EIGHT
Omar still believed the best solution for the ills of the world verged on universal destruction. Otherwise he wouldn't be here, with Ghaith, with these other prisoners. His compatriots might have other motives--long-standing grudges or basic religious hatred. They might be undergoing a gang initiation, or be ignorant pawns of rival factions. They could be here simply because they were being paid to be here. But Omar, Ghaith sensed, was still a low-class blowhard. Circumstances dictated that he must act upon his avowed convictions or be seen as a coward. Someone in the Ministry had played Omar like a harp. Who could that be? Anyone. In the current environment, it would be no exaggeration to suspect everyone. That would explain why Ghaith had heard no hint of the power shift in the Ministry. Conspiracy as a social movement. Americans might dismiss it as a passing fad.
"There's no such thing as eidetic memory," Ghaith said.
"Always the scholar!" Omar complained mildly. "I never could understand half of what you said."
"He didn't talk like that back in the truck," the policeman groused. He gave a little jump of horror when Ghaith shot him an erotic purse of the lips.
"Never mind that," said Omar, who had not seen the airline kiss. He nodded at the third guard. "Get it."
The guard shouldered his Kalashnikov and went to the back of the truck. When he pulled out a long, curved blade that shined in the headlights.
"Why Omar, you've been looting the Baghdad Museum,” Ghaith snorted. “I thought that was you I saw on television."
The ghost voices alerted him to the fact that he had neglected a vital purchase during his morning spree. He had seen nothing but wine, beer and some awful looking flavored fizzies at the grocery stores he had visited. Even Wal-Mart was not all-encompassing when it came to hard spirits. Using the online Yellow Pages, Ari located the nearest liquor store. It was called an 'ABC'. He found that droll, sounding as it did like a shop that provided educational supplies for schoolchildren.
Within half an hour, he had returned with three bottles of Jack Daniels. He lined them up on the floor next to the computer desk and stared at them fondly, almost in wonder. While standing in line at the liquor store, the clerk had asked him if he was planning a party.
"Excuse me?" Ari had said.
"Your smile," the amiable clerk answered. "It's like you're expecting company."
"I'm enjoying the freedom," Ari said. "Where I come from, you would have lost your head for selling this."
The clerk's own smile faded and he quickly checked Ari through.
He took up one bottle, broke the seal, and wafted the opening back and forth under his nose. Then he poured about two inches into an eight-ounce glass and took his first drink since....
It had been a long time.
He tapped the mouse and the screensaver (a realistic image of a fantastical poppy field that had never existed, not on this planet) dropped away--revealing Digital Image No. 33, a horrible scene that should not ever have existed on any planet. He sipped at his drink slowly. The warmth felt good. And it helped.
It helped so much that, nearly three hours and five emails later, he had absorbed half of the first bottle. He knew he was close to being drunk--perhaps was drunk. He was so unaccustomed to alcohol that he found it difficult to gauge its impact, especially after he had guzzled a good portion of it.
It had grown dark outside. He had earned his keep for the day. He was about to call it quits when his wavering eyes fell on Digital Image No. 56. He stared at it a long time.
He began an email, perused the opening sentence for a minute or so, then deleted it, unsent. He began another, and then another, with the same result.
He stretched his aching back, glanced around, saw that Sphinx had sprawled itself out on the camper mattress.
"It's just you and myself now, isn't it?"
Sphinx glanced at him through slit eyes, gave a kind of feline, slightly venomous shrug, and resumed its nap.
Ari began a new email, one guaranteed to displease his employer. It was not informative. Nor was it the chatty plaint of a foreign soul stranded alone in a strange land. It was demanding. It was overboard. It was, to some degree, the liquor talking--but only a little. Even as he sent it (without hesitation), he doubted the people on the other end would comply. On the other hand, he wasn't asking this gratis. He had a very fat target for their scope. He would be glad to put him in harm's way if (as he said in the email: "and only if") his employer gave him what he wanted.
Satisfied, he logged off, gave Sphinx a brief, unwanted pat on the head, and took his bottle and glass outside to the gazebo.
Beach Court ended on a small bluff above the James River, but the Riggins property sloped all the way down to the water's edge. Easing onto the gazebo's wooden bench, he leaned his back against the railing and allowed what tension Jack Daniels had neglected to drain from his limbs.
