Chapter Twenty-Five
Kavita Singh, the journalist who was earning a reputation for good writing about bad things people did, leaned back with her chair tipped against the wall. Beside her was a young woman I’d never seen before. Naveen and Divya were on Didier’s left. Vikram was with Jamal, the One Man Show, and Billy Bhasu, both from Dennis’s tomb.
The fact that Vikram was up and around again after two hours of sleep betrayed the depth of his habit. When you first start on the drug, a high can last twelve hours. When your tolerance crawls into addiction, you need to fix, or search for one, every three to four.
They were all laughing about something, when I approached the table.
‘Hey, Lin!’ Naveen called out. ‘We’re talking about our favourite crime. We all had to nominate one. What’s your favourite crime?’
‘Mutiny.’
‘An anarchist!’ Naveen laughed. ‘An argument in search of a reason!’
‘A reasoned argument,’ I countered, ‘in search of a future.’
‘Bravo!’ Didier cried, waving to the waiter for a new round of drinks.
He moved aside to let me sit. I took the seat next to him, and took the opportunity to pass him Rannveig’s Norwegian passport.
‘Vinson will collect it from you, in the next day or two,’ I said quietly.
I turned my attention to Vikram. He avoided my eyes, and played with a smudge of beer on the table in front of him. I motioned for him to lean close to me.
‘What are you doing, Vikram?’ I whispered.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You were out cold two hours ago, Vik.’
‘I woke up, man,’ he said. ‘It happens.’
‘And these guys, who buy dope, just happen to be with you?’
He drew away, leaning back in his chair, and spoke to the table.
‘You know, Lin, I think you’re mistaking me for someone who gives a shit. But I don’t. And I think I’m not alone. Didier, do you give a shit?’
‘Reluctantly,’ Didier replied. ‘And infrequently.’
‘How about you, Kavita?’ Vikram asked.
‘Actually,’ she replied, ‘I give more than a shit, about a lot of things. And –’
‘You know, Lin,’ Vikram said. ‘You used to be a pretty cool guy, yaar. Don’t become just another foreigner in India.’
I thought about his father’s fear, and how they had to hide their precious things from him, but didn’t respond.
‘We’re all foreigners in Bombay, aren’t we?’ Kavita said. ‘I –’
Vikram cut her off again, reaching out to grasp at Didier’s arm.
‘Can we do it now?’
Didier was shocked. He never did business in Leopold’s. But he took a prepared wad of notes from his pocket, and gave it to Vikram. My proud friend snatched at the money and rose quickly, almost toppling his chair. One Man Show steadied the chair and rose with him. Billy Bhasu was a beat behind them.
‘Well . . . I’ll . . . I’ll take my leave,’ Vikram said, backing away and avoiding my eye.
Billy Bhasu waved a goodbye, and left with Vikram. One Man Show wagged his head, jangling the assembly of gods hanging around his thin neck.
‘One Man Show,’ I said.
‘One Man Show,’ he replied, and followed the others out of the restaurant.
‘What is it, my friend?’ Didier asked me softly.
‘I give Vikram money, too. But I always ask myself if I just gave him the shot that kills him.’
‘It could also be the one that saves him,’ Didier responded just as quietly. ‘Vikram is sick, Lin. But sick is just another way of saying still alive, and still possible to save. Without help from someone, he might not survive the night. While he’s alive, there’s always a chance for him. Let it go, and relax with us.’
I glanced around at the others, and shrugged myself into their game.
‘So, what about you, Kavita?’ I asked. ‘What’s your favourite crime?’
‘Lust,’ she said forcefully.
‘Lust is a sin,’ I said. ‘It isn’t a crime.’
‘I told her that,’ Naveen said.
‘It is the way I do it,’ she retorted.
Divya broke into helpless giggles, setting the table to laughing with her.
‘What about you, Didier?’
‘Perjury is the most likeable crime, of course,’ he said, with finality.
‘Can I believe you?’ I asked.
‘Do you swear?’ Naveen added.
‘Because,’ Didier continued, ‘it’s only lying that saves the world from being permanently miserable.’
‘But isn’t honesty just spoken truth?’ Naveen goaded.
