The Man With No Time Read Online Free
Author: Timothy Hallinan
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Private Investigators, Murder, Los Angeles, Simeon Grist, Grist; Simeon (Fictitious Character)
a bright red Ultra-Nondescript hurtled past us, hugging the curb. The driver was facing backward and screaming out the window.
“Remember when you could tell cars apart?” I asked. “Sweet little Pansy? A rogues' gallery? Who are the rogues?”
“Everybody,” Eleanor said. “Pansy's been wicked with her camera. But it's mostly Mom.”
“Ah,” I said, closing my eyes as I passed the truck. When I opened them, we were still alive. “Ergo, the rush.”
“Pansy's always been the perfect Chinese daughter-in-law,” Eleanor explained cheerily. “ 'Yes, Mother, no, Mother. Of course you can cut the children's hair, Mother. Why should I have anything to say about how my children look?' And all the while, she had the cameras dangling all over the house. And good for her.”
This was surprising. Eleanor had escaped her mother's massive gravitational field approximately ten minutes after she entered college, but she'd always seemed to expect filial piety from Horace and Pansy. After all, it was traditionally the responsibility of the eldest son to take care of the parents. And Horace had come through. Until Mrs. Chan had moved to Las Vegas, only eighteen months earlier, she'd exercised absolute dominion over the small apartment in which all the Chans except Eleanor lived, and which Mrs. Chan owned. It had always seemed to me the most claustrophobic possible living arrangement; there was literally no room for disagreement. Not that Mrs. Chan, then between husbands and lacking a sinkhole for her supernatural energy, would have tolerated disagreement even if they'd all been rattling around in the Taj Mahal.
“So what's wrong between Horace and Pansy?”
I could feel Eleanor's glance. “Who says anything's wrong?”
“Eleanor,” I said, “either I'm a member of the family or I'm not. They're not the same. Something's wrong.”
“I don't know,” Eleanor said unconvincingly.
Well, I thought I knew—I could smell Ning's perfume coming out of my pores.
“I can understand if he's frustrated,” Eleanor said, capitulating. “Mom is the boss, and Pansy knows it, which is pretty hard on his ego. And Pansy's pregnancy was, well, difficult, you know? They couldn't make love for months and months.”
“They can now,” I offered, and then I thought about it. “Can't they?”
“Pansy says they don't.” People, even private people like Pansy, volunteered things to Eleanor. “I was there one night with the kids, and Horace hadn't been home for hours. She was setting the table for dinner, way too late to expect Horace to eat anything, and all of a sudden she fell to the floor and started to cry. She missed a chair on the way down. So I sat next to her, and the next thing I knew, she opened up. Yikes, of all the things I didn't want to know. She thinks he's got a girlfriend.”
“I doubt that,” I said, joining the Brotherhood of Guilty Males as we coasted up the driveway of Mrs. Chan's apartment building. Horace and Pansy were climbing out of their car, Horace shouting at Pansy in Cantonese until she silenced him with something sharper in tone and further north in dialect. Over the squabble I could hear Bravo barking a manic welcome, but the barking sounded muffled. Pansy threw some phrase that was all elbows and edges over her shoulder as she climbed the steep exterior stairway leading to the back door of the apartment. Then, turning face forward again, she stopped climbing, so suddenly that Horace, running on momentum and alcohol fumes, stumbled into her back. Pansy had to throw out a hand and grasp the banister to keep from toppling back on him, but the gesture was nothing but muscle. She was completely focused on the landing at the top of the stairs.
The rickety wooden child-restraining gate that Horace had installed to keep Julia and Eadweard from the first, and potentially last, fall of their lives was hanging open. Pansy snapped something that was clearly a question, and Bravo suddenly loosed a volley of
“Remember when you could tell cars apart?” I asked. “Sweet little Pansy? A rogues' gallery? Who are the rogues?”
“Everybody,” Eleanor said. “Pansy's been wicked with her camera. But it's mostly Mom.”
“Ah,” I said, closing my eyes as I passed the truck. When I opened them, we were still alive. “Ergo, the rush.”
“Pansy's always been the perfect Chinese daughter-in-law,” Eleanor explained cheerily. “ 'Yes, Mother, no, Mother. Of course you can cut the children's hair, Mother. Why should I have anything to say about how my children look?' And all the while, she had the cameras dangling all over the house. And good for her.”
This was surprising. Eleanor had escaped her mother's massive gravitational field approximately ten minutes after she entered college, but she'd always seemed to expect filial piety from Horace and Pansy. After all, it was traditionally the responsibility of the eldest son to take care of the parents. And Horace had come through. Until Mrs. Chan had moved to Las Vegas, only eighteen months earlier, she'd exercised absolute dominion over the small apartment in which all the Chans except Eleanor lived, and which Mrs. Chan owned. It had always seemed to me the most claustrophobic possible living arrangement; there was literally no room for disagreement. Not that Mrs. Chan, then between husbands and lacking a sinkhole for her supernatural energy, would have tolerated disagreement even if they'd all been rattling around in the Taj Mahal.
“So what's wrong between Horace and Pansy?”
I could feel Eleanor's glance. “Who says anything's wrong?”
“Eleanor,” I said, “either I'm a member of the family or I'm not. They're not the same. Something's wrong.”
“I don't know,” Eleanor said unconvincingly.
Well, I thought I knew—I could smell Ning's perfume coming out of my pores.
“I can understand if he's frustrated,” Eleanor said, capitulating. “Mom is the boss, and Pansy knows it, which is pretty hard on his ego. And Pansy's pregnancy was, well, difficult, you know? They couldn't make love for months and months.”
“They can now,” I offered, and then I thought about it. “Can't they?”
“Pansy says they don't.” People, even private people like Pansy, volunteered things to Eleanor. “I was there one night with the kids, and Horace hadn't been home for hours. She was setting the table for dinner, way too late to expect Horace to eat anything, and all of a sudden she fell to the floor and started to cry. She missed a chair on the way down. So I sat next to her, and the next thing I knew, she opened up. Yikes, of all the things I didn't want to know. She thinks he's got a girlfriend.”
“I doubt that,” I said, joining the Brotherhood of Guilty Males as we coasted up the driveway of Mrs. Chan's apartment building. Horace and Pansy were climbing out of their car, Horace shouting at Pansy in Cantonese until she silenced him with something sharper in tone and further north in dialect. Over the squabble I could hear Bravo barking a manic welcome, but the barking sounded muffled. Pansy threw some phrase that was all elbows and edges over her shoulder as she climbed the steep exterior stairway leading to the back door of the apartment. Then, turning face forward again, she stopped climbing, so suddenly that Horace, running on momentum and alcohol fumes, stumbled into her back. Pansy had to throw out a hand and grasp the banister to keep from toppling back on him, but the gesture was nothing but muscle. She was completely focused on the landing at the top of the stairs.
The rickety wooden child-restraining gate that Horace had installed to keep Julia and Eadweard from the first, and potentially last, fall of their lives was hanging open. Pansy snapped something that was clearly a question, and Bravo suddenly loosed a volley of
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