The 56th Man (3 page)

Once he was parked in the bay, he lifted the
car's ash tray out of its slot and took up his suitcase from the
passenger seat, placing both items on the steps leading inside. He
was about to close the bay door when he heard the police cruiser
driving away from the house next door.

He paused, balancing his needs against his
curiosity. Curiosity won. Necessity too.

Ari began to make his way through the thick
border of trees, then recalled stories of American hypersensitivity
when it came to property. He backtracked and approached the house
from the road. The groundskeeper had resumed trimming the grass in
the shallow ditch. Seeing Ari, he stopped. A tentative moment
passed before he managed a smile.

"Hello," said Ari.

"Hey," said the man, maintaining a firm grip
on the handle of his garden tool.

"I've just moved into the house next door. I
wanted to introduce myself to the owner here."

"That's me." The man stiffened proudly. The
sweat on his face and forearms had captured bits of dirt and grass
so fine it look like gunpowder residue. A man in mortal combat
against his yard.

"Excuse me. I mistook you for the
groundskeeper."

"That's me, too." Freeing one hand from the
trimmer, he stepped across the ditch. "Howard Nottoway."

Ari took the extended hand and shook it. "Ari
Ciminon."

“
Most folks around here call me Howie.”
A half head shorter than Ari, Howie raised a courteous if wary
gaze. Sprigs of white hair sprang out above each ear, imparting a
cockeyed awkwardness that seemed at odds with his status as a lawn
warrior. "I didn't see any moving vans."

"My furniture will arrive later." Ari
maintained a straight face, a lackadaisical assumption of bland
truth. Absent the cookie-cutter smile, it was the same expression
he had worn in New York, while standing near the PATH station at
Liberty Plaza listening to the names of 9/11 victims being read out
by relatives of the deceased. The somber memorial was marred by
scuffling between anti-war protesters and those who supported the
administration. Ari had played a mental truncheon across the skulls
of the troublemakers. Americans were focused on being the sole
victims of the September attacks, which he found puerile and
unseemly--although Ari was the first to concede the worst hurts
were those closest to home. It was the sense of exclusion that
annoyed him. A bit like 'God Bless America.' Where did that leave
everyone else?

Anyone taking note of him that day would have
seen a man who looked sublimely untroubled, even a trifle amused at
the noisy fuss the police caused when they broke up the fights.

An hour later, after making an overseas phone
call, he was in route to Virginia to confront this quintessential
American, taming the wild in goggles and muck boots.

Howie nodded, though he looked a little
confused. Ari supposed it would have made more sense if the
furniture was in place before the new owner moved in.

"I was wondering..." A vaguely childish
expression crossed Ari's face. "What is that?"

"Mmm?" Howie glanced down in surprise. "Just
a weed whacker."

"A weed...'whacker'," Ari repeated
slowly.

Howie demonstrated with a couple of short
bursts of the machine. Bits of ditch grass flew up like shattered
feathers. "I guess you don't see many of these in the desert."

"Sicily isn't a desert island, but it is
quite dry."

"Sicily." A blurry chart from Howie's
elementary school geography class rattled down in his mind. "You're
Italian?"

"The Arabs conquered Sicily during the Dark
Ages. That accounts for--" Ari flicked his fingers in front of his
own nose, as though splashing Semitic greasepaint on his face.

"Well, yeah," Howie chuckled nervously,
knocking the shield of the whacker against his ankle as though
admonishing himself against indiscretions. "I wasn't trying
to...you know...I wasn't.... Where'd you learn your English?"

"The missionaries taught me."

"They did a good job. I mean, there's no
trace of...you know...Italian, I guess." Howie paused.
"Missionaries in Italy? Isn't that sort of like taking coal to
Newcastle? I mean, with the Pope there and all..."

"They were Unitarian."

"Unitarian? I didn't think they...I didn't
think they were...." Howie shrugged apologetically. "Well, you
learn something new every day."

"That's a good philosophy," said Ari, being
careful to erase condescension with a smile.

