The Mountain Shadow

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Sin is disconnection, and nothing disconnects us from one another more completely than the great sin, war. The struggle for control of southern crime caused friends to turn on one another, enemies to strike without warning and the cops to plead for peace, because the feud was ruining business for everyone.

The Scorpions regrouped under Vishnu’s leadership, bringing twenty more men to Bombay from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. They were experienced street fighters, with a patriotic grudge, and within a week of their arrival they took Flora Fountain and the Fort area from the Sanjay Company.

The Sanjay Company, seeing their empire annexed piece by piece, reacted swiftly to the northern invasion: they killed their leader, not a hundred metres from his mansion.

Two-Hussein, the first soldier to fight for Khaderbhai decades before, stepped out in front of Sanjay’s car as the crime boss left his mansion. He fired his guns into the windows until Sanjay and his two Afghan guards were dead.

He renamed the Company after himself, as regicides often do, and raised the boy-king, Tariq, to a full place on the Council of the new Hussein Company. Tariq’s first act as a Council member was to call for death. Kill them all, the boy was widely reported to have said. Kill them all, and take everything they have.

It became the new motto of the Hussein Company – Take Everything They Have – where once it had been Truth and Courage.

Sin piled upon sin until the grave burden tore the last garment of tolerance, and frayed threads of honour and faith floated away on winter winds, leaving hatred naked, for all to see.

Karla started talking to me again, but she was much busier than before: too busy to share more than one meal with me, every other day. Vikram’s suicide struck her physically for a while, it seemed to me, but maybe she was just showing me what I wouldn’t face myself.

She stopped laughing and smiling. For a time, she was the Karla I’d first met: the Karla who didn’t smile. And there were no sleepovers.

It was an endurance test designed for released convicts, or musicians. I was walking through webs of testosterone and adrenaline and pheromones, disconnected from the woman I loved and couldn’t make love to, but spoke to, every other day.

And I was still testy. But testiness was the new normal in South Bombay, and nobody noticed.

The measure of a man is the distance between his human self, minute to minute, and his devoted self. I was devoted to Karla, but the distance between us left the devoted self all alone, guarding a candle in the wind, while the human self was outside, roaming the street.

As it happened, every street in town at that time was a carnival for roamers.

Fear is a poverty of Truth, and Greed is a poverty of Faith, Idriss said to me once. Fear and greed took turns to prowl the streets and slums of South Bombay for weeks: six long weeks of tension, pillage, profiteering, and blood in alleyways.

Hashish, marijuana, uppers, downers and flat-liners were all five times the usual price. The sharpest civil servants duly raised the price of bribery, setting off a cascade of corruption that made small fortunes for them, and doubled the ten-rupee bribe that traffic cops demanded at speed traps. Avarice made pay while the moon shone, and fear was the only constant friend on the streets.

I met a kid who’d just been recruited by the Hussein Company, and liked him, and heard that he’d been killed, an hour later. And it happened again, to another young Hussein Company fighter, a few days after that, with just a few hours between a handshake and a handful of dirt.

It hurt, both times, even though it had nothing to do with me. It made me uneasy every time I met a new street soldier, excited by war.

The Cycle Killers accepted contracts from the Hussein Company, and duly executed Scorpion Company men. Scorpions knocked Hussein men from their motorcycles. Hussein men fired-bombed a Scorpion bar.

The Scorpions robbed a bank in South Bombay and got away with it. The Hussein Company knocked over a money transport van in Scorpion territory, in revenge, and got away with it. Both gangs used the money they’d stolen in the robberies to bribe or threaten the bank officials and security guards. Without witnesses, the cases were dropped.

Every man with a gun to sell wanted three times the going price. Men who needed a gun sold their wives’ wedding jewellery to buy one. The age of hatchets and knives, which was eye to eye, passed away within a season of the winter sun, replaced by eye-for-an-eye shootings.

In a street war, any dark corner can kill you, and dark corners killed people at the rate of four a week until the violence stopped. I paid two of Comanche’s best young fighters to shadow Karla from a distance, and keep her safe during those weeks. I wanted to do it myself, but she wouldn’t let me.

As suddenly as it had started, the war for South Bombay ended in a day, with a truce between the Hussein Company and the Scorpion Company, and a sit-down between Hussein and Vishnu. Whatever they said to one another in private, the declaration they made when they left the room wasn’t just of peace, but of brotherhood and integration.

The two Companies agreed to unite as one. The name of the newly formed Company was an issue, because some Khaderbhai-Sanjay-Hussein men said that they’d shoot themselves before they’d call themselves Scorpions.

The new, combined mafia gang was named the Vishnu Company. Although he had more men, Vishnu had much less territory than Hussein, and it was decided that having the Company named after him would quell rebellion on the streets, and discourage foraging in South Bombay’s unrest by outside gangs.

Both leaders presided at Council meetings, and both acknowledged the power of the other. Places on the Council were appointed evenly between members of former gangs, and the spoils of peace were distributed fairly.

It was a complicated balance between limited trust and unlimited hatred, and to help the cooperation along, nephews and nieces from either side were sent to live with the enemy, and consolidated the truce with the pulse in their throats.

And when those hostages went to families whose task it was to care for them as if they were their own, and kill them if the truce failed, six weeks of war ended in a day, and the streets were safely unlawful again.

When peace was reimposed, I paid off the young fighters from Comanche’s gym, who’d been guarding Karla. They took the money, but told me they couldn’t work for me in future.

‘Why not?’

‘Because Karla hired us to work for her, as field agents for the Lost Love Bureau.’

‘Field agents?’

‘Yes, Linbaba. Pretty cool, na? I’m a field agent, investigating missing persons. It’s chained and brained, yaar. I was throwing drunks out of Manny’s bar, a few weeks ago.’

‘I like Manny’s bar,’ I protested.

‘I’m keeping a diary,’ his friend said. ‘I’m going to write a Bollywood movie. Cases we investigate, and stuff. Miss Karla, she’s reef, man. She’s totally reef. See you round, Lin. Thanks for the bonus!’

‘See you round.’

I rode the boundary of my shopkeeper money changers, being friendly and supportive when I could, and slap-nasty when required.

The truce seemed to be holding. I saw Scorpion guys driving around with Hussein guys, and men from both gangs were running the lottery, prostitution and drug rackets side by side, brothers in harm.

I took a break to sit on my motorcycle and watch the sun set on Marine Drive. A call of drummers was rehearsing on the wide footpath. It was the last week of the festival season, and drummers all over Bombay were perfecting their techniques for the processions and weddings that had hired them.

Kids ran from their parents’ hands to dance and jiggle next to the drummers. Parents stood behind them, clapping their hands and wagging their heads in time to the infallible rhythm. The children jumped like crickets, their thin arms and legs jerking and leaping. With an audience, the drummers pushed themselves to near-hysterical intensity, sending their heartbeat across the sea to the setting sun. I watched them as evening became night, spilling ink on the waves.

What are we doing, Karla? I thought. What are you doing?

I swung the bike around and headed back to Leopold’s. I was hoping to catch up with Kavita Singh, and tell her about Madame Zhou. In the weeks since Madame Zhou rose from her wave of shadows beneath the Amritsar hotel, I’d tried several times to contact Kavita, but without success. When the cold stares of reception staff at the newspaper office became a wall of unavailability, I realised that she was avoiding me. I didn’t know why Kavita would feel that way, or what I’d done to offend her, and decided to give Fate time to bring us together again. But Madame Zhou’s mention of her name worried me, and I couldn’t shake off the sense of duty to tell her about it. It was finally one of my street contacts who mentioned that Kavita had been hanging out with Didier, between three and four every afternoon at Leopold’s.

Didier had become something of a lost love at Leopold’s himself, and his frequent absences wounded the staff. They expressed their disapproval by being scrupulously polite whenever they served him, because nothing irritated him more.

He tried insulting them, to jolt them out of their insupportable civility. He gave it his best shot, calling up a few insults he’d always kept in reserve for emergencies. But they wouldn’t relent, and their cruel courtesy pushed a small thorn into his chest with every putrid please, and unforgivable thank you.

‘Lin,’ he said, sitting with Kavita Singh at his customary table. ‘What is your favourite crime?’

‘That again?’ I said.

I bent to kiss Kavita on the cheek but she raised her glass to her lips, so I waved hello instead. I shook Didier’s hand as I took a place beside him.

‘Yes, that again,’ Kavita said, drinking half her glass.

‘I already told you – mutiny.’

‘No, this is the second round,’ Didier said, smiling a secret. ‘Kavita and I have decided to play a game. We will ask everyone to nominate a second favourite crime, and then test our theories about them against both of their answers.’

‘You guys have theories about people?’

‘Come on, Lin,’ Kavita smiled. ‘You can’t tell me you don’t have a theory about me.’

‘Actually, I don’t. What’s your theory of me?’

‘Ah,’ Didier grinned. ‘That would spoil the game. First, you have to nominate a second favourite crime, and then we can confirm our theories.’

‘Okay, my second favourite crime? Resisting arrest. What’s your second favourite, Kavita?’

‘Heresy,’ she said.

‘Heresy isn’t a crime, in India,’ I objected, smiling for help from Didier. ‘Is that allowed in the rules of your game?’

‘I am afraid so, Lin. Whatever answer that people give to the question, is the answer they give.’

‘And you, Didier? Perjury was your first favourite, am I right?’

‘Indeed you are,’ he replied happily. ‘You should be playing this game with us.’

‘Thanks, and no thanks, but I’d like to know your second choice.’

‘Adultery,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Well, because it involves love and sex, of course,’ he replied. ‘But, also, because it is the only crime that every adult human being fully understands. More than that, because we are not permitted to marry, it is one of the few crimes that a gay man cannot commit.’

‘That’s because adultery’s a sin, not a crime.’

‘You’re not going all religious on us are you, Lin, talking about sin?’ Kavita sneered.

‘No. I’m using the word in a less specific and more widely human sense.’

‘Can we know any sins, but our own?’ Kavita asked, her jaw set in a muscular challenge.

‘Heavy!’ Didier said. ‘I love it. Waiter! Another round!’

‘If people don’t think there’s any collective understanding, in anything at all, I wish them well. If you accept a common language, you can talk about sin in a meaningful, non-religious way. That’s all I mean.’

‘Then what is it?’ she demanded. ‘What is sin?’

