Dark Dreams (6 page)

Chapter 7

M
ehta made use of his shoulders and elbows to get through the ocean of people. He would never get used to this smother of humanity. Mumbai was always like this: masses spilling into the streets, its inhabitants darting among, around, and through the huge, boiling, swirling crowd. They sweated, screamed, talked to themselves or to anyone else, as they pushed and squeezed their way through countless bodies, walking, running, and dashing through the stream of cars and carts and bullocks that wandered freely, or stood uncaring as they blocked traffic.

Mehta felt himself start to become angry as an older woman screamed at him for blocking her way. Another man was screaming at her, telling her to shut up. The two of them were still arguing as they moved away from each other, forgetting in that split second what had started the altercation.

Mehta put his own emotions behind him. It wasn’t good to be angry at work, and today he had business to conduct. It had been hard to live in this Indian city, now the size of Australia’s total population. Bollywood, the film capital of Asia, computers, diamond-cutting, cars that poured off assembly lines, international engineering firms, and all the offices and housing for their employees piled on top of buildings, higher and higher. It stifled one’s soul.

It had taken Salman Mehta, as he called himself, a month to acclimate to Mumbai sufficiently to feel that he could conduct his business at an acceptable level of safety. His job required patience, not the too-quick hands and jerky movements that impatience generates. He was holding a paper-wrapped package; it was not heavy, but awkward to carry through the crowded streets. Mehta did not want the contents of the package jostled. He checked his watch, looking in the direction the vehicle would come from, unsuccessfully trying to see through the gaps in the crowd. He felt water on his face. A solid mass of dark clouds loomed; the daily monsoon deluge was about to begin. He tugged a plastic envelope out of his inner jacket pocket and unfolded a rain cape, slipping it over his head and shoulders. The gray plastic covered him to his mid-thighs.

He was just in time. The sky opened, the rain pelting down hard enough to hurt. Mehta pulled the plastic hood over his head, then took another look down the street. He saw the small canvas-covered truck slowly plowing down the middle of the road a few minutes early.

He didn’t wait. He let the truck pass, then quickly hoisted himself up and into the open rear of the vehicle and knocked on the back of the driver’s cab to let him know that he was there, as the truck inched over the curb.

Pedestrians hurried out of the way, angry at being forced out of their path, banging their fists in disapproval on the fenders and sides of the truck. The driver gave them one long blast of the horn to let them know that he was angry at them, too. As previously instructed, he stayed in the driver’s seat. He heard the tailgate of the truck come down, the sound of a motorcycle revving up, and the truck shuddering as the motorcycle leaped out of the back of the truck, roared down the street through the rain-slowed traffic, and was quickly lost to sight in the moving flood of water, vehicles and pedestrians. The driver heaved a sigh of relief, glad he had not seen the man who was now on the motorcycle. He’d heard enough stories to know the necessity of avoiding such a meeting.

The motorcycle zigzagged through the streets. The crowds in the Dharavi slums were even denser. Mehta took to the sidewalk, weaving through the people clustered near the storefronts in their effort to avoid being hit or soaked by the additional water the wheels of the motorcycle kicked up. A path on the sidewalk opened up. There was no real reason to worry about being stopped by the police. These were relatively minor transgressions. And although the Mumbai police are considered among the best in India, they rarely entered the slums, and if they did, it was over something much more serious than traffic violations.

Mehta swung into an alley, behind tenements that spewed forth a stink of sewage and offal, and rolled about ten meters to an open lot, a rare area large enough to hold a large tent. Clutching umbrellas, newspapers held over their heads, jackets pulled off their backs and offered to the sky as a defense against the pouring rain, a line of men, women, and children were filing into the tent. Everyone was being welcomed by young women clutching parasols that offered scant protection against the slashing downpour. The young women wore light blue clothes that darkened as they became soaked. They escorted the people into the tent to be seated, females to one side, males on the other.

Mehta braked along the outside of the tent, bringing the cycle to a stop near a side-gap entrance. He dismounted, took his parcel from the rear storage box of the cycle, then walked past a blue-uniformed usherette and into the tent. Mehta knew what he would see. He had been through this twice before on previous weekends, identifying exactly which seat he wanted to occupy: one near his entry point and ten steps away from the raised throne that occupied a place in the exact center of the front of the tent. All Mehta had to do now was to wait. The Church of the Universal Master would do the rest.

