Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Ranjit had a house in Goa?’ Karla asked.

‘He was rentin’ it, I think. A fine big place it was, though. A grand place. And all the while, I’m edgin’ him toward the safe, wantin’ him to open it for me, when he suddenly opens it himself, and says Would you like to see a movie? ’

Karla put her hand on my arm gently.

‘What kind of movie?’

‘Sex tapes, it was,’ Concannon laughed. ‘Although it was very one-sided sex. The girls were all drugged senseless, you see. He wore a shower cap, and rubber gloves, leaving no trace of his sinfulness. He cleaned them and dressed them again, when he was done with them, and left them on his couch with a cosy blanket over their knees, so they woke up, and never even knew it happened.’

‘Ranjit did that?’

‘Yes, that he did,’ Concannon said. ‘You didn’t know?’

I just got back another shut up , but Karla squeezed my arm.

‘Did he tell you why he did it?’

‘He said his wife was frigid, if you’ll pardon me for his words, and she never had sex with him, so he used those sleepin’ girls, like, to pretend that he was having sex with her. With you , that is.’

Karla squeezed my arm.

‘You’re saying that’s what happened to Lisa?’

‘I think,’ he said, allowing his eyes to drift. ‘I think he drugged her with the Rohypnol, in a drink, but gave her too much. My stuff was pure, you see. I think she died, poor thing, before he used her.’

‘Who were the other girls?’

‘That, I don’t know.’ Concannon shrugged. ‘I only recognised one of them, and that’s because her face is in the papers, sometimes. But… I can tell you one thing. They all looked like you, and he dressed them all in a black wig, when he had his way with them.’

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I said.

‘Don’t be tellin’ me to shut up again, boyo,’ Concannon said to me. ‘I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I’m sick of trouble, though I never thought I’d hear meself say it. I’m retired.’

‘This is a good place to make it permanent.’

‘You’re a wicked lad,’ Concannon said, smiling. ‘With wicked thoughts, in your wicked mind.’

‘What did you do, when Ranjit showed you the movies?’ Karla asked.

‘Well, I knocked him about quite a bit, of course, and left him senseless. I couldn’t kill him, though I wanted to, because too many people had seen me with him. Then I took all the money from the safe, and I also took that tape of him with the girl from the papers.’

‘What did you do with it?’

‘Now, that’s the funny part,’ Concannon said, folding his arms, his feet poised on the bumper.

‘ Funny? ’ I said. ‘You think any of this is funny?’

‘Hands where I can see them,’ Karla said, and Concannon lounged backwards on his hands. ‘Funny how?’

‘There’s this young fool who buys cocaine from me now and then. He’s not big, but he’s got a very bad temper. His own family put a restraining order on him. He wants to be a movie star, so he deals a little stuff to the real movie stars, and gets the odd part. The girl in Ranjit’s sick film is an actress, and he’s her bad-tempered boyfriend.’

‘Did you give him the film?’ Karla asked, her eyes gleaming.

‘I did, when he came to buy stuff,’ Concannon replied, grinning happily. ‘Ranjit used to sneak back into town, from time to time, and he always bought stuff from me. I told the violent lad that Ranjit would be ghostin’ around, in disguise, at a nightclub he liked in Bandra.’

‘So you told the kid where Ranjit would be.’

‘Not only that. I gave the young savage a present. Gift-wrapped it meself. There was the movie, Ranjit’s appointment at the nightclub, and an untraceable gun, full of untraceable bullets. Human nature took care of the rest.’

Karla squeezed my arm.

‘You came up here, to tell us that you set up my ex-husband?’ Karla asked.

‘I came up here to warn your boyfriend,’ Concannon said, straightening up.

‘And you’re gonna take a warning home again, Concannon.’

‘There you go again,’ he said, happily exasperated. ‘You are the hardest man in this whole city of screechin’ heathens to befriend. I know executioners who are more fun than you. I’m tryin’ to tell you, I’m a changed man.’

‘I don’t see a change,’ I said. ‘You’re still breathing.’

‘There’s those wicked thoughts again.’

‘Listen,’ he said calmly, ‘I’ve done with all that. I’m a businessman now, and legitimately so. The fact that I bear you no grudge for our last encounter should testify to that.’

‘You just never learn, do you?’

‘But I did learn,’ he insisted. ‘That’s what I’m tryin’ to say. After that fight we had, I thought about everything. I mean, everything. I got hurt, you see. My shoulder hasn’t healed well, and it doesn’t work the way it should. My timing’s off, and I’ll never again fight the way I did. See, I never before let anyone get close enough to best me, and it shook me up. My Road to Damascus experience was in a warehouse in Bombay, and it was an Australian convict who knocked me off my horse. I’ve changed. I’m a businessman, now.’

‘What kind of business?’ Karla asked, relaxing her grip on my arm.

‘I’ve put all my money into a venture with Dennis.’

‘The Sleeping Baba?’

‘The same. One fine day, I got to thinkin’ about that proverb, you know, that if you sit quietly by a river for long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.’

I wanted Concannon to float by, on the Ganges.

‘And it occurred to me, in another Road to Damascus moment, that the river isn’t made of water, it’s made of stainless steel. It’s the undertaker’s table, you see? So, Dennis and me, we bought an undertaking business, and now we’re undertakers. Already, since we started, one of my enemies floated by on the preparation table. A fine drunken laugh I had that night, dressin’ him up nicely for the drop.’

‘Dennis went for this?’ I asked.

‘We’re a natural fit. I know what dead looks like, and he knows what dead feels like. I’ve never seen a man more tender with a body. He calls them sleepers, and he talks to them like they’re just asleep. It’s very kind. Very tender. But I keep a baseball bat handy, in case one of them ever talks back.’

Concannon stopped, clapped his hands together, then put the swollen knuckles into a knotted pyramid of prayer.

‘I know it’s hard to think that a menace to the living and the dead, like me, can give the whole thing up, but it’s the truth. I’ve changed, and the proof of it is that I’ve come up here, riskin’ your temper, to tell you two things. The first, I’ve already told you, which is all that I know about Ranjit, and that sweet girl.’

‘And the second thing?’ Karla asked for me.

‘The second thing is that the 307 Company have hired some out-of-town goondas to kill that Iranian, Abdullah, tonight. And since Abdullah’s hiding out up here, that puts you two in the firing line.’

‘When will they come?’ I asked.

Concannon checked his watch, and grinned the reply.

‘In about three hours,’ he said. ‘You’d have had longer, if you weren’t so bloody obstreperous, and I could’ve cleared me mind without interruption.’

For all I knew, Concannon was setting us up. I didn’t like it.

‘Why are you telling us this?’ Karla asked.

‘I’m tyin’ up loose ends, miss,’ Concannon smiled. ‘I never had nothin’ against your man. I tried to recruit the stubborn fool, and I wouldn’t have done that, if I hadn’t taken a shine to ’im. I treated him poorly, when it was Abdullah that I hated, because he turned on me, and threatened my life.’