‘No, no! Honesty is a choice about the truth. There is nothing in the world more destructive to truth, or infuriating to the intellect, than a person who insists on being completely and entirely honest about everything.’
‘I completely and entirely agree with you,’ Divya said, raising her glass in salute. ‘When I want honesty, I see my doctor.’
Didier warmed with the encouragement.
‘They slink up beside you, and whisper I thought you should know. Then they proceed to destroy your confidence, and trust, and even the quality of your life with their disgusting fragment of the truth. Some scrap of repugnant knowledge that they insist on being honest with you about. Something you’d rather not know. Something you could hate them for telling you. Something you actually do hate them for telling you. And why do they do it? Honesty! Their poisonous honesty makes them do it! No! Give me creative lying, any day, over the ugliness of honesty.’
‘Honestly, Didier!’ Kavita mocked.
‘You, Kavita, of all people, should see the wisdom of what I am saying. Journalists, lawyers and politicians are people whose professions demand that they almost never tell the whole of the truth. If they did, if they were completely honest about every secret thing they know, civilisation would collapse in a month. Day after day, drink after drink, program after program, it is the lie that keeps us going, not the truth.’
‘I love you, Didier!’ Divya shouted. ‘You’re my hero!’
‘I’d like to believe you, Didier,’ Naveen remarked, straight-faced. ‘But that perjury thing, it kinda kicks the stool out from under your credibility, you know?’
‘Perjury is being honest with your heart,’ Didier responded.
‘So, honesty’s a good thing,’ Kavita observed, her finger aimed at Didier’s heart.
‘Alas, even Didier is not immune,’ Didier sighed. ‘I am heroic, in the matter of lying. Just ask any policeman in South Bombay. But I am only human, after all, and from time to time I lapse into appalling acts of honesty. I am being honest with you now, and I am ashamed to admit it, by advising you to lie as often as you can, until you can lie with complete honesty, as I do.’
‘You love the truth,’ Kavita observed. ‘It’s honesty you hate.’
‘You are quite right,’ Didier agreed. ‘Believe me, if you honestly tell the whole of the truth, about anyone at all, someone will want to harm you for it.’
The group broke up into smaller conversations, Didier agreeing with Kavita, and Naveen arguing with Divya. I spoke to the young woman sitting near me.
‘We haven’t met. My name’s Lin.’
‘I know,’ she answered shyly. ‘I’m Sunita. I’m a friend of Kavita. Well, actually, I’m working with Kavita. I’m a cadet journalist.’
‘How do you like it, so far?’
‘It’s great. I mean, it’s a really great opportunity and all. But I’m hoping to be a writer, like you.’
‘Like me?’ I laughed, bewildered.
‘I’ve read your short stories.’
‘My stories?’
‘All five of them. I really like them, but I was too shy to tell you.’
‘Just how did you get hold of these stories?’
‘Well,’ she faltered, confused. ‘Ranjit gave me – I mean, Mr Ranjit – he gave me your stories to proofread. I searched them for typos, and such.’
I stared, not wanting to take it out on her, but too angry and confused to hide my feelings. Ranjit had my stories? How? Had Lisa given them to him, behind my back, and against my wishes? I couldn’t understand it.
‘I’ve got them right here,’ Sunita said. ‘I was going to have my lunch alone today, and continue proofing, but Miss Kavita asked me to join her.’
‘Give them to me, please.’
She fished around in a large cloth bag, and gave me a folder.
It was red. I’d filed all of my stories by coloured theme. Red was the file colour I’d chosen for some short stories about urban holy men.
‘I didn’t give permission for these stories to be printed,’ I said, checking to see that all five stories were included in the file.
‘But –’
‘It’s not your fault,’ I said softly, ‘and nothing will happen to you. I’ll write a note for Ranjit, and you’ll give it to him, and everything will be okay.’
‘But –’
‘Got a pen?’
‘I –’
‘Just kidding,’ I said, pulling a pen from my vest pocket.
The last page, on the last story, had only two lines on it.
Arrogance is pride’s calling card, and crowds everything with Self. Gratitude is humility’s calling card, and is the space left inside for love.
It seemed appropriate, as notepaper for Ranjit. I pulled the typed page from the story, wrote the lines again in hand on the new last page, and closed the file.
