Cold Snap (20 page)

"For anyone honorably discharged."

"But they know my car already. Why add yours
to their target list?"

"You don't want to be in a car I'm driving,
do you?" Lawson turned a baleful gaze on him. "'That ol' cripple
can't dodge and swerve in an emergency.' Is that it?" He slammed
the door shut. "Come on, then. Let's get in your toy car before I
freeze up again."

When they reached Ari's xB, he glowered down
at the passenger seat. "This is pure nut to butt."

"We're the same height," Ari asserted. "And
you won't be impeded by a steering wheel."

"Lucky me..."

Even after pulling the seat back as far as it
would go, it proved a struggle. But with plenty of swearing and a
lot of improbable contortions, Lawson just managed to squeeze
inside. He bellowed, "OK, I'm in. Turn on the fucking heat!"

Ari jerked the xB onto Parham and raced
towards the interstate.

"You learn to drive using a chariot?" Lawson
complained.

As Ari crossed the James River, he put
forward his plan of attack.

"I'll go in first."

"What, good cop bad cop? I guess I know my
part."

Ari detected more than a little cheer in the
man's voice. He was looking forward to this encounter. Ari had felt
the same way when he went face-to-face with Abu Nidal, the founder
of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah. Of course, that had been a
high-risk one-man assault in the heart of Baghdad. This little
confrontation on the outskirts of Richmond should not be nearly as
dangerous.

"I have no intention of being overly
pleasant," said Ari. "I merely want to soften the terrain."

"Your call, General."

"Colonel," said Ari.

"Colonel?" Lawson nodded sagely. "In the
Italian Army?"

"Colonnello."

"Sorry, Sir. I'm not used to bird
colonels."

"Our insignia is a castle," said Ari. "It was
a long time ago."

"Right. How old are you? Isn't the average
age of a wop colonel a hundred-and-two or thereabouts?"

"I retired early."

"Ran away with the rest of them, eh?"

Ari's loud sigh was a clear signal the
subject was of no interest to him, to Lawson, or to the world in
general.

"Well, I'll defer to authority." It did not
sound like he was lodging a protest. He deftly pulled out his
cigarettes. Holding the pack in his gloved prosthetic, he slid one
out and lit up. "Where the hell's the ash tray?"

Ari reached down and pulled out the Scion's
miniscule ash tray. It was crammed full of butts and several fell
out on the floor mat.

"That's real disrespect," Lawson commented.
"My SUV's gotta tray that would hold Vesuvius. You know
Vesuvius?"

"I'm more familiar with Mount Etna."

"Sicily...right."

"Our partnership would run more smoothly if
you stopped trying to...is it 'catch me up'?"

"That's right." Lawson took a long drag.
"I've gotta do something to pass the hours."

They had been on the road fifteen
minutes.

Ari took out his Winstons and lit up. A
moment later, as Lawson reached across with his body to flick
ashes, their hands crashed over the tiny ash tray.

"Disrespect. If they had any balls, smokers
would sue Daihatsu for making such a tweeny ash tray. It's a
hazard, y'know?"

Interpreting 'tweeny' from its context, Ari
agreed wholeheartedly.

Exiting on Broad Street, Ari circled around
to the Scott's Addition District and parked in the same spot he had
used two days earlier.

"I have your cell phone number as a quickie,"
he said.

"'Speed dial', please."

"I'll ring once. Then you come in."

"Shit!"

"Pardon?"

"Don't speak wuss to me. And don't take out
the key. Leave the engine running, or I'll freeze up again. It'll
be hard enough to pry myself out of this crate. Sir."

"Certamente," said Ari, and got out. As he
walked down the street he noted the security camera above A-Zed's
entrance. Zooming in, an observer inside the building would have
been able to make out the license plate on the Scion. But that
still did not explain how the Kkangpae Puppets had found him in
real time, on Jahnke Road. Karen Sylvester had had no idea that
Uday Hussein had been holed up in Cumberland, under the U.S.
Marshals Service' very nose. That another agency might have access
to the GPS on Ari's car without her knowledge was not
inconceivable.

He walked up to the single glass door.

