He waved his hand through the air around his face. If he ever got out of India alive, the one thing he would remember more vividly than the heat and humidity were the flies. They were everywhere, encrusting everything in the marketplace— the pineapples, the oranges, the lemons, the piles of rice—all were covered with black dots that moved and flew and hovered, and lit again. Bold, arrogant flies that landed on your face and darted away just before you could slap them.
That incessant buzz—was it shoppers busy haggling with the merchants, or was it hordes of flies?
The smell of hot bread wafted by his nose. The couple in the stall across the alley to his left sold chupattis, little disks of unleavened bread that were a dietary staple of everyone in India, rich and poor alike. He remembered trying them on a couple of occasions and finding them tasteless. For the last hour the woman had been leaning over a dung fire cooking an endless stream of chupattis on flat iron plates. The temperature of the air around that fire had to be a hundred and thirty degrees.
How do these people stand it?
He closed his eyes and wished for a world free of heat, drought, avaricious creditors, senior officers, and rebellious Sepoys. He kept them closed, enjoying the relative darkness behind the lids. It would be nice to spend the rest of the day like this, just leaning here and—
It wasn’t a sound that snapped his eyes open; it was the lack of it. The street had gone utterly silent. As he straightened from the wall, he could see the shoppers who had been busy inspecting goods and haggling over prices now disappearing into alleys and side streets and doorways—no rush, no panic, but moving with deliberate swiftness, as if they had all suddenly remembered somewhere else they had to be.
Only the merchants remained… the merchants and their flies.
Wary and uneasy, Westphalen gripped the handle of the sabre slung at his left hip. He had been trained in its use but had never actually had to defend himself with it. He hoped he wouldn’t have to now.
He sensed movement off to his left and turned.
A squat little toad of a man swathed in the orange dhoti of a holy man was leading a train of six mules on a leisurely course down the middle of the street.
Westphalen allowed himself to relax. Just a svamin of some sort. There was always one or another of them about.
As he watched, the priest veered to the far side of the street and stopped his mules before a cheese stand. He did not move from his place at the head of the train, did not even look left or right. He simply stood and waited. The cheese maker quickly gathered up some of his biggest blocks and wheels and brought them out to the little man, who inclined his head a few degrees after an instant’s glance at the offering. The merchant put these in a sack tied to the back of one of the mules, then retreated to the rear of his stall.
Not a rupee had changed hands.
Westphalen watched with growing amazement.
Next stop was on Westphalen’s side of the street, the chupatti stall next door. The husband brought a basketful out for inspection. Another nod, and these too were deposited on the back of a mule.
Again, no money changed hands—and no questions about quality. Westphalen had never seen anything like it since his arrival in India. These merchants would haggle with their mothers over the price of breakfast.
He could imagine only one thing that could wring such cooperation from them: fear.
The priest moved on without stopping at the water stand.
“Something wrong with your water?” Westphalen said to the vendor squatting on the ground beside him. He spoke in English. He saw no reason to learn an Indian tongue, and had never tried. There were fourteen major languages on this Godforsaken subcontinent and something like two hundred and fifty dialects. An absurd situation. What few words he had picked up had been through osmosis rather than conscious effort. After all, it was the natives’ responsibility to learn to understand him. And most of them did, especially the merchants.
“The temple has its own water,” the vendor said without looking up.
“Which temple is that?”
Westphalen wanted to know what the priest held over these merchants’ heads to make them so compliant. It was information that might prove useful in the future.
“The Temple-in-the-Hills.”
“I didn’t know there was a temple in the hills.”
This time the water vendor raised his turbaned head and stared at him. The dark eyes held a disbelieving look, as if to say, How could you not know?
“And to which one of your heathen gods is this particular temple dedicated?” His words seemed to echo in the surrounding silence.
The water vendor whispered, “Kali, The Black Goddess.”
Oh, yes. He had heard that name before. She was supposedly popular in the Bengal region. These Hindus had more gods than you could shake a stick at. A strange religion, Hinduism. He had heard that it had little or no dogma, no founder, and no leader. Really—what kind of a religion was that?
“I thought her big temple was down near Calcutta, at Dakshinesvar.”
“There are many temples to Kali,” the water vendor said. “But none like the Temple-in-the-Hills.”
“Really? And what’s so special about this one?”
“Rakoshi.”
“What’s that?”
But the water vendor lowered his head and refused to respond any further. It was as if he thought he had said too much already.
Six weeks ago, Westphalen would not have tolerated such insolence. But six weeks ago a rebellion by the Sepoys had been unthinkable.
He took a final sip of the water, tossed a coin into the silent vendor’s lap, and stepped out into the full ferocity of the sun. The air in the open was like a blast from a burning house. He felt the dust that perpetually overhung the street mix with the beads of perspiration on his face, leaving him coated with a fine layer of salty mud.
He followed the svamin through the rest of the marketplace, watching the chosen merchants donate the best of their wares without a grumble or a whimper, as if glad of the opportunity. Westphalen tracked him through most of Bharangpur, along its widest thoroughfares, down its narrowest alleys. And everywhere the priest and his mule train went, the people faded away at his approach and reappeared in his wake.
