Harlan Coben - Home

“Your friend Zorro,” Fat Gandhi begins.

“Zorra.”

“Pardon?”

“His name is Zorra, not Zorro.”

“I mean no offense.”

I just stare at him.

“I’ve made us tea,” Fat Gandhi says.

I don’t touch it. I think instead about the young male, the one who may be underage. In movies, one often hears the bad guys talk about how “this is only business.” I for one rarely believe it. Be you good or bad, you tend to gravitate toward what interests you. Most drug dealers, for example, partake of their wares. The people I’ve encountered who work in the porn industry have a predilection for the same. Those who run protection rackets enforced by violence rarely have an aversion to injuring others or the sight of blood. In fact, for the most part, they relish it.

I look at my own role in this without irony, by the way.

My point? Fat Gandhi may talk about how this is all business and profit to him, but I am not sure that I believe it. I wonder whether there is a personal and unsavory explanation for his chosen line of work.

And I wonder whether I should do something about it.

“I can’t give you your cousin,” Fat Gandhi says, “because I don’t have him.”

“That’s very unfortunate,” I say.

He does not meet my eye. This is good. He fears Zorra. He fears me. As he said before, he does not want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. This is why I believe in massive and disproportional retaliation. It makes your next enemy think twice.

“Where is he?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I never had him.”

“Yet you had Patrick Moore.”

“I did, yes. But not like you think.”

He leans forward and grabs his cup of tea.

I ask, “How long was Patrick Moore in your employ?”

“That’s just it,” he says, taking a sip from the cup. “He never was.”

I cross my legs. “Please explain.”

“You killed my men,” he says. “Three of them.”

“Are you still looking for a confession?”

“No, I’m telling the story. I’m starting at the beginning.”

I sit back and beckon him to continue. Fat Gandhi doesn’t use the delicate handle of the teacup. He embraces it gently using both hands, as though protecting an injured bird. “You never asked my men why they approached Patrick Moore, did you?”

“There was no time,” I say.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps you overreacted.”

“Or perhaps they did.”

“Fair enough, mate. Fair enough. But we’re getting off track. I’m going to tell you what happened. You then decide where we go from there, okay?”

I nod.

“So this kid, this Patrick Moore, he shows up on our turf. You understand about that sort of thing, don’t you, Mr. Lockwood? Territorial disputes?”

“Go on.”

“So my men heard about it. You could be right. They may have been too heavy-handed; I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But that was their job. I’ve learned that on the streets, it’s sometimes better to be heavy-handed. To overreact.”

I hear the echo of my own self-justification. It does not faze me in the least.

“So they braced Patrick Moore. I assume they decided to make an example of him. Then you appeared. You acted in such a way as to protect him. But tell me, Mr. Lockwood, what did Patrick Moore do?”

“He ran away,” I say.

“Exactly, my friend. He ran. Everyone ran. Including Garth.”

“Garth?”

“The young man with the dog collar.”

“Ah,” I say.

“Garth naturally reported what happened. It got back to me. I called him. He told me about this new kid showing up on our turf and then how some effete gentleman disposed of them.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Effete?”

“His word, not mine.”

I smile. I know that’s untrue, but I let it go. “Continue.”

“Well, you can imagine, Mr. Lockwood, what I thought. Three of my men slaughtered over what seemed a small territorial dispute. I don’t know about America, but here that kind of thing doesn’t just happen. I concluded that someone-you, sir-were declaring war on me. I concluded that the boy, Patrick Moore as it turned out, was part of a setup-that he was working with you to test my strength and resolve. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“And to be candid, I didn’t quite understand it. Those streets aren’t all that profitable. So I put feelers out for the boy who ran away. Patrick. Garth said that he heard him utter a few words and that he sounded American. That confused me even more. Why would Americans be out to get me? But from there, I put out the word.” He puts down the tea. “May I be immodest for a moment?”

“Please.”

“I more or less rule the streets of London. At least, when it comes to this particular market. I know the hotels. I know the brothels. I know the shelters and rail stations and public transport where youngsters hide. I know the parks and alleys and dark corners. There is no one better at finding a missing teen than yours truly. My employees can scour the city better than any branch of law enforcement.”

He takes another sip of his tea, smacks his lips, sits the cup back down. “So I put out a code red, Mr. Lockwood. It didn’t take long for one of my contacts to find the boy. He was trying to check into a small hotel paying cash. So I sent a few of my more mature employees-you probably noticed them in camouflage pants-to apprehend him. They did so. They brought him back to the arcade.”

He takes another sip of tea.

“Patrick was alone when you found him?” I ask.

“Yes.”

I mull this over. “Did any of your people know him?”

“No.”

“Proceed,” I say.

“Please understand, Mr. Lockwood, that at this time, I believed that this American was working to disrupt and even destroy my business.”

I nod. “So you treated him as a hostile.”

Fat Gandhi’s smile is one of relief. “Yes. You understand, then?”

I give him nothing.

“I, shall we say, interrogated him.”

“He tells you who he is,” I say, putting it together. “That he was kidnapped.”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“What I always do. I conduct research.”

I remember what Myron told me about Fat Gandhi’s Hindu aphorism. “Knowledge is bigger than debate,” I say.

He is unnerved by my knowledge of his quote. “Uh, yes.”

“What did you find?”

“I was able to confirm his story, which put me in something of a quandary. On the one hand, I could turn him over to the authorities. I could even end up a hero for rescuing him.”

I shake my head. “But that would put too much heat on you.”

“Precisely. Heroes put targets on their backs, even with the police.”

“So you decided to look for a payoff.”

“Honestly, I didn’t know what to do. I am not a kidnapper. I also still needed to understand the threat. Three of my men were dead, after all. So I confess to you, Mr. Lockwood, that I wasn’t quite sure what to do.”

I see it now. “And then Myron shows up.”

“Yes. He found Garth in the park. I have Garth bring him to the arcade. I figure that this is my chance. I can make money. I can get rid of Patrick. I can avenge my dead men.”

“The other boy that Myron saw in the cell,” I say. “I assume he was just a plant.”

“Yes, he was just one of the boys around that age.”

“You figured you could collect more money for two than for one.”

Fat Gandhi nods and spreads his hands. “You know the rest.”

I do, but I need to clarify. “You never saw Rhys Baldwin?”

“No.”

“And you have no idea where he is?”

“None. But this is my proposal, if you want to hear it.”

I sit back and cross my legs. I gesture for him to proceed.