“Timothy Darbersmere,” I replied, weakly. Over her shoulder, I could see the frying pan still sitting on the table, steaming slightly, clogged with burnt rice. At that moment in time, I would have gladly drunk my own urine in order to be allowed to lick it out, no matter how badly I might hurt my tongue and fingers in doing so.
Her eyes followed mine—a calm flick of a glance, contemptuously knowing, arched eyebrows barely sketched in cinnamon.
“Not yet, kid,” she said.
“I’m really very hungry, Ellis.”
“I really believe you, Tim. But not yet.” She took a pack of cigarettes from her sleeve, tapped one out, lit it. Sat back. Looked at me again, eyes narrowing contemplatively. The plume of smoke she blew was exactly the same non color as he
r slant, level, heavy-lidded gaze.
“Just to save time, by the way, here’re the house rules,” she said. “Long as you’re with me, I eat first. Always.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Probably not. But that’s the way it’s gonna be, ‘cause I’m thinking for two, and I can’t afford to be listening to my stomach instead of my gut.” She took another drag. “Besides which, I’m bigger than you.”
“My father says adults who threaten children are bullies.”
“Yeah, well, that’s some pretty impressive moralizing, coming from a mook who dumped his own kid to get out of Shanghai alive.”
I couldn’t say she wasn’t right, and she knew it, so I just stared at her. She was exoticism personified—the first full-blown Yank I’d ever met, the first adult (Caucasian) woman I’d ever seen wearing trousers. Her flat, Midwestern accent lent a certain fascination to everything she said, however repulsive.
“People will do exactly whatever they think they can get away with, Tim,” she told me, “for as long as they think they can get away with it. That’s human nature. So don’t get all high-hat about it, use it. Everything’s got its uses—everything, and everybody.”
“Even you, Ellis?”
“Especially me, Tim. As you will see.”
* * *
It was Ellis, my diffident ally—the only person I have ever met who seemed capable of flourishing in any given situation—who taught me the basic rules of commerce: To always first assess things at their true value, then gauge exactly how much extra a person in desperate circumstances would be willing to pay for them. And her lessons have stood me in good stead, during all these intervening years. At the age of sixty-six, I remain not only still alive, but a rather rich man, to boot—import/export, antiques, some minor drug-smuggling intermittently punctuated (on the more creative side) by the publication of a string of slim, speculative novels. These last items have apparently garnered me some kind of cult following amongst fans of such fiction, most specifically—ironically enough—in the United States of America.
But time is an onion, as my third wife used to say: The more of it you peel away, searching for the hidden connections between action and reaction, the more it gives you something to cry over.
So now, thanks to the established temporal conventions of literature, we will slip fluidly from 1941 to 1999—to St Louis, Missouri, and the middle leg of my first-ever Stateside visit, as part of a tour in support of my recently-published childhood memoirs.
The last book signing was at four. Three hours later, I was already firmly ensconced in my comfortable suite at the downtown Four Seasons Hotel. Huang came by around eight, along with my room service trolley. He had a briefcase full of files and a sly, shy grin, which lit up his usually impassive face from somewhere deep inside.
“Racked up a lotta time on this one, Mr. Darbersmere,” he said, in his second-generation Cockney growl. “Spent a lotta your money, too.”
“Mmm.” I uncapped the tray. “Good thing my publisher gave me that advance, then, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, good fing. But it don’t matter much now.”
He threw the files down on the table between us. I opened the top one and leafed delicately through, between mouthfuls. There were schedules, marriage and citizenship certificates, medical records. Police records, going back to 1953, with charges ranging from fraud to trafficking in stolen goods, and listed under several different aliases. Plus a sheaf of photos, all taken from a safe distance.
I tapped one.
“Is this her?”
Huang shrugged. “You tell me—you’re the one ‘oo knew ‘er.”
I took another bite, nodding absently. Thinking: Did I? Really?
Ever?
As much as anyone, I suppose.