Finally, as the sun was drifting down the western sky, the priest came to the north gate.
Now we’ve got him, Westphalen thought.
All pack animals were to be inspected for contraband before allowed exit from Bharangpur or any other garrisoned town. The fact that there was no known rebel activity anywhere in Bengal did not matter; it was a general order and as such had to be enforced.
Westphalen watched from a distance of about two hundred yards. He would wait until the lone British sentry had begun the inspection, then he would stroll over as if on a routine patrol of the gate and learn a little more about this svamin and his temple in the hills.
He saw the priest stop at the gate and speak to a sentry with an Enfield casually slung across his back. They seemed like old friends. After a few moments, without inspection or detention, the priest resumed his path through the gate—but not before Westphalen had seen him press something into the sentry’s palm. It was a flash of movement. If Westphalen had blinked he would have missed it.
The priest and his mules were beyond the wall and on their way toward the hills in the northwest by the time Westphalen reached the gate.
“Give me your rifle, soldier!”
The sentry saluted, then shrugged the Enfield off his shoulder and handed it to Westphalen without question. Westphalen knew him. His name was MacDougal, an enlisted man —young, red-faced, hard-fighting, hard-drinking, like most of his fellow Bengal European Fusiliers. In his three weeks as commander of the Bharangpur garrison, Westphalen had come to think of him as a good soldier.
“I’m placing you under arrest for dereliction of duty!”
MacDougal blanched. “Sir, I—”
“And for taking a bribe!�
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“I tried to give it back to ’im, sir!”
Westphalen laughed. This soldier must think him blind as well as stupid!
“Of course you did! Just like you gave his mules a thorough inspection.”
“Old Jaggernath’s only bringing supplies to the temple, sir. I’ve been here two years, Captain, and ’e’s come by every month, like clockwork, every new moon. Only brings food out to the hills, ’e does, sir.”
“He must be inspected like everybody else.”
MacDougal glanced after the retreating mule train. “Jaggernath said they don’t like their food touched, sir. Only by their own kind.”
“Well, isn’t that a pity! And I suppose you let him pass uninspected out of the goodness of your heart?” Westphalen was steadily growing angrier at this soldier’s insolence. “Empty your pockets and let’s see how many pieces of silver it took to get you to betray your fellow soldiers.”
Color suddenly flooded back into MacDougal’s face. “I’d never betray me mates!”
For some reason, Westphalen believed him. But he couldn’t drop the matter now.
“Empty your pockets!”
MacDougal emptied only one: From his right-hand pocket he withdrew a small, rough stone, clear, dull red in color.
Westphalen withheld a gasp.
“Give it to me.”
He held it up to the light of the setting sun. He had seen his share of uncut stones as he had gradually turned the family valuables into cash to appease his more insistent creditors. This was an uncut ruby. A tiny thing, but polished up it could bring an easy hundred pounds. His hand trembled. If this is what the priest gave to a sentry as a casual reward for leaving his temple’s food untouched…
“Where is this temple?”
“Don’t know, sir.” MacDougal was watching him eagerly, probably looking for a way out of dereliction charges. “And I’ve never been able to find out. The locals don’t know and don’t seem to want to know. The Temple-in-the-Hills is supposed to be full of jewels but guarded by demons.”
Westphalen grunted. More heathen rubbish. But the stone in his hand was genuine enough. And the casual manner in which it had been given to MacDougal indicated that there could be many more where that came from. With the utmost reluctance, he handed the ruby back to MacDougal. He would play for bigger stakes. And to do so he had to appear completely unconcerned about money.
“I guess no harm has been done. Sell that for what you can and divide it up between the men. And divide it equally, hear?”
MacDougal appeared about to faint with surprise and relief, but he managed a sharp salute. “Yes sir!”
Westphalen tossed the Enfield back at him and walked away, knowing that in MacDougal’s eyes he was the fairest, most generous commanding officer he had ever known. Westphalen wanted the enlisted man to feel that way. He had use for MacDougal, and for any other soldier who had been in Bharangpur for a few years.
Westphalen had decided to find this Temple-in-the-Hills. It might well hold the answer to all his financial problems.
chapter three
manhattan
friday, august 3, 198-
1
Jack awoke shortly before ten a.m. feeling exhausted.
He had come home jubilant after last night’s success, but the glow had faded quickly. The apartment had had that empty feel to it. Worse: He felt empty. He had quickly downed two Lites, hid the second half of his fee behind the cedar plank, then crawled into bed. After a couple of hours of sleep, however, he had found himself wide awake for no good reason. An hour of twisting around in his sheets did no good, so he gave up and watched the end of The Bride of Frankenstein. As the dinky little Universal plane went around the world and said “THE END,” he had dozed off again for another couple of hours of fitful slumber.
He now pushed himself out of bed and took a wake-up shower. For breakfast he finished off the Cocoa Puffs and started on a box of Sugar Pops. As he shaved he saw that the thermometer outside his bedroom window read eighty-nine degrees—in the shade. He dressed accordingly in slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, then sat by the phone. He had two calls to make: one to Gia, and one to the hospital. He decided to save Gia for last.
