"Then it's good you're doing the story," I said.
He coughed. "You want to go on record? About the Vietnamese who speak Japanese?"
"No," I said.
"We're all in this together," he said.
"I don't think it would do any good," I said.
I had lunch with Connor at a sushi bar in Culver City. As we were pulling up, someone was placing a CLOSED sign in the window. He saw Connor, and flipped it to say OPEN.
"They know me here," Connor said.
"You mean they like you?"
"It's hard to know about that."
"They want your business?"
"No," Connor said. "Probably Hiroshi would prefer to close. It won't be profitable for him to keep his people on, just for two gaijincustomers. But I come here often. He is honoring the relationship. It doesn't really have to do with business or liking."
We got out of the car.
"Americans don't understand," he said. "Because the Japanese system is fundamentally different."
"Yeah, well, I think they're starting to understand," I said. I told him Ken Shubik's story about price-fixing.
Connor sighed. "It's a cheap shot to say the Japanese are dishonest. They're not – but they play by different rules. Americans just don't get it."
"That's fine," I said. "But price-fixing is illegal."
"In America," he said. "Yes. But it's normal procedure in Japan. Remember, kohai: fundamentally different. Collusive agreements are the way things are done. The Nomura stock scandal showed that. Americans get moralistic about collusion, instead of just seeing it as a different way of doing business. Which is all it is."
We went into the sushi bar. There was a lot of bowing and greeting. Connor spoke Japanese and we sat at the bar. We didn't order.
I said, "Aren't we going to order?"
"No," Connor said. "It would be offensive. Hiroshi will decide for us what we would like."
So we sat at the bar and Hiroshi brought us dishes. I watched him cutting fish.
The phone rang. From the far end of the sushi bar, a man said, "Connor-san, onna no hito ga matteru to ittemashita yo."
"Domo," Connor said, nodding. He turned to me, and pushed back from the bar. "Guess we won't eat, after all. Time for us to go to our next appointment. You brought the tape with you?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"Where are we going?"
"To see your friend," he said. "Miss Asakuma."
¤
We were bouncing along the potholes of the Santa Monica freeway, heading downtown. The afternoon sky was gray; it looked like rain. My back hurt. Connor was looking out the window, humming to himself,
In all the excitement, I had forgotten about Theresa's call the night before. She had said she was looking at the last part of the tape, and she thought there was a problem.
"Have you talked to her?"
"Theresa? Briefly. I gave her some advice."
"Last night, she said there was a problem with the tape."
"Oh? She didn't mention that to me."
I had the feeling he wasn't telling me the truth, but my back was throbbing and I wasn't in the mood to press him. There were times when I thought Connor had become Japanese himself. He had that reserve, that secretive manner.
I said, "You never told me why you left Japan."
"Oh, that." He sighed. "I had a job, working for a corporation. Advising on security. But it didn't work out."
"Why not?"
"Well, the job was all right. It was fine."
"Then what was it?"
He shook his head. "Most people who've lived in Japan come away with mixed feelings. In many ways, the Japanese are wonderful people. They're hardworking, intelligent, and humorous. They have real integrity. They are also the most racist people on the planet. That's why they're always accusing everybody else of racism. They're so prejudiced, they assume everybody else must be, too. And living in Japan . . . I just got tired, after a while, of the way things worked. I got tired of seeing women move to the other side of the street when they saw me walking toward them at night. I got tired of noticing that the last two seats to be occupied on the subway were the ones on either side of me. I got tired of the airline stewardesses asking Japanese passengers if they minded sitting next to a gaijin, assuming that I couldn't understand what they were saying because they were speaking Japanese. I got tired of the exclusion, the subtle patronizing, the jokes behind my back. I got tired of being a nigger. I just . . . got tired. I gave up."
"Sounds to me like you don't really like them."
"No," Connor said. "I do. I like them very much. But I'm not Japanese, and they never let me forget it." He sighed again. "I have many Japanese friends who work in America, and it's hard for them, too. The differences cut both ways. They feel excluded. People don't sit next to them, either. But my friends always ask me to remember that they are human beings first, and Japanese second. Unfortunately, in my experience that is not always true."
"You mean, they're Japanese first."
He shrugged. "Family is family."
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
¤
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."