The 56th Man (14 page)

He paused again and glanced up at a dragon
baring prominent teeth and a large forked tongue. It was both
menacing and pitiful, as though it was being smothered beneath its
protective sheet of semi-transparent plastic.

Turning, he found he now had a clear view of
the checkout line and the main entrance. Next to the automatic
doors stood another young man, not more than seventeen, perusing
notices tacked on a bulletin board, as though he could read
Mandarin or Cantonese or Xiang or Wu or any other Chinese dialect.
He too was wearing a camouflage jacket, as was the young man
waiting in line, scrutinizing the inscrutable titles of the DVD's
piled in a wire basket near the counter. It was as if the store was
being invaded by a commando unit, which was probably how the young
men thought of the operation.

A small man was sidling along the vegetable
display, his face gone to stone. Ari guessed it was the store
manager or owner. He too had seen the impending predicament. He was
trying to reach the front, which meant he did not carry a remote
panic button in his pocket. The alarm must be in his office, on the
underside of his desk. If he made a sudden dash the young men would
be alerted and hell would break lose prematurely. Ari made a broad
gesture, as though working out a cramp. It caught the manager's
attention. Ari shook his head slightly. The manager stopped and
held his breath.

The novice commandos were waiting for a
signal, which would probably come when the man in line came to his
turn. There was no need for this, except it gave them time to work
up their nerve. If the man in line did not act, they could leave
with no more harm done than to their shared ego. But Ari was not a
great believer in waiting. One thing about the inevitable: it
usually happened.

He slid one of the chopsticks into his jacket
pocket and pressed the hand holding the other under the carp, the
blunt end of the stick braced by his thumb. He glanced again at the
manager, who still seemed to be holding his breath. Ari hoped he
would not pass out from lack of oxygen--and that he would have
sense enough to shout a warning when the time came. The front of
the building was packed with customers.

Ari kept the manager in place with another
shake of his head. He moved a little closer to the young man
staring blankly at the ceramic demons overhead.

"They wouldn't go with my décor."

The young man gave a little jump. He was so
focused on remaining unobtrusive that he hadn't noticed Ari's
approach. A true third-rater. Ari almost pitied him.

"Huh?"

"Thesth wicked Chinese monthsters," Ari said
with a lisp. "My color schtheme ith much more thubdued."

The young man looked quickly toward the
checkout line. Ari noted a chest-high pile of bagged Jasmine rice a
few feet away. The robber probably intended to use it for cover.
Idiot. Then Ari thought again. That bottom row of bags would make
an excellent firing step.

The young man gave another little jump as Ari
edged closer.

"Hey!"

With a little luck this can
be nipped in the bud, no shots fired
.

A snippet of sloppy thinking that Ari quickly
dismissed. You didn't go into something like this using
half-measures. A pre-emptive strike was all or nothing. If you
forgot that, if you tried to pull back after committing yourself,
you got your ass shot off. Great nations had fallen under the
weight of second thoughts.

"My apartment would thimply drown under all
thith gold and red. It's very closth. Would you like to sthee
it?"

"Gawd-damn, I heard all you people were
fucking faggots," the young man complained, wanting to move away
but forced to maintain his position. He threw a desperate glance at
the checkout line.

What if that isn't a gun under his jacket?
What if he's only trying to skip out with a few of those ludicrous
giant bean pods in order to feed his ailing mother?

"Us people?" Ari inquired politely.

"You fucking Arabs. Everyone knows you take
it up the ass. Get the fuck away from me! Get on, now. Get! I don't
want to have to bust you."

Even if that is a gun bulge,
what if the man in line chickens out? Let them slither away the
wiser--the wisdom of inaction
.

Out the side of his eye Ari saw the man in
line move up to the second register. The man next to the door left
off reading the incomprehensible bulletins and approached the first
register. Ari hoped the manager had regained his breath. He didn't
look. Instead, he balanced himself. Balance was everything. But
what he did next went against his training. He warned his
adversary.

"My young friend..."

