She stood up. Light from a candle on the table lifted her face, as a gentle hand might’ve done. She kissed me, and hugged me.
She was dressed in a red cheongsam, split to the hip on one side. Her hair was pulled up in a shell of curves and waves, held in place by a poison dart from a blowgun, which she’d modified with a red jewel at the end. She was wearing red gloves. She was beautiful, and it was a beautiful night, until she said the name Concannon.
‘Come again?’
‘Concannon wrote me a letter,’ she repeated, four green queens on me.
‘And you tell me this now?’
‘The other stuff we talked about was more important.’
‘I want to read it,’ I said.
It was the wrong approach, but I was angry. Concannon got me that way.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I burned it,’ she said. ‘Can we go somewhere where I can’t blow cigarette smoke on anybody but you?’
We rode to the top of Malabar Hill and a view of the restaurant we’d left, on the strip of coast below. Lights in the curve of Marine Drive garlanded the belly of the great ocean, the Mother of all.
She blew cigarette smoke on me, for a while, and then went easy on me with two green queens.
‘What’s going on?’
‘What isn’t going on, Karla?’
We were sitting on a stone monument, high enough for a view through trees to the sea. Another couple sat in the shadows a few metres away, murmuring quietly.
Cars and motorcycles passed slowly, preparing themselves for the long, curving road skirting the city zoo, and leading steeply to Kemps Corner junction. The smell of lions in cages followed that road, and the sound of their grieving roars.
Cops passed every thirty minutes or so. Some very rich people lived nearby. A limousine slowed to a creep as it passed us. The windows were blacked out.
I moved gently against Karla, feeling her body, her weight, ready to push her aside and reach for a knife. The car passed, continuing on down Lion-Sorrow Hill.
‘Why did you burn the letter?’
‘If your body gets infected, and it’s more than your immune system can cope with, you fight it off with antibiotics. It was toxic, so I burned it in an antibiotic fire. Now it’s gone.’
‘But it’s not. It’s still inside your memory. Everything is still inside your memory. You don’t forget anything. What did the letter say?’
‘It’s already in two memories, his and mine,’ she said. ‘Why should it be in three?’
She drew in a quick breath. I knew that quick breath. It wasn’t oxygen, it was ammunition. She was getting angry, and ready to let me have it.
‘It concerns both of us,’ I said, holding up my hands. ‘I get it, that a letter’s a private thing. But this is about an enemy. You’ve gotta see that.’
‘He wrote it, hoping that I’d show it to you. It’s a trick. He’s taunting and tormenting you, not me.’
‘Exactly why I want to know what he wrote to you.’
‘Exactly why you shouldn’t. It’s enough that I tell you it wasn’t nice, and that you need to know what he’s doing. I’d never hide it from you, because you need to know, but I don’t want you to read it. You’ve gotta see that.’
I didn’t see it, and I didn’t like it. For all we knew, Concannon had a hand in Lisa’s death. He’d tried to crack my skull. I didn’t feel betrayed. I just felt left out. She’d left me out of one too many of her games and schemes.
We rode home, and kissed goodnight. It wasn’t good. I couldn’t fake it. I was unhappy and disappointed. I almost made it into my room, before she stopped me.
‘Spit the long face out,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter?’
She was standing in the entrance to the Bedouin tent. I was standing in the entrance to my monk’s cell: the room of an ex-convict, ready to leave in a motorcycle kick.
‘Concannon’s letter,’ I said. ‘I think you should’ve shown it to me. Like this, it feels like a weird secret that I don’t want you to keep.’
‘A . . . secret?’ she said, looking me up and down, and tilting her head. ‘You know, I’ve got a pretty busy schedule tomorrow.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘And . . . the day after tomorrow.’
‘And –’
‘Then, too.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it me, who’s supposed to be angry?’
‘You’re never the one who’s supposed to be angry.’
‘Not even when I’m right?’
