The 56th Man

by J. Clayton Rogers

  He went upstairs and closed all the bedroom doors. Coming back down, it was dark enough for Ari to feel the need to guide himself using the handrail.

  From the sidewalk, the living room was now a black tomb. It was possible that two police officers, though alerted to trouble, would fail to see the grisly interior. But the room was now completely empty, with no shapes or angles to catch a stray beam of light. The Christmas tree, the easy chair, the gifts, other furniture--a coffee table, a couch, a pair of lampstands.

  Why were you sitting in the dark, Mr. Riggins?

  The better to see outside, Mr. Ciminon.

  Was Officer Jackson right? Were you gazing at the moon?

  Ari swore.

  Mr. Riggins, were your Christmas tree lights on?

  He had not thought to ask that of Jackson and Mangioni. Christmas in an American home was not a domestic scene he was overly familiar with.

  You've been watching too many American movies.

  That was what Jackson had said when Ari asked about toxicology reports and bloodhounds. But American movies were about all Ari had to go on when it came to this particular set of customs. He had never known that many Christians personally, and they had kept their holidays to themselves. But he had seen one fairly recent Hollywood production that showed the American president lighting up a national Christmas tree. Was this scene reenacted on a smaller scale in homes across the land?

  Were there tree lights? And were they turned on? The minutiae of his adopted culture was strung across his path like a million tripwires.

  Ari paused, brooding. He paced back down the sidewalk.

  "Sphinx, you yellow devil! Are you out here?"

  From the dark river some geese honked querulously, like neighbors protesting against a noisy party next door.

  He turned, walked a few steps, and resumed his oblique study of the living room.

  "Ah..." he said, smiling. The room was dark. What he saw was in his mind. The memory of something he had seen, but not noted, before closing the bedroom doors.

  A ton of hours fell on his shoulders. Ari dragged himself upstairs. He did not so much as glance at the computer. He sprawled on his mattress and closed his eyes.

  He couldn't sleep at first. Something was missing. He was surprised that he had automatically crooked his knees to accommodate Sphinx. How quickly new habits were formed. New...friendships.

  ELEVEN

  He looked around, peered into to darkness beyond the truck lights, then lay the M-16 on the ground and went over for the scimitar. The second prisoner, watching him return, bellowed fear and dismay.

  "Be silent," said Ghaith, and used the blade to cut the zip tie binding the man's hands. "Take the Bongo."

  The man rolled over, his eyes bulging. "Allah--"

  "--has nothing to do with this. Take the Bongo."

  "I don't know why they took me," the man sobbed, massaging his wrists. "I'm innocent--"

  "There's a slight chance you are," Ghaith stopped him abruptly. Taking note of the man's accent, he added, "Use the Bongo to move out of Sadr City, and fast."

  "I was a translator for the Americans," the man moaned, as though trying to ruin his incredible good luck with a confession.

  "There you have it. Move to America. Now go!"

  The man scrambled to his feet and ran with a limp to the Kia mini-truck. The engine was still running. Dragging himself into the cab, the man quickly shifted into gear and tore a wide circle in the clearing, nearly ditching in the canal before straightening out and disappearing up the farm road.

  Ghaith in the meantime was gathering up the weapons and ammunition from the dead Mujahideen and tossing them into the pickup truck, watched silently by the last prisoner, who had worked himself back onto his knees. His hands still bound, he surveyed the corpses around him with awe and loathing. There was no need for Ghaith to explain what he was doing, but the steel edge of resolve that had made him a pure survivor had worn thin. He needed to talk. And he had a captive audience.

  "This will bring in good money. A lot of the weapons caches have been destroyed. The uprising can always use more guns and ammunition. Pretty soon, the Revolutionary Guard will have a regular pipeline into the country. Then you’ll see. They think this is hell? Just wait. And they don't care who they kill. They're just priming the pump, so that the killing goes on. That man who went off in the Bongo--he wasn't one of them. He wasn't one of anybody. That's all that it takes. But I'll sell these back to the killers. Guaranteed income, eh? They kill, I kill them, I take the weapons for resale, and the circle remains unbroken."

