Authors: Charles Benoit
Out of Order (23 page)
As the elevator doors opened at the hotel lobby, Jason realized—for the second time in two days—that he should have taken the stairs.
He half expected a squad of khaki-shirted police officers, guns drawn, grabbing him by the collar and tossing him down hard on the polished floor, shouting a thousand things at once as they put the iron shackles on him, leading him away, never to be seen again. Instead, as he stepped out into the lobby, a squad of hotel maids ducked behind him into the waiting elevator, each one mumbling a mispronounced good morning as the doors eased closed. The lone strap of his backpack on his shoulder, Jason crossed the lobby to where Manny, Attar, and Narvin sat waiting.
“I hope you’re not as tired as you look,” Jason said as he swung his backpack onto the floor, dropping into an overstuffed chair, and rolling up the sleeves on his last semi-clean button-down shirt. “What time did you finish up last night?”
Manny held up one hand as he used the other to cover a gaping yawn. “I started back shortly after sunrise. It must have been early—I even beat the rush hour traffic into the city.”
“And you’re certain everything is….” Jason let his words trail off, not sure what to say.
“Everything is taken care of. The security guard—Mr. Chaudhrythe—he saw to most of it.”
“You’re sure you can trust this guy?”
Manny lifted his head, his barrel chest rising with a noisy intake of air. “I trust him more than I trust you.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason said. “I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that it’s all kind of strange to me.”
“You think we do this
every
weekend?” Narvin said, getting them all to smile for the first time in hours.
Manny leaned forward, his thick forearms resting on his even thicker thighs. “Mr. Chaudhrythe has many connections in the shantytown, the one we drove through. I am not sure why, but I wanted to make sure that Ravi received the proper rites and prayers.”
“So it’s already done? The funeral, or, uh, whatever?”
“Yes, the funeral was this morning, just after sun up. Another naked, nameless beggar has left this mortal coil.”
Jason felt a shiver race up his sweating back, not sure if the others had seen him shake. “Is there any chance the police will find the grave…dig him up…ID him from his dental records?”
“This is India, Jason,” Attar said. “We cremate the dead.”
“You’re forgetting the Muslims,” Narvin said. “And the Parsees. And the Jews. And most of the Christians.”
Manny looked past Attar to Narvin. “In this case the poor beggar was a Hindu.”
Jason nodded. “What about you guys? Any problems?”
Attar smirked, flicking his fingers at the suggestion. “Raj-Tech should really update their security. We used a computer at an all-night Internet café. There were a few firewalls to get around, a tricky little back-trace feature that was a bit stubborn—but nothing too complex.”
“They have a keypad system. Punch in your code to access certain floors, specialized rooms, that sort of thing.” Narvin poked at the air with a stiff index finger as he spoke, hitting imaginary buttons. “According to Raj-Tech’s records—well, according to their records
now
—Ravi was working alone in a secure section of the building yesterday afternoon and, lo and behold, he’s still in the building as we speak.”
“Between Manny’s Mr. Chaudhrythe and our efforts at the computer,” Attar said, looking at his friends, “Ravi Murty just disappeared.”
“Ten years too late,” Manny said. “But I will take it nonetheless.”
Jason leaned back in the chair, rubbing the stubble on his chin as he thought, the others swapping yawns and stretches. “Well, I guess that’s it.”
Manny slapped his hands on his knees and stood. “We best be going. The road to the airport will be crowded already. Now, where is your lovely bride? We do not want you to be late.”
“The way she handled herself last night,” Attar said, the admiration clear in his voice. “The way she stood up to Ravi, told him no even when he was pointing a gun
right
at her….”
Narvin smiled. “You had better be good to her, Jason. She’s one in a million.”
Where to start, Jason thought as he reached for his backpack.
Tell them that everything they said was true?
That she
was
the most amazing woman he had ever met and that he knew he’d never meet anyone like her again?
Or should he start at the beginning, tell them how they had only met that first day in India?
That everything she had told them about their life together was a lie?
That there was no farmhouse, no plans for a family, no memories of Sriram dancing at their wedding, no wedding to have memories of at all?
Or should he just skip ahead, tell them how, when he stepped out of the shower an hour ago, she was gone, the lone airplane ticket from Freedom Tours—the one in his name, the one Danny slipped under their door that morning—was propped up on the pillow in the center of their bed?