Mehta slipped his raincoat off so his movements would not be restricted, then crushed it into a ball, casually placing it on the seat next to him. The rows of seats were rapidly filling up, with every class and caste. Mehta had to admire the church founder, simply called the Master. The church practiced no segregation by birth or economic wealth, openly welcoming untouchables. The church acknowledged only one God, but preached universal benevolence and connection. All were equals, although everyone acknowledged that the current Master was slightly more equal. He was exalted above everyone else due to his ability to interpret the word of God.

Gradually the parade of incoming parishioners trickled to a halt; the usherettes took seats near the doors, and a trio of musicians in one of the corners of the room began to play. The second number was a psalm that everyone, almost as a single person, stood and sang. This was followed by another hymn. They remained standing as the Master made his entrance. He walked through the same gap in the tent that Mehta had used and was helped up in a graceful swirl by several of the blue-clad usherettes to his place on the throne.

The Master, now comfortably seated, had a smile on his face, nodding to his followers, all of them shouting, murmuring, singing, mumbling greetings until the Master held up his hand and the room immediately fell silent. The Master, a pleasant-faced man with a dark beard, his head framed by a white turban, gave everyone a huge smile that seemed to light the whole tent. He surveyed his flock, nodding, his head bowing slightly, then coming erect as his smile faded. He waited an additional moment, creating the dramatic tension he wanted, then began to address his flock.

His voice became a drone to Mehta. He was not interested; he was rehearsing in his mind’s eye, exactly what he had to do. Mehta checked his watch: the sermon would take fifteen minutes, his walk to the throne perhaps thirty seconds; going outside to his cycle, forty-five seconds; starting the cycle and then leaving the immediate vicinity, two minutes. Satisfied, Mehta reached down for the bundle he had carried into the tent and placed under his seat, pulled some of the wrapping aside, and punched a pre-set button. A very low buzz came from the package. Satisfied, he sat back, again focusing on the Master.

As Mehta anticipated, the sermon was over in exactly fifteen minutes. The Master was quite predictable in his habits. Several of his followers came forward to put gift offerings in an area set aside for them next to the throne, then bent to kiss the Master’s feet. Mehta stood, walked to the throne, and waited to let the people already lined up kiss the Master’s feet, then edged close to the Master, looking up at him. Very impressive, Mehta thought; then without any hesitation, Mehta reached under his jacket to his hidden shoulder holster, drew his semi-automatic, snapped off the safety, and pumped half of the gun’s magazine into the man above him.

Chaos reigned. People screamed, ran down the aisles, cowered in their seats, some not understanding what had happened, only that something dreadful had befallen them, others climbing over each other trying to get out of the tent. And above, on his high seat, the Master leaned back against his throne as if he was asleep, unchanged except for the bloody tears on his once all-white garments.

One of the blue-suited usherettes tried to stop Mehta as he walked toward the flap in the tent. Without hesitating, Mehta fired once, the bullet propelling her back into the general seating area, knocking over a file of chairs as she hit the floor. Unhurried, Mehta continued out of the tent, holstered his pistol, climbed onto his motorcycle and rode down the alley, away from the tent. Thirty seconds later, the bomb that he had left under his chair went off and blew the tent apart.

Later police accounts reckoned that there were eighteen dead and sixty-three injured in what they attributed to a probable suicide-bomber attack by a rival church group. Whoever had done this was a fanatic. They questioned the survivors, but no one could identify the man who had killed the Master and left the bomb, so the Mumbai police were stymied.

There were a large number of mourners at the Master’s funeral. Most of those who attended came from other Churches of the Universal Master, located in New York, Amsterdam, Bremen, San Francisco, Kathmandu, and New Delhi. Not many parishioners from the local church could attend, since they were either dead or in the hospital.

The worshipers could not assemble for a month after the killing. Then, with amazingly little disagreement, they selected one of the old Master’s acolytes as the new Master and held a church service in their new tent.

The service went well.

Chapter 8

T
he gray Soviet-style central police building had been transformed into a very stale-looking gingerbread house by the storm. The windowsills were layered with snow that looked yellow in the light from inside the building. Unfortunately, the yellow snow did not change the structure’s appearance for the better: its concrete walls continued to look brutally ugly and cruelly unappetizing. It would always say “police.”

Jana trudged up the stairs to the building’s entrance, kicking her boots on the top step to knock the slush away, and returned the salute of the guard at the entrance. His name was Jarov, a decent cop who was now doing sentry penance outside in the freezing sleet, instead of inside the vestibule, because of a minor infraction. He’d been monitoring a right-wing demonstration and one of the demonstrators had spit on him. Jarov had returned the favor, with interest: a smack alongside the head of the miscreant. The media had caught it on camera, which was Jarov’s sin, so now he was stamping around trying to keep his toes from frostbite.

