The Man With No Time sg-5

by Timothy Hallinan

  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 th
e 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.

  “Until he sings 'Humpty Dumpty',” I said. “In two languages.” I put the gun down next to the couch, where Horace had left the other one. Pansy scrabbled away from it and then closed her eyes again, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around her own shoulders, presenting the smallest possible area to the room.

  Eleanor shifted her weight on the rolled-up carpet. “What are you going to do to him, Simeon?”

  “Well, first, I'm going to let him hang there until he starts to get spots in front of his eyes. Then I'm going to play kickball with the spots.” I touched the toe of my boot to his big right ear for emphasis. “This is called the Torture of One Foot,” I explained.

  "You cant" Eleanor said.

  “Get his wrists, Horace,” I said. “Grab them tight. Try to hurt his finger if you can, but don't get careless. He's going to want his hands back very badly in a moment.”

  “Got them,” Horace said from behind the table.

  “Well, keep them,” I said. “He's stronger than he looks, and he's going to start jerking around.” The boy watched me wide-eyed as I lifted my foot and swung my boot back and forth, limbering up my knee. “Holding tight, Horace?” I asked. “Here goes.”

  “No,” Pansy said. “No. No. No.” Eleanor and I turned to look at her, sitting on the couch with her knees under her and her hands clutched into fists. Her big square glasses were on crooked.

  “They not take the children,” she said. She pointed her chin at the boy hanging upside down. “This is a baby.”

>   “Kick the little swine,” Horace said behind the table.

  I tapped the boy's forehead with my boot and thought about it. “Okay,” I said to Pansy, “since he's a baby, we'll try a baby's torture.” He was just young enough that it might work. I turned back to him and spread my hands wide. “This one is called the Torture of a Thousand Fingers.”

  “But Simeon. .” Eleanor began.

  “Shhh,” I said. “I want to hear him scream.”

  I curled my fingers and passed them up and down both sides of the boy's narrow torso until my fingertips were dug into the spaces between his ribs. The boy was rigid, breathing sharply and shallowly, watching me like a dog watches a snake.

  “Who's Lo to you?” I said. “Why do you want him?”

  “He your boyfriend,” the boy whispered venomously.

  “I really hate to do this,” I said. Then I dug my fingers in and began to scrabble them up and down his ribs.

  He convulsed and started shrieking with laughter, trying desperately to wrench his hands free. I left the ribs and started in on his armpits, and his laughter soared heavenward and dissolved into coughing. I went for the ribs again, for a good minute, and then backed away and watched him weep and cough.

  “Who's Lo?” I said, when he'd regained control of himself.

  “Don't know,” he gasped.

  I thought about the tattoo on Number One's fist. “What's FF mean?”

  “Don't know.”

  A swelling started to build in my chest as though someone were blowing a bubble that encased my lungs, a hot bubble that almost closed my throat. I grinned at him, feeling my face straining into the Mask of Comedy, and forced my voice past the bubble. “Here's your problem,” I said, straining against the gravel in my throat. “You're upside down. You're salivating, but it's hard to swallow. You're going to laugh so hard you have to inhale, and when you do, sooner or later, you're going to breathe spit. Then you're going to cough and try to breathe again, but I'm still going to be tickling you. If it gets bad enough, you could swallow your tongue. How does that sound?”

  He spat at me.

  “You'll have more saliva in a minute,” I said, “but no point waiting.” I looked at my watch to give myself time to calm down, but it didn't work. I attacked him with my fingers, gouging his ribs, his underarms, and his abdomen, and I kept checking my watch as though I cared how long it lasted. Gouge and check, gouge and check, and I kept at it for a full two minutes as he shuddered and trembled and coughed and shrieked, until the noise brought Mrs. Chan in from the kitchen to watch, fascinated.