The 56th Man (5 page)

A little more browsing brought Ari to a
photograph of a small ceremony. Mr. and Mrs. Riggins were receiving
a plaque in recognition of their services and donations to a
charity for the families of police officers who had fallen in the
line of duty (their deaths referred to in the article as ‘End of
Watch’). Behind them stood two flags. The American flag was known
throughout the world, but the blue one next to it was more
problematic, and in these non-innocent times a touch risqué. It’s
seal bore the image of a woman in Roman costume, one breast bared.
She was standing on a man’s neck, giving the defeated tyrant a
perfect view up the Amazonian culottes. Ari concluded the flag must
belong to the province...or was it state?...of Virginia.

The man presenting the award was nearly a
head taller than Jerry Riggins--a full head taller than Moria.
Huge. On the beefy side. Even before Ari read the caption, he knew
it was a cop.

Detective Louis B. Carrington.

Moria was in the center, while Jerry seemed
to be trying to edge himself out of the shot even as Carrington
extended his hand. He was smiling, yet Jerry's wariness was
painfully obvious. Very much out of place in a man being hailed for
his civic virtue. Ari had seen that same kind of reluctant
handshake many times before.

Jerry's wife, meanwhile, wore the familiar
glow of the mountains, as though she had just clambered up a high
peak--which, socially speaking, she had, at least according to the
article. Ari focused on her shining eyes and gave a small shake of
his head. He switched back to the detective, who had no trace of
the world-weariness common to his breed. Perfectly comfortable, if
a little too casual, with his stomach pooching beyond the perimeter
of his single breasted blazer, his loose white shirt draping over
the top of his belt.

With a grunt, Ari threw down his emptied bag
of Fritos. It was natural to be curious about the fate of the
Riggins family. He had done nothing different from what any new
owner of a house whose previous occupants had been murdered would
have done. But it was none of his business. He needed to allow his
curiosity to subside.

If only there was something to do….

He checked his email. The inbox was empty.
Not even spam in the junk file.

At least he could look at the news, although
he noticed some of his favorite websites had been filtered out.

He sat back. The odor of slowly roasting
chicken rose upstairs. He glanced at his watch and decided to give
it another thirty minutes. Besides, he was filled up with corn
chips.

His hands hovered over the mouse and
keyboard. Idly, he moved the cursor up. The address for Jerry
Riggins' website, which he had already visited once, dropped down
from his browser. He clicked, and was soon looking at some of
Jerry's paintings. Ari had never had much time for art. He had
acquired a few pieces over the years, fully recognizing that he
based his choices on decorative aptness rather than intrinsic
merit. Jerry belonged to what Ari thought of as the 'smudge
school'. No doubt there were connoisseurs who could explain the
rationale behind them, but to Ari art that had to be explained,
that was not-self evident, was no art at all. To spend years of
higher learning to delve the profound meaning of a smudge was a
waste of precious time and intellect. But perhaps he was being
unfair. Were the paintings more vibrant when seen in person?
More...comprehensible? Ari scrolled down to the list of Jerry's
exhibits.

Several years' worth of art shows were
listed, including a month-long show in December of the previous
year at a university gallery. No doubt visitors had flocked to see
the paintings while the autopsies were being performed.

Near the bottom Ari came across an exhibit
that had begun a week ago, at Foxlight Gallery in an area of the
city known as Shockhoe Bottom. Hadn't Howie said something about a
sports center due to be built there? There was a small note under
the announcement indicating that it had been posted August 9.

This was not the blogging section, where site
visitors could add to the numerous fond memorials about the family.
This was embedded on the main page. Someone had access to Jerry's
website. Going to the menu, Ari clicked on About This Site and
discovered that the webmaster was someone named Tina. She could be
contacted at [email protected].

He glanced at his watch and went downstairs
to remove his chicken from the oven. It didn’t look like a success.
Besides, stuffed with Fritos, his stomach rebelled at the idea of
adding more, no matter how savory or otherwise. He placed the
roasting pan in the refrigerator and went back up to the
computer.