Hours: 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Walk-Ins
Welcome.

Assuming he was being watched, Ari glanced at
his watch. Yes, they were open. And since he was walking...for the
moment, at least...he presumed he would be welcome.

He walked in.

The warmth of the front office came as an
immense relief. The scowl turned up by the man at the desk was less
comforting. He had been focused on the computer screen in front of
him. The entrance's electric chime caused his eyes to skitter
across the monitor, but when he saw Ari they locked into focus. He
would not have recognized Ari from the earlier security camera
images because the sun had reflected off the Scion's windshield,
but no doubt his vehicular henchmen had given him a good
description of the alleged Sicilian.

"Can I help you?" he asked, lifting an
inordinately smoky cigarette from a lava ash tray. It was
hand-rolled. The smoke seemed to go behind his thick glasses,
masking his eyes. It did not appear to bother him.

"These are interesting," said Ari, stepping
up and tapping a key hook display board from which dangled a
variety of novelties.

"For sale. Cheap. In bulk."

"This is cute," he said, lifting a keychain
shaped like the Commonwealth of Virginia away from the display. It
contained a little red heart and the motto: 'Virginia is for
Lovers'.

"Very informative," said Ari. "I was not
aware of that."

"You run tourist shop?" the proprietor asked.
"We sell by gross. Very popular. Wholesale gets big discount."

"I'll bear that in mind," Ari nodded, letting
the trinket drop back onto the cardboard backing. "You're an
importer?"

"This is multi-function business," said the
man, leaning back further into his pillow of smoke. "If we don't
have in stock, we can import."

"From..."

"Overseas," said the man vaguely. He would
play along with Ari, but only so far. "You got something in
mind?"

"That's a very nice computer you have," Ari
smiled, nodding at the desktop. "It looks brand new. No cigarette
smoke residue on your screen."

"You computer salesman?"

A shadow moved in the hallway leading to the
back. A moment later a burly young man appeared. The short sleeves
of his tight-fitting T-shirt pulsed in tune with his biceps. His
face was completely expression-free. He would have no opinion about
whatever it was he was called upon to do. This no doubt included
evicting unwanted visitors with the maximum amount of mayhem. Ari
thought:

No problem.

Then a young man almost identical to the
first squeezed into the narrow access way and Ari thought:

Hmmm....

"That your car?" said the proprietor,
glancing over Ari's head. Ari turned and saw the monitor mounted on
the front wall near the ceiling. His white Scion was dead center of
the screen. Lawson was invisible behind the reflective glare.

"My name is Ari Ciminon." He extended his
hand. "I am content to meet you."

Startled, the proprietor slowly lifted his
hand.

"Sung-Soo Rhee," he said.

"I am so ecstatic," Ari said, returning the
man's soft shake gently, out of a sense of courtesy. He might end
up destroying the Korean, one way or another, but he had no desire
to humiliate him more than necessary.

Rhee suddenly jerked back, as though he had
caught Ari trying to hypnotize him with civility.

"Why you not get message?" Rhee demanded.

"Message?"

"I send message yesterday, very clear..."
Rhee seemed wary of saying more, as though suspecting Ari might be
wired.

"I received no message. Let me check."

The two young men edged forward as Ari
reached into his pocket. They did not seem inclined to back off
when he pulled out his cell phone. He flipped it open and perused
the screen. "I see no messages. Phone service in this country is so
unreliable."

Having pulled up Elmore's number, he pressed,
paused a moment, then closed the phone.

"Buy or go," said Rhee, losing all semblance
of salesmanship.

"Of course," said Ari, returning the phone to
his pocket and bringing out the picture Rebecca Wareness had given
him. "But first, I believe you have something that belongs to
me."

It was during the Rodong Missile fiasco, when
Ari met North Korean representatives in Syria, that he learned
Oriental physiognomy was no more inscrutable than anyone else's.
The Koreans of the delegation could be shocked (You want how much
of your deposit back?), distressed (There's not that much money in
all of North Korea!), or pleased with their own deviousness (The
check is in the mail.). Rhee's expression was as puzzled as that of
the Korean ambassador without portfolio as he tried to figure out
Iraq's peculiar rate of exchange. Ari was certain that he had never
seen Mr. Wareness, had never so much as heard of him.

