The nursery was hurricane country. It looked like one of those amusement-park houses where the furniture is on the walls in one room and on the ceiling in the next. Horace sat in the center of the floor holding on to a quilt Pansy had made for the two children when they slept in one crib. His other hand was screwed into a fist and pressed against the bridge of his nose. He was bent forward so far his forehead almost touched the floor. I sat next to him and wrapped my arm around his shoulders, and he straightened and turned in to me and wept, his face pressed tight against my chest and his shoulders shaking convulsively. I looked down at him from what seemed like quite a distance.
“We'll get them back,” I said, focusing on plans. Plans seemed like the thing. “We'll call the cops. I've got a friend on the cops, you know? And we'll go after Uncle Lo ourselves.”
“Sure,” Horace said, drawing back and wiping his nose on a corner of the quilt. “And we'll kill the kids playing cowboy.” He listened to the echo for a moment. “Uncle Lo? Uncle Lo didn't do this.”
“Why not? I mean, he was the only one here.”
“Why would he?”
“I don't know,” I said.
He spread his fingers wide and curled them inward, looking for something to strangle. “I wish he had. I wish I knew it was Lo. At least we could talk to—”
“Horace. He set it up. Sent you guys out for dim sum and stayed home like he couldn't face it, when we both know he was the only sober one last night.”
“Huh,” Horace scoffed. He glanced down at the quilt in his hand and tossed it onto one of the beds, where it dangled disconsolately from a wooden leg like an abandoned battle flag.
“Okay, if it wasn't Uncle Lo, who was it?”
“Whoever took him away,” Horace said, after swallowing twice. “Whoever came and got him.”
That stopped me, and I said, “Oh.” There was, after all, a dead man in the closet. Still, I knew Lo had faked his hangover so he could be alone in the house.
Horace plowed on. “Why would he save our family and then do, do—this?”
“Right,” I said, filling the silence.
“And anyway,” Horace said, “why would he tear the place apart?”
“Maybe he was looking for something.”
“Like what? I've lived in this apartment most of my life. I know everything that's in it. There's nothing in it.”
“Horace. Lo didn't know there was nothing in the apartment. He needed something, so he tossed it. And when he didn't find it, then he took the twins so he could demand whatever it was later.”
Horace looked around as though he expected to see what Lo had missed. His nose was running, and his long hair, usually sprayed and combed forward to hide his balding scalp, was standing straight up. Without realizing what I was doing, I put out a hand and smoothed it. “However,” I said, “I have to tell you that someone else was here.”
“Who?” Horace barely cared.
“He's still here,” I said. “In the closet. We've got a dead guy.”
It took a second for the words to cut through to him. Then he blinked heavily and said, “No.”
“Can you look at him?”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “Look at a dead guy. In my house.” He blew out a quart of air. “Let's get it over with.”
The dead guy was still there, still folded neatly into his corner. He was in his middle thirties, maybe, wearing corduroy trousers, a Hawaiian shirt, and a shoulder holster that nestled incongruously among the printed palms and flamingos. “Know him?” I asked.
“Just another Chinese to me.” Horace turned away from me. “I need to talk to Pansy.” I followed him down the hall. He walked without lifting his feet, like an old man whose slippers were too big for him.
Pansy had turned over onto her back, and Eleanor was rubbing her temples as Pansy sent up skyrockets of Chinese. Eleanor stopped looking into her eyes just long enough to say to me, “Pansy wants the back door locked.”
“Why?” I said. “We should be calling—”
“Lock the door, please, Simeon,” Eleanor said. She put enough weight in the words to catch my attention.
Okay, Pansy wanted the door locked. I went to lock the door. The important thing right now was to make Pansy feel she had some control over something. So I closed the door, listening to desperate new commands from behind me, and as I tried to lock it, the knob turned in my hand and the door flew open and smacked me in the center of the forehead.
The blow wasn't that strong, but it was unexpected. It propelled me backward into the hallway. My hip hit the little table that held the telephone, and my legs tangled around each other, and as I fell I saw two children come in.
