The 56th Man (23 page)

"I guess you can tell my preference is the
opposite." Carrington's ratchety laughter echoed against the bare
walls. "I'd eat a rat's ass if it was the last thing left on the
menu."

Whatever the general state of Carrington's
health, Ari would take care if he encountered him in a dark alley.
He had entered the house so silently Ari had mistaken him for a
cat.

"So what's all this?" Carrington cocked his
head at the Lowe's paraphernalia. "I'dve thought a few decent
chairs would have priority over a sledgehammer."

"I heard knocking in the wall," Ari said,
striking the pose of a disappointed home-buyer. "At first I thought
it was mice. I went to Lowe's for poison and an employee there
suggested it might be some kind of louver in the heating unit
that's come loose."

"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."

"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."