Cold Snap (10 page)

Ghaith drew attention because of alley he had
emerged from. Was he a collaborator, or just released from
interrogation? He planted a scowl on his face, as though he had
just escaped being violated by a monstrous American penis. The
shouts in the alley behind him urged him forward.

At the risk of magnetizing eyes in his
direction, he broke into a trot. The two men he had seen earlier,
in short sleeves and trousers, seemed to take particular notice of
him. One of them gave a peculiar twist of his hand.

Running down the next side street, Ghaith
tagged a muddish brown wall at five-foot intervals, tabulating his
pace. He slipped into an alley that ran parallel to Palestine and
waited, inhaling mephitic clouds from an overflowing sewer. All of
Baghdad stank these days, shit being a low priority on the
Coalition's list of things to attend to.

There came the soft, rapid padding of men
running in sneakers. He waited for the first man to pass the alley
opening, then jumped out. The second man collapsed after a hard
shot to the jugular. Whirling, he ran up behind the first man and
clipped him in the jaw as he turned. He felt a tingling on his
skull and whirled again—to find a group of boys staring at him,
then at the men squirming on the ground.

"You would be well-advised not to emulate
your elders," he admonished.

They took off.

He pulled up the men's shirts and removed the
cameras strapped to their torsos, smashing each in turn under his
heavy boots.

Hearing more shouts in English from Palestine
Street, he decided he did not have enough time to find out who had
sent the two men to spy on the building. He took off down the road,
his mind busy with the tortuous path he would have to take to
Fallujah.

Rebecca had not been exaggerating. Elmore
Lawson's secretary sported a multi-antenna hairstyle, claw-like
hands and a snippy voice that sounded like the lone chattering of
an insect in the forest. From behind her thick lenses her eyes
bugged at Ari, bugged at the Visitor badge issued to him in the
lobby, and threatened to bug out of their sockets when Ari asked to
speak to her boss.

"Mr. Lawson doesn't speak to anyone," she
snipped, ending the discussion by lowering her head portentously
and studying a document with all the thoroughness of a jailer
parsing a death warrant. A minute later, she raised her head.

"Oh yes, I am still standing here before
you."

"I'd be glad to take a message for you." She
almost choked on 'glad'.

"You wouldn't happen to be hypoglycemic,
would you?"

"Pardon me?"

"From all of the sugar cubes you have been
ingesting."

"There's no point trying to barge past,"
burred Ms. Cicada. "The door's locked."

"I had no intention of being so outré," said
Ari truthfully, having learned from Rebecca Wareness the futility
of such a maneuver. "Your Mr. Lawson is very much a mystery man,"
said Ari. "Would sunlight destroy him?"

To his surprise, the secretary seemed to
consider this seriously for a moment. "It wouldn't do him any
good.... And it won't do you any good hanging around."

"But certainly, he must speak with someone.
To you, for instance."

She inadvertently glanced at the intercom and
immediately realized her mistake.

"Don't even think about it. He doesn't talk
to anyone, either."

"But even God talks to his acolytes, even if
they don't see him."

"So I've heard," Ms. Cicada chittered
lowly.

"But this is extraordinary!" Ari protested.
"He is, as I understand it, the chief investigator of fraudulent
claims?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Then he must interview witnesses, speak with
sources, survey the—"

"He has foot troops for that, Mister..."

"Ciminon. Now these foot troops you
mentioned, it is about one of them that I want to speak to Mr.
Lawson."

"Did Rebecca Warness send you?" the secretary
demanded, her eyes going chitinous with suspicion.

"Would it matter? The disappearance of an
employee might be considered reason enough to bring in the police.
What was he investigating when he went missing? Was it something
potentially hazardous?"

"There's always the possibility of—" She
stopped herself, thinking she was going too far. "Mr. Wareness is
not the concern of the police or of you, Mr. Ciminon. I have that
directly from Mr. Lawson."

"He spoke!"

It appeared to Ari that Ms. Cicada had had
ample practice weaving her way past sarcastic rejoinders, unless
she was operating on pure insect reflex. Lawson and his secretary
were well entrenched in their secretive niche.

