The Man With No Time sg-5

by Timothy Hallinan

  When I saw her, I stopped and backed away, ashamed. The boy's face was covered in tears and spit and snot, and the convulsions went on for at least twenty seconds.

  “Who's Lo?” I asked again, breathing almost as hard as he was. Who sent you to get him?"

  “Don't know.” He swung his head, upside down, from side to side. His eyes were beads of hate, so intense they looked like they might pop out of his head and roll across the floor at me to bite my feet.

  “Kick him,” Horace said again.

  A wave of revulsion swept over me. I glanced at Eleanor, and caught her staring at me as though I'd just emerged from the kitchen drain. I aimed all the fear I felt at the kid. “Back to Plan A, then. Do girls like you? I should think they would. You're a good-looking kid. It's a shame I'm going to have to kick your face in.”

  I stepped up to him and lifted my right foot. My left knee was rubber.

  “He doesn't know,” Handsome said, muffled in his rug. “He doesn't know anything.”

  “But you do,” I said, finding someone new to hate. “And he'll remember that you let me kick his face in.”

  Nothing.

  I hauled back my foot and kicked hard. My boot thudded into the table, half an inch from the kid's extraordinary right ear, and he screeched in a satisfying fashion and then glared back up at me. Even upside down, his face was poison.

  “Lo's this old man,” Handsome said sullenly. “Mainland Chinese. He do something wrong, and we came to get him.”

  “What did he do?” I could barely get the words past the bubble.

  “They didn't tell us,” Handsome said.

  “You're going to punch his ticket, and you don't even know what he did? What a guy.”

  “They pay us,” Handsome said. Dumbo-Ears was still fixated on my foot. “They don't have to tell us.” It sounded like the truth.

  My pulse, a jackhammer in my ears, was slowing. “You were just supposed to kill him. Not ask him any questions or take him with you.”

  “What I said.”

  “Then why the rope?”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

  “You were supposed to take him, weren't you?” The mouth was a tight, straight line. “Where were you supposed to take him?”

  The boy looked up at the ceiling for a long moment. Then he said, “Go ahead. Kick him in the face.”

  I grabbed a breath. Time to change tack. “Who sent you?”

  “You don't want to know,” Handsome said.

  “Horace,” I said, fighting an overwhelming desire to go to sleep, “tell your mother to go into the kitchen. Hang on to Junior here.”

  Feeling old, hung over, and bone weary, I slogged to the closet and grabbed the dead Chinese man beneath his tropically decorated arms. Something sticky clung to my hands as I pulled him out of the closet. His rubber-heeled shoes squealed like the door to the Inner Sanctum, but there was nothing I could do about it, and the three little pigs chased me all the way into the living room as I dragged him.

  “Oh, no,” Eleanor said hopelessly.

  “One of yours?” I asked Handsome, letting the head and shoulders sag to the floor. I could see the entry wound now, under the left nipple. My right hand was covered in blood. Neither of the Asian kids replied. “This,” I said to Eleanor, “is why we're calling the cops.”

  “No,” the two little gunmen said in unison.

  “Well, that's interesting,” I said. “You want to tell me why?”

  Handsome said something sharp in Chinese, and everybody went still. More Chinese followed, fast and shrill, and Horace stepped quickly out from behind the table, which began to topple forward on top of Dumbo-Ears. I caught it with one arm and held it, hoping it looked easier than it felt.

  “Quit, Simeon,” Horace said. “Quit right now.”

  Eleanor stood up. “It's finished,” she said. “You've done enough.”

  “Like hell I have. The twins-”

  “These guys don't know anything about the twins,” Horace said. “They're after Uncle Lo.”

  “And there's Mr. Snappy Dresser here,” I said, and then Horace's words registered. “Why? Why are they after Lo?”

  Horace looked at Pansy and then at the floor. “Chinese business,” he said, sounding ashamed of himself.

  “Well, that's wonderful,” I said. I pointed at the dead man, Dumbo-Ears, and Handsome. “And these are Chinese business, too?”

