Cold Snap (17 page)

Freddie entered the room bearing a long tray.
He sat it across the arms of the easy chair. There were several
bowls of primary color mush and a tall glass with a straw. It
looked like a milkshake. When Freddie left, Ari asked if the boy
lived here with him.

"He goes home as soon as he puts me to bed. I
need help with the prosthetics." He mused over the bowls and lifted
a spoon uncertainly. "That includes prostheses for my jaw and
mouth, which I need to talk properly. I've been unhooking it lately
when I eat. Kind of sore. So we'd better make this conversation
short and sweet. I'd like to eat my shit while it's still
lukewarm."

"That is agreeable to me."

"Yeah..." He lowered the spoon. "So...about
what we were talking about before coming inside...what made you say
what you said about my connection to Sayed Technical
Solutions?"

"Not a connection, but similarities. Ethan
was fired from Sayed for improper phishing..."

"Company investigative procedures are not for
public consumption." Moving carefully to prevent spilling anything
on the tray, Lawson reached across and began pulling off his
remaining glove, exposing a plastic hand. To Ari's surprise, he was
able to manipulate the fingers, though stiffly and feebly. "You
seem very intent on believing that Ethan has come to a bad end. So
far as I know, he is perfectly healthy."

"Is he still on your payroll?" Ari asked.

"Yes," said Lawson with measured caution. He
prodded one of the plastic bowls with the tip of his prosthetic
hand.

"Do you know why he would not contact his
family to reassure them of his health?"

"A man's business is his own business. I
agree this silence gives the appearance of callousness, but...well,
a man's judgment is his own business, too."

"Your judgment?"

"Of course. And yours, also, evidently."

"It tends to trigger acts of unwanted
attention," said Ari awkwardly.

"From the police, you mean."

"The Wareness's are not legally divorced.
Rebecca Wareness has an interest in having her husband's
disappearance looked into."

"So she calls in the neighborhood Berber for
assistance." With great effort, Lawson shifted a quarter inch in
his chair. "I was just reading about the Spanish Civil War...I read
a fair amount, as you can see."

And indeed, books cluttered the room. Ari had
been compelled to shift several in order to sit. One title had
caught his attention: 'The Unreality of Reality'. A contradictory
notion that Ari readily dismissed.

"Franco flew in thousands of Moors...they're
Berbers, too, aren't they?"

"In fact, they're—"

"It doesn't matter. They're all North
Africans. From what I understand, a good percentage of them have
Nordic blood. Vikings! What a combination! Black and Arab and
beserker blood all mixed. It's a deadly combination. The Moors
would come up against Republican units ten times their size and
wipe them out...with knives. That's why we have to maintain an
active military. Those Spaniards were tough, too, and look what
happened to them. We're a lot softer. A single Moor could take on a
brigade."

"That's a grand exaggeration," Ari
scoffed.

"Not by much. They were fanatical Muslims,
incidentally."

"I am only fanatical about fine cuisine," Ari
asserted.

"Ha!" Lawson barked, waving his hand over the
tray. "Are you ever in the wrong place."

Ari had accumulated over an inch of ash on
his cigarette. He stood cautiously and went over to flick it over
Lawson's ash tray.

"You have an exceptionally steady hand,"
Lawson observed.

Today, at least, Ari thought, thinking of all
the whiskey he had absorbed over the last few months.

"You also seem to have been in a fight,
recently," Lawson continued.

"I took a bad fall."

"Oh? Does your employer have a good health
insurance plan?"

"I am taken care of, more or less. But
perhaps I need to extend my coverage. Should I visit your
company?"

"Forget it. I know a high risk when I see
one. You're married? Children? You live in Richmond? One of the
counties?"

"You have told me very little, Mr. Lawson. In
fact, nothing except where you live, which is not pertinent to my
research."

"And what would my having served overseas
have to do with your 'research'?" Lawson shot back.

"Of course, the fact that you received your
unspeakable injuries while serving with Regimental Combat Team 7 in
Fallujah has no bearing," Ari said.

