The 56th Man

by J. Clayton Rogers

  "Count on a Lowe's clerk not to know the difference between a rat and a flap." Carrington placed his index finger on the sledgehammer handle, which Ari had left standing on its head. "I wouldn't go tearing down your walls over a little knocking. If you don't like traps or poison, get a cat. We got one. There isn't a week goes by he doesn't leave a bloody lump on our doorstep as a gift."

  "A good working cat," said Ari approvingly. "Do you know where I can find one?"

  "Keep your door open the way you had it, one'll show up soon enough." Carrington took his finger away from the sledge hammer and tucked his thumbs in his waistband. A sign of qualified relief? "Looked to me like you were stripped down for action. Demolishing walls is a dirty business."

  "I was thinking that myself. I think I'll let the professionals handle the job. The clerk mentioned something about a robot brush that they use to clean out these systems."

  The thumbs popped out of Carrington's pants like broken springs. "It's rats, or mice. We got a real problem with that around here. My kids watch these computer-generated cartoons about rats. They think they're cute. They go bonkers whenever our cat tears one to shreds."

  Ari had noticed Carrington's conversational wanderings at the restaurant. What was he trying to say now? That there was a cultural tendency to cutesify what they were unable to control? That his children were disillusioned by reality?

  "I didn't know you had children," said Ari.

  "That's not surprising. You don't know anything about me."

  "Except that you're willing to eat a rat's ass."

  Carrington laughed at Ari's bland delivery.

  "Yeah, I got three sprats." He noticed Ari looking at him closely and judged he was calculating his age. "I married late. Finally found myself a good woman. Real lucky, for a cop."

  "Yes."

  "Take my word for it, get a cat. Go to Petco. They got cats up for adoption. They've had their shots and been fixed. You could pick one up for a couple hundred."

  "I suppose you're right."

  "But what's this with the rope and zip ties and stuff?" Carrington ran an inquisitorial nose across the room.

  "More useless purchases, it seems. Captain, would you like some tea?"

  Carrington had a flashback to Ari's encounter with the waitress at the all-night diner. He grinned, then seemed to perform a silent howl. "’Sergeant’, Mr. Ciminon. Just measly old Detective Sergeant."

  "I beg your pardon."

  "Don't think about it. No, I'm not a tea man, especially when it's straight from the kettle. You don't happen to have a Coke laying around? No? That's all right, I can suffer in silence."

  "Would you like to sit?"

  "Before I do, I guess I should advise you that you've become a person of interest--to me, at least."

  "I'm flattered."

  "Don't be." Carrington levered his thick arm around and massaged his lower back. "I think I'll take you up on that chair."

  The detective was put out when he saw the ladderback chairs at the kitchen table. "That's it? You've been here almost a week and that's all the furniture you've got?"

  "My living room and bedroom suites will be arriving by train," Ari said.

  "The Orient Express ain't what it used to be." Carrington settled in like a patient easing onto a wheelchair.

  "I have whiskey."

  "I didn't think you people drank spirits. Course, I don't know squat about what Italians...or Arab Italians...do or don't do. No beer? The hard stuff kills my stomach." Then the detective wafted the air as though erasing his words. "Forget it. I'm on duty."

  "Then you're here to tell me why I've suddenly become so interesting?"

  Reaching into his jacket pocket, Carrington pulled out a cell phone. Ari leaned forward in his chair.

  "May I?"

  Carrington handed it to him. "You've never seen a BlackBerry Smartphone?"

  "I've never held one. It's much more than a phone, correct?"

  “Just look at all the buttons.”

  Carrington held out his hand and Ari reluctantly handed the BlackBerry back to him. He watched closely as the detective slid open the back of the phone. With a bit of huffing, he took out a small plastic case containing a media card. He pushed the card into a slot inside of the BlackBerry, closed the phone, and fiddled with the buttons.

  "I pulled something wild off the net. Get a load of this..."

  He held up the BlackBerry so that Ari could see the LCD screen. Blank at first, then sound, then images.

