The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  “Jaldi chalo.”

  He accompanied the command with another finger-snapping, hand-cracking performance, and the boys responded immediately. The shorter of the two scrambled into the driver’s seat, and although his eyes barely crested the top of the steering wheel he applied himself fearlessly to the urgent request to “go, quickly.”

  As the car roared and bounced its way back toward central Mumbai, Conor pulled out his phone and punched in the number he’d known all night he would eventually have to dial. It took five rings before the call was answered. After a few seconds of rustling movement, a voice responded in a sleepy voice tinged with fear. With an exhalation of remorse, he plunged ahead.

  “Meera, is that you? Yes, it’s Con. No, no, there’s nothing wrong. Listen, I’m sorry to be calling you so late.”

  “It is not ‘so late’ that you are calling, Con,” Bishan’s wife responded. Her voice now contained a note of relieved amusement. “It is ‘so early.’ What manner of nonsense are you getting up to, before sunrise itself?”

  “It’s a little too complicated to explain right now, but I’m afraid I need to ask a favor of Bishan Singh. Can I—”

  Before he could finish the request Bishan was already on the line, filled with concern and firing questions. Conor came quickly to the point.

  “Bishan, I need a ride. And I need a driver who won’t tell anyone later where he took me. Can you help me?”

  “Why do you ask this question?” Bishan scolded. “I am coming. Where are you?”

  “I’m not there yet, but I’m headed to the Marilyn Monroe Bar. Can you wait for me at the end of the lane? I’ll meet you there in about an hour.”

  “The Marilyn Monroe Bar, you say?”

  He heard Bishan’s tongue pull loudly against the back of his front teeth.

  “Yes, the Monroe Bar,” he replied in a neutral voice.

  “The Marilyn Monroe Bar in Kamathipura?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Okay, Okay, in one hour,” Bishan said with forced vigor.

  “Look, Bishan, I know what you’re probably thinking, and it’s—”

  “No need, no need, my friend.” Obviously mortified, the Sikh’s deep voice rose to a higher pitch. “I am coming in one hour, absolutely. No problems. I will be seeing you soon. Bye for now.”

  Conor snapped the phone shut and threw it onto the seat next to him with a groan.

  “Jaysus, will this night never end?”

  19

  The small glass of chai had grown cold in his hands, its surface wrinkled over with a dark brown skin. He had forgotten he was holding it. He remembered being grateful for its heat when he’d first accepted it, but apparently it had not occurred to him to drink it, which was probably just as well.

  He had been neglecting more than the tea. Behind his desk, Rohit Mehta was rocking back in his chair and regarding him with droll interest, while next to him one of the floor managers meticulously counted the stacks of rupees piled in front of them. Conor realized he had been sitting in a semiconscious stupor. He had an imperfect recollection of arriving at the Monroe and making his way to the back office. He also realized that at some point during this indefinite period, he had developed a blistering fever.

  The sight of the coagulating tea set off an alarming turmoil in his stomach. He quickly put the glass on the desk and moved it to one side, out of his line of sight. By the time he had conquered the urge to be sick, a cold sweat had puddled in the area around his lower back.

  “Are you feeling quite well, yaar?” Mehta inquired, solicitously. “You are looking somewhat gray about the face, I am thinking.”

  “I’m all right,” Conor replied, hoping to convince himself if no one else. “Is he almost done?”

  Rohit Mehta directed a look of mild inquiry at the floor manager, who looked up from his labors with obsequious reassurance.

  “Yes, Mehta-bhai. It is nine lakhs, thirty-three thousand till now, and these many piles still to count.”

  When he at last placed the final note on the last pile of rupees, the floor manager gave a sigh of satisfaction, and Conor climbed wearily to his feet.

  “Where’s Radha?”

  Rohit Mehta looked surprised. “She is just there, next room over, sleeping. You passed by her coming in, yes? You did not see?”

