"To the residence of Mustafa Zewail." He paused when she laughed. "Is that so amusing?"
"It sounds like you're going off to see a French Muslim whale, that's all."
"Ah," said Ari.
"So who is this Mustafa? I don't recall his name in your file."
"He was the translator before me...at the prison."
The deputy's face dropped. "Uh-huh. I hope you're having second thoughts about doing anything like that again."
"Not in the least. According to the inmate, Mustafa stopped providing his services when he began receiving abusive letters."
Karen became alert. "Hate letters? That's a Federal crime. I can report it to the FBI."
"Rather than 'report', why not do something about it?"
"What did you have in mind?" Karen asked warily.
"I only want to speak to Mustafa—"
"No."
"I don't intend to—"
"No." Karen clapped her hand to her head. "Be reasonable! First, you'll be making yourself known to hostile elements."
"You speak like an American captain I knew—"
"And second, you might run into someone who might just fuck you up, which I can't afford. Let the experts handle it."
Ari's expression told her all she needed to know about his opinion of experts.
"Let me deal with it. The U.S. Marshals and FBI aren't exactly in bed together, but...where are you going?"
"I'm getting into my car because I intend to leave," said Ari, backing towards the Scion.
"What did I just say?" Karen demanded.
"You can ride along and...what is it you say, 'ride shotgun'?"
"Mr. Ciminon, I think this conversation needs to—"
"My real name is—"
"I don't know how to say Ga-ga-th."
"Then I'll teach you. Get in beside me."
"In that tobacco sewer? You really do look sick. Let me take you home."
"Dear deputy," said Ari, standing at the open door and preparing to lower himself into the driver seat. "The woman who bought that house for me for the purpose of solving the murder of her friend—"
"Blackmail," Karen hissed.
"Pastor Grainger gave me Mustafa's address. I can—"
Karen took a step forward. "You son of a bitch."
"Pardon?"
Without warning, Karen jabbed him in the stomach. Ari 'oofed' and leaned forward.
"That's for blackmailing me!" Karen said in a scouring voice.
She punched him in the stomach again.
"That's for almost breaking my neck."
She took aim one more time. "And this is for almost breaking my jaw when you stole my gum."
Ari's hand came up when she lashed. It was like hitting rock. Karen gave a burp of pain and dropped back.
"Please, Deputy Sylvester," Ari gasped. "Be aware of what you are doing. You are transgressing your bailiwick."
"I'm what?" Karen laughed in pain. She suddenly realized that others might be watching and took another step back. She began walking in a small circle, trying to work the agony out of her knuckles while surveying the parking lot. She was relieved to see Ari had picked an isolated area next to the empty pharmacy. As far as she could tell, no one had seen their altercation.
When she looked at Ari again, she saw him leaning glumly against his car, head down, apparently in thought.
"Is this visit so important to you?" she asked.
Seemingly tired but also indefinably amused, Ari nodded.
"Hate crimes happen all the time, all over the world," Karen tried to reason. "You can’t be the Lone Ranger everywhere."
"Ah, a cultural reference that I understand. And I know what you mean." His eyes slid onto a woman struggling out of a car parked in a handicap spot. "I gather CENTCOM has told you very little about me."
"Next to nada," said Karen, following his eyes to the woman. Working her way to the rear door, she manhandled a walker off the seat and began hobbling in the direction of the Food Lion.
"All alone," said Ari.
"She’s doing OK," Karen responded.
"Her sons should be helping her."
"Maybe her sons are in Iraq." Karen shook her injured hand, wincing. "You better not have broken any bones."
"You’re the one who struck me." He turned back to her. "The reason CENTCOM said so little is because they themselves know little about me."
"What are you getting at?"
"In spite of the security concerns, your people trust me…for all the risks that entails."
"Maybe they didn’t have any choice," said Karen cautiously.
"Of course they had a choice. But they did not want to pay the price of not bringing me here."
