Michael Crichton - Rising Sun

by Rising Sun [lit]

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Well, when you get down to it, it's just the opening of some new building. An ordinary corporate bash. It's on the West Coast. And Nakamoto is pretty controversial right at the moment. Barbra Streisand. I don't know who the guy is with her."

  "Nakamoto is controversial? Why?"

  "Because of the MicroCon sale."

  I said, "What's MicroCon?"

  "MicroCon is an American company that makes computer equipment. A Japanese company named Akai Ceramics is trying to buy it. There's opposition to the sale in Congress, because of worries about America losing technology to Japan."

  I said, "And what does this have to do with Nakamoto?"

  "Nakamoto's the parent company of Akai." The first tape finished, and popped out. "Nothing there you wanted?"

  "No. Let's go on."

  "Right." She slid the second tape in. "Anyway, I'm surprised how many of these senators and congressmen felt it was acceptable to show up here tonight. Okay, here we go. More driveups. Roger Hillerman, under secretary of state for Pacific affairs. That's his assistant with him. Kenichi Aikou, consul general of Japan, here in L.A. Richard Meier, architect. Works for Getty. Don't know her. Some Japanese . . ."

  Connor said, "Hisashi Koyama, vice-president of Honda U.S."

  "Oh, yeah," Jenny said. "He's been here about three years now. Probably going home soon. That's Edna Morris, she heads the U.S. delegation to the GATT talks. You know, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. I can't believe she showed up here, it's an obvious conflict of interest. But there she is, all smiling and relaxed. Chuck Norris. Eddie Sakamura. Sort of a local playboy. Don't know the girl with him. Tom Cruise, with his Australian wife. And Madonna, of course."

  On the accelerated tape, the strobes flashed almost continuously as Madonna stepped from her limousine and preened. "Want to slow it down? You interested in this?"

  Connor said, "Not tonight."

  "Well, we probably have a lot on her," Jenny said. She pushed the very high-speed fast-forward and the image streaked gray. When she punched back, Madonna was wiggling toward the elevator, leaning on the arm of a slender Hispanic boy with a mustache. The image blurred as the camera swung back toward the street. Then it stabilized again.

  "There's Daniel Okimoto. Expert on Japanese industrial policy. That's Arnold, with Maria. And behind them is Steve Martin, with Arata Isozaki, the architect who designed the Museum— "

  Connor said, "Wait."

  She punched the console button. The picture froze. Jenny seemed surprised. "You're interested in Isozaki?"

  "No. Back up, please."

  The tape ran backward, the frames flicking and blurring as the camera panned off Steve Martin, and went back to record the next arrival from the limousines. But for a moment in the pan, the camera swung past a group of people who had already gotten out of their limousines, and were walking up the carpeted sidewalk.

  Connor said, "There."

  The image froze. Slightly blurred, I saw a tall blonde in a black cocktail dress walking forward alongside a handsome man in a dark suit.

  "Huh," Jenny said. "You interested in him, or her?"

  "Her. "

  "Let me think," Jenny said, frowning. "I've seen her at parties with the Washington types for about nine months now. She's this year's Kelly Emberg. The athletic modelly kind. But sophisticated, sort of a Tatiana look-alike. Her name is . . . Austin. Cindy Austin, Carrie Austin . . . Cheryl Austin. That's it."

  I said, "You know anything else about her?"

  Jenny shook her head. "Listen, I think getting a name is pretty good. These girls show up all the time. You see a new one everywhere for six months, a year, and then they're gone. God knows where they go. Who can keep track of them?"

  "And the man with her?"

  "Richard Levitt. Plastic surgeon. Does a lot of big stars."

  "What's he doing here?"

  She shrugged. "He's around. Like a lot of these guys, he's a companion to the stars in their time of need. If his patients are getting divorced or whatever, he escorts the woman. When he's not taking out clients, he takes out models like her. They certainly look good together."

  On the monitor, Cheryl and her escort walked toward us in intermittent jerks: one frame every thirty seconds. Stepping slow. I noticed they never looked at each other. She seemed tense, expectant.

