Page 17
It was true: tears seemed to be welling up in Ishiguros eyes. Connor took the box and turned away, crossing the room to us. He gave me the box. "Deal with this. Im going to take a statement from Ishiguro. "
"So," Graham said. "Did he confess?"
"To what?"
"The murder. "
"Hell, no," Connor said. "What makes you think that?"
"Well, hes over there bowing and scraping - "
"Thats just sumimasen," Connor said. "I wouldnt take it too seriously. "
"Hes practically crying," Graham said.
"Only because he thinks itll help him. "
"He didnt confess?"
"No. But he discovered that the tapes had been removed, after all. That means he made a serious mistake, with his public blustering in front of the mayor. Now he could be accused of concealing evidence. He could be disbarred. His corporation could be disgraced. Ishiguro is in big trouble, and he knows it. "
I said, "And thats why hes so humble?"
"Yes. In Japan, if you screw up, the best thing is to go to the authorities and make a big show of how sorry you are, and how bad you feel, and how you will never do it again. Its pro forma, but the authorities will be impressed by how youve learned your lesson. Thats sumimasen: apology without end. Its the Japanese version of throwing yourself on the mercy of the court. Its understood to be the best way to get leniency. And thats all Ishiguro is doing. "
"You mean its an act," Graham said, his eyes hardening.
"Yes and no. Its difficult to explain. Look. Review the tapes. Ishiguro says he brought one of the VCRs, because the tapes are recorded in an unusual format, and he was afraid we wouldnt be able to play them. Okay?"
I opened the cardboard box. I saw twenty small eight-millimeter cartridges, like audio cassette cartridges. And I saw a small box, the size of a Walkman, which was the VCR. It had cables to hook to a TV.
"Okay," I said. "Lets have a look. "
The first of the tapes that showed the forty-sixth floor was a view from the atrium camera, high up, looking down. The tape showed people working on the floor, in what looked like an ordinary office day. We fast-forwarded through that. Shadows of sunlight coming through the windows swung in hot arcs across the floor, and then disappeared. Gradually, the light on the floor softened and dimmed, as daylight came to an end. One by one, desk lights came on. The workers moved more slowly now. Eventually they began to depart, leaving their desks one by one. As the population thinned, we noticed something else. Now the camera moved occasionally, panning one or another of the workers as they passed beneath. Yet at other times, the camera would not pan. Eventually we realized the camera must be equipped for automatic focusing and tracking. If there was a lot of movement in the frame - several people going in different directions - then the camera did not move. But if the frame was mostly empty, the camera would fix on a single person walking through, and track him.
"Funny system," Graham said.
"It probably makes sense for a security camera," I said. "Theyd be much more concerned about a single person on the floor than a crowd. "
As we watched, the night lights came on. The desks were all empty. Now the tape began to flicker rapidly, almost like a strobe.
"Something wrong with this tape?" Graham said, suspiciously. "They fucked around with it?"
"I dont know. No, wait. Its not that. Look at the clock. "
On the far wall, we could see the office clock. The minute hands were sweeping smoothly from seven-thirty toward eight oclock.
"Its time lapse," I said.
"What is it, taking snapshots?"
I nodded. "Probably, when the system doesnt detect anybody for a while, it begins to take single frames every ten or twenty seconds, until - "
"Hey. Whats that?"
The flickering had stopped. The camera had begun to pan to the right, across the deserted floor. But there was nobody in the frame. Just empty desks, and occasional night lights, which flared in the video.
"Maybe they have a wide sensor," I said. "That looks beyond the borders of the image itself. Either that, or its being moved manually. By a guard, somewhere. Maybe down in the security room. "
The panning image came to rest on the elevator doors. The doors were at the far right, in deep shadow, beneath a kind of ceiling overhang that blocked our view.
"Jeez, dark under there. Is someone there?"
"I cant see anything," I said.
The image began to swim in and out of focus.
"Whats happening now?" Graham said.