  He did not bother explaining who 'they' were. He was a little rattled, after all, and was mixing identities. But in the end it didn't matter. It applied equally to everyone.

  Finally, with all the automatic weapons and ammunition belts and pouches secured under a canvas in the back of the Toyota, Ghaith took up the scimitar and strode over to the prisoner. He began walking circles around the young man, flashing the heavy sword back and forth as if it was a toy. He was filled with scorn, with anger, with a manic energy. The young man winced. He was all of sixteen.

  "What were you doing, eh?" Ghaith demanded harshly. "Why did they choose you? Were you with the Americans? Have you joined one of those idiotic brigades? Did they want you for ransom?" Ghaith stopped for a moment. "I'm ranting. No, not ransom. Of course not. They wanted your head. More than any of these others, they wanted your head. And look where it got me. Are you proud of yourself?"

  He resumed his circular pacing, whipping the scimitar back and forth.

  "Who should we blame for all of this? The Americans? The British? The Iranians? The Syrians? Can we point at someone else? Of course we can. We point at everyone! But I've known all along...from way back. Long before the wars, before the gassings, before the missiles. Don't worry, I'm not going to blame Allah, who is so great that we're mere pebbles of shit on His ass. It's us. All of us. I'm not talking about Kurds or Arabs or Persians or dictators or democrats. I mean all who are here. We're animals. We can't help ourselves. You put us in a cage and lock the door, we eat ourselves alive. This is just a small part of the cage. You know, of course, that I'm talking about the world. It's a cage. One giant hopping-mad cage."

  Ghaith stopped and drew several deep breaths, almost sobs. He dug the point of the scimitar into the ground and listened to the mad rush of water from the canal outlets.

  The prisoner took a deep breath. "What are you going to do to me?"

  Ghaith shook, as though startled out of his dreadful vision. He went over to the young man and dropped to his knees in front of him, letting the sword fall to the side. He wrapped his arms around the boy and drew him in.

  "What were you doing? How could you? You are the last one! The last one! Don't you understand?"

  "Father," the boy began to weep. "Father..."

  "I'll get you out of here," said Ghaith. "I'll find a way. But for now, go home. You must take care of your mother, who is sick unto death."

  Ari awoke to the not-too-distant distant sound of a motor. Rising, he looked out the studio window and caught several glimpses of Howie Nottoway walking purposefully back and forth across his lawn. Ari craned his head and noted the clear blue sky. Perfect.

  He switched on his computer, showered and dressed, then sat down to read his emails.

  There were two.

  The first:

  '$532.67 spent. $3000 limit. Do not exceed.'

  “Mos zibby!” Ari swore.

  The second had the old-fashioned, unpunctuated immediacy of a telegram:

  'Noon Wal-Mart Forest Hill I'll find you.'

  Ari did not recognize either sender's address. There was no response to his request, but he was used to anonymous indifference and did not dwell on it.

  After eating his last gulab jamun and downing a cup of tea, he went outside and did a quick tour of his yard. There was no sign of Sphinx. He was about to go out on the street and walk over to Howie's when a man and woman came scootin
g up the small strip of beach that ran between the Mackenzie property and what even Ari thought of as the Riggins' land.

  "Hello!" the man called out.

  Ari nodded amiably.

  They were an attractive couple, as though consciously selected for some optimal genetic configuration. Their relative youth (late twenties) enhanced the prospects for beautiful children. Yet Ari sense they were childless, probably through choice, reserving their love for their reflections.

  "I'm Matt Mackenzie," said the man as he came up the slope. He held out his hand, then stopped. "Oh...I'm sorry. Do you..."

  "Shake hands?" Ari held out his right hand and Matt Mackenzie took hold.

  "This is my wife, Tracy."

  Tracy Mackenzie was staring at the men's hand-grip, her look of revulsion scarcely hidden. Shaking hands with a fucking, jogging A-rab, when everyone knew they used their bare hands to wipe the shit from their ass. No doubt she would demand her husband take a shower before she allowed him to touch her again.