Lawson went still. His breathing became even
more labored. "Right...the Semper Fi sticker on my bumper. Still,
that's still a helluva good guess..."

"Only a guess," Ari nodded.

"Well...I'm hungry," Lawson said finally. He
reached up to his face and began prying at his prosthetic mouth.
Ari caught a glimpse of a tongue divided in two pinks, half
flesh-toned and half the shade of bubble gum. The left side of his
face, losing support, began to sag.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Lawson,"
said Ari, standing. He retrieved his coat. "Please bear in mind my
offer of assistance. I believe you are looking for Ethan, too. I
can be extraordinarily discreet when the occasion calls for
it."

A slobbering sound came from the direction of
the easy chair.

CHAPTER NINE

The fortress was vast. The terrain was
insurmountable. The opposition was formidable. That was how the
display floor of Amis Discount Furniture Universe first appeared to
Ari, and ten minutes' experience only confirmed this
assessment.

"I warned you," murmured Karen as salesmen
flanked out to either side of them, one wing preparing to ambush
them from Sofa World while the other wing took up positions behind
row after row of rocking chairs.

Ari clutched the front of his coat. "We are
heavily outnumbered."

"Best advice? Duck and run. But remember, you
can't hide."

"Why are they looking at me that way?" Ari
complained. "I am only a prospective customer."

"Yeah, the best kind of raw meat." She noted
the way Ari shifted his overcoat. He caught her frown.

"Is something amiss? Has a button run
off?"

"No...just the way you're moving."

"I am not a storelifter." He glanced around.
"There is nothing here that would fit under my coat."

Karen made an erasing motion with her hand.
"It was a stupid idea. But Ari? Don't shoot any salesmen. They're
harmless."

They didn't look all that harmless. Their
gleaming teeth made Ari think of the Barbary Pirates that so
alarmed Elmore Lawson. Lean. Hungry. Instant chums. A highly toxic
combination.

Karen, apparently a veteran of such
situations, sailed ahead to a department that caught her interest.
With curt sweeps of her hand she brushed salesmen out of her path.
Well...that looked easy enough. Now the question was...where to
begin? He turned and was blinded by a searchlight of pearly
whites.

"Hello, sir. That's a fantastico coat you're
wearing. Italian?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Fantastico..." The man's smile amped into a
nova, as though he had just found an open safe under his mauve
sportsjacket. "We have a great selection of—"

Ari raised his hand to his face and darted
away. He realized this reaction might seem extreme, but he couldn't
help himself. He had not gone five steps before his way was
blocked.

"Can I offer you some assistance?"

Ari raised his other hand and shot in the
opposite direction. He did not go far before he stopped to take a
deep breath. Glancing up, he saw Karen gaping at him from the lamp
department. Confirmation that he was indeed overreacting. He
lowered his hands and bravely faced his next adversary.

"Good day, sir. Were you interested in
anything in particular? I would be happy to assist you—"

Ari turned and walked blindly into a lamp. It
rocked perilously before he reached out and steadied it. Another
salesman appeared miraculously on the other side to help him.

"May I remind you in the friendliest possible
way that if you break something, you're responsible for
payment?"

"In the friendliest possible way, may I ask
if that includes your face?"

Well, that worked. The salesman hastily
retreated. Ari felt much better. He began to stroll unhampered
through the incomprehensible jumble. Why had Karen abandoned him?
He had no clue as to what he should be looking for. Hearing echoed
murmurs, he looked towards the back of the store. Nearly a dozen
salesmen were staring at him apprehensively. Suddenly, they grabbed
someone from behind the group and thrust him forward. Tentatively,
he began working his way through the numerous switchbacks in Ari's
direction. He shared Ari's dark-olive skin tone. Apparently, it was
the consensus that he would be more comfortable talking to one of
'his own'. A wonderfully nonsensical notion. In fact, Ari's tension
only increased.

The salesman stopped several yards from him.
He was small, quite a few years older than Ari. Flecks of gray were
spread unevenly in his trimmed hair. He gave Ari a nod, gathered
himself up like a man hefting a stone, and said: "Assalam
alaikum."

