Connor said, "If somebody switched the tapes, how would they go about it? They would be working hastily, under pressure. They'd be terrified of making a mistake. They certainly wouldn't want to leave any incriminating tapes behind. So probably they'd switch an entire set, and replace it. But replace it with what? They can't just put in the next set. Since there are only nine sets of tapes all together, it would be too easy for someone to notice that one set was missing, and the total was now eight. There would be an obvious empty drawer. No, they would have to replace the set they were taking away with an entirely new set. Twenty brand-new tapes. And that meant I ought to check the trash."

"That's why you threw your pen away?"

"Yes. I didn't want Phillips to know what I was doing."

"And?"

"The trash was full of crumpled plastic wrappers. The kind that new videotapes come wrapped in."

"I see."

"Once I knew the tapes had been replaced, the only remaining question was, which set? So I played dumb, and looked in all the drawers. You probably noticed that set C, the set Phillips removed when he came on duty, had slightly whiter labels than the other sets. It was subtle, because the office has only been active two months, but you could tell."

"I see." Somebody had come into the security room, taken out twenty fresh tapes, unwrapped them, written new labels, and popped them into the video machines, replacing the original tapes that had recorded the murder.

I said, "If you ask me, Phillips knows more about this than he was telling us."

"Maybe," Connor said, "but we have more important things to do. Anyway, there's a limit to what he knows. The murder was phoned in about eight-thirty. Phillips arrived at quarter to nine. So he never saw the murder. We can assume the previous guard, Cole, did. But by a quarter of nine, Cole was gone, and an unknown Japanese man was in the security room, closing up a briefcase."

"You think he's the one who switched the tapes?"

Connor nodded. "Very possibly. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this man was the killer himself. I hope to find that out at Miss Austin's apartment." He threw open the door, and we went into the garage.

Chapter 7

A line of party guests waited for valets to bring their cars. I saw Ishiguro chatting up Mayor Thomas and his wife. Connor steered me toward them. Standing alongside the mayor, Ishiguro was so cordial he was almost obsequious. He gave us a big smile. "Ah, gentlemen. Is your investigation proceeding satisfactorily? Is there anything more I can do to help?"

I didn't get really angry until that moment: until I saw the way he toadied up in front of the mayor. It made me so mad I began to turn red. But Connor took it in stride.

"Thank you, Ishiguro-san," he said, with a slight bow. "The investigation is going well."

"You're receiving all the help you requested?" Ishiguro said.

"Oh, yes," Connor said. "Everyone has been very cooperative."

"Good, good. I'm glad." Ishiguro glanced at the mayor, and smiled at him, too. He was all smiles, it seemed.

"But," Connor said, "there is just one thing."

"Just name it. If there is anything we can do..."

"The security tapes seem to have been removed."

"Security tapes?" Ishiguro frowned, clearly caught off guard.

"Yes," Connor said. "Recordings from the security cameras."

"I don't know anything about that," Ishiguro said. "But let me assure you, if any tapes exist, they are yours to examine."

"Thank you," Connor said. "Unfortunately, it seems the crucial tapes have been removed from the Nakamoto security office."

"Removed? Gentlemen, I believe there must be some mistake."

The mayor was watching this exchange closely.

Connor said, "Perhaps, but I don't think so. It would be reassuring, Mr. Ishiguro, if you were to look into this matter yourself."

"I certainly will," Ishiguro said. "But I must say again. I can't imagine, Captain Connor, that any tapes are missing."

"Thank you for checking, Mr. Ishiguro," Connor said.

"Not at all, Captain," he said, still smiling. "It is my pleasure to assist you in whatever way I can."

"The son of a bitch," I said. We were driving west on the Santa Monica freeway. "The little prick looked us right in the eye and lied."

"It's annoying," Connor said. "But you see, Ishiguro takes a different view. Now that he is beside the mayor, he sees himself in another context, with another set of obligations and requirements for his behavior. Since he is sensitive to context, he's able to act differently, with no reference to his earlier behavior. To us, he seems like a different person. But Ishiguro feels he's just being appropriate."