  People were shouting, crying, venting fear and confusion. Heads popped up in front of the lens, then came a yell in Chinese, "Get out of the way!"

  Someone's head bobbed to the left. Ari could see the first cash register and the entrance. A man taller than the storefront bulletin board was swooping outside, his back to the camera.

  "No! No!"

  Even from the BlackBerry's tiny speaker, Ari could recognize the grocery store manager's voice. It grew louder.

  "No camera!"

  The glass door closed, then suddenly opened again as Ari's fishmonger ran out after the man, the bundle with the fresh carp under his arm. Whoever was holding the phone had finally managed to steady his camera. The view of the man in the parking lot was only partially blocked by the fishmonger, the image only slightly skewed by the angle of the rain-streaked plate glass window. As the man began to turn to accept the bundle, a hand suddenly shot up before the lens. The image became a swirl of close-ups of feet and linoleum floor tiles.

  "No!" the grocery manager finished emphatically before the tiny screen went blank.

  Ari sat back.

  "Well?" Carrington demanded.

  "Is this the robbery attempt I heard about?" Ari stood and went to the sink. "It happened yesterday, correct?"

  "That's you, isn't it?"

  "Do you think it looks like me?"

  "Damn straight."

  Ari ran some water into a pot for tea. He didn't have a proper kettle. He set the pot on the stove.

  "It's all over YouTube," Carrington went on. "'Daytime Ninja Saves Oriental Market'. What crap."

  "Do you have a description of this man?"

  "Not a pimple. Mr. Fuck must pull some weight with his customers."

  "'Mr. Fuck'?" Ari asked.

  "Don't give me that screwy look. That's what his name sounds like. He must've put a real scare in his little community. Those Chinese love to talk, yin-yang-yin-yang, but as soon as we get there all they do is yang our chain. 'No see' and 'no hear'. You never met a more clueless group in your life. I'd like to know what Fuck told them. Maybe he threatened to cut off their supply of fortune cookies."

  The water began to boil. Ari placed his tea strainer in his coffee mug and allowed his drink to steep.

  "This man in the picture...you think he's the one who did the shooting?"

  "You know I do," Carrington scowled.

  "Is he considered a criminal?"

  "We'd like to talk to him. After all, he blew away three men, two of them armed. Maybe three armed men, if the gun he walked off with belonged to the third guy."

  "Will this man be arrested?"

  "He'll be questioned...then probably released." Ari lifted his hands--palms up--as though to display neatly packaged self-evidence. "He's a hero, after all. It's just that we'd like to go through a few formalities."

  "For appearances sake." Ari removed the tea steeper and brought his mug over to the table. "Forgive me, but Americans seem to be enraptured with 'appearance'."

  "Name me one country that isn't," said Carrington.

  "True, but here, there seems to be a total belief in the appearance. There's no culture of acceptance that what you see is illusion."

  "You telling me those Muslim guys who blow themselves up don't believe in what they're doing?"

  "I'm speaking of mainstream society." Ari sat across from Carrington and sipped almost daintily from his mug. "Those terrorists have...I think the phrase is 'bought into'...the themes of the prevalent culture."r />
  "If they think everything's an illusion, why take it so seriously?" Carrington asked. "Why kill yourself and a dozen or a few thousand others?"

  "To them, the illusion is the reality. Most of them don't believe they're actually dying."

  "Oh yeah, Heaven and the virgins," Carrington mocked.

  "The reason other countries are afraid of the United States is because you have an entire nation that has confused illusion with reality. And you have the means to destroy anyone who doesn't conform with that illusion. You haven't used it yet, unless we include Japan, but the fear is that one day you will grow annoyed and go beyond mere pinprick invasions..."

  "Give me a break. You don't see us blowing ourselves up in a crowded marketplace." Carrington needed to keep his hands busy. He fiddled with the BlackBerry.

  "You're rich. You can afford to do it by proxy. If we ever invade your country--"

  "The Italians!" Carrington grinned.

  "Anyone. If you see foreign soldiers on your streets, I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Jones will start strapping on suicide belts."