‘Sin is anything that wounds love.’

‘Oh!’ Didier cried. ‘I love it, Lin! Come on, Kavita, let the panther prowl. Riposte, girl!’

Kavita sat back in her chair. She was dressed in a black skirt and a sleeveless black top, unzipped to new moon. Her short black hair, city-chic anywhere in the world, fell in a feathered fringe over a face bare of make-up, thirty-one years old, and pretty enough to sell anything.

‘And what if your whole life is a sin?’ She sneered. ‘What if every breath you draw wounds love?’

‘The grace of love,’ I said, ‘is that it washes away sins.’

‘Quoting Karla, are you?’ Kavita spat at me. ‘How fitting!’

She was angry, and I couldn’t understand it.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘She’s quotable.’

‘I’ll bet she is,’ she said bitterly.

There was an aggressive edge to her voice and her tone. I didn’t see it, then, for what it was.

I’d come to Leopold’s to warn her about Madame Zhou’s new obsession with her. I hadn’t given any thought to the game that she and Didier were playing, because I was just waiting for a break in the conversation to tell her what I knew. If I’d paid closer attention, I might’ve been prepared for her next remark.

‘Sin? Love? How can you even say those words, without being struck down?’

‘Whoa, Kavita, wait a minute. What do you mean?’

‘I mean that Karla was never out of your mind, not even for a minute, when you were in bed with Lisa.’

‘Where the hell is that coming from?’

Didier hustled to avert the storm.

‘Naveen’s second favourite crime was Harbouring a fugitive. It completes his profile. Would you like to hear it?’

‘Shut up, Didier!’ Kavita snapped.

‘Kavita,’ I said, ‘if you’ve got something to say, spit it out.’

‘I’d like to spit it into your face,’ she said, putting down her glass.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Lisa was leaving you for me, Lin,’ Kavita said. ‘She’d been with Rosanna, at the art gallery, for a while before me, trying things out, but we’d been lovers for months. And if she’d left you sooner, to be with me, she’d be alive today.’

Okay, I thought, so now we know. The irony of accusing me of thinking about Karla while I was with Lisa, when she was with Lisa while Lisa was with me, was obviously lost on her. Jealousy has no mirror, and resentment has a tin ear for the truth.

‘Okay, Kavita,’ I said, standing to leave. ‘I came here to tell you that I ran into an unlicensed maniac the other night, named Madame Zhou, and she warned me to stay away from you. I can see that won’t be a problem.’

I walked out of the bar.

‘Lin, please!’ Didier called.

I started the bike and rode from my money changers to the black bank, and back again. I rode to my private stashes of funds. Hours passed, and I talked to a dozen people, but my thoughts couldn’t leave Lisa. Lovely Lisa.

Love is always a lotus, no matter where you find it. If Lisa found love or even fun with Kavita Singh, a girl I’d always liked, I’d have been happy for her.

Were we so far apart, she couldn’t tell me that she was involved with Kavita?

Lisa was always surprising, and always at least a little confusing. But I’d rolled with the kisses, and I’d always supported her, no matter which direction her Aquarian mind led her. It hurt to think that we hadn’t been close enough. It hurt more to think that Kavita might be right, and that Lisa might still be alive and happy, if she’d left me sooner and made a life with Kavita: if I’d been more honest, maybe, and she’d been more willing to tell the truth.

It hurt so much, in fact, that I was glad when I received a message from the Tuareg. It obliged me to ride for good hours in bad traffic to visit one of the city’s most dangerous minds.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

The Tuareg was a retired specialist, who’d worked for years in the Khaderbhai Company. He was a full Council member, with a vote, but was never present at Council meetings, because he was the Company torturer.

His job was to ensure compliance, and extract information. It was a job that a lot of people in the Company wanted done, and nobody but the Tuareg wanted to do. But the Tuareg wasn’t a torturer by sadistic inclination: he’d simply discovered that he had a talent for it.

He’d been a psychiatrist, of the Freudian persuasion, in northern Africa. Nobody knew exactly where. He arrived in Bombay, and went to work for the Khaderbhai Company. He used his skills as a psychiatrist to discover his subjects’ deepest fears, and then magnified those fears until the subjects complied. His success rate, he quietly boasted, was better than Freudian psychoanalysis alone.

I hadn’t seen him for years; not since he’d retired from torture, and moved to Khar. I’d heard that he was operating a lottery-racket franchise from a children’s toy store.

The note asking me to visit him might’ve troubled me, on any other day: the Tuareg was a troubling man. On that day, I was glad to have something disturbing, to clear my mind.

I headed north to what was then the relatively remote suburb of Khar. Bombay was growing so fast that South Bombay, which had been the creative heart of the city, was itself becoming a remote pulse of the action and activity beating in the bigger heart, the northern suburbs.

Vacant land was already cluttered with new housing and commercial developments. New fashion factories were starting up, designing fame on the debris of construction. Brash brand stores on main roads competed with brash brand-thieves in knock-off street stalls, reflected in the bright windows of the brand stores they copied.

I rode past houses and shopping complexes that were half-built and already sold, as if hope itself had finally found a price. And long lines of crawling traffic stitched those patches of aspiration to acres of ambition: streets of cars that ran like scars on the face and forehead of the thing we made of the Earth.

The Tuareg’s house was large and modern: a Moroccan palazzo. The dark man dressed in black, who opened the front door, looked like a bearded professor: a scholar, searching absent-mindedly for the spectacles propped on his head.

‘Salaam aleikum, Tuareg.’

‘Wa aleikum salaam, Shantaram,’ he replied, pulling at my sleeveless vest. ‘Did you have to come on your motorcycle? Come inside. You’re scaring my neighbours.’

He led me through his house, constructed with archways everywhere, as if the home was a hive, and we were the bees.

‘I hope you understand – I have to run you past my wife, first, to see if she approves of you being here.’

‘I… see.’

We walked through several archways to a space where the second floor of the house vanished in a high ceiling.

There was a woman in the centre of that room, standing on a platform three steps high. She was dressed in a glittering black burkha, studded with black jewels. There was a net of lace covering her face: her eyes could examine mine, but I couldn’t examine hers.

I didn’t know if I was supposed to say anything. The Tuareg had sent a message, and I’d responded. I had no idea what to expect, facing the woman covered in black stars.

From the tilt of her head I saw that she was looking me up and down a couple of times. I don’t think she liked what she saw. Her head cocked to the other side, considering the matter.

‘One hour,’ she said, her head still on the side as she twirled away through an archway, that led to an archway, that led to an archway.

The Tuareg led me through archways to a majlis room, with heavy carpets on the floor and soft cushions against the walls. Young men from his family served us with coconut juice and bitter lime hummus dip with asparagus spines, as we sat together on the floor.

By the time we’d eaten the snacks, the young men were ready with hot tea, served from a long-necked samovar. We washed our hands in spouts of warm, tangerine-scented water, poured by nephews and cousins, and then sipped at the tea through sugar cubes.

‘I’m honoured by your hospitality, Tuareg,’ I said, when we were alone, and sharing a hookah pipe of Turkish tobacco, Kerala grass and Himalayan hashish.

‘I am honoured,’ he said, ‘that you responded to my call.’

I knew what he meant: my quick response to his call wasn’t something he could expect from anyone else in the Company, or formerly in the Company. While he was a secret member of the Council, he was distantly respected: when he retired, he was shunned.

I didn’t understand it. They’d all benefited from his work, and could’ve pulled out at any time, but they didn’t. I worked in passports for the Company, and the Tuareg’s services were never required. But it was the same Company that protected me for years, in Bombay, so who was I to judge anyone else?

Did I like what he did? No. But what a man does isn’t always what a man is, and I’d learned that the hard way.

‘Do you know,’ he remarked, puffing contentedly, ‘you are one of only four men who shook my hand, in all the years that I worked with the Company. Do you want to know the other three?’

‘Khaderbhai, Mahmoud Melbaaf, and Abdullah Taheri,’ I suggested.

He laughed.

‘Correct. My father used to say, put a Viking in front as you go into battle, and a Persian behind you. If the Viking doesn’t win, you’ll never die alone, because the Persian won’t let you die without him.’

‘I think we’ve all got enough fight in us when we need it, Tuareg.’

‘Are you getting philosophical with me, Shantaram?’

Actually, I was getting pretty high. The bowl of the hookah pipe was as big as a sunflower, and I had a long ride home. I had to straighten up. From the few times I’d spoken to him, I’d learned that the Tuareg was always in character.

‘I mean, when something we love is at stake, we fight. It doesn’t matter who we are, or where we come from. Nobody has a franchise on that.’

He laughed again.

‘I wish we’d had more talks like this,’ he said, ‘and that it were possible to have them again. After this day, you will not return to my house unless your life or my own depends upon it. This is a special occasion, with special reasons. But I value my privacy very highly. Are we clear?’

The second hit of the hookah pipe was kicking in: Time yawned, and took a nap. The Tuareg’s face blurred, suddenly fierce, suddenly kind, but he wasn’t moving at all.

It’s okay, I calmed myself. It’s not the torturer you’ve gotta worry about, it’s the psychiatrist.

‘I see that,’ I said, hoping that my voice didn’t sound as squeaky in the room as it did in my head.

‘Good,’ he said, puffing the hookah alight once more. ‘The Irishman. You want him, and I know where he is.’

Concannon. For a second, the irony of finding my personal torturer through a professional torturer was too much. I was pretty high, and I laughed.

‘I’m sorry, Tuareg,’ I said, regaining control. ‘I’m glad to hear that you know where he is, and I’d also like to know. I’m not laughing at anything you said. It’s just that this Irishman has a way of making you laugh, no matter how much you want to hurt him.’

‘Like my cousin, Gulab,’ the Tuareg said. ‘It was not until three of us in the family wounded him that he mended his ways.’

‘How’s he mending now?’

‘Very well. He’s a living saint now.’

‘A saint, huh?’

‘Indeed. It was a miracle that he survived my shooting alone, let alone the other corrections. People believe he’s blessed. And he certainly is blessed with a new career, dispensing blessings, in fact, near a mosque in Dadar. My advice to you regarding the Irishman is to kill him, before you can’t.’

‘Look, Tuareg, I -’

‘Seriously,’ he said, leaning toward me seriously. ‘You have no idea about this man, do you?’

