Rising Sun: A Novel by Michael Crichton

had gone out on a limb, criticizing the department. All sorts of people had sent flowers. There had been a big show of sympathy for what turned out to be gangsters. A lot of people were embarrassed. So the whole thing became my fault. I had done something underhanded to solve the case. Pissed me off, I can tell you.”
    “That’s why you went to Japan?”
    “No. That’s another story.”
    We came to the car. I looked back at the Imperial Arms, and saw Julia Young standing at the window, staring down at us. “She’s seductive,” I said.
    “The Japanese call women like that
shirigaru onna.
They say she has a light ass.” He opened the car door, and got in. “But she’s on drugs. We can’t trust anything she told us. Even so, there’s starting to be a pattern I don’t like.” He glanced at his watch, and shook his head. “Damn. We’re taking too long. We’d better go to the Palomino, to see Mr. Cole.”
    I started driving south, toward the airport. Connor sat back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. He stared at his feet, looking unhappy.
    “Why do you say there’s a pattern you don’t like?”
    Connor said, “The wrappers in the wastebasket. The Polaroid in the trash. Those things shouldn’t have been left behind.”
    “You said yourself, they’re in a hurry.”
    “Maybe. But you know the Japanese think American police are incompetent. This sloppiness is a sign of their disdain.”
    “Well, we’re not incompetent.”
    Connor shook his head. “Compared to the Japanese, we
are
incompetent. In Japan, every criminal gets caught. For major crimes, convictions run ninety-nine percent. So any criminal in Japan knows from the outset he is going to get caught. But here, the conviction rate is more like seventeen percent. Not even one in five. So a criminal in the States knows he probably
isn’t
going to get caught—and if he’scaught, he won’t be convicted, thanks to all his legal safeguards. And you know every study of police effectiveness shows that American detectives either solve the case in the first six hours, or they never solve it at all.”
    “So what are you saying?”
    “I’m saying that a crime occurred here with the expectation that it won’t be solved. And I want to solve it,
kōhai.
”
    Connor was silent for the next ten minutes. He sat very still, with his arms folded and his chin sunk on his chest. His breathing was deep and regular. I might have thought he had fallen asleep, except his eyes were open.
    I just drove the car, and listened to him breathe.
    Finally, he said: “Ishiguro.”
    “What about him?”
    “If we knew what made Ishiguro behave as he did, we’d understand this case.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “It’s hard for an American to see him clearly,” Connor said. “Because in America, you think a certain amount of error is normal. You expect the plane to be late. You expect the mail to be undelivered. You expect the washing machine to break down. You expect things to go wrong all the time.
    “But Japan is different. Everything
works
in Japan. In a Tokyo train station, you can stand at a marked spot on the platform and when the train stops, the doors will open right in front of you. Trains are on time. Bags are not lost. Connections are not missed. Deadlines are met. Things happen as planned. The Japanese are educated, prepared, and motivated. They get things done. There’s no screwing around.”
    “Uh-huh …”
    “And tonight was a very big night for the Nakamoto Corporation. You can be sure they planned everything down to the smallest detail. They have the vegetarian hors d’oeuvres that Madonna likes and the photographer she prefers. Believe me: they’re prepared. They have planned for every exigency. You know how they are: they sit around and discuss endless possibilities—what if there’s a fire? What if there’s an earthquake? A bomb scare? Power failure? Endlesslygoing over the most unlikely events. It’s obsessive, but when