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thing like that? Exactly whom was he trying to convince of his sincere remorse and good character? Tay wondered briefly if he had matches somewhere in the house, but knew he didn’t. He had thrown them all away along with his cigarettes the last time he had quit smoking.
    He finally gave up, both on the cigarette and on trying to make himself feel better, and decided just to get dressed and go to work. Maybe he would even walk part of the way and stop somewhere for breakfast. Eat a nice greasy banana fritter. Maybe two. Yes, that sounded good. A sugar fix and another hit of caffeine. That might be just the ticket.
    Standing now on his front porch, he saw the storm had passed and it had stopped raining. Or maybe it hadn’t. Tay eyed the sky with mistrust and took an umbrella out of the stand next to his door. Still, if this was rain, it had none of the drive, none of the interest it had shown during the night. The clouds seemed old and tired. Tay knew exactly how they felt.
    He walked down to Orchard Road, crossed over, and followed it west toward the Mandarin Hotel until he came to a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. He bought a double espresso and two banana fritters and sat down at a table on which someone had thoughtfully abandoned a copy of that morning’s Straits Times . Taking a long pull on the espresso and biting into the first of the fritters, he glanced around the room. He was surprised to see it was almost full.
    Four schoolgirls in green skirts and while blouses giggled and squealed in a back corner as they exchanged confidences. A darksuited man with a round Chinese face sat at a small table holding his coffee in one hand while with the other he methodically emptied his briefcase onto the table and then repacked it again. Three men and a woman conversed earnestly at a table covered with files, papers, cell phones, and empty coffee cups. Two young women came in wearing hip-hugging jeans slung so low that they threatened, or promised depending on your point of view, to reveal all at any moment.
    What were all those people doing here? Tay wondered. Were so many people generally up and around Singapore at this godforsaken hour? Surely not.
    Tay finished the first banana fritter and realized that, against all odds, he was beginning to feel moderately human. He took another long hit from the espresso, then started on the second fritter and unfolded The Straits Times .
    As a rule Tay did not like reading newspapers in the morning. He thought their everlasting recitations of the tragedies, atrocities, and scandals that had occurred while he slept were a poor recommendation for the coming day, the one just past having turned out so revoltingly. If he read a newspaper in the morning at all, he tried to stick strictly to the sports pages and the supermarket ads. He found they passed the time without awakening his sense of foreboding.
    This morning however, he had something specific on his mind. Public Affairs had told The Straits Times that the woman at the Marriott was probably a suicide and had asked them not to make too much of it and embarrass the hotel unnecessarily. There was nothing on the front page and Tay perked up. Apparently, the paper had bought it. Thank Christ for small favors.
    Tay kept turning the pages until he eventually found the story. It was the third item in the Case File section, played after a piece about a policeman who had been using a hidden camera to take pictures up women’s skirts and another piece about a raid on a night club in Mohamed Sultan Road that resulted in twenty-three kids being arrested on drug charges. Well, that explained it. Who wanted to dig into something as mundane as a suicide at the Marriott when there were so many more interesting things going on around town? He refolded the paper, put it down, and let his eyes drift while he finished his espresso.
    For the first time Tay noticed a woman at a table in the back. She was reading a copy of the International Herald Tribune and