  He didn’t remember seeing, but he found her on a couch in the sitting area outside Mehta’s office and thought he hardly could have missed her. It took some time to wake her, and a little more time before she was able to respond to him with any sort of lucidity.

  “Is it three hours, already?” she asked, sleepily.

  “It’s a bit more than that.” He smiled down at her. “Are you ready to go?”

  Radha shot upright as though released by a spring and stared at him, instantly wide awake. “I am going with you, bhaiyya? You are taking me?”

  The bright, anxious hope in her eyes was almost more than he could stand. He’d never given the matter a moment of serious thought, and it was an odd time to start, but here now, in a dance bar in the heart of India’s reddest red-light district, with fever tingling along his nerve endings, he looked at the young face of an incipient heroin addict . . . and thought about fatherhood.

  “Yes, you’re coming with me,” he said. “If you want to, that is.”

  “You have paid for it? It is for sar dhakna?”

  “No. It bloody well is not for sar dhakna.” Conor’s exclamation echoed in the empty room, making her jump in startled fear.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.” He sat down next to her on the couch. “Listen to me now, Radha, because it’s important for you to understand this. I’m not here to take you away so that I can . . . ehm, that is . . . you’re still very young. I know you’re not a child, exactly. But . . . well, to me you are. So we could never, I mean—ah, for the love of God, tell me you understand what I’m saying to you here.”

  Radha was regarding him with a look of patient understanding. “Yes, I understand, Con-ji. I am like sister for you. I know this about you since long time. I was not thinking you would take my virginity or make me wife to you.”

  “Oh.” Conor was momentarily stumped for further comment.

  “But what I am asking is did you pay Rohit Mehta for sar dhakna? It is the only way for me to leave.”

  “Let’s just say we reached an understanding.”

  “There is no understanding with Rohit Mehta without rupees.” She leaned forward, eyes gleaming with curiosity. “How much did you pay for me, bhaiyya?”

  “Radha,” Conor pleaded, getting slowly to his feet again. “Could we please talk about this another time?”

  “Yes, except for this question,” she insisted. “How much did you pay for me?”

  Conor rubbed a hand over his eyes in exasperation. “Twelve lakhs.”

  “Twelve lakhs?!”

  He thought her squeal somewhat reminiscent of his own when he’d first heard the figure.

  “Did you not think the price was too high?” Radha asked in amazement.

  “I thought it was surprising,” he admitted, “but I didn’t think it was either too low or too high. He could have said anything, and he would have been wrong. You are not a sari or a piece of jewelry, Radha. You’re a young lady, and you are without price. Our first rule, if you are going to come with me, is that you will never speak to me or anyone else as though you thought you had been purchased. Is that agreed?”

  “It is agreed.”

  He smiled at the look of dignity on her face and held out his hand. “Then, what are we waiting for? Chalo.”

  They stepped out into the predawn darkness, and when they emerged at the end of the lane, Conor thought the look on Bishan’s face was worth twelve lakhs on its own. If he had been feeling better, he might have appreciated the moment’s comic potential: the shameless, thirty-two year-old gora trotting along, leading a thirteen-year-old bar girl by the hand. He settled Radha into the back seat of the powder blue Ambassador
and then rested his elbows against the hood of the car next to Bishan.

  “I know what this looks like, yaar,” he said to his friend, “but it’s not what it looks like.”

  “Please, Con, there is no need,” Bishan began before Conor interrupted him with an angry obscenity in Hindi.

  “Stop blushing at me like my bleedin’ grandma,” he snapped. “She’s thirteen years old, for Christ’s sake. Do you think that little of me? Think I’ve come to India to whore around, de-flowering children? Is that what you think?”

  Bishan’s eyes immediately filled with tears of wounded remorse. “I am sorry, my friend. It is very early morning, and I am confused. I was not thinking of anything, but only trying to understand why you are here in Kamathipura at five a.m., and why there is a young girl falling asleep in the back of my car. I meant no offense. Forgive me.”

