Brick House

by Daniel Nayeri

  When Ari got a look at the bowl, with the ribbon around the brim and its lipstick kisses, he deserved some credit for staying on the comm channel instead of waking up the whole house. “No! No way. This is demeaning. I’m not doing this.”

  Saul whispered, “Sorry, buddy,” as he scooped the goldfish named Princess Fashion Show from the bowl with the plastic net. Mack stayed out of the way. The old friends could handle it. As Saul opened Ari’s bag, Ari dodged quickly to the side. “Don’t net me! I’ll go. I’ll go willingly. You know how I feel about the net.”

  Ari let Saul pour him out into the bowl. Saul placed Princess Fashion Show in Ari’s bag with the remaining water. Ari gagged like he was drowning. “You’re a real piece of garbage, you know that, Saul? You promised no singing frog after the thing at the Pierpont Hotel. Remember that? How demeaning that was? Saul? Saul!”

  “Good luck, partner,” said Saul, patting the side of the bowl. The sound waves radiated through the bowl and sent Ari reeling into a downward spin.

  “Agh!” said Ari. “You’re ringin’ my ears! What’s the matter with you?”

  As the two detectives snuck out of Clara’s bedroom, Mack whispered, “What happened at the Pierpont?”

  “Deaf housekeeping lady,” said Saul.

  “Oooh, unlucky.”

  They closed the front door of the brownstone just as the darkness was turning to gray. In a few minutes, the sun would slide a shank into the sky’s kidney. Trash trucks would blunder down the blocks like dizzy mastodons. It was spitting now, but maybe it would rain later. Saul picked up the paper from the Biemans’ front porch. Bad news. Wry comics. And then more bad news in sports. It seemed everyone considered world peace a waste of perfectly good magic.

  It was too late to go to sleep.

  Mack zipped up her jacket before stepping off the covered landing. Saul said, “You like waffles?”

  The luncheonette on the corner avenue wasn’t so flossy that you could get fresh fruit on your waffle. If you asked for strawberries, you got a ladle of Smucker’s. The linoleum had so many stains, it could be modern art. The kitchen was out of sight and best not to think about. A hairy arm reached through the pick-up window and dropped the orders on a service tray, then slid the screen closed like a lady in the shower.

  The only thing going for the place was that it was close enough to maintain radio contact with Ari. They sat at the counter, in front of a plastic display case of marble pound cake, a couple of stale knishes, and a croissant big enough to boomerang a kangaroo. The only other customer was the old man in the back booth, reading the early edition and gumming at a plate of feta cheese and cucumbers.

  Mack sat two stools down from Saul, but he was so big, they still almost touched. To keep their holsters under cover, neither of them took their coat off. Didn’t matter. The guy at the counter had them made for police officers as soon as they walked in. His tag said JON. Had a frowsy, swollen look, no chin, a greasy skirt of hair around his bald head. He said, “Officers! Cup o’ soup? I get you soup. Very good soup.”

  “No soup, Jon,” said Mack.

  Jon grinned like a horse and nodded. “No problem. Two soups on the house.”

  “No free stuff,” said Saul. “We’re paying cops.”

  Jon didn’t believe that breed existed in the wilds of the city. He winked as he placed two cups of minestrone in front of them. It had a layer of oil like vinaigrette dressing. They said thanks, and Saul slipped a ten under the saucers.

  “Gimme a tea, black, in glass I can see through, no mugs,” said Saul.

  Jon nodded.

  “And a few sugar cubes.”

  “No problem,” said Jon. “One tea, on the house.”

  Mack forked the glob of jam and placed it on a stack of napkins. “We don’t have any leads,” she said. She filled every square of the waffle with maple syrup before taking a bite. She talked while chewing. “The wish could be anywhere, trying to find a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.”

  “So then he went to the Bronx,” said Saul. “Should be back any minute.”

  Mack laughed. Some waffle made it to the coffeepot. Saul took a sugar cube and held it between his teeth. Then he drank the hot tea through the sugar.

  “What part of the Middle East are you from?”

  “Persia,” said Saul.

  “So, like, Iran?”

  “Used to be Persia.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m from when it was Persia.”

  “Long time,” said Mack, through another bite of waffle.

