The Arsenal Files 8/The Arsenal Files Collection #8 (Arsenal Computer) (1996).ISO/doorware/rubyv60.zip/RUBY60-3

Text File | 1996-08-31 | 10KB | 192 lines

                          Those Without Alibis
                            by Paul A. Toth

   Sometimes a man wants to lose everything, but doesn't know it.  A
hidden part of himself plots the errors and miscalculations, laying the
groundwork for the fall so that when it comes, he'll blame it on God or
bad luck.
    My fall started when I pulled into Barry's Car Wash, slipped my
keys to a Salvadoran and watched him drive the old Regal onto the tracks.
  It went through the rags and mops and came out sparkling with rainbow
bubbles.  A kid towelled her off.  The Salvadoran grinned, pulled his
hat down and tore the hell out of there.
   That I'd already been hit once, so what did I do but drive around
again with a trunkload of jewels.
   I know.
   Two cops came,.  When I told them this wasn't the first time one
of them summed it up:  "Either you mean to lose or you're meant to lose."

   The insurance company wouldn't pay.  I would have sued Barry, but
Barry had a sign up warning about not leaving valuables in their hands;
apparently, cars didn't count.
   My wife, a native born Iranian who'd made it her life's work to
ruin me, left.  Her idea of a relationship was somebody who went well
with her clothes.  She thought she was Jackie O', but Senator, I'm no
Jack Kennedy.
   I moved from Laurel Canyon to West Hollywood.  I weathered panic
attacks.  They were like tornados, sucking the air out of me.  Alcohol
made things better for a while.  Then it made them worse.
   My brothers-in-law, the wholesale jewelers who had gotten me into
the business, had their attorneys schedule a deposition for me.  I
skipped it.  There isn't much money in bottle returns and they didn't
need my money anyway.
   That Friday, one of my dealers called me.  He told me somebody
had come in and pawned a trunkload of rocks resembling my specialty.  I
asked him if by chance the salesman were Salvadoran.  He said he wouldn't
know a Salvadoran from an Italian.
   Still, it was clearer now.  My brothers-in-law had sold me even
worse jewels than usual.  No wonder they were so happy to help me load
them into the trunk.  They figured the Salvadoran could keep the change
if he split with the fakes because they still had the real ones.  They'd
unload those out the back door and just for laughs sue me for recklessly
endangering jewels I'd only made a down payment on.
   But I was overestimating their character.

            ***

   Later that same day, a watery dusk settled in and a few drinks
put me on a sailboat right through the panic, out of here...
   That's when they knocked.
   One held a bag of jewels in his hand.  "This is shit."
   "Yes, I've realized that."
   They always tried too hard to be American.  I tried not to hate
them because of my wife.  I had to keep my hate general.  If I started
getting specific, somebody specific was going to get hurt.
   I drank another Tequila in case of pain.  The two of them, Hamra
and Aziz, stood in the middle of the living room, fidgeting, as if
waiting for cue cards and canned laughter.  Finally Aziz said, "You
fucked us."
   "No, actually it was your --"
   "Shut up.  You set us up."
   I stammered.  "The cockroaches --"
   "No one can find this Salvadoran asshole."
   "I gave his license number to the cops."
   They shouted at each other in Persian, a dizzying but beautiful
language if it is not directed at you, in which case it's spoken target
practice.  Then they quieted down and Aziz lit a cigar.  He looked as
ridiculous as an American wearing a beret.  He puffed.
   "We know where he lives, but he hasn't been there, of course.
Maybe we should go back there, with you."
   "He's probably south of here, in a Mexican junkyard."
   "The Mexicans hate Salvadorans."
   "I've never heard that."
   He motioned to the door.  "Come."
   "I'm not a dog."
   But a few minutes later, I was getting into the back of a Nissan.
 We drove through the neighborhood.  Aziz smirked.  He was right:  it
wasn't much of a neighborhood.

            ***

   I was pretty sure I was going to die.  I "accepted" it.  We went
down east Sunset, the curbs lined with evicted junk.  Then we spun off
south and headed up a yawning incline.  They started talking.
   "We see the world much differently than you."
   "And me you."
   "Justice is important to us, the most important thing of all."
   "You won't get it any more than I will."
   "Well, we will get it.  And you won't."
   "I don't need justice.  I'm Catholic."
   This struck them as hilarious.  They laughed and laughed.
   "Okay," Hamra said, sniggering, and then they broke up all over
again.
   Finally, I grabbed the little one by the back of his neck,
pinching the fat.  "You two little bastards don't deserve justice any
more than me or anybody else.  You can't even manage the ugly American
routine and you think you get bonus points for being from somewhere else.
You don't."
   I gave his head an exclamatory push.  I just didn't care anymore.