  Conor turned and put his back against the car. He shook his head with a grimace of self-disgust. “No, forgive me. You’re one of the kindest men I’ve ever met, Bishan Singh. You’ve come out to this shite neighborhood at the crack of dawn to help me and what do you get in return? I’m sorry, Bishan. I’m really, really sorry.”

  Sliding down the side of the car until he was almost sitting in the dirt, Conor put his face in his hands. He thought it felt rather comfortable. He was shivering again, and it seemed a bit warmer here, close to the ground. He thought it might be nice to sit like this for a while, maybe catch a few winks.

  He felt the powerful arms of his friend lifting him up, steadying him for a moment, and then gently guiding him into the passenger seat of the car. Once the door was shut, he collapsed against it, murmuring thanks in an assortment of languages. Bishan climbed into the driver’s seat and regarded him with a look of profound worry.

  “You are very ill. There is a hospital close by. I will bring you.”

  “No,” Conor protested, struggling into a sitting position. “It’s just a fever, and it’ll be gone soon. It comes and goes like that.”

  “A fever that is coming and going is not a good thing, Con.”

  “Yes, right. I know. I’ll get it checked, but not now. We need to go to the Jyoti, please, Bishan. After that we need to go to Mahim.”

  By the time they reached the apartment complex, he had recovered enough to insist that Bishan remain with Radha while he retrieved the packed luggage he’d left there earlier. After the previous evening’s revelations, and even before hatching the plan to defraud Ahmed Khalil, he had known it would be madness to remain in the flat. Too many people knew where he’d been living. It would be the first place they’d come looking for him.

  After retrieving his bags, he returned to the Ambassador bathed in sweat and trembling with exhaustion. Bishan took the bags from him with a small sigh.

  “You are finished here?” he asked, quietly.

  Conor nodded. “Yeah, finished.”

  When they rolled to a stop under the covered parking lot of Kavita’s building in Mahim, Radha was still sleeping in the back seat. Conor pulled the door open and crouched next to her, but then hesitated.

  “I hate to wake her up,” he said, looking up at Bishan. “I can carry her upstairs if you get the bags.”

  At this, Bishan’s attitude of reluctant compliance evaporated. Taking Conor by the elbow he pulled him up with a ferocious hiss. “Bas! Enough! Idiot. You are shivering head to toe and barely standing on two feet. If you carry your own self upstairs, this will be an astonishing thing. I will bring the child, and I will return for all the baggages. If by this time you have not yet reached, I will carry you as well.”

  Conor could not help laughing at his friend’s indignant rant, but the deep rumble it produced in his chest quickly sobered him. “Accha. I get the message. You’re probably right.” It belatedly occurred to him that it would have been courteous to phone ahead before turning up so early in the morning, but he reasoned that although their timing might be unexpected, his appearance with Radha would not come as a complete surprise. Unable to think of a way to help the young girl, he had sought Kavita’s advice, and her response had been characteristically succinct and generous.

  “Bring her to me.”

  Coming from anyone else it might have sounded like a casual suggestion, but from her, it had the force of a gentle command. He’d been grateful for its unambiguous clarity. It was a directive he could embrace without confusion, an assignment that made sense. As a result of what he’d recently learned, it made even more sense now. Kavita apparently had some experience with the kind of intervention that was going to be needed.

  He was able to make it up the stairs under his own steam, but only just. As they reached the third floor landing, he stopped to catch his breath and noted that Kavita’s uncanny internal radar had provided an early warning of his arrival after all. The door was once again ajar, and the aroma of fried eggs wafting into the hallway signaled she was expecting him.

  The collapse of Conor’s mythic appetite had been a source of dismay in the Kotwal household over the past few weeks. Kavita’s daughter, Parvati, had tried coaxing it back to life with a variety of recipes, but it was only when she surprised him one day with a traditional Irish breakfast—complete with grilled tomato and brown bread—that her efforts met with any success. It had become one of the few meals he could be persuaded to eat, so it was presented to him regularly.

