Rising Sun: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

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’thandle 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 Japanmore 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