“Commander,” he grimaced at her. “I am freezing my balls off.” And, as she was going past, “I could use a piss break, Commander. They seem to have forgotten that I’m out here.”

“Maybe you should have brought a wool scarf for your balls?” She nodded. “Hold on to them a while longer. I’ll send someone out.” She walked inside.

It was only slightly less frigid inside. The cold rose from the barren cement floor in icy waves, bleeding even more heat from the air, the chill only beginning to abate when Jana took the elevator up to her floor. To supplement the inadequate central heating, a number of space heaters lined the corridor. They whined at full blast, their warmth almost tempting her to remain in the hall. After toasting her hands for a moment at the last heater before her office, Jana walked in, only to find her warrant officer, Seges
,
going through her desk.

Seges was so involved in his search that he didn’t see her at first. When he did, he snapped upright, his face contorting with the effort of controlling his shock at being observed going through his supervisor’s desk. He took one step back, then one step to the side, as if trying to distance himself from the scene of his crime.

“Find anything incriminating?” Jana asked

She took off her greatcoat, slinging it onto the antlers of her clothes tree, which teetered slightly from the force and weight of the coat, its legs jittering on the floor before it decided not to fall over. Jana checked out the top of the desk before she sat. Seges used the opportunity to sidle to the front of the desk, growing more nervous as he watched her go through its drawers.

Jana was surprised. At least Seges had left them neat, perhaps even neater than they’d been. She would have expected a mess, like the one he made of his case reports, which meant that he had placed importance on conducting his search with care, more care than was required if he’d just been afraid she’d find out what he had done. Her guess was that he had been put up to it by someone. Except, what sensational find was there to be made in her desk?

She stared at Seges, wondering what was going through his mind.

Since Seges had been posted as her aide against her will, he had proved incompetent: reports were not written, he neglected to interview witnesses, he avoided making decisions, and whatever he did was done badly. She’d tried to get rid of him a number of times, but it was always a matter of regulations and much red tape before a liability like Seges could be transferred. No one wanted him. They’d fight tooth and nail to keep him away. It would be even harder to get the man dismissed. He was like a fungus that you tried to scrape away or kill with a spray; no matter, it kept coming back. That was a good way to think of him, she thought: a fungus, and this fungus was standing in front of her.

“Tell me,” she ordered.

“Tell you what, Commander?”

Her voice got louder. “The desk!” She slapped its top, taking some small satisfaction from seeing him jump. “Why were you searching through the drawers?”

He hesitated, his face betraying his struggle to come up with an answer.

“You were searching my desk.” She managed to control her volume. “I want to know why.”

“The colonel wanted me to find you,” he finally blurted out.

“So?”

“I called. Your cell phone was off . . . I think.”

Jana hesitated, then pulled her cell phone out of her bag, checking its setting. “It’s on, ready to receive calls.”

“I thought you might have a . . . new . . . number,” he stammered. “So I was looking for it.”

“Let’s see if it has been changed.” She picked up her desk phone and dialed her cell number. Almost immediately the cell phone rang. Jana put it to one ear, the desk phone to the other. “Have you heard that Seges is a liar?” she asked, speaking into the desk phone. “Yes, I heard. There is no question about it.” She replied, “Thank you for your information.” She hung up both phones.

“Did you hear that?” she asked Seges. “My goodness! Both said you were a liar.”

“No, Commander,” he got out.

“All you had to do was call Communications to find if I had been assigned a new number.” She put her cell phone away. “If I catch you going through my papers again, I will make sure you never forget it.” She tried to relax, finally noticing the dampness of the clothes clinging to her body. Even her galoshes had not kept water from seeping into her socks. And she was now tired.

“What did you learn at the scene of the crime?” Seges asked, trying to make small talk, hoping she would forget his transgression. She had been investigating a death while he had been ransacking her desk.

“A suicide. Not for us. I left it for the patrol officers to report and the coroner to make his own finding.”

“Good,” said Seges. “That means our caseload stays the same.”

“Too much work, Seges?”

“We all work hard, Commander.”

“I have a little more work for the hard-working man that you are,” she said, keeping a straight face. “Relieve Jarov at the building entrance. You have a two-hour shift. Dress warmly.”