An evangelical bolt crossed Howie's face.
"Say listen, I'm with the Methodist church just down the road.
You're invited to come any Sunday."

"I'll bear that in mind," Ari nodded
agreeably.

"You have family coming? They're welcome to
the church, too. All of you." Howie said this with a trace of
reluctance, as though envisioning a truckload of Italian kids
clambering over the pews.

"No family," said Ari succinctly, leaving it
up to Howie to sort out the why.

"None?" Howie was sorting, and if the furrow
above his goggles was any indication, few of the options were very
appetizing. "And you bought that big house just for..."

"Yes. I needed a place to stay. For my
job."

"Yeah?"

"I'm an architect."

"Yeah?" Realizing the repetitive monosyllable
skimped on courtesy, he added, "That's a break from all the doctors
and lawyers around here--retired and otherwise. What firm?"

"I'll be working out of my home."

Howie was alerted to the need for
discretion--an alert he did not heed. "You wouldn't be involved
with that new baseball field downtown, would you? The one they're
shoving down our throats? I won't tell anyone. Uh...you know
baseball, right?"

"I'm not an ardent fan, but I occasionally
follow Montepaschi Grosseto.”

“
The who-da wadda?’

“
I’m not familiar with that phrase.
Grosseto is the best team in Italy, to my way of thinking. Of
course, many of its players come from here.”

What concern Ari could see gathering behind
Howie’s goggles relaxed on hearing this. European baseball. Who
would have thought it? But it was nothing to be alarmed about. Just
the same American sewage overflow as European basketball and
European football.

"In any event,” Ari continued, “I came over
here to introduce myself. I suppose that's what I've been doing. I
also wanted to ask..."

"Yeah?" said Howie, relapsing into
single-word monotony.

"Those police officers you were speaking to.
I noticed that they left some flowers next to my driveway."

"Yeah...they were the ones who found
them."

That Ari found this answer nonsensical was
written in his expression. Howie saw this and drew a face of
disgust.

"Those bastards--pardon my French."

"I'm confused. Sorry."

"The real estate people.” Howie propped the
weed whacker against his leg, as though grounding arms. “They'll do
anything to make a sale. Your agent...he didn't say anything to you
about what happened here?"

"I purchased the house through a third
party," Ari sighed with the guilt of gullibility. "I provided him
with a list of my basic needs and he came up with this." He
gestured down the road, as though pointing out a white elephant
half-hidden behind the trees.

Howie clucked, revving his neck with a
vigorous head-shake.

"He didn't go into any details beyond the
basic floor plan, and gave me very little about the history of the
place," Ari continued. "He assured me, however, that this was a
quiet, safe neighborhood."

"Maybe I shouldn't say anything." Howie
looked like he would be perfectly delighted to spill some broad
hints, if not exactly his guts. With his free hand he pulled on one
of his white tufts of hair, as though pulling the string on a doll.
"I mean--"

"Please. Was there an accident? Is the house
unsafe?"

"The house is fine. It's great. Just an
oversized rancher, but the best one in the neighborhood for
location. There was a time most anyone around here would have
snapped it up if they could have afforded it. The price
dropped...afterward. But we all knew what had happened. No one
would buy."

"It's very scenic."

"Yeah." Howie seemed to struggle with
himself. He pulled off his protective goggles, as though to show
Ari the sincerity in his eyes. "I shouldn'tve blabbed."

"Those weren't the only flowers. There were
others..."

"A family," Howie said. "All of them. Father,
mother, two young sons."

"Died?"

"Murdered." He turned a narrow glance on Ari.
"It wasn't funny."

"I'm sorry. I was just thinking about what
you said. About real estate agents. But of course that's terrible.
How long ago?"

"Nine months."

"The killer?"

"Never caught. But they think there was more
than one of them." Howie seemed reassured by Ari's abrupt gloom.
"You've closed, right? There's no way you can back out?"

"You mean leave the house? I don't think
that's possible."

"I have a lawyer friend who might be able to
help you." It almost sounded as though he was offering Ari the loan
of a loaded pistol.

