Brig left. I stayed in the filthy lobby and waited four minutes. Not a second more. Then I yanked hard on the alarm and immediately began to scream “Fire!” in Hindi, Marathi, and what I hoped resembled Gujarati. I even yelled out a “Run for your lives!” in English and one “Dóiteán!” just for Brig.
It worked just as Brig had predicted. Terrified residents streamed down the stairs and into the lobby. I could hear others scrambling down the fire escape. I said a quick prayer to various gods and goddesses that no one would be trampled in all this.
I hurried out with the first wave of those who’d been in the lobby, then hid behind a sandwich board sign that enticed readers to hit the Kohlbari Bazaar for the best deals in town. I even paused to check out their claim for silk saris at rockbottom prices and made a mental note to stop by—if I lived through the night.
I hadn’t seen Brig come sneaking out from behind the building just yet. I tried not to worry. Perhaps a minute, maybe two, had passed since my latest act of felony. Or misdemeanor. Or whatever penalty the good people of India imposed for sounding a false alarm.
I spotted a sleepy Patel stumbling outside. He wore no shirt and held nothing except his ever-present knife in his hand. Cool. Brig should be able to get inside the apartment. With Brig’s talent for finding hidden objects, he’d be in and out with our ivory statue before I finished reading the Kohlbari ads. In my stupidly innocent glee, I almost did a jig worthy of my Irish dancing thief.
Then I spotted the woman huffing and shuffling about three steps behind Seymour Patel. She looked to be in her seventies. Stringy white hair plastered to her skull appeared to be in need of a good shampoo. Her clothes were just as filthy. Sometime in her life she’d gone from being pleasingly plump to obnoxiously obese. Patel’s mother. I did not jump lightly to this conclusion. The woman mirrored her ugly son in every feature down to the sour expression on her face. And if that weren’t enough to give her away as a very close relation, she carried Shiva’s Diva in her left hand.
Not in a bag. Not wrapped. Not even protected from prying eyes under Mama Patel’s disgusting, dirty, faded gray sari. Our goddess, exposed for all the world to see. And right now I was the world most interested.
Brig had said to sing if I spied Patel transporting the statue. Well, Mrs. P. Senior, not Seymour Junior, was the one doing the carrying, but it looked like a Patel and it smelled like a Patel, and it had the Diva. So I sang.
I have to stop the action for a moment here because I feel impelled to point out in defense of the upcoming moves that my mother was a child of the sixties. One who’d never quite gotten over her days with the peace, love, and flower children. One who’d kept every vinyl album from every sixties rock, folk, or solo artist from The Beatles on. And played them for her darling daughter Tempe, who learned to love Cat Stevens and the Moody Blues and Jefferson Airplane and the Mamas and the Papas. And Three Dog Night.
Maybe all my references to Three Dog Night this past week had unhinged my brain. Maybe the fact that Mrs. Patel resembled one of the homelier canine breeds (at a guess, bullmastiff) further fomented my imagination. Whatever the catalyst, I started to sing “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” The entire chorus.
Eighty faces whirled to gawk at the girl crouching next to the bazaar ad who was blasting out classic rock at three in the morning during a fire drill. Seymour and Mama were two of them. Both faces twisted in rage. Mother was just as pissed as baby boy. Which is why, again in defense of my actions, I did something totally shameful. I tackled a woman over forty years my senior.
For an overweight, elderly female, this dog was tough. As I grabbed the Diva, Mama P. bit my hand, then kicked me in the shin. I screamed and brought her to the ground, almost gagging from the odor of gardenia perfume. Apparently, dousing herself in exotic floral scent was her alternative to bathing in real soap and water.
I wrapped one arm around what appeared to be a waist and flung her on her back. We rolled on the ground for another twenty seconds before I was able to maintain a good grasp on the statue. I jumped up, then dove into the crowd of gaping fans who’d been cheering for one or the other of us. My beret fell to the ground, letting my red hair shine under the street lamps. Crazy American girl gone wild. I scooped up the beret and took off still singing.