‘I’m always happy to learn more,’ I said, trying as hard to get straight as I’ve ever tried to get high.

‘He’s the truth.’

‘I’m not following you.’

‘He’s a truth-finder, like me.’

‘You mean he makes people tell him things, like you did.’

‘It’s not the truth that’s dangerous,’ he said, ‘it’s someone who always knows how to find it. This Irishman is such a man. I’ve seen files on him. He was very good at what he did. He’s a younger version of me, perhaps.’

He laughed again, and puffed on his hookah pipe.

‘You have no idea how much fear you can find inside yourself,’ he said after a while, ‘until someone helps you find it.’

It was a game, a psychological game, and I don’t play games. I didn’t answer. He’d called me to his house, and sooner or later I knew he’d get to the point. He gestured with his hookah pipe, urging me to smoke. I smoked.

‘In my time with Khaderbhai,’ he continued, ‘there was no-one more powerful in the Company than I was, although I never appeared at meetings. Khaderbhai knew that I could make the truth spring from any desert, like sacred waters, even from his own lips. When he knew how good I was at my job, he had only two choices – to kill me, or to use me. There is a lesson for you in that.’

He looked at me intently for a moment.

‘No advice about killing, please,’ I said quickly.

He laughed again, and gestured with the hose of the hookah.

‘Smoke!’ he commanded.

I puffed until the coals in the lotus bowl glowed like a tiny sun, drew in a deep breath, closed off the pipe again, and blew out a stream of smoke that settled in curling waves on the wall of the arched room.

‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘Never trust a man who can’t hold his hashish.’

‘Too sane?’ I offered.

‘Because hashish talks,’ he laughed. ‘So let us continue talking.’

‘Okay. Go ahead.’

‘This Irishman, his hatred is not for you. It never was. His hatred is for Abdullah. He attacks you, because he knows how much it hurts Abdullah.’

‘What do you know about it?’

‘I know that is why the Irishman went to see your girlfriend, on the night that she died.’

I couldn’t hide the shock.

‘Yes, I know about the last night of your girlfriend’s life.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘Smoke again first,’ he said, gesturing at the bowl of the hookah pipe. ‘You do understand that some revelations require a trance state, to fully comprehend their import?’

Okay, I thought. Now I get it.

‘I understand, Tuareg, that you’re performing psychological experiments on me. I wish you’d include me, so we can get it over with.’

He liked to laugh, the psychoanalytic punitory, and he had a peculiar laugh, high and jagged, but it never varied in pitch or tone. No one thing was ever funnier than another, and the laugh never swelled or chuckled or changed.

The laugh, and the walk, tell you everything, Didier once said to me.

‘I do so wish that we could have at least one more interview,’ the Tuareg said. ‘You’re quite right. It was another little experiment. Forgive me.’

‘Stop with the tests, Tuareg.’

‘I will, I will,’ he laughed. ‘I have few visitors, you see, and I never leave this home, nowadays. I miss… the field experiments. Shall I continue, about the Irishman?’

‘Please do.’

‘He murdered a man, with Abdullah.’

‘He… what?’

‘More than one life was lost, in fact,’ the Tuareg said.

It couldn’t be. I didn’t want to believe it.

‘How do you know this, Tuareg?’

He frowned, hesitating on the shore of puzzlement, ready to laugh again.

‘People tell me things,’ he said.

‘Okay, you know what, Tuareg, don’t tell me any more. Abdullah will tell me the rest.’

‘Wait! Don’t be so impatient. This information was told to me, not elicited, and you need to know this about Abdullah.’

‘I won’t talk about Abdullah, if he’s not in the room. Sorry.’

‘Wonderful,’ he said softly. ‘It was just one more little test. I hope you will forgive me. I am deprived of subjects.’

‘What is this, Tuareg? You invite me into your home, and now I need a safe word just to talk to you?’

‘No, no, let me go on. There was a businessman who owed the Company protection money, and wouldn’t pay. He was making a case for extortion, in the court, and a lot of noise for Sanjay. Abdullah was with the Irishman, when they fixed the problem. It is for him to tell you what transpired there. What I can tell you, is that it was a very bad affair.’

‘What has this got to do with the girl?’

Lisa. Lisa. I couldn’t bring myself to speak her name, in the Tuareg’s hive.

‘That is something only one other knows.’

‘Something you don’t know?’

‘Something I don’t know… yet.’

He looked at me. I think he liked my company. I’m still not sure what that said about me.

‘You know what a secret is, Shantaram?’ he asked, the wriggle of his smile twitching his long grey beard.

‘Something you don’t tell me?’ I replied, hopefully.

‘A secret is a truth untold,’ he said. ‘And Abdullah has been keeping this a secret from you, and I know that, because I asked him, just yesterday.’

‘Why did you ask him?’

‘Nice question,’ he said. ‘What made you ask it?’

‘Stop it, Tuareg, please. Why did you ask him about me? Was it because this is connected to my girlfriend?’

‘This Irishman, Concannon, knows that Abdullah loves you. He thinks that Abdullah told you about the murder they committed together. That gives him two reasons to kill you. The twenty-four-hour contract on your life was not a joke. It was a serious attempt on your life. He meant to kill you, to make Abdullah suffer, and he means to kill Abdullah.’

‘I understand, Tuareg. And thanks. Where can I find him?’

He laughed again. I was hoping he’d explain the joke. I was sitting in an archway, among an infinite array of archways, and I was so levitationally stoned on the hookah pipe that my legs were jellyfish.

‘There are only two kinds of people in this world,’ he said, smiling easily for the first time, ‘those who use, and those who are used.’

I was thinking that there were probably lots of different kinds of people, and certainly more than two, but I figured that he was actually talking about something else: the reason why he’d called me to his house.

‘I’m guessing that this information is gonna cost me something,’ I said.

‘I want a favour in return, it is true,’ he said. ‘But it is one that you will be willing to grant, I believe.’

‘How willing?’

‘I want everything you know, and come to learn, about Ranjit Choudhry.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to take him into my custody, before anyone else does.’

‘Your custody?’

‘Yes, at a facility, not far away from here.’

Sometimes, Fate gives you a handful of sand, and promises that if you squeeze it hard enough, it’ll turn to gold.

‘You know, Tuareg,’ I said, preparing my jellyfish legs to stand, ‘thanks for the offer, but I’ll find the Irishman, and Ranjit, on my own.’

‘Wait,’ the Tuareg said. ‘I’m sorry. It was my last little test. I promise. I’m finished. Would you like to know the results of my study on you today?’

‘I told you. I didn’t come here as a subject.’

‘Of course,’ he laughed, pulling me down beside him again. ‘Please, stay, and have another cup of hot tea, before you leave.’

Cousins and nephews cleared the dishes, and brought a new samovar of hot tea.

‘You must forgive me,’ the Tuareg said. ‘If you don’t, it will have me in analysis for a year.’

I laughed.

‘No, seriously,’ he said, looking at me earnestly. ‘You must forgive me.’

‘You’re forgiven,’ I said.

‘I don’t feel forgiven,’ he said. ‘Are you really forgiving me?’

‘Come on, Tuareg, who the hell am I to forgive anyone?’

‘Close enough,’ he said. ‘And thank you. In a strictly commercial sense, no tests involved, I’m in a position to pay you a considerable sum for a… private interview with Ranjit Choudhry.’

‘Attractive and all as that sounds… ’ I began, but he cut me off.

‘There are two families, of aggrieved daughters, who will pay us handsomely if Ranjit is in my hands.’

‘No.’

‘I understand,’ he said softly. ‘And that’s a test I didn’t even consider. Thank you. I have enjoyed this very much. Here is the address of the Irishman.’

He slipped a small sheet of paper from his cuff, and passed it to me.

‘Tonight, the Irishman will be in the company of only one or two men. He will be vulnerable. Tonight, at midnight, is the time to strike.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I’m not handing Ranjit over to you, Tuareg, if I find him.’

‘That’s clear. Do you need help, to kidnap the Irishman?’

‘I don’t want to kidnap him. I want to make him reconsider his options.’

‘Oh, I see. Then, may Allah be with you, and let us smoke one last bowl.’

‘You know, I really should be going.’

‘Oh, please! Stay, for one more pipe.’

Cousins and nephews replaced the old hookah pipe with a new one, filled with pure Himalayan water, they told me, and then filled the pipe with pure Himalayan herb.

‘I taught the mind,’ he said, lying back on silk cushions, the tray of tea and dates between us, ‘and I’ve tortured the mind. And you know what? There is no difference. It’s funny, isn’t it?’

‘Not for the patients.’

He laughed that mechanical laugh.

‘You know what the elephant in the room is, when it comes to psychiatry?’ he asked.

‘The success rate?’ I suggested.

‘No,’ he said. ‘The success rate only reveals those who can be helped by this, and those who can’t. The elephant in the room is that we can shape behaviour more fluently than we can understand it. When you know how to make anyone do anything, it makes you start to wonder what we really are.’

‘You can’t make anyone do anything, Tuareg. Not even you. Fact is, some of us are impossible to predict, and impossible to control, and I like it that way.’

‘You’ve been there,’ he said, sitting up again. ‘You know what it is.’

‘Been where?’

‘Torture,’ he said, his eyes gleaming.

‘So that’s what this last bowl is about, huh?’

‘You’ve been there,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you learned. Please, confide in me.’

‘I know that men you might think are weak, turn out to be strong, and vice versa.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Are you willing to let me… question you, about it?’

‘Actually… no,’ I said, struggling jellyfish into action.

‘Would you like me to make a revelation?’ he asked. ‘It will bond us, on this day.’

‘Actually… no,’ I said, finding the stuff to stand.

‘I took the children’s toy shop, because that’s what I want to do,’ he said. ‘I only accepted the Company lottery franchise to make sure they know I’m still a loyal Company man. It’s the toy shop, actually, that I wanted, and the crime is just a front.’

‘Okay… ’

‘And my name is Mustapha,’ he said. ‘It was Khaderbhai who gave me the name Tuareg. He said that it means Abandoned by God, and was a name for the Blue People, because they would not be subdued. But my name is Mustapha.’

‘I… ’

‘There, I have confessed two things to you, and we are brothers.’

‘Okay… ’

‘And based on the profile I compiled in our meeting today, I will know exactly what to do to you, if you ever speak to anyone of my home.’

He glanced at the clock.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I see our time is up.’