“Rachel’s not going to be joining us,” Jason said as he climbed out of the chair. “She has some work to do here for the Fashion Institute. Some rare pieces she has to photograph, a lecture over at the university. She’s joining me in Delhi, then we’re off to Paris for a week or so.”
Manny’s smile grew and he set a fat hand on Jason’s back. “I was hoping you were going to tell us that you had something special planned for that woman.”
They stepped out into the humid Bangalore morning, Manny’s white Ambassador parked among the auto-rickshaws and air-conditioned cabs. Manny leaned against the fender, catching his breath before attempting to climb in behind the wheel.
“How about you, Manny?” Jason said. “You still off to Ooty to see Sriram’s mother?”
“Oh. That,” Manny said, ignoring Attar’s and Narvin’s curious looks. “You must forgive me for that, Jason. When you told me that Sriram wanted you to deliver a sari to his mother, I knew something was not right. Honestly, I did not know what it was, but I assumed it would be valuable.” He chuckled. “Unfortunately for us all, it was.”
“Actually,” Jason said, swinging open the passenger door to roll down the window, a blast of hot air blowing past him, “it was worthless.”
The three men looked at each other. “Worthless?” Attar said. “But what about the computer program you said was in the embroidery?”
“If Sriram somehow encoded one of Raj-Tech’s programs it could have been worth millions,” Narvin said.
“Ravi saw it as well,” Manny said. “And he died trying to get it back.”
Jason shook his head. “Sorry, guys. I realized something this morning when I was putting on my shirt. That sari was defective.”
Manny puffed up his cheeks, sighing a fat sigh. “That is silly, Jason. How can a sari be defective?”
“No button hole.”
Manny exchanged glances with Narvin and Attar before turning back to Jason.
“So that’s why I know this has to be wrong,” Jason said, pulling a small wad of red fabric from his pocket, the large, cloth-covered button resting in the center of his palm, remembering both the ripping sound that came just before Ravi fell to his death and the pile of his things Rachel had left on the nightstand that morning.
“It’s got the same fabric as the sari,” Jason said, holding the bit of cloth so the broad button stood up like a flower, turning it from side to side as he spoke. “But, if there’s no button hole, then someone went through a lot of trouble for nothing. Buying an over-sized, two-piece button, opening it up, attaching the fabric, closing it back shut with all that space inside—space big enough to fit, oh I don’t know, a postage stamp, a couple M&Ms, a microchip—sewing it on a red sari.” Jason shrugged. “Seems like a waste of time to me.”
They leaned over the roof of the car to get a better look, their eyes fixed on the button, Narvin grinning, Manny wiping sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, Attar wetting his lips before he spoke, his voice just a whisper. “What do you think is inside?”
Jason smiled. “Magic.”
***
He was tempted to cut ahead, but Jason waited as his fellow passengers threaded their way through the single open doorway, their passage slowed by armloads of luggage and shuffle-stepping widows in white saris.
Jason glanced up at the illuminated board that listed both arrivals and departures and hoped that things were running late. Overhead, metallic messages blared out of trashcan-sized speakers, the information unintelligible in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and English. Jason held up his ticket at the door, the guard too busy buffing the shine on his uniform belt buckle to notice.
Passing through the final gate, Jason scanned the crowd. To his left, those waiting to depart piled their luggage in stacks and counted up family members, a moment of panic as they patted down pockets, searching for the tickets they held in their hands. To his right, those waiting for the next batch of arrivals checked their watches against the arrival board, tapping watch faces and shaking heads, the pacing and the angry inquiries still an hour away.
In front of him, the Madras Express pulled into the station.
Her baggy jeans, the bullet holes lost in the folds, dipped down on her hips, her black tribal tattoo hard to spot against the rich brown of her tan. Her teeshirt hung loose, wrinkled where it was usually knotted, and she held her backpack low so that it brushed against the dusty concrete as she walked. Poking out of a once-white Blue Jays cap, an auburn ponytail swayed with each step.
“Excuse me,” he said, stepping up behind her, smiling when he saw the look in her eyes as she turned. “Is this the train we take to the Taj Mahal?”
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