I ran in the direction of where we’d parked the Jeep. Brig met me there. Neither of us bothered to open a door. We jumped in, Brig turned the ignition, and we hauled out of this tenement slum neighborhood. We caught glimpses in the rearview mirror of the shirtless and barefoot Seymour Patel running after the Jeep screaming curses. Mama, the wrestling queen, sprinted right next to him.
“You okay?” Brig asked.
“I think so. Some scratches from Mrs. Patel’s badly manicured nails plus a bite on my arm. Nothing that can’t be taken care of with dabs of iodine and a tetanus shot. The woman had more rust than screws on a boat dock. You?”
“I’m fine. But then I didn’t just go ten rounds with a repulsive, ancient harridan.”
I turned red. “I did, didn’t I? My gosh. My mom always taught me to respect my elders. A lesson that went sailing across the bay the instant I saw Madam Patel with the Diva.”
I paused.
“Yes, Tempe? What is it you’re not saying?”
“Well, I did have another teensy incentive for jumping on Her Hideousness. The lone item Seymour carried with him from the nonburning building glistened in the night. Yep. Patel’s favorite big bad blade. He flung it at me just before I had the one-on-one with his nasty mater. Then he retrieved it.”
Brig turned the wheel of the Jeep and aimed the vehicle back toward Patel’s neighborhood. I grabbed his arm.
“Brig! Are you nuts?”
“I’m taking this Jeep and driving it over the stinkin’ son of a bitch. That’s not nuts. It’s a necessity.”
“No! Let’s just get out of here. We’ve got the Diva. Let Patel and his mother work out who lost it.”
“He deserves killing, ya know. He and the ugly, misbegotten dame who birthed him. Man’s probably been reincarnated as a flippin’ terrorist at least twenty times and racked up more bad karma than we’ve put miles on this car. Damn him. Damn all the blighters who take down innocent women and children. They don’t deserve to live.”
I stayed quiet. I knew Brig was also thinking about his sister and the cowards who’d blown up a hall full of teens to prove a political point. I had a feeling Brig’s temper would diminish if I did nothing to spur it on. And while I might secretly agree with the sentiments expressed, I had no desire to carry them out or let Brig take his anger to an uncontrollable level. Finally, Brig quit ranting and simply stared at the road ahead.
I let a moment or two pass, then I began to sing again. Another Three Dog Night classic but one more soothing—“Old Fashioned Love Song.”
Brig visibly relaxed after the first verse. “Sorry, lass. I’ve got the full Irish temper, and you’d best be knowin’ it. But you’ve got a nice way of dealin’ with me. Plus one fine voice.”
He chuckled. “Your warning song wasn’t quite what I expected, but it worked. I knew it was you. I immediately jumped out the window. The sight of you punching out Mama Patel came as a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one. I’m proud of you, Tempe.”
I leaned back in the seat and sighed.
“Well, it didn’t go quite as planned. Not that anything we’ve tried has gone as planned. But it worked.”
I stood straight up in the Jeep and yelled, “Yes!” then hurriedly sat back down when Brig hit a bump.
I smiled at him. “We got her back. Shiva’s Diva. Safe and sound.”
He smiled back. “We do. Although it’s just for the moment. Just for the moment.”
There were several meanings to this statement. The first might be that a furious Patel would not appreciate having the statue ripped from his (or his mother’s) grasp within hours of his stealing it.
Secondly, Mahindra might be sleeping peacefully at this hour in his high-ris
e, but he hadn’t called it quits either. And I felt confident we hadn’t heard the last from Raymond Decore. Once Ray regained a bit of strength, he’d be back in the hunt. No doubt feeling less than charitable toward anyone involved in keeping Shiva’s Diva, including Mr. Decore’s ex-employee and her new friend, the handsome Irishman with the temper.
Lastly, one other person had become uppermost in my mind. The other unnamed someone who apparently had some legitimate claim on the goddess. Claire Dharbar.
“Brig?”
“Hmm?”
“We can’t go back to our trailers tonight. I mean, everyone knows that’s where we’re staying now, don’t they?”
He nodded. “They do. But I think we’ll be fine there for what’s left of the night. It’s three-thirty now. Even if Patel gathers his minions and comes after us, it’s a two-hour drive from this part of Bombay. Jake’s got security guards around the shoot now. Patel might think twice before tangling with a contingent of guards who pack large guns and have a lot of incentive to keep the director and actors on this film safe.”