   But they didn't do a thing.  I suppose they considered it a last
request.
   "You're about to move into another circle of hell," Aziz said.
   It was raining.  The rain and the clouds had taken the dusk and
now the day was going down into a humid black hole.  I knew what they
wanted to do, but why they thought or knew their man hadn't left town, I
couldn't guess.
   The houses ticked by.  They were occupied, I imagined, by one
decent family after the next, minding their business while a pack of rats
in a Japanese car snaked through their neighborhood.  I turned my head
and looked through the rear window.  The taillight reflections ran down
the road like watercolor.
   Suddenly, we turned up a driveway.  Stepping out of the car, I
saw the lights on and the shape of someone moving around.  It was not the
Salvadoran, because as we approached the door it became clear that the
shadow was a woman's.  It was his wife or girlfriend, and if he wasn't
home she was going to be satisfying their Iranian ideas of justice.
   Aziz rapped on the door.  She jerked forward, then rested against
the back of the chair.
   He knocked again.  She didn't move.
   Aziz produced a pistol.  Hamra politely kept his inside his
jacket.
   "Open up.  We're not going away."
   She stood and came towards the door.
   The doorknob jiggled.
   The door opened and I saw fingernails on the chain.  I recognized
the nail polish.  I --
   "You --" Aziz said, voice cracking in recognition.  His leg came
up and kicked the door off the chain, and the woman fell behind it.
Hamra caught the door and threw it aside.
   I rushed in behind them but couldn't see her, just the gun and
Aziz screaming, "Get up you goddamned lying --"
   He grabbed her arm, picked her up and threw her into the door.
She turned away from him, towards me, and I saw her.
   My wife.
   She looked down.  It was the only direction she could look.
Meanwhile, I wanted to vomit.  The words, numbers, ideas, memories
tumbled out of my head, hovered in the air like fireflies, then vanished.
   Hamra managed to close the door while Aziz marched her past me,
to the couch.  He dropped her there and trained the gun on her chest.
   I didn't feel sorry for her.  There had been too many
humiliations, too many abrasions.  I hadn't been strong enough for any of
them and hated her.  It was nice to see her real now, as real as I when
the liquor wore off and the sky stopped shimmering.
   Hamra stood behind us.  He wouldn't look at anyone, lost in the
white pain, but he still had his gun out.
   "Your own family," Aziz said.  "You helped that bastard switch
the jewels on us.  You cannot be forgiven for this."
   I waited for a great Arabic wail of regret to erupt, but it
didn't.
   Aziz knelt in front of her, the gun swinging from his trigger
finger.  "You can save yourself, for tomorrow, but that's all.  It won't
help in the end.
   "Do you want that?" he whispered.  "Do you want THAT?  Then tell
me where he is.  Where is the Salvadoran?"
   She said nothing.
   "Where is he?"  he asked, over and over, delaying.
   I wondered if she even heard him.  She had moved steadfastly,
stalking, deceiving for so long that she had become a character in a
story.
   Aziz stood.  "Give your gun to him," he said to Hamra.
   Hamra tossed me the gun.  I caught it.
   "Go behind her and put your hands over her eyes," he said, and
Hamra did so, but she shook free from his hands.
   "Since she has betrayed all of us, and you have been loyal, you
must be the one to do this."
   The gun rested in my hand.  I felt no emotion.  I had to do it.
I tried to remind myself that I just didn't care anymore.
   I lifted the gun.  I looked right at her.
   I pulled the trigger.
   In the instant of the bullet's trajectory, I felt the heat of my
thoughts spread like aftershock.  Then everything and everyone came apart
from their names.
   And we all fell.
   Hamra tipped backwards as my bullet struck his neck, then I
recoiled and fell to the floor as the bullet from Aziz's gunshot cut
through my abdomen.
   I did not see the third one fall, but heard him, and then felt
his panting breath beside me, and then heard that, too, die as softly as
the words, "Where is he?" had just a few seconds before.
   The Salvadoran knelt beside me.  He rested his hand on my face.
   He took off his shirt and held it lightly against the wound to
slow the bleeding.  The sirens started toward us.
   The Salvadoran took my hand and said, "You can have the money."
   Now that was funny.
   Meanwhile, my wife stayed clear of us.  Aziz was right:  She
would have been better off if I had shot her, but that wasn't why I
didn't do it.  I didn't do it because I wasn't a cop, or a lawyer, or a
judge, or a god, or, according to her, even a man, and so it wasn't my
job.  After all, I was unemployed.

                                   END