Timothy Hallinan: The Man With No Time

Eleanor got down on her knees and rolled the boy away from her, then looked up at me. “Keep going,” I said. “I want the whole rug wrapped around him.”

By the time she was finished, Handsome was encased in a tight cylinder of rug that ended at his nose. He let his expressionless eyes bore into mine.

“Sit on his chest,” I told Eleanor. “If you feel him moving his arms, get up and tell me and we'll see if this war machine he was toting will go through four or five layers of Persian carpet.”

“Astrakhan,” Eleanor murmured, sitting on the boy.

“What about this one?” Horace asked.

“Well,” I said, “we could wiggle his finger around a little.”

The kid backed away on his elbows, gabbling at me, until his head hit the wall. Then he grabbed his finger again.

“Okay,” I said. “He's the baby, even if his ears are all grown up. He's going to get special treatment. Go turn the table over.”

“The table?” Horace asked.

“You know, where you eat dinner?”

Horace nodded. “The table.”

I trained the gun on Dumbo-Ears while Horace, grunting with effort, put the heavy table upright. “How long is that thing?” I asked.

“About six feet,” Horace said.

“Great. Get the baby's rope. Baby, put your hands behind your head and keep them there.”

Horace fumbled through the coil of rope hanging from the boy's waist and worked it through the belt loop on his jeans. Then he did it again. By the time he had the entire rope free it seemed to have taken hours. He stood up and backed away from the kid, the rope dangling from his hands.

“Okay, Baby,” I said to Dumbo-Ears, “go over and get on the table. On your back.”

The boy grumbled, but he did as he was told and lay there, looking up at the ceiling, still clutching his right index finger in the palm of his left.

“What did you say?” I demanded. Sitting on the rolled-up rug, Eleanor was looking at me as though she'd never seen me before.

“Baby,” he said scornfully.

“And you are a baby, too, even if you're a mean-spirited, murderous little shitheel of a baby. Pull yourself down so the table hits you at your knees. I want your legs dangling over the edge.”

Still muttering, still grasping one hand in the other, the boy scooted down the length of the table on his back.

“This stuff isn't real strong,” Horace said, testing the rope.

“Well, the little jerk doesn't weigh much. It should be fine. Get a knife, would you? You're going to need to cut it.”

Horace went into the kitchen, asked his mother a question, and came out with a big serrated bread knife in his hand. I could hear drawers banging in the kitchen, percussion for a cantata of Cantonese complaint.

“Okay,” I said to Horace. “Now wrap the rope around his left leg and the left table leg. Start at the knee and go all the way down. Don't be thrifty or gentle. I want it tight.” Two minutes later Number Two's calves were tied to the legs of the table.

“And now?” Horace asked.

“Now we put the table on end so that the little fucker is upside down. You'll have to stand on the legs so it doesn't tip forward.”

Horace dragged the table around so the boy's head was facing me and then tilted the other end upward. The boy let out a shriek, but Horace kept upending the table until Dumbo-Ears was dangling, head toward the floor, arms hanging down. His face immediately filled with blood. A vein throbbed in the side of his neck.

“Comfortable?” I asked him. “I hope not, because you're going to be there a long time.”

“How long?” Eleanor asked, the softy.

“Until he sings 'Humpty Dumpty',” I said. “In two languages.” I put the gun down next to the couch, where Horace had left the other one. Pansy scrabbled away from it and then closed her eyes again, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around her own shoulders, presenting the smallest possible area to the room.

Eleanor shifted her weight on the rolled-up carpet. “What are you going to do to him, Simeon?”

“Well, first, I'm going to let him hang there until he starts to get spots in front of his eyes. Then I'm going to play kickball with the spots.” I touched the toe of my boot to his big right ear for emphasis. “This is called the Torture of One Foot,” I explained.

"You cant" Eleanor said.

“Get his wrists, Horace,” I said. “Grab them tight. Try to hurt his finger if you can, but don't get careless. He's going to want his hands back very badly in a moment.”

“Got them,” Horace said from behind the table.

“Well, keep them,” I said. “He's stronger than he looks, and he's going to start jerking around.” The boy watched me wide-eyed as I lifted my foot and swung my boot back and forth, limbering up my knee. “Holding tight, Horace?” I asked. “Here goes.”

“No,” Pansy said. “No. No. No.” Eleanor and I turned to look at her, sitting on the couch with her knees under her and her hands clutched into fists. Her big square glasses were on crooked.

“They not take the children,” she said. She pointed her chin at the boy hanging upside down. “This is a baby.”

“Kick the little swine,” Horace said behind the table.

I tapped the boy's forehead with my boot and thought about it. “Okay,” I said to Pansy, “since he's a baby, we'll try a baby's torture.” He was just young enough that it might work. I turned back to him and spread my hands wide. “This one is called the Torture of a Thousand Fingers.”

“But Simeon. .” Eleanor began.

“Shhh,” I said. “I want to hear him scream.”

I curled my fingers and passed them up and down both sides of the boy's narrow torso until my fingertips were dug into the spaces between his ribs. The boy was rigid, breathing sharply and shallowly, watching me like a dog watches a snake.

“Who's Lo to you?” I said. “Why do you want him?”

“He your boyfriend,” the boy whispered venomously.

“I really hate to do this,” I said. Then I dug my fingers in and began to scrabble them up and down his ribs.

He convulsed and started shrieking with laughter, trying desperately to wrench his hands free. I left the ribs and started in on his armpits, and his laughter soared heavenward and dissolved into coughing. I went for the ribs again, for a good minute, and then backed away and watched him weep and cough.

“Who's Lo?” I said, when he'd regained control of himself.

“Don't know,” he gasped.

I thought about the tattoo on Number One's fist. “What's FF mean?”

“Don't know.”

A swelling started to build in my chest as though someone were blowing a bubble that encased my lungs, a hot bubble that almost closed my throat. I grinned at him, feeling my face straining into the Mask of Comedy, and forced my voice past the bubble. “Here's your problem,” I said, straining against the gravel in my throat. “You're upside down. You're salivating, but it's hard to swallow. You're going to laugh so hard you have to inhale, and when you do, sooner or later, you're going to breathe spit. Then you're going to cough and try to breathe again, but I'm still going to be tickling you. If it gets bad enough, you could swallow your tongue. How does that sound?”

He spat at me.

“You'll have more saliva in a minute,” I said, “but no point waiting.” I looked at my watch to give myself time to calm down, but it didn't work. I attacked him with my fingers, gouging his ribs, his underarms, and his abdomen, and I kept checking my watch as though I cared how long it lasted. Gouge and check, gouge and check, and I kept at it for a full two minutes as he shuddered and trembled and coughed and shrieked, until the noise brought Mrs. Chan in from the kitchen to watch, fascinated.