  Jenny Gonzales said, "So. Plastic surgeon and a model. Can I ask what's the big deal about these two? Because at an evening like this, they're just, you know, party favors."

  Connor said, "She was killed tonight."

  "Oh, she's the one? Interesting."

  I said, "You've heard about the murder?"

  "Oh, sure."

  "Was it on the news?"

  "No, didn't make the eleven o'clock," Jenny said. "And it probably won't be on tomorrow. I can't see it myself. It's not really a story."

  "Why is that?" I asked, glancing at Connor.

  "Well, what's the peg?"

  "I don't follow you."

  "Nakamoto would say, it's only news because it happened at their opening. They'd take the position that any reporting of it is a smear on them. But in a way they're right. I mean, if this girl got killed on the freeway, it wouldn't make the news. If she got killed in a convenience store robbery, it wouldn't make the news. We have two or three of those every night. So the fact that she gets killed at a party . . . who cares? It's still not news. She's young and pretty, but she's not special. It's not as if she has a series or anything." .

  Connor glanced at his watch. "Shall we look at the other tapes?"

  "The footage from the party? Sure. You looking for this particular girl?"

  "Right."

  "Okay, here we go." Jenny put in the third tape.

  We saw scenes from the party on the forty-fifth floor: the swing band, people dancing beneath the hanging decorations. We strained for a glimpse of the girl in the crowd. Jenny said, "In Japan, we wouldn't have to do this by eye. The Japanese have pretty sophisticated video-recognition software now. They have a program where you identify an image, say a face, and it'll automatically search tape for you, and find every instance of that face. Find it in a crowd, or wherever it appears. Has the ability to see a single view of a three-dimensional object, and then to recognize the same object in other views. It's supposed to be pretty nifty. But slow."

  "I'm surprised the station hasn't got it."

  "Oh, it's not for sale here. The most advanced Japanese video equipment isn't available in this country. They keep us three to five years behind. Which is their privilege. It's their technology, they can do what they want. But it'd sure be useful in a case like this."

  The party images were streaming past, a frenetic blur.

  Suddenly, she locked the image.

  "There. Background camera left. Your Austin girl's talking to Eddie Sakamura. Of course he'd know her. Sakamura knows all the models. Normal speed here?"

  "Please," Connor said, staring at the screen.

  The camera made a slow pan around the room. Cheryl Austin remained in view for most of the shot. Laughing with Eddie Sakamura, throwing her head back, resting her hand on his arm, happy to be with him. Eddie clowned for her, his face mobile. He seemed to enjoy making her laugh. But from time to time, her eyes flicked away, glancing around the room. As if she was waiting for something to happen. Or for someone to arrive.

  At one point, Sakamura became aware he did not have her full attention. He grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly toward him. She turned her face away from him. He leaned close to her and said something angrily. Then a bald man stepped forward, very close to the camera. The light flared on his face, washing out his features, and his head blocked our view of Eddie and the girl. Then the camera panned left, and we lost them.

  "Damn."

  "Again?" Jenny backed it up, and we ran it once more.

  I said, "Eddie's obviously not happy with her."

  "I'd say."

  Connor frowned. "It's so
difficult to know what we are seeing. Do you have sound for this?"

  Jenny said, "Sure, but it's probably walla." She punched buttons and ran it again. The track was continuous cocktail party din. Only for brief moments did we hear an isolated phrase.

  At one point, Cheryl Austin looked at Eddie Sakamura and said, ". . . can't help if it's important to you I get . . ."

  His reply to her was garbled, but later, he said clearly to her, "Don't understand . . . all about the Saturday meeting . . ."

  And in the last few seconds of the pan, when he pulled her to him, he snarled a phrase like ". . . be a fool . . . no cheapie . . ."

  I said, "Did he say 'No cheapie'?"

  "Something like that," Connor said.

  Jenny said, "Want to run it again?"

  "No," Connor said. "There's nothing more to be learned here. Go forward."

  "Right," Jenny said.

  The image accelerated, the party-goers becoming frenetic, laughing and raising glasses for quick sips. And then I said, "Wait."