Chapter Fifty-Nine

There’s a thing that happens when you ride stoned, which no sane person would do, where time vanishes. I arrived in Colaba, from distant Khar, and I had no recollection of the trip. If the destination is the journey, I never arrived.

Whatever happened on the way, I felt freed of worry, and emptied of need when I cruised back into the Island City peninsula. Or maybe it was just because I had Concannon’s address, and all I had to do was wait for midnight, to visit it.

I tried to find Karla. She hadn’t been avoiding me, but she hadn’t been colliding with me. I knew she sometimes had a drink with Didier at Leopold’s, late in the night.

I parked the bike outside and walked in, hoping my disappointment didn’t show when I saw Didier sitting alone. He gave me a golden smile, and I smiled back, walking toward him. I was glad, on second thoughts, that Karla wasn’t there: not if I wanted to reckon with Concannon that night.

Didier rose to greet me, shaking hands strenuously.

‘I am so glad to see you, Lin,’ he said. ‘I was wondering where you were. I felt so bad when you left earlier, after that talk with Kavita. It wounded me. Did you not think of my feelings?’

‘Did you know about Lisa and Kavita?’ I asked.

‘Of course,’ he puffed. ‘Didier knows everything. What is the point of Didier, if he does not know every scandalous thing?’

‘I’m not sure I understand the question. Why don’t we stay with mine.’

‘I… I knew, Lin. My first thought, when Lisa tricked me, was that she was with Kavita. I checked, but Kavita was at a different party that night, close to here.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t she tell me?’

‘Waiter!’ Didier called out.

‘You’re ducking the question, Didier.’

‘There were two questions, Lin. Waiter!’

‘Still ducking, Didier.’

‘Certainly not,’ he replied. ‘I’m simply electing to answer your question after I have had two strong drinks. That is not the same thing. Waiter!’

‘How can I be of service, sir?’ Sweetie asked sweetly.

‘Stop with the politeness, Sweetie!’ Didier snapped. ‘And bring us two cold beers.’

‘I am here to serve,’ Sweetie said, backing away obsequiously.

It was infuriatingly polite, and Didier was infuriated.

‘Get out of my sight!’ he shouted. ‘Bring my bloody drinks, man!’

Sweetie smiled, too sweetly, backing away.

‘Do you know that you get very English, when you get angry?’ I remarked.

‘These swine!’ Didier protested. ‘They are only being nice to me, because it hurts me. It is like a strike, but in reverse. It is the most despicable use of courtesy, and courtesy defines us, is it not so?’

‘Love defines us, Didier.’

‘Of course, it does!’ he said, stamping his foot under the table. ‘That is exactly why reverse-politeness is so painful. Please, Lin, while you are here, make them more surly and impolite. I beg you.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, Didier. But, hey, you’re a hard act to sell. I might have to embellish you, like you did for me, when you sold me to the Divas. Which one of your shootings should I use?’

‘Lin, you abuse my sensitivities.’

‘Everything abuses your sensitivities, Didier. It’s one of the reasons why we love you. What abuses my sensitivities is that you didn’t tell me about Lisa.’

‘But, Lin, it is such a delicate matter. It is a difficult thing to just say it out loud, like that. Your girlfriend is bisexual, and has a lesbian lover. Was I supposed to make a joke, perhaps? Hey, Lin, the tongue got your cat, so to say?’

‘I’m not talking about sex. Lisa told me she was bisexual the first time we got together. I’m talking about relationships. The way it looks to me is that you and Lisa and Kavita all knew something that I should’ve known, but didn’t.’

‘I… I’m sorry, Lin. Sometimes, a secret is too precious to tell. Do you forgive me?’

‘No more secrets, Didier. You’re my brother. If it affects you, or me, we have to be straight with each other.’

He couldn’t help it. He started giggling.

‘Straight with each other?’

His pale blue eyes glittered, lighthouses calling the wanderer home. Worry hid again in laugh lines.

Habits too diligently indulged made caves of his cheeks, but his skin was still taut, his mouth still determined, and his nose imperial. He’d cut his curly hair short, and wore it parted on the side. Diva’s influence, I guessed.

The cut made Didier look like Dirk Bogarde at the same age, and it suited him. I knew it would sprinkle new suitors on him at parties.

‘Am I forgiven?’

‘You’re always forgiven, Didier, before you sin.’

‘I am so delighted that you came to visit tonight, Lin,’ he said, slapping his thighs. ‘I feel big things coming in the air. Can you stay, or will you rush off again, as always?’

‘I’m sitting here until midnight. You’ve got me for the duration.’

‘Wonderful!’

Sweetie slammed a cold beer in front of me on the table.

‘Aur kuch?’ Sweetie grunted at me. Anything else?

‘Go away,’ Didier snapped.

‘Oh, certainly, Mr Didier-sahib,’ Sweetie said. ‘Anything to serve you, Mr Didier-sahib.’

‘I see what you mean,’ I said to Didier. ‘This is serious. You’re gonna have to do something pretty spectacular, to win back their disrespect.’

‘I know,’ he pleaded. ‘But what?’

A man approached our table. He was tall, and broad, with close-clipped blonde hair and a very short nose that flattened his face, making it seem two-dimensional.

When he got looming-close, I saw that his nose had been squashed flat: broken so many times that the gristle had collapsed. He was either a very bad fighter, or he’d had so many bad fights that the law of averages put a thumbprint where his nose had been.

Either way, it wasn’t a pretty sight, looming over our table. Looming over me, in fact.

‘How can you sit next to this filthy gay?’ he asked me.

‘It’s called gravity,’ I said. ‘Look it up, when you have an afternoon to spare.’

He turned to Didier.

‘You make me sick!’ the big man hissed.

‘Not yet,’ Didier replied. ‘But it happens.’

‘How about something happens to your face?’ the tall man said, his jaw like a shovel.

‘Careful,’ I warned. ‘My boyfriend has a temper.’

‘Fuck you,’ the big man said.

There was a second man, standing some distance away. I left him in the periphery, and focused on the flattened moon above our table.

‘You know what we do with your kind in Leningrad?’ the tall man asked Didier.

‘The same thing you do with my kind, everywhere,’ Didier said calmly, his hand in his jacket pocket as he leaned back in his chair. ‘Until we stop you.’

Leningrad. Russians. I risked a clear look at the second man, standing a few steps behind. He wore a thin black shirt, like his friend. His short brown hair was a little messed, his pale green eyes were bright, and his expressive mouth lifted easily in a smile. His thumbs were hooked in the loops of his faded jeans.

He was leaner and faster than his friend, and much calmer. That made him the most dangerous man in the room, excluding Didier, because everyone else in the room, including me, was nervous. He looked at me, made eye contact, and smiled genially.

I looked back at the man who was blocking out several overhead lights with his face.

‘Show me what you’ve got,’ the tall Russian shouted, slapping at his chest. ‘Fight me!’

Patrons hastily vacated neighbouring tables. The tall Russian shoved empty tables and chairs aside, and stood in an open space, challenging Didier.

‘Come here, little man,’ he teased.

Didier lit a cigarette.

‘Double abomination!’ the tall Russian shouted. ‘A gay, and a Jew. A Jew gay. The worst kind of gay.’

Waiters established a wide perimeter. They were ready to pounce if the shouting turned to fighting, but no-one wanted to be the first pouncer, punched away by the big, angry Russian.

‘Come on, little man. Come here.’

‘Certainly,’ Didier replied equably. ‘When I have finished my cigarette.’

Oh, shit, I thought, and knew that I wasn’t the only one in Leopold’s thinking it. Didier puffed contentedly, gently easing an urn of ash into his glass ashtray.

In the silence, the Russian companion moved quickly to stand beside me. He held his hands open in front of him, gesturing toward the chair next to mine.

It was a good idea. When he’d moved, I’d leaned back in my chair, put my right arm behind me and closed my hand around one of my knives.

‘Is this seat taken?’ he asked sociably. ‘It might take your friend a minute to finish his cigarette, and I’d rather sit, if it’s okay with you.’

‘It’s a free country, Oleg,’ I said. ‘That’s why I live here.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, sitting next to me comfortably. ‘Hey, don’t take it personally, but isn’t it a bit of a stereotype? I’m Russian, so my name has to be Oleg?’

He was right. And when a man’s right, he’s right, even if you’re thinking about stabbing him in the thigh.

‘My name’s Lin,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure if I’m pleased to meet you.’

‘Likewise,’ he said. ‘Oleg.’

‘Are you fucking with me?’

I still had my hand on the knife.

‘No,’ he laughed. ‘It really is my name. Oleg. And your gay Jewish friend is about to get his ass kicked.’

We both looked at Didier, who was examining his cigarette forensically.

‘My money’s on the Jew,’ I said.

‘It is?’

‘My money’s always on the Jew.’

‘How much money?’ he asked, a wide smile lighting his eyes with mischief.

‘Everything I’ve got.’

‘How much is everything?’

‘Everything will buy you three thousand,’ I said.

‘American?’

‘I don’t deal in roubles, Oleg. The cigarette is running out. Are you in?’

‘Done,’ he said, offering his hand.

I let go the knife, shook his hand, and put my hand back on the knife again. Oleg waved to a waiter. Didier was almost finished his cigarette. The waiter looked past Oleg to me, mystified.

He was worried. The big man was still waiting for Didier in the open space between vacated tables. Service had ceased. The waiter, named Sayed, didn’t know what was going on. I nodded my head and he came running, his eyes on the big Russian.

‘I would like a chilled beer, please,’ Oleg said. ‘And a plate of your home-made fries.’

Sayed blinked a few times, and looked at me.

‘It’s okay, Sayed,’ I said. ‘I have no idea what’s going on, either.’

‘Oh,’ Sayed said, relieved. ‘I’ll get the beer and fries, right away.’

He trotted away, wagging his hands and his head.

‘It’s okay,’ he said in Hindi. ‘Nobody knows what’s going on.’

The waiters relaxed, watching the last seconds of Didier’s cigarette.

‘I hope your friend wins, by the way,’ Oleg said. ‘Although I doubt it, unfortunately.’

Didier stubbed his cigarette out.

‘You hope my guy wins?’

‘Chert, da,’ Oleg said.

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means Hell, yeah, in Russian.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Chert, da. I’d have paid three thousand bucks to have this idiot’s bigoted ass beaten senseless, if I was that kind of guy.’

