Chapter Eighty-Two
We reached the summit car park, happy and free, and found Concannon waiting for us. He was sitting on the trunk of the red Pontiac Laurentian, and wearing a white shirt. I wanted it to match the car.
‘Hold on, baby,’ I said to Karla, sloping the bike to a stop.
I spun the bike around, and sped down the hill a few hundred metres before stopping again.
‘What are you doing?’
‘There’s a hollow tree just through there,’ I said. ‘Wait for me.’
‘Hide?’ she asked, as if I’d asked her to give blood to Madame Zhou.
‘Just wait. Until I get back.’
‘Are you crazy?’
‘That’s Concannon, back there.’
‘That’s Concannon?’ she said, intrigued by intriguing people.
‘Wait here, Karla,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘I repeat, are you crazy? I’m the one with the gun, remember? And I’m a better shot. And I thought you said we were in this together, never apart.’
It was a tough call. When your enemy is ruthless, losing begins where mercy ends. But she was brave, and probably be the last woman standing in any fight.
‘Alright,’ I said reluctantly. ‘But don’t take any chances with this guy. He talks as good as he fights.’
‘Now I have to meet him,’ she said. ‘Let’s make an entrance, Shantaram.’
We rode back to the car park, and I slugged the bike onto the side-stand. Karla and I walked away while the bike was still breathing, the steps between Concannon and me shrinking at a motivated clip. I ran the last step hard, and hit him on the jump.
‘What the fuck?’ he said, holding the side of his head.
He rolled off the back of the car, and danced around me, feigning a few jabs. I rolled with him, but he covered up, breaking away fast.
He was dancing me away from Karla. He might’ve had friends somewhere. I stepped back slowly until I was beside her.
‘What are you doing up here, Concannon? Where are your goons?’
‘I came here alone, boyo,’ he said. ‘Which is more than I can say for you.’
He grinned at Karla, waving a hand.
‘Hello,’ he said.
Karla slid the gun from her bag, and pointed it at him.
‘If you’re carrying a gun,’ she said, ‘throw it away.’
‘I never carry a gun, miss,’ Concannon replied.
‘Good, because I always do. If you make a move, I’ll hit you twice before you get halfway.’
‘Understood,’ he grinned.
‘It’s not very smart, coming up here,’ she said. ‘There are tigers in this forest. That’s a good way to get rid of a body.’
‘If I thought I could bend my knee,’ Concannon grinned, ‘without your boyfriend kickin’ me in the undefended head, I’d do it, Miss Karla. It’s an honour. Concannon’s the name.’
‘My boyfriend got pretty upset,’ she said, ‘when I burned your letter, and I wouldn’t tell him what it said. I’ve been waiting for this chance, and I’m glad you gave it to me. Say it out loud, now, in front of him, if you’ve got the guts.’
‘Well, so it’s the letter that’s got you so upset, is it? No, no, I’ll decline your invitation to repeat my indecent proposals in front of this convict. I don’t think that would be wise.’
‘Like I thought,’ she smiled. ‘You wrote it, but you haven’t got the guts to say it.’
‘Did you not enjoy my little innuendos, then?’ Concannon asked. ‘I thought they were quite inventive, myself.’
‘Shut up,’ I said.
‘You see what I have to deal with?’ Concannon appealed to Karla.
‘Shut up,’ Karla replied. ‘Right now, you’re dealing with both of us. And not doing so good. What do you want here?’
‘I came to tell your boyfriend somethin’,’ Concannon said. ‘If I sit up there on the car, like I was before, will you not let me speak?’
‘I’d prefer you in the trunk, Concannon,’ I said. ‘With the car going over the cliff.’
Concannon smiled, and shook his head.
‘Hostility is ageing, you know,’ he said. ‘It adds years to your face. Can I sit peacefully on the fuckin’ car and talk to you like a fellow Christian, or can’t I?’
‘Sit,’ Karla said. ‘Christian hands where I can see them.’
Concannon sat on the trunk of the car, his feet resting on the bumper.
‘This would be a good time to talk your way out of this,’ Karla said.
Concannon laughed, looking Karla up and down, and then looked at me, blue eyes still bright in the faint light of the car park.
‘I didn’t have nothin’ to do with Lisa,’ he said quickly. ‘I never touched her. I only met her the once, well, the twice, I suppose you could say, but I liked her. She was a sweet thing. I’d never do anything like that. I only said it to get a rise out of you. I never touched her. And I never would’ve. It’s not my way.’
