Year of the Dragon Read Online Free

another, I always say.”
    He held her, and she clung to him.
    “There’s a human head up there on the floor.”
    He found he liked her in his arms, and so let her stay.
    But a moment later she had disengaged and was peering about for a phone.
    “I’ve got to get a crew here right away.” She was not thinking of him any more, he saw. She recognized this as the biggest news story of the day. So did he, and the realization appalled him. Bulletins would interrupt TV programming the rest of tonight, trumpeting his name. Tomorrow’s headlines would proclaim him a hero once again, though he wasn’t. He was in for another bout of sustained publicity, and his career at this point couldn’t stand it. The reporters would make him sound like a western gunslinger. Worse, they would most likely turn tonight’s dinner meeting with Carol - an interview was all it was - into a secret love tryst in “out-of-the-way” Chinatown, and this he had to prevent at all costs.
    As he took both Carol’s hands, he imagined her an hour from now, standing in front of cameras giving an eyewitness account of the massacre. He imagined her describing her precious life saved by her date, the fearless gunslinging hero of the action, Captain Powers. And so he began to plead with her.
    “Call your story in, then disappear,” he begged. “Let some other reporter handle it. I’m a married man. If the media finds out we were together-”
    “There’s nothing between us.”
    “They’ll turn it into a scandal anyway.” Outside the sirens were closer. There wasn’t much time. “You know they will.”
    “You’re asking too much. This is an important story. It’s one of the biggest stories of my life. You can’t ask me to give it up.” Her eyes, still roaming, had located phones, and she strode toward them.
    Ting staggered out onto the landing above. Blood from his scalp leaked down the side of his face, and he grasped the balustrade for support.
    Powers took the steps two at a time.
    “The police are on their way, Captain,” said Ting.
    In a few minutes this place would swarm with uniformed cops, and in his head Powers began to apportion jobs. A crime scene needed to be established. Witnesses had to be prevented from leaving and statements taken. Detectives had to be summoned. Ambulances too, of course. Commands had to be notified: precinct, division, borough, the chief of detectives’ office, the police commissioner’s office, the medical examiner’s office, the district attorney’s office, even, for something this big, the mayor’s office. Until the top brass arrived he was in charge. He would use Ting’s office as his command post.
    He would have to phone his wife before she heard whatever news bulletins went out on the air, and became terrified.
    He glanced down at Carol, now turning away from the phone. The press would turn up in droves. He would have to station cops at the door to keep them out. Carol too. She was on the outside now, and would remain there.
    “It’s bad, Captain,” said Mr. Ting.
    Powers strode past him into the slaughterhouse inside.

 
    THE RAIN started again. It fell straight down. Carol waited under an overhang while the street, already full, swelled fuller. People running. Sirens. Shouts. Cars. Slamming doors. Despite cordons at both ends, vehicles kept entering the street: detectives’ cars, commanders’ cars. She didn’t know what all of them were, but she saw they were official, for they double- and triple-parked, they parked on sidewalks. Cops in dripping black slickers worked to keep the crowd back, and to keep one lane open. Forensic vans inched through. Ambulances backed up to the restaurant entrance. Their back doors were flung apart and men in white coats jumped out.
    Carol had found her crew and her standup began. Her face intruded into a million houses, a living presence in living color. Uninvited, she interrupted a sitcom for sixty seconds, replacing four weak jokes and their canned