by Berry, Tony
‘What’s this business about danger? About things being deadly?’
He could feel his stress levels rising. It was something to fight against. Stress was off the agenda these days. Its presence made him angry and that in turn made the stress rise another notch. Which increased his anger – not at the source of the stress but at the stress itself. He knew he didn’t handle it well.
Dayani rolled up a piece of roti. Bromo watched her wipe it slowly around the dish. He took a deep breath. The movement of her hand was mesmerising, a slow circular motion. Her head was bowed over the table. Neither spoke. He thought of watching a silent movie. Or a hypnotist dangling a watch chain. The anger was evaporating; the stress fading. Her voice was a slow monotone, coming to him as if from far off.
‘It is very deadly,’ she said. ‘People are being killed. That is why we are here. It is why we need your help. You helped me once before and I hope you can help me again.’
Not once did she look at him. Or change the gentle movement of her hand; or alter the slow beat of her voice.
‘We are the strangers, Bromo. You are the man in place. We need your knowledge, your contacts. This is a cancer. It’s spreading.’
Her voice never changed pitch or tone. Bromo felt he should respond but found the ability to speak had left him. There had been occasions in the past when his fitness regimen had included long-distance runs and he had experienced the runner’s high – that weird out-of-body sensation that separated the mental from the physical, when Bromo the mind was observing Bromo the body and there was no link between the two. The trance-like state he was now in was much the same. Aware yet not aware; involved yet removed. It was worse than a Mahler symphony, wandering all over the place with occasional flashes of meaning, lots of drifting off, coming to what looked like a conclusion then heading off in a completely new direction. His head drooped.
Dayani’s hand suddenly stopped moving around her plate. She put the gravy-soaked piece of roti in her mouth and let her fork fall with a clatter on to the metal dish. The intrusive sound jerked Bromo out of his trance. He shook his head and looked around the room. Nothing much had changed. One table had been vacated. Four bulky people, middle-aged and frumpy, unmistakably tourists, were debating their choice of meal at the counter.
A lanky figure in biker’s black leathers pushed through the narrow gap behind them, a hand reaching into a courier’s crumple bag slung over one shoulder. Two men seated at a table midway down the room rose as one and hurled themselves at the biker person. Bromo saw a door open in the wall behind Dayani. She pushed at it with a bent forearm. Her other hand grabbed the collar of his jacket and tugged him with her towards the opening, then pushed him ahead of her.
‘Move,’ she yelled. ‘Up the stairs.’
TWELVE
BROMO heard the door slam behind them. He saw the stairs – a narrow flight covered in a heavily worn carpet that had lost most of its pattern – and hurtled forward. Dayani was crowding him from behind, fitter and faster. He thought he heard a muffled explosion from the direction of the café but couldn’t be sure. And didn’t really care. They could deal with their own mayhem. Escape was the only item on his agenda. They were on a landing at the top of the stairs. Dayani was at his shoulder, guiding him with a firm grip on his lower arm.
‘Turn left.’
She steered him through another door, its woodwork scuffed and scratched. Bromo took in the 20kg sacks of rice, the bags of flour, drums of oil, the shelves of neatly arranged cans of fruit, the packets of curry powder, herbs and spices, a nest of long-handled woks. They were in the café’s storeroom with bars across the one small window giving a grimy view of a similar window across a narrow gap between buildings. Bromo indicated the shelves of foodstuffs.
‘Should I grab a shopping basket?’
Dayani raised her eyes to the fly-blown ceiling and clenched her fists tightly. Bromo got the hint: flippancy was not required. She was on edge, too. He changed tack.
‘So, what was that all about?’
Dayani sat down on a mound of rice sacks, leaning forward, hands clasped between her knees; slowing her breathing, refocusing.
‘I’m not sure. We’ll find out soon enough,’ she said. ‘One thing I do know is that someone has talked. That is very bad for us.’
And very bad for me, too, thought Bromo. He feared the ‘us’ now included him. Being marooned in a storeroom above an Indian restaurant with a rampant gunman down below was not his preferred way of spending the evening.
