Cold Snap (13 page)

Madame Mumford was planted firmly on his door
mat. Her expression of polite grimness sent a thrill of horror
through him that was only partially ameliorated by the
self-effacing shrug and grin of her husband, standing behind
her.

Something like 'I'm afraid you've caught me
at a disadvantage' began to form in Ari's mind, but the lame phrase
had scarcely made its way to his lips when Madame Mumford, sensing
his dismay, gave him a gracious smile.

"Would you prefer we come back another
time?"

He had expected her to dragoon her way past
him, condemn the house and occupant, and depart in a huff all
within five seconds. He found the courtesy painful and dropped back
like a man half beaten to death by a cotton ball.

"I couldn't put you to that inconvenience."
He rolled his arm inwards and she stepped inside.

And stopped.

"Monsieur...?"

"My furniture is in abeyance," he explained
quickly.

"But I understood you have lived here for
half a year."

"It's a long abeyance." He paused awkwardly.
Among the French, etiquette dictated that it was the woman who
decided if she was to be kissed on the cheek or proffered a simple
handshake.

She extended her hand. Ari shook it gently,
not daring to kiss her fingers. Bill Mumford offered his hand and
gave him a standard American yank.

"That presents a problem, if you have
guests," said Madame Mumford.

"I haven't had the chance to socialize very
much."

"But you've been to the Mackenzies..."

Coming from her, Ari felt this was a blunt
criticism. One did not accept invitations without returning the
favor. That Matt and Tracy Mackenzie liked having him over to their
house should have been sufficient. Matt Mackenzie, the incessant
sponger, showed no qualms about allowing Ari to eat his chips and
drink his booze. But Ari felt such reasoning would have held no
water for Madame Mumford. There were certain courtesies—duties—that
one must simply perform in order to be a good neighbor. Ari
understood duty. He hung his head.

"The furniture will arrive soon," he
said.

Madame Mumford stepped forward and paused at
the edge of the dining room. "It will include a table?"

"Certainly. Chairs, also."

"That would help. May I...?"

With an apologetic cough, Ari swiveled out of
her way and she proceeded to the kitchen. Bill offered a tight
smile of consolation, as though he was watching a dark cloud
approaching the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and was in no position to
warn strollers of the approaching storm.

Ari's heart ached with every hollow echo
Madame Mumford's footsteps wrung out of the empty house. But when
she paused again, at the kitchen entrance, the sudden silence was
far worse. She went to the stove and hovered over a stew pot. She
sniffed. "Is this supposed to be nihari?"

"A feeble attempt," Ari confessed.

"No, a worthy attempt."

Ari brightened. "You know about Indian
food?"

"I was married to a Pakistani chef many years
ago."

"Ah," said Ari, his dry mouth suddenly
watering.

"When he died, I married a German who taught
me to make a most excellent Kohlroulade, which is a kind of cabbage
roll."

"That sounds delicious," said Ari.

"After we divorced, I grew tired of marriage
for a while and lived in sin with an Italian."

"Ossobuco?" Ari said hopefully.

"Of course...he was from Milan. When he ran
off with a Lithuanian I was content to live by myself. Then I met
William..."

Bill smiled sheepishly, pointed at himself
with one hand and held up four fingers with the other. "Anyone for
cheeseburgers?"

As she spoke, Madame Mumford had taken a
short turn around the kitchen. Returning to the Indian stew, she
leaned down for a closer inspection. "A worthy attempt," she
repeated.

"But a failure?" Ari said tentatively.

"Of course. And you would be the first to
know."

"Alas," Ari confessed succinctly. His heart
caved even further when she raised kind but doubtful eyes to
him.

"There is no ambience."

"Pardon?"

"I have cooked individual meals for people
before, but there was...mmm..."

"Precedent?" her husband suggested.

"Exactement. I had met them at functions,
like the Mackenzie party."

"That's where you met me," Ari ventured.

"True..." Madame Mumford seemed to suffer
through her words. "But a proper meal includes some kind of
ambience. A proper setting, preferably with guests. I'm afraid
this..." She looked at the kitchen, its aluminum-legged table and
weary ladderback chairs—one looking much wearier than the other,
since it had been battered in a fit of rage.