  “Yes,” Horace said, very softly, avoiding my eyes.

  “Great.” I took a breath. “And what do we do with these assholes?”

  “We let them go,” he said. “If we don't we're all dead.”

  The bubble started to swell again. “How about one little kick?”

  “No.” That was Eleanor.

  “Just unwrap them and send them home to mommy,” I said. “They tried to kill us. Somebody did kill this guy who thought he was in Hawaii.”

  “They know they made a mistake,” Horace said. “They won't come back.” He closed his eyes.

  “Okay,” I said, giving up. “I'm finished.” I let go of the table and stepped back, and it crashed to the floor with Dumbo-Ears underneath it. He made a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh, and then went silent.

  I crouched down in front of Handsome, who scowled up at me. “These people just lost their children,” I said to him, “and they don't know why. Do you?”

  “Lo's crazy,” Handsome said sullenly.

  “I thought you didn't know him.”

  “I know about him.”

  “Where would he take them?”

  “Simeon,” Eleanor said peremptorily.

  “Hey,” Handsome said, “you find Lo, you tell us.”

  “Right,” I said, straightening. “Well, I'm the one who gave your friend the hard time. These folks didn't do anything. My name is Simeon Grist, and I live at Thirteen twenty-one Topanga Skyline Drive. You got a problem about what happened here today, you come and look me up. Not them. You touch them, and I promise I'll cut your little heart out and give it to the dog. Got it?”

  “Thirteen twenty-one Topanga Skyline Drive,” Handsome said. Eleanor looked at me and almost smiled. Thirteen twenty-one, the house two down the hill from mine, had burned four years earlier.

  “You'll leave them alone,” I said.

  “It was a mistake,” Horace said hollowly. There was so little blood in his face that I had the impression a finger pressed against his cheek would have left a dimple.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I got up and retrieved the two semis. “You want these, you come and get them from me,” I told Handsome.

  “Deal,” Handsome said through very narrow eyes.

  Dumbo-Ears had a bloody nose and a scraped forehead from hitting the floor face first, but he didn't make a sound as Horace snipped the rope away from his legs. The look he leveled at me, though, was worth serious thought. Two minutes later they were gone, toting the body between them wrapped in an old blanket.

  Mrs. Chan had been released from the kitchen to scour the living room. She picked up a photograph and turned it over to see herself asleep in her favorite chair with her mouth wide open. Her English was almost nonexistent, and she still didn't know her grandchildren were missing.

  “Aiya,” she said, turning the photograph accusingly toward Pansy. “Aiya, aiya.”

  Pansy took a step back, but her mouth was unyielding. Mrs. Chan tore the photo into little pieces and threw them at her. Pansy started shrilling and running around the room, grabbing picture after picture until she had both hands full, and thrust them in Mrs. Chan's face like a bouquet of deadly nightshade. Now it was Mrs. Chan's turn to back up, blinking very rapidly, and Horace stepped between them and said something to his mother.

  The scene went to freeze-frame, the three of them standing there like actors waiting in the wings, and then Mrs. Chan wailed and held out her arms and Pansy fell into them, sobbing and gulping air. Horace put his arms around both of them and led them into his and Pansy's room, talkin
g to his mother all the while. I sat on the couch and patted Bravo, shaking violently and hoping I could get it under control before Horace and Pansy and Eleanor finished shoving furniture around in the bedroom.

  When I was absolutely certain they were all too busy to hear me, I stopped fighting the bubble and went outside and threw up.

  4

  Q and A

  “There are two possible scenarios,” I said ten minutes later. I'd rinsed my mouth half a dozen times.

  Horace and Eleanor were sitting side by side on the exploded couch, which had been covered with a bedsheet. Horace's eyes were vague and his face pinched, white lines framing the corners of his mouth, and he systematically tugged at his thinning hair with his right hand, yanking the occasional loose strand free. Eleanor had put her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. From time to time she reached up to stop his hand, but he'd be at it again a few minutes later.

