Cold Snap (6 page)

"That sounds dreadful," said Ari sincerely.
He wondered if it could be cured.

"That puts a lot of us out in the cold,"
Tracy confessed. "But anything for The Cause."

"And what cause might that be?"

"Cm'on Ari, don't be dense. Full-time
employment with benefits."

Rebecca was watching him closely, as though
having doubts about asking such a dummy for help. Ari moved quickly
to eliminate any questions regarding his mental aptitude.

"I understand, now. This is what you call
rubbing someone's nose in it?"

A moment's hesitation and then both women
laughed uproariously.

"That's it," said Rebecca, wiping her eyes
and then tapping his hand with her finger. Ari had the discomfiting
impression that he had proved his bona fides by being stupid. He
suspected the same criteria were used for the American diplomatic
corps. Before he could protest, they were interrupted by the
arrival of Madame Mumford from the kitchen. Ambrosial mists
accompanied her and Ari decided if there wasn't enough onion soup
to go around, he would kill to get a share.

"The meal is ready to be brought out," she
said with oven-heated pleasantness.

"Oh, you can see people are still busy with
their drinks," said Tracy, waving at her guests. "Just put it on
simmer and I'll let you know when we're ready."

Her dismissive tone riled Ari, who had to
suppress an impulse to give his hostess a corrective slap. Tracy
had some singularly wonderful attributes, but knowing her place
before culinary royalty was not one of them.

"I'm afraid that's not possible," said Madame
Mumford with stern politeness. "These dishes must be presented the
instant they are ready."

There was too much of the domineering
mistress confronting a recalcitrant servant in Tracy's scowl.

"You can let it cool a bit, then. Just pop it
into the microwave when we're ready."

"We've already delayed too long," said Madame
Mumford unswervingly. "I'll begin serving now." She turned with
sturdy precision and returned to the kitchen.

"Pushy so-and-so," said Tracy. "Ari, you
schedule your circus all around the world. That includes France,
right? What do you think? Are they always so bossy?"

"The French are always right," Ari
admitted.

"It's disgusting. I should have served
Freedom Fries today. She needs to learn who's footing the bill."
She snared Bristol as he passed them on his way to the bar,
displaying his empty glass as though it was a grievous wound. "Mr.
Turnbridge, you're not terribly hungry at the moment, are you?"

"Well, I'm a bit thirsty..."

"Our cook...our French cook...insists on
putting the food on the table. She says it can't wait, but I told
her—"

"But of course it can't wait!" Bristol
declaimed, employing a mock French accent filled with 'zh's. He
rounded on the crowded room. "People! Lunch! Come!"

His empty glass was no longer an open wound
suited to awe spectators, but a useless burden to be dropped
haphazardly on the coffee table.

People who had been sequestered in various
side rooms began squeezing themselves into the dining room and the
closed part of the porch facing the river, where tables from A thru
Z Rental had been placed end to end. Ari recognized some of the
faces from previous Mackenzie get-togethers. Others were strangers
to him, but he suspected only a handful were employees of Sayed.
Those were the ones angling for seats close to Bristol. They were
the first to jump at the owner's announcement that brunch was about
to commence. The remaining ten or so guests were obligatory
fill-ins, invited for the sole purpose of showing Bristol what a
great and popular guy Matt was. They seemed a little confused as to
how to behave, and ended up against the porch window, which was not
insulated well enough to prevent a stark chill from seeping
through.

"People! People!" Tracy broached the air with
her arms, as though swimming against a tide of unruly children. "We
need those who want roast beef and casserole over there. Those who
want foreign sit closest to the kitchen."

Ari was happy to see a noticeable shift away
from the kitchen. He grabbed a seat next to Bruce, who had
reluctantly taken the seat next to Bristol when Bristol pulled it
out and signaled for him to sit. It looked as if the boss intended
to oversee his employee's franco-caloric intake. Ari would have
considered it poetic justice for the cat torturer, had the
punishment not been heavenly.

