The Mountain Shadow (9 page)

I’d never visited the den of the Cycle Killers. I didn’t know much about them. But like every street guy in Bombay, I knew the names of their top two killers, and I knew that they outnumbered the four of us by six or seven to one.

Abdullah kicked his bike to life, waiting for us to kick-start our own bikes, and then led the way out into the brawl of traffic, his back straight, and his head high and proud.

Chapter Six

I
’D SEEN SOME OF THE
C
YCLE
K
ILLERS,
riding their polished chrome bicycles at suicidal speed through the market streets of the Thieves Bazaar. They were young, and always dressed in the same uniform of brightly coloured, tight-fitting undershirts, known as
banyans
, white stovepipe jeans, and the latest fashion brand of running shoes.

They all slicked their hair back with perfumed oil, wore ostentatious caste-mark tattoos on their faces to protect them against the evil eye, and covered their own eyes with identical mirror-finish aviator sunglasses, as polished as their silver bicycles.

They were, by general agreement among discriminating criminals, the most efficient knife-men money could buy, surpassed in skill by only one man in the city: Hathoda, the knife master for the Sanjay Company.

Deep within the streets and narrower gullies, clogged with commerce and the clamour for cash, we parked our bikes outside a shop that sold Ayurvedic remedies and silk pouches filled with secret herbs, offering protection against love curses. I wanted to buy one, but Abdullah didn’t let me.

‘A man’s protection is in Allah, honour and duty,’ he growled, his arm around my shoulder. ‘Not in amulets and herbs.’

I made a mental note to go back to the shop, alone, and fell into step with my stern friend.

We entered a shoulder-wide lane, and as the lane darkened, further from the street, Abdullah led us beneath an almost invisible arch bearing the name
Bella Vista Towers
.

Beyond the arch we found a network of covered lanes that seemed, at one point, to pass through the middle of a private home. The owner of the home, an elderly man wearing a tattered
banyan
and sitting in an easy chair, was reading a newspaper through over-large optical sunglasses.

He didn’t look up or acknowledge us as we passed through what seemed to be his living room.

We walked on into an even darker lane, turned the last corner in the maze and emerged in a wide, open, sunlit courtyard.

I’d heard of it before: it was called
Das Rasta
, or
Ten Ways
. Residential buildings and the many lanes that serviced them surrounded the roughly circular courtyard, open to the sky. It was a private public square.

Residents leaned from windows, looking down into the action of Das Rasta. Some lowered or pulled up baskets of vegetables, cooked food, and other goods. Many more people entered and left the courtyard through wheel-spoke alleys leading to the wider world beyond.

In the centre of the courtyard, sacks of grain and pulses had been heaped together in a pile twice the height of a man. The sacks formed a small pyramid of thrones, and seated on them at various levels were the Cycle Killers.

In the topmost improvised throne was Ishmeet, the leader. His long hair had never been cut, according to Sikh religious tradition, but his observance of Sikhism stopped there.

His hair wasn’t held in a neat turban, but fell freely to his narrow waist. His thin, bare arms were covered in tattoos, depicting his many murders and gang war victories. There were two long, curved knives in decorated scabbards tucked into the belt of his tight jeans.

‘
Salaam aleikum
,’ he said lazily, greeting Abdullah as we approached his tower of thrones.

‘
Wa aleikum salaam
,’ Abdullah replied.

‘Who’s the dog-face you’ve got with you?’ a man sitting close to Ishmeet asked in Hindi, turning his head to spit noisily.

‘His name is Lin,’ Abdullah replied calmly. ‘They also call him Shantaram. He was with Khaderbhai, and he speaks Hindi.’

‘I don’t care if he speaks Hindi, Punjabi and Malayalam,’ the man responded in Hindi, glaring at me. ‘I don’t care if he can recite poetry, and if he has a dictionary shoved up his arse. I want to know what this dog-face is doing here.’

