The police detective who had slipped the chain from off the dead girl's head and into his pocket took it out again as he sat alone in his car. He held it up in the palm of his hand and figured he had made quite a bit of money that night. It was his way of making ends meet between paychecks, and anyway, he figured they owed him for passing him over successively for promotion. Plus he had extra expenses of his own that he needed to take care of.

He went back to the station and the girl was waiting quietly for him sitting at his desk. He said nothing to her. The pictures of his wife and children were there on his desk, and it bothered him to have to see them while the girl was present. He had this young Indonesian woman wrapped around the end of his fingers.

He used her sexually when he wanted her, and kept her from talking with anyone, frightening her by threatening to turn her into the authorities and have her and the rest of her family deported back to Indonesia. He didn't allow her to talk to anyone and she only went to her job and came straight back to wait for him at his office. Anyway, he gave her a little spending money when he scored a little extra in order to help keep her quiet. The other policemen looked knowingly at her, but they all looked the other way. As long as there were no repercussions everyone acted as if nothing was going on.

Of course his wife knew about the situation and was angry with him, but she was a good wife who could say or do nothing about it. He came to visit his family on his day off and sometimes stopped in to see them between times while on his job.

He was also irritated because he hadn't figured out what to do with the necklace as yet. He didn't want anyone around the station to see it in case it was reported missing. He wasn't sure whether to sell it for cash or to give it to the girl as a gift. He liked the girl a little bit and felt sorry for her, but the necklace would bring a lot of cash in and he could do a lot more with the cash. That's why when he saw the girl sitting there dumbly he became angry at her and purposefully ignored her. He didn't want to bring the necklace out in front of her and he wanted to see it better in the light to figure out how much he might get for it.

He sent the girl out to buy some makan for them and so that he could get a better look at the necklace. When the girl left he pulled it from his pocket and inspected it in the light. He was amazed at the intricacy and delicacy of its design. He knew right away that it would be too much to give to the girl and that he would get a pretty good price tomorrow from someone he knew on the streets. So he put it into a small pouch that he hung under his shirt and quickly buttoned his shirt back up.

When the girl came back with the rice they ate on the table. He asked her if she had spoken to anyone that day. She was terrified of him and told him that she only spoke with the people she usual talked to. When he wasn't too busy he would follow her down to her work and then pick her up when she was finished.

He liked the girl because she was like a helpless child to him. She was much younger and thinner than his wife and more attractive. He made her go to the department store and buy the sexy lingerie that he made her wear every night. He kept her in a small flat that he rented from a connection. No questions were asked, no papers signed--as long as the rent and bills were paid every month.

The money that she earned from her own job during the day he let her do with as she pleased. She used it to support her family who had come illegally to work, and to send back to her own country. He bought her food and clothes to make her look good, and he paid for the small flat where they stayed nights. He made her clean the flat, and when he was out and she was there, he would lock her in so that she couldn't leave without his knowing it.

They finished eating and threw the wax paper into the trash can and washed their hands at the sink outside. Then he called his wife and asked after his kids and told her that he wouldn't be coming home that night because he had to work late. The wife said nothing and he hung up. Then he and the girl walked out to his car and they drove to their flat together.

The first time he saw her was when he went to arrest the family after being tipped off by someone who called him on the phone. Instead of having them arrested he figured he could swing a deal with them. When he saw the young girl he decided that he liked her. After talking with her a little he knew he had them in the palm of his hand. He brought the girl with him down to the station while he let the others off the hook.

Their flat was on the eleventh floor of a low-cost housing scheme. He hated it. At first they checked in to some nice hotels who gave him a special discount because they knew him. But it was too expensive and risky to spend every night in a hotel, even if he liked the accommodations better. He parked the car beneath the building and they took the elevator up from the ground floor. The flat was dirty and crowded. Things were always falling from above and the air smelled of Durian. Kids were still playing up and down the corridors as he unlocked the grill and opened the door of the flat.

He opened the glass door that gave access to the small balcony. The wind was still blowing and it cooled the place off very well. She turned the light on to the kitchen. He always had her go out and buy beer in the mornings so that he could drink one when he came back at night. It helped him to relax and he liked the taste of beer, even if he went to the Mosque every Friday. He told her to get him a beer and he took off his clothes and went to take a hot shower.