The darkness was not complete. Porch lights from distant houses across the river were reflected in tiny broken flecks on the water, while intermittent, tiny beams burst through the trees from his neighbors to either side, one facing the James, the other, Howie's, further up the hill.
Howie had told him the neighboring waterfront property belonged to someone named Mackenzie. Ari had seen their mailbox, at the entrance to a driveway that swept deep into the woods behind Howie's yard before turning towards the river.
A series of splashes was followed by plaintive honks. It sounded too deep-throated for a duck. He'd look into it tomorrow. How much would a book on birds set him back?
The liquor, at least, was inexpensive--and of high quality. As were the cigarettes, he mentally saluted as he lit a Winston. No black market gouging here, no furtive exchanges of too much for too little. And that was for just a bit of extra food. Forget risking your neck for a pack of extra-toxic DJ coffin nails at the Shorgia market or a bottle of stomach reflux brewed in the marshes. America was a good place for the simpler sins, although Ari found all the No Smoking signs problematic. Next thing you knew, they'd be issuing fatāwā against the grand old weed. Perhaps they had already begun.
A not-distant rumble marked the beginning of the rapids Ari had seen from Lee Bridge on his arrival. A sound that would probably recede from conscious awareness after a week or so of living nearby. But Ari found that it somehow punctuated a hollow ache around his heart. He had been too busy acclimating himself to his new country to pay much attention to it. When the busyness stopped, however, and unavoidable memories throbbed to the forefront, all of his crimes and misjudgments came crowding up to shout in his face. If only he had.... If only he had not....
A friend of his with a philosophical bent once told him America's top export was the sense of personal loneliness. They lured people into a corral of self-absorption, a circle of screens and mirrors. It was every man for himself, but with much of the danger removed. The problem with such exports was that they did not always adapt to the new market, reducing it instead to every-man-for-himself, but with the danger still intact.
The friend with the philosophical bent was as good as dead. Perhaps he had not been a friend. For all Ari knew, he might have been his mortal enemy all along. It was hard to say, anymore. So much certainty removed....
And now this old friend was just one more ache in his chest, and the river emphasized the loss with the rushing boom of its passing.
One thing for certain, though, Ari thought as he looked back at the house. The sound was not nearly loud enough to mask a sledgehammer pounding against a back door.
He was distracted by a bright flash above the river. A moment later a loud crack echoed across the water and rippled down the south bank. Howie had said kids stood on the tiny island and lit off firecrackers. He had not said that they did it after dark. From the perspective of his forty-odd years, Howie had transformed young adults into children. Ari looked at his watch and was unpleasantly surprised to find that it was already past 11. By passing the time with Jack Daniels, he had lost an entire evening. He tried to remember if he had fed Sphinx.
Turning to the house again, he followed the hidden trajectory of the killer, or killers. Center left, downstairs picture window. If the window curtains had been open, a kayaker taking a brisk spin on a cold December night might have seen the flash of gunfire in the living room. Ari leaned down so that he could see the second floor beyond the gazebo roof. The master bedroom windows could also be clearly seen from the river.
It was suddenly darker than a moment before. It looked as though the Mackenzie porch light had been switched off. A flash and report announced the launching of another Whistling Jupiter from the island, which was completely invisible at this time of night.
The Mackenzie light came on.
Then went off.
Then came on again.
A kind of smirking sorrow filled Ari. He gave a snort, then poured another snort. Tricks. Everywhere, tricks. You could tabulate the world population by counting all the people who had outsmarted themselves. And he should know. He was a genius at it.
Should he go inside and put a seal on this little plot of innocence? What the Mackenzies were up to in the middle of the night was none of his business. But he did not move. He would add to his knowledge of the foibles of his new land. He was also curious to know if the rocket man out on the water was using night vision goggles. Even here, where the water was calm, a collision with a rock or driftwood could capsize a kayak or canoe.
Besides...perhaps it was his business, after all.
Once he decided to remain outside, he tested the option of creeping up on the Mackenzie house. The trees seemed thick enough to provide cover. But after taking a few strides toward the edge of the yard he about-faced back to the gazebo bench. Three-quarters of a bottle of whiskey had not stifled the cold, inner observer that weighed the odds and enforced decisions. It was too dark, and he had drunk too much, to guarantee a stealthy approach.