  Carrington half-intentionally hit the Play button on the BlackBerry. Again they heard the chaos in the Chinese grocery.

  "Here's an illusion for you. I see a quarter profile of a man in a parking lot, and I see you. The Chinese see the whole man, and they see nothing. I think you should be the center of attention, and you say there's nothing to it."

  "It's no illusion," said Ari. "The man is there. This is solid evidence. You've only reached the wrong conclusion. Have the two officers who came to my house seen this?"

  "Yeah. They're not sure."

  "And they're familiar with my appearance," Ari said sympathetically. "So I ask, what makes you so sure--"

  "For one thing, I smell fish."

  "You mean something is 'fishy'?"

  "That, too. You mind...?" Carrington glanced around. "Where do you keep your garbage?"

  "Under the sink."

  Carrington opened the cabinet, where a trash can with a plastic liner was hooked to the cabinet door--one of the few amenities provided by Sandra and her people. The detective opened the flap and saw the white wrapping paper.

  "Whew! Fish smell sure as hell lingers."

  Ari parsed this sentence and found it vastly entertaining.

  "The fish itself is in the refrigerator."

  "You mind?" Carrington said again with monotonous certainty, as though the answer was forgone. He opened the refrigerator door and peeled back the aluminum foil in which Ari had wrapped his leftover fish. "What's that?"

  "Carp."

  "Kinda stinks." Carrington squinted, as though studying a wound. "Kinda boney, too. I notice you only ate half. You plan to finish it off? I wouldn't toss it outside. You don't want scavengers around the house."

  "Like stray cats?"

  "Or raccoons and possums. Get foxes around here, too." Carrington closed the door. "Yeah…Mangioni and Jackson said you were cooking fish when they showed up. You didn't get this out of the James, did you?"

  "I've done some fishing in my day."

  "But not yesterday. Unless you've already gone to Game and Inland Fisheries to get your license."

  Ari was startled. You might get shot on the riverbank of the Tigris, might even hook a corpse, but you didn't need a license.

  Carrington leveled an earnest look at Ari. "I saw a couple of Arab-type women at the Chinese shop and they had fish wrapped just the same way, with the same kind of paper."

  "I bought the fish at Ali's in the Fan," said Ari, praying Ali sold fish as well as Halal meat. He had yet to visit the shop. He still wasn't sure where the Fan was, although he suspected it was just across the river.

  "You know I'll check."

  "Please do," Ari bluffed.

  Carrington shuffled around the kitchen, giving the chair a wide berth. He rubbed his back.

  "I'm sorry,” said Ari, “but this is the best seat in the house, except for an office chair upstairs."

  "Surprised you haven't set up a tent," Carrington said. He nodded toward the living room. "So what's with the sledgehammer? Howie said you were trying to borrow one from him this morning. And don't tell me you're searching for mice. I don't blame you for not thinking of a better story, what with me catching you in your underwear and all."

  So he had talked to Howie. Precisely what Ari had been hoping, although he had not counted on the cell phone video.

  "I'm...looking into something," Ari said carefully.

  "Like trying to find a hiding place for a gun? The two stiffs at the shop had Tec-9's. You wouldn't be trying to knock a hole in your wall for an automatic pistol, would you, Mr. Ciminon? Something like that would get you arrested."

  "Do you know that drugs are being sold on the riverfront here, detective?"

  Carrington went over to the small kitchen window and peered out, as if studying Howie Nottoway's house through the trees. "What did you see?" he said after a long moment.

  "Do you know?"

  "Yes."

  "And your police department has done nothing about it?"

  "We're working on it," Carrington answered grudgingly.

  "Yes?"

  "You're talking about the Kayak Express, I guess."

  "They operate out of a kayak, yes."

  "You've seen them in operation?"

  Did Ari want to drag the Mackenzies into this? He personally did not care how people destroyed themselves. He was more concerned for the small farmers in Afghanistan, Columbia and elsewhere who got caught up in the cartel wars and deadly local battles over turf. And the middlemen were equally victimized, in most cases. Whether they were brutalized by the Taliban or getting beheaded in a fight over the drug trade traffic on the Mexican border, the distributors ran the ultimate risk. All for the morbid, mind-sucking European and American markets. For dreary, self-indulgent consumers like the Mackenzies....

