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raced. He couldn’t think straight. Blood was pumping hard and fast. He steadied himself at the railing, looked down again, and shook his head. “What the …” was all he could manage to get out. What the fuck do I do now? Again he leaned over the railing, looking at the people who gathered around the body on the pavement. Some of them looked up. He stood back from the railing. This was the last thing he wanted to get involved in.
    It had happened so fast that there hadn’t been time to comprehend much of anything about the young woman. Then her face registered in his mind; she was the ice goddess at the spirit house.
    From the ninth floor the woman’s body looked tiny, unreal, as if a doll had been thrown over the side, sprawled arms and legs at unnatural angles, partly on the sidewalk and partly in the road. A car braked hard and stopped. Another car slammed into the back of the first car. Soon the street filled with people circling the body. Calvino stood staring at them all. It had been a dead drop. One hand on the railing, the other hand cupping his whiskey glass, Calvino looked atthe concrete bottom of the balcony above his head. She’d fallen from above, but how far above he had no way of determining. It seemed that the spirit hadn’t been at home when she’d planted the incense sticks in the tiny bowls filled with beach sand.
    He dropped heavily into the balcony chair. Finishing his whiskey, he put the glass on the table. Then he went inside the suite and phoned the reception. A woman’s voice came on the line. “Someone just fell from this hotel,” he said. “Phone an ambulance and the police.”
    â€œYes, sir,” she said. The police had already been called.
    â€œI saw her.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œShe’s dead.”
    â€œLet us notify the police.”
    He put down the phone and went back onto the balcony and looked down.
    It had been as if she’d briefly stopped her long swan dive to say a short goodbye to a stranger, a final silent farewell. It made him a witness to death for the second time in two days. He’d done the right thing by reporting it, he told himself. Colonel Pratt would have to be notified. But not right away. He needed to think through what had happened.
    She had plunged head first, and that bothered him. When someone jumps off a building, it’s almost always feet first. This is a basic human instinct. People are hardwired to fear heights. High off the ground, looking down, a ying who is determined to kill herself will calculate where to go over the edge, and even then some inner voice will still tell her to land on her feet. A murder victim is a different story. Most of the time there is a struggle. Even if the victim is surprised from behind, the result is the same: the victim is pushed over the edge, and the force throws her off balance. There’s no time for her instinct to kick in and override the natural fear. Calvino wrapped his fist around his glass and pressed it to his lips, forgetting it was empty. Realizing his mistake, he put it down hard on the table and sank into the chair, head in his hands.
    This isn’t good, but it’s okay, he told himself. Shit like this happens. Pratt knows that. It just happens more frequently to some people. I wasn’t doing anything, just having a drink. People get themselvesmurdered all the time. He shouldn’t take it personally. He had nothing to do with it. He knew what he had to do. He had to go downstairs and tell the police what he’d seen.
    He remembered her smile as the seagull had flown away. There had been some heat behind the ice.
    Calvino left a message for Pratt, and took the lift to the lobby. When he walked out, he saw the police were talking with the receptionist and the bellhop. With clarity, Calvino saw his future, and having a holiday wasn’t part of it. He saw himself filling out endless police reports, attending