‘Lin!’ Didier cantankered. ‘You are not drinking! Put down that pen at once.’
‘What are you doing?’ Kavita asked.
‘If it’s a will,’ Naveen said, ‘there’s probably a way.’
‘If you must know,’ I said, glancing at Kavita, ‘I’m writing a note, to your boss.’
‘A love letter?’ Kavita asked, sitting up straight.
‘Kinda.’
I wrote the note, folded it, and gave it to Sunita.
‘But no, Lin!’ Didier protested. ‘It is insupportable! You simply must read the note out loud.’
‘What?’
‘There are rules, Lin,’ Didier riposted. ‘And we must break them at every opportunity.’
‘That’s crazier than I am, Didier.’
‘You must read it to us, Lin.’
‘It’s a private note, man.’
‘Written in a public place,’ Kavita said, snatching the note from Sunita.
‘Hey,’ I said, trying to grab the note back.
Kavita jumped up quickly and stood a table-width away. She had a raspy voice, the kind of voice that’s interesting because of how much it keeps inside, as it speaks.
She spoke my note.
Let me be clear, Ranjit. I think your tycoon model of media baron is an insult to the Fourth Estate, and I wouldn’t let you publish my death notice.
If you touch any of my work again I’ll visit you, and rearrange you.
The girl who’s bringing this note has my number. If you take this out on her, if you fire her, or in any way hurt the messenger, she’ll call me, and I’ll visit you, and rearrange you. Stay away from me.
‘I love it!’ Kavita laughed. ‘I want to be the one who passes it on.’
A shout, then the sound of broken glass shattering on the marble floor made us look with others toward the large entrance arch. Concannon was there, locked in a scuffle with several of the Leopold’s waiters.
He wasn’t alone. There were Scorpion gang men with him. The big guy, Hanuman, was behind Concannon and a few other faces I remembered from that red hour in the warehouse.
The last to push his way into the doorway was Danda, the torturer with the pencil moustache. There was a leather ear-patch strapped across his left ear.
Concannon was carrying a sap, a lead weight wrapped in a sewn leather pouch, and fastened by a cord around the wrist. He lashed out with it, striking the Sikh chief of Leopold’s security on the temple. Gasps and cries of horror rose up from all those who witnessed it.
The tall Sikh waiter crumpled and fell, his legs melting beneath him. Other waiters scrambled to help. Concannon swung at them while they were trying to support their comrade, drawing blood, and felling men.
The Scorpions burst into the restaurant, pushing tables aside and scattering frightened patrons. Bottles, glasses and plates smashed on the floor, shattering in frothy puddles. Tables rocked and tumbled over. Chairs skittered away from the brawling mass of men. Customers scrambled, falling over the chairs, and slipping on the messy floor.
Kavita, Naveen and I stood quickly.
‘Gonna get messy,’ I said.
‘Good,’ Kavita said.
I flicked a glance at her, and saw that she had an empty bottle in one hand and a handbag in the other.
The nearest exit was blocked with people. There was a corner behind us. If we pushed the table back, Divya and the young girl, Sunita, could get behind it and be safe. I looked at Naveen, and he spoke my thought.
‘Divya, get in the corner,’ he said, pointing behind him, his eyes on the fighting.
For once, the socialite didn’t fight. She grabbed Sunita with her into the corner. I looked at Kavita.
‘In there?’ she scoffed. ‘Fuck you.’
Whatever their reasons for the wild attack, Concannon and the Scorpions had chosen their moment well. It was the dozy half of the afternoon, long before the evening rush of patrons. Half of the Leopold’s waiters were upstairs, catching up on sleep.
Caught by surprise, the working staff put up a valiant resistance, but they were outnumbered. The struggling, fighting mass of men surged through the restaurant toward us. It had to be slowed, before it could be stopped.
‘Let’s fuck these guys up,’ Kavita growled.
We ran at the gangsters in the mob, trying to move the fight back toward the entrance. A few customers joined us, pushing at the thugs.
Naveen thumped out punches, precision quick. I pulled one man off a semi-conscious waiter. He lost his balance and fell backwards. Kavita swung her empty beer bottle, slamming it against the man’s head. Other customers kicked at him, as he fell again.
