Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘What isn’t going on, Karla?’

We were sitting on a stone monument, high enough for a view through trees to the sea. Another couple sat in the shadows a few metres away, murmuring quietly.

Cars and motorcycles passed slowly, preparing themselves for the long, curving road skirting the city zoo, and leading steeply to Kemps Corner junction. The smell of lions in cages followed that road, and the sound of their grieving roars.

Cops passed every thirty minutes or so. Some very rich people lived nearby. A limousine slowed to a creep as it passed us. The windows were blacked out.

I moved gently against Karla, feeling her body, her weight, ready to push her aside and reach for a knife. The car passed, continuing on down Lion-Sorrow Hill.

‘Why did you burn the letter?’

‘If your body gets infected, and it’s more than your immune system can cope with, you fight it off with antibiotics. It was toxic, so I burned it in an antibiotic fire. Now it’s gone.’

‘But it’s not. It’s still inside your memory. Everything is still inside your memory. You don’t forget anything. What did the letter say?’

‘It’s already in two memories, his and mine,’ she said. ‘Why should it be in three?’

She drew in a quick breath. I knew that quick breath. It wasn’t oxygen, it was ammunition. She was getting angry, and ready to let me have it.

‘It concerns both of us,’ I said, holding up my hands. ‘I get it, that a letter’s a private thing. But this is about an enemy. You’ve gotta see that.’

‘He wrote it, hoping that I’d show it to you. It’s a trick. He’s taunting and tormenting you, not me.’

‘Exactly why I want to know what he wrote to you.’

‘Exactly why you shouldn’t. It’s enough that I tell you it wasn’t nice, and that you need to know what he’s doing. I’d never hide it from you, because you need to know, but I don’t want you to read it. You’ve gotta see that .’

I didn’t see it, and I didn’t like it. For all we knew, Concannon had a hand in Lisa’s death. He’d tried to crack my skull. I didn’t feel betrayed. I just felt left out. She’d left me out of one too many of her games and schemes.

We rode home, and kissed goodnight. It wasn’t good. I couldn’t fake it. I was unhappy and disappointed. I almost made it into my room, before she stopped me.

‘Spit the long face out,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter?’

She was standing in the entrance to the Bedouin tent. I was standing in the entrance to my monk’s cell: the room of an ex-convict, ready to leave in a motorcycle kick.

‘Concannon’s letter,’ I said. ‘I think you should’ve shown it to me. Like this, it feels like a weird secret that I don’t want you to keep.’

‘A… secret ?’ she said, looking me up and down, and tilting her head. ‘You know, I’ve got a pretty busy schedule tomorrow.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘And… the day after tomorrow.’

‘And -’

‘Then, too.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it me, who’s supposed to be angry?’

‘You’re never the one who’s supposed to be angry.’

‘Not even when I’m right?’

‘Especially not when you’re right. But you’re not right about this. And now we’re both pissed.’

‘You don’t have the right to be mad at me, Karla. Concannon’s involved with Ranjit and Lisa. Nothing about him should be secret.’

‘Why don’t we leave it at that,’ she said. ‘Before we say something we’ll regret. I’ll stay in touch. I’ll slip a note under your door, if I’m feeling low.’

She shut the door, and locked the locks.

I went to my room, but Abdullah knocked on my door a minute later, disturbing my angry pacing. He told me to get ready, and meet him on the street.

He was parked near my bike with Comanche and three others from the Company, all of them on motorcycles. I kicked my bike to life and followed Abdullah and the others south toward Flora Fountain, where we stopped to allow a water tanker to pass through an intersection, elephant-slow.

‘You don’t want to know where we are going?’ Abdullah asked me.

‘No. I’m just happy to be riding with you, man.’

He smiled, and led us through Colaba to Sassoon Dock, near the entrance to the Navy base. We parked in front of a wide, shaded entrance gate, closed for the night.

Abdullah sent a kid to buy chai. The men settled on their bikes, each with a different view of the street.

‘Fardeen was killed,’ Abdullah said.

‘ Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’oon ,’ I said, speaking calm words, We come from God, and to God we return , but feeling shocked and hurt.

‘ Subhanahu Wa Ta’aala ,’ Abdullah replied. May Allah forgive the bad deeds of the returning soul, and accept the good ones.

‘ Ameen ,’ I answered.

Fardeen was so polite and considerate, and such a fair arbiter of others’ disputes that we knew him as the Politician. He was a brave fighter, and a loyal friend. Everyone but Fardeen had at least one enemy within the brotherhood of the Sanjay Company. Fardeen was the only man we all loved.

If the Scorpion Company had killed Fardeen as a payback for the burning of their house, they’d picked the one man in Sanjay’s group whose death punctured every heart with a poisoned sting.

‘Was it the Scorpions?’ I asked.

The other men with Abdullah, Comanche, Shah, Ravi and Tall Tony, laughed a gasp, and it was a bitter thing.

‘They took him between Flora Fountain and Chor Bazaar,’ Shah said, rubbing an angry tear away with the heel of his hand. ‘He was on his way there, but never arrived. We found his bike in Byculla, parked on the side of the road.’

‘They took him somewhere,’ Tall Tony continued, ‘tied him up, tortured him, tattooed the outline of a fuckin’ scorpion on his chest, and stabbed him through it. Pretty safe to conclude it was them.’

Tall Tony, distinguished by his height from the other Anthony in the Company, Little Tony, spat a curse on the ground at his feet. The tattoo was a cruel twist of the knife. Fardeen was a Muslim, and he followed a tradition among some Muslims, forbidding tattoos. Marking Fardeen’s body lowered the bar: the conflict wasn’t between rival gangs, but between rival religions.

‘Holy shit,’ I said. ‘How can I help?’

They laughed again, but it was the real thing.

‘We are here to help you , Lin brother,’ Abdullah said.

‘Help me?’

They laughed again.

‘What’s up, Abdullah?’

‘There is a price on your head, Lin.’

‘It’s a limited offer ,’ Comanche said. ‘One night only, twenty-four hours.’

‘Starting when?’

‘Midnight tonight to midnight tomorrow night,’ Shah said.

‘How much?’

‘One lakh,’ Ravi said. ‘A hundred thousand rupees, dude. That makes you the only man here who actually knows his market value.’

It was about six thousand dollars, in those days: enough to buy a pickup truck, in America, and enough to pick up every sneak-killer in the southern zone, in Bombay.

I thought of several men I knew, a couple of friends, in fact, who’d happily kill me for nothing, if it occurred to them, just because they liked killing people.

‘Thanks, guys,’ I said.

‘What do you want to do?’ Abdullah asked me.

‘I’ve gotta stay away from Karla,’ I said. ‘Don’t want any crossfire.’

‘Wise. Do you need anything from your home?’

Do I need anything, for being hunted to death?

I worked the street. I was always ready. I had good boots, good jeans, clean T-shirt, lucky sleeveless vest with inner pockets, American money, Indian money, two knives at my back, and a motorcycle that never let me down.