‘Any chance of getting out of here?’
‘Soon,’ she said. ‘I hope.’
‘I don’t want hope; I want positive,’ he snapped back. ‘And I don’t expect to have to explain my presence to a posse of cops.’
‘You won’t have to.’
She stood and slowly took the three paces needed to cross the space between them. Bromo leaned against the metal shelving and fiddled with a packet of spices, studying the label. Dayani moved in close. Too close. She sidled around in front of him. He could smell the musky scent of her perfume; or was it a shampoo? His chin was almost brushing the top of her head. He turned the spice packet over.
‘Hot stuff,’ he said.
‘Depends how you treat it,’ she replied. Their bodies were almost touching. Bromo’s hand squeezed on the packet of spice, using it as a stress ball. ‘It’s like the police,’ she added. ‘We take care of them and they take care of us.’
Bromo tensed – he’d been hit by a double whammy of physical and emotional reactions. As his body did the male thing in response to Dayani’s closeness, his brain whirled with the thought that she was involved in murky dealings with the police. Partial relief came with the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Dayani stepped away. Bromo replaced the packet of spices as CJ squeezed into the room. He hoped there were good reasons for the big smile on the waiter’s smooth round face.
‘Normal service has been resumed,’ said CJ, his voice a happy sing-song lilt that reminded Bromo of his daily string of nuisance messages from call centres. ‘Please do not adjust your sets.’
‘No local interference, then,’ said Bromo.
CJ’s smile widened.
‘Ah, I like that. Very good. Perhaps we could say we have excellent local reception.’
‘Broadcast it,’ said Bromo.
CJ giggled and gave Bromo a gentle slap on the back. Bromo began to relax. Humour always helped.
Dayani cleared her throat with an obvious cough. Bromo and CJ switched off their smiles and quelled their giggles. They knew she was right: this was no laughing matter. She asked CJ what had happened and over the following few minutes Bromo came to realise her status among those around her. This was the person pulling the strings, issuing the orders. And she seemed to have a small corps of people ready to jump at her command, among them at least two of the couples sitting at the café tables downstairs, to say nothing of the cheerful CJ and his offsider behind the bain-marie.
CJ’s report of the incident was brief. The intruder in the biker gear had already been observed watching the café. He had also been seen loosening the flap of his crumple bag. The men seated at the tables were primed and alert. They had risen as one and rushed at the biker as soon as his hand went towards the bag.
‘Rani twisted his arm upward and back, spinning him round and marching him back to the street,’ said CJ. ‘Duptha used his knife to slice the strap on the bag. There was a small device inside.’
Bromo saw CJ staring at him and realised his face must have betrayed his reaction. Why did they mince their words? Couldn’t they call a spade a bloody spade? A device was the sort of weasel word the spin doctors used. And saying it was a small device made not a scrap of difference. The man was carrying a fucking bomb. Bromo shivered. CJ made a calming motion with his hands in his direction.
‘It’s okay Mr Perkins. You can relax. As I said, it was only a small device; not very sophisticated. Not a problem. Duptha knew what to do.’
Good
for Duptha, thought Bromo. Duptha who carried a knife and knew how to use it. And if Duptha hadn’t been there or the man had the few more seconds’ grace needed to reach inside his bag … He shuddered. There had been too many nightmares of bombs and their victims, the dead and the maimed. His sleepless nights were the remnants of horrors from other times and other places. Please, not here, not now. He needed reassurance.
‘Is all this necessary?’
‘It’s not our doing,’ said Dayani. ‘These are desperate people.’
‘And the biker with the bomb?’
‘He’s not one of them,’ said CJ. ‘Only a messenger, someone they have hired to do this. He didn’t even know who employed him. We believe he was told to cause chaos, a warning; but not too much damage. The police have taken him and his arm is broken. He will not want to come again.’
Bromo wished he shared the conviction CJ showed in his words.
‘That’s not all though, is it? This isn’t some crazy turf war among Indian restaurants.’
