The Man With No Time by Timothy Hallinan Read Free Book Online

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, talking 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&A
    “T here 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