  It was another family trait. I'd seen Eleanor do the same thing when she was worried. Early in our relationship I'd reached up to stop her hand.

  “Either Lo set up the lunch so he could search the place and took the twins when he was interrupted,” I said, talking to keep myself from slapping Horace's wrist, “or else Uncle Lo set up the lunch for some other reason that required him to be alone here, like maybe to meet someone, and then something went wrong and whoever he met took both him and the twins after they searched the place. Either way, Lo set it up.”

  Nothing. Horace, I suddenly realized, was looking at the TV. It wasn't on. “And either way,” I said, “Uncle Lo killed the guy in the closet.”

  Eleanor took Horace's right wrist as it climbed scalpward and held it. Then she kissed him on the cheek.

  “Except,” I said, wondering if he'd try with the left, “if the other guys took Lo and the twins, why were those kids here? So Lo killed the guy in the closet and got away with the twins, and the kids came here to do some damage control.”

  “What are you saying, Simeon?” Eleanor asked. She was still holding Horace's wrist.

  “I'm saying we call the cops.”

  “Can't do it,” Horace said, immovable as a fireplug.

  “Well, you can't just sit here and get older.”

  He used his left to pluck a strand. “Sometimes holding still is the wisest choice.”

  “Don't sound so Chinese, Horace. Murder and kidnapping are what the police are for.” Pansy moaned in the bedroom, and I heard Mrs. Chan whisper something urgent, a sound as taut as a rope snapping.

  “No Chinese remarks, Simeon,” Eleanor said severely. She had herself under control, except that the hand that wasn't thrown around Horace's shoulders was balled into a white-knuckled fist. She rolled the fist back and forth, knuckle over knuckle, across the bedsheet as she talked. “This is a Chinese situation.”

  I felt like I'd just walked through a pane of glass I hadn't known was there. “Chinese?” I asked. “What about Julia and Eadweard? They're babies. They don't even know they're Chinese.” Horace made a noise like a hiccup, his eyes still fixed on the blank screen.

  “What good will it do Julia and Eadweard to lose their entire family?” Eleanor asked. “Anyway, we don't think the twins are in danger.”

  That made me sit back. “Who's 'we'?”

  “Uncle Lo will take care of them,” Eleanor said.

  “I really seriously don't understand,” I said.

  “He's our benefactor,” Horace said automatically. “Even if he did take Julia and Eadweard, he took them because he needs something. He took them to make sure he'd get it. That's all.” It was the longest speech he'd made since we got home.

  “He's in danger, obviously,” Eleanor said. “He's running away from something. Maybe he thinks that having Julia and Eadweard will protect him.”

  “From what?”

  “We don't know,” Eleanor said, after waiting for Horace to respond.

  “Our little buggers,” I said, “would shoot right through the kids to get dear old Uncle Lo.”

  “They won't,” Eleanor said, sounding a touch shaky about it. “They promised.”

  I looked at her as I listened again to what she'd said. I thought I knew her, had thought I knew her for years, but now she was like a face on an exotic stamp, small and far away and foreign. “They promised?” I finally asked.

  “In Cantonese,” she said, “as they left. They said if we'd tell them when we found Uncle Lo, they'd make sure the kids got home.”

  It sounded like a wan hope at best, but it wasn't one I was going to contradict. “And how are we going to find Uncle Lo?”

  “We're not,” Horace said. “He's going to come to us.”

  There were a million possible questions, and all of them seemed wrong; all of them seemed like they'd rip Horace apart. I chose the least harmful. “What does he want?”

  “God knows,” Horace said.

  “Does your mother?”

  Horace tore his eyes from the television, and he and Eleanor exchanged glances. “Perhaps,” she said.

  “Let's ask her.”

  “No,” brother and sister said in unison.

  “Well, for Christ's sake,” I said, suddenly angry, “why not?”