CJ seemed to find an interest in something on the floor. Dayani was gazing towards the window although there was nothing to see through its unwashed panes. Neither seemed keen to speak. Bromo persisted.
‘It’s about the diamonds, isn’t it?’
Dayani turned and faced him. The unshaded single globe suspended above her threw a harsh down-light. It showed Bromo what the dimness of the café had not revealed: or maybe it was wishful thinking on his part. He could see that she had aged, although the years had still been kind to her. The spunky, almost boyish young woman of their encounter at Sigiriya had matured into a strong-willed yet still beautiful woman. There were frown lines on her brow and skin-folds beneath her chin where he was sure none had been before. But it was a long time ago and the lights had been low …
‘Yes, it’s about the diamonds.’
She again made the rice sacks her chair. She spoke softly and firmly and gestured to a steel and plastic foldaway chair leaning against the wall. As Bromo unfolded it he heard the door close gently behind him. CJ had left the room.
For the next 15 minutes Bromo sat silently while Dayani presented him with a potted history of the diamond trade. She led him through a murky labyrinth he knew little about, its devious trails crisscrossing the world from brutally managed mines in third world countries to glittering boutiques on capital city boulevards patronised only by the outrageously rich and indulgent. The more she explained the less he liked what he heard. So much for all the gloss and sparkle; the diamond trade as portrayed by Dayani was nothing more than an industry of greed secreted behind a façade of beauty and glamour. Its manipulators were harder than the rocks they mined and sold. Dead and maimed mine-workers were simply a by-product. As were murder and brutality among rogue traders. To say nothing of the fakery and duplicity once the stones were in the hands of cutters and merchants. Bromo thought of the stone delivered to him by his late-night assailants, and of the fiery reaction from Jacowiscz when he had shown it to the jeweller. If this was heading down the path he imagined Dayani was taking him, then it was time to make himself scarce. He slapped his hands down on his knees and stood up. A signal of finality.
‘Thanks for that Dayani,’ he said, keeping his voice level and non-confronting. ‘Very interesting.’
Bromo’s hand reached for the door handle. He heard a click on the other side of the door. Surely CJ wasn’t standing guard. Or listening. His internal alarms began ringing, not so much of danger – Dayani was forceful but not threatening – but of unease. He decided it was time make a firm but polite exit.
‘It sounds like a very dirty business,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the explosive dinner. Mind you don’t get hurt.’
Bromo gripped the door knob. There was no movement. He clenched his hand tight and tried again, twisting it left and right. Nothing gave. He turned and faced Dayani, still sitting on the rice sacks, leaning forward, hands clasped.
‘Don’t look so worried, Bromo. We mean no harm.’
‘So I can go?’
She smiled. Bromo saw it as the smile a mother gives to placate a fractious child. Her words matched her look.
‘Of course you can. Soon. Later. Once we have got your promise of co-operation.’
It sounded more like a promise of diminishing returns. Especially as Dayani had yet to clarify where she and her posse of enforcers fitted into the devious world she had so vividly described.
Bromo let go of the door knob and took the two paces needed to stand confronting her, looking down, noticing the glossy sheen of her hair and the neat lines of brush strokes that gathered it into a short ponytail held by an ornate clasp of gold-rimmed mother-of-pearl shaped like butterfly wings. And outlined beneath the taut cover of her jacket, he saw the unmistakable shape of a holstered gun.
‘Your world is not my world,’ he said. ‘I have nothing to offer. Not these days.’
She raised her head slightly to lock eyes with him. Such deeply dark eyes, catching the light, shimmering like the diamonds that had brought them back together, and just as alluring, highlighted by a light line of make-up. They set his mind wandering off to recall long ago dalliances around the Orient. Nearly always they had been with such dark-eyed Asian – mostly Eurasian to be precise – beauties. They provided an innate excitement no blonde – few of whom proved to be the genuine article – had ever matched. But that was then …
‘You’re still one of us,’ she said, her gaze unwavering, offering temptation and revealing nothing.