"I said get the fuck away from me," the young
man said, looking towards the front, licking lips that had gone
horribly dry.

"If that is a gun you are carrying, and you
try to use it here and now, I will kill you."

The young man froze, then slowly swiveled his
head in Ari's direction. Seeing no weapon in Ari's hand, but only a
plain white package that in no way resembled a gun, he grimaced
with determination.

"Yeah?"

There was a shout up front. The young man
reached under his jacket.

"Okay you motherfuckers!" someone
yelled. "Open it up!
Now
!"

Ari found it convenient to let the young man
draw his gun before dropping his fish and ramming the chopstick in
his throat. He intentionally missed the carotid.

The young man screeched hoarsely and began to
fall, but did not let go of his gun.

TEC-DC9, semi-automatic. Popular with
criminals and high school mass-murderers. Better known as TEC-9,
when it was fully automatic. Has this one been converted? Safety’s
off. Thirty-six round magazine.

Ari grabbed the gun hand and snapped back the
young man's fingers, crack-crack-crack so quick it was like a
single stalk breaking. He caught the gun as it fell, kneeled on the
bottom row of rice bags, took aim.

Fluidity of movement. Knit
every move into a seamless whole. Never
stop
.

The store manager was yelling in what seemed
to be several languages, all readily understood. Everyone dropped
to the floor.

Hearing the yells of his companion, the man
at the second register began to look up. A lotus flower blossomed
in his forehead and he tumbled backward across the first register
conveyor.

Ari tracked his next target. The man would
have been dead already except the first young man had clutched at
him and Ari had been forced to twist sideways and rap his knuckles
against his forehead.

The store manager did not heed his own
advice. He jumped in front of the third robber, who slammed him to
the ground with his fist, then took aim. It was a pitifully stupid
move. Ari was the one who had shot his partner. Perhaps he had not
seen him behind the rice bags and thought it was the manager firing
at them.

Ari squeezed off a round. The bullet entered
below the third man's ear. His jaw lurched away from his face as he
dropped on a large crate of Korean pears.

"Motherfucker!" the first man cried as he
groped at the chopstick in his neck with his undamaged hand.
"Motherfucker!"

Ari aimed the TEC-9 at his forehead. "I let
you go once. If you use that filthy word one more time, I will kill
you."

Except for his gasps of pain, the young man
fell silent.

"Good."

Lowering the handgun, Ari held it barrel down
at his side as he strode over to the checkout line. His first
victim was still on the conveyor, which kept tugging at his arm, as
though the dead man was still insisting on being checked out. A
line of blood was splattered on the first register. Paid in
full.

The head of his second victim was hidden by
large Korean pears, their natural redishness enhanced by the messy
headshot.

Only now did some of the customers begin to
cry in subdued terror. The gunfight had not lasted long enough to
work up a full head of horror.

One of the checkout girls was helping the
manager to his feet. His wan smile was interrupted by a wince. He
touched the side of his face. Then his eye fell on the pear
crate.

"Ah..." He looked away. "So young."

"Yes," said Ari. "You're all right?"

The manager nodded, gulping. "Thank
you--"

"You'll need an ambulance for the one behind
the rice bags."

He nodded at all the chirping cell phones
being opened by staff and customers. "Come soon."

"You did very well," Ari said. The manager
nodded and tried to smile.

"Scared."

"I have to go." Ari tucked the gun under his
jacket.

The manager's eyes widened in comprehension.
"Police...?"

"I'd rather not."

"Yes, yes...police get all mixed up."

Ari smiled. "It's the same everywhere."

"Go!" The manager waved him toward the exit.
"Thank you! Go! We take care no police!"

"Thank you," Ari said and walked out without
looking back.

The rain had let up. He was halfway to his
car when his fishmonger rushed out after him with the fresh
carp.

"Here! You forgot!"

Ari took the package and again caught himself
bowing his head. "Thank you."

"Thank you!" the man clapped. As Ari got into
the Scion, the fishmonger cupped his hands around his mouth and
shouted, "Don't forget, serve with rice!"

