3

We were in a small room on the third floor of a boardinghouse for foreign students. Theresa Asakuma explained it was not her room; it belonged to a friend who was studying in Italy for a term. She had set up the small VCR and a small monitor on a table.

“I thought I should get out of the lab,” she said, running the machine fast forward. “But I wanted you to see this. This is the end of one of the tapes you brought me. It begins right after the senator has left the room.”

She slowed the tape, and I saw the wide view of the forty-sixth floor of the Nakamoto building. The floor was deserted. The pale body of Cheryl Austin lay on the dark conference table.

The tape continued to roll.

Nothing happened. It was a static scene.

I said, “What are we looking at?”

“Just wait.”

The tape continued. Still nothing happened.

And then I saw, clearly, the girl’s leg twitch.

“What was that?”

“A spasm?”

“I’m not sure.”

Now the girl’s arm, outlined against the dark wood, moved. There was no question about it. The fingers closed and opened.

“She’s still alive!”

Theresa nodded. “That’s the way it looks. Now watch the clock.”

The clock on the wall said 8:36. I watched it. Nothing happened. The tape ran for two more minutes.

Connor sighed.

“The clock isn’t moving.”

“No,” she said. “I first noticed the grain pattern, on a close scan. The pixels were jumping back and forth.”

“Meaning what?”

“We call it rock and roll. It’s the usual way to disguise a freeze-frame. A normal freeze is visible to the eye, because the smallest units of the image are suddenly static. Whereas in a regular picture, there’s always some small movement, even if it’s just random. So what you do is you rock and roll, cycling three seconds of image over and over. It gives a little movement, makes the freeze less obvious.”

“You’re saying the tape was frozen at eight thirty-six?”

“Yes. And the girl was apparently still alive at that time. I don’t know for sure. But maybe.”

Connor nodded. “So that’s why the original tape is so important.”

“What original tape?” she said.

I produced the tape I had found in my apartment the night before.

“Run it,” Connor said.

In crisp color, we saw the forty-sixth floor. It was from the side camera, with a good view of the conference room. And it was one of the original tapes: we saw the murder, and we saw Morton leave the girl behind on the table.

The tape ran on. We watched the girl.

“Can you see the wall clock?”

“Not in this angle.”

“How much time do you think has gone by?”

Theresa shook her head. “It’s time lapse. I can’t say. A few minutes.”

Then, the girl moved on the table. Her hand twitched, and then her head moved. She was alive. There was no question about it.

And in the glass of the conference room, we saw the shape of a man. He walked forward, appearing from the right. He entered the room, looking back once to make sure he was alone. It was Ishiguro. Very deliberately, he walked to the edge of the table, placed his hands on the girl’s neck, and strangled her.

“Jesus.”

It seemed to take a long time. The girl struggled toward the end. Ishiguro held her down, long after she had stopped moving.

“He’s not taking any chances.”

“No,” Connor said. “He’s not.”

Finally, Ishiguro stepped back from the body, shot his cuffs, straightened his suit jacket.

“All right,” Connor said. “You can stop the tape now. I’ve seen enough.”

We were back outside. Weak sunlight filtered through the smoggy haze. Cars roared by, bouncing in the potholes. The houses along the street looked cheap to me, in disrepair.

We got in our car.

“What now?” I said.

He handed me the car phone. “Call downtown,” he said, “and tell them we have a tape that shows Ishiguro did the murder. Tell them we’re going to Nakamoto now, to arrest Ishiguro.”

“I thought you didn’t like car phones.”

“Just do it,” Connor said. “We’re about finished, anyway.”

So I did it. I told the dispatcher what our plan was, where we were going. They asked if we wanted backup. Connor shook his head, so I said we didn’t need backup.

I hung up the phone.

“Now what?”

“Let’s go to Nakamoto.”

4

After seeing the forty-sixth floor so many times on videotape, it was strange to find myself there again. Although it was Saturday, the office was busy and active, secretaries and executives were hurrying about. And the office looked different during the day; sunlight poured in through the large windows on all sides, and the surrounding skyscrapers looked close, even in the L.A. haze.

Looking up, I saw that the surveillance cameras had been removed from the walls. To the right, the conference room where Cheryl Austin had died was being remodeled. The black furniture was gone. Workmen were installing a blond wood table and new beige chairs. The room looked completely different.

On the other side of the atrium, a meeting was being held in the large conference room. Sunlight streamed in through the glass walls on forty people sitting on both sides of a long table covered in green felt. Japanese on one side, Americans on the other. Everyone had a neat stack of documents in front of them. Prominent among the Americans, I noticed the lawyer, Bob Richmond.

Standing beside me, Connor sighed.

“What is it?”

“The Saturday meeting, kōhai.”

“You mean that’s the Saturday meeting Eddie was talking about?”

Connor nodded. “The meeting to conclude the MicroCon sale.”

There was a receptionist seated near the elevators. She watched us staring for a moment, then said politely, “Can I help you, gentlemen?”

‘“Thank you,” Connor said. “But we’re waiting for someone.”

I frowned. From where we were standing, I could clearly see Ishiguro inside the conference room, seated near the center of the table on the Japanese side, smoking a cigarette. The man to his right leaned over to whisper something to him; Ishiguro nodded and smiled.

I glanced over at Connor.

“Just wait,” Connor said.

Several minutes passed, and then a young Japanese aide hurried across the atrium and entered the conference room. Once inside, he moved more slowly, circling the table unobtrusively until he was standing behind the chair of a distinguished, gray-haired man seated toward the far end of the table. The aide bent and whispered something to the older man.

“Iwabuchi,” Connor said.

“Who is he?”

“Head of Nakamoto America. Based in New York.”

Iwabuchi nodded to the young aide, and got up from the table. The aide pulled his chair out for him. Iwabuchi moved down the line of Japanese negotiators. As he passed one man, he brushed him lightly on the shoulder. Iwabuchi continued to the end of the table, then opened the glass doors and walked outside, onto a terrace beyond the conference room.

A moment later, the second man stood to leave.

“Moriyama,” Connor said. “Head of the Los Angeles office.”

Moriyama also went outside onto the terrace. The two men stood in the sun and smoked cigarettes. The aide joined them, speaking quickly, his head bobbing. The senior men listened intently, then turned away. The aide remained standing there.

After a moment, Moriyama turned back to the aide and said something. The aide bowed quickly and returned to the conference room. He moved to the seat of another man, dark-haired with a mustache, and whispered in his ear.

“Shirai,” Connor said. “Head of finance.”

Shirai stood up, but did not go onto the terrace. Instead, he opened the inner door, crossed the atrium, and disappeared into an office on the far side of the floor.