  “Long time,” said Saul, staring into his tea. A few loose leaves floated along the bottom.

  “Sulaiman al Djinn,” said Mack to nobody. “Solomon the Genie.”

  Saul took another swig of the tea.

  “You were his, weren’t you?” She meant Solomon the king.

  “We don’t have names,” said Saul. “We get the master’s name.”

  “You were Solomon’s genie?”

  “Didn’t you know? Genies don’t exist,” said Saul.

  “Ha! You wish,” said Mack. “You think you’re the only one who does his homework? Check some records. Grease a few palms. You know, detect things.”

  “The records should have told you that there are no records,” said Saul.

  “They did. That was the problem,” said Mack.

  Saul looked up from his tea. “You don’t let up.”

  She shrugged and said, “I’m Irish.” Then she nudged him and added, “C’mon, I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  Saul put another sugar cube between his teeth and took a swig. He scratched his stubble with two fingers and said, “Nothing to tell. I used to be his. A gift from the Queen of Sheba. Got passed down from king to king for a while, then stolen. I got dropped in a well during a raid in the desert. A camel driver found me; I became a padishah. . . .” Saul trailed off. He named off his old masters like a series of marriages gone sour.

  Mack said, “So how’d you escape?”

  Saul snapped out of the bad dream. “Escape?” he said. “Nobody escapes.”

  Mack pointed a finger at his head. “You don’t have the earrings.” The gold loops in a djinn’s ear bound him, as far as Mack knew. Studying them was part of the training at the academy, under a list of lost ideas, dreamed-up stuff, notions even Wish Police didn’t believe. No one had seen a djinn in a thousand years. They were the dodo of the ICU.

  “No,” said Saul, again. “I could never escape.” He seemed like a mule rutting in a ditch. Stuck in an idea, like it had been tattooed into his heart. No one escapes.

  “Once the camel driver became a shah, he had everything he wanted except some girl. I couldn’t make her love him; it was a code 207 kidnapping. So he starts throwing parties, making me do stupid stuff, edible fireworks, that kind of thing. Gives it a bunch of razzle-dazzle, but she wouldn’t take. Finally, she says to him in front of everybody that perhaps his djinn wishes to be free.”

  Mack connected the rest. “So he’s grandstanding and gets called out, frees you to impress the chick. Nice.”

  “Not really,” said Saul. He gulped the last of the tea and put a finger up for a refill.

  “What, you had a cozy reading nook inside that lamp?”

  “A wife and kids.”

  Mack put a bite of waffle back down on the plate. She said, “He forced you out?”

  “Gave me my freedom, the benevolent pinhead.”

  “Okay,” said Mack, shallow of breath. “Okay wow, you’ve been trying to get back to them all this time? They’ve been out there in . . . genie-verse, granting other people’s wishes?”

  “No real guidelines to it. No one had ever freed a djinn before. After the party, my old master didn’t want me around anymore. I knew everything he’d ever wished for. So he put my family on one of his merchant ships. Then he had a millstone chained around my neck and dropped me in the ocean. A couple decades later, I met Ari.”

  Mack lost her taste for soggy wa
ffle. The holster strap pinched her left underarm. She’d been wearing her shoes too long. She pulled the bottom napkin from under the jam and wiped her mouth with it. “What about the stories with all the genies getting freed at the end?”

  “They’re just stories. Nobody gives up that kind of power,” said Saul. He swished around the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup. He said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t . . .”

  “I won’t tell anybody,” said Mack. “I mean, the other guys in the squad know. . . .”

  Saul looked at her.

  “They don’t know,” she amended. “Right.”

  They sat for a while, listening to the old man in the booth struggle to fold the newspaper backward over the crease. Jon brought out some more tea and went back to reading a Greek Harlequin novel. It occurred to Mack that this was the reason Saul turned down a promotion to detective first grade. If the brass had him on their radar, maybe they’d ask questions. Maybe they’d discover the first free djinn in the unknown world, right in their own rank and file. Maybe he couldn’t go searching for his wife and kids with every intelligence agency prodding him like a zoo animal. As a mid-level detective second grade, he was free to keep an eye on every wish-related crime in the city. And if the weapon was ever a lady djinn . . .

