Dead East

by Steve Winshel

  Jarvis turned to Zeb, half expecting to see him holding a detonator. Instead, Zeb looked shocked, but it passed quickly. When Jarvis pointed the gun at his chest, Zeb relaxed. He even smiled.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Jarvis. Before you interrogate me, please, finish your tea.” The cup had fallen to the floor and Jarvis looked at it and raised his eyebrows. “Well, at least let me have mine before you begin asking your questions.” Zeb leaned forward and spooned in half the contents of the sugar dish. Jarvis had seen worse during his tours in Afghanistan.

  “Drink slowly. I have a lot of questions.” Jarvis sat down in the chair that now had three holes and tufts of material sticking out.

  Zeb laughed. “Of course you do.” He took a long draw of the tea and pursed his lips as though he’d used lemon juice instead of water to steep the tea. Jarvis caught it too late. Zeb’s eyes widened and the cup fell out of his hand. A choking noise emerged, with a little gurgle as a side note, and his eyes rolled up in his head until only whites were showing. He was dead before his forehead smacked into the samovar with a comedic clanging. Jarvis jumped up and reached over as if he was going to make some kind of resuscitative gesture but stopped before wasting any time.

  “Goddammit.” He put the gun in his belt, in the front in case there were other thugs waiting in the kitchen to pick up where the bodyguard still bleeding on the ground left off. “Goddammit.” Jarvis looked around. If the place filled with cops, he’d have a lot of explaining to do and not much to show for it. He walked over to the bodyguard and confirmed all the bleeding was post-mortem. Only thing left to do was toss the place to see if he could figure out why the hell Wisconsin had suddenly become terrorism central.

  The kitchen looked like the set from a daytime soap opera. It sparkled from expense and lack of use. He pulled out the drawer that looked like it would contain plastic bags and tin foil. He was right. Pulling a sandwich bag from the unopened box, he went back to the living room and tilted the sugar bowl into the mouth of the bag and shook gently until all the grainy material had been transferred. None had gotten on his hands, but after sealing the bag he returned to the kitchen, washed his hands, and rolled the bag into a ball before encasing it in another. With the deadly material in his pocket and another handwashing, he began his search. Upstairs there were three bedrooms. Only the master looked lived in, but barely. He methodically ransacked the closet, bed, dresser drawers, and found nothing. Next were the less obvious places; corners of the carpet, bedposts, window treatments. Finally, the really clever spots – wall panels, vents, faucets in the bathroom. Everything was clean and boring, as if for show. Jarvis went to each of the other bedrooms and repeated the process. A few minutes into the second bedroom, he heard a horn blaring. It was the guy from AAA.

  He worked his way through two closets and the hallway. Nothing escaped his examination. The banister revealed nothing, nor the living room, other than two dead men. The kitchen gave just as little. Foyer, corridor, downstairs bathroom – all clean. Jarvis was getting bored, but not pessimistic. He was about to begin ransacking the garage when he felt a chill. A draft hit his legs and he went to the now-poorly-named living room. The flue was open in the fireplace. A clean, unused fireplace, which is what he would have expected in a show house like this. Except there was some debris beneath the unburned logs. Jarvis pulled out the metal rack and tugged at the uneven stones at the base of the fireplace. They were loose and gave way when he pulled hard. The space beneath was large enough to hold a box the size of a toaster, which is exactly what Jarvis found.

  He undid the two clasps holding it shut and lifted back the lid. A thumb drive sat atop a manila envelope. He pulled the second baggie he’d been carrying and turned it inside out, using it as a glove to pick up the drive and turn the bag back right-side out, capturing the device like a dog-walker cleaning up after their charge pooped on the street. He sealed the bag and slipped it into his pockets. Fingerprints might prove interesting. The envelope he took out and opened. There were several sheets of paper, Arabic writing on two and English on the third. Going with the English, he skimmed the material. It didn’t make sense, at least not to him. The words seemed random, sets of numbers without context, and spacing and punctuation non traditional. Some kind of code, probably Arabic as well he thought, and the thumb drive would likely be encrypted.

