Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

And strong, confident young Naveen knew he’d be powerless to stop it. I knew him well enough to know that he was unaccustomed to the feeling, and that he didn’t like it.

Didier stepped into the awkward silence, bowing elegantly to the girls.

‘Allow me to introduce myself, dear ladies,’ he said, handing out business cards. ‘My name is Didier Levy. I am a native of France, but a guest in your great city for some years. With my associate, the well-known detective Mr Naveen Adair, we are the Lost Love Bureau, and we are at your service, if there is a mystery to be solved.’

‘Wow!’ one of the girls said, reading the card he’d given her.

‘No matter is too trivial,’ Didier pitched, ‘and no piece of gossip too insignificant for the Lost Love Bureau.’

‘We’ve gotta go,’ Naveen repeated, gesturing toward the door.

Diva cheeked goodbye to her friends, and went with us to the doors. We walked out past the entry portico to the beginning of the main street.

Naveen stopped, and looked at me. I glanced around, and realised that Didier wasn’t with us. I trotted back into the hotel to snatch him from the girls.

‘See you next Tuesday!’ he called out, as I dragged him away. ‘I assure you, I have gossip about well-known people that you will enjoy more than orgasm!’

The Diva girls shrieked.

We rejoined Naveen and Diva.

‘Business cards?’ I said.

‘I… thought it best to be prepared,’ Didier replied.

‘Show me one.’

‘I’d like to see one of those, too,’ Naveen said.

‘Me, too,’ Diva agreed. ‘Hand ’em over, Frenchy.’

Reluctantly, he passed out the business cards, and we studied them by the light of a streetlamp.

LOST LOVE BUREAU

Didier Levy, Master of Love

Naveen Adair, Master of the Lost

The back of the card showed a picture of what I assumed to be a listening ear, with the words:

Loose Lips Make The World Go Round

Suite 7, The Amritsar Hotel, Metro, Bombay

‘Do you think it too… subdued?’ Didier asked earnestly.

‘ Master of the Lost? ’ Naveen said. ‘It’s a bit Tolkien, man.’

‘And what’s with the ear?’ I asked innocently, and should’ve kept my mouth shut.

‘But, Lin! You only object, because you ripped a man’s ear off a few months ago,’ Didier protested.

‘Not all the way off,’ I protested back. ‘And anyway, Didier, so now it’s Suite 7, and not Room 7?’

‘Wait a minute,’ Diva said, planting a hand like a tiny garden fork on my chest. ‘You ripped some guy’s ear off?’

‘Naveen,’ I said, ‘you can take over any time now.’

‘Diva -’ Naveen began.

‘Nothing doing from either of you,’ Diva said. ‘Not until I sit down. Where’s the limo?’

We stared at her.

‘You don’t have a limo,’ Naveen said. ‘Not any more. I sent the car and driver back to be reassigned at the estate.’

She laughed, but we weren’t laughing, so she grabbed Naveen’s shirt, yanking it up and down in her fists until she tore it.

‘You… fucking… did… what ?’

‘Diva, will you please trust me on this,’ Naveen said, tucking strands of his shirt into his pants.

‘ Trust you? I did trust you, and you lost my fucking car! Do you know how far a girl can walk or run in these shoes? That’s what limousines were designed for, idiot, the fucking shoes ! Where’s my four-wheeled shoebox, Naveen?’

‘Can we have this conversation off the main street? There’s a corner just ahead, with a laneway.’

‘You must be -’

‘Please, Miss Diva,’ Didier said. ‘You can surely understand that we three men would not be here, appealing to you in this way, if we did not care about you, and if we did not judge it prudent.’

She looked from face to face and then stormed off. She turned into the lane and stopped halfway, her back against the wall.

One foot was raised behind her, resting on the wall. She was wearing an elegant yellow skirt, a white high-necked blouse and ankle-strap heels. Her skirt was split at the side, and her short, fine legs were revealed by the pose. She was a girl who knew how to pose: she’d posed for every magazine in the country.

I glanced at Naveen. He was studying her with the eyes of love: desire, stripped of hunger. We tough guys fall fast, and we fall hard , Didier had said. And there was no doubt that Naveen Adair, the Indian-Irishman, was a tough guy falling somewhere.

Naveen let her have it. She was stubborn, and proud. He knew that he had to be brutally honest to have a chance of convincing her of the dangers she faced.

Every twisted deal that untangled itself at the feet of a gangster, a crooked politician or a cop, gunning for him, spooled out in front of her. Her foot slid down the wall, and she straightened up, bracing herself.

‘The threat is very real, Miss Diva,’ Didier said gently. ‘We have all examined this matter, and we have all concluded that your safety is in peril.’

‘They’re bad guys,’ Naveen said. ‘And your dad’s surrounded by good guys he doesn’t trust. I think that’s why he gave me the job of making sure you’re safe, and told me not to bring you back to the mansion.’

‘Mummy,’ she moaned very softly, calling out to a ghost.

‘I recommend leaving, Miss Diva,’ Didier advised. ‘Fast, and far away. I would be honoured to arrange it. Lin can provide the false papers. There is sufficient money. You would be safe, until this matter is resolved.’

‘I won’t leave while my dad’s still here,’ she pouted. ‘What if he goes to jail? He’ll need me. No matter what else I have to do, I won’t leave Bombay while he’s here.’

‘The alternative is hiding here, in the slum nearby,’ Naveen said. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.’

‘The slum? First, you tell me that my dad is a crook, and that other crooks are trying to kill him, so they might kidnap me or kill me, which I’ve been dealing with all my life, and now -’

‘It’s… it’s really bad,’ Naveen said. ‘I mean, I told you, Diva. I’m scared myself. Please, listen to us.’

‘I lived there, Diva,’ I said. ‘You’ll be safe in the slum, and it shouldn’t be for long.’

‘The slum?’ she repeated, trying again, but there wasn’t much fight left in her.

‘Do you have someone close enough to you, to trust with your life?’ Didier asked.

The slim socialite flinched as if he’d shocked her: more than her father’s misdeeds, or the threat to her own safety. She backed away half a step, and then regained her composure.

‘I’ve got a lot of distant relatives, but no-one close. My Mother was an only child, like me, and my father’s brother passed away two years ago. Since my Mother died, there’s only my dad and me. I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Hiding in this place, Miss Diva, will not be pleasant,’ Didier advised. ‘The people are civilised, but the circumstances are primitive. Do you not wish to reconsider?’

‘I’m not leaving.’

‘I told you so,’ Naveen said, adjusting the backpack.

I left them talking, and went to check the end of the laneway.

The street at the end of the alley led to the white arches and porthole windows of the World Trade Centre, and then to the slum beyond.

It was quiet. The pavement dwellers had settled down for the night on footpaths. Frisky dogs, hungry for their own hour of power, jerked, jumped and barked. An almost empty bus swept around the corner in front of me. Movie posters adorned the sides like heralds, draped over a war elephant.

Streetlamps showed the entrance to the slum, near the end of the street. I knew how hard the life was in that slum. I knew how rich the rewards were. The slum was a jellyfish, an empathic dome of common cause: filaments of love and common suffering touched every life.