Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

I turned to the storm-faded sunlight again, and rejoined the world of exiles that was my home.

I swung the bike away from Farzad’s house and into the wide, divided boulevard that followed the Island City coast north. Densely packed, sodden rainclouds closed in overhead, darkening the street.

I began to pass a wide, sheltered inlet, and slowed down.

Long wooden fishing boats painted vivid blue, red and green had been dragged onto the shore for maintenance work. The fishermen’s simple huts leaned into one another, their plastic sheet coverings secured to the corrugated roofs against storm winds by bricks and pieces of broken concrete.

Nets were strung between wooden poles. Men worked on them, threading spools of nylon through holes and woven loops. Children played on the sand, defying the gathering rainstorm, and chased one another between the boats and webs of netting.

From dawn, the little bay was a small but important part of the local fishing community. After midnight it was a small but important part of the local smuggling community, who used fast boats to bring in cigarettes, whiskey, currencies and drugs.

Every time I passed the sandy beach I scanned it, looking for faces I knew, and signs of illicit trade. I had no personal interest: Farid the Fixer administered the bay, and the profits and opportunities were his. It was professional curiosity that drew my eye.

All of us in the black market knew every place in South Bombay where crime flourished, and all of us sent a discreet, searching eye into them, every time we passed. We began in caves and dark places , Didier once said, and we criminals still miss them terribly .

I let my eyes glance back to the wide divided road, and saw three motorcycles pass me on the other side. They were Scorpions. The man riding in the centre was Danda. I recognised one other as Hanuman, the big man who’d given me a professional beating in the warehouse.

I stopped my bike, shifted into neutral gear, and adjusted the rear-view mirror until I could see them. They’d stopped at a traffic signal, some way in the distance behind me. As I watched in the mirror, they talked, argued, but then swung their bikes around and came after me. I sighed, and hung my head for a moment.

I didn’t want to fight them, but I was in my own area, and I didn’t want to lead them into any of the Company operations. And too proud to run, I didn’t want to let them chase me into the arms of my Company friends, only a few streets away.

Kicking the bike into gear, I let out the clutch, rapped the throttle, and spun the bike around in a tight circle. Gunning the engine, I accelerated toward the oncoming Scorpions, on the wrong side of the divided road.

I had nothing to lose. There were three of them, and if the charge didn’t go well for me, I was in trouble anyway. I’d come off motorcycles before, and preferred to take my chances with an accident than a massacre. And my bike was in everything with me, all the way, as I was with her.

They must’ve had something to lose, or less loyal motorcycles: at the last moment they turned their bikes aside.

Two of them rattled away into spiralling arcs, as they tried to keep their bikes under control. The third bike spun out, crashing into a slide against a wall at the side of the road.

I braked hard, whirling through a half-turn, one boot sliding on the wet road, and threw my bike onto the side-stand, cutting the engine with the kill-switch.

The fallen rider struggled to his feet. It was Danda, and me with no aftershave. I met him with left and right punches that threw him backwards onto the ground.

The other Scorpions let their bikes fall, and ran at me. I felt bad for their bikes.

Ducking, weaving and throwing punches where I could, I battled the two Scorpions on the side of the road, beside the tumbled scatter of their motorcycles. Cars slowed on the road as they passed, but none stopped.

Recovering from the blows, Danda ran at us. He stumbled past his friends and into me, grasping at my vest to steady himself.

I lost my footing on the wet road and fell backwards. Danda landed on top of me, growling like an animal.

He was burrowing his head in next to mine, trying to bite me. I felt his mouth against my neck, the wetness of his tongue, and the blunt nub of his head, as he strained to get close enough to put his teeth on my throat.

His fingers were locked in a clutch of my vest. I couldn’t throw him off. The other two Scorpions kicked at me, trying to land blows in the gaps between Danda’s body and mine. They missed, and kicked Danda a couple of times. He didn’t seem to notice.

I hadn’t been hurt, or even properly hit by anyone. I could feel my two knives pressing against my back on the ground. I had a policy. I never drew the knives unless the other man was armed, or if it became a question of life or death.

I managed to roll over, wrestled away Danda’s grip on my vest, and stood up quickly. I should’ve stayed down. Hanuman was behind me. He wrapped an arm around my throat from behind. His powerful arm began to choke off my air.

Danda rushed at me again, trying to burrow his head in close. He was a biter. I knew one in prison: a man whose anger suddenly became biting, until pieces were missing from anyone he attacked. A victim knocked his teeth out, leaving the rest of us in peace, and I was thinking of doing the same to Danda.

He was pressed up close against me, his head tucked in under Hanuman’s arm, his teeth against my arm. I couldn’t hit him in any place that might make him let go.

I reached up, closed my fingers around Danda’s ear, and ripped at it hard. I felt the whole flap of his ear give way, tearing itself from the side of his head. When he stopped biting, I stopped ripping.

He screamed, hurling himself backwards, clutching at the bloody wound.

Shifting my hand around, I tried to shove it between Hanuman’s body and mine. I wanted to reach one of my knives, or one of his balls; either one would do.

The third man rushed at me. In his fury, he began to slap at my head, standing too close. I kicked him in the balls. He fell as if he’d been shot.

I closed my hand around the hilt of my knife, as darkness closed a hand around my throat. The knife was free. I tried to stab the big man in the leg. I missed. The knife slid away to the side.

I tried again. I missed. Then the blade found flesh, a small cut on the outer edge of Hanuman’s thigh. He flinched.

It was enough to get a bearing. I struck again and rammed the blade into the meat of his thigh. The big man lurched suddenly, and I lost my grip on the knife.

The arm didn’t weaken. I’d followed my training, turning my chin into the crook of his elbow to lessen the choking effect. It was no use. I was going under.

A voice, blurred and rumbling, seemed to be calling my name. I twisted my head against the locked muscle and bone of Hanuman’s arm. I heard a voice.

‘Look away, now, boyo,’ it said.

I saw something, a fist, coming at me from the sky. It was huge, that fist, as big as the world. But just when it should’ve smashed into my face it struck somewhere else, somewhere so close that I felt the shudder of it. And again it struck, and again.

And the arm around my neck released its grip, as Hanuman fell to his knees and flopped forward, his head made of lead.

I rolled and stood, shaping up, my fists close to my face, coughing and breathing hard. I turned to look around me. Concannon was standing near the fallen Hanuman, his arms folded.

He smiled at me, and then nodded his head in a little warning.

I turned quickly. It was Danda, all blood-streaked teeth, blood-streaked eyes, and blood-streaked ear. And me with no aftershave.