  There was a flight in an hour and a quarter. He’d rented the car in his own name and the AAA guy would have it noted as being near the house. Jarvis knew he’d be getting a call about the bodies when they were found. But he didn’t have time for Wisconsin police interrogations now. He went back to the dead guy who’d clearly recognized him and rolled the body over to check his wallet. There was cash, credit cards, and various pieces of paper that were not as interesting as the material in the envelope. The obviously fake name would be of no use. The man had a cover and Jarvis would only find out who he really was by figuring out what was on the paper and the flash drive. Jarvis left the house by a back door, avoiding the floodlights as he made his way to his car and drove to the airport.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was after midnight by the time Jarvis collected his car from the Park One lot next to the Southwest terminal at LAX. The valet had adjusted his seat, apparently a necessity to drive the car fifty feet to the spot where it had been sitting for less than a day. Jarvis hit the Memory button, something he’d figured out after the 20th time this had happened, and settled in. It would take him about 25 minutes this time of night to get to the east LA neighborhood he’d punched into the GPS. He put the Glock under the seat, appreciating the heft and familiarity after using the Beretta earlier.

  In the middle of the night the 10 freeway was as empty as any freeway in Los Angeles ever got and he reached the Florence off-ramp in half the predicted time. Three turns and half a mile further and he might as well have been in Beirut. There were more check cashing/payday advance storefronts and nail salons than streetlights. Trash older than some of the residents clung to sidewalks. Most of the cars on the street were either ten years or more older than his, or they were newer and much more expensive and tricked out. Jarvis turned down an alley to cut across to a small side street and several large rats scurried out of the beam from the headlights. As he rolled down the fifty feet of pavement, he passed huddled figures. At least one was a drug deal, the players not bothering to look up, and he was pretty sure a guy was getting a blow job from a hooker in one doorway. He reached the end and turned left, onto a surprising street with several well-kept homes amid the dotted landscape of drug houses and occasional abandoned buildings. He pulled into the driveway of one of the former and stopped behind a late-model Charger with rims and a paint job that cost more than a year of Jarvis’ payments on the Beamer. Getting out of the car, his ears were assaulted by at least three different sets of rap music. The house to the left had a party going on; the one across the street looked deserted but the music was louder; and his destination emitted screaming lyrics in a language that wasn’t English. He pulled the envelope from the front seat and headed toward the door.

  He got as far as the walk leading to the house before a large shadow separated from the darkness by a pickup truck. A slimmer figure moved in from behind Jarvis, who felt more than saw it. His hand reached for the Glock but did not pull it out.

  “Yo, mutha fucka, you in the wrong neighborhood!” The high-pitched voice probably led to a lot of schoolyard fights when the monster in front of him was a pre-teen. As the kid got older, the vocal squeal was more likely the instigator of a lot of beat-downs for anyone who said anything. Jarvis’ attention was on the young man moving in from behind and not the hulk in front.

  “Don’ look ‘way from me, milkman! I’m talkin’ to you. Gimme your wallet or whatever shit you got on you. Maybe them car keys.”

  Jarvis’ plan was to wait as long as necessary before pulling the gun and pointing at the kid behind him who was unaware Jarvis was tracking his every move. There was no one else visible on
the street to watch the showdown, but he was sure there were eyes catching every move. The thug in front made a move to pull something from inside his jacket, but Jarvis recognized it as a distraction. The real threat was in his peripheral vision. Jarvis stepped to his left, toward the street, and began to make a move.

  The music from the house they stood before suddenly got louder as the front door banged open. Before Jarvis could pull out his gun, a deep voice cut over the music and through the tension.

  “Niggers, leave my boy alone. You scarin’ all the upscale dudes who comin’ to pay their respects.”

  The kid behind Jarvis laughed, thinking he’d had the white guy cowering. He was completely unaware that the only person in danger was himself.

  “Yo, Moose, less’ go. I gotta get some In ‘n Out burger or I’m gonna pass out.” The smaller man walked up to Jarvis and brushed by, but didn’t give a shove. The two walked off into the darkness.

  Jarvis turned to the house and headed to the door.

  “Niggers? They let you get away with that?” He went up the couple of steps to the opening. The man who’d saved the kids the embarrassment of getting shown up on their own street smiled broadly. His olive skin and black hair, bits of premature gray flecking it, would have made him fit into the neighborhood if it weren’t so clear he was Middle Eastern.

