Reflecting the Sky by Rozan S. J

Author:Rozan, S. J. [Rozan, S. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2011-03-31T22:00:00+00:00

The main headquarters building of the Hong Kong Police Department, back down the hill and not far from the water, looked like any other Hong Kong skyscraper. An expanse of gray-blue glass, midday sun glinting off it, faced an avenue of roaring traffic. Our cab screeched to a halt at the curb and bounced forward and back while I peeled off bills for the fare. Inside the building, the usual too-cool air-conditioning greeted us like an old friend. Not so the stone-faced police officer at the front desk, who inquired after our business in a way that implied that whatever we said was probably a ruse his vigilance would get to the bottom of. I explained our names and our mission in Cantonese to see if it would soften him up. It didn’t, but a curt phone call upstairs got us visitor badges and a grudging explanation of where to find the elevator and what floor to get off on.

Mark Quan was waiting for us when the elevator opened. He wore a gold badge on his belt and an automatic in a shoulder holster. He said nothing except, “Come this way,” so we followed him through a blue-carpeted warren of office partitions. At scattered desks uniformed and plainclothes cops, mostly Chinese, a few Westerners, mostly men, a few women, typed on computer keyboards, drank from mugs, and insulted each other with the same offhand ease you’d see at the Fifth Precinct on Elizabeth Street, back home. They looked up when we passed, saw we had a cop with us, and went back to what they’d been doing. We were another cop’s case, another cop’s problem.

We stopped at a glass-walled conference room on the window side of a corridor. Mark Quan pushed the door open and held it. I hoped he would give us a map to find our way back to the elevator when we were through. I moved past him into the room, noticing the scent of his aftershave: green and citrusy, not a bit perfumed, but fresh as morning. I wasn’t really surprised that I noticed. I’m a detective; noticing details is my job. I was a little surprised, though, that Mark Quan had so clearly just shaved, in the early afternoon.

I crossed to the window. Below us, water sparkled and ferries plowed and sampans bobbed and yatchs both under sail and under power skimmed across the harbor to the outlying islands for a Sunday picnic. A regatta was going on far off on the horizon, small boats with bright-striped sails all swooping together this way and that like a flock of birds. Beyond the harbor, Kowloon’s gray buildings shimmered in the heat and its round hills blurred into the blue of the distant sky.

Mark pointed Bill and me to chairs and we sat in them, with him across the table. Our backs were to the window and Mark faced it, the brightness of the Hong Kong afternoon lighting his face. That was a good sign, I thought:

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