"I'm going crazy."
"Oh, yeah. What's happening?"
"I pace around and can't feel anything. It's nuts. I don't know what to do. I keep turning to Merrill and she isn't here."
"How's the head?"
"I have a hundred clients. Every single one has called me. They're hearing things about me and Merrill. There are these bulletins on TV. Every hour.
They're saying I'm suicidal. They're speculating about Merrill and Tor being lovers. It's crazy. She didn't even like him. He was my friend—"
Jason said, "Look, I'm going to have to go in a minute. Can I call you in an hour?"
"What are the police saying? What was the cause of death? Do they know what happened? Do they have any leads on who killed them? I can't stand this. I have to know!"
"I may have some news later. Do you want to meet?"
"Yes, but I can't get out of here. There are—" "—Yeah, I know, press everywhere. They don't know me. I'll come there." Jason told him he'd be over around seven and hung up. For the next few hours he tried to convince himself he was doing the right thing.
14
April always tried to learn from other people's and her own mistakes. On the evening of the murders, she had been dressed in her usual uniform: a turtle-neck sweater, jacket, slacks. Functional, not classy. The next day she had worn the same outfit most of the day until she had the chance to change into the wrinkled pants and jacket she kept in her locker for emergencies. Sometime during the night in a random dream about the ADA on this case, she suddenly felt that it was time to improve her image. She knew lawyers thought themselves many steps up from cops. She knew they thought cops were uneducated bullies who beat people up on the street, then lied about what their victims had done to deserve it. To appeal to a man like Dean Kiang, she knew she had to make herself look better than a cop.
Her former supervisor, Sergeant Joyce, had always worn suits with skirts to work. At six that morning, April decided it was time for her to wear suits with skirts to work. She prepared for class warfare with a slim, calf-length burgundy skirt with a slit to the knee, a powder blue turtleneck sweater (that looked like but was not cashmere) with a long silk scarf that incorporated both colors, and a short burgundy jacket that was just loose enough to disguise the gun bulge at her waist. She wore boots that did not hide the small size of her feet or slimness of her ankles. She wore makeup and small jade studs in her ears for good luck in all ventures, but especially in love. She knew from the way he smiled that Jason Frank had noticed.
When she entered Dean Kiang's paper-strewn downtown office, she was glad again that she'd made the effort. The Chinese DA was drop-dead handsome by anybody's standards, and she was smitten anew. He was taller and better educated than her former lover, the scrubby and manipulative night-watch-in-Brooklyn Jimmy Wong. He was more elegant and self-assured than the chubby and permanently disappointed-in-love (by a white girl who'd jilted him for a Pakistani in medical school) Dr. George Dong, the Chinatown eye doctor April's mother still wanted her to marry. He was more appropriate and had a higher status in life than the steamy but all-talk-and-no-action Sergeant Sanchez. For a minute April forgot about the victims in the case and stared at him openly.
Kiang was a tall man with a slender build but not the skinny, almost emaciated appearance of some Chinese like her father, who could not convert even the best diets to healthy muscle and fat. Kiang's features were bold and open, classical. April figured he had north Chinese, but not Mongolian, ancestors because of his height and build, his excellent nose and mouth, almond eyes. She thought she could feel the power and intelligence emanating from him.
Both shrewd and clever, his eyes pierced the air. He was a Chinese who didn't even try to seem like the perfect model of Tao teachings, the modest being with downcast eyes who let the wild winds and storms rage around him, deriving power by appearing passive and weak and never saying a word to betray his ambition or true intentions. Here was a prosecutor who could deal with the system and set things right. He was a lawyer in a well-cut gray pinstripe suit, white shirt, and red-and-blue-striped tie.
The elegance of Kiang's appearance was nicely offset by chaos in his professional space. Stacks of files were everywhere so that there was hardly any place to sit. April decided that Kiang was a flexible person, not the rigid and controlling type of man who had to have everything just so (including her) that she'd known in the past.
As April stared at him, assessing his looks and character, Kiang shuffled around the mess to create a place to seat her. Finally he moved his square briefcase from the chair closest to his desk, moved the pile beneath it, placed the chair even closer to his own, then gestured for her to take it. He stretched his long legs between stacks of files. Electricity crackled in the small space between their knees and hands. Dean's long legs in pinstripe, his beautiful face and body, even his law degree were attractive. April's lips were dry. She worried that meant that she had been staring at him with her mouth open. Delicately, she licked her lips and dropped her eyes.
"Well, you're the best-looking detective I've ever seen." Sitting opposite her, Kiang took his turn to look her over, and he did it by aiming his view as if through a rifle sight from the top of her head down the length of her legs all the way to his own right shoe that was close enough to nudge hers. "But then, I've never worked with a Chinese detective before."
"Thanks." Released, April looked up, beaming. Sanchez was always telling her that professional didn't mean she had to be absolutely stony all the time. Now she took his advice and smiled, assuring herself through the giddy flush of pure female pleasure at being admired by such a handsome man that she was still a cop, still a sergeant, still on the job. Still grinning, she turned her attention to the office and searched for a photo of Mrs. and/or baby Kiangs. She didn't see one, smiled some more.
"And I've never worked with a Chinese prosecutor," she murmured.
"This should be interesting then." Kiang was also speculating. His eyes traveled to her left hand where he looked for a wedding ring and didn't see one. "Married?" He found a pen under a pile of papers and carefully set it down beside a new yellow legal pad as if he might take a note on her answer.
"No."
He shrugged. "Not that it matters. Boyfriend?"
April shifted uneasily in the chair, not sure what the right answer was. She had the possibility of an inappropriate boyfriend, one who did not always call and keep in touch as he should. One who only talked about being hot for her. On her side, it was true she often thought about what Mike would look like without his clothes, aroused. How compelling he'd be like that. What he'd feel like touching her, kissing her. What she'd do back. But they always ended up wrestling the bad guys to the floor, not each other. Did such a candidate count? "Who has the time?" she said finally.
"Exactly. That's it exactly." He picked up the pen and made an exclamation mark on the yellow page. No time. April gathered that he was unencumbered and gave him another warm smile.
He returned the favor. She was absolutely certain she'd sleep with him, and for about a minute there was a break in time. The appropriate thing on such an occasion of instant attraction was to get right to the important matter of exploring family trees and ties, aunts, cousins, sister cousins, young and old uncles, as well as Chinatown and other connections. Likes and dislikes, and hopes for the future. For sex to be exactly right, it was necessary to determine if there was compatibility in these other vital areas.
April was too shy and Kiang was too polite to make these inquiries, however. This overlooking of her connections made April think that Kiang's must be vastly superior to hers. His father must be a doctor or an engineer or a very rich businessman. His mother could well have many children, all boys, all professional men who went to top colleges, made much money, and wore pinstripe suits every day to their offices like Dean did. This truly excellent family would no doubt disapprove of a cop girlfriend for their golden son and brother. On this dismal thought, time began again.