It was what his masters kept telling him. Not directly, but with hints and innuendos. There was no escape. Okay, so you stuffed up on that job on the cobbled streets of Sofia and we put you out to grass out there in the colonies. That doesn’t mean all ties have been cut. There are still threads that can be reeled back in. We may not use you, but others might find a job for you, need your help on your local turf, hide behind your anonymity, that mantle of ordinariness that you have so willingly assumed. He matched her stare and saw the truth: she was ahead of the game, no bluffing, simply holding a winning hand. Someone had been talking, directing her to him. He began to realise it was no accident that she had managed to track him down after all these years. He turned away, shrugged his shoulders.
‘This isn’t my scene.’
‘It is when local people start getting killed.’
Bromo stilled any reaction. Didn’t let her see the surprise flicker across his face. This wasn’t what he was expecting. He knew there would be more. There was.
‘I’m told you get quite upset when that happens,’ said Dayani. ‘You’ve been known to take matters into your own hands, working outside the law or around the edges. We find that very useful.’
‘Useful for what?’
‘Resolving things.’
‘Resolve them yourself. You don’t need me.’
Bromo spun round quickly on his heels, swiveled his hips for a rapid change of direction and laid a forearm across the back of her neck, pushing her firmly down towards the floor. He clamped his other hand on to the lumpy shape of the gun nestling in the small of her back. He waited for a reaction but she offered no resistance. It was as he intended. Just making a point. Letting her know he had seen the weapon.
‘Guns and me don’t mix,’ he said.
He released the pressure and stepped away. Dayani sat slowly upright, flexing her shoulders, one hand massaging the back of her neck.
‘You still know all the moves,’ she said.
‘Not really.’ He beamed a wry smile in her direction. ‘I think that’s what’s known as a chassé reverse, something picked up when I tried to learn ballroom dancing.’ And made a complete and utter dill of myself; two left feet and rigid as a light pole. No wonder dancing had developed into a free for all where you didn’t even need a partner.
‘You could have got hurt,’ she said.
Dayani’s black eyes were boring into him, beaming a message, her face unsmiling. Bromo knew she was probably right. He reviewed their frac
as and acknowledged she hadn’t reacted to his attack, simply gone with the flow, knowing her man and confident in herself. He felt he had been through an exercise in unarmed combat with a compliant instructor letting the student show off his moves.
‘No guns.’
It sounded like a surly but conditional acceptance. He couldn’t help it; he did feel surly – and angry with himself. He felt manipulated and led. Yet why not do whatever it was they wanted? He might as well accept that he was needed, even valued, and show some good grace. There were too many faceless people who could make life extremely difficult if he didn’t. Dayani knew it.
‘So you’ll help?’
Bromo folded his arms across his chest and nodded assent. No more surly words – for now.
‘Thanks. If we can eliminate the distribution link that’s been set up here we’ll ask nothing more. You can go back to playing at being a travel agent and getting sozzled on Laphroaig.’
One more point to them, thought Bromo. And one more reminder that they had him well and truly tagged, right down to his secret indulgences. Perhaps they even knew about Polly and the nightmares she caused.
‘You said something about people being killed,’ he said. He didn’t believe it. This had to be the bait they were using to wind him in.
‘A young woman,’ said Dayani.
‘One of yours?’
‘No. A link.’
‘But not here,’ said Bromo, treading a slow circuit around the room. Hardly a workout but it eased the stiffness in his body and gave him something to do as his mind raced with the droplets of information Dayani was drip-feeding him.
He spoke with the assurance of one who knew his facts. He still refused to fully accept her story. Drugs and money-laundering drove the local crime scene. Killings happened because deals went astray or debts weren’t paid. Turf wars broke out over the same issues – greedy, brutal, ego-driven men unable to say enough is enough, always wanting more of everything and none of it of any true value yet, to their bent and twisted minds, always worth killing and dying for. All this he knew and not once had he heard any mention of diamonds as an item of trade or something to kill for.