The sleeping waiters of the night shift, awakened by the owner of Leopold’s, began streaming down the narrow staircase behind us. The forward momentum of the Scorpion thugs stopped. The tide turned. The Scorpions began to stumble backwards.
Naveen and I were pushed and dragged toward the street with them, caught between enemies and reinforcements. As we neared the door, I found myself face to face with Concannon.
If he knew he was losing the fight, his eyes didn’t show it. They gleamed like the scales of a fish in shallow water, aflame with cold light. He was smiling. He was happy.
He raised the lead sap slowly, until it was level with his shoulder, and spoke to me.
‘The devil’s got a crush on you, boy!’ he said, and then lashed out with the sap.
I ducked quickly to my right. The sap hit the back of my left shoulder. I felt the bone beneath the muscle shudder under the blow. Coming up fast, I swung out with an over-hand right. It hit him square on the side of the head, making solid contact. It had everything in it. It wasn’t enough.
Concannon shook his head and grinned. He raised the sap again and I grabbed at him, shoving him backwards onto the street.
In the movies, men fight for long minutes, taking turns to hit one another. In a real street fight, everything happens much faster. Everyone swings at anything they can, and if you’re knocked to the floor, most of the time you stay there.
Sometimes, of course, the floor is the safest place to be.
Bunching my fists against my forehead, waiting for an opportunity, I stared through my knuckles at Concannon. He was trying to hit me with the sap. I ducked, dodging and weaving, but taking blows as I parried.
As I stepped back, keeping my balance, I came up against Naveen. We glanced at one another quickly, and stood back to back.
We were alone, between Leopold’s and the row of street stalls. The waiters hesitated in the large doorway arch. They were holding the line. What happened on the street was none of their business. They were making sure that the fight didn’t spill back inside the restaurant.
The Scorpions moved in. Naveen faced four men alone, his back to mine. I couldn’t help him. I had Concannon.
I saw an opening, and snapped lefts and rights at the tall Irishman, but for every punch I landed, he replied with a hit from the sap. The deadly weight connected with my face, drawing fast blood. And no matter how hard or how well I connected with my punches, I couldn’t put him down.
Words came into my mind, shawls of snow in the wind.
So, this is it . . .
As suddenly as it had started, the brawl stopped. The Scorpions pulled away from us, circling around Concannon.
Naveen and I looked backwards for a second. We saw Didier. He had a gun in his hand. I was very glad to see him. He was smiling, just as Concannon had smiled. Standing beside him was Abdullah.
As we stepped away from the muzzle of Didier’s automatic pistol, Abdullah reached out with his left hand, placed it over Didier’s hand, and slowly lowered it until the handgun was at Didier’s side.
There was a moment of silence. The Scorpions stared hard, stranded on the wet-red footprint between fight and flight. Witnesses hiding behind stalls were breathing fast. Even the ceaseless traffic, it seemed, was softened.
Concannon spoke. It was a mistake.
‘You fuckin’ ugly, long-haired Iranian cunt,’ he said, showing all of his yellow teeth, and advancing on Abdullah. ‘You and I both know what you are. Why don’t you speak?’
Abdullah had a gun. He shot Concannon in the thigh. People screamed, shouted and scrambled out of the way.
The Irishman staggered, still fighting, wanting to hit Abdullah with the sap. Abdullah shot him again, in the same leg. Concannon fell.
Abdullah fired twice more, faster than my eye could follow. When Hanuman and Danda reeled backwards, I realised that the big Scorpion and his thin friend had been shot in the leg too.
The Scorpions who could still run, ran. Concannon, a born survivor, was crawling away, using his elbows to drag himself between the souvenir stalls toward the road.
Abdullah took two steps, and put his foot down hard on the Irishman’s back. Didier was at his side.
‘You . . . fuckin’ . . . coward . . . ’ Concannon spluttered. ‘Go on! Do it! You’re nothing!’
There was a lot of blood coming from the two wounds in his leg. Abdullah held the pistol over the back of Concannon’s head, and prepared to fire. The few people still close enough to see what was happening screamed.
‘Enough, brother!’ I shouted. ‘Stop!’
It was Didier’s turn to put a hand on Abdullah’s arm, gently pushing the handgun to Abdullah’s side.
