but she for her part felt a visceral aversion to types like him.
His skin was rough and oily, his teeth stained yellow with nicotine, and over a bulbous nose, his eyes looked sneaky. He gave off an air of suspicion and an annoying doggedness; you could just tell he was one of those crusty cops who worked his way up the hard way. His style of walking, hurling himself along with his coat open at the front and his paunch sticking out, made him look like an emperor penguin. The short legs only added to the effect. Or maybe he looked more like a seal standing erect? Not, in any case, somebody she would ever want to be caught dead with, if she had the choice.
Why did they pick him for my partner? No way we can be any good together.
Takako did have a policy of doing what she could to establish a bond with the detectives she was teamed with. Sometimes she even allowed herself to form a quasi-romantic attachment. That way, she felt a renewed vigor in her attitude toward work and was able to tolerate the strain more easily. This time, liking the guy was not going to be so simple. Besides, if she tried too hard to act friendly toward him, it would backfire. A man like that was incapable of seeing a woman as anything but not a man. He would never see her as a partner, only as a freak.
I have to make sure I don't let him get anything on me.
Resting her head on the edge of the tub, Takako sighed. Starting tomorrow, she would put on thick long Johns and take a disposable pocket warmer with her. Good grief, men and women were made differently, so what was the big deal if a woman took longer in the restroom? And yet she dreaded being told, "That's the trouble with a woman."
She was going to have to come up with some way to communicate with this emperor penguin. Find a way he would accept her as a true partner, not as a woman but as a colleague.
How can I wear him down? His family? A hobby? Don't fawn, but don't come off as stubborn.
What a bore, hammering out a strategy just to get along with a man like that.
If she had to think about men, why did it have to be about one who was burned to a crisp and another who was a little emperor penguin? Why not somebody normal? Yet she couldn't afford the luxury of girlish daydreams. New cases were always cropping up, she couldn't lose her edge. Her friends from junior college seemed to assume that, surrounded by men all day every day as she was, she had her pick of the lot, but she had neither the time nor the inclination for any entanglements. Having once been betrayed by someone she loved, even if Takako did come into daily contact with responsible men with a strong sense of justice who did their jobs faithfully and had firm physiques—very models of masculinity—she was rarely moved by them. Her ex had been the classic athlete type who traded on his charm.
They're all the same under their skin.
The next day, at 9:00 a.m., there was a half-hour meeting, after which everyone took off in teams. For the most part, investigators were continuing to work on learning the victim's identity, or searching for previous offenders with a similar MO, or trying to trace the manufacturer of the explosive device. It fell to Takako and Takizawa—who wore the same scowl on his face, same cigarette dangling from his mouth—to compile the eyewitness reports. Once again, Takizawa started to scurry off by himself; today, in rumpled clothes not changed from yesterday, he seemed soiled, even oilier in appearance; maybe he'd been out drinking last night. He offered no response to Takako's "Good morning."
Bet he was out complaining to his buddies about getting stuck with me.
As she walked alongside him, hurrying her stride to match his pace, Takako completely forgot that the night before, she had spent time trying to figure out how to start a conversation with this man, how to draw him out. He was beyond her; he was someone she could never learn to like.
They were on the way to the two hospitals where
His skin was rough and oily, his teeth stained yellow with nicotine, and over a bulbous nose, his eyes looked sneaky. He gave off an air of suspicion and an annoying doggedness; you could just tell he was one of those crusty cops who worked his way up the hard way. His style of walking, hurling himself along with his coat open at the front and his paunch sticking out, made him look like an emperor penguin. The short legs only added to the effect. Or maybe he looked more like a seal standing erect? Not, in any case, somebody she would ever want to be caught dead with, if she had the choice.
Why did they pick him for my partner? No way we can be any good together.
Takako did have a policy of doing what she could to establish a bond with the detectives she was teamed with. Sometimes she even allowed herself to form a quasi-romantic attachment. That way, she felt a renewed vigor in her attitude toward work and was able to tolerate the strain more easily. This time, liking the guy was not going to be so simple. Besides, if she tried too hard to act friendly toward him, it would backfire. A man like that was incapable of seeing a woman as anything but not a man. He would never see her as a partner, only as a freak.
I have to make sure I don't let him get anything on me.
Resting her head on the edge of the tub, Takako sighed. Starting tomorrow, she would put on thick long Johns and take a disposable pocket warmer with her. Good grief, men and women were made differently, so what was the big deal if a woman took longer in the restroom? And yet she dreaded being told, "That's the trouble with a woman."
She was going to have to come up with some way to communicate with this emperor penguin. Find a way he would accept her as a true partner, not as a woman but as a colleague.
How can I wear him down? His family? A hobby? Don't fawn, but don't come off as stubborn.
What a bore, hammering out a strategy just to get along with a man like that.
If she had to think about men, why did it have to be about one who was burned to a crisp and another who was a little emperor penguin? Why not somebody normal? Yet she couldn't afford the luxury of girlish daydreams. New cases were always cropping up, she couldn't lose her edge. Her friends from junior college seemed to assume that, surrounded by men all day every day as she was, she had her pick of the lot, but she had neither the time nor the inclination for any entanglements. Having once been betrayed by someone she loved, even if Takako did come into daily contact with responsible men with a strong sense of justice who did their jobs faithfully and had firm physiques—very models of masculinity—she was rarely moved by them. Her ex had been the classic athlete type who traded on his charm.
They're all the same under their skin.
The next day, at 9:00 a.m., there was a half-hour meeting, after which everyone took off in teams. For the most part, investigators were continuing to work on learning the victim's identity, or searching for previous offenders with a similar MO, or trying to trace the manufacturer of the explosive device. It fell to Takako and Takizawa—who wore the same scowl on his face, same cigarette dangling from his mouth—to compile the eyewitness reports. Once again, Takizawa started to scurry off by himself; today, in rumpled clothes not changed from yesterday, he seemed soiled, even oilier in appearance; maybe he'd been out drinking last night. He offered no response to Takako's "Good morning."
Bet he was out complaining to his buddies about getting stuck with me.
As she walked alongside him, hurrying her stride to match his pace, Takako completely forgot that the night before, she had spent time trying to figure out how to start a conversation with this man, how to draw him out. He was beyond her; he was someone she could never learn to like.
They were on the way to the two hospitals where
Similar Books