  In the corner of her eye, Mack saw him unconsciously rubbing the side of the pitcher of coffee creamer, like maybe it was a long-lost magic lamp.

  She leaned in and said, “Wanna know why they call me Mack?”

  Saul peeled his eyes off the pitcher.

  “’Cause of my dad. When I was born, I was already as tall as my dad. He was so proud, he spent half his pot o’ gold on cigars for everybody on the island. Said I was better luck than a four-leaf clover.”

  “Code name Five-Leaf,” remembered Saul.

  “Right. My mother wanted to name me Petunia, but my dad said I couldn’t have just one name for being the tallest leprechaun of the clan, so he gave me all of them.”

  “All the names of your clan?” said Saul.

  “All the names he could think of,” said Mack. “He got the little card he looked at to remember the alphabet and gave me a name for every letter.”

  Saul laughed through his nose, like she was selling him the pub’s license. “Go ahead, ask,” said Mack. “Everybody asks.”

  Saul didn’t want to ask. But she was actually serious. “All right,” he said. He leaned back and crossed his arms.

  “Aberdeen, Brigid, Caitlin, Deirdre, Ethna, Fiona, Grania, Hannah, Isolde. It keeps going. I could go on. Moira, Nessa, Orla.”

  “So anyone could call out any name, and they’d be talking to you,” said Saul.

  “I was expansive. My mom still called me Petunia. Only name that stuck was my last name, McClintock . . .” She trailed off.

  “What’s it like filling out government forms?” said Saul.

  “Murder,” said Mack, her Irish brogue seeping into her words as she reminisced. “And there was Ari last night, with all his short leprechaun jokes lined up and no one to hurl them at.”

  Another reason never to speak of the devil. Their comm units crackled in their ears. Ari was in place but couldn’t risk speaking into the wire. He’d turned his radio on and off to signal them. The short burst of static was followed by the sound of tiny fish lips whispering, “Glub-glub-glub.”

  The two detectives rose from their seats. Jon looked up, nodded, and said, “On the house!”

  “Thanks,” said Saul. He slipped another ten under his napkin. As they walked out, Mack said, “So, an ex-djinn and the world’s tallest leprechaun partner up. What’s the guppy’s story?”

  “Ari? He’s just angry.”

  “Probably because he’s named after the Little Mermaid,” said Mack, sliding on her helmet.

  When Clara Bieman woke up, she made a tired sigh like she was a hundred years old. She rubbed one eye with a chubby fist, then said good morning to her best friend, Felicity. She said, “How do you do?” because that’s how they spoke in the olden times where Felicity lived. And to make sure her favorite doll didn’t feel unwanted, she combed Felicity’s long red hair four times before saying hello to each of her stuffed animals.

  Wherever she went, Clara held Felicity with one arm hooked under the doll’s neck. Clara had a yellow nightdress. Felicity also had a yellow nightdress.

  Together they paid a visit to Princess Fashion Show. It must have been a dreadful night. The dollhouse looked like a mess, and the mailbox had snapped off and was floating at the top of the bowl. Princess Fashion Show must have hidden somewhere.

  “Helloooo?” said Clara, tapping on the bowl. She put her face up to the glass. “Princess Fashion Show, would you like some dandelion tea?”

  A golden flash darted across the water and pounded into the glass. She jerked back. “What, what, what? What ya want? I finally got some sleep in this friggin’ sparkle palace. What? What is it?”

  Clara Bieman had never heard her fish talk before. And she was pretty sure “friggin’” was a no-no word. The goldfish head-butted the glass. “Hey, what happened? Did I give you a stroke?”

  Clara didn’t know what a stroke was. She shook her head and held Felicity with both arms.

  “Good. Listen carefully. I am an angry fish. I have large Middle Eastern friends. I don’t want no dandelion tea. Now, run and tell your parents you’re afraid I might gobble up your little dolly there.”

  Clara nodded and turned toward her door. “Whoa, hey, wait a sec!” shouted Ari.

  Clara stopped.

  “You got any food?”

  Clara nodded again. She went back to the bureau and got the food. She sprinkled it over the bowl. “Oh, yeah, that’s the expensive stuff,” said the fish. “It ain’t like Momma’s, but what’re ya gonna do?”

