Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

Agitated, no doubt, by the wild throng and frenzied barking, Kano the bear swayed from side to side on the cart, turning his head to follow the peaks of sound. At one point we passed a group of strolling policemen, and I risked a glance to see them standing completely still, their mouths open and their heads turning as one, like a row of mouth-clown dummies at a carnival sideshow, as we passed.

After too many long minutes of that brawling and roistering, we were near enough to Nariman Point to see the tower of the Oberoi Hotel. Worried that we'd never rid ourselves of the wedding band, I ran back to press a bundle of notes into the hand of their bandmaster, with instructions that he should turn right, away from us, and march along Marine Drive. As we neared the sea, he led his men right when we moved left. Emboldened, perhaps, by their successful tour with our little parade, the musicians launched into a medley of dance hits as they marched away toward the brighter lights of the ocean drive. Most of the crowd jigged and danced away with them. Even the dogs, lured too far beyond their prowling domain, turned away from us and crept back into the mean shadows that had spawned them.

We pushed the cart further along the sea road toward the deserted spot where the truck was parked. Just then I heard a car horn sounding, close by. My heart sinking at the thought that it was the police, I slowly turned to look. Instead, I saw Abdullah, Salman, Sanjay, and Farid standing beside Salman's car. They'd stopped in a wide parking bay, surfaced with gravel stones, that was empty but for them.

"Are you all right, Johnny?" I asked. "Can you take it from here?"

"Sure, Lin," he replied. "The truck is just there, ahead of us, you see? We can do it."

"Okay, I'll peel off here, man. Let me know how it all goes. I'll see you tomorrow. And, hey, see if you can find me one of those wanted posters, brother!"

"No problem," he laughed, as I walked away.

I crossed the road to join Salman, Abdullah, and the others.

They'd been eating take-away food bought at one of the Nariman caravans parked near the sea wall. As I greeted them, Farid swept the rubble of containers and paper towels from the roof of the car onto the gravel park space. I felt the wince of guilt that litter-conscious westerners invariably experience, and reminded myself that the mess on the road would be collected by rag pickers who depended on the litter for their livelihood.

"What the fuck were you doing in that show?" Sanjay asked me when the greetings were made and received.

"It's a long story," I grinned.

"That's a damn scary Ganpatti you got there," he said. "I never saw anything like it. It looked so real. It was like it was moving. I got quite a religious feeling. I tell you, man, I'm going to pay a bahinchudh to light some incense when I get home."

"Come on, Lin," Salman prodded. "What's it all about, yaar?"

"Well," I groaned, knowing that no explanation would seem sensible. "We had to smuggle a bear out of the slum, and get him up to this spot, right here, because the cops had a warrant out on him and wanted to arrest him."

"Smuggle a what?" Farid asked politely.

"A bear."

"What... kind of a bear?"

"A dancing bear, of course," I said stiffly.

"You know, Lin," Sanjay pronounced, grimacing happily as he picked his teeth clean with a match, "you do some very weird shit."

"Are you talking about my bear?" Abdullah asked, suddenly interested.

"Yes, fuck you. It's really all your fault, if you want to go back far enough."

"Why do you say it was your bear?" Salman wanted to know.

"Because I arranged that bear," Abdullah replied. "I sent him to Lin brother, a long time ago."

"Why?"

"Well, it was all about the hugging," Abdullah began, laughing.

"Don't start," I said through pressed lips, warning him off the subject with my eyes.

"What _is all this with fuckin' bears?" Sanjay asked. "Are we still talking about bears?"

"Oh, shit!" Salman cut in, looking over Sanjay's shoulder.

"Faisal is in a big hurry. And he's got Nazeer with him. This looks like trouble." Another Ambassador gravelled to a stop near us. A second car followed, only two seconds behind it. Faisal and Amir leapt from the first car. Nazeer and Andrew rushed forward from the second.

I saw that another man got out of Faisal's car and waited there, watching the approach road. I recognised the fine features of my friend Mahmoud Melbaaf. One more man, a heavy-set gangster named Raj, waited with the boy Tariq in the second car.

"They're here!" Faisal announced breathlessly when he joined us.

"They're supposed to come tomorrow, I know, but they're already here. They just joined up with Chuha and his guys."

"Already? How many?" Salman asked.

"Just them," Faisal replied. "If we move now, we get all of them.

The rest of the gang is at a wedding in Thana. It's like a sign from heaven or something. It's the best chance we'll ever have.

But we've got to be damn quick!"

"I can't believe it," Salman muttered, as if to himself.

My stomach dropped and then set hard. I knew exactly what they were talking about, and what it meant for us. There'd been reports and rumours for days that Chuha and his gang within the Walidlalla council had made contact with the Sapna survivor and two of his family members, a brother and a brother-in-law. They were planning a strike against our group. The border war for new gang territory had flared, pitting Chuha's mafia council against ours, and Chuha was hungry.

The Sapna-Iran connection, all survivors from Abdul Ghani's treacherous attempted coup, had learned of the hostility between the councils, and had appeared at just the right moment to capitalise on Chuha's greed and ambition. They'd promised to bring weapons-new guns-and lucrative contacts in the Pakistani heroin trade. They were renegades: the Sapna killers were working without Abdul Ghani, and the Iranians had no official support from the Savak. It was hatred that had brought them together.

They wanted revenge for the deaths of their friends, and their hate had combined with Chuha's to put murder in their minds.

The situation had been so tense, for so long, that Salman had infiltrated the Chuha gang with his own man, Little Tony, a gangster from Goa who was unknown in Bombay. He'd provided information from the inside. They were his reports that had alerted Salman to the Sapna-Iran connection and the imminent attack. With Faisal's confirmation of their arrival at Chuha's house, we all knew there was only one option Salman would consider. Fight. Make war. Put an end to the Sapna killers and the Iranian spies, once and for all. Finish Chuha.

Absorb his territory. Seize his operations.

"Fuck, man! How lucky can we get?" Sanjay whooped, his eyes glittering in the grey-white streetlight.

"Are you sure?" Salman asked, fixing his friend Amir, an older man, with his sternest frown.

"I'm sure, Salman," Amir drawled, running his hand over the short, grey hair on his blunt head. He twirled the ends of his thick moustache with the same hand as he spoke. "I saw them myself. Abdullah's guys, from Iran, they came half an hour ago.

The Sapna fucks, you know, they've been there all day. They came in the morning. Little Tony, he told us as soon as he could.

We've been watching them for two hours at Chuha's place. The last time he talked to me, Little Tony said they were all getting together-Chuha and his closest guys, the Sapnas, and the guys from Iran. They were waiting for the Iran guys to get here and then they want to hit us. Soon. Maybe tomorrow night. The day after tomorrow, at the latest. Chuha sent word for a lot more guys. They're coming from Delhi and Calcutta. They're working out some kind of a plan where they hit us at about ten places at once, like, to stop us from coming back at them. I told Tony to go back and to let us know when the Iran guys got there. We were watching the place, like usual. Then we saw them walk in, a day early like, but we were pretty sure. Not long after, Little Tony came out and lit a cigarette. That was the signal. They're the ones-the ones who are after Abdullah. Now they're all in there together, and we're only two minutes away. I know it's early, but we have to go. We have to do it now, Salman, in the next five minutes."