  “We'll ask her,” Eleanor said quietly. “Not you, we. You want to do something, Simeon, and we're grateful to you for it.” Horace reached over and patted my knee, awkwardly but feelingly. “But we can't let you. Those guys who were here? The one you tickled already wants to kill you. You cost him a lot of face. You should have just gone ahead and kicked him.”

  “You know me,” I said, deciding not to remind her that she'd been horrified at the idea. “Could I kick someone in the head?”

  “He'd hate you less if you had. But he's not going to go after you unless you do something. And they'll kill all four of us, and then come after you, the minute they learn you're trying to do something. Anything. And they would learn. You just have to believe that.”

  “If all I did was talk to the cops, how would they know?”

  “They'd know if the cops did anything in the Chinese community after you talked to them. Anything at all.”

  “Where are we?” I demanded. “Albania?”

  “We're in China,” Eleanor said. “Right now, we're in China.”

  “This is Willis Street,” I said stubbornly.

  “No,” she said. “Three or four hours ago, this was Willis Street, Los Angeles. Now it's China. Something Chinese happened here. Whatever happens next will be Chinese, too.”

  I looked at her with longing. “You're as Chinese as I am.”

  “Three or four hours ago, that was true. Now it isn't.”

  I sat there, trying to control my giveaway Occidental face and waiting for all my immediate responses to line up in an orderly fashion. Then I eliminated all of them and said something else, something that might let me into the game.

  “Chinese or not Chinese, maybe I can help you without doing anything.”

  “Yeah?” Horace asked skeptically.

  “I know how to ask questions. I can ask you questions. Only you and Horace. And maybe those questions will help you get a better picture of whatever the hell is going on. I won't act on the answers, I promise. But maybe they'll help you when it's time for you to stop holding still and make decisions.”

  “Decisions,” Horace said vaguely.

  “What do you do when the phone rings?” I asked. “Let's say it's Uncle Lo, and he's got a deal. You've got to know as much as you can. I don't know anything, which makes me the perfect person to ask the questions. I promise, I swear on whatever you want, that I won't do anything with the answers. They're for you. They're to help you think of things you might not think of otherwise, because otherwise will be too late. And you know how Edmund Burke defined Hell? It's the truth, recognized too late.” Well, maybe it hadn't been Edmund Burke.

  They looked at each other again, brother and sister united against a world that included me. It was a new wrinkle in our relationships. I sat
there feeling like a visitor from Internal Revenue. I wanted to hug them both and then knock their heads together.

  “Go,” Horace said when they'd finished their silent conference.

  I went, taking refuge in reason. “Hypothesis one: Uncle Lo came here from Hong Kong. Did you pick him up at the airport?”

  “No.” Horace looked surprised by the question.

  “Did anyone you know pick him up?”

  “No.” That was Eleanor.

  “Did he phone first?”

  “He knocked on the door,” she said.

  “When?”

  She glanced at Horace, who had gone very still. “About nine on Friday. Nine at night, I mean.” She looked at me, and faltered, then swallowed and went on. “I'm always here for dinner on Friday, you know.”

  I had a question ready, but her words choked it off. Friday was Eleanor's happiest night, the night Horace and Pansy shared the twins with her, and she'd arranged her working schedule to accommodate it, and also-I privately believed-to make it more difficult for them to cancel. Six days a week she wrote at home in Venice; on Fridays, she drove early in the morning to the big downtown library and did research there until it was time for her to drive to Willis Street for dinner. No one could call her to change the plan. Once, when we were both drunk, Horace had suggested that Eleanor loved the twins as much as she did because she and I had never had any. I'd pushed the idea away in self-defense.

  “So you were eating,” I finally suggested.

  “We'd just finished,” Eleanor said. “You know Pansy, she was in the kitchen slogging around in soapy water. Horace was introducing himself to his fourth beer, and Bravo and I were carrying the twins around on our backs.” Bravo, curled beneath the uprighted dining-room table, thumped his tail at the sound of his name.