I pushed some food around and wondered why I'd wanted it in the first place. I'd finally summoned the will to pick up a french fry when he said, in an elaborately casual tone, “How many people you killed?”
I put the french fry back on the plate. “One.”
“How?” His ice cream had all his attention.
“Burned him.” It's not something I like to dwell on, although I still dream about it.
“Wah," he said, giving it an entirely different intonation than he gave Charlie's last name. He was staring at me now. "Very bad.”
My turn to change the subject. “Let's go say hi to Mr. Tiffle,” I said.
Tiffle's office was a little bungalow set back from Granger Street, which was one-way and wider than a cow path, but not much. Chain link fence surrounded it, keeping the world at a distance from Claude Tiffle's plentiful secrets. Whatever doubt I may have felt about the likelihood of anyone actually having such a name was battered into submission by a comfortingly old-fashioned sign hanging over the gate that said CLAUDE B. TIFFLE ASSOCIATES, ATTORNEYS AT LAW.
“Associates?”
“Oh, sure,” Tran said in a tone I was coming to recognize as derision. "Should say 'sweeties.' "
“What did you do here?” The office was dark except for one light in a room at the back of the cottage.
“Deliver money. Sometimes pick up. Two times, I think.”
“Front or back?”
“Front.”
“What time?”
“Same time like now.”
“So,” I said, just getting it clear, “you took the money from the houses in San Pedro and brought it here.”
“Not always,” he said. “Sometimes a car behind us would blink lights. Bright, low, bright, low. Then we pull over and they take the money.”
“How did you know it was the right car?”
“Right number of blinks.”
The light in Tiffle's bungalow snapped out, and another came on in the front room. “Did you know when you made the pickup whether you'd be dropping it off here?”
“No. Supposed to come here unless we see the car. Mostly, the car.”
“Where did it stop you?”
He pondered. “Anywhere.”
“It couldn't be anywhere,” I said. “Charlie was going to a lot of trouble to avoid having Chinese stopped with the money. He would have pulled you over someplace near wherever he felt safe.”
“Charlie on the boat,” Tran said.
“Maybe.” I thought about the evening. “And maybe our friend Everett is a liar.”
Tran mentally ran through some of the trips. “Chinatown,” he said. “Always Chinatown.”
I was watching the lighted window. No one seemed to be looking at us, but I started Alice and turned on the headlights so as not to appear furtive. Around the corner, I pulled over again. “Did you ever pick up money from the restaurants, like the men we saw today?”
“Not thinking, you,” Tran said. “We don't know about that.”
“Probably not enough money anyway,” I said, attempting to recover a little face. “Not enough to get the cops suspicious if the mules got pulled over.”
“Charlie Wah not worried about cops,” Tran said. “Worried about other gangs.”
“Other gangs,” I said. “Jesus.” A door opened creakily in my mind, and a little light went on, not much of a light, but sometimes it doesn't take much.
“Sure. Other gang takes the money, kills the soldiers. This way they only kill Vietnamese.”
“Charlie doesn't care about the soldiers,” I argued.
“Soldiers,” Tran said patiently, even sympathetically, “don't know that.”
“Okay,” I said. “I'm stupid. Why the armed guard, then?”
He reached over and shook me gently, as though I were asleep. “So we don't take the money,” he said.
I thought about it. The more I thought about it, the better I liked it. “You know in English,” I asked, “ 'good, better, best'?”
“Sure.” Tran was openly humoring me now. “In school.”
“Say it, then.”
“Good, better, best,” he repeated, looking puzzled.
I punched him on the arm.
“Good team,” I said.
Tran hid a smile by looking at his lap.
“One more place,” I said, even though the new place wasn't anything I wanted to explore. “The Jesus lady you told me about.” I gunned the car. “Let's go see where she lives.”
She lived in Mrs. Summerson's house.
I had known she would, but hope springs eternal. The house sat there at the end of its extensive front yard, looking secluded and spacious, the perfect place to hide thirty or forty CIAs.