After a long pause, he typed 'Iceland' into
the browser. He chose a tourist website and perused the sights.
Iceland was a land of geysers, hot springs, waterfalls, glaciers,
fjords. Very scenic.

He leaned back in his chair, his mind filling
with sulfurous clouds and hallucinatory fumes. Out of the mist a
face appeared. A lovely face, full of wisdom and understanding.

And then, as if twisted and torn by the acid
in the air, the face mutated into a horrible mask of despair and
hatred.

Ari sat up, closed down the computer, and
looked at his watch.

FOUR

The Kia Bongo mini-truck stopped at the edge
of the canal, about twenty yards from the white Toyota pickup. Omar
grunted with exasperation when the driver turned off his
lights.

"How are we supposed to see what we're
doing?" he complained to the policeman standing outside the
passenger window, speaking past Ghaith as though he was not there.
Did it salve the conscience to treat the man you were going to kill
as though he were already gone?

The policeman gave a noncommittal grunt. He
was cradling an assault rifle.

Ghaith finished his DJ and dropped the
glowing butt out the window. The man outside, after resisting the
impulse for a moment, crushed it out with his heel.

Omar stepped out of the Toyota and shouted at
the newcomers. The driver of the mini truck switched his headlights
back on, jumped out, and waved his arms in angry frustration. Omar
returned the gesture as he walked over. Ghaith noted the dust
kicked up by Omar's feet. It seemed at odds with the pounding of
water from the canal outlets. With an artist's eye he studied the
skeletal reeds beyond Omar, then the crude painting of an apricot
on the cab door of the mini truck. Then he returned his gaze to the
three hooded men and two guards seated in the bed of the truck. No
doubt Ghaith and the prisoners were all slated to die together.

He considered lighting up another cigarette,
felt a slight rasp in his throat, and abandoned the idea. He had
been smoking too much lately, and these cheap DJ’s were deadly. Up
to a point, smoking steadied his nerves, but over the last week he
had concluded he was overdoing it. He had promised himself to cut
back to two packs a day, maybe even to one. Give himself a little
more wind.

Omar went to the back of the truck and spoke
to the guards, who stood and forced the prisoners to their
feet.

"What's your name?" Ghaith asked the
policeman holding the gun on him.

"Why?"

"I was thinking it would be more polite to
use your name than just calling you 'Idiot'."

"Do you want me to shoot you now?"

"Not really, Idiot. I was wondering if you
knew what this was all about."

"Of course I know."

"Really? Say, Idiot, could you let me in on
it? Like Omar said, I'm a godless man. The meaning of life has
totally eluded me."

"What are you talking about?" Idiot
twitched.

"Oh...sorry. You really think this has
something to do with the power shift in the Ministry? The Shia are
replacing the Sunnis. Do you think that interests God?"

"Don't talk about such things."

"I'm sorry. I have a tendency to rudeness.
Omar…a good Sunni, by the way…can tell you. I didn't even thank him
when he let me fuck him up the ass."

"I'll shoot you..."

"I'm sure you'll get around to it. Anyway, we
were young. We hardly had hair on our balls. But we parted ways
before I ever got the chance to return the favor. He's been dying
for my ass ever since."

"Abid Ali!" the policeman shouted.

At first, Ari thought the webmaster was
mistaken. It seemed that Richmond, after dark, was practically
abandoned. All the shops along Broad Street were closed, or boarded
up, and life was limited to clumps of young men and women standing
at street corners, their collective mood variable, sometimes
staring glumly, sometimes laughing, occasionally yelling at other
clumps of young men and women. He turned back to Main Street, only
to encounter a rank of office towers that seemed in their way
equally stark, with the added deficit of blank sterility. But as he
progressed down Main he began to see more pedestrians, and at the
bottom of a hill--Shockhoe Bottom, in fact--lights, noise and music
announced the presence of a reasonably vibrant nightlife.