“Me?” He looked aghast.

“You,” she agreed. “Now!”

Seges scrambled out of the office.

Jana smiled to herself, shaking her head at Seges’s idiocy. If he had not been so incompetent, he might have been dangerous. She checked her appearance in the small wall mirror, then walked to the colonel’s office.

The door was ajar, inviting visitors, so she tapped on the metal frame before entering.

Trokan was going through a stack of papers. He looked up briefly, then wagged a finger at her to close the door, following with another waggle that invited her to sit. He took a last look at his papers, then moved them to the corner of his desk. He was wearing a Chinese police officer’s cap, whose bill jutted out aggressively. It was part of his collection of police headwear from all parts of the world. Most of the caps sat on shelves around the office.

“Why are you wearing that cap?” she asked. “Thinking of transferring to China?”

“It cuts down the fluorescent light glare, so I don’t go blind.”

“Do you like Chinese food?”

“Who doesn’t like Chinese food?” He took the cap off and laid it on his desk. “Where were you?”

“With someone.”

“With ‘someone,’ as in sex?” He gave her a fake leer topped with an eyebrow twitch. “No, you don’t look satisfied enough. You were with your friend, the member of parliament. What’s her name?”

Jana studied Trokan. He knew about her meeting with Sofia. How? The meeting was not a secret, but the arrangement had been last-minute. If he’d been aware that she was going to meet with Sofia, and wanted more information, he would simply have asked, knowing she would answer him truthfully. No, he hadn’t been notified about the meeting before she’d gone to the café. Trokan was her superior, but also a friend and a longtime supporter. Someone had to have been concerned enough about the two of them having tea together to tell Trokan.

“Don’t bother telling me the name of your friend. I know it. She’s the one who’s the current illicit sex interest of the nation.” He twitched his eyebrows again. “Okay, so I’m making bad jokes.”

“How did you know I was with her?”

“I’m a colonel in the Criminal Police, remember? I have informants everywhere. They tell me everything.” He thought about that for a moment. “Okay, so I don’t get told everything.” His scratched his head, studying her. “You look upset, too upset for it to be about me knowing you were meeting the M.P.”

“I walked in on my adjutant, Seges, going through my desk.”

“Naturally. He’s spying on you.”

Jana shifted, uneasy in her seat. “Why would he do that?”

“Our anti-corruption crew opened an investigation of your politician friend. They had a watcher across the street when you two sipped your tea together. They called me to warn me about your conduct.”

“Conduct of mine?”

“That you were meeting with her, naturally.”

“Wonderful. Now I’m a co-suspect.”

“I think not. Just a friendly warning to me. So I told Seges to find you. When he couldn’t, I told him to call you. I did it knowing he would use the opportunity to try to find anything that was suspicious in your office.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew he would find nothing, and he’d tell them that, which is what I wanted. It’ll make them feel better and less aggressive toward you.”

“How long has he been working for them?”

“He wants to get out of here just as much as you want him out. Except the shitface wants to land in a cushy job. He picked the anti-corruption unit, and they called me when he got in touch with them, and. . . .” He waved his hands in the air to show it had progressed from there. “It was okay with me. I know their spy. They know I know. That way all of us are covered.”

“This is getting to be too devious a business.”

“It always was.” He looked her over. “You look like a drowned rat.”

“I feel like one.”

Trokan checked his watch. “It’s late enough for the men not to feel too put-upon if you go home a little early. Go home, take a bath, and change into something warm, but nicer than a police uniform.”

Jana got up and went to the door.

Trokan called after her. “What did you do with ‘Seges the Spy’ after you found him searching your desk?”

“He’s doing relief guard duty outside the building in the snow.”

“Good.” Trokan smiled. “At least it’ll stop him from going through your desk drawers.” Trokan tapped his forehead. “I just remembered the other reason I wanted you. The Guzak brothers have left Ukraine. They’re supposed to be either en route back to Bratislava, or already here.”

“More trouble.”

“A bad pair. We’ll look for them at the borders. Except they know how to get in and out under the radar. The older one is psychotic, a genuine madman. You remember the case with Giles?”

“I remember the case. I was going to see Giles anyway. I’ll warn him,” Jana said.

The colonel nodded, returning to the papers he had been studying as Jana walked out the door. Trokan hummed tonelessly. After a moment he stopped going through the papers, picked up the Chinese police officer’s cap, buffed the bill with his sleeve, then put it back on his head.

A satisfied look on his face, he bent over his papers again.