  Back to normal speed. A blond woman in an Armani silk suit shaking hands with the bald-headed man we had seen a few moments before.

  "What is it?" Jenny said, looking at me.

  "That's his wife," Connor said.

  The woman leaned forward to kiss the bald man lightly on the mouth. Then she stepped back and made some comment about the suit he was wearing.

  "She's a lawyer in the D.A.'s office," Jenny said. "Lauren Davis. She's assisted on a couple of big cases. The Sunset Strangler, the Kellerman shooting. She's very ambitious. Smart and well connected. They say she has a future if she stays in the office. It must be true, because Wyland doesn't ever let her get air time. As you see, she makes a good appearance, but he keeps her away from the microphones. The bald guy she's talking to is John McKenna, with Regis McKenna in San Francisco. The company that does the publicity for most high-tech firms,"

  I said, "We can go forward."

  Jenny pushed the button. "She really your wife, or is your partner kidding?"

  "No, she's really my wife. Was."

  "You're divorced now?"

  "Yeah."

  Jenny looked at me, and started to say something. Then she decided not to, and looked back at the screen. On the monitor, the party continued at high speed.

  I found myself thinking of Lauren. When I knew her, she was bright and ambitious, but she really didn't understand very much. She had grown up privileged, she had gone to Ivy League schools, and had the privileged person's deep belief that whatever she happened to think was probably true. Certainly good enough to live by. Nothing needed to be checked against reality.

  She was young, that was part of it. She was still feeling the world, learning how it worked. She was enthusiastic, and she could be impassioned in expounding her beliefs. But of course her beliefs were always changing, depending on whom she had talked to last. She was very impressionable. She tried on ideas the way some women try on hats. She was always informed on the latest trend. I found it youthful and charming for a while, until it began to annoy me.

  Because she didn't have any core, any real substance. She was like a television set: she just played the latest show. Whatever it was. She never questioned it.

  In the end, Lauren's great talent was to conform. She was expert at watching the TV, the newspaper, the boss — whatever she saw as the source of authority — and figuring out what direction the winds were blowing. And positioning herself so she was where she ought to be. I wasn't surprised she was getting ahead. Her values, like her clothes, were always smart and up-to-date—

  ". . . to you, Lieutenant, but it's getting late . . . Lieutenant?"

  I blinked, and came back. Jenny was talking to me. She pointed to the screen, where a frozen image showed Cheryl Austin in her black dress, standing with two older men in suits.

  I looked over at Connor, but he had turned away, and was talking on the telephone.

  "Lieutenant? This of interest to you?"

  "Yes, sure. Who are they?"

  Jenny started the tape. It ran at normal speed.

  "Senator John Morton and Senator Stephen Rowe. They're both on the Senate Finance Committee. The one that's been having hearings about this MicroCon sale."

  On the screen, Cheryl laughed and nodded. In motion, she was remarkably beautiful, an interesting mixture of innocence and sexuality. At moments, her face appeared knowing and almost hard. She appeared to know both men, but not well. She did not come close to either of them, or touch them except to shake hands. For their part, the senators seemed acutely aware of the camera, and maintained a friendly, if somewhat formal demeanor.

  "Our country's going to hell, and on a Thursday night, United States senators are standing around chatting with models," Jenny said. "No wonder we're in trouble. And these are important guys. They're talking about Morton as a presidential candidate in the next election."

  I said, "What do you know about them personally?"

  "They're both married. Well. Rowe's semi-separated. His wife stays home in Virginia. He gets around. Tends to drink too much."

  I looked at Rowe on the monitor. He was the same man who had gotten on the elevator with us earlier in the evening. And he had been drunk then, almost falling down. But he wasn't drunk now.

  "And Morton?"

  "Supposedly he's Mr. Clean. Ex-athlete, fitness nut. Eats health food. Family man. Morton's big area is science and technology. The environment. American competitiveness, American values. All that. But he can't be that clean, I've heard he has a young girlfriend."

  "Is that right?"

  She shrugged. "The story is, his staffers are trying to break it off. But who knows what's true."

  The tape ejected and Jenny pushed in the next one. "This is the last, fellas."

