Writing excerpt 2

Just a little bit of what's going on further along in the story :)

Dante turned to Matsumoto.

“What did you say to each other?” he asked.

“I said, your place or mine. He said, bring your handcuffs.”

“You liar.”

“Yeah. Shame. I just said, thanks because I’m busy, he said, you’re welcome. You interested in learning Cantonese?”

“Maybe.” Dante waved away clouds of steam. The room they’d entered was even hotter than out in the corridor. “I mean, we work in Chinatown, right? It seems a good idea to be able to talk to people in at least one of their own languages.”

“It’s an even better idea to know what they’re saying when they think you don’t understand them,” Matsumoto said. “I’m half Hong Kong Chinese anyway. I come prepacked with Cantonese.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dante said. He coughed as he breathed in steam. “I hate to think what this is doing to the crime scene.”

“M E should be here any minute,” Joe said. “There you are.”

Dante looked down at the body on the floor, trying to make out details. The young man was half-wearing a white towelling robe, which had been pulled nearly off him, presumably when he was struggling with his attacker.

“I’ve got your crime scene tape, Sarge.” Another rookie arrived, belting into the room like Pheidippides turning up in Athens.

“Watch that fucking body, O’Reilly!” Joe said.

O’Rielly skidded to a stop, then looked down at the corpse he’d nearly run over. “Urgh!” he said, pointing a trembling finger. “Is that what he does? The killer?”

“What?” Dante said, leaning over to look.

“The body - he’s got no – his dick’s gone! He’s got no dick!”

“You’re right,” Dante said, suppressing a smile.

“Where is it?” O’Rielly looked around as if he expected to see the missing body part hanging on the wall somewhere, along with the towels, robes and shelves holding massage oil.

“He never had one,” Matsumoto said, taking a look for himself. “Those are female genitals.”

“What?” O’Rielly didn’t seem much reassured by this news.

“See that’s the problem with having a lot of gay officers in a precinct,” Joe said. “They see naked woman parts, they’ve no idea what they’re looking at.”