"The cost in lives?" Karen asked.
"There are limits on both sides, yours and mine. My limit is incalculable: I cannot see my family. Your limit is less burdensome. You only have to refrain from chaining me like a dog."
"I don’t think I trust you as much as the Army does."
"And maybe you have reached your limit," said Ari firmly. "I am going to visit Mustafa Zewail. My reasons are my own, but they are cogent ones. It does not involve your national security, so it’s none of your concern. Now…what is it the girl at the checkout counter says? ‘Have a blessed day’." He began to get into his car.
"Wait!" Karen seemed to combat an inner tornado, fighting against what she was about to say. "Can I come with you?"
His feet still on the pavement, Ari gave her an inquiring look. "You mean, as a favor?"
"I don't believe in favors. You never know what the end-cost will be."
"But without favors, and the attendant responsibilities, there can be no tribal connection."
"We don't have tribes in the States."
Ari cocked his head in disbelief. "That is impossible. You have the tribes of Democrats and Republicans—"
"Political parties."
"Which operate on the same principles," Ari observed. "And don't you and Fred belong to the same tribe?"
"We're working associates," Karen reasoned.
"How sad. But if he needed something badly, wouldn't you, as his associate, feel obligated to do it for him?"
"I will not get into the sack with a married man," Karen said adamantly.
"I was thinking more in terms of 'taking a bullet' for him. I believe that's a common phrase."
"Can't we just call this an ordinary request for assistance? Listen, if this Mustafa is getting hate mail, I’d like to see one of those letters," said Karen. "I can’t just go to the FBI with the say-so of a jailbird. I’d like to give them something substantial."
Ari considered this for a moment. Then he said, "Get in."
"On second thought, let’s take my car," said Karen. "I’d rather not have a GPS log on this trip."
"Prudent," Ari smiled. This was her first open admission that she had bugged his Scion. He locked his car and came over.
"Where to?" she said as they stooped inside.
"He lives several miles beyond a place called Regency Square. Are you familiar with it?"
"Sure." She grimaced as the turned the ignition switch, then flexed her hand on the steering wheel."
"It still hurts?" Ari inquired.
"No, just the cold," she said. "That was pretty good, by the way, hitting someone’s fist in mid-air—right on the knuckles."
"Krav Maga," said Ari. "A style of fighting developed by a Slovakian named Lichtenfeld."
"A Jew?" Karen asked.
"Yes."
"Now isn’t that interesting?" she said.
She drove out of the parking lot and made the short jump to Powhite Parkway. As they reached the bottom of the ramp, a car shot out of the fast lane and nearly sideswiped Karen’s Civic as she merged.
"Fucking asshole!" she shouted.
"Why yell?" Ari asked. "He can’t hear you."
"If he’s looking and reads lips, he knows my mind."
"Then what is the car horn for?"
; "We don’t do a lot of honking in this part of the South."
"Then drivers won’t learn they have committed an error and will keep repeating it," Ari said reasonably.
"OK, we’re stupid, but at least we’re quiet about it."
"Not really," said Ari as a Cougar blasted past them, booming rap. "I must say there’s an element of ‘the unscrupulous feeding upon the indifferent’ about this country."
"What’s that?" Karen shouted, unable to hear him over the music.
"Not important. Something one of my professors once told me regarding the West."
"Do you get honked at a lot, Ari?"
"Endlessly."
The Cougar moved ahead, removing the need to yell.
"I don’t really understand why you want to see this whale-man," said Karen. "Some redneck blowhard sends nasty letters to an immigrant…where did you say he was from?"
"Egypt."
"Actually, he could be from Mongolia or the Alps, for all it matters. Someone writes hate letters to anybody from anywhere else, he gets a new asshole torn."
"I’m glad you feel that way," Ari said, reaching for his pack of Winstons.