  Connor hung up the phone and said, "Forget the tape." He stood. "We've got to go, kōhai."

  "Why?"

  "I've been talking to the phone company about the calls made from the pay phone in the lobby of the Nakamoto building between eight and ten."

  "And?"

  "No calls were made during those hours."

  I knew that Connor thought that someone had gone out of the security room and called from the pay phone — Cole, or one of the Japanese. Now his hopes of following a promising lead by tracing the call were dashed. "That's too bad," I said.

  "Too bad?" Connor said, surprised. "It's extremely helpful. It narrows things down considerably. Miss Gonzales, do you have any tapes of people leaving the party?"

  "Leaving? No. Once the guests arrived, all the crews went upstairs to shoot the actual party. Then they brought the tape back here to make the deadline, while the party was still going on."

  "Fine. Then I believe we're finished here. Thanks for your help. Your knowledge is remarkable. Kōhai, let's go."

  ☼

  Driving again. This time to an address in Beverly Hills. By now it was after one in the morning, and I was tired. I said, "Why does the pay phone in the lobby matter so much?"

  "Because," Connor said, "our whole conception of this case revolves around whether someone made a call from that phone, or not. The real question now is, which company in Japan has locked horns with Nakamoto?"

  "Which company in Japan?" I said.

  "Yes. It is clearly a corporation belonging to a different keiretsu," Connor said.

  I said, "Keiretsu?"

  "The Japanese structure their businesses in large organizations they call keiretsu. There are six major ones in Japan, and they're huge. For example, the Mitsubishi keiretsu consists of seven hundred separate companies that work together, or have interrelated financing, or interrelated agreements of various sorts. Big structures like that don't exist in America because they violate our antitrust laws. But they are the norm in Japan. We tend to think of corporations as standing alone. To see it the Japanese way, you'd have to imagine, say, an association of IBM and Citibank and Ford and Exxon, all having secret agreements among themselves to cooperate, and to s
hare financing or research. That means a Japanese corporation never stands alone — it's always acting in partnership with hundreds of other companies. And in competition with the companies of other keiretsu.

  "So when you think about what Nakamoto Corporation is doing, you have to ask what the Nakamoto keiretsu is doing, back in Japan. And what companies in other keiretsu oppose it. Because this murder is embarrassing to Nakamoto. It could even be seen as an attack against Nakamoto."

  "An attack?"

  "Think about it. Nakamoto plans a great, star-studded opening night for their building. They want it to go perfectly. For some reason, a guest at the party gets strangled. And the question is — who called it in?"

  "Who reported the murder?"

  "Right. Because after all, Nakamoto controls that environment completely: it's their party, their building. And it would be a simple matter for them to wait until eleven o'clock, after the party was over and the guests had left, to report the murder. If I were preoccupied with appearances, with the nuances of public face, that's the way I'd do it. Because anything else is potentially dangerous to the corporate image of Nakamoto."

  "Okay."

  "But the report wasn't delayed," Connor said. "On the contrary, somebody called it in at eight thirty-two, just as the party was getting under way. Thus putting the whole evening at risk. And our question has always been: who called it in?"

  I said, "You told Ishiguro to find the person who called. And he hasn't done it yet."

  "Correct. Because he can't."

  "He doesn't know who called it in?"

  "Correct."

  "You don't think anybody from the Nakamoto Corporation made the call?"

  "Correct."

  "An enemy of Nakamoto called?"

  "Almost certainly."

  I said, "So how do we find out who called the report in?"

  Connor laughed. "That's why I checked the lobby phone. It's crucial to that question."

  "Why is it crucial?"

  "Suppose you work for a competing corporation, and you want to know what's going on inside Nakamoto. You can't find out, because Japanese corporations hire their executives for life. The executives feel they are part of a family. And they'd never betray their own family. So Nakamoto Corporation presents an impenetrable mask to the rest of the world, which makes even the smallest details meaningful: which executives are in town from Japan, who is meeting with whom, comings and goings, and so on. And you might be able to learn those details, if you strike up a relationship with an American security guard who sits in front of monitors all day. Particularly if that guard has been subjected to Japanese prejudice against blacks."