  Once Clara put the can of food down, she got a foothold on her thoughts again. She said, “Princess Fashion Show, can you talk? You’re a boy?”

  The fish blinked at her like she’d dropped a pair of twos against straight aces. His mouth always moved like he was chewing a cigar. “What’d you just call me?”

  Clara’s mouth slowly opened wider, and without taking her eyes off him, she let out a scream you kill pigeons with. She ran out of the room and down the stairs, yanking Felicity along. “Stranger danger! Daddy! A stranger fish is in my roooooom.”

  Ari grumbled as he stalked around the miniature dollhouse. He knocked over the wind vane with his tail fin.

  When Mr. Bieman came in the room, wearing a patterned sweater vest and owl-eyed spectacles, Ari was padding around as harmless as a piece of coral. “See, honey? Princess is right there. It was just a dream.”

  Mr. Bieman lifted his daughter into his arms and walked out. As she looked over his shoulder, Ari winked at her and said in a low voice only she could hear, “Yeah sure, babe, just a dream.”

  Clara shrieked into her daddy’s ear so loud, he jerked to the side and hit his head on the door frame. Then he lost his balance and reeled in the other direction. He managed to hold her in the air as he teetered, then crashed to the ground. Clara held Felicity the same way, so she landed softest out of all of them.

  Mr. Bieman hit his head on the footboard of the bed. He lay back panting and rubbing his head in two places. Clara, who had landed on his stomach, was jostled but fine. She looked up at the fishbowl. Ari gave her the stink eye. He said, “How do you do?”

  Clara screamed again. Mr. Bieman started to say, “What has gotten into you?” Clara thrashed her legs and whipped her arms around, trying to get up. Her dad howled as she connected hard with an elbow to the groin. Ari laughed over Clara’s screeches and Mr. Bieman’s groans. She trampled on her dad’s belly and sprinted out of the room. His girl had just given Mr. Bieman the worst beating he’d had since college.

  Once he recovered, Mr. Bieman sent Clara and Felicity to time-out and took the fishbowl to the master bedroom. He placed it on the nightstand, as he began complaining to Mrs. Bieman about their daughter’s IQ. Mrs
. Bieman stood in front of a foggy bathroom mirror with a pile of black hairpins on the counter. She grabbed them three at a time and slid them into her hair at random.

  Mr. Bieman sat on the bed, trying to tie his shoes. “I wish you wouldn’t sit there, Neville,” said Mrs. Bieman. “I just made the bed.” Her words jumped from the back of her throat, like she was constantly in the middle of swallowing a burp.

  Neville let his wing tip clatter on the wood floor. He snorted. “I told you, Sandra,” he said, like he was accusing her of being Sandra. “Your daughter nearly crippled me with her hysterics, and now I’m late.”

  “Don’t forget to debrief with Randy,” said Sandra through her acid reflux. “The counselor said you have to tell a teenager why they were punished.”

  “I’ll be at the lab till late. Don’t leave my dinner out. I’ll pick up something.”

  “The dishwasher is still overflowing dirty water into the sink.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, I’ll take care of it.”

  Mr. Bieman grabbed his briefcase and walked into the bathroom. He leaned close to Mrs. Bieman’s cheek as he put one hand under the faucet. With the wet hand he dabbed down a cowlick. Then he left.

  Ari whispered into his comm unit, “Was that supposed to be them talking to each other? No wonder the Randy kid’s such a puke. I feel like I’m watching my aunt’s first marriage . . . minus all the broken shells and Momma pretending to have a heart attack.”

  Saul’s voice came through from out on the sidewalk. “Just catch us a lead, sweetheart.”

  “I’m just bait to you,” said Ari.

  “Lotsa fish grow up in a two-bowl family,” said Saul. He liked getting under Ari’s scales.

  Ari sputtered, “I hope your head gets stuck in the plastic rings from a six-pack of soda.”

  “You’ll find your guppy love someday, Ari,” said Saul. You could hear a twinkle in his usual deadpan. “And you’ll break the family cycle.”

  Mack piped in, “Maybe you two should get the name of that couples counselor from the Biemans.”

  “Everybody shut up. I think I got something,” said Ari. “She’s checking if he’s gone. Now she’s getting out her phone.”