I wanted to stop him. I wanted to lift the curse that someone had put on me with the mention of his name. It was bad: everything connected to him was bad.
‘Keep talking,’ Karla said.
‘If I’d known what a sick thing Ranjit was, I’d have stopped him,’ Concannon said. ‘I swear it. I would’ve killed him myself, if I’d known what he was.’
His head was down. His guard was down. I wanted to run at him, and push him backwards through whatever malevolent window he’d jemmied open. But Karla wanted to know everything.
‘Keep talking,’ Karla continued. ‘Tell us everything you know.’
‘I didn’t find out until later,’ Concannon said. ‘If I’d known before, there wouldn’t have been any later.’
‘We got that. Go on,’ Karla said.
‘I met that maniac, Ranjit, through the drugs. The high and mighty don’t hesitate to come callin’ on my kind, when they need drugs. When he told me he was buying stuff to put Lisa to sleep, that night, I wanted to come along.’
‘Ranjit wanted the stuff, so he could put her to sleep?’ Karla asked, too gently, it seemed to me.
‘He did. Rohypnol tablets, he bought. I thought it was just a prank. He told me they were friends, and they were havin’ a private party.’
‘But why did you tag along with him?’
‘To torment your boyfriend,’ Concannon said, pointing at me. ‘That’s why I sent the dirty little letter to you, and put my filthy mind in yours for a while, to torment this berserk convict motherfucker.’
‘Shut up,’ we both said.
‘Well, you’re a fine pair of holy hooligans. A perfect match.’
‘Why were you there, Concannon?’ Karla asked, the mention of his name pulling his blue eyes to her.
‘I told you,’ he smiled. ‘I knew that if Lin, here, knew that I’d been in his home with his girl, while he was away, he’d be wilder than a stallion.’
‘Why did you want him wild?’
‘I did it to hurt him, because I knew that it would hurt that Iranian.’
‘Abdullah?’ Karla asked.
I hadn’t told her. I couldn’t betray the glory that Abdullah was, by speaking the truth of what he’d allowed himself to become that night, with Concannon.
‘We killed a few people together,’ Concannon replied casually. ‘No big deal. But he went native on me, and it became a war between us. Your boyfriend here was just collateral damage.’
‘Okay, that’s enough for me,’ I said.
‘Have you ever tried anger management?’ Concannon asked.
‘Go away, Concannon. I just ran out of shut-up.’
‘Before you go, if we let you go,’ Karla said. ‘Tell us what you know about Ranjit.’
I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t care about Ranjit, and I didn’t want Lisa’s name to slither from Concannon’s serpent lips again, ever. Knowing what Concannon was capable of inflicting, knowing that his pedigree was approved by the Tuareg, I wanted him unconscious or gone.
‘Don’t play games with us, Concannon,’ I said. ‘If you’ve got something to tell us, spit it out.’
‘I ran across Ranjit at a party, in Goa. He was wearing a wig, as a disguise, but I knew it was him right away. Seein’ as how he was a millionaire on the run and all, I thought he must have some money stashed away, so I got him wasted on cocaine and heroin, and persuaded him to take me back to his digs.’
‘Ranjit had a house in Goa?’ Karla asked.
‘He was rentin’ it, I think. A fine big place it was, though. A grand place. And all the while, I’m edgin’ him toward the safe, wantin’ him to open it for me, when he suddenly opens it himself, and says Would you like to see a movie?’
Karla put her hand on my arm gently.
‘What kind of movie?’
‘Sex tapes, it was,’ Concannon laughed. ‘Although it was very one-sided sex. The girls were all drugged senseless, you see. He wore a shower cap, and rubber gloves, leaving no trace of his sinfulness. He cleaned them and dressed them again, when he was done with them, and left them on his couch with a cosy blanket over their knees, so they woke up, and never even knew it happened.’
‘Ranjit did that?’
‘Yes, that he did,’ Concannon said. ‘You didn’t know?’
I just got back another shut up, but Karla squeezed my arm.
‘Did he tell you why he did it?’
‘He said his wife was frigid, if you’ll pardon me for his words, and she never had sex with him, so he used those sleepin’ girls, like, to pretend that he was having sex with her. With you, that is.’
Karla squeezed my arm.
‘You’re saying that’s what happened to Lisa?’
‘I think,’ he said, allowing his eyes to drift. ‘I think he drugged her with the Rohypnol, in a drink, but gave her too much. My stuff was pure, you see. I think she died, poor thing, before he used her.’
‘Who were the other girls?’