"What burns me is he acted so confident."

"Of course he did," Connor said. "And he would be quite surprised to learn that you're angry with him. You consider him immoral. He considers you naive. Because for a Japanese, consistent behavior is not possible. A Japanese becomes a different person around people of different rank. He becomes a different person when he moves through different rooms of his own house."

"Yeah," I said. "That's fine, but the fact is he's a lying son of a bitch."

Connor looked at me. "Would you talk that way to your mother?"

"Of course not."

"So you change according to context, too," Connor said. "The fact is we all do. It's just that Americans believe there is some core of individuality that doesn't change from one moment to the next. And the Japanese believe context rules everything."

"It sounds to me," I said, "like an excuse for lying."

"He doesn't see it as lying."

"But that's what it is."

Connor shrugged. "Only from your point of view, kōhai. Not from his."

"The hell."

"Look, it's your choice. You can understand the Japanese and deal with them as they are, or you can get pissed off. But our problem in this country is that we don't deal with the Japanese the way they really are." The car hit a deep pothole, bouncing so hard that the car phone fell off the receiver. Connor picked it up off the floor, and put it back on the hook.

Up ahead, I saw the exit for Bundy. I moved into the right lane. "One thing I'm not clear about," I said. "Why do you think the man with the briefcase in the security room might be the killer?"

"It's because of the time sequence. You see, the murder was reported at eight thirty-two. Less than fifteen minutes later, at eight forty-five, a Japanese man was down there switching the tapes, arranging a cover-up. That's a very fast response. Much too fast for a Japanese company."

"Why is that?"

"Japanese organizations are actually very slow to respond in a crisis. Their decision-making relies on precedents, and when a situation is unprecedented, people are uncertain how to behave. You remember the faxes? I am sure faxes have been flying back and forth to Nakamoto's Tokyo headquarters all night. Undoubtedly the company is still trying to decide what to do. A Japanese organization simply cannot move fast in a new situation."

"But an individual acting alone can?"

"Yes. Exactly."

I said, "And that's why you think the man with the briefcase may be the killer."

Connor nodded. "Yes. Either the killer, or someone closely connected with the killer. But we should learn more at Miss Austin's apartment. I believe I see it up ahead, on the right."

Chapter 8

The Imperial Arms was an apartment building on a tree-lined street a kilometer from Westwood Village. Its fake Tudor beams needed a paint job, and the whole building had a run-down appearance. But that was not unusual in this middle-class section of apartments inhabited by graduate students and young families. In fact, the chief characteristic of the Imperial Arms seemed to be its anonymity: you could drive by the building every day and never notice it.

"Perfect," Connor said, as we walked up the steps to the entrance. "It's just what they like."

"What who likes?"

We came into the lobby, which had been renovated in the most bland California style: pastel wallpaper with a flower print, overstuffed couches, cheap ceramic lamps, and a chrome coffee table. The only thing to distinguish it from a hundred other apartment lobbies was the security desk in the corner, where a heavyset Japanese doorman looked up from his comic book with a distinctly unfriendly manner. "Help you?"

Connor showed his badge. He asked where Cheryl Austin's apartment was.

"I announce you," the doorman said, reaching for the phone.

"Don't bother."

"No. I announce. Maybe she have company now."

"I'm sure she doesn't," Connor said. "Kore wa keisatsu no shigoto da." He was saying we were on official police business.

The doorman gave a tense bow. "Kyugo shitu." He handed Connor a key.

We went through a second glass door, and down a carpeted corridor. There were small lacquer tables at each end of the corridor, and in its simplicity, the interior was surprisingly elegant.

"Typically Japanese," Connor said, with a smile.

I thought: a run-down, fake Tudor apartment building in Westwood? Typically Japanese? From a room to the left, I heard faint rap music: the latest Hammer hit.

"It's because the outside gives no clue to the inside," Connor explained. "That's a fundamental principle of Japanese thinking. The public facade is unrevealing - in architecture, the human face, everything. It's always been that way. You look at old samurai houses in Takayama or Kyoto. You can't tell anything from the outside."