"I'll bear that in mind." Ari turned towards
his new house. From here, he could see only a few small patches of
the white vinyl siding in the back. "They were killed in the
house?"

"Yeah, and no one around here knew anything
about it. Jesus, shot in broad daylight, and nobody heard."

"Really?" Ari thought about how he had been
able to hear the shout of one of the police officers from inside
the house.

"I would have called it in if I'd heard
anything," Howie said a little defensively. "My wife, too."

"I don't doubt it," Ari said politely.

"But even if we'd heard, we would have
thought they were firecrackers or something. You get a lot of kids
out on the islands in the river. They fire off what we used to call
Whistling Jupiters. Toy rockets. Noisy. The Mackenzies...they live
on the river too, on other side of you, through the woods there.
They didn't hear anything, either." A slight accusatory inflection
had entered Howie's voice. As though, by taking possession of the
house, Ari was retroactively guilty of not reporting the crime.

Ari nodded. "I understand perfectly."

Howie's expression relaxed. "Yeah. You said
Sicily? Mafia-land, right?"

"
La stessa
cosa
," Ari said with a sad smile. "'The same thing.'
Cosa Nostra."

"Yeah? I guess stuff like that happens all
the time over there."

"All the time."

"I'm sorry." Howie's sudden cultural delicacy
was blurted, as though he had been poked by an invisible cattle
prod. "I didn't mean to imply anything. I'm sure most of you folks
are peaceful. Law-abiding, I mean."

"It's a beautiful island, even when Etna
erupts."

"The volcano, right? That must be something
to see."

"Very scenic."

“
Jerry was a painter,” said Howie. “An
artist. No enemies. I mean, who shoots artists?”

“
Who shoots little boys?” said
Ari.

“
Well, yeah. Right.”

THREE

"Ghaith here is a certified genius!" Omar
laughed, as though pointing out a duck on the Moon. "We knew that
when we were kids. He could recite every sura in the Holy Koran by
the age of...were you out of your swaddling yet, Ghaith?"

Ghaith snorted dismissively.

"Don't deny it," Omar joshed. "Sayyid Qutb
was the same way. It's an honor from God, isn't it? What a mind!
How many languages do you speak? Three? Four? And those are just
the ones I knew about the last time we met."

The policeman standing next to the pickup
truck sent a toothy grin through the passenger window. Ghaith did
not credit him with much intelligence, although he had only first
met him an hour ago. Didn't even know his name.

"We parted ways long ago," Omar sighed. "I
went into construction, while Ghaith here went on to bigger and
better things."

"I don't know about bigger," Ghaith laughed.
"Didn't you tell me you worked on the Sweet Water? They don't get
much bigger than that."

Ghaith did not add that he knew much more
than that about Omar.

They were parked near a canal, but not the
Sweet Water. They could hear the imposing rush of water from
outlets leading back past apricot tree orchards to the river, only
slightly muted by the thick ranks of reeds on the embankment.
Ghaith had seen them, just before Omar doused the truck lights.
They had shifted like nervous, skeletal sentries. The loudly
jetting water was a seamless burden on the night.

"Sweet Water!" Omar made a sound of disgust.
"I haven't been back there in years. The last I heard, it had two
meters of silt and was mostly undrinkable. Totally gone to
ruin."

"It'll be dredged," Ghaith tried to reassure
him. "Repaired. One day. You'll see."

"Yes, but by who?" Omar's
attempt to look cheerful was painfully obvious. "You've done well
for yourself," he said, poking Ghaith in the shoulder, as if they
were still children sharing bites from a single piece of
lu'mat al-adi
. "In spite of
everything, you're a big success. It shows."

It almost sounded like an accusation, and
Ghaith's response was a shade defensive. "Omar, I'm a clerk, that's
all."

The policeman standing outside bobbed his
head, laughing. Maybe he really was an idiot. Or worse.

"You're a lot busier than I am, these days,"
Omar shook his head. "I'm on our neighborhood advisory
council."

"That's excellent," Ghaith said. "That's what
we need more of."

"Try making a living out of it. I'm also
digging sewage ditches."