Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

He pulled the toy pistol from the box, but his triumph faded quickly.

‘This is all wrong! The photon emitter is in the wrong place. And the deflector shield is missing. You can’t trust anyone, these days.’

‘It’s a toy, Jaswant,’ I said.

‘A replica,’ he corrected. ‘And not an accurate one.’

‘It’s a replica of a toy, Jaswant.’

‘You don’t understand. I’ve got a Parsi friend who said he could make a real one for me, if I have a perfect replica of the original. He won’t work with this crap. He’s a Parsi.’

He stared at me, sorrow burning him, as sorrow always does, even when it shouldn’t.

‘Please, Jaswant,’ I said sincerely. ‘Don’t make a laser pistol.’

‘A phaser pistol,’ he corrected. ‘And you could use one. People walk in and out of your rooms all day and night, like it’s Buckingham Station.’

‘Only people with a key.’

‘Well, there are two key holders in there now.’

I found Naveen in the chair, near a desk I’d bought from the trophy store downstairs. He was playing my guitar, and better than I played it, but that put him on a list of anybody.

I looked into my bedroom and saw Didier on the bed, his elegant, Italian shoes on the floor, laces inside. He waved hello.

‘Nice playing, Naveen,’ I said, throwing myself into a chair.

‘Nice guitar,’ Naveen replied, playing a popular Goan ballad.

‘I found her loitering with intent, in a music store downstairs.’

‘No place for a guitar like her,’ he said, switching to Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’. ‘She’s a high-maintenance crazy love guitar, like Diva.’

‘What’s the Diva situation?’ I asked.

‘Not good,’ he said, still playing. ‘That’s why I’m doing guitar therapy.’

‘I cleared it with Johnny Cigar, this morning. A Bihari clan moved out, leaving six empty houses. There are two huts reserved, a few steps from Johnny’s house. One for her, and one for you.’

‘Can’t come a minute too soon for me,’ Naveen said, putting the guitar aside.

‘I think you’re right. I asked around today in the Fort area. Her dad’s in big trouble. The bookies have him at fifty-to-one. People are talking about him like he’s already dead. And people are talking about Diva, and what she might know about her dad’s bad deals, or where the money is.’

‘Indeed,’ Didier agreed, springing off the bed with surprising agility and tiptoeing to the small, chest-high refrigerator.

He’d bought the refrigerator as a housewarming present, stocked it with beer, and put a bottle of brandy on my night table for himself. He threw a beer to me, and one to Naveen, and settled himself again comfortably on my bed.

‘I have made some enquiries of my own,’ he said. ‘There are at least two dangerous and merciless groups after Diva’s father, and both of them have deep ties to the police.’

‘You’re right,’ Naveen said.

‘One of them, in fact, is the police,’ Didier continued. ‘Something about the police pension fund, I think. This business mogul has amassed a Mongol horde of enemies. He should evaporate from Bombay, and relocate to an anonymous island. Certainly, he can afford to buy one.’

‘He’s the most stubborn man I’ve ever met,’ Naveen growled. ‘He wants to ride it out. He thinks his security is rock solid. And, okay, it’s true enough that he’s surrounded by guns, day and night, but… ’

‘But what?’

‘But there are two separate security outfits working in that mansion, cops and private. Neither of them, far as I can tell, is willing to take a bullet for the richest and crookedest man in Bombay. Some of those guys live in slums, hoping that they can move their family into a one-room apartment the size of his toilet. If the cops are ordered away, I think the private army will run away. I’ve tried to warn him, but he won’t listen.’

‘He did listen to you,’ Didier said. ‘He left his daughter in your care.’

‘He called me son , yesterday,’ Naveen said. ‘It was the weirdest thing. I hardly know him.’

He walked to the shuttered windows. When he opened a shutter, the neon lights of the Metro theatre blushed his face.

‘He said, Keep my daughter close to your heart, and safe with you, away from me, my son .’

‘That is a significant responsibility,’ Didier mused.

‘And a significant job,’ I added. ‘Diva’s a handful. She should leave the city, man.’

‘I agree,’ Didier said. ‘And soon.’

‘She won’t go. And I know her. If I try to take her to the airport, she’ll scream the place down.’

‘If you can’t get her to leave Bombay,’ I said, ‘and if the people who want to kill her father might kidnap her, then you’ll have to hide her until it blows over. And the slum is the only place I can think of, where no-one will look for the richest girl in town. But I hope you have a better idea.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Neither do I,’ Didier said.

‘Where is she now?’ I asked.

‘At her weekly meeting. She gets together with some friends every week at the President.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Didier asked.

‘It’s called the Diva Girl Gossip Club,’ Naveen explained.

‘Fascinating!’ Didier said.

‘Once a week they swarm like piranhas, and rip to pieces any girl they know who isn’t in their clique.’

‘Will you get me an invitation?’ Didier pleaded, joining us. ‘I would love to go.’

‘She should be finished by ten,’ Naveen said. ‘You guys wanna go with me, and pick her up?’

‘I will certainly come,’ Didier said, slipping on his shoes and tying them.

‘I’m going to need both of you,’ Naveen said, ‘if I’m going to convince Diva to dump her suite at the Mahesh, and come live in a slum for a week. I might need the two of you to restrain her while I just explain the idea.’

‘You sure you wanna do this now?’ I asked.

‘No present like the time,’ the young detective smiled, but his eyes were serious. ‘It’s late enough to get her to the slum and settle her in before too many people know about it. What do you think?’

‘Didier is ready. To the gossip club, at once!’

We found Diva in a shriek of Divas, in the lobby of the President hotel. The three of them stopped, staring at us with well-practised aghast.

Didier was in a rumpled, white linen jacket and faded blue corduroys. I was in boots, black jeans, T-shirt and sleeveless vest. Naveen was in grey fatigues and a thin, brown-suede shirt. He carried a heavy backpack.

The pretty girls made it clear that we didn’t present a pretty picture.

‘Is that him?’ one of the Diva girls asked, pointing an accusing false nail at Naveen.

‘In the flesh,’ Diva sneered, making no introductions.

‘Motorcycle maniac,’ the other Diva girl said, crossing me off the list.

‘Debauched womaniser,’ the first said, crossing Didier off.

‘Pardon me, mademoiselle,’ Didier said. ‘But, I am a man iser.’

‘Debauched maniser,’ the girl said.

‘And the horse,’ Diva said, crossing Naveen off, ‘without Prince Charming.’

The Diva girls giggled.

‘What’s with the backpack?’ Diva demanded. ‘Setting off for the Himalayas, I hope?’

‘I’m not a climber,’ Naveen said, staring at her.

‘Ooooooh!’ the Diva girls said. ‘The tomcat has claws.’

‘We have to go, Diva,’ Naveen said.

‘How about you climb a tree,’ Diva said defiantly. ‘And don’t come down.’

The girls giggled.

Naveen was angry, because he was genuinely afraid. Given the threat to her, he thought they were foolishly exposed in the well-lit lobby. He expected a carload of thugs to burst in at any moment and kidnap her.