"Looks like the automatic focus is having trouble. Maybe it cant decide what to focus on. Maybe the overhang is bothering the logic circuits. My video camera at home does the same thing. The focus gets screwed up when it cant tell what I am shooting. "
"So is the camera trying to focus on something? Because I cant see anything. It just looks black under there. "
"No, look. Theres someone there. You can see pale legs. Very faint. "
"Christ," Graham said, "thats our girl. Standing by the elevator. No, wait. Now shes moving. "
A moment later, Cheryl Austin stepped from beneath the ceiling overhang, and we saw her clearly for the first time.
She was beautiful and assured. She moved unhesitatingly into the room. She was direct, purposeful in her movements, with none of the awkward, shuffling sloppiness of the young.
"Jesus, shes good-looking," Graham said. Cheryl Austin was tall and slender; her short blond hair made her seem even taller. Her carriage was erect. She turned slowly, surveying the room as if she owned it.
"I cant believe were seeing this," Graham said.
I knew what he meant. This was a girl who had been killed just a few hours before. Now we were seeing her on a videotape, walking around just minutes before her death.
On the monitor, Cheryl picked up a paperweight on one of the desks, turned it in her hand, put it back. She opened her purse, closed it again. She glanced at her watch.
"Starting to fidget. "
"She doesnt like to be kept waiting," Graham said. "And I bet she doesnt have much practice at it, either. Not a girl like that. "
She began to tap on the desk with her fingers in a distinct rhythm. It seemed familiar to me. She bobbed her head to the rhythm. Graham squinted at the screen, "Is she talking? Is she saying something?"
"It looks like it," I said. We could barely see her mouth moving. And then I suddenly put it together, her movements, everything. I realized I could sync her lips. "I chew my nails and I twiddle my thumbs. Im real nervous but it sure is fun. Oh baby, you drive me crazy. . . "
"Jesus," Graham said. "Youre right. Howd you know that?"
"Goodness, gracious, great balls of - "
Cheryl stopped singing. She turned toward the elevators.
"Ah. Here we go. "
Cheryl walked toward the elevators. Just as she stepped beneath the overhang, she threw her arms around the man who had arrived. They embraced and kissed warmly. But the man remained beneath the overhang. We could see his arms around Cheryl, but we could not see his face.
"Shit," Graham said.
"Dont worry," I said. "Well see him in a minute. If not this camera, another camera. But I think we can say this is not somebody she just met. This is somebody she already knows. "
"Not unless shes real friendly. Yeah, look. This guy isnt wasting any time. "
The mans hands slid up the black dress, raising her skirt. He squeezed her buttocks. Cheryl Austin pressed against his body. Their clinch was intense, passionate. Together they moved deeper into the room, turning slowly. Now the mans back was to us. Her skirt was bunched around her waist. She reached down to rub his crotch. The couple half walked, half stumbled to the nearest desk. The man bent her back against the desk and suddenly she protested, pushing him away.
"Ah, ah. Not so fast," Graham said. "Our girl has standards, after all. "
I wondered if that was it. Cheryl seemed to have led him on, the
n changed her mind. I noticed that she had changed moods almost instantaneously. It made me wonder if she had been acting all along, if her passion was faked. Certainly the man did not seem particularly surprised by her sudden change. Sitting up on the desk, she kept pushing at him, almost angrily. The man stepped away. His back was still to us. We couldnt see his face. As soon as he had stepped back, she changed again: smiling, kittenish now. With slow movements, she got off the desk and adjusted her skirt, twisting her body provocatively as she looked around. We could see his ear and the side of his face, just enough to see that his jaw was moving. He was talking to her. She smiled at him, and came forward, slid her arms around his neck. Then they began kissing again, their hands moving over each other. Walking slowly through the office, toward the conference room.
"So. Did she choose the conference room?"
"Hard to say. "
"Shit, I still cant see his face. "
By now they were near the center of the room; and the camera was shooting almost directly down. All we saw was the top of his head.
I said, "Does he look Japanese to you?"
"Fuck. Who can tell. How many other cameras were in that room?"
