Burning Time Read Online Free Page A

happening now?
    Slowly the picture cleared. The woman and the hoodlum were in a room with little colorful picture transfers all over the wall. It was a tattoo parlor. Jason’s heart raced. What was this about? They were looking at each other intensely. The hoodlum had his shirt off. He was on a stool with his hairless chest filling the screen. The woman caressed his shoulder as another man appeared on the screen, fiddling with some sort of instrument.
    A whine that sounded like a swarm of bees filled the theater. The man took the instrument and began to tattoo the shoulder of the hoodlum. The woman watched with intense excitement as the tattoo grew. The lovers looked at each other. Their feet touched. Their fingers entwined.
    Finally, the mean Chinese-looking symbol in blue and black was finished, and the young man got up. Jason looked at his watch, thanking God it was over.
    But it wasn’t over. Now the woman took his place on the stool. Slowly she unbuttoned her blouse and lowered it over her shoulders until her whole back was bared. The man began caressing her neck and arms, encouraging her as she had him. Her expression changed to one of sly satisfaction as the whine began again, and the tattoo needle moved toward her naked shoulder. Freeze frame.
    Jesus Christ. Jason shook his head as the credits began to roll. Emma Chapman’s name came first. She was the actress Jason had come to see on the screen for the first time. He felt dizzy at the sight of his wife’s name, as if he had the kind of food poisoning that shot toxins straight to the brain. Somehow, in all the months of preparation for the film and the shooting of it, she had neglected to tell him what she did in this film and what it was about. He sat there in shock for a long time.

4
     
    The expensively dressed woman in the short fur coat examined the seat of the metal chair dragged over for her from the desk next door. There were some crumbs on it. She brushed at them, but the surface was sticky, and they didn’t all come off. She sat down looking even more unhappy than before.
    Another fish out of water, April thought.
    The man took the chair that was already there and sat without looking at it.
    “You’re Chinese,” the woman said. It came out halfway between a question and a statement.
    “Yes, ma’am,” April agreed. She was Chinese yesterday, she was Chinese today, and would undoubtedly remain Chinese for the rest of her days.
    Now that she worked here on the upper West Side, however, sometimes April looked in the mirror and was surprised to discover it all over again. She didn’t feel Chinese unless she was with one. And she didn’t think about it unless someone reminded her. It was the hard part ofworking Uptown. Whenever she wasn’t thinking about being Chinese, someone reminded her.
    “Were you born in this country?” the woman asked. She stared at April belligerently.
    “Jennifer!” The husband shook his head. Not relevant.
    “Yes, ma’am, were you?” April replied, unabashed.
    The woman flushed slightly. “I’m sorry. I’ve just never seen a Chinese cop before.” She looked at April’s well-cut navy blazer and slacks and the red, white, and blue silk blouse with a big soft bow tied at the neck, and blushed again.
    April had a beautiful, round, delicate face, neither too fleshy nor too pointy in the jaw, and an extremely good haircut, short, expertly layered. She was wearing a little eye makeup and lipstick. She knew the woman was thinking maybe she wasn’t even a cop. Maybe she was another secretary like the surly black girl at the desk downstairs who took the complaint.
    Then the woman’s eyes filled with tears. She blew her nose. “You
are
a police—woman.”
    Bang on the button. April could read people’s minds. She nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am.” A police rule was always be courteous.
    “Jesus.” Stephen Roane put his hand on his wife’s arm.
    She pulled her arm away. “Don’t try to censor me,” she snapped.