‘Especially not when you’re right. But you’re not right about this. And now we’re both pissed.’
‘You don’t have the right to be mad at me, Karla. Concannon’s involved with Ranjit and Lisa. Nothing about him should be secret.’
‘Why don’t we leave it at that,’ she said. ‘Before we say something we’ll regret. I’ll stay in touch. I’ll slip a note under your door, if I’m feeling low.’
She shut the door, and locked the locks.
I went to my room, but Abdullah knocked on my door a minute later, disturbing my angry pacing. He told me to get ready, and meet him on the street.
He was parked near my bike with Comanche and three others from the Company, all of them on motorcycles. I kicked my bike to life and followed Abdullah and the others south toward Flora Fountain, where we stopped to allow a water tanker to pass through an intersection, elephant-slow.
‘You don’t want to know where we are going?’ Abdullah asked me.
‘No. I’m just happy to be riding with you, man.’
He smiled, and led us through Colaba to Sassoon Dock, near the entrance to the Navy base. We parked in front of a wide, shaded entrance gate, closed for the night.
Abdullah sent a kid to buy chai. The men settled on their bikes, each with a different view of the street.
‘Fardeen was killed,’ Abdullah said.
‘Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’oon,’ I said, speaking calm words, We come from God, and to God we return, but feeling shocked and hurt.
‘Subhanahu Wa Ta’aala,’ Abdullah replied. May Allah forgive the bad deeds of the returning soul, and accept the good ones.
‘Ameen,’ I answered.
Fardeen was so polite and considerate, and such a fair arbiter of others’ disputes that we knew him as the Politician. He was a brave fighter, and a loyal friend. Everyone but Fardeen had at least one enemy within the brotherhood of the Sanjay Company. Fardeen was the only man we all loved.
If the Scorpion Company had killed Fardeen as a payback for the burning of their house, they’d picked the one man in Sanjay’s group whose death punctured every heart with a poisoned sting.
‘Was it the Scorpions?’ I asked.
The other men with Abdullah, Comanche, Shah, Ravi and Tall Tony, laughed a gasp, and it was a bitter thing.
‘They took him between Flora Fountain and Chor Bazaar,’ Shah said, rubbing an angry tear away with the heel of his hand. ‘He was on his way there, but never arrived. We found his bike in Byculla, parked on the side of the road.’
‘They took him somewhere,’ Tall Tony continued, ‘tied him up, tortured him, tattooed the outline of a fuckin’ scorpion on his chest, and stabbed him through it. Pretty safe to conclude it was them.’
Tall Tony, distinguished by his height from the other Anthony in the Company, Little Tony, spat a curse on the ground at his feet. The tattoo was a cruel twist of the knife. Fardeen was a Muslim, and he followed a tradition among some Muslims, forbidding tattoos. Marking Fardeen’s body lowered the bar: the conflict wasn’t between rival gangs, but between rival religions.
‘Holy shit,’ I said. ‘How can I help?’
They laughed again, but it was the real thing.
; ‘We are here to help you, Lin brother,’ Abdullah said.
‘Help me?’
They laughed again.
‘What’s up, Abdullah?’
‘There is a price on your head, Lin.’
‘It’s a limited offer,’ Comanche said. ‘One night only, twenty-four hours.’
‘Starting when?’
‘Midnight tonight to midnight tomorrow night,’ Shah said.
‘How much?’
‘One lakh,’ Ravi said. ‘A hundred thousand rupees, dude. That makes you the only man here who actually knows his market value.’
It was about six thousand dollars, in those days: enough to buy a pickup truck, in America, and enough to pick up every sneak-killer in the southern zone, in Bombay.
I thought of several men I knew, a couple of friends, in fact, who’d happily kill me for nothing, if it occurred to them, just because they liked killing people.
‘Thanks, guys,’ I said.
‘What do you want to do?’ Abdullah asked me.