  “Jarvis, amigo, nice to see you. Next time give a ring and I’ll lock up the hounds.”

  Jarvis gave him a hug and Rini kept an arm around his shoulders as he ushered his friend into a living room that was twice as clean as one might have expected from the standard of the neighborhood and filled with the aromas of garlic, linseed, and pot. The couch in the living room contained multi-colored pillows, an expensive silk shawl, and a beautiful black woman so dark Jarvis almost didn’t see her. Rini didn’t introduce her and she didn’t seem offended. The pot came from a very Persian looking bong in her hands.

  Rini led him past a bathroom and small study/library that looked precisely as Jarvis had last seen it – tousled, filled with books in many languages spread on the desk and floor, and paintings of Che Guevera and Rosie the Riveter adorning the walls. In the kitchen Rini took a whistling pot off the stove and poured into a large glass bowl with a spout, steam painting droplets on his chin and cheeks. The tea instantly smelled familiar, reaching deep into Jarvi’s throat and memory. Rini carried the bowl in two hands; Jarvis picked up the beautifully matching delicate cups and a tin full of sugar. They went back to the living room and the woman scooched over to make room. Rini stayed standing and poured the tea, starting with the spout near the cup and then straightening up. The waterfall he produced found its mark with precision and not a drop spilled as he brought the bowl back down, tilted it back, and repeated the procedure for the second, then third cup. Jarvis used what appeared to be a clean spoon on the misnamed coffee table to scoop three heaping piles of sugar from the tin and transfer them to the cups – three scoops per cup. His teeth ached in anticipation. The music wove between their unspoken ritual and only after the sugar had been stirred and dissolved did Rini sit down, Jarvis on one side, the stunner on the other, and turn to his friend.

  “So, J-man, what brings you home?”

  Jarvis looked over at Black Beauty and decided she posed no security threat. He opened the envelope and slipped out the two sheets of paper with Arabic writing and put them on the coffee table after moving the cups. “Mean anything to you?”

  “Man, you just love me for my polyglotism.” Rini opened a drawer under the table and pulled out a pair of heavy black-rimmed reading glasses. Back in Afghanistan he hadn’t needed any. One time he’d saved Jarvis from great embarrassment by reading upside down and from about six feet away a note held by an old man whom Jarvis was sure was wearing a suicide vest. The shopping list saved the man’s life as Rini translated the spices, fruits, and aphrodisiacs scrawled on the paper and Jarvis’ finger was tightening on the trigger. Born in Pakistan, raised for his first ten years in Afghanistan, and a survivor of East Los Angeles for the next thirty years, Rini was the best translator and finder of prohibited alcohol in the entire 101st stationed in the Middle East. He peered at the papers.

  “Yeah, there’s really no word for it in Farsi, but I’d say the best fit is ‘gibberish.’ Bunch of random words, some numbers, and the dude was a terrible writer; didn’t he use Word Autoformat?”

  Jarvis pulled out the English sheet and put it next to the others.

  “Yup, same shit as the English. Just junk.” He picked up the English sheet and one of the Arabic. “Ya know, though, they’re different, but there’s some consistency.”

  Jarvis just nodded and let the guy whose IQ was a couple dozen points higher than the average summertime temperature in Afghanistan mull it over. “It’s not total crap.” Rini held the papers away from his face, peering over the glasses, then brought them in close. He got up and went deeper into the house. Jarvis spent the couple of minutes watching the girl. She’d curled up in a corner of the couch with a gossip rag in her hands, but he could see her eyes were unfocused as they pointed at the pages. He was pretty sure if he yelled “fire!” she’d just smile and look for a joint to light with it. She seemed totally oblivious yet entirely aware of him. Rini came back carrying a small book with a worn leather cover and some sheets of blank paper. Stepping over the table to get back to his seat between Jarvis and the girl, he laid the book in his lap and arranged the papers on the table top.

  Rini began flipping through the book, stopping periodically and jotting down a few words in English and a few in Arabic. He consulted the pages Jarvis had brought. Back and forth, scribbling and reading. Jarvis watched quietly for a few minutes until Rini sat back and took the glasses off. Twirling them in one hand, he smiled at Jarvis.