‘Too many witnesses, my friend.’ He said. ‘Dommage. Go now. Go fast.’
Abdullah hesitated. There was an instinct working in him. I knew it. I’d heard the voice of that instinct, behind the wall. In that moment he wanted to kill Concannon more than he wanted to live. I stepped in beside him, as men had stepped in for me in prison, guarding my heart as much as my life.
‘The only reason the cops aren’t here,’ I said, ‘is because the Scorpions must’ve paid them to stay away while they attacked the place. That won’t last much longer. We’ve gotta go.’
He took his foot off Concannon’s back. The Irishman immediately began to drag himself toward the road.
Two cars pulled up. Scorpion men loaded Concannon and the wounded gangsters into the back. They sped away, knocking a taxi full of tourists out of the way.
Naveen Adair had his arm around Divya. Sunita, the cadet journalist, was with them.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked Divya.
‘Fucking men,’ she replied. ‘You’re all idiots.’
‘Are you okay?’ I asked Sunita.
She was clutching the red folder of my stories, hugging them to her chest. She was trembling.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘But, I have a request, and I don’t want to ask it, while you are bleeding. Your face is bleeding, do you know?’
‘O . . . kay. Can we make it quick?’
She handed me back my short stories, and held up the note I’d written to Ranjit.
‘Please let me deliver your note,’ she said.
‘Ah . . . ’
‘Please. You have no idea how much this man has harassed me, sexually, and I’m almost fainting with the pleasure of thinking about giving this note to him. I didn’t have lunch, also, so maybe I’m a little hypoglycaemic, but it feels like a really terrific holiday for me, so, sorry for your face, but please let me give him this note.’
Didier and Kavita joined me.
‘Didier, will you give Sunita your phone number, and escort her to Ranjit’s office?’
‘Certainly, but you must leave now, Lin.’
There was the sound of a gunshot, from not far away.
‘Listen,’ I said to Didier quickly. ‘Lisa’s staying at the gallery, on Carmichael Road. Can you go there?’
‘Of course.’
‘Make sure she’s alright. Stay with her, or keep her with you for a couple of days.’
‘Bien sûr,’ he replied. ‘What will you do?’
‘Stay out of sight. I don’t know yet. Take these stories, and keep them for me.’
I handed him the folder, and ran back to find Abdullah ready to ride, his bike beside mine.
‘Who’s doing the shooting?’
‘Our man,’ Abdullah replied, gunning the engine of his bike.
‘Where are the cops?’ I asked, starting my bike.
‘They were coming, but Ravi fired a shot in the air,’ he replied. ‘They have gone for body armour and machine guns. We must leave now.’
Heading into the afternoon traffic, Abdullah and I threaded our way through creeping vines of cars. From time to time we took short cuts on empty sidewalks, or through petrol station driveways. In minutes we descended the long hill at Pedder Road and were beside the juice centre, in sight of the island monument of Haji Ali’s tomb.
‘We should report to Sanjay,’ I said, when we stopped at the signal.
‘Agreed.’
We pulled into the parking bays at the juice centre. Leaving the bikes with the attendants, we called the mafia boss. He sounded sleepy, as if we’d roused him from a siesta.
He woke up fast.
‘What the fuck? Where are you fucks now?’
‘At Haji Ali,’ Abdullah replied, holding the phone between us so that I could hear.
‘You can’t come back. The cops will be here in minutes, for sure, and I don’t want them asking questions you can’t answer. Stay away, and stay quiet for a couple of days for fuck’s sake, you motherfuckers. Tell me the truth, were any civilians shot?’
Abdullah bristled at the phrase Tell me the truth. Gritting his teeth in disgust, he handed me the phone.
‘No civilians, Sanjaybhai,’ I replied.
The term civilians referred to anyone who wasn’t involved in the criminal underworld: anyone other than judges, lawyers, gangsters, prison guards and the police.
‘Two Scorpions took it in the leg, and a freelancer named Concannon. He got it twice, in the same leg, but I wouldn’t count him out. There were a lot of witnesses. Most of them were street guys, or waiters at Leo’s.’
‘You made this fucking mess, Lin, and you’re telling me how to clean it up? Fuck you, motherfucker.’
