The Godless One (17 page)

"It's
all
Indian!"
Ramesh giggled. "Well, almost all. But don't tell the…oh,
excuse me once more." He took out a different phone from a
different pocket. "Oh? Sunitha? No, no, we only need the
mild
mango achar
tonight. You know how these Americans choke on the real thing!" He
closed the phone and grinned sheepishly. "That was my wife. We’re
having guests for dinner."

Ramesh’s expression suggested there was
more to it than a simple meal.

"Are you ‘networking’?"

"Oooo! don’t say it!"

"I wish you success," said
Ari.

"I had an excellent offer last week,
from PETA. Do you know them? They have a big office in Norfolk. I
went down there for an interview, but..." He pulled a
face.

"They wouldn't pay you enough?" Ari
inquired.

"The money was excellent. Big health
benefits, too, which is important, by the way. It’s not like in
Chennai, where you pay a few rupees and the doctor says, 'get
well!' Here, if you don't have plenty of dough, the doctor says,
'get lost!' PETA had big benefits, but...you know who they
are?"

Ari shook his head.

"They represent animals. No kidding!
They’re vegetarian, which is good. But if someone is abusing an
animal, you can call PETA and they'll investigate. Isn't that
funny?"

Ari nodded thoughtfully. "But if
someone was abusing a cow, wouldn't you be pleased if someone
investigated?"

"At home, of course. Here,
they
eat
cows...every day!" He gave Ari a look of wary friendliness.
"Do you have a pet, Mr..."

"I'm sorry," said Ari. Both men stood
and stretched across the conference table to shake hands. "Bernie
Bannout. I have a cat, but only occasionally."

"Oh." Ramesh looked disappointed and
glanced at his hand. "I might have taken the job, but everyone
brings their pets to work. Dogs, cats…I even saw a ferret!" He
sighed over the absurdity of it all. "But I've been talking so
much...what is it I can do for you? You said you had some news for
me?"

"I'm here about Mustafa Zewail. I
understand he's been missing—"

"Yes!" Ramesh said, all excited. "Have
you heard from him? Are you a relative? I’ve called and called and
knocked on his door. I even spoke to his Christian
guru."

"I'm just trying to find out a few
things. Mustafa is an architect, is that right?"

"Oh, yes. You'll see two architects
listed in our brochure..." He nodded at Ari's magazine. "...but
I've never seen the other man. Why are you asking? You should
already know this." Ramesh's eyes widened with alarm. "You're not
here to verify his employment, are you? You can't send him away.
He's a citizen! And it can't be money." He lowered his voice. "He
had a very big inheritance from his uncle, Sam. He told me about
it. I'm sure he can't owe—"

"I'm not a bill collector and I'm not
from Homeland Security," Ari reassured him. "How long has he worked
here?"

For a moment, Ramesh was
less than reassured. "Longer than me." Then he brightened. "They
were already calling him the 'old man' by the time I got here. In
this place, anyone over thirty is old!" His grin returned. "I hear
that when he first got here, they asked him if he wanted an
enclosed office, so he could perform
Salat
without disturbing the other
workers. They were very reassured when he said he was a Christian
and didn't need to pray at all! That's why his uncle is named
Sam...he's a Christian, too."

Ari doubted this, as he was beginning
to doubt a lot of other things.

"So…Mustafa
is
an architect?" Ari
asked for the third time.

"Brown and Stern are going into a new
line that features architectural themes. It requires someone with
the proper background and knowledge of AUTOCAD. Mustafa has a
degree in Architectural Engineering from Ain Shams University in
Cairo. It’s a horrible shame that someone with that much education
has to work here…" And then caution stepped in. "Why do you ask?"
Ramesh asked, very politely.

Ari was wondering if the degree was
bogus and if Mustafa had not been such a hot architect. But
apparently he knew enough to satisfy Brown and Stern.

"You’re good friends with him,
then?"

"Very good! He called me ‘Buddha’,
which is wrong, of course, but it was very funny the way he said
it. We—" He was interrupted by another tinny ring. He removed yet a
different phone from a different pocket. "Muttiah?" he said after a
glance at Caller ID. "You got the pictures? I took them last August
at a place called Carter Mountain. Those are Pink Lady apples. They
aren’t as sweet as ours, but they’re very good. Listen…Muttiah…I’ll
call you back. OK? I have a visitor at work here." He slipped the
phone back into his pocket and shrugged another apology.

"How many phones do you have?" Ari
asked.

"Oh, these are just what I carry with
me. I have five or six more at home. Or maybe eight."

"Why…"

"They go out of date so quickly. My
oldest is almost two years old. I gave one that was actually two
years old to Mustafa. I was ashamed to give it to him, but he
insisted that he would rather take it than have me throw it out. I
set him up to make free overseas calls."

"You can do that?"

"All of us do it."

"All of…"

"All of the Indians in North America do
it. We don’t pay a nickel. Why should we?"

Ari grinned. The phone companies must
not be happy about that. "I might get back to you some time about
setting up an account."

"With pleasure! It only takes a few
seconds."

"Oh, then…" Ari took out his cell
phone. "Could you…?"

Ramesh looked shocked. "Oh no no no,
that must be four years old!"

"But I only bought it
yesterday."

"It’s a very ancient design. It will
never do!"

"Well, later then, after I’ve
modernized." Ari put his miserable cell phone back into his pocket
and returned to the main topic. "When was the last time you saw
Mustafa?"

"We went with our wives to Addis
Ethiopian Restaurant in Shockhoe Bottom only three weeks ago. Have
you been there? Excellent vegetarian." Ramesh kissed his
fingers.

