Rising Sun: A Novel Read Free

examiner, paramedics, and all the rest.
    But there was nothing tonight. It just looked like a garage where somebody was having a party: elegant people standing in clusters, waiting for their cars.
    “Interesting,” I said.
    We came to a stop. The parking attendants opened the doors, and I stepped out onto plush carpet, and heard soft music. I walked with Connor toward the elevator. Well-dressedpeople were coming the other way: men in tuxedos, women in expensive gowns. And standing by the elevator, wearing a stained corduroy sport coat and furiously smoking a cigarette, was Tom Graham.

When Graham played halfback at U.S.C. he never made first string. That bit of history stuck like a character trait: all his life he seemed to miss the crucial promotion, the next step up a detective’s career. He had transferred from one division to another, never finding a precinct that suited him, or a partner that worked well with him. Always too outspoken, Graham had made enemies in the chief’s office, and at thirty-nine, further advancement was unlikely. Now he was bitter, gruff, and putting on weight—a big man who had become ponderous, and a pain in the ass: he just rubbed people the wrong way. His idea of personal integrity was to be a failure, and he was sarcastic about anybody who didn’t share his views.
    “Nice suit,” he said to me, as I walked up. “You look fucking beautiful, Peter.” He flicked imaginary dust off my lapel.
    I ignored it. “How’s it going, Tom?”
    “You guys should be attending this party, not working it.” He turned to Connor and shook his hand. “Hello, John. Whose idea was it to get you out of bed?”
    “I’m just observing,” Connor said mildly.
    I said, “Fred Hoffmann asked me to bring him down.”
    “Hell,” Graham said. “It’s okay with me that you’re here. I can use some help. It’s pretty tense up there.”
    We followed him toward the elevator. I still saw no other police officers. I said, “Where is everybody?”
    “Good question,” Graham said. “They’ve managed to keep all of our people around back at the freight entrance. They claim the service elevator gives fastest access. And theykeep talking about the importance of their grand opening, and how nothing must disrupt it.”
    By the elevators, a uniformed Japanese private security guard looked us over carefully. “These two are with me,” Graham said. The security man nodded, but squinted at us suspiciously.
    We got on the elevator.
    “Fucking Japanese,” Graham said, as the doors closed. “This is still our country. We’re still the fucking police in our own country.”
    The elevator was glass walled and we looked out on downtown Los Angeles as it went up into the light mist. Directly across was the Arco building. All lit up at night.
    “You know these elevators are illegal,” Graham said. “According to code, no glass elevators past ninety floors, and this building is ninety-seven floors, the highest building in L.A. But then this whole building is one big special case. And they got it up in six months. You know how? They brought in prefab units from Nagasaki, and slapped them together here. Didn’t use American construction workers. Got a special permit to bypass our unions because of a so-called technical problem that only Japanese workers could handle. You believe that shit?”
    I shrugged. “They got it past the American unions.”
    “Hell, they got it past the
city council
,” Graham said. “But of course that’s just money. And if there’s one thing we know, the Japanese have money. So they got variances on the zoning restrictions, the earthquake ordinances. They got everything they wanted.”
    I shrugged. “Politics.”
    “My ass. You know they don’t even pay tax? That’s right: they got an eight-year break on property taxes from the city. Shit: we’re
giving
this country away.”
    We rode for a moment in silence. Graham stared out the windows. The elevators were high-speed Hitachis,