The Man With No Time

“In the vans they got delivered in. They'll still be there, right, Tran?”

“Always there before,” Tran said.

“Why not do it all at once?” Dexter asked.

“Charlie's not afraid of the cops,” I said, “because the cops aren't interested. What is Charlie afraid of, Tran?”

“Another gang,” Tran said, on cue.

“So we're going to give them another gang. It's going to be a black gang.”

Horace looked at me appreciatively.

“They have no sources of information in the black community,” I said. “No way to figure out who it might be.”

“And this gone to leave Horace's family clear,” Dexter said. “But, still, why not do it all at once?”

“Because of Horace. The slaves have crossed an ocean, they've paid money, to get here. Charlie's gang is all they know. They're not going to leave with the Doodys unless the Doodys have a Chinese translator who can tell them what's happening. That's Horace, and we can't let the keepers see him.”

“I speak Chinese,” Horace volunteered. “Three dialects.” He looked positively happy.

“So we pick up all the crooks and all the slaves, and the slaves get delivered to the church,” Dexter said. “Then what?”

“Then we salt the mine,” I said, knowing it would tick him off. “And I'll tell you about that later.”

By eleven-thirty, all but Horace had been assigned chores. Dexter took charge of weapons and technical paraphernalia, and Horton and Tran assumed responsibility for costumes, such as they were. Tran expressed some confusion over my request for fifty used thrift-store dresses with the labels cut out, and he went out shaking his head and muttering in Vietnamese. That left me alone in the motel room with Horace.

My almost-brother-in-law's spurt of enthusiasm was waning, leaving him free to indulge in his penchant for lists.

“One,” he said, nursing his Styrofoam cup of coffee, “they're going to be on guard. They know Tran's out there. You belted one of their guys and stole another one.”

“Maybe,” I said. I didn't think they were that frightened of one little Vietnamese kid; Charlie Wah was too scornful for that. “The one guy who saw anything,” I said, “only saw Tran, and I'm sure they've assumed their missing guy is dead-a victim of a little one-on-one revenge.” I blew onto the surface of my own cup; coffee in Styrofoam cools more slowly than the Universe. “What's two?”

“That girl, that Florence. You don't know she didn't tell Tiffle everything.”

“She doesn't know much except that the sky is going to fall on good old Claude tomorrow morning.”

“Tran, then,” he said, finally getting down to it.

“Tran's fine.” I was becoming very bored with this particular argument. Horace held a grudge by wrapping both arms and legs around it and clinging for dear life.

“He could sell us-”

“Blood is thicker than money.” I stuck the tip of my tongue into the coffee and pulled it out fast. “Anyway, they'd kill him on sight, and he knows it.”

Horace ran the nails of his free hand over his jeans with a sound that made the hair on my arms stand on end. “I don't know.”

I found I was furious. “And I don't know about you.”

He looked astonished. “Me?”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?”

His face slammed shut, and for the first time since I'd met him Horace turned into the inscrutable Oriental. He squeezed his cup, making it bulge perilously. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“Too bad. I do. You know, I do this shit, or something like it, for a living, remember? I'm sure some mathematician could express my death as a probability factor. Well, okay, so I can die. I'm nobody's father, and as much as I love Eleanor, I'm nobody's husband. You're both.”

“Barely,” Horace said between his teeth.

“Tell it to the kids,” I said, not caring whether it sounded brutal.

“I don't talk to the kids,” Horace said tightly. “Pansy talks to the kids, Pansy's their window on the world. She explains to them about why Daddy's never home, because he's out selling real estate in the daytime and pumping gas at night, like they can understand. And then, when I get home and they're asleep, she talks to me about how they miss me and how she should get a job like she had before when she was taking pictures and how my mother tells them one thing when she's told them another, and they don't know what to do. Well, i don't know what to do, either. My home life feels like a … a maze that's all blind alleys.” He took a gulp of coffee and gasped steam. “Holy Jesus.”

I watched him unsympathetically as he fanned his mouth with his free hand. “So let Pansy get a job.”

“Right,” he said, sowing scorn right and left. “Eight hours a day out of the house. She leaves the room for thirty seconds, the kids cry. My mother moves to Vegas, the kids ask where's Grandma. I'm sure they think God is a Chinese woman of forty-seven, midway between Pansy and my mother. And I'm busting my butt to pay the electric bill.”

“God, that's terrible,” I said. “You're jealous of your own wife and mother. And you're a Chinese male chauvinist, to boot.”

“Jealous!” He did the thing with the fingernails on his jeans again and then put his hand on my wrist. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

Well, I didn't. I'd never had kids. I blinked, lost for a moment, and he withdrew his hand.

“So maybe a little,” he said in a muffled voice.

“Not much,” I said soothingly.

“Aaahhh,” he said, shaking his head in small swings, like if he turned it too far it would yank his body after it.

“And your mother-”

“Pansy can deal with her, now,” he said. “She sent her home.” His eyes came up to me, and he looked like the old Horace again. “That was a big deal for Pansy,” he said proudly.

“That makes it your turn, doesn't it?”

“My turn.” His tone was noncommittal, but he'd shifted his eyes to his lap.

“Um, that Thai girl,” I said, not sure whether he'd hit me.

For a moment I thought he was going to laugh, but he forced the corners of his mouth down and then together, looking like a prince forced to kiss a frog with no princess potential. “I knew I shouldn't have taken you and Lo to that bar,” he said.

“Scene of the crime,” I ventured.

“Oh, some crime. I flirted with her, I tipped her. I figured it was all just business to her.”

I thought it probably had been-jealousy and all-but I didn't want to say so. She'd obviously stoked his ego, and men are such dopes.

“Still,” I said, shrugging.

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, no more girls.”

Mentally I asked the next question and retracted it, then asked it out loud. “She the only one?”

“Are you kidding? How much energy do you think I've got with two jobs?”

“So ease off. You can pay the electric bill on one job.”

He thought about it. “Kids are expensive.”

“Pansy could save money if you brought home a dollar a day.”

He smiled, not at me but at Pansy. “She could, you know. Pansy's Chinese to her toes.”

“If you're home more, she could even get a job of her own.” I scalded my tongue and gave up on the coffee. Maybe I'd have it with lunch. Or dinner. “Male chauvinism notwithstanding.”

I put my hand on his shoulder, and he reached up and patted it awkwardly. “I don't want to turn into one of the guys on National Public Radio,” he said.

“You've got miles to go,” I said. “Light-years.”

He sat back. “Assuming I live through tonight.”

That brought me to the problem at hand. I got up and went to the window, looking out as though I expected