Timothy Hallinan - The Man With No Time

The pilgrims had been on my mind a lot.

“They're peasants,” Everett had said defensively the evening before, speaking from the porcelain pocket of Dexter's bathtub. “They've worked like slaves their whole lives.”

“They had a choice then,” I said. How many of them had served my food, broken their backs in the fields that grew the vegetables I bought, laundered my shirts, inhaled the carcinogenic fumes of the dry-cleaning fluids that allowed me, on rare occasions, to look dapper? How much had I profited from Charlie's game?

“Made they own money then, too,” Dexter said, bending low over Everett like he wanted to test his teeth on Everett's throat.

“They wanted to come here,” Everett said, kicking his feet, which were about all he could move. “They knew.”

“They didn't know they'd get cheated,” I said. “They didn't know about the dirty little fake-INS tricks. They didn't know their papers would be shit.”

“They have to be,” Everett squealed, thrashing to get away from Dexter. “Otherwise they'll escape.”

“Wrong audience, Jack,” Dexter said.

“Chinese are very sneaky,” Everett said, as though he were describing a race someone had once told him about. “It costs money to get them here. Ships are expensive, you know.”

“What the profit margin?” Dexter asked, straightening.

“Well. .” Everett began.

Dexter brought his teeth together with a snap. “In dollars. How many? Right now.”

Everett looked at me imploringly.

“He's with me, remember?” I said.

“They pay thirty,” Everett said. He pursed his lips. “We make ten.”

“How much?” Dexter demanded.

“Twenty.”

“Your eyes,” Dexter said meaningfully.

“Twenty-five,” Everett said. “Twenty-five.”

“So you the big humanitarian, bringing them here and putting them to work for-how many years you say?” he asked me.

“Three,” I said, “for starters.”

“Your brothers,” Dexter said forcefully. “Shit, man, I was you, I'd be ashamed to look Chinese. Three years. You know, they ain't gonna get those years back, those years gone, asshole.”

“That's the way it works,” Everett said, looking genuinely puzzled. “I don't make the rules. I just follow orders.”

“Shame we ain't got no Jews here,” Dexter said. “You could offend everybody.”

“When are they going to come off the ship?” I asked.

Everett visibly abandoned hope. He started to make a word, but the breath behind it escaped without shape or meaning. He shook his head.

“I think you still cold,” Dexter said. “How about some hot water?”

“I don't know,” Everett said immediately.

Dexter put a hand on the tap.

“No, really, honestly, I don't know. Only Charlie knows.” He sounded on the verge of tears. “Charlie sets it up with the businesses for the pickup and lets us know about an hour before it's time to move them. Honest.”

“And where's Charlie?”

“Nobody ever knows where Charlie is.”

“Real hot water,” Dexter reminded him, a hand on the tap again.

“But think about it,” Everett shrilled. “Charlie's the boss. If anything goes wrong, it's Charlie's head. He's not going to tell us anything. Chinese are sneaky.”

“Charlie's head,” I said, “sounds good to me.”

“One more time,” Dexter said. “When they gonna get moved?” Everett just squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head, waiting for the hot water.

So at five till four the following day, feeling jumpy, guilty, and seriously sleep-deprived, I left Tran in the driver's seat and rang the bell to Tiffle's little realm.

Once inside, I found that the staff member we'd dubbed Weepy sat at the front desk behind a nameplate that said Florence Lam. Bleary, Mopey, and Snowbell seemed to have no fixed places of abode: they passed listlessly back and forth with papers in their hands, guiding me toward Tiffle's lair each time I took a wrong turn, which was as often as possible: I didn't know exactly what my agenda for the conversation was, other than to galvanize Tiffle's greed glands to the point where they'd bounce him out of bed for an early morning meet, but I knew I wanted a look at the inside of the cottage. Snowbell was a knockout, pale and slender beneath a tapered shag of hair that would have prompted Eleanor to stop her in the street and ask who cut it.

“Mr. Skinker,” Tiffle said in a fat, damp voice as he rose from his desk and put a hand on his belly, presumably to keep it from flopping down and overturning his desk, “what can I do you for?” He followed his mot with a chuckle, one wit to another.

“Actually,” I said, shaking hands with a wad of well-chewed gum, “it's Dr. Skinker.” I was wearing my hair parted on the left, which made it stand up here and there, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, patched over the nose with adhesive, that I'd found long ago in a parking lot, and a sober, submissive dark suit. Tran had talked me out of the false mustache.

“The good doctor,” Tiffle wheezed merrily. “Sawbones or phud?”

I made a prim moue. “Neither. Doctor of Divinity.”

“Never enough divinity in the world, wurf, wurf." He held out a Chinese lacquer box and whisked the top off it. “Smoke? No, I guess not. Not in your line, is it? Mind if I do?” He lit one without waiting for an answer, the fat lips hugging it like a living pudding. It didn't take imagination to see why he hadn't gone into criminal law. A shoplifter facing a jury with Tiffle for the defense would have probably gotten the gas chamber. “So anyhoo,” he said, spreading the arms of his chair and squeezing himself between them in a cloud of smoke, "what's on your mind?”

“I want to set up a church,” I said. “In this community.”

He extracted the cigarette from his mouth and regarded it. It was soaking. “Don't you need a bishop or something? Not really a job for a lawyer.”

“A church is a business like any other.”

His interest was fading. “News to me.”

A car backfired in the street, and I turned my nervous jump into a perspicacious chin-scratch. “You may not be aware of the strides our brethren have been making in the Korean community.”

“Don't know much about Koreans. Pretty women. Not, I mean, that you-”

I let him flounder until he ran down and then permitted myself a thin ecclesiastical smile. “Very pretty,” I said.

“Taller than Chinese,” said the connoisseur, lipping the cigarette again and focusing on the adult video loop he probably called his imagination.

“Some of them are exquisite.”

“Still,” he said, blinking his way back into the room, “a church.”

“People come into a community,” I said, resisting the impulse to rub my hands together, “seeking brotherhood. They are strangers among strangers.”

“Nicely put,” Tiffle said dutifully. “Strangers among strangers.”

“Miles from home and family, oceans away from old ties. Whom can they trust?” Whom might have been overdoing it. “Where can they be sure of meeting people who don't want merely to take advantage of them? Oh, I know about the tongs, but man to man, Mr. Tiffle, we know they're not always committed to the high road.”

He nodded, his mouth slightly open, and removed the cigarette. Without looking down, he dried the filter on his tie. The tie was already wet. “Yeah,” he said, waiting. “You know, I'm very busy at the-”

“In the house of the Lord, they can relax. When people are relaxed, when they feel safe and secure, they are generous.”

The word pacified him. He took a long drag that consumed the cigarette down to the waterline and dropped it into an ashtray. “In the Korean community,” I said, pursuing my theme, “membership in the best churches is sought after. It is expensive, and donations are substantial. And in exchange, the pilgrims receive not only spiritual succor, but also, ah, networking opportunities. Once the new arrivals are established, they literally compete to bring in others. It's like-how can I describe it? — like a self-replicating franchise. A very profitable franchise.”