"Is a desert," Ari said. Then he lifted his
head. "But a desert can bloom, Madame. If I repair my ways...make
it as you wish, with proper furniture and a guest list..."

"Please don't go to so much trouble," said
Madame Mumford. "If you are comfortable with a bachelor hole—"

"'Pad'," her husband amended.

"Well, who am I to ask you to make such
drastic changes? Especially for something so unimportant—"

"It is of great importance to me!" Ari
exclaimed. "Man can live by bread alone, if it is exceptional
bread."

Bill emitted a small laugh, but Madame
responded with a look of sympathy.

"I hope you don't mean that, Monsieur. What
one does on a full stomach makes all the difference. You don't have
any family here?"

"Circumstances have forced us apart, for the
time being."

"You should do your utmost to amend those
circumstances."

"My utmost is what I am doing." Ari drew
himself up. "I will correct what I can correct. When you return,
this will be a new home."

"A new home?" said Madame Mumford, giving
Ari's domestic cavern another glance. "That will take much
effort."

Ari sensed she was talking about more than
furniture.

CHAPTER SIX

Howie Nottoway, Ari's neighbor on Beach Court
Lane, was rolling his large green trash can down his driveway.
Shivering in his robe, he offered a greeting as plastic as his
receptacles as Ari walked past his house. It had been months since
Ari found out Howie had been pressured into sneaking into his house
in search of hidden cocaine. Howie didn't know if Ari knew, which
had severely damaged his placid certainty. Ari knew what it was
like to be stuck in limbo, but thought a dose of uncertainty did
Howie a world of good. Not that it had helped Ari very much.

"You're not wearing your jogging gear," Howie
observed. He leaned meaningfully in the direction of Rebecca's
house, as though suggesting it would not be pleasant for Ari (or
his neighbors) if he embarrassed himself again on her doorstep. He
was under the misconception that Ari had been violently turned away
for making a gauche advance upon the woman of the house. In fact,
it was much worse than that. He had been playing suitor to a
cat.

"There will be no mayhem this time," said
Ari. "I called in advance."

"And she's letting you in?
Interesting..."

Ari's cell phone rang. He took it out of his
coat pocket and opened it.

"Hello?" he said, frowning at the display. It
read: Caller ID Unknown.

"We don't need any more espresso niggers in
this town," said the voice at the other end.

Ari nodded at Howie. "Pardon me. It's my
interior decorator."

"Sure?" said Howie, matching Ari's frown
almost line for wrinkle. He knew there was nothing in Ari's house.
Why would he need...? But then he remembered he was wearing only a
robe. A bitter gust exposed his pajamas. On them was a design of a
little boy on a tricycle. "See ya," he said hurriedly and raced
back inside.

"You hear me?" said the voice on the
phone.

"Yes, you were ordering coffee, extra
black."

"I said we don't need any more espresso
niggers—"

"Even if they come with a complimentary
pastry?" said Ari, and closed the phone. He stared at it for a long
moment. He had been expecting an anonymous threat ever since the
night in Cumberland. But not this: simple rudeness. The caller
would have to go much further than a bland epithet to ruffle Ari's
feathers. Ari was a past master of riling enemies with well-placed
bon mots (he thought of them as bomb mots). If a man's preference
for bonking goats didn't get a rise, a rude comment about his deity
usually proved sufficient to kick up some dust.

It was the fact of the call that was intended
to unnerve Ari. See? We found you. And it wasn't all that hard,
either.

Reluctantly, Ari broke the phone in half and
put the pieces in his coat pocket. When he got home, he would
activate one of the twenty or so cell phones from the plastic bag
Abu Jasim's nephew had given him.

Rebecca opened the front door as he came up
the sidewalk.

"Come inside quick!" she called out,
shivering. Ari hastened through the door. A yellow tabby bolted up
the hallway as he entered the foyer.

"The beast of controversy," Ari commented as
Rebecca took his coat. "Why is he running away from me?"