"Can I see Mr. Lawson's supervisor,
then?"

"Like I told Ms. Wareness, he's his own boss.
We're a part of CVG, but a separate division."

As she answered, Ari surveyed the ceiling for
any sign of a camera. Nothing there, but a huge clock shaped like
bronze sun rays would be suitable for a surveillance device. It was
the closest thing to color in the office, including Ms. Cicada and
her unglowing cheeks.

"If you don't want to leave a message, you
could give me one of your business cards."

"Do you think he would call me, out of all
the host for whom he is speechless?"

"I won't say it's impossible," Ms. Cicada
shrugged. "Just real unlikely."

Ari began to snap his fingers at her, then
recalled how poorly that particular gesture had been received by
Deputy Sylvester. "May I borrow your notepad and pen? I don't have
a carte d'identitié."

He was not trying to show off his French. It
had been a slip, perhaps the result of his encounter with Madame
Mumford.

"Would that be the same as a business card?"
Ms. Cicada asked with a sharp brow raised.

"Not exactly. It's what some countries
require when you reside in their country."

"Police states, you mean."

"Not all of them, by any means," said Ari,
who put great stock in identity cards. He had dozens of them tucked
away here and there, and had quick access to many more. He took the
pad and pen Ms. Cicada reluctantly handed him and wrote down his
name and cell phone number. After a moment's reflection, he added:
'Re: Ethan Wareness. Believe him to be no longer operative,
possibly deceased. Would like to locate body.' He returned the pad
and the secretary immediately read the note. Ari did not
protest.

"You have very fine handwriting," she
said.

"I was trained by Jesuits."

"You're an equally fine liar," Ms. Cicada
said, showing the first sign of agreeableness, as though lying was
the quality she most admired in a man.

Ari left the ground floor office and returned
to the security desk in the main lobby.

"This is an insurance company, correct?" he
said to the guard as he turned in his visitor badge.

"One of the biggest on the east coast," the
guard said, ticking off Ari's name on his clipboard.

"There seems to be an inordinate amount of
security here."

"People get upset when their claims aren't
paid off."

"It seems to me it would be prudent to pay
those claims, then."

"Then the company would go bust and we'd all
be out of work."

Ari smiled. "This is an employment agency,
then?"

The guard did not smile. "Have a good day,
sir."

Turning to leave, Ari paused and looked back.
"Your employees are safe inside this grand edifice, but once they
are outside....?"

"They're on their own, like everyone
else."

"Alas," said Ari. "The land lies low."

The guard gave him a puzzled glance. Once
outside, Ari critiqued his parting shot and found it wanting, if
not entirely incomprehensible. He had been through a lot, lately,
and his English seemed to be faltering. This surprised him, since
he was physically and mentally much better than he had been the
month before, and he had cut his consumption of Jack Daniels in
half. Most important of all, he had been given the precious
opportunity to see his wife.

Though his visit had been brief, the cars in
the visitor lot had reshuffled and it took him a moment to find his
tiny white xB, now buried between two SUV's. The U.S. Marshals
Service had included a GPS tracking device in the loaner. Deputy
Sylvester would be puzzled about this visit. Could Ari be taking
out life insurance?

He had just squeezed himself into the driver
seat when his cell phone rang. He removed it from his coat
pocket.

"Mr. Ciminon?"

"That is I."

"Are you an officer of the law? A private
detective?"

"Mr. Lawson? Thank you for getting back to me
so—"

"Well?"

The voice was odd, as though Lawson was
blowing through a pipe as he spoke.

"I am an interested party," he said.

"Not good enough."

"I will be contacting Officers Mangioni and
Jackson of the Richmond Police Department to look into this
further."

"I've already heard this," said Lawson, his
strange tone making it hard to detect doubt. Rebecca had said she
would call the police. Lawson had probably guessed the threat was
empty, but hearing the specific names of two officers jacked up the
stakes. "Where are you from, Mr. Ciminon? You don't look like an
American citizen."

So he had been watching. It had to be the
clock.

"I believe many American citizens don't look
like American citizens, Mr. Lawson. I happen to be from Sicily, not
that it matters."

