The Man With No Time (27 page)

“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.”

“This is interesting,” Tiffle acknowledged. “Helping people to get established and all. But what would a lawyer do?” He reached toward the cigarette box again, thought better of it, and contented himself with giving his straining shirt a tug.

I picked up the pace. “A major real estate transaction is the first step. We need to acquire an existing church. I don't have to tell you how much that might run into. Seven figures, certainly.” He lost interest in the shirt and drummed his fingers on the desk. “We would want you to handle the financial details, hold the money, set up escrow. People sometimes misunderstand when clerics attempt to function as businessmen, especially when such large sums are involved.”

“You bet,” he said, shooting me a look out of his pale little eyes. “Well, sure, I could do that.”

“Then, of course, the church will need a board of directors, like any profitable enterprise. Some of them must be Chinese; that would only be right. But the board's chairman should be someone familiar with business law, someone who can advise us on how to put the profits to work in the best interests of the congregation, but without doing—or seeming to do, Mr. Tiffle—anything inappropriate.”

He made a sticky little tent of his fingers. “Define inappropriate.”

Right. Smartass. I took a breath. “One of the principles of the founder of Christianity was to render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar. I would define as inappropriate anything that would bring Caesar's representatives to the door, feeling that they are not being rendered enough.”

He gave me a long, doubting look. “Churches aren't taxable.”

“Nonreligious financial activity undertaken with church capital sometimes is, though. It traditionally depends on two things: first, how divorced from religion the activity is, and second, how conspicuous it is. Spending the money, I mean.”

His nostrils widened. “How much money?”

I sat back and breathed in. “Lots.”

“Have you had dinner?”

“I have an engagement, with a missionary, in fact. But it's interesting you should suggest dinner, because if we were to decide to go into business together, I would have to insist on meeting you frequently outside of office hours.” I raised a hand. “Once again, the appearance of propriety.”

He went for it. “Yeah, yeah. Well, early, late, it's the same to me. Except I'm generally tied up from seven to eight in the evening. Personal.”

“Of course,” I said maliciously. “A man can't spend all his time at the old grind. Anyway, mornings are better for me.”

“So mornings it is. Tell me again. Why me?”

“Your connections. Your reputation. Your expertise. Mr. Tiffle, I shouldn't say this before we've signed some papers, but you're probably unique.”

“Fine,” he said, leaning back to a groan of protest from his chair. “I'd handle the transaction, direct business operations. That it?”

It almost sounded legal. “And, of course, we'd want your help with the newer immigrants. You deal with hundreds of them. In addition to your regular stipends, there would be an emolument for each Chinese soul—each solvent Chinese soul—you bring to the fold. You could be very, very helpful as we build the flock.” We exuded oil at each other.

“Yeah,” he said, yanking at his shirt again. “I could.”

“I need a shower,” I said to Tran as I got into the rented car, a gray Flazoolie or something else I'd never heard of. Tran had waited out the meeting in it, half a block away, as arranged.

“Long time,” he said, sounding nervous. He looked into the rearview mirror.

“Believe me, it seemed a lot longer to me than it did to you.”

“You can get him early?”

“I can get him out of the John if I need him.” Tran jerked his head around to look behind us again. “Why do you keep trying to dislocate your neck?”

“Somebody following me.”

“Oh.” I involuntarily turned in the same direction. “Who?”

“Chinese. Not there now.”

“Well, balls,” I said. “When did you see him?”

“Maybe last night. Today for sure, while you're inside, two times. Not there now.”

“Well, let's get out of Chinatown. You drive, I'll watch.” I angled the passenger-side mirror so I could see behind us, and Tran picked up Sunset and followed its curves more or less west. Traffic was building, and it was impossible to pick up any single car as suspicious. Absolutely everybody seemed to be Chinese.

“What kind of car?”

“Hyundai. White.”

“Nothing there now.”

“There before.”

“It's time for a new car.”

Ten blocks later I told the smoothie at the rental agency that we needed something with a little more pickup, and he tried to talk us into a Corvette at several hundred dollars a day. We compromised on a little BMW that set Tran's pulse racing, and I let him drive it out.

“You see Weepy?” he asked as he pulled into traffic.

“Florence Lam,” I said. Florence was the one who'd opened the office, arriving twenty minutes before the other women. Like Tiffle, and unlike the rest of the staff, Florence Lam didn't go out for lunch; if the circles beneath her eyes were any indication, she was probably too busy. I figured when Tiffle was hungry he just sacrificed a goat in the back room.

“How old Snowbell?” Tran was sharing the American male experience of ego infusion by automobile.

“Too old for you.”

“Eleanor prettier anyway.”

“Eleanor,” I said, “is
definitely
too old for you. Last night, you think you saw the guy outside Tiffle's?”

“Yes.”

“And today, he picked you up around Tiffle's.”

“I already say so.”

“That's interesting.”

“Why?”

“Because of what it suggests he doesn't know.”

“Pardon?”

“He keeps picking us up at Tiffle's, but never anywhere else. Well,” I said, “we can either wait for him to make a move, or we can make one ourselves. And if we wait for him, he'll have an agenda. Let's see if we can't take him.”

Tran gave the wheel an eager little back-and-forth. “When?”

“Now. Rush hour's good.” Even as I said it, my heart sped up. “Damn, I wish Dexter wasn't home.”

“Not home. Eating. Dexter always eating.”

My blood pressure rose. “Who the hell's watching Everett?”

“Friend, he say.”

“Great. A friend. Well, nothing we can do about it now. Where's he eating?”

“House of Breakfast. Olympic Boulevard. Dexter only eat breakfast, but he eat it four times a day.”

I checked behind us again. “Let's go interrupt him.”

