Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘And if you haven’t noticed, that’s what we’re in the middle of doing.’

‘Yeah, but -’

‘It’s just rude ,’ she said flatly.

‘It’s an emergency. It’s Scorpio, Lisa.’

‘Is that why you’re leaving?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Or is it because Karla isn’t here?’

I stared at her, feeling hurt without knowing exactly why. Scorpio and Gemini were our friends, and it was important for them.

She stared back at me evenly, her eyes betraying nothing but anger. Ranjit broke the silence.

‘Well, we’ll be very sorry to see you leave, Lin. But rest assured, Lisa will be in good hands. And perhaps you’ll return from your… pressing matter… in time for dessert. I dare say we’ll be here for a while yet.’

He looked at me, his smile as open and ingenuous as ever. Lisa didn’t move.

‘Really,’ Ranjit said, putting his hand over Lisa’s on the table. ‘We’ll do our best to keep Lisa entertained. Don’t worry.’

‘Just go!’ Lisa said. ‘If it’s so important, just go.’

I stared at them for a moment; stared at Ranjit, and their hands together on the table. A perverse and completely honest instinct made me want to hit Ranjit hard. Anywhere would do.

I said goodbye, and I walked away. I know now that if I’d followed that instinct, if I’d dragged Ranjit from the hotel, slapped him around and put him back in his box of snakes, all of our lives would’ve been better, and safer, maybe even his.

But I didn’t. I rose above. I did the right thing. I was the better man I sometimes am. And Fate wrote a new chapter for all of us that night, on starred pages, and dark.

Outside, fitful gusts caressed a fine mist off the bay, drifting across the wide road in glittering veils of delicate moisture. The monsoon, brooding for another assault on the city, paced its clouds horizon-wide over the sea.

The lawyer, Mr Wilson, was leaning casually against the hip-high sea wall. He wore a dark blue suit, and carried an umbrella and a fedora in his long, pale fingers. A banded tie was strangling his crisp white shirt. Despondent lawyers sometimes hang themselves with their business ties. Looking at Wilson, I wondered at a profession that wears its own noose.

As I approached him I realised that his hair was actually silver-white, beyond the thirty-five or so years of his thin, unlined face. His eyes were a soft blue that seemed to suffuse the white surrounding them: blue everywhere. They glittered with what might’ve been courage, or just good humour. Either way, I liked the look of him.

‘This is Lin, Mr Wilson,’ Naveen introduced us. ‘They also call him Shantaram.’

‘How do you do,’ Wilson said, offering me a card.

The card, bearing the name E. C. Wilson, announced that he worked for a partnered law firm, with offices in Ottawa and New York.

‘I understand, from Mr Adair, that you can take me to meet Mr Bradley, Mr George Bradley,’ Wilson said when I pocketed the card.

‘I understand that you can tell me what the hell you want with him,’ I replied calmly.

‘That’s telling him!’ Divya laughed.

‘Please, shut up!’ Naveen hissed.

‘If you are indeed friends of Mr Bradley -’

‘Are you calling me a liar, Mr Wilson?’ Naveen asked.

‘It’s Evan ,’ Wilson responded calmly. ‘Evan Wilson. And I’m certainly not doubting your word. I’m merely saying that you will understand, as friends of Mr Bradley, that whatever business I have with him is his private business.’

‘And it’ll stay private,’ I agreed. ‘So private that you’ll never see him, if you don’t give me some idea of what you want with him. Scorpio George has a nervous disposition. We like him that way. We don’t disturb him without a reason. You see that, right?’

Wilson stared back at me, unruffled and resolute. A few strollers braving the wind and imminent rain passed us on the wide footpath. Two taxis pulled up near us, hoping for a fare. Other than that, the street was quiet.

‘I repeat,’ Wilson said at last, equably but firmly, ‘This a private -’

‘That’s it!’ Divya snapped. ‘Why don’t you two just kick the shit out of him? He’ll talk soon enough, if you give him a solid pasting.’

Wilson, Naveen and I turned to look at the small, slim socialite.

‘ What? ’ she demanded. ‘Go on! Fuck him up!’

‘I should warn you,’ Wilson said quickly, ‘that I took the precaution of hiring the services of a security officer, from the hotel. He is watching us now, near that parked car.’

Naveen and I turned. There was a black-suited bouncer from the hotel, standing in the shadows, five metres away. I knew the man. His name was Manav.

Mr Evan Wilson had made a mistake, because he didn’t know the local rules. When you needed private security, in those years, you hired a professional, which means either a gangster, or an off-duty cop.

Guys like Manav weren’t paid enough to take real risks. As working men, on low salaries, they had no protection if things got messy. If they got hurt, they had no insurance, and couldn’t sue anyone. If they hurt someone else, and got charged for it, they went to prison.

More to the point, Manav was a big, well-muscled guy, and like a lot of big, well-muscled guys, he knew that a broken bone would put a dent in his training routine: he’d lose half a year of sculptured gains. Setbacks like that make most bodybuilders take a long, hard look in the wall mirror at the gym.

‘It’s okay, Manav,’ I called out to him. ‘You can go back to the hotel now. We’ll call you, if we need you.’

‘Yes, sir, Linbaba!’ he said, visibly relieved. ‘Goodnight, Mr Wilson, sir.’

The bodyguard trundled back to the hotel, jogging a bow-legged trot. Wilson watched. To his credit, the lawyer smiled and remained calm.

‘It would seem, gentlemen,’ he said gently, ‘that you have suddenly moved rather closer into the circle of Mr George Bradley’s confidentiality.’

‘You got that right, you damn honky!’ Divya spat at him.

‘Will you please shut up!’ Naveen spluttered. ‘And what does that mean? Honky? What are you, from Harlem now, or what?’

‘I’m from the famous nation of Fuck You ,’ she retorted. ‘Would you like to hear our national anthem?’

‘You were getting more confidential, Mr Wilson,’ I said.

‘It’s Evan. I can reveal that Mr Bradley is the recipient of a legacy. As the only living relative of Josiah Bradley, recently deceased owner of the Aeneas Trust, registered in Ottawa, he stands to gain a substantial sum, if I can find him and make the appropriate declarations before duly authorised notary officers.’

‘How substantial?’ Naveen asked.

‘If you will permit me, I will leave that to Mr Bradley’s discretion. I rather think it is his business to tell you the full amount of his inheritance, or not, as the case may be.’

Wilson needn’t have worried about Scorpio George telling us. When we took Wilson in a taxi to the Frantic hotel, enticed the Zodiac Georges to come down to a meeting, and left them alone with him on the street, it was fifteen seconds before Gemini George shouted out the sum.

‘Thirty-five million! Holy Croesus-Christ! Thirty-five million! Dollars , for Chrissakes!’

‘Tell the whole damn street, why don’t you?’ Scorpio scolded, glancing around nervously.

‘What are you scared of, Scorp? We don’t have the money yet! They won’t kill us in our beds for money we don’t have.’

‘They could kidnap us,’ Scorpio insisted, waving for us to join them and Wilson. ‘Isn’t that right, Lin? There are people who could kidnap us, and demand a ransom. They could cut off an ear, or a finger, and send it in the post.’