"Because in this house you're a stranger, and
it doesn't like strangers. Come into the living room."

Now that he knew Rebecca appreciated fine
cuisine, Ari decided she was a woman of taste and suburban
refinement. Keeping Madame Mumford's admonishment in mind, he
studied the room and furniture closely. He was bemused by some of
the framed pictures on the wall.

"French Impressionists with some De Stijl
prints in between, anything to lighten up the place."

"They succeed admirably," said Ari from his
deep well of ignorance. While he had come here expecting to be to
some degree mystified, it was not in the realm of art. Rebecca was
a woman of contradictions. She liked fine food. She also liked
pistachio ice cream.

A yellow face peered around the corner.

"Sphinx!" Ari called.

The cat backed out of sight.

"Sphinx?" Rebecca inquired. "If you're
talking about the cat, the Rigginses called it 'Marmaduke'."

"Of course."

"Please..." With a broad sweep of her arm she
offered him the seat of his choice. Ari sat on the ottoman.

"Well...I guess we'd better get this over
with." Raising her voice slightly, she called out, "Diane! Our
visitor has arrived!"

Diane peeked around the same corner used by
Sphinx the moment before.

"Don't be shy."

"You told me he was a monster."

"I didn't use those words, young lady."

"And now he's in the house!"

Rebecca gave Ari an apologetic look. Then she
added: "Perhaps you should tell her what a sweet, harmless man you
are."

Ari slapped a sweet, harmless smile on his
face. "Hello, Diane. I'm here to help find your father. You want to
find him, don't you?"

Diane edged out a little further. She was
wearing her favorite rumba dress. Looking into her shrewd eyes did
nothing to change his opinion of her wickedness. But she was still
just a child, and the things she knew and the things she thought
she knew came from a very small fund of experience. Rana, too, was
shrewd. He found himself wondering if anyone had ever considered
her wicked when she was a little girl. He found the idea
charming.

"Mr. Ciminon has some friends with the
police," said Rebecca in a reassuring tone. "He thinks they can
help him find Daddy."

"Aren't you divorced?" Diane said—a little
too cagily, to Ari's thinking. "You wouldn't want to find him very
hard."

There was an odd absence of accusation behind
this severe judgment. It was a simple announcement of fact. Using
the same voice, she could have said, 'If you don't like carrots,
you won't buy any.'

"I never told you I was divorced from your
father."

"I heard you tell one of your friends he had
run away."

Rebecca gave a start. What else had her
daughter overheard?

"Divorce is permanent. Usually. Running away
is temporary."

"Not for grownups."

"Please come and sit with us."

Diane hesitated, looking for all the world
like she wanted to follow her father's example and run away. Then
her eyes widened in alarm. Sphinx had circled through the kitchen
and was entering the living room from the hallway. After pausing to
assess the visitor from a distance, he approached and rubbed
against Ari's leg. Unable to resist, he leaned down and stroked the
tabby's fur from the head to the base of his tail.

Diane's self-control was astonishing.
Stifling a shout of protest, she pulled away from the wall and
strolled into the center of the room. She plopped herself on the
carpet and with a great show of indifference leaned forward and
dragged Sphinx onto her lap.

"Poor Marmaduke," she said, as though Ari had
jammed his heel on the cat's tail. His only comment was a grunt.
Rebecca, interpreting this as a sound of disgruntlement (it was)
and wanting to ward off any controversy between her guest and
daughter, quickly interjected:

"I'm glad you decided to join us, Your
Highness."

It took Ari a moment to realize she was
talking to Diane.

"Mr. Ciminon...you had some questions for
Diane?"

"Yes..." Ari donned the guise of a friendly
authoritarian, a difficult pose to maintain. "Little girl," he
began.

"Diane," Diane and her mother said in
unison.

"Diane...I believe you learned about
computers on your father's knees."

Rebecca and Diane looked at him closely.

"You don't have this expression?" Ari
inquired.

"Yes..." said Rebecca doubtfully. "But the
way you said it..."

"Then...Diane...your father...he is much
interested in computers?"

"Well, yeah," Diane answered, giving Sphinx a
long swipe of her hand.