Well, they looked like children. They were tiny and delicate and black-haired and Asian, and they both had big, oily-looking, black semiautomatics.
“Up,” the one in front said, gesturing skyward with a repeater that looked like it could uproot a live oak at half a mile. The other one eased past him, plenty of room in the hall for two people their size, and followed the barrel of his gun into the living room. I heard a sharp yelp in yet another language I didn't speak, and Pansy's commands ceased.
“Up,” Number One said again. He was no more than five feet and a few inches tall, handsome in a diminutive way, and he was dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt. A cascade of expensively curly black hair tumbled over his forehead. Tony Curtis, 1953. Watching his trigger finger as I climbed to my feet, I saw the initials FF tattooed blue on his right hand.
“I'm up,” I said. “Where do you want my hands?”
“On your head.” I complied, and he grinned. It wasn't an encouraging grin. “Carrying?” he asked.
“No.” My stupid little gun was down in my stupid car.
“Turn around. Forehead against the wall, legs wide, hands behind your neck, elbows back.” I saw him grin again as I turned.
“Good,” he said behind me, patting me down. “Behave or I'm shooting you here"—he tapped a spot at the base of my spine. "No more marathon man,” he said. “No more knowing when you're going to go to the toilet.”
His English wasn't actually accented; it was lilted, syllables tilted upward at the end of the words, so that “knowing" became "knowing.” “And now,” he said, “turn around slowly, toward in there, and go say hi to everybody else.”
“Okey-doke,” I said, sounding braver than I felt. I completed the distance to the living/dining room and followed directions. “Hi,” I said.
Pansy, Horace, and Eleanor were huddled together on the exploded couch, staring at Number Two or, more likely, his gun. I hate guns, but most of all I hate guns and nervousness. Rattlers are calm before they kill you; after all, they're just doing what millions of years of natural selection have thoughtfully equipped them to do. But killing, for a person who's not a really advanced psychopath, is light-years from routine. Most of the people who kill other people are very nervous. This kid, whose ears looked wider than his shoulders, wider than Dumbo's, was ready to jump out of his skin.
“This is all a mistake,” I said, trying to sound as calm, as dull, as a psychiatrist. “You guys are in the wrong place.”
“No,” Handsome said behind me. “You in the wrong place.”
Dumbo-Ears, also small, even thinner and shorter than the other, also dressed all in black, with a coil of rope hanging at his waist, eased the safety off with a tiny click that almost blew my eardrums out. His hands were shaking. He had a protruding Adam's apple that made him look like he'd swallowed a thumb, and it did a quick dive as he swallowed.
“This is silly,” I said, hearing my voice crack. “These people just came home and found their children missing. Look at this place. Do you think we did this?”
“Where's Lo?” Handsome said behind me, establishing himself as the dominant personality. He didn't slip his safety off because it was already off.
“We don't know,” Eleanor said in a steady voice. “He was here when we left.”
Dumbo-Ears looked
quickly at Handsome. It wasn't a look my insurance agent would have appreciated. “What you think?” he snapped.
“Slowly,” Handsome said. Actually, he said “Salowly.” He tapped my shoulder with the barrel of his gun. “Children missing?”
“Yes,” I said, scared enough to volunteer information. “Two. Twins.”
“How old?”
“Four,” I said.
“Who's mommy?” Handsome asked.
“I am,” Eleanor said, before Pansy could speak. Her face was paper-white.
“And daddy?” That was Handsome again.
“Here,” Horace said.
“Then this is the deal,” Handsome said calmly. “We shoot mommy if daddy won't tell us where Lo is.” My sweat glands suddenly let go, a cascade down my sides.
“Get up, Mommy,” Handsome said to Eleanor. “Get up and go to the wall.”
Eleanor stood, slowly and gracefully, smiling regretfully at Handsome, as though he were a child whose intelligence she'd overestimated. She went to the wall at the long side of the room and put a steadying hand on the mantel over the false fireplace, where the family shrine had been. I'd never loved her so much. “Should I face you,” she asked, “or turn away?”