Tracy and Matt emerged from the kitchen
wearing his and hers aprons. Tracy's bore a strong resemblance to
the stereotypical French maid uniform, black with white trim,
including a quick switch to fishnet stockings. Matt was more
sedate, if no less ridiculous, in a trim black outfit which made
him look more like a manorial butler than an eager garcon de café.
Their aprons were emblazoned with 'Monsieur' and 'Mademoiselle', as
though they weren't married but a couple who reserved their trysts
for the cupboard. Ari gave hypocrisy in all its forms the respect
it was due—but, considering Tracy's opinion of the piece de
résistance, his tolerance was stretched to the limit. He emitted a
low growl, which sent a visible thrill of dismay through Bruce, as
though he took Ari's inferred threat seriously.

As well he should.

Two Indian couples raised Ari's hope of
getting a substantial share of the main course. Their deferential
glances in Bristol's direction signaled them out as Sayed
employees, but their bindis and tilaks suggested they were
misplaced vegetarians. The only things available for them were a
cheese casserole and spinach dip. They did not scramble for a seat
near Bristol, yet they wore polite, intelligent looks that told Ari
Bristol should watch his ass, or they would soon be running his
company.

The aluminum foil that the roast had come
wrapped in rattled loudly as Matt hacked away, carving out huge
American-sized portions guaranteed to make a glutton smile. Ari
could not criticize. He was feeling a little gluttonous himself, a
sensation that swelled tremendously when the Mumfords emerged with
steaming tureens from the kitchen. They wore plain white aprons, no
frills or ethnic nonsense.

Ari sensed Bruce stiffening to his left, his
eyes as round as clam shells as they followed the progress of the
dishes with abject terror. In Iraq, Ari had been compelled to do
many unsavory chores in order to stay in the good graces of the
Imperial Palace, where loss of status could result in arrest and
torture. If Bruce opposed his boss at the brunch table, he risked
no more than unemployment, destitution, starvation...death. Well,
perhaps the comparison was not so invidious, after all.

On Bristol's left sat a slender blonde whose
face belonged in a soap ad, her blue eyes adding just the right
punctuation for the perfect complexion. She leaned to Bristol's ear
and whispered. He nodded abstractly, his attention focused on the
platter. Ari did not know if she was his wife, girlfriend, or even
if they had arrived in the same car. Americans tended to skimp on
introductions, as befitted its career as a land of strangers. The
non-famous were nonentities; the noxiously famous protected their
anonymity. Strange place.

Madame Mumford eased between the blonde and
Bristol with the steaming platter.

"Servez-vous..."

Bristol's arm jerked forward but stopped in
mid-air when he caught a stern glance from the cook which said, in
effect, Where are your manners, Monsieur? Ladies first.

With a kind of glutinous croak, Bristol
turned his hand over and said, "After you, dear."

"Gosh," said the woman, taking up the serving
spoon. "This smells great. Looks like beef stew."

Madame Mumford accepted this with a placid
nod. Bristol grunted.

"Hey Ari, ready for a slice?" Matt held up a
slice of beef between a carving knife and prongs. It did not look
bad at all. Obviously, neither Tracy nor Matt had taken any part in
its conception.

"I'll pass for the moment," Ari said.

"Prime raw from the center, just the way you
like it," Matt urged. Ari thought he must be generating a great
deal of inner moral suasion to make the offer. An inveterate
moocher, it damaged Matt's sensibility to give away anything
without the hope for a return. But with Ari sitting only one seat
away from Bristol, the boss would overhear him playing the
expansive host. Not wanting him to feel rebuffed, or to be seen
being rebuffed, Ari allowed his index finger to drift in the
direction of the coq au vin. Matt lifted his brows, then shrugged,
as though to say, "It's your funeral." Ari fantasized jamming a
handful of freedom fries down his throat. But the man was his
friend, after all. Or at least a member of the local tribe.

Ari studied the other guests who had gathered
at this end of the table. Most of them followed the Mumfords with
hungry eyes. Among them was Rebecca. She was smiling broadly, and
Ari's heart sank as another portion slipped away from him. It was
beginning to seem that everything depended on the repulsive
cat-killer, Bruce.

And Bruce was growing feverish. He broke out
in a sweat when Madame Mumford lowered the platter next to him. No
culinary adventurer, his spirit quavered as he walked the plank. He
gave Ari a wincing look, as though trying to get his sympathy. Ari
sighed and gave the platter a doubtful look.

It's your funeral.

"Cm'on, Bruce," said Bristol. "This is food
for thought."

