Cold Snap

by J. Clayton Rogers

  This was a sedate neighborhood that dead-ended at the Parkway on one side and at the river to the north. It provided no shortcuts and traffic was minimal. Ari backed around at the next intersection with no trouble, except this gave the man in the Sonata's back seat a clear broadside that could have ended the chase then and there. But there were no shots. It even seemed the Sonata slowed to keep from hitting him, but Ari couldn't be certain. He was too busy avoiding cars parked at the curb.

  The road ahead was clear to the next corner. Ari slammed the gas pedal. The Sonata picked up pace.

  The man came out of nowhere. When Ari hit him the xB shuddered while the pedestrian was flung up and sideways. Ari stopped and jumped out.

  The victim was sprawled between two parked cars. Ari did not have time to check on him. He reached into his pocket as the Sonata pulled up.

  "Hey Ace, don't go postal."

  Whirling, Ari found himself facing a small man, his Oriental face broken by a wide grin. The victim began brushing himself off.

  The Rio came up from the other direction. Men piled out of both cars. They were all laughing.

  "You one hot driver, Ace," said a second man, strolling over to the victim and smacking dirt off the back of his shirt. When the victim winced, the second man pulled up his shirt and pointed at his bare abdomen. "You got a bruise? Hey look, he got a bruise! You're losing your touch."

  The victim gave him a look of irate puzzlement. "But you want bruises!"

  "Not this time. This fish we let go."

  Ari. A fish. He was feeling like one at the moment. A clown fish. The men backed away cautiously as he stepped forward and glanced inside the Sonata. On the back seat lay a rod and trigger device that he had mistaken for a gun. It seemed to be some kind of portable speaker. The scream on the road. The swearing. They had been broadcasted from this thing.

  "That's our Mojo Loudmouth," one of the men grinned.

  "Very clever." Ari briefly considered shooting them.

  "How did you know where I was?" he asked. For an answer he received another cascade of laughter.

  "Don't you care. Just stay away from A-Zed. We don't like Jap smell."

  "I'm not Japanese."

  "Didn't say you were. Just smell like one."

  "Mi chin nom," said Ari.

  Koreans to a man, their laughter twisted out of recognition, until they sounded like a wardful of patients who had undergone tracheas. Ari understood this was mind-numbingly stupid behavior on his part. He had not seen a gun, but for all he knew they were packed to the gills. Summoning up his memories of meetings with Nodong missile representatives, he decided Koreans were not overly sensitive regarding aspersions on their sanity. Not even North Koreans. Of course, the men he met were more or less salesmen. You could tell a salesman to shit in his socks and he would do so with a smile, so long as he had a 50-50 chance of cinching a deal.

  The driver of the Rio, the one who had brushed off the wholly convincing victim, signaled the others to back away.

  "You watch ass, Ace," he said, sauntering back to his car. "Next time we don't just break fender. We break face."

  Ari considered cramming the whole lot of them into a bean can, but settled for a blank face. People just hated poker faces. Well, he did, at least.

  As they pulled off, the sound man in the back seat of the Sonata stuck out his sonic monster.

  "EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

  "Lick my testes!" he bellowed back in his best non-amplified voice. Going around to the back of the xB, he studied the two-inch gash in his fender. He felt eyes upon him and looked up to see roughly a dozen perturbed suburbanites staring at him from their front lawns. One man spoke up bravely:

  "We don't tolerate gangs in our neighborhood!"

  "The gang banging is intolerable," Ari agreed, getting into his car and driving off before anyone thought to take down his license plate number.

  Ari hated to admit he was rattled, but when he almost ran down a line of school children at the Forest Hill intersection he realized the need to compose himself. He braked at the last moment. When the school crossing guard swiveled her handheld Stop sign and threatened to behead him with it, Ari lowered his window and jabbered vigorously. She looked him over, gave the Scion's hood a hard slap, and returned to her charges.

  Ten minutes later he was pushing a cart up the grocery aisle in Walmart, grumpily dwelling on the miracles Madame Mumford could wring from this lovely produce, while he could only concoct vile pools and shattered remnants. He wondered if he was the only man alive who could char a stew.