"Four others. "
"Well. His face cant be blocked in all four. Well nail his ass. "
I said, "You know, Tom, this guy looks pretty big. He looks taller than she is. And she was a tall girl. "
"Who can tell, in this angle? I cant tell anything except he has a suit on. Okay. There they go, toward the conference room. "
As they approached the room, she suddenly began to struggle.
"Oops," Graham said. "Shes unhappy again. Moody young thing, isnt she?"
The man gripped her tightly and she spun, trying to twist free. He half carried her, half dragged her to the room. At the doorway, she spun a final time, grabbed the door frame, struggling.
"She lose the purse there?"
"Probably. I cant see clearly. "
The conference room was located directly opposite the camera, so we had a view of the entire room. But the interior of the conference room was very dark, so the two people were silhouetted against the lights of the skyscrapers through the outer glass windows. The man lifted her up in his arms and set her down on the table, rolled her onto her back. She became passive, liquid, as he slid her skirt up her hips. She seemed to be accepting, moving to meet him, and then he made a quick movement between their bodies, and suddenly something flew away.
"There go the panties. "
It looked as if they landed on the floor. But it was hard to tell for sure. If they were panties, they were black, or some other dark color. So much, I thought, for Senator Rowe.
"The panties were gone by the time we got there," Graham said, staring at the monitor. "Fucking withholding of evidence, pure and simple. " He rubbed his hands together. "You got any Nakamoto stock, buddy, Id sell it. Cause it isnt going to be worth shit by tomorrow afternoon. "
On the screen, she was still welcoming him, and he was fumbling with his zipper, when suddenly she tried to sit up, and slapped him hard on the face.
Graham said, "There we go. A little spice. "
The man grabbed her hands, and tried to kiss her, but she resisted him, turning her face away. He pushed her back on the table. He leaned his weight on her body, holding her there. Her bare legs kicked and churned.
The two silhouettes merged and separated. It was difficult to determine exactly what was happening. It looked as if Cheryl kept trying to sit up, and the man kept shoving her back. He held her down, one hand on her upper chest, while her legs kicked at him, and her body twisted on the table. He still held her on the table, but the whole scene was more arduous than arousing. As it continued, I had trouble with the image I was seeing. Was this a genuine rape? Or was she play-acting? After all, she kept kicking and struggling, but she wasnt succeeding in pushing him away. The man might be stronger than she was, but I had the feeling that she could have kicked him back if she had really wanted to. And sometimes it looked as if her arms were locked around his neck, instead of trying to push him away. But it was difficult to know for sure when we were seeing -
"Uh-oh. Trouble. "
The man stopped his rhythmic pumping. Beneath him, Cheryl went limp. Her arms slid away from his shoulders, dropped back on the table. Her legs fell slack on either side of him.
Graham said, "Is that it? Did it just happen?"
"I cant tell. "
The man patted her cheek, then shook her more vigorously. He seemed to be talking to her. He remained there for a while, maybe thirty seconds, and then he slipped away from her body. She stayed on the table. He walked around her. He was moving slowly, as if he could not believe it.
Then he looked off to the left, as if he had heard a sound. He stood frozen for a moment, and then he seemed to make up his mind. He went into action, moving around the room, looking in a methodical way. He picked up something from the floor.
"The panties. "
"He took em himself," Graham said. "Shit. "
Now the man moved around the girl, and bent briefly over her body on the far side.
"Whats he doing there?"
"I dont know. I cant see. "
"Shit. "
The man straightened and moved away from the conference room, back into the atrium. He was no longer silhouetted. There was a chance we could identify him. But he was looking back into the conference room. Back at the dead girl.
"Hey, buddy," Graham said, talking to the image on the monitor. "Look over here, buddy. Come on. Just for a minute. "
On the screen, the man continued to look at the dead girl as he took several more steps into the atrium. Then he began to walk quickly away to the left.
"Hes not going back to the elevators," I said.
"No. But I cant see his face. "
"Where is he going?"