“Up to you,” Handsome said with a shrug.
“Then I'll face you,” Eleanor said. “That way, you'll remember me.”
She turned to face him fully and put her hands behind her, offering him her heart, her lungs, her stomach, all the places that couldn't be fixed.
“Where's Lo?” Handsome asked again.
“I don't know,” Horace said. “Honest to God—”
“We shoot mommy in the knees first,” Handsome said. “Then in the elbows. That's four. Number five is for keeps.”
Dumbo-Ears looked startled. “Aaahhh,” he said. It might have been a protest.
“He's not here,” Horace said hoarsely.
“Left knee,” Handsome said, lowering the gun that was pointed at Eleanor.
“Wait,” Pansy shrilled. “I mommy, not her. She only—”
Dumbo-Ears looked from Eleanor to her, and Handsome took a step forward so that he was beside me, and raised the gun. I shifted my weight, ready to slam him with my shoulder, and then there was a shuffling sound behind us and a sharp crack, and Handsome hurtled past, hitting me as he fell. A tornado followed him.
“Badboy,” Mrs. Chan bellowed, battering Handsome again with the wooden handles of her umbrellas, two of them, carried against the certainty that it would rain double-hard wherever she was. “Badboy, badboy, badboy.”
I went for Dumbo-Ears's throat and gun arm and got an elbow around them, jerking my arm upward to point the barrel of his gun at the ceiling. It went off twice, showering Horace and Pansy with plaster, at the precise moments that Mrs. Chan's umbrellas struck Handsome, the sound making the blows seem supernaturally hard. Handsome, realizing that his assailant was a woman in her sixties, rose to one knee and brought the gun to bear on her, just as Horace launched himself off the couch and knocked him to the floor on his side. The two of them sprawled there, and Dumbo-Ears freed himself from my grasp with surprisingly wiry arms and brought the gun around into my face.
I was backing away, trying to outrun the bullet, when something brown and compact flew snarling through the air and attached itself to Dumbo-Ears's right shoulder. Flailing at Bravo, he let the gun sag, and I grabbed it and swung it to the right, hearing a little pop as his finger, caught in the trigger guard, was dislocated.
“That's it,” I screamed, reversing the gun and pulling the trigger and spraying the walls with high-velocity slugs. The noise got everyone's attention. Mrs. Chan stopped biting Handsome's thigh, and Handsome looked up from the tangle just long enough to let Horace seize the gun in his hands. Horace turned it around and pointed it at Handsome's chest. The kid went limp, lying on his back and panting. Bravo, growling low in his throat, backed off and then sat.
“My hero,” Eleanor said to me. Or maybe to Bravo. Then her knees went, and she toppled onto the couch.
No one else spoke for a moment. We were all panting. Dumbo-Ears was clutching his dislocated finger and making a rasping sound. “Now what?” Horace said. The gun in his hands was shaking violently.
“Call the cops.”
“No.” He looked over at Pansy, who had her eyes closed. “Not yet.”
“You're nuts, Horace.” No reaction. I looked at Eleanor, who refused to meet my gaze. My own knees were beginning to shake. “Okay, it's your house. But let's at least secure these twerps so we can talk. Eleanor, unroll the dining-room rug.”
As she went to do it, Mrs. Chan registered the state of the apartment. “Aiya,” she said mournfully. Then, a small, round woman in a loose-fitting quilted silk jacket and slacks, she started straightening things.
“Horace, tell your mother she can clean up as much as she wants, but not to get anywhere near either of these guys. Also, you might want to keep her away from the closet.”
Horace said something in Cantonese, and Mrs. Chan glared at the two black-clad children and then puttered off to the kitchen. “Sonomagun,” I heard her say.
“It's unrolled,” Eleanor said from the dining room. She was standing on an Oriental rug, about six by eight. “What's in the closet?”