  Hearing a cart approach rapidly behind him, Ari quickly sidestepped and turned. Deputy Marshal Karen Sylvester took rather sadistic glee in ramming his ankle tendons, and he preferred to defer her delight.

  "Deputy Karen," he said.

  "Sylvester," she said, a little put out when she missed her target. She looked at Ari's ankles longingly. "I got your message. What's the emergency?"

  "May I register a complaint, first?"

  "I've got ringing in my ears. They call it tinnitus. I have to leave now and see my doctor."

  "How is it you bought me such perfunctory pots and pans when you stocked my safe house?"

  Ari had grown accustomed to the deputy's brimming silence, which would have amounted to gaping in someone else. He could not understand why she should be so continually astonished by cogent observations.

  "Huh?"

  "When I arrived at my new house, I found aluminum artifacts! Even tin! Is this the way you treat guests in your country?"

  "I got you the same kind of pots and pans and utensils that I use," she said. Her eyes narrowed, as if she suspected this was leading up to something more reasonable, and disturbing. But Ari had reached the crux of his complaint.

  "You could not oblige me with cast iron?"

  "'Cast iron' what? Hey, you want Cuisinart, talk to Uncle Sam. Ever hear of a budget?"

  Karen's short flared hair prickled the air.

  "Budgets are limitations. I wish to expand."

  "Then expand the damn budget. 'Emergency', Ari. That's the word you used. What is it? Did you find a sniper in your underwear?"

  "I need you to lead me," said Ari as he fondled an eggplant.

  "Do I have to confess it? Then I confess it: you constantly surprise me. Lead you where?"

  "To a furniture store." Ari scowled at the eggplant, as if he knew what he was doing and passing judgment. He thrust it back into its bin with an angry fillip, as he had seen all the best shoppers do. "I need to fill my house."

  "You got the basics," said Karen, avoiding his eyes. "That's all that was agreed to."

  "I recall no such agreement."

  "It was inferred. It's called 'reality'." She paused, then added, "I'm glad you're looking better."

  "For which I have you to thank," said Ari sincerely, thinking of the meeting Karen had arranged with his wife. "I won't forget."

  "Are you sure?" Karen eyed the ranked vegetables indifferently. She was a meat and sweets girl. "You seem pretty aggressive this afternoon."

  "I had a little bender on the way here."

  "'Fender bender'? I guess that's what you mean, unless you started early on the JD." She drew close and stood on her tiptoes, as though to sniff his breath. Ari frowned and jerked away.

  "I hope and pray your tracking device wasn't harmed."

  "You're serious? You got dinged? Crap."

  "I have insurance," he said.

  "We gave you insurance papers."

  "You mean I'm not properly covered?"

  "Maybe you should bring the car down to our garage." She gave her empty shopping cart a thump. "It's still drivable?"

  "Yes, alas."

  "But now that you've brought up the GPS tracker...mind telling me what you were doing way up in Caroline County yesterday?"

  "It's very natural up there."

  "At a junk yard?"

  "I stopped to ask if anyone could direct me to the buffalos."

  "You scare the
shit out of me, Ari. And I'm begging you not to tell me how harmless you are, again. So that's the emergency? You want to see buffalos?" She thought a moment. "They might have some at Maymont."

  "In a herd?"

  "I guess your problem's not urgent, or you have told me about it by now." She glanced around. "We need to move on."

  "Are we becoming conspicuous?"

  "Maybe. It's this spinach and stuff. Gives me the willies."

  "It was your decision to hold our transcendental meetings at Walmart," he said.

  "Crap, come on."

  They moved on to the frozen foods department. Ari peered through a frost-tinted freezer door.

  "I'm getting the feeling you weren't joking about a furniture store," said Karen, tossing a box of frozen waffles in her cart.

  "It's a matter of life."

  "And death? Furniture? Really?"

  "It's of excruciating importance to me."

  "It's excruciating, all right. You want me to set up a remedial English course for you? You seem to have dropped a few loops."

