Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Abdullah,’ he said. ‘You want to talk to me, I think so?’

Abdullah was about to reply when a crew of ten workingmen entered the courtyard, pulling two long, empty handcarts.

‘Make way!’ they shouted. ‘Work is close to God! Workingmen are doing God’s work! We are here for the sacks! Old sacks going out! New sacks coming in! Make way! Work is close to God!’

With a disregard that might’ve cost other men their lives, the workers ignored the status and comfort of the murderous gang and began pulling sacks from the improvised throne. Deadly Cycle Killers tumbled and stumbled from their places on the pile.

As quickly as his dignity would allow, Ishmeet scrambled off his vantage point to stand close to Abdullah while the demolition continued. I climbed down with him to join my friends.

Fardeen, nicknamed the Politician, stood at once and offered his wooden stool to Ishmeet. The leader of the Cycle Killers accepted, sat beside Abdullah, and called importantly for hot chai.

While we waited for the tea, the workers removed the tall hill of sacks, leaving only scattered grains and straws on the bare stones of the courtyard. We sipped adrak chai, spicy ginger tea strong enough to bring tears to the eyes of someone judging judges.

The workers brought fresh sacks into the open ground. Within minutes a new mound began to appear, and men who worked for the Cycle Killers began to shape it into a series of throne-like seats once more.

Perhaps to cover the embarrassment of having his estrade so abruptly dismantled, Ishmeet turned his attention to me.

‘You… foreigner,’ he asked, ‘what do you think of Das Rasta?’

‘ Ji ,’ I said, using the respectful term equivalent to sir , ‘I was wondering how we were able to come in here without a challenge.’

‘We knew you were coming,’ Ishmeet replied smugly, ‘and we knew you were friends, and how many you were. Dilip Uncle, the old man reading the newspaper, do you remember him?’

‘Yeah. We passed right through his house.’

‘Exactly. Dilip Uncle, he has a button on the floor under his chair. The button rings a bell here in the courtyard. From the number of times he presses the button, and for how long, we can tell who is coming, friend or stranger, and how many. And there are many uncles like Dilip, who are the eyes and the ears of Das Rasta.’

‘Not bad,’ I allowed.

‘Your frown is another question, I think.’

‘I was also wondering why this is called Das Rasta, Ten Ways, when I can count only nine ways in and out.’

‘I like you, gora !’ Ishmeet said, using the word that meant white man . ‘Not many have noticed that fact. There are, in truth, ten ways into and out of this place, which is the reason for the name. But one of them is hidden, and only known to those of us who live here. The only way that you could pass through that exit is to become one of us, or be killed by us.’

Abdullah chose the moment to reveal his purpose.

‘I have your money,’ he said, leaning in toward Ishmeet’s well-oiled smile. ‘But there is a matter I must make clear, before I give it to you.’

‘What… matter ?’

‘A witness,’ Abdullah said, speaking in a tone that was loud enough for me to hear. ‘You have a reputation for being so fast, in your work, that even the Djinn cannot see your blade strike. But in this assignment we gave to you, someone was allowed to see the deed. Someone who made a clear description of your men to the police.’

Ishmeet locked his jaw shut, glanced around quickly at his men, and then looked back at Abdullah. The smile returned slowly, but the teeth were still locked together as if they were holding a knife.

‘We will, of course, kill this witness,’ he hissed. ‘And at no extra charge.’

‘No need for that,’ Abdullah replied. ‘The sergeant who took the statement is one of ours. He thrashed the witness, and convinced him to change his story. But you understand that with a matter such as this, I must speak of it in the name of Sanjay himself. Especially since it is only the second assignment we have given to you.’

‘ Jarur ,’ Ishmeet hissed again. Certainly. ‘And I can assure you that you will never have to raise the question of witnesses again, for so long as we do business together.’

Ishmeet took Abdullah’s hand in his, held it for a moment, then stood, turned his back, and began to clamber to the top of his new throne of sacks. As he settled himself at the top of the pile once more, he spoke one word.

‘Pankaj!’ he said, speaking to the Cycle Killer who’d been sitting with me.

Fardeen took a package of money from his backpack. He passed it to Abdullah, who handed it on to Pankaj. As the Cycle Killer turned to climb up the pile of sacks he hesitated, and swung his gaze around to face me.

‘You and me, we never fight,’ he grinned, offering his hand once more. ‘ Pukkah? ’ Correct?

His wide smile and obvious, innocent pleasure in a new friendship would’ve been derided as naïve by the gangsters and outlaws I’d come to know in the Australian prison. But we were in Bombay, and Pankaj’s smile was as sincere as his willingness to fight me had been only minutes before; as sincere as mine.

Until I’d heard Ishmeet use his name, I hadn’t realised that the man I’d traded insults with was the second-in-command of the Cycle Killers, and as feared a knife-man as Ishmeet himself.

‘You and me,’ I said in Hindi, ‘we never fight. No matter what.’

His wicked grin widened, and he scampered athletically up the pile of sacks to give the package to Ishmeet. Abdullah raised his hand to his chest in farewell.

We followed Abdullah out through the labyrinth of lanes, through the living room where Dilip Uncle still sat, reading his newspaper, his foot hovering close to the button set into the floor, and then out into the street.

As we kicked the bikes to life, Abdullah caught my eye. When I met his gaze, his face opened in a rare, wide smile of happiness and exhilaration.

‘That was close!’ he said. ‘ Shukran Allah. ’

‘Since when did you start subcontracting?’

‘Two weeks ago, while you were in Goa,’ he replied. ‘The lawyer we hired, who betrayed our men to the police, and told them everything he had said in private?’

I nodded, recalling the anger we’d felt at the life sentence the Company men had received, based on their own lawyer’s treacherous information. An appeal of the conviction was pending in the courts, but our men were still in prison.

‘That lawyer has joined the long line of his fellows in hell,’ Abdullah said, his golden eyes gleaming. ‘And there will be no appeal of his sentence. But let us not disturb our peace with talk of dishonour. Let us enjoy the ride, and be grateful that, today, Allah has spared us the necessity to kill the killers we paid to kill for us. It is a great and wonderful thing to be alive, Alhamdulillah .’ By the grace of God .

But as Fardeen, Hussein and I fell in behind Abdullah for the ride back to the Sanjay Council meeting, it wasn’t God’s grace that I was thinking about. Other mafia Companies hired the Cycle Killers, from time to time. Even the cops put them on clean-up duty now and then. But Khaderbhai, who’d founded the mafia group, had always refused.

Anywhere humans gather, from boardrooms to bordellos, they seek and agree upon a moral standard for themselves. And one standard, upheld by Khaderbhai, was that if a man had to be killed, he was given the chance to look into the eyes of the men who claimed that right. Hiring assassins, rather than being assassins, was a change too far for some, I was sure. It was a change too far for me.