‘That, I don’t know.’ Concannon shrugged. ‘I only recognised one of them, and that’s because her face is in the papers, sometimes. But . . . I can tell you one thing. They all looked like you, and he dressed them all in a black wig, when he had his way with them.’
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I said.
‘Don’t be tellin’ me to shut up again, boyo,’ Concannon said to me. ‘I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I’m sick of trouble, though I never thought I’d hear meself say it. I’m retired.’
‘This is a good place to make it permanent.’
‘You’re a wicked lad,’ Concannon said, smiling. ‘With wicked thoughts, in your wicked mind.’
‘What did you do, when Ranjit showed you the movies?’ Karla asked.
‘Well, I knocked him about quite a bit, of course, and left him senseless. I couldn’t kill him, though I wanted to, because too many people had seen me with him. Then I took all the money from the safe, and I also took that tape of him with the girl from the papers.’
‘What did you do with it?’
‘Now, that’s the funny part,’ Concannon said, folding his arms, his feet poised on the bumper.
‘Funny?’ I said. ‘You think any of this is funny?’
‘Hands where I can see them,’ Karla said, and Concannon lounged backwards on his hands. ‘Funny how?’
‘There’s this young fool who buys cocaine from me now and then. He’s not big, but he’s got a very bad temper. His own family put a restraining order on him. He wants to be a movie star, so he deals a little stuff to the real movie stars, and gets the odd part. The girl in Ranjit’s sick film is an actress, and he’s her bad-tempered boyfriend.’
‘Did you give him the film?’ Karla asked, her eyes gleaming.
‘I did, when he came to buy stuff,’ Concannon replied, grinning happily. ‘Ranjit used to sneak back into town, from time to time, and he always bought stuff from me. I told the violent lad that Ranjit would be ghostin’ around, in disguise, at a nightclub he liked in Bandra.’
‘So you told the kid where Ranjit would be.’
‘Not only that. I gave the young savage a present. Gift-wrapped it meself. There was the movie, Ranjit’s appointment at the nightclub, and an untraceable gun, full of untraceable bullets. Human nature took care of the rest.’
Karla squeezed my arm.
‘You came up here, to tell us that you set up my ex-husband?’ Karla asked.
‘I came up here to warn your boyfriend,’ Concannon said, straightening up.
‘And you’re gonna take a warning home again, Concannon.’
‘There you go again,’ he said, happily exasperated. ‘You are the hardest man in this whole city of screechin’ heathens to befriend. I know executioners who are more fun than you. I’m tryin’ to tell you, I’m a changed man.’
‘I don’t see a change,’ I said. ‘You’re still breathing.’
‘There’s those wicked thoughts again.’
‘Listen,’ he said calmly, ‘I’ve done with all that. I’m a businessman now, and legitimately so. The fact that I bear you no grudge for our last encounter should testify to that.’
‘You just never learn, do you?’
‘But I did learn,’ he insisted. ‘That’s what I’m tryin’ to say. After that fight we had, I thought about everything. I mean, everything. I got hurt, you see. My shoulder hasn’t healed well, and it doesn’t work the way it should. My timing’s off, and I’ll never again fight the way I did. See, I never before let anyone get close enough to best me, and it shook me up. My Road to Damascus experience was in a warehouse in Bombay, and it was an Australian convict who knocked me off my horse. I’ve changed. I’m a businessman, now.’
‘What kind of business?’ Karla asked, relaxing her grip on my arm.
‘I’ve put all my money into a venture with Dennis.’
‘The Sleeping Baba?’
‘The same. One fine day, I got to thinkin’ about that proverb, you know, that if you sit quietly by a river for long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.’
I wanted Concannon to float by, on the Ganges.
‘And it occurred to me, in another Road to Damascus moment, that the river isn’t made of water, it’s made of stainless steel. It’s the undertaker’s table, you see? So, Dennis and me, we bought an undertaking business, and now we’re undertakers. Already, since we started, one of my enemies floated by on the preparation table. A fine drunken laugh I had that night, dressin’ him up nicely for the drop.’
‘Dennis went for this?’ I asked.
‘We’re a natural fit. I know what dead looks like, and he knows what dead feels like. I’ve never seen a man more tender with a body. He calls them sleepers, and he talks to them like they’re just asleep. It’s very kind. Very tender. But I keep a baseball bat handy, in case one of them ever talks back.’
Concannon stopped, clapped his hands together, then put the swollen knuckles into a knotted pyramid of prayer.