"I'm on a diet," Bruce grimaced, then spotted
Matt, still holding the slice of roast, haplessly searching for an
empty plate before the sizzling juice dripped onto his carpet.

"I think Matt needs a hand," he said, lifting
his plate and directing it away from Madame Mumford's platter. "Put
it here, partner," he said with forced jocularity. The slice landed
in Bruce's dish with a heavy plop.

"That's what you want?" Matt asked. "I can
get another plate."

"Well, now that it's there..." Bruce sat the
plate before him. Feeling Bristol's eyes on him, he added
defensively, "Can't let it go to waste."

"Chicken shit," said Bristol. "That's some
'diet'."

Madame Mumford's disappointment was
alleviated when Ari raised his plate in both hands, for all the
world like an acolyte before an altar.

CHAPTER TWO

"No, we aren't divorced," Rebecca said as she
raised another plastic spoonful of pistachio ice cream to her
mouth. "We're not separated, either, not legally. We're
just...separated."

That someone who so obviously appreciated
French cuisine also delighted in green ice cream mystified Ari. He
had only tried the dessert once, while taunting one of Uday
Hussein's thugs in Cumberland. It had backfired, with Ari spewing
out the globular mess in disgust. Throughout his military career,
he had been compelled to eat some pretty nasty things, but nothing
as nasty as that.

It had been Rebecca's idea to meet at the
Baskin-Robbins on Forest Hill Road, not realizing the ice cream
parlor held a painful memory for him and an even more painful
memory for Karen Sylvester, whom he had almost killed in the
parking lot. Luckily, the girl behind the counter was not the same
sales clerk who had witnessed his attack on the deputy marshal.
Elsewise, the police would already be racing to the scene.

Ari found Rebecca's reasoning for meeting
here both logical and twisted. She could not bring herself to go to
his house because neighbors might see and misinterpret, and she did
not want him at her house for the same reason. Besides, how could
she explain to Diane inviting into her house the very man she had
forbidden her to visit? Best to meet on neutral ground and give the
appearance of a chance encounter. This would give her the
opportunity to explain to her daughter that Mr. Ciminon wasn't so
bad, after all. That Mr. Ciminon, who had chased Diane away from
his house and shown every indication of being a madman was...well,
a bit different, but all-in-all not so bad...for a person of
non-American persuasion.

This explanation met with mixed success, as
evidenced by Diane's gasp when Ari walked into the parlor and gave
them a startled, pleasant smile.

"Ah, Yellow Rose Diane!" he had pronounced
grandly. "I see we are both connoisseurs of fine ice cream."

"I like lots of ice cream," said Diane
tentatively, shading close to her mother.

"We don't come here very often," said
Rebecca, giving her daughter a tweak on the nose. "Ice cream is
good in moderation."

She made it sound like opium.

"How is Marmaduke?" Ari asked, and mentally
shot himself in the forebrain. The cat was the central bone of
contention between Ari and Diane. It was truly a source of
self-discovery, to find one's self drawn to an animal that, in his
meager feline brain, did not care a fig for him. But next to his
wife and son (and Abu Jasim, although the jury was still out on
that particular individual), Sphinx had become central to Ari's
life. A concept so bizarre that Ari wondered at his own sanity.
Animals were things, to be used and discarded as the occasion
arose, the same way hunters cut old beagles adrift to die lost and
alone in the woods. Cats? They weren't even useful, unless one
considered rodent control. And Ari had seen no rats or mice in his
neighborhood. Which might be due, of course, to the cats.

The impracticality of Rebecca's idea to meet
at the parlor became quickly apparent. There were things she wished
to discuss with Ari that she did not want Diane to overhear. This
would be virtually impossible within the confines of the
window-encased dining area.

And then luck played its hand. Either that,
or Rebecca was showing a remarkable talent for duplicity. Soon
after Ari arrived, another woman with a small girl arrived. A girl
who just happened to be one of Diane's close friends. A mother who
just happened to give Rebecca a meaningful nod. Diane bounced up
and down in her seat, begging her mother to be allowed to sit with
her friend. Rebecca just happened to acquiesce and Diane ran down
the aisle to the far end of the dining area, her French vanilla
cone balanced precariously in her small hand.