I sat at the wheel, trying to put Mrs. Summerson and Charlie Wah into the same room, and failing utterly. Why would Charlie need an ex-missionary? Why bring a gwailo into the distribution process? Tiffle I could see: He had his uses. But Mrs. Summerson had been Eleanor's savior; she'd taken care of her when Eleanor was a temporarily abandoned child with limited English. She'd been nervous, I recalled, when we'd asked her about Lo, but still, all those years ago, she'd given Eleanor affection and a home and brought her through the days of Ching-chong Chinaman. Of all the people in the world, outside of her immediate family, and maybe me on a good day, Eleanor loved Esther Summerson most.
And Lo, I thought, adding him to the list.
Eleanor was not going to be happy about this.
“How many times?” I asked.
“Two.”
“You delivered or picked up?”
“Picked up.”
“Great,” I said miserably. “That's marvelous.” Alice's clock, undergoing one of its temporary resurrections, ticked at us.
“Gave me cookies, her,” Tran said at last.
“I've no doubt.”
“We go in?”
“No. I need to think.”
“Not good, better, best?” he asked.
“Not nearly.” I tried one last time to be wrong. “Listen, Tran, an old lady, tall, thick glasses, white hair cut short, right?”
“In the button,” he said. I was going to write a dictionary of idioms someday.
“Well, fuck a duck,” I said. “We'll have to talk to her. And when the nice lady you tried to frighten-”
“Eleanor,” he said.
“Right, good for you, when Eleanor comes around tonight or tomorrow, you don't tell her about this, okay?”
In the end, I told Eleanor about Mrs. Summerson, after all.
When we got back to Topanga it was past ten, and I phoned her in Venice and asked if she could come take a look at Tran's arm. Then I called Dexter and added "black" to the list of qualifications for the knight in armor he was supposed to be recruiting. When he'd hung up, I dialed Peter Lau, first to make sure that he'd gotten home, and second, to check on what Everett had told me. Everett was trussed hand and foot in my bedroom with one end of Charlie's handy cuffs locked around a leg of the bed. I'd bandaged his thigh.
“Tell me about the timetable for Charlie Wah's shipments,” I said when Peter picked up the phone.
“ 'S'irregular,” he said, sounding as though he either were lying down or should be. “He keeps it that way on purposely. On purpose.”
“Then it's flexible?”
“You mean, can he improvise? My stars, no. The last thing he can do. He staggers the arrivals like any intelligent crinimal-scuse, crimmul-would, but the freighter has to talk to San Pedro all the way across the pond, talk, talk, and the arrival date is firm. Maybe they have to line up for a day or two offshore, jus' tote'n float. Better for Charlie. He can pick his day.”
“Do you think he's already moved them off the ship?”
“No way to know.”
I massaged my shredded ear. “Listen, Peter, have you heard anything about a missionary being involved? Here in Los Angeles, I mean.”
“Missionary? What kind of question is that?”
“One t
hat I wish I weren't asking.”
“You mean a 'Merican missionary?”
“Have you heard anything?”
“No. Why'n earth would he-” I heard a familiar sound. He was clinking the rings together.
“Peter?”
“I'm thinking. There's something about missionaries. Are you a toll call?”
“Yes.”
“Then hold on.” He missed the table with the phone, and it took a couple of bounces on the way down. I was rubbing my ear again when the door opened and Eleanor came in, carrying a small shopping bag. She was wearing a nubby red sweater over black bicycle shorts, and she looked like the entree on a lecher's menu. Bravo, who was sitting with his head on Tran's lap, slapped the floor with his tail and whimpered welcome.
“Bactine,” she said, holding up the bag as though that would help me see through it, “and some nice red wine.”
“Gaaaahhh,” I said, wincing at the idea of wine.
“Kidding about the wine,” she whispered. “It's white. Are you talking to someone?”
“No,” I said, “I'm hooked up to the radio telescope on Mount Palomar.”
“I've got something to tell you after the supernova. There's my little patient.” She brightened at the sight of Tran.