"Ditto," Ari scowled.

The salesman's face drooped into a No-Sale
and he took a step backward. "That's the limit of my Arabic…"

"I didn't mean to offend—"

"No offense," Ari sighed apologetically. "I
had an unpromising evening. Valaikum-salam."

"I understand," said the salesman, halting
his retreat while his eyes lit with hope. "If I can be of any
assistance—"

"I will accept your assistance if you stop
talking like one of them." He nodded at the salesmen watching
curiously from the side of the hall. "How long have you been in
America?"

The salesman gave a small cough. "I didn't
think I had an accent."

"Your English is impeccable. If I spoke to
you on the phone I would mistake you for Efrem Zimbalist, Jr."

"I don't know..."

"Ah, you aren't fully assimilated. He was
second in command at the American FBI, just under Hoover. I used to
watch him when I was a kid, on JTV. He was always tracking down
Arab terrorists. I studied his methods. I thought they might come
in handy one day, in case I decided upon a shady career."

The salesman had gone still. "JTV?"

"You know, Jordanian television. That's the
same station I saw you on. You worked alongside those German and
Italian engineers to build the Chambarakat Dam. You were standing
next to some mealy-mouthed politician from the Ministry of Water
Resources."

"My name is Joe," the salesman stuttered,
pointing at his name tag. "Joe Pine."

"You picked a tree for your new name?" Ari
offered a friendly smile. "No matter. You used to be Othman ibn
Tariq. What are you doing working here? Do these Furniture Universe
people really need a top notch engineer?"

Joe Pine seemed to be studying his own
breath.

"It's a shame to waste your intelligence and
training selling furniture...but it's a living, I suppose." He felt
the eyes of the salesmen collective on them. "Let's move around
some. Maybe we can shake off some of this attention. What is this
thing I almost knocked over?"

"Um...that is a Caron Lamp, part of a set.
Sir, you are mistaken—"

"I frequently am. Let's go look at those
chairs over there. What are they called?"

Joe Pine followed Ari reluctantly down the
aisle.

"Baghdad University? Jordan University of
Science and Technology? Or did you train in the West?"

Joe Pine stopped. "I think it would be best
if one of the other associates helped you."

"You shouldn't emulate them too much. Keep
the distinction of who you are and where you're from. We don't want
to look like copycat clowns, do we?" Ari took his elbow to keep him
from running off. "Come, come. You're their sacrificial lamb. None
of them want to deal with a lunatic customer. And I'm nobody,
myself. I don't belong to any tribe."

"No tribe?" Joe Pine said, scowling.

"Ah, you understand."

"I...I only meant—"

"I'm not here to harm you, if that's what
you're worried about. Of course, I might not purchase anything,
which you might consider a grievous wound." Ari stopped before a
club chair. "May I?"

"Oh...yes...please do."

Ari lowered himself into the deep cushions.
His chin was thrust forward onto his chest. "I am buried
alive."

"It's a very popular item," said Joe Pine,
looking ready to burst into tears.

"Could you assist me..."

Joe Pine helped exhume him from the chair.
Ari looked down at his hand. "You should stop sweating so much. It
makes you look nervous."

"Nervous?" The salesman wiped his brow. "I'm
only a little warm."

"In this big drafty hall? Listen...I am in
deep need of..." Ari paused, unsure of what it was he needed.

"I believe I would be less...nervous...if you
weren't under the misconception—"

"OK, Joe. I suspect you are a cultured man.
That you have taste. I need furniture for a dining room...and a
living room...and where is my brain! A kitchen."

"Well we have all of that."

"But I have to please a very particular
person."

"Your wife?" Joe glanced in Karen's
direction.

"Oh. Her? She's just a servant. The woman I'm
speaking of is not my wife. She is French."

Joe smiled in surprise.

"You married a Frenchwoman?"

"Well, no. I'm speaking of a friend. I need
to make her feel at home."

"Follow me," Joe said and strode ahead,
suddenly more confident. "Do you have any particular color scheme
in mind?"

"I'm not sure."

"Colors can emphasize certain moods. Yellow
is a happy color."