“It's a surprise. You, Junior,” I said to Handsome. “Over there. Horace, you make sure that this guy and his ears stay put. If he blinks, shoot him.”
“Sure,” Horace said. The gun aimed at Dumbo-Ears was steady.
Eleanor backed away as Handsome reached the rug. “Lie down,” I told him. “Right there, on the edge. Put your hands in your pockets, real deep, as far as they'll go. I want your elbows straight.”
He lay down on the short edge of the carpet, his head a couple of inches above the corner. His face was a mask of indifference.
“Roll over once,” I said. He did. “Eleanor, I want you to lift the edge of the rug and put it over him. Stand at his waist. Good. Now tuck the rug under him and roll him forward with both hands. Junior, don't move anything, understand? Don't even nod your head.”
Eleanor got down on her knees and rolled the boy away from her, then looked up at me. “Keep going,” I said. “I want the whole rug wrapped around him.”
By the time she was finished, Handsome was encased in a tight cylinder of rug that ended at his nose. He let his expressionless eyes bore into mine.
“Sit on his chest,” I told Eleanor. “If you feel him moving his arms, get up and tell me and we'll see if this war machine he was toting will go through four or five layers of Persian carpet.”
“Astrakhan,” Eleanor murmured, sitting on the boy.
“What about this one?” Horace asked.
“Well,” I said, “we could wiggle his finger around a little.”
The kid backed away on his elbows, gabbling at me, until his head hit the wall. Then he grabbed his finger again.
“Okay,” I said. “He's the baby, even if his ears are all grown up. He's going to get special treatment. Go turn the table over.”
“The table?” Horace asked.
“You know, where you eat dinner?”
Horace nodded. “The table.”
I trained the gun on Dumbo-Ears while Horace, grunting with effort, put the heavy table upright. “How long is that thing?” I asked.
“About six feet,” Horace said.
“Great. Get the baby's rope. Baby, put your hands behind your head and keep them there.”
Horace fumbled through the coil of rope hanging from the boy's waist and worked it through the belt loop on his jeans. Then he did it again. By the time he had the entire rope free it seemed to have taken hours. He stood up and backed away from the kid, the rope dangling from his hands.
“Okay, Baby,” I said to Dumbo-Ears, “go over and get on the table. On your back.”
The boy grumbled, but he did as he was told and lay there, looking up at the ceiling, still clutching his right index finger in the palm of his left.
> “What did you say?” I demanded. Sitting on the rolled-up rug, Eleanor was looking at me as though she'd never seen me before.
“Baby,” he said scornfully.
“And you are a baby, too, even if you're a mean-spirited, murderous little shitheel of a baby. Pull yourself down so the table hits you at your knees. I want your legs dangling over the edge.”
Still muttering, still grasping one hand in the other, the boy scooted down the length of the table on his back.
“This stuff isn't real strong,” Horace said, testing the rope.
“Well, the little jerk doesn't weigh much. It should be fine. Get a knife, would you? You're going to need to cut it.”
Horace went into the kitchen, asked his mother a question, and came out with a big serrated bread knife in his hand. I could hear drawers banging in the kitchen, percussion for a cantata of Cantonese complaint.
“Okay,” I said to Horace. “Now wrap the rope around his left leg and the left table leg. Start at the knee and go all the way down. Don't be thrifty or gentle. I want it tight.” Two minutes later Number Two's calves were tied to the legs of the table.
“And now?” Horace asked.
“Now we put the table on end so that the little fucker is upside down. You'll have to stand on the legs so it doesn't tip forward.”
Horace dragged the table around so the boy's head was facing me and then tilted the other end upward. The boy let out a shriek, but Horace kept upending the table until Dumbo-Ears was dangling, head toward the floor, arms hanging down. His face immediately filled with blood. A vein throbbed in the side of his neck.
“Comfortable?” I asked him. “I hope not, because you're going to be there a long time.”
“How long?” Eleanor asked, the softy.
The Man With No Time Page 3
