocky. It’s a question of what Ishiguro will do now.”

“Who cares?” I was tired. The girl was dead, Morton was dead, and the sale was going forward.

Connor shook his head. “Remember the stakes,” he said. “The stakes are huge. Ishiguro isn’t concerned about a sordid little murder, or even the strategic purchase of some high-tech company. Ishiguro is concerned about Nakamoto’s reputation in America. Nakamoto has a large corporate presence in America, and it wants it to be larger. Eddie can damage that reputation.”

“How?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, for sure.”

My beeper went off again. I called in. It was Frank Ellis, the watch officer at division headquarters for the evening.

“Hey, Pete,” he said. “We got a call for Special Services. Sergeant Matlovsky, down at vehicle impound. He’s asking for language assistance.”

“What is it?” I said.

“He says he’s got five Japanese nationals down there, demanding to inspect the wrecked vehicle.”

I frowned. “What wrecked vehicle?”

“That Ferrari. The one in the high-speed pursuit. Apparently it’s pretty ragged: the impact crushed it, and there was a fire. And the body was cut out with torches by the VHDV teams this morning. But the Japanese insist on inspecting the vehicle anyway. Matlovsky can’t tell from the paperwork whether it’s okay to let somebody look at it or not. You know, whether it’s material to an ongoing investigation or not. And he can’t speak the language to understand the Japanese. One of the Japanese claims to be related to the deceased. So, you want to go down there and handle it?”

I sighed. “Am I on tonight? I was on last night.”

“Well, you’re on the board. You traded nights with Allen, looks like.”

I dimly remembered. I had traded nights with Jim Allen so he could take his kid to a Kings hockey game. I had agreed to it a week ago, but it seemed like something from my distant past.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”

I went back to tell Connor I had to leave. He listened to the story and suddenly jumped to his feet, “Of course! Of
course!
What was I thinking of? Damn!” He pounded his hand in his fist. “Let’s go,
kōhai.
”

“We’re going to impound?”

“Impound? Absolutely not.”

“Then what are we doing?”

“Oh, damn it, I’m a fool!” he said. He was already heading for the car.

I hurried after him.

* * *

As I pulled up in front of Eddie Sakamura’s house, Connor leapt from the car, and raced up the steps. I parked and ran after him. The sky was deep blue. It was almost night.

Connor was taking the steps two at a time. “I blame myself,” he said. “I should have seen it earlier. I should have understood what it meant.”