  Leaning against the stairway wall, he looked at Radha, still sleeping in Bishan’s arms, and felt the tension melting from his tight, stiffened muscles. He was tired—dangerously exhausted, in fact—and there seemed little promise of rest or safety ahead of him. He sensed the approach of calamity as surely as he could sense the trickle of perspiration sliding down his face; and topping everything else was the unavoidable fact that he was going to need a doctor and some serious drugs to tackle whatever had fastened onto his lungs.

  He pushed it all to the back of his mind, because for the moment he was savoring a quiet sense of victory, and because for the moment he knew he was safe. Kavita Kotwal was safety itself. Rest and refuge at the edge of chaos.

  20

  Radha woke almost as soon as they arrived. Bishan had laid her on a couch before going to collect the luggage, and Conor had remained hovering close by. He worried that waking up in a room full of strangers would frighten her, but when her eyes opened, she looked around with an expression of alert curiosity.

  “You belong to this place, Con? These are your families?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said, marveling at her self-possession. “They are my very good friends, and we’re going to stay with them for a bit. We could both do with some rest and recuperation.”

  “What does it mean, ‘recuperation?’” she asked, raising herself from the couch.

  “Well . . . ” he hesitated. He knew what the word meant for him, and that it would mean something rather different for her, but it wasn’t the time to discuss it. In fact, confronting Radha with the news that her heroin supply had dried up was a task he hoped to avoid altogether. He was counting on Kavita to venture into that hornet’s nest and was happy to plead cowardice as an exemption.

  “It’s a fancy word that means our friends are going to look after us,” he said. “Which begins with breakfast, and since you are awake and alert—ah, no, don’t be pulling the long face, now. It’s not optional. Most important meal of the day.”

  They joined the family and Bishan, who looked happier now with a mug of chai and a plate of hot rotis in front of him. Conor introduced Radha and seated her among Parvati’s three daughters. The four girls exchanged greetings and stared at each other with shy fascination.

  He slipped into the chair next to Bishan, and as Kavita began circling the table serving the eggs, she regarded Conor with a look that made him squirm. He had been doing his best to hide his weariness, but her penetrating gaze made the futility of that effort obvious. When she tried to slip a second egg onto his plate, he stopped her hand with a gentle squeeze.

  “Let’s n
ot be overly optimistic. I’m trying to set an example, but I can probably manage just the one.”

  “This is not managing well enough, beta.”

  Kavita turned his face toward her. The faraway look in her eyes so reminded him of his mother’s that his throat ached with the pressure of suppressed grief.

  “You have had some fever today also,” she said. It was not a question.

  “Coming and going,” Bishan grumbled in disapproval.

  Conor confirmed the observation with a small grin. “Coming and going, just like Bishan Singh’s patience. I’ll likely get the fever back sooner than his good opinion of me.”

  “Idiot. God forbid it.” Bishan gave his shoulder an affectionate thump and pulled at his beard in embarrassment.

  Kavita touched Conor’s cheek, and before he could protest, she had smoothly transferred another egg onto his plate. “Set a finer example, even. Eat the two eggs.”

  He watched Radha closely during the meal, and after Bishan departed, and the table began clearing, he at last saw the change he had been dreading since they’d left Kamathipura. Beneath lowered lids, her eyes began darting around the room, miserably avoiding his gaze as her fingers clutched nervously at a small cloth purse she’d placed on her lap.

  Conor silently swore at himself. Why had it not occurred to him that she would bring drugs with her? Didn’t he always check for cigarettes before he went anywhere? Even now, when he was trying to quit, the reflexive slap against his pockets was a habit as tenacious as the craving itself, a constant reminder of the persistence of addiction. How could he have imagined she would blithely come away without knowing her next fix was secure? And even the one after that? As a crushing fatigue descended over him, he wondered exactly how much heroin she might be carrying in her little cloth purse.