‘I’ve gotta stay away from Karla,’ I said. ‘Don’t want any crossfire.’
‘Wise. Do you need anything from your home?’
Do I need anything, for being hunted to death?
I worked the street. I was always ready. I had good boots, good jeans, clean T-shirt, lucky sleeveless vest with inner pockets, American money, Indian money, two knives at my back, and a motorcycle that never let me down.
I didn’t have a gun, but I knew where to find one.
‘No, I’m good, until the clock runs down. It’s gonna be an interesting night. Thanks for the warning. I’ll see you in twenty-four hours. Allah hafiz.’
I straightened my bike from the side-stand, and prepared to kick-start.
‘Whoa, whoa!’ Tall Tony said.
‘Where the fuck you goin’?’ Ravi asked.
‘I know a place,’ I said.
‘A place?’ Abdullah frowned.
‘A place,’ I said. ‘Allah hafiz.’
‘Whoa, whoa!’ Tall Tony said.
‘What place?’ Ravi asked.
‘There’s a place I know with a way in, that everybody knows, and a way out that only I know.’
‘What the fuck?’ Comanche asked.
‘I’ll get my gun,’ I said, ‘some fruit, and a couple of beers, and retire there for twenty-four. I’ll see you guys later. I’m good.’
‘Not gonna happen,’ Ravi said, shaking his head.
‘We are forbidden by Sanjay from helping you,’ Abdullah said. ‘But in a time of crisis like this, with a Council member like Fardeen killed, many young men from outside the Company are riding the streets with Company men, patrolling the whole boundary of the south with us. Comanche has joined us, and he is retired from the Company.’
‘Damn right,’ Ravi said.
‘There is nothing to stop you riding with us,’ Abdullah continued, ‘while we make patrols. And nothing to stop you resting with us, for the next twenty-four hours, as a gesture of your support for the Sanjay Company.’
‘And if you choose to do that –’ Tall Tony said.
‘– we can’t stop you,’ Ravi finished.
‘So, come, Lin, and ride the boundary of South Bombay with us for the next twenty-four hours,’ Abdullah said, clapping me on the shoulder. ‘And offer us your protection, in this time of attacks on the Company.’
It was a nice offer, one you remember, but I didn’t feel right accepting it.
‘And suppose one of you takes a bullet for me?’ I asked. ‘How am I gonna feel about that?’
‘Suppose you take a bullet saving one of us?’ Abdullah replied, starting his bike. ‘How will you feel about that?’
The others started their bikes and we rode off together, settling into a slow speed after the bikes were warm, and cruising the streets and boulevards, two in front, three behind.
Men block things out. Men are driven by duty, and block out anything that stands in the way of their duty.
There was a new price on my head, and I had no idea who put it there, but I blocked it out, thinking only of survival. Maybe the fact that I already had a bounty on my head, offered by my own government, made it easier to block, and give myself to the boundary ride with Abdullah and the others, patrolling for surprise attacks by Scorpion Company killers.
It wasn’t the first time I’d ridden a patrol in South Bombay. Other gangs had tried to take territory in the tourist-rich peninsula. We’d ridden patrols through the night in anticipation of attacks, which sometimes came: attacks that would’ve been worse, if we hadn’t been able to respond with mobile patrols in less than thirty seconds, anywhere in the south.
Two teams of four men patrolled a four-hour shift, which was the polite limit for the motorcycles.
The dragon’s mouth of the Island City is roughly the same size as Manhattan. We cruised dozens of circuits in those hours. Fortunately, South Bombay is ravined with tiny walkways, wide enough for motorcycles. They provided a network of short cuts that shaved minutes of traffic, and offered endlessly surprising entries and exits to major arterial routes.
The times that we stopped patrolling and talked to people were as important as the time in the saddle. Every helpful whisper is a way to strike the enemy. Home ground advantage is the ace of spades, in turf wars. Attention to detail is the ace of hearts. A supportive community that likes and trusts you at least as much as they like and trust the police is the royal flush.