  “Man, this is very cool. It’s kind of a cypher, not real complicated, but kinda smart.” He held up the book. “Verses from the Quran, picking out specific words and numbers. Kinda hard to do since there’s so many different translations, but it only uses sections that are old and don’t change from one to the other. Stuff everyone agrees on.”

  Jarvis looked at the English scribble Rini had made. It made sense to his eye – a name and address, in Boston. Some other numbers next to it that didn’t mean anything, at least not yet.

  “Not sure why some is in English and some in Farsi, but it’s all the same kind of code. I’d need an hour or so to get it all straightened out. You want a beer?” Rini was already up and heading to the kitchen. Jarvis picked up the papers. Calculating from what Rini had already done, he guessed there were about two dozen names and locations. The numbers next to them were probably amounts of poison sent to each. Racine was the hub and Jarvis was looking at the spokes – poison-tipped spokes that could kill a lot of people. When Rini came back, Jarvis drank deeply from the Corona bottle and clapped his friend on the shoulder.

  “Thanks, buddy. I’m gonna owe you one.”

  Rini was already back at work and the girl was softly snoring, her head leaning far back on the arm of the sofa. “Ain’t nothin’, man. You already owe me too much to add another.”

  Jarvis closed his eyes and pictured the old woman in the grocery store, dead on the floor. His mind drifted to Brin, a breathing tube keeping his lungs moving up and down. Just before he dozed off, Jarvis began to compose a stanza, years of habit hard to break even if the one hour of sleep he’d be getting this night was on a crowded couch in a neighborhood he’d hesitate to walk through at mid-day. He’d just rhymed the second couplet when his mind hit REM and he started dreaming furiously. When he woke just under an hour later to the sounds of laughter and kissing, the poem had dissipated.

  Rini and the woman were too stoned to make a real go of it, but Rini was doing his best. When he saw Jarvis quickly emerge from sleep, he left his hand on the girl’s breast but gestured at the papers on the table with the other.

  “’bout a dozen cities there, couple with more than one name. You’ve got some travelin’ to do.�
�� The girl pulled his face back to her so she could get another kiss. Jarvis picked up the couple of sheets that had Rini’s handwriting. He scanned the list of cities and the names next to them. The bigger cities, New York and Boston and DC, had two or three names and the numbers were higher for what were probably the units of poison. Smaller, second-rate cities like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids and Detroit had just one name. Jarvis scanned the non-alphabetical list. He found Los Angeles. Two names. One was of the dead young man he’d seen annihilated just the other day. The second was a woman’s name. Her address was in a different part of town – West side of LA, nearer to Jarvis. He folded the papers and stood.

  “Seriously, man, I owe you.”

  Rini waved a hand without turning around. He unlocked lips with the woman. “You let me know you need any more help on this.” The woman looked over Rini’s bent head and gave Jarvis a very clearly inviting look. Jarvis smiled his broadest, sexiest grin, which immediately led to her looking back at Rini and pulling his head down to her chest. Jarvis laughed and headed to the door, refreshed and ready to go find the address in Westwood his friend had deciphered.

  Chapter Twenty

  Three a.m. on a Tuesday morning and the only people on Wilshire Blvd were newspaper deliverers, trash haulers, grocery store truckers, and insomniacs. Jarvis turned up Gayley, one of the side streets just West of UCLA and took the windy road past a mix of frat houses, off-campus apartments, and regular family homes. Half a block south of Sunset Blvd he turned left onto a small side street and squinted at the faded numbers painted on the curb in front of the houses. 12416 Clennan looked like a rental that had been used by groups of students moving in and out once a year for at least a decade. No lawn to speak of, walls in want of paint, and a roof that was a year or two past needing replacing. One car, an old Corolla, blocked the driveway. A new motorcycle leaned against the slightly warped garage door. Jarvis drove past and turned around in a driveway two blocks down, killed the lights, and came toward the house from the other side of the street. He parked across and cut the engine. The sounds of pre-dawn seeped through the window. He wouldn’t make the mistake of knocking on the door.