‘I know it’s hard to think that a menace to the living and the dead, like me, can give the whole thing up, but it’s the truth. I’ve changed, and the proof of it is that I’ve come up here, riskin’ your temper, to tell you two things. The first, I’ve already told you, which is all that I know about Ranjit, and that sweet girl.’
‘And the second thing?’ Karla asked for me.
‘The second thing is that the 307 Company have hired some out-of-town goondas to kill that Iranian, Abdullah, tonight. And since Abdullah’s hiding out up here, that puts you two in the firing line.’
‘When will they come?’ I asked.
Concannon checked his watch, and grinned the reply.
‘In about three hours,’ he said. ‘You’d have had longer, if you weren’t so bloody obstreperous, and I could’ve cleared me mind without interruption.’
For all I knew, Concannon was setting us up. I didn’t like it.
‘Why are you telling us this?’ Karla asked.
‘I’m tyin’ up loose ends, miss,’ Concannon smiled. ‘I never had nothin’ against your man. I tried to recruit the stubborn fool, and I wouldn’t have done that, if I hadn’t taken a shine to ’im. I treated him poorly, when it was Abdullah that I hated, because he turned on me, and threatened my life.’
‘Stop talking about Abdullah,’ I said.
‘But I don’t hate him any more,’ he persisted. ‘He did nothin’ wrong, even if he is an Iranian . . . person. It was me that did wrong, and I admit it freely. Anyway, the Iranian will likely meet his end, tonight. And now I found a place where I feel at home, and in one way or another, I know I’ll find peace, as other people kill my enemies and send them to me. I’ll be with my own kind, so to speak. I don’t know if you understand.’
‘We understand,’ Karla said, although I didn’t.
‘Do you believe me, when I say that I have no quarrel with either of you, and that I wish you no harm?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Concannon.’
‘They say he’s a writer,’ Concannon winked at Karla. ‘They must be teenie weenie little books that he writes.’
‘He’s the big book,’ Karla gave back. ‘I’m the big character. Thank you, Concannon, for the heads-up. What’s your first name, by the way?’
‘Fergus,’ I said before he did, and he laughed, jumping from the car with his arms wide.
‘You do like me! I knew it! Will you stab me, if I give you a hug?’
‘Yes. Don’t come back.’
He let his arms fall slowly, smiled at Karla, and walked a few steps backwards to his car.
‘There’s no use in callin’ the police,’ he said at the car. ‘There’s a lot of money been paid to keep this mountain dark tonight, until the Iranian is dead, once and for all.’
He started the car, locked the wheel, hit the gas and spun around beside us, his arm resting on the open window.
‘Would you like some dynamite?’ he asked. ‘I’ve a box full in the back, and no purpose for it at all, now.’
‘Maybe next time,’ Karla smiled, waving him away.
The twinned tail-lights on either side of the car were bats, swooping into the first curve. She turned to me quickly, waking the queens.
‘We haven’t seen Abdullah up here, so he must be at Khaled’s. We’ve gotta warn him.’
‘Agreed, and then Silvano and the students. This might spill up the hill to Idriss.’
She braced herself for the run to Khaled’s mansion, but I held her back.
‘Can we talk about something, before we talk to Khaled?’
‘Sure,’ she said, relaxing from a run almost started. ‘What’s up?’
‘You know how we said we’ll always be together?’
She looked at me, hands on hips.
‘I’m not hiding in a hollow tree, Shantaram,’ she said, the squint in her smile scanning me.
‘I don’t mean that. I’m trying to explain something.’
‘Now?’
‘If things get rough tonight, don’t separate from me. Stick to my side, or my back. Lock your elbow in mine, if you have to. If we’re back to back, you shoot, and I’ll cut. But let’s be one thing, because if we’re not, I’ll go nuts worrying about you.’
She laughed, and hugged me, so I guess some part of it must’ve been right.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, getting ready for the run to Khaled’s.
‘Wait,’ I said.
‘Again?’
‘Maybe next time?’ I said, repeating her final words to Concannon.
‘What?’
‘You said Maybe next time to Concannon, when he offered us dynamite.’
‘Now? You’re bringing this up now?’
‘Concannon isn’t a next-time guy. He’s a one-time guy, and half a planet is almost far enough away.’
‘You don’t believe in redemption?’
She was adorable, when she teased, but we were talking about Concannon, and there were killers coming to the mountain to kill our friend.
‘I don’t believe Concannon,’ I replied. ‘The overtaking version, or the undertaking version. I don’t believe anything he says. This could be a trap.’
‘Good,’ she shouted, sprinting up the path. ‘Coming?’