"I’ll bear that in mind." Ari took a
deep breath and downshifted his tone. "Did Mustafa seem worried
about anything before he dropped out of sight? Did you know he was
doing a translating job at one of the state prisons?"

"It isn't a job, it's volunteer work,
like what I do for the temple!" Ramesh protested.

"I worded it badly. Did he say anything
to you about it?"

There were several layers to Ramesh's
equanimity, and Ari had removed them one by one. The earnest
caution with which he now regarded the visitor was painful, to both
of them. "I must ask you to root out the matter for me, Mr.
Bannout. I have answered all the questions I need should. What is
this all about? I can't believe Mustafa is in trouble."

"I'm afraid he was. He and Akila were
found murdered in their home yesterday. It's likely the killing
took place two weeks ago."

Ramesh's upper lip drew back.
"Whaaaaa...?"

"You'll hear the details on the news,
eventually. I'd rather not tell you until the police issue an
official cause of death."

With lips profoundly expressive, Ramesh
silently told Ari of disbelief and remorse. Finally, he said:
"There's no doubt?"

"None."

"You're not with the
police?"

"No."

"Then perhaps I should ask you to
leave." To say this took enormous effort and moral courage. Ari
felt a little ashamed for duping him. But he had been ashamed many
times, and had learned to shrug off the feeling.

"I am a friend of the family," he said.
"They were concerned when Mustafa stopped calling them, which he
did frequently thanks to the phone you so kindly set up for him.
They asked me to check up on him."

"You found the body?"

"And called the police,
yes."

For a moment, Ari thought the Tamil was
going to hyperventilate. "I was there. Twice. And he was inside
with Akila..."

"I wouldn't dwell on it," said Ari.
"You couldn't have known. What we need to do now is find out why
this happened."

"But the police—"

"I'm sure they'll catch whoever did
this. But I think the family would feel better if someone they know
is following the investigation."

"You're Egyptian?"

"Lebanese. We have close ties,
though."

Ramesh pondered this for a moment.
Fortunately, none of his phones disturbed his
concentration.

"He was getting letters," he said
finally. "Starting over a month ago."

"Did he show any of them to
you?"

"No. In fact, he said he destroyed them
so that Akila wouldn't find out."

Alas
, Ari thought.

"Did he give you any details about
them?"

"He said they were sick..." Ramesh hung
his head. "He didn't say anything else about them, except for the
eagle. I wish I had known. I wish he had spoken more about it to
me."

Ari slowly ran his hand over the top of
the conference table. His fingers looked blood red in the
reflective cherrywood. "Eagle?"

"He said there was a graphic of an
eagle head on the paper…on every letter. Right away, I thought of
Garuda, the Vahana of Lord Vishnu. And Mustafa said it slightly
reminded him of the Eagle of Saladin, which is the coat of arms of
Egypt."

As well as the Palestine
Authority
, Ari thought.

"We decided it was the American eagle,
and that a super patriot was telling Mustafa that he was not wanted
here. That's only my guess, because Mustafa didn't give me any more
details."

But Ari needed no more details. His
inner self gave a flip of disgust.

"Fucking America," Ramesh said suddenly
with heartfelt venom.

Ari nodded slowly. He noted his face in
the table, a lurid reflected red, and turned away. He thought
America was no worse than any place else. It was much better, in
some respects. But at the moment he was not in the mood to defend
it. He stood.

"I think I have enough for
now."

Ramesh got up slowly, like a wounded
man. "I'll take you to the door." But he didn't move.

"That's all right, I'll see myself
out." Ari slid the company prospectus into his coat pocket. "And
Ramesh, don't forget: 'truth alone triumphs.'”

The national motto of India.

CHAPTER SIX

Lynn Gillespie’s world was an almost
perfect card catalog of calm organization. But, had index card
catalogs still existed, Ari Ciminon’s record would have been stuck
sideways when the drawer was closed, bending it permanently. Ari
had come to the Tuckahoe Library to use one of its publicly
accessible computers. He had needed to communicate with Abu Jasim
without being monitored. Lynn had, in all innocence, helped him set
up a new email account.

The librarian was furtively drawn to
the tall, dark and handsome Ari (TDH in her imaginary catalog),
although these attributes were mere subtexts to his humor and
affability. From what she had observed in other couples, and in her
own limited experience, she surmised that, outside of blind lust
and foggy romance, people were attracted to ‘otherness’. There was
a kind of pedagogical choice involved with real bonding. Having
shared interests was the most common magnet, mountain climbers
finding other mountain climbers alluring, readers finding other
readers problematical (the result of all that reading) but also
irresistible. These people already knew what they wanted to know,
and their mates increased their knowledge. But many other people,
like Lynn, did not know what they wanted to know. Ari was
encompassed by ambiguity. He had boldly told her his name was not
Ari Ciminon, without crossing the line to offer his real one. He
was an Italian who had attended the University of Baghdad. He
seemed profoundly innocuous, yet a kind of menace permeated his
every movement. She could never love anything that could not be
categorized, and therefore could never love Ari—until she learned
everything humanly possible about him. And she saw now that this
was something he would never allow. They went out to dinner
occasionally, attended movies together, and he was infinitely
charming. But there had been nothing beyond that, and she now
accepted there would never be anything more. He had been reduced to
a favored library patron.

Yet when she saw him descending the
steps to the lower level of the library that afternoon, her heart
went out to him. She sensed something horribly awry. The skin under
Ari's eyes had darkened. His omnipresent suit, so carefully
tailored, hung loose. And the gleam in his eye, while still
abundant with humor, also betrayed one of the most peculiar
expressions Lynn had ever seen: a mixture of fear and voracity. She
could not know, of course, that he had just come from his interview
with Ramesh Balasubramium, or that a suspicion that had been
gnawing at him for several days had reached his vitals.