  And who else?

  Ari decided against showing his cards. Besides, Carrington probably knew about the Mackenzies already. And he had no clue how deeply the police themselves were involved. Ari had hands-on experience with corruption.

  "I've heard rumors about it," he said flatly.

  "What, from Howie?"

  "He's the leader of the Neighborhood Watch program in this area?" Ari said with a flex of inquiry.

  "Yes."

  "Then who better? But no...it wasn't Howie."

  "And you don't intend to tell me who's spreading rumors around here?"

  Ari wondered if he had made a misstep. If he could offer no reasonable source for his information, Carrington would feel he had been tricked into revealing the existence of the Express. If he said it was Howie, he would antagonize a key witness to the murders--of that Ari was now fairly certain.

  "A couple of nights ago, around midnight, several small rockets were fired from the island just across from here. You can see it clearly during the day from the living room window."

  "Yeah...?"

  "I saw a kayak come close to shore, and then another boat came down the river and drew up next to it. I saw the men...I believe they were men...exchange something. Money and drugs? I can't say, of course. But it looked suspicious."

  "You've got some bodacious eyes on you, buddy."

  "Twenty-twenty," Ari said modestly.

  "With Starlight scope," Carrington said, seemingly both doubtful and relieved. "Well...that's the Kayak Express for you. Gives a whole new look on outdoor activities. We've been watching them..."

  Ari saw Carrington's mind work. He was calculating time frames. Was he making certain Ari did not think the Express existed while the Riggins were in residence?

  "...for a few months now. Problem is, if we catch them on the water, they just drop the stash overboard and we've got nada. And we don't know yet where their land operation is. Or their Mr. Big." He glanced at Ari.

  "I'm familiar with the phrase."

  "Then you must understand that we'd rather chop off the head than the limbs."

  "Of c
ourse. It takes time." Ari summoned his most ingratiating smile. "I can tell you're preoccupied, Sergeant Carrington. Would you like to begin your search immediately?"

  "Mmmm?"

  "For the gun you think I walked off with yesterday."

  "You wouldn't be put out?" Carrington said. "I don't want to be a pest."

  "The Riggins house is your house."

  Carrington's thick eyebrows shot up. "It's your house now, Mr. Ciminon."

  "The invitation applies equally." Ari stood and extended his arm, palm up. "Please. Look around. It would disturb me if you left here filled with doubts."

  "You don't have an accent, but you sound funny as hell."

  "How do I sound?"

  "Like a butler on Masterpiece Theater." He held up a finger. "If you don't mind, I'll start in here."

  "Certainly."

  He went through the kitchen cabinets, most of which were completely bare, and those that weren't held only a few dishes and mugs. He went to the lower cabinets. Those were completely empty.

  "You're going to need a sponge and scrub pad."

  "I'll bear that in mind."

  Carrington flipped open the dishwasher, oven and microwave.

  "Are drugs a big problem in the city?" Ari asked while Carrington, with a series of heroic gasps and grunts, went down on his hands and knees and opened the bottom access panel on the dishwasher, checking the space with the aid of a penlight.

  "Does shit stink?" Carrington said.

  "And on the Southside?"

  "It's part of the city." The detective paused to catch his breath, then worked his way to his feet. He spotted the box in the hall leading to the garage. “What’s that?”

  “Kitty litter. The kitty ran away.”

  “Song and dance, song and dance…” Without bothering to expand on this, he went into the living room and stared at Ari's paraphernalia. "Rope, zip ties, sledgehammer..." He brooded, as though trying to unravel an arcane mathematical formula. "Is your car locked?" he asked abruptly.

  Ari reached into his pocket and, without taking it out, pressed three times on the remote. There was a beep from the garage. "Now it is."

  Ari followed him out. The Scion was not congenial to Carrington's endomorphic body type, but he managed to work his way over the seats and through the trunk with only a modest flood of sweat.