  When Ari let go of Matt's hand he touched his chest over his heart. He allowed himself a small burst of chagrin. Just as some habits were too-easily acquired, others were too ingrained to dismiss.

  Matt suffered the morning chill boldly in shorts, T-shirt and sandals. He had the sleek muscular grace of an Olympic swimmer, but a face that was curiously hairless, without even a trace of stubble. Ari found this strange and effeminate. Did the man use a depilatory?

  Tracy was not so much in love with the outdoors, taking cover under slacks and a light jacket that did nothing to disguise her figure. A lot of care had gone into her foray into nature, which began at her doorstep. She met the dawn with a completely natural facial palette, with her strawberry blonde hair scattered in a textured updo. Ari rather disliked her immediately, but could not help feeling aroused. Even from ten feet away her sex called to him like a hurdle to a horse. He subdued his interest as best he could.

  Tracy did not offer her hand.

  "We saw you wandering around in the yard," said Matt.

  "I was looking for my cat."

  A veil of doubt fell over Tracy's face, as if her worst nightmare had come to life right next door: an Arab with a cat.

  "We're not exactly cat people," said Matt quickly, as though to curb a less neighborly comment from his wife.

  "What a shame."

  "I was wondering..." Matt's smile was like a beacon overtop of his hairless chin. "We're going to have a party in a couple of nights. Could we borrow your barbecue?"

  Ari had been on the verge of accepting an invitation. A party at the Mackenzie’s would probably be most informative. Fortunately, he did not jump the gun. No invitation was forthcoming.

  "I'm afraid I don't have a barbecue yet."

  Matt's eyes bugged, as though he had just met a man without a body.

  "I'm quite new to your country."

  "Really? You don't have any accent, and I've heard some pretty wild ones." Matt nodded broadly, a man of the world.

  Gambling that they had not spoken to Howie about him, Ari said, "I represent the Cirque du Soleil."

  "No kidding!" Tracy gasped. Her husband gave her a bewildered look. "You know, that super-circus. We saw a video of one of their shows, remember? Saltimbanco."

  "Oh...yeah," Matt said doubtfully.

  "You said you'd take me to Vegas to see their permanent show."

  "Go to Vegas to see a circus?" Matt said even more doubtfully

  "I'm not one of the performers," Ari said with a trace of sorrow. "I only help arrange the touring shows."

  "They perform all over the world," said starry-eyed Tracy, who had very quickly forgotten about her neighbor's cat and unseemly hygiene.

  "Precisely. The Cirque required someone with a knack for organization and a flair for the major languages."

  "Oh wow."

  Matt looked from his wife to Ari and decided his fairytale grin was not misplaced. Ari was a great guy, and not just because he was his new neighbor. His toes were tickled by the perfectly managed lawn.

  "What a lawn. Is this like fescue or something? Mind if I borrow your mower?"

  "Sorry."

  "No mower?"

  "It appears the Riggins had a prepaid contract with a landscaper. I've inherited the service."

  The Mackenzie smiles vanished. They seemed to think Ari rude for summoning up memories of the crime. Or perhaps it was their inability to sustain a coherent wrinkle that made them seem callous. Their faces were imperfect forgeries of real humans. Tracy attempted to close her jacket, but only succeeded in drawing her breasts into a single, impressive lump.

  "Yeah, well, it was a crying shame," said Matt, adding a tsk for good measure.

  "They were good people, I've been given to understand," said Ari.

  "From a distance," said Matt.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "You know, sometimes great doesn't look so great from close up." Matt glanced at his wife, took note of her accumulated bosom, and appeared to decide that from close up some things were better than great.

  "I did a little research after I moved in, on the internet."

  Matt brightened. "You've got a laptop?"

  "Alas..."

  Matt shrugged. The urge to borrow subsided. "I guess you saw all the stuff about them. The awards and all. God's gift to the Tri-Cities and surrounding counties."

  "You don't seem--"

  "Oh, they were okay," said Tracy, feeling left out. "But just okay. I mean, they were average. I mean, I liked Moria...even a lot. We were even friends maybe even. Jerry was a little less than okay. He was kind of gung-ho on the boys and all."