‘But you’re not that kind of guy.’

‘Look, you just met him. I’ve been working with this asshole for weeks. But I can’t bring myself to have someone beaten. Not even him. I’ve been on the other end a few times, and I didn’t like it.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘This way, if your guy wins, it’s like I paid for it, but I’m free of the karmic debt.’

Didier stood slowly, and stepped away from his table.

‘After you pay up,’ I said, ‘we should talk, Oleg.’

Didier brushed flakes of ash from his rumpled black velvet jacket, and turned up the collar. With his hands pressed deep in the pockets of his jacket, he walked toward the big Russian.

The big Russian was waving his fists in front of him, fists as big as the skulls they frequently hit, and he was weaving back and forth, slowly.

My hand was on my knife. If Oleg got involved, I was sure I could tag him before he left the table. But Oleg put his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and watched the show.

Didier walked to one and a half steps from the big man, and then leapt into a high, balletic pirouette, his arms tucked into his pockets. He flung his arms wide at the peak of the leap, and descended in an arc that put his knees on the Russian’s chest, and his pistol on the top of the big man’s head.

Didier danced free, his hands back in his jacket pockets, standing away from the big man. The Russian fell from the knees first, as the brain temporarily disengaged, but his arms still flailed until he hit the floor with his face, nose first.

‘Pay up, Oleg,’ I said, as Didier went to the main counter to make things right with the management.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘That big guy’s a bare-knuckle, no-rules fighter in Russia.’

‘Your bare-knuckle fighter just got his ass kicked by ballet and a well-made gun. Pay up.’

‘No problem,’ he said, grinning in wonder. ‘I’m Russian. We invented the well-made gun.’

Oleg pulled a roll from his pocket, peeled a few outer layers from the lettuce, and shoved the head back into his pocket.

‘You’re a man of mystery, Oleg.’

‘Actually, I’m a man unemployed.’

The fact that Scorpio George had hired Russian security guards, and Leopold’s was invaded by Russians, couldn’t be coincidence.

‘Lemme guess,’ I said. ‘You were working security for the penthouse floor at the Mahesh?’

‘That’s right. He fired us today, motherfucker.’

‘He happens to be a friend of mine, even if he is a motherfucker.’

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘If you know him, you know how tight he is with a dollar. He counted every minute we’d worked for him, and gave us a two-hundred-dollar kiss goodbye, after guarding his life. Funny, isn’t it?’

‘That’s a bigger roll than two hundred bucks.’

‘There was a poker game, at the hotel, run by this guy called Gemini.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Yeah, I had a run of luck, and broke the bank.’

Oleg, a golden-child gambler, broke the bank. Of all the poker games, in all the world, he’d walked into mine.

Sayed brought drinks and food, smiling happily.

‘Mr Didier was terrific,’ Sayed muttered to me. ‘We have not seen such good dancing from him in years! He knocked out that big fellow with just one smack.’

‘Where are you dancing the big fellow to now, Sayed?’ I asked.

‘To the street,’ he said, wiping moisture from the table, and offering condiments to Oleg.

Oleg gestured at me with a potato chip dipped in tomato sauce.

‘Can I dig in?’ he asked politely. ‘I love homemade fries.’

‘Your friend is being dragged out into the street, Oleg.’

‘Is that a Yes, or a No?’

‘I’ll be right back,’ I sighed, as he dug in.

I knew how it worked. The big Russian’s body would be dragged outside Leopold’s, twelve inches from the legal obligation line. That would place him in the pavement commercial zone.

The pavement shopkeepers would eventually shove him from their zone to the gutter, twelve inches from their footpath shops.

That would place him in the taxi driver commercial zone, and eventually his body would be dragged to the open road, where an ambulance would collect him, if a bus didn’t take him out first.

I’d been that man, that unconscious meat at the mercy of the world. I called a street trader I knew, and paid him to put the big Russian into a taxi, bound for the hospital.

Didier was still accepting praise, and paying handsomely for the interruption to Leopold’s business. I walked back to the table, looking for a third Russian. I know it sounds kind of paranoid that I was looking for a third Russian, but they were crazy years, and in my experience, it’s always prudent to consider a third Russian.

‘Is there a third Russian?’ I asked, as I sat down beside Oleg.

He brushed his mouth with a napkin and turned to face me, his pale green eyes looking into mine honestly.

‘If there was a third Russian,’ he said, ‘I’d be gone. Everyone’s scared of the Russians. Even Russians are scared of the Russians. I’m Russian. You can trust me on that.’

‘Why did Scorpio fire you?’

‘Look, he’s your friend… ’

‘He’s also crazy. Tell me.’

‘Well, he’s gone kind of nuts, about a curse that was put on him by some holy man. Me, I’d kill the man who put a curse on me, or force him to take it back. But I’m Russian, and we see things differently.’

‘So what happened?’

‘My ex-boss, your friend, employed food tasters.’

‘Food tasters?’

‘Have you ever actually met a food taster?’

‘No, Oleg, but you did, right?’

‘Indian kids. Nice kids. Eating his food, first, to be sure that it wasn’t poisoned.’

I knew things weren’t good at Scorpio’s eagle nest. Gemini had reached out to me. But I hadn’t taken Scorpio’s obsession with the curse seriously. If what Oleg told me was true, Scorpio was in trouble. He was a good man in a bad situation, which is when friends intervene.

But I had Concannon’s address in my pocket, and I was just killing time at Leopold’s, waiting for midnight, and I let my friend’s distress go.

‘Did you quit, or were you fired?’

‘I told him I wouldn’t let the kids test his food,’ he said. ‘I offered to do it myself. I’m always hungry. But he didn’t take the criticism well. He fired both of us.’

‘Who paid you guys to come in here and start trouble tonight?’

‘Not me, him,’ he said. ‘He asked me to have one last drink with him. I said okay, hoping it would be the last time I’d ever see him. Then, on the way here, he tells me he’s got this private job, roughing up some gay Frenchman, in a bar.’

‘And you thought you’d tag along?’

‘I thought, if I don’t watch this crazy guy he’ll kill someone, and that will fuck with my visa.’

‘You’re a humanitarian,’ I said.

‘Who the fuck are you, to judge me?’

He was smiling, as friendly as a puppy. And he had a point, again, and when a man has a point there’s not much you can do.

‘Fuck you,’ I said. ‘I’m the guy you have to get past, if you came here to hurt my friend.’

‘I so get you!’ Oleg said, disconcerting my concert.

‘What?’

‘I completely get you,’ Oleg shouted. ‘Give me a hug.’

He dragged me to my feet, stronger than I’d guessed, and hugged me.

Fate never fights fair. Fate sneaks up on you. The world splashed through lakes of time, and each lake I fell through took me closer to a hug, wild and tender, from my lost brother, in Australia.

I shrugged free, and sat down again. He raised his hand to call for more beer, but I stopped him.

‘You’re unemployed?’ I asked.

‘I am. What are you offering?’

‘Three or four hours’ work.’

‘Starting when?’

‘Fairly close to now,’ I said.

‘What do I have to do?’

‘Fight your way in, maybe, and fight your way out, maybe. With me.’

‘Fight my way into what?’ he asked. ‘I don’t do banks.’

‘A house,’ I said.

‘Why do we have to fight our way in?’

‘Because the people inside don’t like me.’

‘Why?’

‘Do you give a shit?’

‘That’s beside the point.’

‘What point?’

‘All that money I lost tonight, in the bet,’ he said. ‘Double.’

‘Oh, that point. Fine. Are you in?’

‘Are we going to get killed?’

‘Do you give a shit?’

‘Of course I give a shit. I give a shit about you, and I only just met you.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’m Russian. We bond quickly.’

‘I mean, I don’t think we’ll get killed.’

‘Okay, so how many guys are we going up against?’

‘Three,’ I said. ‘But one of them, an Irishman named Concannon, is worth two.’

‘What nationality are the other two?’

‘What the fuck do you care?’

‘Nationality figures in the price, man,’ he said. ‘Everybody knows that.’

‘I didn’t do a census, but I heard a while back that he’s working with an Afghan, and an Indian guy. They might be there.’

‘So, there are three guys?’

‘Two guys, maybe, and an Irishman worth two.’

‘An Irishman, an Afghan, and an Indian?’

‘Could be.’

‘Against a Russian and an Australian,’ he mused.

‘If you want to see it that way.’

‘Double again.’

‘Double again?’

‘Chert, da.’

‘Why?’

‘An Afghan and a Russian in the same room, right now, is worth extra.’

‘Twelve grand to fight with me tonight? Forget it.’

Didier began to walk back toward our table. There was a spatter of applause, and he bowed to dinner patrons a few times before he sat.

‘Tell you what,’ Oleg said, leaning close, ‘I’ll come along, and if I don’t deliver, don’t pay me anything at all, but if I do, pay me my price.’

‘Didier, meet Oleg,’ I said. ‘You’re gonna love this guy.’

‘Enchanté, monsieur,’ Didier preened.

‘You don’t mind that I’m sitting here, monsieur?’ Oleg asked politely. ‘Considering that I came into your bar with a lunatic?’

‘Who has not walked into Leopold’s with a lunatic?’ Didier demurred. ‘And Didier can spot a man of character from fifty metres, and shoot him through the heart from the same distance.’

‘I can see that we’re going to get along very well,’ Oleg said, resting his arms on the table comfortably.

‘Waiter!’ Didier cried. ‘Another round!’

I raised my hand to stop the waiters.

‘We’re leaving, man,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’

‘But, Lin!’ He pouted. ‘How can I share my triumph? Who will drink with me now?’

‘The next lunatic that walks through the door, brother,’ I said, giving him a hug.

Chapter Sixty

We rode to Parel, and the abandoned mills district. The information from the Tuareg put Concannon’s drug operation in a vacated factory complex, rented out in small private spaces.

The place was a ghost town at night, meaning that many people reported seeing ghosts in the vast network of factory huts after dark. Men and women had lived, worked and died in those acres for two generations, before the mills closed. You know what ghosts are? Johnny Cigar once said to me. Poor people, who die.

‘It looks deserted,’ Oleg said, as we parked the bike and walked toward the rows of grey, silent factories.

‘It mostly is, at night,’ I said. ‘He’s working from the fourth building. Factory 4A. Keep your voice down.’