Maybe I shouldn't have called Lawson....

Rhee's eyes darted to the monitor. "Who is
that?"

Turning casually, Ari glanced up at the
surveillance camera monitor. He was mortified to see Lawson
struggling mightily to free himself from the Scion.

"An interested party," said Ari.

"He no interest me."

"I mean, he is also looking for..." He raised
the picture of Ethan Wareness again in a vain attempt to draw a
flicker of recognition from the proprietor.

"Can you two let me pass?" came a girlish
voice from the hallway.

The two T-shirts blocking the way lifted two
heavy frowns and looked at Rhee.

"Wipe your own ass!" the proprietor
snarled.

"I can't set up the new account without your
authorization."

Rhee had not taken his eyes from Lawson, who
had finally extricated himself from the car and was headed towards
the building. For a perilous instant he lost his footing on a patch
of ice. Ari's scarecrow wannabe seemed ready to pitch forward in a
comic sprawl. But Lawson regained his footing and pressed ahead.
Slowly.

"Your interested party gonna fall on his
face," Rhee said flatly.

"Why the emphatic 'message', Sung-Soo?" Ari
asked, bringing up a topic that might distract him from the
screen.

"You work for insurance company?"

Ari didn't answer.

"Insurance companies get crazy ideas. They
think so many fender benders happen, must be a plot. They don't
think Americans just bad drivers. So they come up with ideas to
stop paying out. Bunch of crooks, you ask me."

"There are plots everywhere," Ari agreed.
"But why assume I'm part of one of them?"

"You park out front my business, watch the
building for an hour. Then we see you leave, follow my idiot nephew
in the van."

There was a squeal of protest from behind the
T-shirt muscle wall.

"Come out, idiot nephew," Rhee called out.
"Show nice customer your stupid face."

The T-shirts pressed their backs to the wall,
creating a narrow gap for the passage of the young man. Ari did not
think he would be able to pass through, but he made it with room to
spare.

"You have nephews, Mr. Ciminon? Why nephews
so stupid?"

"I believe it's a worldwide phenomenon," Ari
opined truthfully.

"Your interested party very slow. He got
rheumatism?"

Rhee's nephew thrust a notepad on the desk
and handed his uncle a ballpoint pen. "I need the new password or I
can't set up the account."

"You crazy? I made the new password so you
wouldn't have it, and now you want me to write it down for
you?"

But the nephew was staring at the customer
standing in front of the desk. He had been preoccupied with the
salvage operator at the Beacon Corner junkyard, so there was a
chance he would not recognize Ari. With any luck, he would suffer
from the same racial myopia as Ari did when he tried to distinguish
one T-shirt musclehead from the other.

The door's electronic chime was accompanied
by a bustling skirt of cold air as Lawson entered the office. The
Koreans stiffened at this first close glance of Ari's
passenger.

Rhee had been chain smoking since Ari's
arrival. The sudden breeze curled the smoke into evil wisps around
his head, giving him the appearance of a wizard emerging from a
cloud.

"You insurance dick, too?" he said so coldly
it was like stone talking.

"His assumption," Ari said, turning to
Lawson. "But we might as well admit it."

"I admit nothing," said Lawson, his half-face
frown trailing off into the mottled warp of his wound.

Ari shook his hand in the air, as if he had
touched something hot. "I don't think he's in a very good
mood."

He was not completely surprised when the two
buff badboys took a step backwards as Lawson removed his fedora,
not knowing the insurance detective could have been knocked over
with a feather. But he was like a mock-up tank (of which the Iraqi
Army had had in abundance), impressive from the air but feeble up
close. Fortunately, his harsh bass, even slurred, could cow the
unwary.

Temporarily.

The young man, still waiting for his uncle to
write down the password, gave a little peep and slid over to the
wall.

The proprietor held his cigarette with his
hand up instead of out, using his thumb and index finger. When he
raised it, he looked as though he was reading notes off his palm.
He seemed unperturbed by the new arrival. Oddly enough, he focused
on Lawson's arm and leg rather than his head.