Read Online The Man With No Time by Timothy Hallinan - Free Book Online Page A

mentioned in the books I'd read.
    “The kids in the Vietnamese gangs are the enforcers. They're the ones who scare people shitless when they're late with their loan payments. They're the ones who pour Krazy Glue into the locks of the jewelry stores when the owner won't pay protection. They're the ones who break the elbows and slice the faces and pull the triggers. Hell, they've lost their country and their culture, and they're starting to forget their language. There are still lots of great Vietnamese kids, or so I hear. But, all in all, the bad ones are just about the meanest, scariest, deadliest little motherfuckers going.”
    “Great,” I said. “That's absolutely great.” I had a big molten ball of lead in my gut.
    “And behind the tongs,” Hammond said, watching me, “are the real bad guys. The triads. The triads are the real Chinese Mafia.”
    “I don't want to hear about it,” I said, giving up. “It's just a paper.”
    “Yeah,” Hammond said, laying it on thick. “It's just a paper.”
    Two hours later Hammond and I stood on a downtown sidewalk while a couple of Asian parking attendants hiked toward Mexico to get our cars. He'd had three glasses of red wine to wash down two pounds of raw steak, and he was at the point where we were two buddies, not cop and non-cop.
    “Is this about Eleanor?” he demanded. “And don't shit me.” In his present embittered state, Eleanor was at the top of a very short list of women whom Hammond was willing to tolerate.
    “No,” I said, shivering. It had turned cold while we ate. “It's something a relative of hers might have gotten into.”
    He gave me a couple of eyes that were smaller than raisins and he screwed up his mouth until he looked like Roy Rogers's mummy.
    “Do you think Roy Rogers was mummified?” I asked him.
    He didn't even look interested. “Might be. Any asshole who could stuff a horse. And look at Disney, he became a Creamsicle.”
    “They made Lenin into a coffee table.”
    “Which relative?” he asked, without a pause.
    “Just some uncle. Listen, Al, about all this. I'd rather you didn't talk about it with anyone, okay?”
    “I'd be embarrassed to,” Hammond said. He burped french-fried onions and waved it away, toward me. “I'm supposed to be a cop.”
    “I'll call you if it gets any closer to home,” I said, but he was looking over my shoulder and chewing at the left corner of his mouth.
    “Hey,” he said, and then he stopped. He put one hand in his pocket and took it out again, then put it back. “Hey, look, did I tell you I'm seeing someone?” He stared off at the horizon, avoiding my eyes, and a slow flush began at his jawline and climbed upward like the mercury or whatever it is in a thermometer.
    “That's great.” His blush deepened. “I think.”
    He shook his big blunt head. “She's on the job,” he said, and then stalled again.
    “Really,” I said, just to keep the afternoon moving. “Does she rank you?”
    “I may be stupid,” Hammond said, “but I ain't no masochist.”
    “What's she like?”
    “It's what she's not like. She's not like Hazel.” Hazel was Hammond's soon-to-be-ex. I'd never met Hazel; Hammond and I hung out mainly in male-bonding areas like bars and places where someone either just had been, or was immediately likely to be, killed.
    Since I didn't know Hazel, the statement wasn't particularly informative.
    “In what way,” I asked, “is she not like Hazel?”
    He shifted his focus to a spot a foot above my head. “She's Hispanic,” he said.
    “Oh-ho,” I said. I waited until the pressure in my chest subsided and I was absolutely certain I wasn't going to laugh, and then said, “Bit of a change in the routine.” Although he generally behaved himself, Hammond's feelings toward people of color were not likely to attract the official attention of the Vatican after he passed on. “Well, well,” I offered. Hammond was still waiting for the moon to rise. “I'd like to meet her,