He parked under a raised railway. Seeing
shadowy figures flit under the skeletal trestle, he wondered if he
would be lucky enough to find the xB gone when he got back.
Crossing the cobblestone pavement, he made his way past bars and
tattoo parlors. It seemed comfortably godless. Women in formal but
extremely revealing dresses walked unaccompanied up the block. Ari
assumed they were headed for the restaurants and clubs burrowed in
a row of old tobacco warehouses. He found the women exotic, if not
particularly sophisticated. Very scenic and, judging by the length
of the slits in their skirts (another Mediterranean assumption),
very available. He was interested, but unavailable.

There seemed little evidence of artistic
inclination among these revelers. It was hard to imagine a gallery
thriving in this environment, especially at this hour. But
according to Tina the Webmaster, Foxlight closed at ten.

At the next intersection he turned right and
came upon a cluster of old shops converted to new sins. But it was
limited in scale, suitable to a small city, without the pervasive
air of decadence of a major metropolitan red light district gone to
seed. Was this part of the area slated to be condemned to make way
for a baseball park? Then sin here was very weak indeed.

There...between some kind of parlor and some
kind of shop that sold smoking paraphernalia...Foxlight. Unfamiliar
with local fashions, Ari did not know if the wooden sign out front
signaled a rebellious reticence or a trendy departure from the
gaudy neon to either side. Through an unadorned window with a wide
chrome border that reflected his tie a dozen or so people were
milling between two powder-blue walls. Ari went inside.

The sounds from neighboring bars and of cars
revving across the cobblestones were swept away by silence, leaving
only a trace of bass vibration. A few patrons glanced his way,
their attention drawn by the short burst of noise from the street.
Then they double-taked on Ari, his blue suit emphasizing his
athletic build, his dark gaze taking in the scene like some
mystical X-ray machine. He was aware of how unsettling his glance
could be and consciously worked at softening it with amusement. He
couldn't change his eyes--but he could smile.

Reassured by his amicable demeanor, the
people who had turned his way turned back to the exhibit. Ari let
his smile subside into benevolent curiosity. He didn't, after all,
want to look like a yokel. He walked tentatively into the center of
the small gallery, thinking an aggressive stride might be
interpreted as a desire to attack modern art and its advocates.
Even critics needed to approach gingerly, a delicate step being
equated with sensitive objectivity.

Each painting was hung from the ceiling by a
pair of wires that converged behind the canvas. Sidling up to the
first canvas, an orange, squarish smudge planted in a field of
smaller purple smudges, he allowed his cursory inspection to drift
down to a small plaque.

Elevation #6 circa 2003

Jerry Riggins - Richmond, Virginia

1973 - 2005

Ari's chin was lifted on a cloud of perfume.
A tall brunette in a low-cut, skin-hugging tube top had come up
next to him. His eyes involuntarily drifted away from the orange
smudge to the aromatic cavern of the woman's breasts. She must have
detoured to the gallery while on her way to one of Shockoe's bars.
She began to speak, but was interrupted by a man in a business suit
who urged her to come on, they were wasting their time here. The
woman's glossy lips twisted in a moue of disappointment as she
followed him out.

Most of the others present seemed to be
serious connoisseurs of Jerry Riggins' blurry visions. Although
twelve was not many, in a place like this it constituted a crowd.
It ranged from a silver-haired couple to a pair of young men,
apparently also a couple, in skimpy T-shirts and threadbare jeans.
Ari found himself drawn into a small orbit of murmurs, the
observers treating the gallery like a library, or a morgue. Had
anyone been sitting at the black imitation-marble desk in the back,
Ari would have expected a hush of admonition directed against the
one or two voices raised above a whisper.

"The optimism just fades. You can see
it."

"They get darker at the end."

"As if he knew..."

The gallery door opened, letting in some
buddy-buddy shouts from the street and a petite blonde in gray
slacks and a non-matching khaki jacket. Ari wondered if this was
typical business apparel of Western females. She wore a flustered,
busy air--until her eyes fell on Ari. She turned away quickly to
one of the darker blotches on the far wall. Ari resumed his
inspection of the orange smudge, determined to delve its
meaning.