  As well he should be, Ari thought, though Tracy made it sound like a vice.

  "How long did they live here?"

  "Don't know. Not real long." Tracy tried to apply some lines of thought to her brow. Ari, who tried not to think about sex, would have liked to massage that brow, as well as to the body attached to it. It must be like skating on hot ice. "A few years. I think she said Joshua was already three or four when they moved in. Little Bill was still in diapers. We came...when was it, Matt?"

  Less than three years ago, and she couldn't remember the year she arrived. How much of the kayakers' 'product' had she been ingesting?

  "Back in..." Matt Mackenzie struggled with a time frame that extended beyond a week. "Almost two years ago."

  Ari noticed that the monotonous, rolling squall of Howie Nottoway's lawn mower had stopped. Unless he walked down to the end of Beach Court, he would not be able to see his new neighbor exchanging pleasantries with the Mackenzies.

  "That long, y'think?" Tracy spent a moment delving into the murky past.

  "Where did they live before?"

  "Up in Caroline County, about thirty miles from here. Jerry had a so-called studio barn for his stuff. He'd paint a square and call it Country Tree Number One Thousand. Moria couldn't take it."

  "The art or living in the country?" said Ari, thinking that if Jerry Riggins' art was so universally despised, even by his own wife, how could he have managed all of those one-man shows before he was killed? Putting on a gallery display must involve some expense. Or was Jerry's merely the talent of a renter?

  "The country," Tracy said. "Especially in winter. They had a wood stove. She hated that. A lot of smoke and no heat, she said. Then she started her own business and they moved to the city."

  Tracy, still dazzled by Ari's job description, saw the Riggins' past more clearly than her own. She moved closer, and a part of Ari moved closer to her. He prayed neither of them noticed, but Tracy seemed to have a trained eye for such things and produced a knowing moue.

  "Then you moved in and became friends with her." Ari passed an expansive glance over the river. He noted the primary colors of several kayaks headed for the rapids, the double-edged paddles flying, as though the rowers were intent on self-destruction. "You were very fortunate to get such a scenic view."

  "Lucky as hell--" Tracy began. Her words were cut short by a s
harp glance from her husband. She let go of her jacket and her breasts sprang back to attention, as much sentinels as enticements. "Yeah," she concluded lamely.

  "The view from this house is also quite scenic," Ari continued. "I understand Moria Riggins purchased it with money she inherited."

  "Not that it helped them in the end," said Matt with genuine bitterness.

  "Besides," Tracy said, still warmed by Ari's Circus of the Sun, "There isn't any inheritance. Not yet. The Massingtons are still alive. The parents, I mean. They co-signed on the house, and one day Moria..." She hesitated. "One day she would have inherited."

  "Have you spoken with her parents since that night?"

  "The police brought them out to the house. I heard Heather Massington—well, it was more than crying. She like totally lost control. They haven't been back. They have a villa in Tuscany. That's where they are now, I think."

  "Tuscany," Matt aspirated lowly, as though all the luck in the world had landed on that piece of Italian real estate, without a trace of grief. Then he started. "The people you bought the house from...they didn't tell you what had happened? You didn't ask why it went so cheap?"

  Ari assumed the mask of a man foolish beyond reason. "I saw a very good deal. I only asked if flooding was a problem. By the way, is flooding a problem here?"

  "We haven't been here long enough to know," Matt answered. "I hear every few years the James gets a little wild. We don't keep anything valuable in our basement."

  "I'll bear that in mind. So there have been no major floods recently?"

  "Nope."

  Tracy emptied out the distance between them with a long step that flowed like warm honeyed tea and placed a hand on Ari's arm. It was his turn to go a little squeamish. She was using her left hand.

  At this close range he learned what fueled her 'come hither' aura. Part of it, at least. The smell of gin was potent on her breath. Ari was tempted to look at his watch. She must have started drinking...well, very early. It was still very early.

  Loyalty, Ari. Loyalty.

  But it was an oath that was already violated. A touch from Tracy was like a night in a bordello.