In fact, the cops joined in with the Sanjay Company, after Fardeen’s murder, allowing a limited amnesty for Company men to carry weapons.
The Scorpions, Didier’s sources assured him, were trying to force their way into the south with a combination of violence and religious nationalism. They felt that the cops should support their control of South Bombay, because they saw themselves as patriots, and the Sanjay Company as traitors.
The cops were under strict orders to react swiftly in matters of religious sentiment, which was a convenient excuse for Lightning Dilip. He joined with Sanjay Company men, who paid him with more than patriotic fervour, and sent his jeep patrols to hunt down Scorpions for disturbing communal harmony.
It was a tense business, during the truce, being immune from police aggression. Most of us preferred the aggression. You know where you stand, when everyone’s playing by the same rules. When the cops are the good guys, it’s time to think about another game.
It was eerie, stopping at a traffic signal and having a police jeep draw up alongside; having the cops try to smile, and even make small talk, when you’ve been beaten in the back of the same jeep, by the same cops.
At the end of our patrol, when no-one had heard or seen anything unusual, we stopped near Haji Ali’s tomb, where Tardeo met Pedder Road.
Everything south of that point was Sanjay Company territory, from sea to sea. The tomb of the saint was on neutral ground, and gangsters from all over Bombay came to the shrine peacefully, even gangs that were at war.
Abdullah left the bikes with a contact at the nearby service station, and led us on the long walk across the land bridge footpath to the small island tomb of the saint.
We’d all performed the gangster ritual before: a late-night walk to the saint’s tomb, before battle.
Haji Ali, then simply a wealthy Uzbek merchant named Ali, gave up all he had to the poor, and went on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
He travelled all of the world that a traveller could reach. It was a difficult thing to do, because it was the fifteenth century, but he went everywhere, carrying his belongings on his back, and learning everything that could be known.
A man of good taste, he settled in Bombay, and was renowned in the city and beyond for his piety. He died while on the annual Haj. The coffin carrying his body was lost at sea, but washed up, miraculously, on the shores of Bombay, where his tomb was built
.
Once a day, in high season, the sea washed the path to Haji Ali’s tomb away, leaving it invisible below the menacing water. It was as if the saint sometimes said, Please, enough, and was released from the world of our sins and sorrows by a drowned path, letting him sleep in peace to restore his power as one of the great protectors of the city.
On that night, the path across the sea was dry and almost deserted. The wind was sharp, and came in ruffling bursts. We walked alone, six gangsters, toward the island tomb, moonlight throwing long shadows on a mirror of shallow tide.
The rounded rocks beneath us on either side of the wide path were exposed: black wet things clinging to the path for shelter, their backs bent to the sea.
Incense, burning in bunches as thick as a camel’s hoof, filled the air with fragrances of devotion.
I didn’t follow the ritual on the path across the sea to the island shrine. Gangsters going to war walked toward the shrine thinking of the harm they’d done in the past, prayed for forgiveness at the tomb, and walked away from the shrine ready for hell. I didn’t do it, that time.
I thought of Karla, and how angry we’d been when we’d said goodnight.
I didn’t think about who’d taken the contract out on me. The list of suspects was long, and I couldn’t shorten it by thinking about it. As it turned out, Abdullah shortened it for me, as we walked back across the sea, on the strip of stone that joined the shore.
‘You did not ask me who took out this contract on you.’
‘I thought I’d survive the twenty-four, and then find out,’ I replied.
‘Why do you not want to know now?’
‘Because, when I know, I’ll want to do something to him. And it would be better to do something to him after everybody stops trying to kill me.’
‘It was the Irishman.’
‘Concannon?’
‘Yes.’
It was my turn to laugh, and about time.
‘Good to see you keeping those spirits up,’ Ravi said, walking a pace behind us with Shah, Comanche and Tall Tony.
The Mountain Shadow Page 61