We were keeping to a chain-link fence line, shadowed by billboards advertising get-broke-quick schemes for property and the stock market.

‘At the very least,’ Oleg whispered, ‘it’s damn good material for my writing.’

I stopped, and stopped Oleg with a palm on his chest.

‘Writing?’ I whispered.

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you a journalist, Oleg?’

‘Chert, net,’ he whispered.

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means Hell, no, in Russian. It’s like the opposite of chert, da.’

‘You’re teaching me Russian, now?’ I whispered. ‘Are you a fucking journalist or not, Oleg?’

‘No, I’m a writer.’

‘A writer?’

‘Yes.’

‘A Russian writer? You’re kidding, right?’

‘Well, I’m a writer,’ he whispered. ‘And I’m Russian. So, I guess that makes me a Russian writer, if you want to think about it that way. Are we still going to the fight?’

I had my hands on my knees, leaning forward into a decision. I was trying to decide if I’d rather face the two-plus-two in factory 4A on my own, or with a Russian writer. It wasn’t an easy decision, but maybe that was just a writer thing.

‘A Russian writer,’ I whispered.

‘You’ve got something against Russian writers?’

‘Who hasn’t got something against Russian writers?’

‘Really? What about Aksyonov? Everybody likes Aksyonov.’

‘Fuck you,’ I whispered.

‘What about Turgenev? Turgenev is funny.’

‘Yeah. As funny as Gogol.’

‘Gogol wasn’t strictly Russian,’ Oleg clarified, whispering hoarsely. ‘He was a Ukrainian Cossack. One of the great Cossack writers.’

‘Enough.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Oleg whispered, his hand on my arm. ‘Are you a writer? That’s it, isn’t it? Ha! How funny, two writers, engaging on a quest together.’

‘Oh, shit. ’

‘By the way,’ he asked. ‘What is our quest?’

With the Russian, it might be possible to surprise the three men, let me have it out with Concannon, and get out again without anyone getting hurt but Concannon, and me. Without Oleg, I’d have to cut Concannon’s men, which was why I wanted Oleg with me. But he was a writer. A Russian writer.

‘Then there’s Lev Luntz,’ Oleg whispered hopefully. ‘I love him.’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ I whispered back.

I straightened up, and looked around. The long, wide street had nature frontage on one side with a railway line behind. The Nissen hut factories on our side were silent, stretching away from us like so many burial mounds.

There was no-one in sight, and even the wandering pariah dogs were scouting other ranges. It was peaceful, in the way that dangerous places are if you’re not scared of them. I was channelling that peace, because I was scared, and I wanted to stop Concannon without more blood, but I didn’t think it would be that easy.

‘By the way, why me?’ Oleg whispered. ‘Why not your friend Didier, or someone else?’

‘You really wanna know?’

‘Of course,’ he said, searching my eyes. ‘It could be good material.’

‘Because I’ve got friends who’d go with me, but they might get hurt, and I’d feel bad about that, but I won’t feel bad if you get hurt. You see that, right?’

‘I see that,’ he whispered, grinning happily. ‘And it’s a very good reason. If I was in the same spot, I’d buy your life, too.’

‘I’m not buying your life, Dostoevsky. I’m buying your time, in a fight. Are we clear?’

‘Clear,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m glad we had this talk.’

‘Well, here’s another talk. If you go near my girlfriend, I’ll cut you.’

‘You’ve got a girlfriend?’ he whispered, incredulously.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Well… ’

‘If you make a Russian-writer move on her, I’ll cut you.’

‘I got the cutting part the first time,’ he whispered. ‘It’s not something you forget.’

He was grinning at me, and I couldn’t read it. He was either a pretty happy guy, wherever he was, or there was something he knew that I didn’t know.

‘What?’ I frowned.

‘You’ve really got a girlfriend?’ he asked.

‘Keep your Russian epic away from her.’

‘I got it, I got it,’ he grinned.

‘What are you grinning about?’

‘It’s just so much fun, to do some shit worth writing about with another writer. We should work on a short story together, after this. I’ve got some great ideas.’

‘Will you cut it out. We could get seriously fucked up here. This Irish guy’s crazy, and tungsten hard. Stay sharp.’

‘Okay, okay, take it easy. I’ve got twelve thousand bucks invested in this. Let’s fuck up the Irishman and his friends, and get drunk.’

He started sprinting toward factory 4A, alone. Russians.

I sprinted after him and caught him outside the entrance. We slipped around the side of the huge, curved hut to sneak a glimpse in a raised window.

Concannon was there with two men, playing cards on the bonnet of an immaculate red Pontiac Laurentian, partially obscured by a silver dust cover.

‘Are you good?’ I whispered.

‘Good for what?’ Oleg whispered back. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘We walk in through the door and I challenge the Irishman.’

‘Don’t you think we should sneak in?’

‘If I was a sneak-in guy, I would’ve brought a gun.’

‘You didn’t bring a gun?’

I opened the door and walked into the empty factory. Oleg was a step behind me as we crossed the floor. We stopped a few steps from Concannon and his friends.

The Afghan’s hands were in his lap. The Indian’s hands were in his lap. I didn’t know if they had guns or not.

I knew where Concannon’s hands were. They were applauding.

‘You’re more fun than a drunk nun,’ he applauded. ‘I heard you were dead. I see it was just a vicious rumour.’

‘Let’s do this,’ I said. ‘Just you and me, alone.’

‘Is it a fight you want, boyo?’

He was still grinning. I’d learned how much you can come to dislike a happy grin.

‘I want you to stop all your shit, and stay away from me, and my friends. If you agree to that, I’ll sit down, and beat your ass at poker.’

‘And if I don’t?’

Cold stars filtered through wet light glittered in his eyes.

‘Then it’s you and me, right here, right now, and we’ll settle this, once and for all.’

He leaned back in his plastic chair, and smiled.

‘Put your gun on him, Govinda,’ he said quietly.

It was the Indian guy who had the gun. The Afghan stood up, his cards still in his hand.

‘Yes, boss,’ Govinda said.

‘Get up, Govinda, and stand beside his friend.’

‘Yes, boss.’

Govinda stood up, and moved away from the car.

‘Keep your gun on the Australian convict as you walk, lad,’ Concannon warned. ‘He’s a naughty one. If he moves an inch, shoot him.’

‘Yes, boss,’ Govinda said, smiling at me.

His eyes shone like opals in the half-light of the factory. When he reached Oleg, he shoved the gun into his stomach. Oleg was still smiling. It looked like I was the only guy in the place who wasn’t smiling.

‘I come in here, man to man, and you pull a gun?’ I said.

He was stung, because we both knew I was right. The fight was rising in him, fast.

‘Just a little insurance,’ he said, controlling his rage.

‘You do this the wrong way, Concannon, we won’t be the only ones who die.’

I said it for the benefit of the paid hands, the Afghan and Indian henchmen.

‘Govinda will certainly die,’ I said. ‘And the Afghan, too.’

I turned to the Afghan.

‘Salaam aleikum,’ I said.

He wouldn’t reply.

‘Salaam aleikum,’ I said, insisting on one of the kindest Islamic teachings, that a genuine greeting of peace should always be met with an equal or better greeting.

‘Wa aleikum salaam,’ he said, at last.

‘What’s your name?’

He opened his mouth to speak, but Concannon cut him off.

‘Don’t tell him that, you heathen half-wit. He’s just fuckin’ with your mind, don’t you see? He’s gone native, so he knows native talk. But it’s all just to fuck with your fragile heathen minds. Watch a master, while I fuck with his mind.’

He stood up and walked around the front of the car to stand close to me.

‘If he does anything at all,’ he said to Govinda, ‘shoot his friend. I’ll help you cut the body up meself, later on.’

‘Yes, boss.’

He stood opposite me, swaying from side to side slowly, his lips pressed into the shell of a smile.

‘I know what you want to know,’ he said, standing close to me.

‘I want you to stop. That’s all.’

‘Ha! No, you don’t. You want the answer to a very important question.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘A question,’ he sang at me. ‘A question, a question.’

‘Spit it out.’

‘Mind my words, Govinda!’ he commanded, looking at me. ‘If he makes a move on me, kill his friend. I’ll take care of this cunt.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘You only really want to know one thing,’ he said, leaning in close. ‘Did I fuck her, that sweet little American girlfriend of yours, before I left Ranjit with her that night, or didn’t I?’

Veins worked their clotted way upward from my clenched jaw through my eyes and into my forehead. I was sweating with the rage to hurt him. It was something else, something different, something I hadn’t brought through the door with me. When he put Lisa in the room, I was fighting for her.

‘You know, Concannon,’ I said, biting back to make him fight back. ‘If the Great Famine didn’t starve the English out of you, it’s because you’re really just an Englishman, with an Irish accent.’

He rushed at my throat, but I dodged away and backed off toward the car.

‘Why don’t we just do this?’ I said, loosening up. ‘My guess is, you’re all talk. Let’s find out, and get this over with. If you kick my ass, and you’re prepared to shake and be friends, I’ll be happy to admit you’re the better man. If I win, you stay the fuck away from me and mine. Sound fair to you, Govinda?’

‘Yes, boss,’ he answered automatically.

‘Shut up, you fool,’ Concannon snapped.

‘I think your gunman has his conscience on safety,’ I said. ‘Let’s do this without a gun, Concannon. Sound fair to you, Govinda?’

‘Shut up!’ Concannon shouted. ‘Shut up everybody!’

He looked me up and down for a while.

Am I right? Am I right, now, when I look back to that smile on my enemy’s face, and see reluctance, in a man who loved to fight?

‘Okay, if it’s a fight you want, Convict, then you’ve come to the right place. You don’t mind if I play a little music, do ya? I always play music, when I’m beatin’ a man black and blue. I’ve been thinking of bringin’ out an album, of my favourite hits, like.’

He snapped on a disc player, connected to speakers in the car. Irish music kicked from the red Pontiac. Concannon shaped up, his hands in front, on guard.

‘Let’s have at you, then,’ he said.

I ran at him, falling to the ground, and punching at his thigh, exactly where Abdullah had shot him. I got in two hard shots as I passed. He yelped in pain, and dropped his knee.

I scrambled up, and shoved in under his guard, reaching up for one of his eyes. I let him swing at the back of my head. I felt the blows hit, but didn’t feel any pain. I closed my fingers, digging into his eye socket.