He didn't see the two-man kayak until it slid into the faint aura of light from the Mackenzie porch about thirty yards from the shore. It was a little larger than the ones Ari had seen doodling on the river the last couple of days. The two men drew their doubled-edged paddles out of the water.
"Product!" one of the called out.
Someone must have signaled from the Mackenzie yard. The kayakers vanished behind the tree border as they stroked to the beach. There being nothing to see, Ari leaned back and closed his eyes, hoping to catch a few more words. But all he heard were a few indecipherable murmurs. He swore lowly, blaming Jack Daniels for his deafness. He took another sip.
The kayak remained out of sight for nearly ten minutes. Negotiation (if any) and the exchange of money for 'product' should take no more than a moment, especially for the kind of transaction Ari was certain was taking place.
He had not turned on his own porch light, but the kayakers would have seen the faint glow filtering through the thick living room curtains.
Someone’s moved into the Riggins house?
Yes.
Know anything about them?
No.
Obviously, such a conversation would take all of three seconds. What else were they talking about? The weather? No, the kayakers would not linger for banal chitchat.
He tried to interpret the tone of the murmurs. Not much there, either. They were perfectly neutral, containing neither laughter nor argument. It sounded as if only two men were talking. One of the kayakers was not participating in the discussion. Still squatting in the boat, maintaining his position in the water. A portable escape hatch.
And then a woman's voice chimed in, clear as a bell.
"No, there's someone living there. I saw him the other day. A fucking A-rab. He was in a jogging suit. A fucking A-rab jogger!"
Ari smiled. The silly woman was completely smashed, a fact confirmed by her shrill laughter.
Mr. Mackenzie must have told her to tone it down. Her reaction was predictably belligerent.
"Fuck you! It's a free country!"
Ari mentally waggled a finger at the invisible woman, in part for her language and in part for her assertion. Outside of nationalistic propaganda, he had yet to see or hear of a free country, now or ever. Above all, though, he silently admonished her for the way she spoke to her husband.
The voices subsided. Ari found himself urging Mrs. American Freedom to speak up again and assert her right to row drunkenly, even at the price of male embarrassment. She did not let him down.
"You've got to be shitting me! No way! The first we heard about it was in the papers."
Some harsh skeptical sounds followed, probably from the kayak spokesman.
"You think we'd do something like that?" Mrs. Mackenzie shot back. "You're out of your fucking mind!"
"No, no, no, I didn't say..." The male voice drifted off on a light breeze.
Why were they only talking about this now? If the kayakers thought the Mackenzies had had something to do with the murders, bringing it up nine months later did not serve any purpose. Blackmail made no sense. If the kayakers had seen something, they would have leapt on it immediately, threatening to lead the police to fresh evidence. By waiting so long they would have made themselves accomplices.
"What if you did it, huh?" Mrs. Mackenzie screeched. "You were out here that night! Right? Right?"
Ari hoped the woman would not be smacked into silence. She was providing the only open window on the topic at hand. She had certainly provided him with an interesting morsel. The kayakers had indeed been cruising the James the night of the murders. But this posed the same problem. Why wait so long to make the accusation?
Because no one had lived in the house all this time? Why should that matter? Unless the house itself was what triggered the argument.
Sphinx, you're going to have to start earning your keep. This might be America, land of the coddled cats, but your new master is not American. He expects pets to work for a living.
"Okay, okay! I've had a few drinks, okay? Is that a crime?"
Well, Ari thought, fingering his glass...yes. And no. Hard to say, especially after a few drinks.
"I said I'm fucking sorry, all right?"
She sounded more drunk than convinced. And then, for the first time, Ari obtained a clear take on the voice of Mr. Mackenzie:
"Hey Dude, she's drunk! Okay! We're cool!"
Cool as a razor off the strap, Ari smirked. This was really wonderful. He couldn't wait for fine weather. He needed to talk to Detective Carrington. He needed to talk to the kayakers. And for both discussions, a clear sky and calm waters were necessary.
He watched as the kayak, black as coal and sleek as a reed, vanished out of the halo of the Mackenzie's porch light.