“Hello, Eleanor,” Tran said, slowly and formally. “How are you today?” He sounded like he'd been practicing.
“Tell her,” I suggested, “where is the pen of your aunt.”
He looked startled. “Pardon?”
“He's just being Simeon,” Eleanor soothed. “He does it whenever he can't come up with something better.”
Tran stood and raised his hands to his chest, palms together. “Eleanor,” he said, “I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“For trying to kill you and frighten you.” He had been practicing.
“That little thing.” Eleanor pulled the Bactine from the bag. “Take off that fat man's shirt and sit down, and I'll make you sting.”
“Old fart shirt.” Tran began to unbutton.
“That's enough of that,” said the old fart.
“Of what?” Peter Lau asked.
“Talking to the dog,” I said.
“Oh. Had to get my files." He sounded like he'd gotten more than his files. “I knew there was something about missionaries. Back when Charlie Wah was an innocent, pink-cheeked lad, long before the suits and the haircut, he was taken in by missionaries.” He swallowed, a long and melodically liquid sound, and ice tinkled gaily. “This is in China, of course. He lived with them, mishnaries, and went to a mishnary school. Quite the little suck-up, too, our Charlie, until he decided that the kingdom of heaven was here on earth and helped a local gang break in and steal everything the school owned. I mean, down to the pencils. Five years later, he and the gang were on Taiwan.”
“I'll be damned,” I said. “How could you know all that?”
“Taiwan mag'zines,” Peter Lau said impatiently. “Charlie is a businessman as far as Taiwan is concerned, and on Taiwan they write about businessmen the way we do about movie stars. But that's not the point.”
"And the point
“The point is, Charlie hates mishnaries. Hates them probably even more than he hates p'licemen. You can buy p'licemen, but you can't buy mishnaries.”
I watched Eleanor minister to Tran's slender form. Maybe I should lose a little weight. “I'm not so sure of that.”
“He wouldn't, though, even if he could get a bulk rate. He loathes them. Thinks they're agents of a vast plot to rob Chinese of their birthright.”
“Which is what?”
He clobbered the mouthpiece with his hand to conceal a hiccup. “In Charlie's case, it would seem to have been poverty.”
“Do you happen to have the name of the missionary who attempted to pervert little Charlie?”
“I do,” he said happily. “Charlie tol’ all in a interview. Can you imagine interviewing Charlie? ‘Whass your favored means of execution, Misser Wah?' An' they call this journalism.” Papers rustled, and I watched Eleanor minister to Tran.
“Here we are,” he said. He swallowed. “What an evocative name.”
I closed my eyes. “What is it?”
“Skinker,” he said. “Dr. and Mrs. Finney B. Skinker. I wunner what the 'B' stood for.”
“Probably Binky,” I said. “Thanks, Peter.”
The moment I hung up, Eleanor said, “What about missionaries?”
“Just background,” I said.
She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Just horseradish. How did missionaries get into this?”
“Precisely the question I've been asking myself.” Tran was staring out the window, apparently rapt at the sight of pitch darkness. The winter fog had slipped in again.
Eleanor gave me a look that I'd long before learned meant no more nonsense. “Any particular missionaries?”
“My ear hurts,” I said.
She lifted her chin imperiously. It made her neck look impossibly long. Someday I'd have to tell her that it was more alluring than frightening. “Simeon. What has Mrs. Summerson got to do with this?”
“Aaahh,” I said, trying to postpone the question. “Listen, do you think Mrs. Summerson was ever married to a man named Finney B. Skinker?”
She stood up, the empty paper bag tumbling from her lap to the floor. “Mrs. Summerson mated for life. That was the phrase she used. I doubt that she mated for life twice. As a Christian, she doesn't believe in reincarnation any more than that little Orlando does. And she certainly never mentioned anyone named Skinker. Sounds like a species of lizard.”
“It wasn't Mrs. Summerson, then. I guess you don't want to look at my ear.”
“I can see it from here,” she said, not quite snapping at me.
I chucked it in. “Tran picked up money from Mrs. Summerson's house,” I said. “Twice.”