‘I’m guessing you have more experience with dogs than I do,’ I said in Hindi. ‘But I came here in the company of men, not dogs, who know how to show respect.’

The man flinched and twitched, shaking his head in disbelief. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the challenge I’d thrown, or the fact that a white foreigner had spoken it in the kind of Hindi used by street gangsters.

‘This man is also my brother,’ Abdullah said evenly, staring at Ishmeet. ‘And what your man says to him, he says to me.’

‘Then why don’t I say it to you, Iranian?’ the man said.

‘Why don’t you, by Allah?’ Abdullah replied.

There was a moment of exquisite calm. Men working to bring sacks of grain, pots of water, boxes of cold drinks, bags of spices and other goods still moved into and out of the courtyard. People still watched from their windows. Children still laughed and played in the shade.

But in the breathing space between the Cycle Killers and the four of us, a meditation stillness rippled outwards from our beating hearts. It was the deliberate stillness of
not
reaching for our weapons, the shadow before the flash of sunlight and blood.

The Cycle Killers were only a word away from war, but they respected and feared Abdullah. I looked into Ishmeet’s smiling eyes, schemed into slits. He was counting the corpses that would lie around his throne of sacks.

There was no doubt that Abdullah would kill at least three of Ishmeet’s men, and that the rest of us might account for as many again. And although there were twelve Cycle Killers in the courtyard, and several more in the rooms beyond, and although Ishmeet himself might manage to live, the loss would be too great for his gang to survive a revenge attack by our gang.

Ishmeet’s eyes opened a little wider, crimson betel nut staining his smile.

‘Any brother of Abdullah,’ he said, staring directly at me, ‘is a brother of mine. Come. Sit up here, with me. We’ll drink
bhang
together.’

I glanced at Abdullah, who nodded to me without taking his eyes off the Cycle Killers. I climbed onto the wide throne of sacks and took a seat a little below Ishmeet, and level with the man who’d insulted me.

‘Raja!’ Ishmeet said, calling to a man who was polishing the rows of already gleaming bicycles. ‘Get some chairs!’

The man moved quickly to provide wooden stools for Abdullah, Fardeen, and Hussein. Others brought the pale green
bhang
in tall glasses, and also a large chillum.

I drank the glass of marijuana milk down in gulps, as did Ishmeet. Belching loudly, he winked at me.

‘Buffalo milk,’ he said. ‘Fresh pulled. Gives a little extra kick. You want to be a king in this world, man, keep your own milking buffalo.’

‘O . . . kay.’

He lit the chillum, took two long puffs, and passed it to me, smoke streaming from his nostrils like steam escaping from fissured stone.

I smoked and passed the chillum to the gang lieutenant sitting beside me. The animosity of moments before was gone from his smiling eyes. He smoked, passed the chillum along, and then tapped me on the knee.

‘Who’s your favourite heroine?’

‘From now, or before?’

‘From now.’

‘Karisma Kapoor.’

‘And from before?’

‘Smita Patil. What about you?’

‘Rekha,’ he sighed. ‘Before and now and always. She’s the queen of everything. Do you have a knife?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can I see it, please?’

I took one of my knives out of its scabbard, and passed it to him. He opened the flick mechanism expertly, and then flipped the long, heavy, brass-handled weapon around his fingers as if it was a flower on a stem.

‘Nice knife,’ he said, closing it and handing it back to me. ‘Who made it?’

‘Vikrant, in Sassoon Dock,’ I answered, putting the knife away.

‘Ah, Vikrant. Good work. You wanna see my knife?’

‘Sure,’ I replied, reaching out to take the weapon he offered me.

My long switchblade knife was made for street fighting. The Cycle Killer’s knife was designed to leave a deep, wide hole, usually in the back. The blade tapered quickly from the wide hilt to the tip. Gouged into the blade were trenches to facilitate the flow of blood. Backward serrations entered a body on the smooth side but ripped the flesh on the outward pull, preventing the wound from spontaneously closing.