“Yeah?”
“Jake’s paying a nice price for this little security team. After he saw how easily the thugs kidnapped his lovely Asha, he did not want to leave anything to chance.”
“That’s good. For all of us.”
“Rest a while, Tempe. I’m wide awake. We’ll make it back to the lot safely. I promise not to drive like I’m in either Paris, Boston, or Jersey.”
I curled up in the passenger seat with the most-wanted statue in India in my lap and slept. I didn’t even dream.
“Tempe. Better wake up.”
I hit awake before Brig finished “better.” I looked around me. We were not at my trailer. Or Brig’s. Or Raj’s or Asha’s or anyone else’s at the Vivek Studio lot. We were at the Sea Harbor Hotel where I’d spent my first night on the run with Brig.
The Tempe who’d slept there in a borrowed T-shirt from a man she’d met hours before would’ve asked a lot of questions as to why we weren’t snug and safe at the studio, letting Jake’s security guards do their job. But that Tempe had disappeared with the last punch thrown at Patel’s mama.
I calmly asked, “What’s up? Pursuers? Plan C? Someplace with better beds than the trailer?”
“Well, the last is true but not the others. I’m a bit flummoxed here. While you slept, I had the radio on. The news is full of the murder of an American businessman. An American who’d been staying at the prestigious Taj Mahal Hotel. An American found in an alleyway near a part of town where a certain fire alarm had disrupted the lives of a certain residence. A false alarm, they said.”
He didn’t need to say more. American businessman. It had to be Raymond Decore.
“Ray’s been murdered? Great God Ganesh, how did that happen? That’s awful. I can’t believe this. But, wait. Why does that mean we’re not back at the studio?”
“Because the police are looking for two foreigners spotted near the residence who are wanted for questioning in the matter of setting off that alarm and also for Raymond Decore’s untimely death.”
“Terrific. I’ve gone from businesswoman to stripper to film dancer to burglar to wanted killer in the space of one week. So we’re back at the Sea Harbor? Sort of where we started. Why?”
Brig helped me from the car. We checked to be sure our statue hadn’t fallen out of her snug niche in my little purse. Saraswati’s lute and the snake head stuck out a good two inches, but with a baseball cap we’d found in the back seat of the Jeep, she easily passed for a souvenir bought by an American tourist too cheap to buy a big bag.
Brig patted the Diva. “It occurred to me that, strange as it seems, this hotel is the one place no one seems to have known where we were. At any time.”
He kissed me, then drew back and smiled. “Besides, it holds fond memories of the feisty lass who escaped with me after hiding out in a storeroom.”
“Hmmm. I remember that particular lass heading straight for the shower and then collapsing. But perhaps my exhausted state kept me sleeping through great moments of rolling around on the floor doing the he-ing, she-ing routine?”
Brig hugged me. “I do love you. You have a way of making the worst moments fun. And no, darlin’, we did no he-in’ or she-in’ that night. Worse the luck. But the sight of you in the sari and the bare feet and the look of determination to survive? Well, it got to me. It did. Still does. And will.”
I couldn’t answer. The words “I do love you” swirled through my exhausted psyche. They didn’t mean anything. I knew this. How many times has a buddy said, “I do love you” when teasing a friend? But I clung to those words. I barely even heard the rest of what, in actuality, revealed much more of Brig’s feelings.
I didn’t know whether Brig had ever bothered to check out of this hotel. He escorted me and our precious cargo to the same room we’d shared a week ago. I felt just as tired as that night. But this time my attention was riveted to that bed. Then to Brig. It might be four in the morning, but his eyes shone with desire. The same desire was reflected in mine.
Brig locked the door. He tossed my purse bearing the goddess on a desk chair. Seconds later, we were on that one bed. And this time, there was a fair amount of he-in’ and she-in’ going on.
Chapter 34
Between us we managed about three hours’ sleep. I awoke around nine A.M., snuggled next to Brig’s solid chest. Shiva’s Diva beamed at us from the dresser in the corner. Brig gently kissed me, then pointed to the statue.
