Timothy Hallinan - The Man With No Time

“Glad to be of service,” he said.

“No happier than I,” I said, hanging up.

“One million twenty-four thousand dollars,” I said. “That's eight thousand and change per pilgrim, roughly, minus the money I gave to Mrs. Summerson.” Dexter's mutant coffee table was awash with cash, and four briefcases lay open and empty on the floor. “And about fifteen thousand in Taiwanese. Make it a million forty all together.”

“I in the wrong line,” Dexter said.

He'd traded in his robes for a pair of jeans and a lime-green shirt that identified him as a two-dollar-a-shirt man named Paul. Tran was asleep on the leather couch, and Horton was out cold in Dexter's bedroom. The doctor had come and gone, a frail, frizzy-haired white man with yellowish skin who smelled like a chemical dump. Two of the Doodys, after checking on the slumbering Horton and making clucking noises, had gone out to watch the prisoners in the car, and the other three had taken off to put the two bodies on ice, I didn't know-and didn't want to know-where. Everett still had possession of Dexter's bathtub.

“Fifty each,” I said to Horace, fanning myself with a wad of bills. “And another fifty for each of Horton's brothers. That'll leave about half a million.”

“Lot of salt,” Dexter said, eyeing the green.

“We're looking,” I reminded him, “to attract attention.”

“Quarter of a million gone to catch the eye, too.”

“Half has a nice ring to it.”

“You want a ring, go to Zale's. You can pick up a real flasher for three or four bills.”

“Dexter,” I said, glad that Horton was off marauding in the Land of Nod, “you're pocketing fifty thousand for one night's work.”

“What am I going to do with fifty thousand dollars?” Horace asked querulously.

“You could give me some,” Dexter said. “All donations gratefully received.”

“You make a down payment on a house for Pansy,” I said. “Give the kids a yard to play in.”

“I'd have to cut the grass,” Horace said.

“Astroturf,” Dexter suggested, giving up on further riches. “What time is it?”

“You're wearing a wristwatch,” I pointed out.

“Man with fifty thou in his jeans don't look at his own watch. Get some style.”

“I've got fifty, too,” I said, counting it out. “We all do. I guess we'll just have to keep checking for sunrise.”

“Ain't no good to be rich if everybody else rich, too,” Dexter said, checking his watch. “After two. Let's get some poor folk over here and lord it over them.”

“Here's yours,” I said, pushing money at Dexter. “Don't spend it all on implements of torture.”

“Peewee asleep,” Dexter observed. “Let's give him twenty and split the rest, act silently superior all night.”

“Ha,” Tran said without opening his eyes. “You silent. Ha.”

“Must of heard the money,” Dexter said.

“Here,” I said to Horace. He looked down at the banknotes like they were cabbage. “Your turn for trunk patrol,” I told him. “Take some coffee to the Doodys.”

Horace got stiffly to his feet, grumbling. He left the money on the table and went out to check on our human baggage.

“Pizza,” Dexter said, solving his snobbery problem. “Order up some pizza, sneer at the delivery boy.”

“Anchovies,” Tran said, rolling over to face the back of the couch.

“Man eat fish on everything,” Dexter said. “Fish cookies, fish ice cream.”

“Good for brain,” Tran said. “Try sometime.”

“You could always stiff Horton,” I said to Dexter.

“Not a wise career path,” Dexter said. “What you want on your pizza?”

“Sausage.” I yawned and stretched the joints of an aging man. “Three hours, more or less. We'd better give ourselves forty minutes to get there.”

Dexter, at the phone, said, “Thirty's plenty. We just gone sit there a couple of hours anyway.”

“We go in in the dark,” I said for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“We go in in the dark,” Dexter mimicked. “Hello, that Domino's?” He waited. “You can't be closed, man, we hungry.”

“Denny's open,” Tran said without turning his head. “Get breakfast.”

“A hundred bucks,” Dexter said to the phone. “And that's the tip.”

“You'll be broke in a week,” I said.

“Damn straight,” Dexter said to the phone. “Four big ones, one with sausage, one with everything, one with-”

“Anchovies,” Tran said stubbornly.

“-little fish all over it, and one with anything you want. Think that'll do for Horace?” he asked me.

“Horace won't eat.”

“He could go home,” Dexter said. “Extra little fish, hear? Pour the little fuckers all over it.”

“He could, couldn't he?” I asked.

“Could what?” Horace asked, coming in. “They're alive. Nobody wants coffee.”

“You could go home,” I said.

“Not likely,” Horace said. “Not when I'm having so much fun.”

“Could of fooled me,” Dexter said.

“That's because I'm hungry,” Horace said. “My blood sugar is low.”

“Horace won't eat,” Dexter said in his white man's voice.

“Shame it's so late.” Horace picked up his money and fanned it idly. “Nobody delivers now.”

“They do to the rich and famous,” Dexter said.

At 4:55 a.m. Chinatown looked like a closed department store. The streets were dark and empty; even the Christmas lights had been given a rest. Two Chinese men in paramilitary uniforms strolled Hill Street. They were laughing.

“Foot patrol,” Horace the Expert said smugly from the driver's seat. “Neighborhood association. They do the whole circuit in forty-five minutes and then start over.”

“Do they go up Granger?”

“Nah. Only the main streets and the shopping alleys. The merchants pay them.”

“Our resident fount of wisdom,” I said.

“I had lots of time to figure it out.” He loved knowing more about anything, anything at all, than anyone else did.

“Speaking of time,” I said automatically.

“Almost five. We're right on top of it.”

He pulled over at Hill and Granger and I got out. The night had grown sharply colder and the sky was low with fog and pale with city light. Two homeless men sprawled in a patch of weeds, partly covered by yesterday's news.

The metal gate opened with a faint rusty protest. There was a streetlamp directly in front of the house, something I should have noticed before but hadn't, and I followed my lengthening shadow up the walk toward the dark bungalow, hoping that Tiffle wasn't shagging some silky immigrant on his desk. He was going to need his strength before the day was over.

I punched up 11–14 on the alarm keypad to the right of the door. Tiffle's birthday, Florence Lam had said, another piece of evidence that his brain worked on alternating current. Dexter's duplicate key turned without so much as a snag, and the light from the streetlamp illuminated Florence's desk, convincingly messy and busy looking. I pushed the door as far closed as I could without the latch clicking into place and switched on my flashlight. Moving quickly but deliberately, I searched the rooms, including the basement.

The basement was entirely satisfactory. It extended beneath the entire house, it had a rough wooden floor, and there were no windows. Metal filing cases stood against two of the four walls; the others were occupied by a massive old gravity furnace and the stairs I had come down. The door at the top of the stairs opened out, as I'd hoped it would. The skeleton key worked just fine.

Tiffle's desk was a steel hymn to paranoia. Not only did the three drawers lock, but an iron rod had been passed through their handles and locked to the desk frame at top and bottom. It might as well have had a neon sign on top of it saying search here. I was looking for the keys-not that I needed them, but as a way to pass the time-when I heard the first car door slam shut outside.