  "Pardon?"

  "You used to talk like a butler. Now you talk like the Dali Llama. I thought your skills were supposed to improve if you lived in the country whose language you were trying to learn."

  "Ah, the diversion method."

  "'Immersion'. I think you're brain-damaged."

  "Have you actually listened to the way your countrymen speak?" Ari continued. He raised a finger. "Even here. Stop and listen to the various dialects."

  "I'd rather not," Karen said uncomfortably. "Listen, I'm willing to show you a furniture store. Not today. I have stuff to do. I'll let you know. And you'll have to deal with the sharks."

  He gave her a bemused look.

  "The salesmen."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was a functional house, small, one story, no basement. The architect could very well have been a one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed man who considered the layout perfectly normal, who had never seen a third dimension that met his approval. Who considered four limbs redundant.

  As Ari entered behind his host, Lawson called out: "Freddie! You here?"

  A young face appeared from a back room.

  "Good. Dinner ready? What's left of my stomach is growling."

  Freddie stared at Ari.

  "This is Mr. Ciminon. He's my guest. He was pestering me at work, but then it was closing time and I thought I'd let him pester me at home. You understand?"

  Freddie nodded. "He eating?"

  Removing his fedora, Lawson turned to Ari. "You like baby food?"

  "Is it like dahl?"

  "I don't think so." He turned to the boy. "Freddie, he's only here for a bit." He hesitated. "Help with the coat, first."

  Painfully shy, Freddie eased into the room like a sickly commando, hugging the wall as far as he could, then twisting past the furniture as though fully prepared to duck for cover.

  "Mr. Ciminon is a guest, not an assassin, Freddie." He glanced at Ari with a dark eye that seemed to say, 'So far as I know,' but apparently he considered such jokes unwise around the boy. Easing over to his uncle, Freddie reached up and curled his fingers around the coat collar and waited until Lawson shrugged. The coat rode up and Freddie pulled down. He stooped a little under the weight and hefted it onto a nearby coat rack.

  "The gloves?"

  "Just the one on the real hand. I don't think Mr. Ciminon wants to see my phony."

  Ari found this a little theatrical. Lawson had already guessed that Ari had 'seen it all'.

  "You want the jacket off?" Freddie asked, reaching for the collar of Lawson's sport coat.

  "Hold off for now. This is a formal meeting."

  Without waiting to be asked, or risk putting Freddie to more embarrassment, Ari doffed his coat and hooked it on one of the rack's wooden pegs.

  "Make yourself at home, Mr. Ciminon."

  "If that is the case, please call me 'Ari'."

  "Ari Hairy," said Lawson nonsensically as Freddie disappeared into the next room far more quickly than he had entered.

  "My sister's boy," said Lawson, working his almost non-existent lips into a grimace. "A bit on the slow side. I think she was taking Ecstasy when she conceived him."

  And she wasn't executed for it? Ari thought but of course did not say.

  Lawson worked his way to an easy chair and stiffly lowered himself down. Both he and the chair emitted a sigh of pure pleasure. While Ari invited himself to sit on a pale taupe couch, Lawson reached across to a pack of Pall Malls sitting on a lamp table. Using one hand, he removed a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He took out a lighter.

  "You know, my company's planning to ban hiring smokers?" he said. "Stupid fuckers."

  "Indeed," said Ari, taking out his own pack.

  "You need to hold on a minute, now. This is my venting period."

  "Pardon?"

  "You stupid fuck, that's the dumbest idea I ever heard. I don't care who died and made you boss—you need to die and make someone else boss. What's it like, staring at an asshole every time you shave?"

  Ari stared as Lawson drew a deep breath.

  "Those are just a few of the things I should have said today and didn't. We're not supposed to hold things in, but that's what civilization is: a giant gasbag ready to blow. Oh...forgot one: What are you gaping at, pighead? You never seen a wounded vet before?"

  Ari shrugged his confession. "I was marveling at your wrath, not your wounds."

  "Where is it you said you were from?"

  "Syracuse."