"You don't look like an Italian citizen,
either. You look like..." An epithet seemed to tremble on the
piping lips.

"Same thing in Italy. Many Italian citizens
look like they come from Timbuktu."

"Right..." For a moment, the piping was
accompanied by a strange whistle. Ari wondered if it was static.
Then Lawson said: "There's no cause for alarm. Mr. Wareness is
alive and as healthy as you or...someone else."

"That is a strange way of putting it," said
Ari. "Or perhaps not, coming from someone who was in the armed
forces."

There was a tense, whistling pause. Then came
a voice all the more deadly for being oddly mangled. "Have you been
investigating me, Mr. Ciminon?"

"Not until this moment," said Ari. "I'm
sitting in the parking lot, as you know, and across from me is an
emergency exit very close to your ground floor office. Right next
to that exit is a silver Land Cruiser with a license plate bearing
a Purple Heart. I suspect you were in Afghanistan or Iraq and
received a severe facial wound, which accounts for your odd voice
and your reticence—"

"Stop there, you son of a bitch—" And then
Lawson bit his tongue—if he still had one—realizing suddenly he had
been tricked. The veteran's car could have belonged to anyone. But
now Ari knew, and Lawson knew it. Ari waited for him to disconnect,
but the whistly wheeze continued. There was a peculiar quality to
the silence of a man weighing his options. In this case, though,
the silence was imperfect.

"What is it you want, Mr. Ciminon?"

"What was Ethan working on when he
disappeared? And do you agree that he has disappeared? Because, if
you say he hasn't, a phone call from him to his wife would clear
all of this up and we'd bother you no more."

There was another long, dull clickclacking of
options bouncing off each other.

"Ethan is....lying low."

"He has been threatened?"

"He has not checked in at the agreed
interval."

"Do you think he has run off with another
woman?"

"Rebecca Wareness told you that? I can see
why she would think so. But it's highly unlikely."

"Why haven't you called the police?"

The whistling went up a notch.

"For two very good reasons. If the police
show up that might put him into greater jeopardy...well, they might
create more problems than they cure. And Ethan might have been
doing something he should not have been doing..."

"Something to do with computers?"

"Who the fuck are you!" This was followed by
a choking rasp, then another long silence. Once again, Ari waited
for Lawson to hang up. He heard a hissing noise. An atomizer?

"If you keep on with this, you'll end up in
hiding, too."

"Keep on with what?" Ari asked, unconsciously
donning an innocent face to accompany a voice free of guile. "Was
he...what's the famous word...hacking where he shouldn't be
hacking? That is a computer term, isn't it?"

"Only the most common one," said Lawson. "And
I think it more likely he was phishing in troubled waters."

"This is such a strange word."

"I'm going to give you the address of a place
called A-Zed Imports. If you get killed going there, don't come
crying to me."

"I believe that would be beyond my
ability."

"Damn straight."

"So this address you will give me...is it a
residence? A business?"

"It comes up as a business address, but it
might be a little of both."

"But...you haven't verified this information?
If you are disabled, you could send one of your foot soldiers."

"All the rest of my investigators have too
much common sense than to get involved."

"Then they should be dis-employed," said Ari,
a little too imperiously.

"Easier said...you know the rest, or you
should."

"I believe I do," Ari sighed. From his tone
and attitude, Ari wondered if Lawson had been an officer. Ari had
sent men to their death, but felt little qualm because he had
shared the risks with them. The American Army bred officers less
inclined to send their men into harm's way. It was the natural
result of replacing flesh with machines. But there were still
losses. The emotional cost was heavier because Americans believed
death could be avoided. A conceit with devastating emotional
consequences throughout the entire society. Ari tried to guess the
rank Lawson had held. Had he been a non-com? A lieutenant? Even a
captain? Beyond that the pain lessened, simply because the distance
from the ordinary soldier or conscript increased. You could read
about a plane crash with no survivors and not shed a tear. But
seeing a man disemboweled before your eyes could shred your soul.
Ari thought of a field in southern Iraq, of a man being tortured to
death....