He jerked away quickly. I scratched one socket enough to make him close it, blinking blood.

One eye closed, one knee bent, he swung at me in a combination from habit, just as Naveen had warned me. I dodged, ducked, and came in close enough to put my fingers in his collarbone. I pulled it down, putting all my bodyweight in a dead fall to the floor. The bone came loose and he screeched, his arm swaying in the pain.

Prison fighting isn’t about fighting. Prison fighting is about winning, and dead.

‘So, it’s like that, is it?’ he asked, trying to dance away from me, and rubbing at his eye.

‘Yeah. It’s like that.’

He danced back again, but I dropped to the floor and grabbed at his balls, twisting as I fell. I didn’t let go. He fell awkwardly, trying to protect his legacy.

I scrambled to my knees, and hit him as hard as I could. It wasn’t enough, so I hit him again.

He swayed in place, sitting on the floor. He was laughing, and still holding his balls with his good hand. He laughed, rocking back and forth like a baby on a blanket.

‘You cheated, as this man is my witness,’ he said, pointing at Oleg.

‘And that piece of lead you hit me with last time? What was that, Marquess of Londonderry rules? The twenty-four-hour contract you put on my life? That was fair and square? This is your chance to shut up and listen for a change. Leave me alone, Concannon.’

‘You cheated, son,’ he said, trying to laugh. ‘You’ll have to confess that sin, you know.’

‘If you don’t stop coming after me, I’ll have a bigger sin to confess.’

‘You know, boyo, I liked you a lot more when you were dead,’ he laughed, one eye closed and bloody. ‘Govinda, shoot this fucking convict. Shoot the cunt in the head.’

It happened fast. Govinda moved his hand. Oleg pulled a knife, slashed him across the face, and pulled the gun from his hand before shock hit the floor.

Govinda screamed in pain, knowing that his movie-hero face had been recast. Oleg hit him with his own gun, and he was quiet.

The Afghan still had his cards in his hand, like a tiny fan. I had my knife in my hand. Oleg had the gun.

‘If I were you, friend, I’d run,’ Oleg smiled, the gun at his side. ‘No matter how good your hand is.’

The Afghan dropped his cards and ran.

‘You’ve dislocated me collarbone, ya cunt,’ Concannon said, his head lolling to the side. ‘I can’t even raise me arm. If I could, I could knock you out with a single blow, we both know that.’

‘Leave… me… alone.’

‘Lovely, lovely, lovely Lisa,’ he said.

I hit him again. He went backwards until the floor stopped him, his arms at his sides, but he wasn’t out.

What do I do? I thought. Can I kill him? Not unless he’s trying to kill me. Concannon was lying on the floor with one eye closed and a busted collarbone. He hadn’t even tried to get up. He was still talking, though, and chuckling, as if it was a joke he couldn’t stop telling himself.

Oleg didn’t like it. He wanted to gag him, but I pointed out that the karmic burden would be his, if Concannon choked to death on the gag.

Oleg hit him, instead, and he was good at it. Concannon slumbered, and we left him in the care of the injured Govinda. I warned him that he’d lose more than a cheek, if I ever saw him in the south again.

‘I’m taking your gun,’ Oleg told him. ‘If you want it back, I’ll kill you with it.’

We jogged back to the bike in silence. I stopped him, when we reached it, to thank him.

‘The six thousand from tonight,’ I said, handing him the money. ‘I’ll have the rest, and a bonus, tomorrow. I’ll be at Leo’s at five. What you did back there, I owe you.’

‘I would hate to see that Irishman drunk,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder.

‘I hope I never see him again in any condition. You did really good, Oleg.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, smiling.

‘You smile a lot, don’t you?’

‘I’m happy, most of the time. It’s my cross, but I try to bear it with good humour. I have my sadness, but it doesn’t stop me from being happy. You want to work on a short story with me?’

‘Are you really a writer?’

‘Of course.’

‘Those were some pretty snappy lines, back there.’

‘Lines?’

‘Telling the Afghan to leave, no matter how good his hand was. Telling Krishna that you’d kill him with his own gun.’

‘Russian movies,’ he said, frowning. ‘You mean, you don’t know dialogue from Russian movies? You’ll love it. It’s great material.’

We rode back to Colaba. I shook Oleg’s hand, and left him outside a tourist hotel, on the strip.

Vanity hides in pride. I left Oleg standing by the side of the road, after he’d saved my life, telling myself that I didn’t need anyone, not even a good man like him. But the truth was that I left him because I liked him, and knew that Karla would probably like him as much as I did, or more. It’s a shame, my shame, to admit it, but I left that good man on the street because I was a little jealous of him, and Karla hadn’t even met him.

Chapter Sixty-One

I had to find Abdullah. I had to know whatever he had or hadn’t done with Concannon. I rode to the Nabila mosque, and Null Bazaar, and all the other places where Abdullah found comfort in the comradeship of hardcore criminals. I was angry. My fists were bleeding. I wasn’t polite, even to people I liked.

‘Where’s Abdullah?’ I asked, again and again, the engine of my bike growling.

Hard men who put their lives on the line demand respect, and there was some blowback.

‘Fuck you, Lin. You wanna look down my gun? He might be hiding in there.’

‘Fuck you. Where’s Abdullah?’

I found him singing at an all-night festival of Sufi singers. They were doing a long chant of Ali Munna, and I knew it could go on for hours, the singers passing chillums in glowing baton circles.

I caught Abdullah’s eye, and he stood at once, threading his bare feet delicately among the seated singers.

We walked outside to a dusty, gravel parking area, bordered by trees.

‘Salaam aleikum,’ he said, greeting me with a kiss on the cheek.

‘Wa aleikum salaam. What the fuck, Abdullah? Did you kill someone with that Irishman, Concannon? Is that why you shot him twice, that day? To shut him up?’

‘Come with me,’ Abdullah said gravely, leading me by the arm.

We walked a few paces to a space beneath a wide arch of magnolia branches, dancing the occasional breeze in slow time. We sat on a row of large stones, left in the open space as barriers for parked cars.

The singers continued in the tent, a few metres away. A crow, out too late or too early, called from a branch above our heads.

Two bright lights strung on a tracery of wires showed the entrance to the singers’ tent. It was an impromptu devotion, assembled from time to time in different places, wherever permission was given, and disassembled without a trace soon after dawn each time.

It was peaceful, and safe, because everyone believed that to disturb such pure devotion, once begun, would bring a curse on seven generations. It was a risk that no-one was willing to take, not even rival gangsters. Sometimes, it’s the unborn generations that protect us.

‘We took contracts from outside our own Company,’ Abdullah began. ‘It was Sanjay’s decision. I think that he had political motives, but that is only my thought. The first job was the killing of a businessman.’

He stopped, and I gave him time. I’d ridden a long way, and it had been a hard day’s nightmare.

‘The Irishman was offering himself to every Company. Sanjay hired him, and sent me with him, to see that it went well.’

He stopped again.

‘But it didn’t go well,’ I prompted.

‘His wife and daughter were at home. They were not supposed to be there. They saw us, and could identify us, but I could not kill them.’

‘Of course not.’

‘But… Concannon killed them, and I let him kill them, and I listened to it, as he did it, and I am cursed by it.’

Abdullah, Abdullah, invincible Abdullah. I felt him slipping away from me, as love does, sometimes, when the bridge is too far, and the earth on the way to it becomes sand.

‘What have you done, man?’

‘He cut their throats,’ he said.

‘Oh, God.’

‘It was in all the newspapers. You must have seen it.’

Husband strangled, wife and daughter killed, money stolen: I remembered the story. I remembered not liking the story.

‘After that,’ Abdullah said, ‘I told Concannon that if I ever saw him again, I would kill him. I cut his connection to the Company, and Sanjay sent our contracts to the Cycle Killers, instead.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? The guy put a contract out on me, for fuck’s sake.’

‘I was ashamed,’ he said.

‘Ashamed?’

Ashamed. I knew shame. And he was my brother, and brotherhood has no sky.

‘You should’ve told me, Abdullah. We’re brothers.’

‘But, if you had shunned me, for my shameful acts?’

Fate makes you a judge, as often as you’re judged. I was an escaped convict, doing black market business on the streets, and Abdullah lifted me to the bench, gavel in hand. I wanted to hit him with it.

‘You should’ve told me.’

‘I know,’ he said, hanging his head.

‘No more secrets,’ I said. ‘You and Didier, I swear, you love your secrets, both of you.’

‘No more secrets,’ he repeated.

‘On your oath, as a soldier?’

‘On my oath.’

‘Good. Keep your eyes open. I visited Concannon tonight, and he’ll either back off, or he’ll come out of the cave biting.’

‘You went without me?’

‘I was okay. I had some help.’

‘Did you beat him?’ Abdullah asked, brightening again.

‘It got messy. Keep your head up.’

‘I am proud of you, Lin,’ he said.

‘That makes one of us,’ I said. ‘It shouldn’t have happened, but he’s a hard man to reason with.’

‘Shall we go in, and join in the singing?’ he suggested.

‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve gotta get home. Karla might be there. See you soon, brother.’

I rode back toward the Island City, swinging through long, wide Marine Drive before heading back to the Amritsar hotel. The road was deserted. The sea wall was deserted. The houses on my left were sleeping, sending peace into the ocean.

Then I saw a man, playing the guitar. He was sitting under a streetlight in the partition on the centre of the boulevard.

It was Oleg. I pulled up beside him.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Playing the guitar,’ he said happily.

‘Why are you playing the guitar in the middle of the road?’

‘The acoustics are perfect here,’ he smiled, infuriatingly. ‘The sea behind me, and the buildings in front. It’s perfect. Do you play guitar? We should play here together. We could -’

I rode away and reached Nariman Point before I turned back, and drew up beside him again.

‘You wanna get drunk?’ I asked, the bike rumbling.

‘With you?’ he asked, suspiciously.

I rode away again and reached Nariman Point before I turned back, and drew up beside him again.

‘Yes! I’d love to get drunk,’ he said.

‘Get on the bike, Oleg.’

‘Can I drive?’

‘Don’t ever talk about my motorcycle like that again.’

‘Okay,’ he said, climbing up behind me, the guitar slung at his side. ‘Just so long as we know where the boundaries are.’

‘Hang on tight.’