"This is a Japanese building?"

"Of course. Why else would a Japanese national who hardly speaks English be the doorman? And he is a yakuza. You probably noticed the tattoo."

I hadn't. The yakuza were Japanese gangsters. I didn't know there were yakuza here in America, and said so.

"You must understand," Connor said, "there is a shadow world - here in Los Angeles, in Honolulu, in New York. Most of the time you're never aware of it. We live in our regular American world, walking on our American streets, and we never notice that right alongside our world is a second world. Very discreet, very private. Perhaps in New York you will see Japanese businessmen walking through an unmarked door, and catch a glimpse of a club behind. Perhaps you will hear of a small sushi bar in Los Angeles that charges twelve hundred dollars a person, Tokyo prices. But they are not listed in the guidebooks. They are not a part of our American world. They are part of the shadow world, available only to the Japanese."

"And this place?"

"This is a bettaku. A love residence where mistresses are kept. And here is Miss Austin's apartment."

Connor unlocked the door with the key the doorman had given him. We went inside.

It was a two-bedroom unit, furnished with expensive oversized rental pieces in pastel pink and green. The oil paintings on the walls had been rented, too; a label on the side of one frame said Breuner's Rents. The kitchen counter was bare, except for a bowl of fruit. The refrigerator contained only yogurt and cans of Diet Coke. The couches in the living room didn't look as if anybody had ever sat on them. On the coffee table was a picture book of Hollywood star portraits and a vase of dried flowers. Empty ashtrays scattered around.

One of the bedrooms had been converted to a den, with a couch and a television, and an exercise bike in the corner. Everything was brand-new. The television still had a sticker that said DIGITAL TUNING FEATURE diagonally across one corner. The handlebars of the exercise bike were covered in plastic wrap.

In the master bedroom, I finally found some human clutter. One mirrored closet door stood open, and three expensive party dresses were thrown across the bed. Evidently she had been trying to decide what to wear. On the dresser top were bottles of perfume, a diamond necklace, a gold Rolex, framed photographs, and an ashtray with stubbed-out Mild Seven Menthol cigarettes. The top dresser drawer, containing panties and undergarments, was partially open. I saw her passport stuck in the corner, and thumbed through it. There was one visa for Saudi Arabia, one for Indonesia, and three entry stamps for Japan.

The stereo in the corner was still turned on, an ejected tape in the player. I pushed it in and Jerry Lee Lewis sang, "You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain, too much love drives a man insane...." Texas music, too old for a young girl like this. But maybe she liked golden oldies.

I turned back to the dresser. Several framed color enlargements showed Cheryl Austin smiling in front of Asian backgrounds - the red gates of a shrine, a formal garden, a street with gray skyscrapers, a train station. The pictures seemed to be taken in Japan. In most of the pictures Cheryl was alone, but in a few she was accompanied by an older Japanese man with glasses and a receding hairline. A final shot showed her in what looked like the American West. Cheryl was standing near a dusty pickup truck, smiling beside a frail, grandmotherly woman in sunglasses. The older woman wasn't smiling and looked uncomfortable.

Tucked in beside the dresser were several large paper rolls, standing on end. I opened one. It was a poster showing Cheryl in a bikini, smiling and holding up a bottle of Asahi beer. All the writing on the poster was in Japanese.

I went into the bathroom.

I saw a pair of jeans kicked in the corner. A white sweater tossed on the countertop. A wet towel on a hook by the shower stall. Beads of water inside the stall. Electric haircurlers unplugged by the counter. Stuck in the mirror frame, photos of Cheryl standing with another Japanese man on the Malibu pier. This man was in his midthirties, and handsome. In one photograph, he had draped his arm familiarly over her shoulder. I could clearly see the scar on his hand.

"Bingo," I said.

Connor came into the room. "Find something?"

"Our man with the scar."

"Good." Connor studied the picture carefully. I looked back at the clutter of the bathroom. The stuff around the sink. "You know," I said, "something bothers me about this place."