The Mountain Shadow (42 page)

‘How can you be sure of that?’

It wasn’t a polite question, and he didn’t have a polite answer.

‘Fuck you, and fuck dead junkies. I don’t give a shit. The two local kids are a minor problem. But when a foreigner dies in my zone, it leaves a big stain on my desk. I like a clean desk. I told DaSilva he would have to pay me double this month, for the two deaths. Now that it’s
three
deaths, the price is triple.’

‘Tell Sanjay yourself, Lightning. You see him more often than I do.’

I left the station house, moved through the traffic, and walked to the narrow cement-block and metal rail divider that separated the lanes moving south and north along the busy causeway.

Standing in a gap in the steel fence, I felt the traffic swirl around me: densely packed red commuter buses, scooters carrying five-member families, handcarts, motorcycles and bicycles, black-and-yellow taxis, fish-market trucks, private cars and military transports moving to and from the large naval base at the spear-tip of the Island City’s peninsula.

Words cut through the jungle of thoughts.

Our dope. Sanjay Company dope. The girl in the locket, Rannveig, like the thing at the airport. Her boyfriend. The girl in the locket. Our dope.

Horns, bicycle bells, music from radios, the cries of stallholders and beggars rose up everywhere, echoing from covered walkways and the elegantly sagging stones of buildings that supported them.

Our dope. Sanjay Company dope. The girl. The locket. Her boyfriend. Our dope.

The smells of the street punished me, making me dizzy: fresh catches of fish and prawns from Sassoon Dock, diesel and petrol fumes, and the heavy wet-linen smell of monsoon mould, creeping across the brow of every building in the city.

Our dope. Our dope.

I stood on the road divider. Traffic rivers ran in front of me, heading north, and behind me, heading south, along the arm of the peninsula.

Khaderbhai had refused to allow anyone in the Company to deal heroin in South Bombay, or to profit from prostitution. Since his death, more than half of the new Sanjay Company’s funds came from both sources, and Sanjay sanctioned more dealers and brothels every month.

It was a new world, not braver but much richer than the one I’d discovered, when Khaderbhai saved me from prison and recruited me. And it was no use telling myself that I didn’t sell the drugs or the girls: that I worked in counterfeiting and passports. I was up to the thin silver chain around my neck in it.

As a soldier with the Sanjay Company I’d fought other gangs, and could be called to protect Andrew, Amir, Faisal and their operations at any time, and with no explanation for the blood to be spilled, and no right to refuse.

Our dope.

I felt a touch in the centre of my back, and as I began to turn there was another touch, and another. Three of the Cycle Killers raced away into the flow of traffic on their chrome bicycles.

I looked back quickly to greet Pankaj, second in charge of the Cycle Killers, as he skidded his bicycle to a stop beside me. He rested against the metal rail of the road divider. Traffic eddied around him, and he looked mischief at me, his eyes bright.

‘That’s how easy it is, brother!’ he grinned, wagging his head energetically. ‘Not counting me, you are three times dead already, if my boys were using their knives, instead of their fingers.’

He jabbed two hard fingers into my chest, directly under my heart.

‘So glad we never fight, brother,’ I said.

‘You take your hand off the knife at your back,’ he said, ‘and I’ll take my hand off mine.’

We laughed, and shook hands.

‘Your Company is keeping us busy,’ he said, spinning the pedal of his bicycle backwards as he held the concrete and steel road divider. ‘I’ll be able to retire, if this keeps up.’

‘If your work ever brings you south of Flora Fountain, I’d appreciate a heads-up.’

‘You will have it, my brother. Goodbye!’

Pankaj wheeled his chrome bicycle back into the road. I watched him thread his way through the traffic expertly.

And before I lost sight of him, in the time it took me to lift my eyes to the sky, I was done. It was over. I was finished with the Sanjay Company, and I knew it.

I was done. I quit. I’d had enough.

Faith. Faith is in everything, in every minute of life, even in sleep. Faith in Mother, sister, brother, or friend: faith that others will stop at the red light, faith in the pilot of the plane and the engineers who signed it into the air, faith in the teachers who guard children for hours every day, faith in cops and firemen and your mechanic, and faith that love will still be waiting for you when you return home.

But faith, unlike hope, can die. And when faith dies, the two friends that always die with it are constancy and commitment.

I’d had enough. I lost the little faith I’d had in Sanjay’s leadership, and couldn’t respect myself any more for submitting to it.

Leaving wouldn’t be easy, I knew. Sanjay didn’t like loose ends. But it was done. I was done. I knew that Sanjay would be at home late. I decided to ride to his house before the night was out, and tell him that I quit.

I looked up at the banner of Leopold’s, and remembered something Karla once said, when we drank too much and talked too much, too long after the doors were closed.
Living alone as a freelancer in Bombay, like Didier
, she laughed,
is a cold river of truth
.

I’d been staring into a splintered mirror, and it was a while since I’d faced
alone
. I was walking away from a small army, pledged to defend me as a brother in arms. I was losing quasi-immunity from the law, protected by quasi-ethical Company lawyers, just a billable minute away from quasi-ethical judges.

I was leaving behind close friends who’d faced down enemies with me: men who’d known Khaderbhai, and knew his imperfections, and loved him as I did.

It was tough. I was trying to walk away from guilt and shame, and it wasn’t easy: guilt and shame had more guns than I did.

But fear lies, hiding self-disgust in self-justification, and sometimes you don’t know how afraid you were, until you leave all your fearful friends.

I felt things that I’d justified and rationalised for too long fall like leaves, washed from my body by a waterfall. Alone is a current in truth’s river, like togetherness. Alone has its own fidelity. But when you navigate that closer view of the shore, it often seems that the faith you have in yourself is all the faith there is.

I took a deep breath, put my heart in the decision, and made a mental note to clean and load my gun.

Chapter Twenty-Five

K
AVITA
S
INGH, 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.’