The hilt was a brass semicircle, designed to fit into a closed fist. The knife was used in a punching action, rather than a slash or jab.

‘You know,’ I said, as I handed back the weapon, ‘I hope we never, ever fight each other.’

He grinned widely, putting the knife back into its scabbard.

‘Good plan!’ he said. ‘No problem. You and me, we never fight. Okay?’

He offered me his hand. I hesitated a moment, because gangsters take stuff like that seriously, and I wasn’t sure that I could promise not to fight him, if our gangs became enemies.

‘What the hell,’ I said, slapping my palm into his, and closing my fingers in a firm handshake. ‘We never fight. No matter what.’

He grinned at me again.

‘I’m . . . ’ he began in Hindi. ‘I’m sorry about . . . about that comment before.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘Actually, I
like
dogs,’ he said. ‘Anyone here will tell you that. I even feed the stray dogs here.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘Ajay! Tell him how much I like dogs!’

‘Very much,’ Ajay said. ‘He loves dogs.’

‘If you don’t stop talking about dogs right now,’ Ishmeet said through the sliver of a smile, ‘I’m going to kick you in the neck.’

Ishmeet turned away from his man, displeasure a crown pressed on his forehead.

‘Abdullah,’ he said. ‘You want to talk to me, I think so?’

Abdullah was about to reply when a crew of ten workingmen entered the courtyard, pulling two long, empty handcarts.

‘Make way!’ they shouted. ‘Work is close to God! Workingmen are doing God’s work! We are here for the sacks! Old sacks going out! New sacks coming in! Make way! Work is close to God!’

With a disregard that might’ve cost other men their lives, the workers ignored the status and comfort of the murderous gang and began pulling sacks from the improvised throne. Deadly Cycle Killers tumbled and stumbled from their places on the pile.

As quickly as his dignity would allow, Ishmeet scrambled off his vantage point to stand close to Abdullah while the demolition continued. I climbed down with him to join my friends.

Fardeen, nicknamed the Politician, stood at once and offered his wooden stool to Ishmeet. The leader of the Cycle Killers accepted, sat beside Abdullah, and called importantly for hot chai.

While we waited for the tea, the workers removed the tall hill of sacks, leaving only scattered grains and straws on the bare stones of the courtyard. We sipped adrak chai, spicy ginger tea strong enough to bring tears to the eyes of someone judging judges.

The workers brought fresh sacks into the open ground. Within minutes a new mound began to appear, and men who worked for the Cycle Killers began to shape it into a series of throne-like seats once more.

Perhaps to cover the embarrassment of having his estrade so abruptly dismantled, Ishmeet turned his attention to me.

‘You . . . foreigner,’ he asked, ‘what do you think of Das Rasta?’

‘
Ji
,’ I said, using the respectful term equivalent to
sir
, ‘I was wondering how we were able to come in here without a challenge.’

‘We knew you were coming,’ Ishmeet replied smugly, ‘and we knew you were friends, and how many you were. Dilip Uncle, the old man reading the newspaper, do you remember him?’

‘Yeah. We passed right through his house.’

‘Exactly. Dilip Uncle, he has a button on the floor under his chair. The button rings a bell here in the courtyard. From the number of times he presses the button, and for how long, we can tell who is coming, friend or stranger, and how many. And there are many uncles like Dilip, who are the eyes and the ears of Das Rasta.’

‘Not bad,’ I allowed.

‘Your frown is another question, I think.’

‘I was also wondering why this is called Das Rasta, Ten Ways, when I can count only nine ways in and out.’

‘I
like
you,
gora
!’ Ishmeet said, using the word that meant
white man
. ‘Not many have noticed that fact. There are, in truth, ten ways into and out of this place, which is the reason for the name. But one of them is hidden, and only known to those of us who live here. The only way that you could pass through that exit is to become one of us, or be killed by us.’