"Hey, I don’t include smokers in my sympathy pledge," Karen said vehemently. "Smokers are the scum of the earth, by definition. Besides…"
She pointed at a yellow sticker on the dashboard:
SMOKING IS FORBIDDEN IN GOVERNMENT VEHICLES.
Ari considered violating this injunction, as he did most frivolous restrictions. But he decided he had already hurt Karen’s feelings enough this morning. Not that he cared so much for her feelings; just their consequences. He returned the pack to his overcoat pocket.
"Do you think the prisoner was lying to you about the letters?" Karen asked after they had passed Huguenot Road.
"No, I think there are letters."
"U.S. Post," said Karen, making a clicking noise with her tongue. "Like I said, Federal crime."
"My concern is where those letters originated."
"Like I said, some redneck asshole." She slid around someone in the slow lane. "Hope it's not a vet." Then quickly, said, "I mean a veteran."
"I understand," said Ari as he studied the car's interior. No radio. The agents must depend on their cell phones. "My interview with Samir Salman was very problematic."
"Samir is the prisoner?"
"Yes. He is a devout Shia Muslim."
"You being a..." Karen waited for an answer that never came.
"He made a great to-do out of being forced to eat prison food," Ari continued. "But the Koran forgives eating the food of the infidel if none other is available."
"KFC Baghdad, I can see it now," said Karen.
"And there was the matter of his beard, which the prison authorities rather callously shaved off." Finding the Civic's heat too oppressive, he reached forward and turned the passenger air vent away from him. "There was more, though. According to the Deputy Warden, Samir was very talkative when Mustafa first interviewed him. But during his next visit, Samir wouldn't speak to him."
"You think someone told him to keep quiet?" Karen asked.
"Possibly. Probably. The Deputy Warden told me that Samir was the only non-English speaking Arab in the prison."
"I can find out if there are Arab English-speakers there," said Karen. "But they wouldn’t allow one prisoner to translate for another when speaking to a lawyer."
"Exactly. But I also think someone told him that Mustafa is a Christian. Someone from outside the prison, and who would know."
"Whoa, does that matter?"
"It does if Mustafa feigned being a Muslim in order to get Samir to talk." Ari twisted in his chair. "Think of it. In his eyes, Mustafa is a traitor to his land, to his people and to his God."
"And he told Mustafa stuff he would only tell another Muslim?"
"I believe so."
"Were you able to get him to talk?"
"Oh, yes. But he talked to me through fear. Mustafa tricked him."
"You threatened an inmate?" Karen said, a little worried.
"Who else would have known?" Ari smiled. "I didn't punch him in the abdomen, after all."
"Right," said Karen, blushing. "Here's the end of the parkway. Regency is just ahead."
Ari gave her Mustafa’s address. She programmed it into her TomTom.
"So you think the letters came from a Muslim asshole and not from an American asshole?" she said after the portable navigator had finished giving directions.
"Succinctly put, but I only give it as a possibility." He paused. "Can you tell me what a ‘scratching post’ is?"
"What?" Karen guffawed, turning to gape at him. "Oh, you’re serious."
"It’s an honest question," said Ari stiffly.
"Americans use it to trim their nails," she said.
"Ah…" said Ari, gravely doubting that his question had been answered.
They reached Regency Square and turned off Parham Road. Ari craned his head left and right.
"What are you looking for?"
"I heard about a place near Regency called the Mediterranean Bakery. They say it has excellent halal."
"So you are religious," Karen said.
"I like certain types of food," Ari answered.
He sensed her hesitation and guessed the next question, but he did not try to preempt her.
"Do you have any kind of...faith?"
"I have more faith than all of Mankind put together," said Ari.
"It doesn't show very much," Karen said sarcastically. "You're joking, right? I mean, about God and all? Or are you being metaphysical with me? Like 'faith in humanity' or something?"
"Hardly," Ari scoffed. "However, I now believe that not all of Mankind is worthless scum worthy of death. Any humanitarian who might have known me before today would say that is a very great improvement."
