The Man With No Time

also taken another Ampicillin, to make up for the one I'd eaten, and another Excedrin, and he was, both literally and figuratively, feeling no pain.

“Why join the gang?” I asked again. I was propping him up and pouring the seven hundredth glass of wine, and Bravo was snoring under the table and chasing phantoms from the ankles down. He'd had a little dog-dose himself, out of the extra glass.

“If you don't join one gang, two gangs try to take money. If you join a gang, only one.” He grinned at me, looking suddenly shy. “Better odds,” he said.

“Fine. Why work for the Chinese?”

The grin vanished. “More money,” he said as though it were painfully obvious. “Chinese have all the money, same in Vietnam. Chinese always have all the money.”

“Where does the money come from?” The words were no more precise than my mental processes, but he understood them.

“Chinese,” he said with an odd mixture of admiration and scorn, “sweat money.”

Eleanor, as far as I could remember, didn't seem to sweat at all. There was no question, though, that she was tight with a buck. I wasn't. It was one of the things we'd fought about.

“But where does it come from?” I put the glass to his lips and wondered briefly why I seemed to be doing all the talking. “The money, the Chinese money, I mean. Those men, for example.”

His eyes went opaque. “Don't know.” He looked around the room, seeming to notice it for the first time. His eyes fell on the loudspeakers, almost as tall as he was, bounty from a case on which I'd actually had a client. “Music, please. Rock and roll?”

“Music,” I said, sighing. It was getting late. I tilted him upright and got up-not quite as stiffly as before, lubricated by the wine-and put on a CD by the Kinks, not his vintage, but fuck him. If he wanted Ice-T, he could escape.

“Old fart stuff,” he said after the opening guitar riff, wrinkling his nose.

“That's because I'm an old fart,” I said, draining the glass. “And you're a young one.”

“Young fart,” he said, grinning again as I settled back onto the couch and rested a foot on Bravo's shoulder. “Funny man.”

“Back to business,” I said, drinking again. “How did they find you when they needed you?”

He shook his head dismissively. “Guy came around.”

“Around where?”

“School,” he said. “More, please.”

“School,” I said, pouring. I was dealing with a drunk baby. “Names.”

“Wine first,” he said, looking cunning. I put the glass to his lips, and he gulped it down.

“Charlie Wah,” he said immediately after swallowing. “Charlie Fucking Wah.”

“Who is he?”

“Taiwan king shit. Big man. Back and forth, yo-yo, yo-yo, Taiwan to America.”

I leaned forward. I was getting some content at last. “They're from Taiwan, then.”

“Shit floats,” he said. “They float here from Taiwan.”

“Why? What are they doing?”

The smooth features froze tight. “Don't know.” He looked into my eyes. “True. Don't know.”

“Well, what do they ask you to do?”

“Dangerous stuff. Stuff they afraid to do. Frighten people, beat them up. Pick up stuff and deliver it.”

“Drugs.” It was a guess.

“No. Charlie Wah doesn't like dope.”

“What, then?”

“Don't know.” He inhaled and then blew out through his lips. “Lying to you. Money. Always wrapped up, all taped up in a bag or in a briefcase, but money.”

I was feeling dubious. “They trust you to pick up money?”

“Oh, sure,” he said. “With about twenty Chinese watching. Cars in front, cars in back. Everybody with guns, everybody except us. Sure, they trust us.”

“Where did you pick up the money?” Ray and Dave Davies were singing in trademark octaves, Dave taking the top.

“San Pedro.” Charlie had said 'San Pedro' into the phone.

“And took it where?”

“Chinatown.”

“Always the same place in San Pedro?” I drank, feeling flushed and excited, and heard myself humming to the Kinks.

“Three or four places.”

I put the glass to his lips again and tilted it. “And in Chinatown.”

“Sometimes one place, sometimes not.”

“Where's the one place?”

“Granger Street. A white man.”

I stopped humming. “Name?”

“Don't know.”

“What kind of white man?”

“Sloppy man, big stomach, wet lips. He pays us sometimes. Lawyer,” he added.

I drank, unaware at first that I was doing it. If my hand hadn't been shaking with excitement I might not have noticed it at all.

“Chinatown,” he continued. “American lawyer in Chinatown. Rice freak.”

My turn not to catch the idiom. “Rice freak?”

“Chinese girls,” Tran said. “Likes Chinese girls. Office full of Chinese girls. Bigtime kung-fu asshole. White clothes, big feet, big nose. Nose bigger than his feet.” He chuckled briefly and then hiccupped twice. He was very drunk. “Bigtime bignose kung-fu asshole. White-eyes, eyes very like water. Wine, please.”

“Can you take me there?” I asked, pouring.

“Does the Pope,” he asked rhetorically, “cross the road to shit in the woods?” Good question. I gave him the glass. He slurped ambitiously. “Pluto and Bluto,” he said. “They the guys with the muscle bumps hanging onto Charlie Wah. Eat steroids all the time. Go really batshit once in a while.”

“Anybody else?” I had to close one eye to keep him in focus, and I had a feeling I should have been taking notes.

Tran looked at me blearily. “Little one, wears his pants high? Ying. Think he's king shit, big Snake Triad guy. He the one Lo didn't kill. Zowie, you know zowie?”

“Which one is Zowie?” It sounded like an improbable name for a Chinese.

“No, zowie,” he protested. “Like, zowie, good wine.”

“Sure is.” I held the bottle up to the floor lamp. “About half dead.”

“Me, too,” Tran said, laughing. It was the first time I'd heard him laugh, except under torture. It was a very young and very innocent laugh.

“You'll be okay,” I said, “youth being wasted on the young, and all.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. What does the Snake Triad do for its money?”

“Don't know,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time. “Why tell me? But big money. Even for us. To bring Lo, one thousand. Five hundred for me and five hundred for. .” He faltered.

“For your friend,” I said.

He started to nod and then put his head on my shoulder instead. He was trembling violently. I heard him fight for a breath. It fought him all the way in.

I patted his shoulder, feeling big and useless. “We'll get them.”

“They killed her,” he said. “And I stabbed him,” he cried, suddenly pulling himself away from me. It was quite a feat, considering that his hands were bound behind him and he was drunk.

“No one knows what he will do until the time comes.” I sounded like Charlie Wah.

“She my cousin,” he said, and I shut up, completely and profoundly. For a moment I thought he was going to