TEN

Ghaith remained still. But the first
prisoner, having recently seen so many beheadings played out on Al
Jazeera, had a vivid image of what was happening behind him. He
moved.

"God is great!" the guard cried out. The
blade flashed in the truck light.

The prisoner dropped sideways, too late and
too little. The scimitar caught him under the ear, shattered and
separated the jaw, shuddered between the eyes, and jammed in the
brain, parting the hemispheres into quarters before the guard lost
hold and the prisoner fell into a howling, squirming lump. The
guard swore and reached down.

For an instant, Omar was frozen in place by
the grisly sight. The policeman was distracted by the gurgled
cries, which should not be coming from a head separated from its
body, and glanced away to see what had gone wrong.

There was a loud snap as Ghaith's knuckles
caught the policeman under the ear, cracking his jaw. He staggered,
losing his grip on the M-16, which Ghaith yanked out of his hands
and, in the same fluid movement, rammed the stock into Omar's
face.

It took the men guarding the prisoner a fatal
moment to realize what was happening. In a flash, Ghaith judged
which one was reacting faster and fired a burst. The guard's
kuffiah whiffled like a shredded melon and he fell backward. The
second guard was aiming his Kalashnikov when the next burst caught
him in the chest. He didn't fall, but the muzzle of the rifle
drooped down, like a branch giving in the wind. That wasn't enough
for Ghaith, who sent the man to the ground with another burst.

Briefly ignoring the man with the scimitar,
Ghaith shot the policeman as he tried to role away. Omar was
sitting up. Ghaith kicked him back to the ground, then pointed his
gun at the last guard.

After some effort, he had freed the scimitar
from the head of the prisoner. Perhaps he had delayed unslinging
his own rifle on the assumption his companions could deal with
Ghaith. Now, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his kuffiah, he
finally looked up to find his assumption ill-founded.

"An army of one," Ghaith said.

If he dropped the scimitar and reached for
his rifle he would be dead. If he turned and ran he would be dead.
Best, then, to go out in a blaze of glory. Raising the sword, he
charged.

"God is great!"

A neat line of holes appeared across his
chest and he fell forward with the suddenness of a snapped cable,
the scimitar flying several feet beyond his outstretched hands.

"A
clerk
!" Omar was screeching as he
struggled up. "A
clerk
!"

There was no time for farewells, and he
didn't think much of his boyhood friend, in any event.

"Give my regards to the virgins," he
said.

As he pressed the trigger,
Ghaith was struck by the thought that both he and Omar were
digesting bites from the same ball of
lu'mat
al-adi.
Only half of the pastry would
complete its intended biological passage.

Ghaith walked over to the guard he had shot
in the chest. Still alive, with blood-frosted air bubbles popping
out of his exposed lungs. Whipping off the scarf, Ghaith
immediately recognized the young man.

"Why, Mohamed, what are you doing running
with this crowd? You're a pederast, not a Mujahid. Or have they
become the same thing?"

The young man could not answer. Ghaith shot
him between the eyes, shattering his thick spectacles.

The two remaining prisoners had prudently
fallen on their sides when they heard the gunfire. They remained
still, ignorant of what was happening. Ghaith went over to the one
at the end of the row, leaned over, and removed the hood. He stared
into the frightened face for a moment, grunted, then stood and went
over to the middle prisoner. He slipped off the hood and
frowned.

"I don't know you."

"I..." the man gasped, choked by terror.

"It doesn't matter." Ghaith stepped over to
the first prisoner and found him still alive. The sword stroke had
nearly sliced his head in half. Seeing no hope, he aimed the rifle
at the man's head.

"No!" the prisoner at the opposite end of the
row cried out.

"God be with you, Aziz Shahristani," Ghaith
said, and fired.

Four hours later, when both the rain and the
police reappeared at Beach Court, Ari thought the store manager had
betrayed him, either through fear of the authorities or some other,
unknown motive. The downpour was a footnote penalty invoked by the
gods.