  "I presume you don't mean New York. So...Syracuse. Great. What family do you hail from? I guess bashing in a few heads is what you call seeing 'everything'."

  "My family has departed the island."

  "Not that family. You know. Family. Provenzano, Piccolo, Bagarella..."

  "Those people are alien to me."

  "Yeah. Alien. That's good to hear. It wouldn't do my reputation none too good bringing the Cosa Nostra into my house. Sort of like inviting a vampire through your front door."

  "No Mafia, I assure you."

  Freddie entered the room bearing a long tray. He sat it across the arms of the easy chair. There were several bowls of primary color mush and a tall glass with a straw. It looked like a milkshake. When Freddie left, Ari asked if the boy lived here with him.

  "He goes home as soon as he puts me to bed. I need help with the prosthetics." He mused over the bowls and lifted a spoon uncertainly. "That includes prostheses for my jaw and mouth, which I need to talk properly. I've been unhooking it lately when I eat. Kind of sore. So we'd better make this conversation short and sweet. I'd like to eat my shit while it's still lukewarm."

  "That is agreeable to me."

  "Yeah..." He lowered the spoon. "So...about what we were talking about before coming inside...what made you say what you said about my connection to Sayed Technical Solutions?"

  "Not a connection, but similarities. Ethan was fired from Sayed for improper phishing..."

  "Company investigative procedures are not for public consumption." Moving carefully to prevent spilling anything on the tray, Lawson reached across and began pulling off his remaining glove, exposing a plastic hand. To Ari's surprise, he was able to manipulate the fingers, though stiffly and feebly. "You seem very intent on believing that Ethan has come to a bad end. So far as I know, he is perfectly healthy."

  "Is he still on your payroll?" Ari asked.

  "Yes," said Lawson with measured caution. He prodded one of the plastic bowls with the tip of his prosthetic hand.

  "Do you know why he would not contact his family to reassure them of his health?"

  "A man's business is his own business. I agree this silence gives the appearance of callousness, but...well, a man's judgment is his own business, too."

  "Your judgment?"

  "Of course. And yours, also, evidently."

  "It tends to trigger acts of unwanted attention," said Ari awkwardly.

  "From the police, you mea
n."

  "The Wareness's are not legally divorced. Rebecca Wareness has an interest in having her husband's disappearance looked into."

  "So she calls in the neighborhood Berber for assistance." With great effort, Lawson shifted a quarter inch in his chair. "I was just reading about the Spanish Civil War...I read a fair amount, as you can see."

  And indeed, books cluttered the room. Ari had been compelled to shift several in order to sit. One title had caught his attention: 'The Unreality of Reality'. A contradictory notion that Ari readily dismissed.

  "Franco flew in thousands of Moors...they're Berbers, too, aren't they?"

  "In fact, they're—"

  "It doesn't matter. They're all North Africans. From what I understand, a good percentage of them have Nordic blood. Vikings! What a combination! Black and Arab and beserker blood all mixed. It's a deadly combination. The Moors would come up against Republican units ten times their size and wipe them out...with knives. That's why we have to maintain an active military. Those Spaniards were tough, too, and look what happened to them. We're a lot softer. A single Moor could take on a brigade."

  "That's a grand exaggeration," Ari scoffed.

  "Not by much. They were fanatical Muslims, incidentally."

  "I am only fanatical about fine cuisine," Ari asserted.

  "Ha!" Lawson barked, waving his hand over the tray. "Are you ever in the wrong place."

  Ari had accumulated over an inch of ash on his cigarette. He stood cautiously and went over to flick it over Lawson's ash tray.

  "You have an exceptionally steady hand," Lawson observed.

  Today, at least, Ari thought, thinking of all the whiskey he had absorbed over the last few months.

  "You also seem to have been in a fight, recently," Lawson continued.

  "I took a bad fall."

  "Oh? Does your employer have a good health insurance plan?"

  "I am taken care of, more or less. But perhaps I need to extend my coverage. Should I visit your company?"

  "Forget it. I know a high risk when I see one. You're married? Children? You live in Richmond? One of the counties?"