The hospital switchboard told him that the phone had been disconnected in the room number he gave them; there was no longer a Mrs. Bahkti listed as a patient. His heart sank. Damn! Even though he had spoken to the old lady for only a few minutes, the news of her passing hurt. So senseless. At least he had been able to get the necklace back to her before she packed it in. He told the operator to connect him with the nursing desk on the old lady’s floor. Soon he was talking to Marta.
“When did Mrs. Bahkti die?”
“Far as I know, she didn’t.”
A flash of hope: “Transferred to another floor?”
“No. It happened during the change of shift. The grandson and granddaughter—”
“Granddaughter?”
“You wouldn’t like her, Jack—she’s not a blond. Anyway, they came to the desk at shift change this morning while we were all taking report and thanked us for the concern we’d shown their grandmother. Said they’d take care of her from now on. Then they walked out. When we went to check on her, she was gone.”
Jack took the phone away from his ear and scowled at it before replying.
“How’d they get her out? She sure as hell couldn’t walk!”
He could almost feel Marta shrug at the other end of the line. “Beats me. But they tell me the guy with one arm was acting real strange toward the end of the shift, wouldn’t let anyone in to see her for the last few hours.”
“Why’d they let him get away with that?” For no good reason, Jack was angry, feeling like a protective relative. “That old lady needed all the help she could get. You can’t let someone interfere like that, even if he is the grandson! You should have called security and had them—”
“Cool it, Jack,” Marta said with an authoritative snap to her tone. “I wasn’t here then.”
“Yeah. Right. Sorry. It’s just that—”
“Besides, from what they tell me, this place was a zoo last night after a patient on Five North climbed out a window. Security was all tied up over there. Really weird! This guy with casts on both hands breaks through his room window and somehow gets down the wall and runs away.”
Jack felt his spine straighten involuntarily. “Casts? On both hands?”
“Yeah. Came in through the E.R. last night with comminuted fractures. Nobody can see how he climbed down the wall, especially since he must have got cut up pretty bad going through the window. But he wasn’t splattered on the pavement, so he must have made it.”
“Why the window? Was he under arrest or something?”
“That’s the really weird thing. He could have walked out the front door if he wanted to. Anyhow, we all figure the grandkids snuck old Mrs. Bahkti out during all the commotion.”
“What’d the guy who went through the window look like? Did he have a patch on his left eye?” Jack held his breath as he waited for the answer.
“I haven’t the faintest, Jack. Did you know the guy? I could find out his name for you.”
“Thanks, Marta, but that won’t help. Never mind.”
After saying goodbye, he cradled the receiver and sat staring at the floor. In his mind’s eye he was watching Kusum steal into a hospital room, grab a young man with a gauze patch over his left eye and casts on both arms, and hurl him through a window. But Jack couldn’t buy it. He knew Kusum would have liked to do just that, but he couldn’t see a one-armed man being capable of it. Especially not while he was busy spiriting his grandmother out of the hospital.
Irritably, he shook off the images and concentrated on his other problem: the disappearance of Grace Westphalen. He had nothing to go on but the unlabeled bottle of herbal fluid, and had only a vague gut suspicion that it was somehow involved. He didn’t trust hunches, but he decided to follow this one up for lack of anything better.
He picked up the bottle from where he had left it on the oak hutch last night and unscrewed the cap. The odor was unfamiliar, but definitely herbal. He placed a drop on a fingertip and tasted it. Not bad. Only thing to do was to have it analyzed and see where it came from. Maybe by some far out chance there was a connection to whatever happened to Grace.
He picked up the phone again, intending to call Gia, then put it down. He couldn’t bear to hear the ice in her voice. Not yet. There was something else he should do first: Call that crazy one-armed Indian and find out what he had done with the old lady. He dialed the number Kusum had left on the office answerphone yesterday.
A woman answered. Her voice was soft, unaccented, almost liquid. She told him Kusum was out.
“When will he be back?”
“This evening. Is… is this Jack?”
“Uh, yes.” He was startled and puzzled. “How did you know?”
Her laugh was musical. “Kusum said you’d probably be calling. I’m Kolabati, his sister. I was just going to call your office. I want to meet you, Repairman Jack.”
“And I want to know where your grandmother is!”
“On her way to India,” she said lightly, “where she will be cared for by our own doctors.”
Jack was relieved but still annoyed. “That could have been arranged without sneaking her out the back door or whatever it was you did.”
“Of course. But you do not know my brother. He always does things his way. Just like you, from what he tells me. I like that in a man. When can we meet?”
Something in her voice caused his concern for the grandmother to fade into the background. She was, after all, under medical care…
“Are you staying in the States long?” he asked, temporizing. He had a rule that once he was through with a job, he was through. But he had an urge to see what sort of face went with that incredible voice. And come to think of it, this woman wasn’t actually a customer—her brother was.
Jack, you should have been a lawyer.
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 49