‘Are we going to fight someone, when we get drunk?’

‘No.’

‘Not even each other?’

‘Get off the bike, Oleg.’

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I’ll stay sober if we’re going to fight each other, because you fight dirty.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘We Russians can’t fight dirty. That’s why we’re such pushovers.’

‘Oleg, if you say the word Russian once more, I’ll throw you off in a curve.’

‘What am I supposed to say? I’m Russian, after all.’

‘Let’s call them R-people.’

‘Got it,’ he said, holding on. ‘We R-people are quick on the uptake.’

He was a good passenger, and it was fun, riding with him. I was in a good mood as we parked the bike and climbed the stairs to my rooms at the Amritsar hotel.

Just as we approached my door, Karla opened hers, going somewhere else.

She was in a sleeveless evening dress, and high sneakers. Her hair was twisted into a knot, and fixed with a swordfish rib-bone she’d bought at the fish market. She’d cleaned it, polished it, and fixed one of her jewelled rings to the wider end. It reflected the lights of the room behind her.

‘Wow,’ Oleg said, peering into the Bedouin tent.

‘Karla, this is Oleg. He’s a Russian writer, and a good man in a bad corner. Oleg, this is Karla.’

Karla looked me up and down, her head tilting like the woman in the glittering black burkha in the Tuareg’s house of arches. Something was wrong: more wrong than usual. She looked at Oleg. She smiled.

‘Bad corners, huh?’

‘Karla,’ Oleg said, kissing her hand. ‘What a lovely name. I have a special love, and I call her Karlesha. It’s my love name for her. It’s an honour to meet you. And if I flirt with you, your boyfriend says he will cut me.’

‘Oh, he will, huh?’ Karla smiled.

‘You know what,’ I said, ‘Oleg and I came here tonight to get drunk, in my room. It’s been a long night. A rough night. Would you like to join us?’

‘Would I like to, or would I be willing to?’

‘Karla.’

‘It’s a fair question,’ Oleg said.

I looked at him.

‘I’m only saying… ’

‘No, thanks,’ Karla said, switching off the lights, slamming shut the door to her room and locking several locks. ‘But, you know what, I’ve got an offer for you, Oleg.’

She turned to face him, all sixteen queens.

‘What kind of an offer?’ Oleg asked amiably.

‘We need field agents, and you look right.’

‘Field agents?’

‘Let’s open that bottle of oblivion, Oleg,’ I suggested. ‘And get drunk.’

‘We’ve got a bureau, one door along from mine,’ Karla said, leaning against the doorframe. ‘And we need field agents with spike. Have you got spike, Oleg?’

‘I can be spiky,’ Oleg said. ‘But what makes you think I’ve got the right stuff?’

She jerked her thumb at me.

‘He wouldn’t introduce you to me, if you didn’t. Are you in?’

He looked at me.

‘Will you cut me, if I accept?’

‘Of course he won’t,’ Karla said.

He looked back at Karla.

‘Great!’ Oleg said. ‘Fired and employed twice, in the same day. I knew I’d get rich in this city. When do I start?’

‘Ten,’ Karla said. ‘Put on a nice shirt.’

Oleg smiled engagingly. Karla smiled back. I wanted to choke Oleg with a nice shirt.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So, I’ll see you soon.’

I went to kiss her, to hug her, to smell the ocean, to go home, but she held me back, her hands on my chest.

‘Go inside, Oleg,’ I said, throwing him the keys.

He opened the door, and gasped.

‘Holy minimalism,’ he said, alone with my decor. ‘It’s Solzhenitsyn in here, man!’

‘What’s going on, Karla?’ I asked her, when we were alone with whatever was going on.

She looked at my face as if it was a maze, and she’d found her way out of it before. She stared at my lips, my forehead, and my eyes.

‘I’m going away for a couple of weeks,’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘Do you know that it’s lovable and maddening at the same time, that I knew you’d ask me that?’

‘Stop trying to put me off. Where are you going?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ she said, burning queens.

‘I do want to know. I wanna know where to break the door down, if you need me.’

She laughed. People laugh so often, when I’m being serious.

‘I’m gonna spend a couple weeks with Kavita,’ she said. ‘Alone.’

‘What the hell?’ I said, speaking my think.

She cocked her head to the side again.

‘Are you jealous, Shantaram?’

I wasn’t. I think back, now, and I know I was more jealous of the Russian writer, because he was a pretty cool guy, than I was of Kavita.

But Kavita had spoken harm at me, and I suddenly realised that it still hurt me. Karla wasn’t going to another lover, in my mind: she was going to someone who hated me.

I didn’t tell Karla then, that night, what Kavita had said to me. I should’ve said something. I should’ve told her. But it had been a rough night.

‘Madame Zhou paid a visit to the alley under this building, and warned me to stay away from Kavita. Do you really think it’s safe to be going away with her?’

‘What do you want from me?’ she snapped, all fire and furious pride.

‘What I want is to be the closest thing to you, Karla. It’s a sin for you to use that against me. Stop playing games with me. Tell me to leave you alone, or tell me to love you, with everything I’ve got.’

She was stung. I hadn’t seen it often: a reaction in her face or her body that she couldn’t hide.

‘I told you before about trusting me, and how it might get harder to do.’

‘Karla, don’t go.’

‘I’m staying with Kavita,’ she said, turning away from me. ‘Don’t wait up.’

She walked away. I watched her to the stairs, and then raced through my apartment to catch a glimpse of her as she walked to the taxi stand at Metro cinema.

Oleg came to stand beside me. She got in a taxi, and she was gone.

‘You’ve got it bad, bro,’ Oleg said sympathetically. ‘Your vodka is shit, by the way, but your rum is okay. Drink up.’

‘I gotta get clean, first,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave the shower ready for you. Make yourself at home.’

He cast a glance around him at the sparse room, the wooden floors gleaming like the lid on a lacquered coffin.

‘Okay,’ he said.

I stood in the shower, turning it on in bursts, fits and starts. The water in our building was carried in trucks, and pumped upwards into gravity feed tanks on the roof. Everyone in the building shared those tanks.

Trying not to waste water, I shut the shower off from time to time, leaning against the wall until everything that had happened with Concannon came back so hard that I shuddered, retching, and turned on the healing water again.

In the world we created for ourselves, it’s a lie to be a man, and a lie to be a woman. A woman is always more than any idea imposed on her, and a man is always more than any duty imposed on him. Men empathise, and women lead armies. Men raise infants, and women explore the exosphere. We’re not one thing or the other: we’re very interesting versions of each other. And men, too, cry in the shower, sometimes.

It took me a while to scrub the emotion from my face. Afterwards, while Oleg showered, I cleaned my gun as meditation, and stashed it in a hidden shelf beside my bed.

‘Your soap is shit,’ Oleg said, drying himself off. ‘I’ll get you some R-soap. It will scrape the barnacles off you.’

‘I’m relatively barnacle-free,’ I said, offering him the bottle. ‘And I like my soap.’

He offered me the bottle back, and I drank and offered it back, and he drank and offered it again, and I drank it back.

‘That’s my T-shirt,’ I noticed, mid-swappery.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It’s so nice to put on something clean. I lived in the last one through a geological age.’

‘Keep it,’ I said. ‘I’ve got another one, where that one came from.’

‘I saw that. And two pairs of jeans. You travel light, man. If I borrow a pair of yours, do you mind if I roll the bottoms up? I really like that look.’

‘Roll them up to the Urals, Oleg. But turn down the smiling. If we get any drinkier than this, it’ll start to freak me out.’

‘Got it, man. Smiling less. We R-people are nothing if not adaptive. Do you have music?’

‘I’m a writer,’ I said, passing back the bottle. ‘Of course I have music.’

I had a CD system, wired into aftermarket Bollywood speakers. I liked the way they blended everything I played into the same sound-ocean, the same whale of signals from some not entirely air-breathing place.

‘Your system is shit,’ he said.

‘You’re a critical motherfucker, Oleg.’

‘Actually, I’m just making mental notes, you know, of things I get for you that are better than shit.’

‘Whaddaya wanna hear, Oleg?’

‘Got any Clash?’

I played Combat Rock, and he jumped up to grab his guitar.

‘Cut to the last track, “Death Is a Star”,’ he said. ‘I know how to play that. Let’s play it together.’

We strummed Russian-Australian-Indian acoustic together, jamming with the faraway Clash in a hotel room in Bombay. We played the song again and again until we got the timing just right, and laughed like kids when we did. And the strings reopened the cuts on my fingers, and blood from the fight with Concannon stained the body of my guitar.

We got too drunk to play, and we were just beginning to stop caring about that, or anything else, when I found a messenger in my room. He was dressed in the khaki uniform of a messenger, and was holding a message in his hand.

‘Where did you come from?’ I asked, swaying to keep him in focus.

‘From outside, sir,’ he said.

‘Well, that’s alright then. What can I do for you?’

‘I have a message for you, sir.’

‘I don’t like messages.’

‘But it’s my job, sir.’

‘You’ve got a point. How much do I owe you?’

I paid the messenger and sat down, looking at the message. I didn’t want to read it. The English say no news is good news. The Germans say no news is no bad news. I’m with the Germans on that one. Something inside me, and I still don’t know if it’s the part that saves me or damns me, always says that I should tear the message up before reading it, no matter who sent it, and sometimes I do. But I had to read it, in case it had something to do with Karla. It didn’t. It was from Gemini George.

Dear Lin, old mate. Scorp and me have gone jungle. We’re searching for this guru, to lift the curse. Naveen gave us a good lead, and we’re starting on the canals of Karnataka tomorrow. Fingers crossed. Love you, mate.

I thought it was a happy, hopeful letter, and I was glad. I didn’t realise that it was a cry for help. I dropped the letter on my table, put good reggae music on my bad sound system, and we danced. Oleg danced for the fun of it, I think, but maybe the smiling Russian had demons of his own to release. I was thinking of the fight with Concannon, and I danced for absolution from victory: for defeating a foe, and regretting it.

The moon, our lonely sister, filters pain and harm from sunlight, and reflects it back to us safely, free of burn and blemish. We danced in moonlight on the balcony that night, Oleg and I, and we sang and shouted and laughed, hardening ourselves to what we’d done in life, and what we’d lost. And the moon graced two fallen fools, on a fallen day, with sunlight purified by a mirror in the sky, made of stone.