We cruised Tiffle's four times: Tran driving, me sitting on my lungs in the passenger seat so I couldn't be seen through the window. By then Dexter was stationed in his maroon Lincoln on the little dead-end section of Granger Street across Hill. If the tail made a move, he'd have to get across Hill somehow, but I figured he'd manage.

On the fourth pass, Tran said, “Nothing.”

I turned to wave Dexter to join us, and we met a block away. “Who's with Everett, anyway?” I demanded.

“Somebody make Everett wish he never learned English. You gone to meet him.”

“I can't wait. I need you to follow Florence Lam home.”

Dexter made an elaborate show of scratching his head. “Florence Lam.”

“Weepy,” I clarified.

“I like Snowbell.”

“Me, too,” Tran said.

“Florence Lam,” I said. “And don't let her see you yet.”

“You didn't have to say that,” Dexter said. “Hurt a man's feelings.”

“We'll meet back here at ten and cruise old Granger Street again.”

“She got a eye for a man,” Dexter said, “she gone to spot me.”

18 - The Underground Railroad

E
sther Summerson's eyes swam supernaturally large and blue through the dusty lenses above me. I was standing on the first step of the porch, looking at her through a fine mesh of nylon, trying to figure out how anything that was likely to happen in the next half hour or so could possibly do anyone any good.

“Yes?” she said. She had the distracted air of someone who is listening to music in her head. The screen door was closed and, I imagined, latched against whatever slavering beast L. A. might decide to deal up. When she'd turned on the porch light from inside it had brought moths, and they swooped and fluttered against the glass, looking for whatever it is moths look for in a light.

“Hello, Mrs. Summerson,” I said. I stepped up onto the porch and gave a little wave, hoping to attract some attention. “I'm Eleanor's friend, remember?”

The magnified eyelids came down with an almost audible clank, and when she opened them again she was back in the present and she knew me. “But of course, and how nice,” she said, sounding like a missionary again. “It's Mr. Grist. How are the twins?”

“Eating and sleeping,” I said, exhausting my fund of baby knowledge. “May I come in?”

She hesitated as though she were translating the words. “Oh. Well, certainly you may. I'm sorry. This seems to be one of my foggy days.” She fiddled with the screen door and then held it open.

“I've brought someone along,” I said, moving forward, and Tran stepped into view.

Leaning slightly, she peered at him in the half light. She started a smile, but the smile turned into a rictus, and she turned her whole head, birdlike, to look at me, stepped back, and used both hands to slam the inner door. It hit my foot and bounced back against her, knocking her a step backward. I lunged and grabbed her shoulders before she went over backward. Tall as she was, she was even heavier and more solid than I'd expected, and my back creaked alarmingly again.

Her eyes were clamped shut now, and she was shuddering violently. “Go away,” she said, mostly breath. She smelled of powder and lavender.

“Where's Lo?”

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” She fluttered ineffectually at my hands, gathering strength. “Pretending to be Eleanor's friend. Anyway, you can't get Lo now. None of you can. He's in China, where no one will find him.”

“We're going to talk,” I said. “Come in, Tran. Close the door.”

She made little shooing motions in his direction. “You can't. He can't. I'll call the police.”

“You know you won't. How are you going to explain Tran?”

“Please,” she said, “I need to sit down. My legs are shaking.”

“You know where the living room is, Tran?”

He nodded. “Where she give me cookies.”

“Take her there. Let her sit. Keep her in one place.”

He took her arm very gently, saying, “Come, please, Missus.” She tried to tug herself free and then allowed him to lead her slowly down the hall, talking to herself in Cantonese. I stood, inhaling the aromas of cooking oil and sachet, and waiting for something else, the smell of men: bodies, cigarettes, hair oil, anything that didn't fit into this last, exclusively female, missionary outpost of old China. Pulling my cold little nine-millimeter automatic from my jacket pocket, I searched the house.

The first floor was crowded with heavy furniture and relics of a life of dour and earnest enterprise among the heathen. The walls bristled with photos of rigorously stiff men and women, white and Chinese, the Chinese eyes fixed politely to one side of the camera lens, so as not to stare at the viewer. More groups of solemn Chinese children, like the ones pictured in the living room, assembled portentously in front of the weathered schoolhouse—or another just like it—on the barren plain to have their portraits made. I counted ten of these, all framed and dated, and then stopped counting. Books were everywhere, in both Chinese and English: Bibles, commentaries on the Bible, commentaries on the commentaries, biographies and autobiographies of missionaries, Chinese dictionaries, histories of the Middle Kingdom.

Front room, old-fashioned drawing room, half-bathroom, kitchen with its heavy wok and a mound of half-chopped vegetables, enough only for one, little maid's room with a desk occupying most of it, covered with correspondence in Chinese. A door under the stairwell, the one that should have led to the basement, was locked. The lock was heavy, bright new brass. I put it on hold and went up the stairs to the second floor as quietly as I could, knowing that anyone up there would have heard us come in. Tran and Mrs. Summerson were talking softly but urgently in the living room, all aspirates like wind through trees.

The upstairs was virginal and nostalgic, a doleful museum. The big bedroom contained a single bed heavily flounced in chintz and some very good Chinese rosewood furniture. On a small bamboo table next to the bed I found a pair of men's silver hairbrushes, perhaps a century old, and in my mind's eye I saw her packing and unpacking them for her husband each time the two of them were transferred or forced to flee. The rest of the house may have been dusty, but the brushes had been polished until the engraved initials
R.D.S.
were almost rubbed away.

Directly above the table in an oval frame hung a hand-tinted photograph of a young woman with lustrous and adventurous pale eyes and a heavy coil of dark brown hair: the young Mrs. Summerson, decades and deaths and continents ago. It was a complicated face, bold and demure at the same time, the face of someone quietly waiting for something momentous to happen.