He laughed to himself when he thought how his wife still had to use cold water to wash herself with. He thought how odd the dead couple were that night lying limp and lifeless arm in arm. He did not understand their motives. It all seemed so strange and unbelievable. He hadn't seen anything like it before in his 17 years as a detective. And the girl was strange and pretty, even in death.

The girl went to clean up and he sat down on his couch to watch a video. He had gotten a deal on the tape player. Sometimes he liked to watch foreign movies when he had the extra time to go and rent them and sometimes he liked to watch his special collection of blue movies he had gotten when they had made a raid on and confiscated a bunch of blue movies downtown. He had put all the tapes they had raided into several plastic bags and put the bags into the boot of his car. When he took them back to the station he left one bag in the boot of his car while he took the rest in to be used as evidence. He figured there was more than enough to make a case.

Tonight he put on one of his special tapes. It was a Japanese tape. He liked to see the naked women making love to each other. The girl came out dressed in a light nightgown with skimpy lingerie underneath. She looked embarrassed as she sat down on the couch next to him to watch the start of the tape. She was dark but tall and attractive. She had a nice figure and was on the slim side. She had let down her black wavy hair and it covered her shoulders. Her breasts were large and her black hard nipples pointed through the thin material of the nightgown. He could smell the perfume he had bought for her to wear, and she had rubbed lotion over her body.

They sat there watching the movie for about a half-hour. He had put his arm around the girl and drew her close to him. He figured these movies were educational for her as it would teach her things to do in bed. At first she was very timid and would just lie there stiffly and moan a little. Only lately she was beginning to get used to it and break out of her shell a little more. She was beginning to get into it more and even seemed to be enjoying and wanting to do it more. He wanted her to do things like in the movies but was too embarrassed to ask her openly. She always turned the light off before she got into bed, but he wanted to leave the light on so that he could see her in the mirror he had hung on the wall while they made love together.

They sat on the couch like that together and finally they were kissing and he slipped his hand beneath her nightgown and could feel her soft smooth skin. They made it on the couch for a while, until the tape ended. Then they got up. He rewound the tape and then they went into the bedroom. Tonight he insisted that they leave the light on and she acquiesced. He had forgotten all about the golden chain with the monkey pendant.

The next afternoon he went to see someone downtown he knew who dealt in stolen merchandise and contraband, so that he could swing a deal with the necklace. He didn't really know its net value and asked for at least a thousand dollars for it. He had already made plans for how to spend the extra money. The man he was dealing with didn't make much of an argument and gave him his full asking price. No questions were asked and he did not think twice about having done it.

On the way back to the station that afternoon he thought about his wife. He sometimes missed her and his children, and thought that he would go and stay with them this evening after he took the girl back to the flat. When he went like that he never said anything to the girl. He never told her where he was going or what he was doing. He just locked her inside and told her to not answer the door if anyone came to call.

When he was back at the station the head of the department called him into his office. The department chief told him that there had been some complications. The girl that worked for him had fallen ill at her work and had been rushed to the hospital. There they had to do an emergency blood test on her because she had an acute appendix rupture and the hospital wanted to perform an emergency appendectomy.

The problem was that the results of the girl's blood test had indicated she was HIV positive. The head of the department asked the detective if he knew what this all meant. He asked him if he had any sexual relations with the girl and who the girl's family were, because they had to be told of the situation.

The detective was dumbfounded and just sat on edge of the chair without moving. He was staring through a window into the work area outside and the chief's words were droning in an incoherent fashion. All the implications of what the chief was saying didn't really sink in. Just a mild infection like the flu or something.

He did not really know much about AID's except that there was no cure yet. He didn't really know whether he could have picked it up from her or not, or whether he could have given it to anybody else.

His mind flashed to the dark girl in her silk lingerie. He thought about his wife and his children. He counted the months back to how long he had known the girl and then he thought how many times he had had intercourse with is own wife since then. He thought that she was a young virgin because the first time they had intercourse there was blood.

Then he heard the chief's words again when he told him that he was himself to go down to the hospital to get a blood test done and a shadow began to rise slowly over his heart to engulf it in darkness.

Blanket Copyright, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.