“Nonsense,” she said, looking at Tran. Tran, still looking out the window, nodded. “Absolute nonsense,” she said again. Then she sat down on the couch, heavily enough to make Tran bounce.
“I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation,” I said, searching for one.
“Of course there is.”
Now we were all looking out the window.
“I lived in that house,” she said, a bit tremulously.
“No strange Chinese coming and going.”
“Of course not. I lived there. For years. I was the only strange Chinese in sight.”
“He picked up money,” I said. “Tran did, I mean.”
“She hasn't got any. She had his insurance, but that was years ago.”
“Then she owns the house?” I asked.
“Forever. But she hasn't got anything else.”
“Not her money,” Tran reminded us, buttoning my shirt. “CIA money.”
“She's not smuggling in CIAs,” Eleanor said, and then promptly backed up. “And if she is, she's not doing it with a bunch of criminals.”
“Not with this bunch of criminals, anyway,” I said. “Charlie Wah hates missionaries.”
“So there,” Eleanor said, and then said, “but Tran picked up from her.”
“We'll talk to her,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow. Why the wine?”
“I was celebrating.” She didn't sound very celebratory. “Horace called Pansy.”
“Great. Where is he? Where's Pansy, for that matter?”
“He didn't say where he was, but he's alive. Just said not to worry about anything, the simp. So naturally, we've all stopped worrying. I'm not going to tell you where Pansy is. Suppose these sadists catch you?”
“That's a nice thought. Horace's call certainly cheered you up.”
“It did, really it did. But I didn't know about Mrs. Summerson then.”
“You still don't,” I said.
“No, that's right. And I'm not going to believe anything bad until I absolutely have to.” She looked down at her slender hands. The ring I'd given her to wear on the third finger of her left hand was now on the right
, where it had been for years, ever since I'd abandoned the best of my potential futures. “Anyway, it wasn't just Horace's call. I got to thinking about you, running around and sticking your big thick neck out, and all because of me. And I realized I've been pretty awful, worrying about everybody except you, and I just thought. .”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I just thought we might get drunk together and listen to some music and laugh a little, and maybe when I got drunk, I could tell you how much I love you for everything you've done.”
Tran got up. “Toilet,” he said. He was gone.
“This doesn't mean we don't have a zillion problems,” Eleanor continued. “God knows we've got a zillion problems.”
There was nothing easy for us to say, and she filled the silence with a kiss, breaking me into small pieces inside. I could smell the faint yeasty fragrance of her skin. I rose and put my arms around her and we stood together like slow dancers when the music has stopped.
“I'll get the corkscrew,” she said, stepping back, “and you get that boy out of the toilet, and we'll drink for a while. And then, if you don't plan to sleep on the couch again, I'd like to stay here tonight.”
“He'll stay in the toilet indefinitely, if you'd like to change the sequence.”
“I'm going to need longer than indefinitely,” she said. “Women love heroes.”
I looked at her good face, her kind face, the face I'd made sad so often. “Eleanor,” I said, “there's someone in the bedroom.”
She stiffened.
“Not like that,” I said. “Come see.” I led her across the living room and through the door, and she gazed down at the bundled figure on the bed. “One of Charlie's,” I said. “And don't feel sorry for him.”
“They know he's missing?” she asked, sounding worried.
“I'm thinking about that. It just means we have to move fast.”
The bathroom door opened, and Tran came out. “Sweetie?” Eleanor said to him. “Guess what. Tonight you get the bed.”
16
Snow on the Water
At seven the next morning adrenaline snapped me awake and I eased myself out from under Eleanor's outstretched arm. Halfway off the couch, I stopped and looked down at her sleeping face. She lay on her back, black, straight strands of hair fanning over the smooth planes of her skin and down toward the secret hollows of her throat, where it blossomed outward to meet the fragile wings of her collarbones. I knew if I kissed her I'd wake her, so I saved the kiss for later and trudged to the phone to get myself a boat.
The Man With No Time sg-5 Page 18
