Alibi by Sydney Bauer Read Free Book Online Page B

consolidation, segare , accountability. Crookshank was simple. One puff of wind and the dying leaf is gone to be replaced by fresh foliage. The other matter will take a greater effort. It is time for some answers, segare . Six weeks and still nothing. It is not acceptable.”
    Peter nodded as their car negotiated a right-hand turn on West Fifty-ninth toward Columbus Circle.
    “She was a Nagoshi—my daughter, your sister,” said the elder Nagoshi. “We cannot move forward until justice is recognized.”
    “Justice,” scoffed Peter. “It is a joke, Father. Their efforts are incorrectly motivated. Mr. Katz is more concerned with individual progression than prosecuting the devils. How strange that Americans swear by the ethics of democracy, and champion the concept of teamwork, but live their lives dedicated to the benefit of the individual. They see personal ascent as a right, but it is a curse of selfishness and brings municipal downfall.”
    Nagoshi nodded. His children had been raised in Tokyo under their mother’s care until her untimely death, when Nagoshi, determined to foster the international growth of his business but refusing to neglect his familial responsibilities, moved them all to New York.
    Here Jessica, aged twelve at the time, attended the most exclusive international schools, all within blocks of their parkside apartment while Peter, then nineteen, began his graduate education at Deane—living under the supervision of Nagoshi’s butler, Harold Sumi, in the Nagoshi’s newly purchased estate at Wellesley during the week, and flying back to the Big Apple in the Nagoshi company jet on weekends. In other words, they were educated in a Western system but schooled in the traditions of their mother country—just as Nagoshi had always planned.
    Together the two heirs to Nagoshi Inc. had made a potentially powerful team—Peter with his ambition and business sense, Jessica with her open intelligence and ability to embrace all that was American. As the children grew and Jessica graduated from high school, Nagoshi spent more and more time at their larger Wellesley estate, so that his children were not polluted by the trappings of American university dormitory life, so that he might watch over them during this important stage of their development, and they might join him on regular commutes to the company base in New York where they would sit in on conferences and meetings—quiet, observant, respectful.
    Despite Peter having spent most of his adult life in America, his father knew that, unlike his sister, he was Japanese at heart—at soul . Even now his son preferred to read in Japanese rather than English, his only physical discipline came in the form of the Japanese martial art of Bujinkan and he often chose his native tongue over his adopted brogue in the confines of their private homes.
    His American “friends” were acquaintances, his Tokyo connections expansive, and he showed no desire whatsoever to find a position for himself within the American societal structure. And as a result of his nationalistic attitudes, his grasp of English was almost completely “formal”—a dialogue learned from books, lectures and academic texts, rather than everyday conversation. In short, his command of the English language—or more accurately the American language—was somewhat strained.
    Nagoshi was proud of his son’s respect for their heritage, but he also knew such unwavering patriotism did not come without consequence. He realized Peter’s inability—or perhaps subliminal unwillingness—to “acclimatize” to a nation that dominated the world economy had its drawbacks. And that is why he watched him so closely, guiding him every step of the way.
    Jessica on the other hand had understood every nuance, every gesture, every shade of this technicolor society they call the USA. But that was not to be— she was not to be—and now was not the time to dwell on such irreversible matters.
    Whatever the case,