"Oh boy," said Karen.
Suddenly, Ari jumped. "There it is! The Mediterranean Bakery! To the right!"
"You want to stop?" Karen asked, giving a hopeful tap to the brakes.
"Ahhhh…" Ari slumped back in his seat. "No. We must continue."
"We don’t have to ‘must’ anything," Karen seethed. But she was also a little startled by Ari’s behavior, as though he were a little boy forced away from a candy store.
They were several miles down Gayton Road when the TomTom intoned: "Arriving at destination."
Ahead and to the right was a vintage farmhouse painted a glowing white. The road was narrow and there was nowhere else to pull off except at the house itself. Gravel and broken seashells munched on the tires as they turned into the driveway. To the side, a two-car garage stood open and empty.
"They could be at work," Karen suggested.
"Pastor Grainger said Mustafa has not been at work for two weeks."
Karen stopped at the edge of the sidewalk that ran down from the porch and switched off her engine. "This is a really nice place," she said. "A lot like the one I grew up in. I told you I grew up on a farm, right? Maybe this house is in a little bit better shape, though. That paint’s almost new. Maybe they slapped it on last fall."
"The other man’s manure is always greener," said Ari.
"A quote to cherish," Karen responded.
"He intended to stay," said Ari, studying the house through the windshield.
They got out and stood in the yard, as though waiting for Mustafa Zewail to come bounding down the steps to greet them. The house was a pleasant two stories, with two windows on each floor that faced the road. The shutters were green. A porch swing made aching little squeals in the wind. There were no other houses within sight. Ari began to ascend the porch steps.
"Don’t forget," cautioned Karen, "I can’t go inside without a warrant."
"You can’t go inside," he said.
"And you shouldn’t even be here."
But, like a reluctant chaperone, she followed.
"Don't touch that!" she said loudly when Ari began to lean close to a note jammed in the screen door. "If it's one
of those letters—"
"No," said Ari, plucking it out of the gap between the mesh and frame and unfolding it. "It's a note from Pastor Grainger. 'Mustafa, we are worried about you and Akila. Please give me a call..." There followed the numbers to the rectory and Grainger's cell phone.
Karen pressed her face against the mesh. "I see more letters between the doors. I think the screen is unlocked..." She opened it and several letters flopped over. She looked at them for a moment, then knocked on the door.
"I think you can be more forceful than that," Ari commented.
She knocked harder. Ari shook his head.
"More."
She gave the door several rousing bangs. Ari, disgruntled, gently nudged her aside and sent several crushing blows against the woodwork.
"Hey! Hey!" Karen grabbed his arm. "You'll break it down! Or is that your intention?"
The wind had tossed a pile of twigs against the outside wall. Ari took one of them and began stirring the envelopes on the sill. "All of these look like mail that dropped out of here..." He nodded at the slot in the door choked with magazines and junk mail. "No...no, I don't see anything that might indicate hate letters."
Karen was looking on. "No, I don’t see anything, either."
"Would it be agreeable to you if we explored?" Ari asked.
"I guess the minister already did that..." Her voice trailed off as Ari peered through one window facing the porch, then the next. He grunted.
"Let's go around to the side."
But she had already skipped ahead, down the porch and around a large forsythia. Ari heard an "aw, crap" from her before catching up. She was trying to jump up high enough to see through one of the windows facing west. At any other time, he would have found this amusing.
"You are very petite, Deputy Karen." He leaned over her head and peered through the window. "I believe this is the 'living room'." He paused. "Very Western."
He pulled back and went to the next window. "And this is the 'dining room'..." He squinted through the gauzy sheers. At first, he could see only the dark outline of a mahogany table and chairs. Then he thought he saw something on the wall.
"Come on, let's try the back."
"Please wait," said Ari, pressing his face against the glass. A moment later, he sighed. "It is as I feared."
The Godless One Page 9