“I don’t know if I ever told you, but Saraswati is not just the goddess of speech, music, communication, and arts.”
“There’s more? Blessing or curse?”
He threw me back on the pillows and didn’t answer for the next twenty minutes or so. When we came up for air, he continued his lecture as though he’d never stopped.
“She’s known for helping out in matters of fertility.”
“As in crops in the field?”
“As in babes in the womb.”
“Ah.” I grabbed my shirt from the chair next to the bed, then sat up in bed and eyed the goddess with new eyes.
“How long must one have the statue before she graces one with kiddies? Is this instantaneous?”
Brig laughed. The light from the window rippled over his chest and glinted in his dark hair. I didn’t think he’d need any help from Saraswati in creating a few babes.
“I’m not certain of the rules of that legend, mind you. I believe one has to ask the favor as well. Unlike the other blessings. Or curses.”
I smothered him with my pillow. “I hope so. Just think. If Patel gets his hands on the lady again, we could have scores of little Patels running loose in Bombay within the year, all looking exactly like Seymour’s mother. Yow!”
Brig tossed the pillow back at me. “Well, that’s just more incentive for us to keep the Diva out of his nasty mitts, then, isn’t it?”
“Oh, ’tis, Mr. O’Brien. ’Tis. But nasty is too nice a word for the murdering scumbag.”
We both sobered immediately. I saw it in his face. We’d been hit with the same thought at the same time. Ray Decore. Not a nice man. I still questioned whether he would have actually shot me, either that day in his hotel room or at the Flora Fountain. I honestly did not think so. Ray had turned into a crook, but I didn’t think he’d have escalated to murderer. And even if his thoughts had been edging toward violence, he didn’t deserve to end up in an alley in a foreign country with, what? Bullet holes in his back? A knife in his chest? A king cobra cozily curled up on his brow?
“Brig? Did the news say how Ray was killed?”
“Nope. I’m right with you. It might not even have been Patel who did the deed. Mahindra’s been damned quiet the last day or so.”
“I can’t really see him popping up in the middle of the night just to shoot Ray, but then, I’m not well acquainted enough with Kirk Mahindra’s business practices to know if that’s how he deals with rivals.”
Brig nodded. �
�Much as I’d love to spend the day right here in your arms, talkin’ murder and Mahindra, then moving on to more pleasurable topics, there are things to do today that don’t involve either talk or lovemaking. Sadly.”
“I know.” I oozed out of the bed again. “Oh poo.”
“Yes?”
“I’m due on the set! Like an hour ago. Phooey. For the big scene where Asha is running from the kidnappers and hitching the ride with the guy who ends up being worse than the ringmaster. The one who takes her to the Yacht Club and tries to seduce her.”
“I don’t remember that part of the script.”
“The guys weren’t in it, Brig. Just Asha and the girl dancers. Damn. I hate being irresponsible.”
Brig collapsed on the bed in near hysteria. “I don’t think getting the Diva back and ducking murderous thugs quite makes you irresponsible. Besides, I called Jake around six and told him you might be delayed because of what we were doing.”
I lifted a brow. “I’ll bet that entertained him.”
Brig grinned. “Only the doings that involved retrieving the statue. I stayed a gentleman. I did not tell him I had a howling, sweaty, back-clawing wench in my bed who’d barely let me alone long enough for me to make that phone call.”
“Thanks. Hey, wait! Sweaty? Moi? I’ll have you know I glow, mister.” I smiled. “It’s nice to know chivalry is not dead. As if I believe Jake didn’t immediately turn to Ms. Kumar and speculate about what activities we were engaging in at six in the morning. Which was doubtless what the pair of them were doing as well.”
I headed toward the bathroom to take a quick shower, then turned. “So, what did Jake say? About the shoot?”
“He’s working on the smaller scenes this morning. He wants you to lead the dancers down the road behind Asha, so he’s holding off filming till late this afternoon.”
I paused before I closed the door. “You think it’ll be safe for us to go back?”
“Not us, Tempe. You. I’m putting you on the train as soon as you’re dressed. It’ll be nearly a three-hour trip, but with the crowds you’ll be fine. And I don’t think the police are interested in you as much as me.”
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