‘If memory serves me right,’ I said calmly, ‘you shot someone outside Leo’s, once.’
Abdullah held up two fingers, waggling them at me.
‘Twice, in fact,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t start this mess, Sanjaybhai. The Scorpions started it, and that was a while ago. They’ve hit us nine times in the last month. They hit Leo’s, because it’s a place we all love, and it’s in the heart of Company land. The foreigner, Concannon, just wants Sanjay Company and the Scorpions to kill each other, because he’s starting his own gang. That’s as much as I know. I can’t tell you what to do, and I wouldn’t try. I can only tell you what I know. That’s for you, not against you.’
‘Madachudh! Bahinchudh!’ Sanjay shouted, and then calmed himself again. ‘This will cost a fortune to cover up. Who do you think set it up with the Colaba cops?’
‘Lightning Dilip was on duty. But I think this is too ambitious for him. He likes his enemies alive, and tied up.’
‘There’s a sub-inspector, Matre by name, who’s been on my back for a while,’ Sanjay mused. ‘Motherfucker! This has got his sweat all over it. Thik. I’ll handle everything at this end. You two stay out of sight for a couple of days. Check in with me again tomorrow. Put Abdullah back on the phone.’
I handed the phone back to Abdullah. He glared at me for a moment. I shrugged my shoulders. He listened.
‘Yes,’ he said twice, and hung up.
‘What’s the deal?’
‘Did he ask you if you were injured?’ Abdullah asked me.
‘He’s not the affectionate kind. He’s the disaffectionate kind.’
‘He did not ask,’ Abdullah snarled, frowning hard.
There was a small, brooding silence, and then he came back to the moment.
‘Your face. You are bleeding. We should see one of our doctors.’
‘I checked it in the mirror. It’s not that bad.’
I tied a handkerchief across the places on my forehead and eye socket where Concannon’s sap had drawn blood.
‘Right now,’ I said, ‘our problem is that Sanjay’s not going to war for us, and we’re on our own.’
‘I could force him to war.’
‘No, Abdullah. Sanjay let me dangle in the wind, and now he’s letting you swing with me. He’ll never go to war, until the war’s over.’
‘I repeat, I can make him go to war.’
‘Why is war even an option, Abdullah? I’m not complaining that Sanjay won’t go to war. I’m glad he won’t go to war. I’m glad that nobody else will get involved in this. We can handle payback on our own.’
‘And we will, Inshallah.’
‘But since we are alone, as we seem to be, we gotta work out a strategy, and the tactics to achieve it, because you just shot three people. One of them twice. What do you want to do?’
He looked away from me, checking the surrounding junction of major arterial avenues, cars streaming gleaming metal from one current or the other.
He looked at me again and half-opened his mouth, but there were no words for the experience: he was alone, and his comrades weren’t riding to his rescue. He was a soldier behind enemy lines, told that the escape route had just closed.
‘I think we should put as much distance as we can between us and them, for a while,’ I said, filling the dissonant gap. ‘Maybe Goa. We can ride there overnight. But don’t tell anyone. Every time I tell someone I’m going to Goa, they ask me to collect their dirty laundry.’
I’d tried to raise a smile, in the sierra of his doubt. It didn’t work.
Abdullah glanced back in the direction of South Bombay. He was wrestling with the desire to return, and kill every Scorpion that ever crawled out from under a rock. I waited for a few moments.
‘So, what’s the deal?’
He wrenched himself into the minute, and let out two long breaths, charging his will.
‘I came to Leopold’s to invite you to come with me to a special place. It is a lucky thing, perhaps, that I came when I did, but let us wait, until we see what the consequences of this day are, for each of us.’
‘What special place?’
He looked again to the horizon.
‘I was not expecting that we would be going there with such a dark shadow following us to the mountain, but, will you come with me, now?’
‘And, again, where might that be?’
‘To see the teacher of teachers, the master who taught his wisdom to Khaderbhai. Idriss is his name.’
I tasted the name of the fabled teacher.
‘Idriss.’
‘He is there,’ Abdullah said, pointing to a range of hills on the northern horizon. ‘He is in a cave, on that mountain. We will buy water, here, to carry with us. It is a long climb, to the summit of wisdom.’