by Javi Reddy
“Is… is this you? But this lady is Indian.”
“That’s Jay’s mother.”
“Now, look at what I’ve left you on the dressing room counter.”
James headed over to the oak counter. There was a plastic card sitting on it. He picked it up and as his eyes wandered across to match the words with the picture, he felt nauseous.
“You get it now?”
Layla’s driver’s licence spelt it out. Her real name, Lalitha Chetty, screamed out to him. Her picture, in the darkness usually prevalent in licence cards, highlighted the features similar to that of the lady in Jay’s photo. But it was her date of birth that was the real clue.
28. 04. 1990.
Layla was not the woman James thought she was. Some might even say that she was a girl, for she was not yet in her thirties. She was young, but there was someone even younger than her, which made her an older sibling. She tilted the Skype camera to Jay, who was tied to a chair and had duct-tape strapped over his mouth.
“You’re on camera. Smile for the dirty old man, little brother.” Click, click.
Chapter 34
8 October 2013. 7:39 PM
Love is illogical. And incomprehensible. Why men run after women, as blindly as they do, is a phenomenon that can never be fully understood. James knew that he would always be in trouble around Layla—a warm and welcoming trouble that any full-blooded male sought from a queen. But trouble and Lalitha now took on a new meaning. It was right there. She had arrogantly laid it out for him, but those in love are as blind as they come. Layla Rosemary. The plant-lady had found so many ways to keep him poisoned. The leaves outside Jay’s flat. The plants inside every room. The tea leaves, the curry leaves, the Mojito leaves. Even her surname alluded to a plant.
James could walk away from this—Layla was the only thing keeping him around. The sooner he left, the sooner he could try and salvage some sort of hope in starting a new life.
Jay. He closed his eyes again and thought of Jay. His own sister wanted to hurt him. Why?
If Amritha were here, she’d kiss Jay and he’d be loved. If Keith were here, he’d joke and Jay would be okay. If Zondi were around, he’d speak and Jay would listen. But only James was here and he couldn’t do the most important thing he needed to do—he couldn’t save Jay.
James sat on the bed after the Skype call had ended. His father’s old bed. Murderer. Son of a media mogul. Failed writer. James was everything and nothing at the same time.
“So, what are we going to do?” Carl joined him in the room.
“You mean, what am I going to do? I doubt I’m coming back alive. From wherever it is I’m actually going to. So you had better sit this one out.”
“I can help you. You know I can.”
“What’s the point? You have a chance to keep your normal life. Fuck me, Carl. What I’d kill for normal. But then again it is me, so I’m sure I’ve done that already.”
“My normal life has consisted of working for the most corrupt vermin imaginable. Mr Tait, I want anything but my normal life back. If I can be a part of taking Vinny De Silva down, then my résumé can end there.”
James fiddled with Lalitha’s licence card. “Two things. We follow my lead.”
“And the second?”
“You got any weapons?” Carl grinned widely at him. “Do the Police take bribes?”
They made their way to Carl’s white van in the parking lot. It looked every bit the stake-out van an agent like himself would use. Carl opened the back doors and James almost salivated when he cast his eyes inside. It was fully stocked: guns, knives and more guns.
“Where the hell did you get a grenade-launcher from? I didn’t know these things existed.”
“These are all weapons the S.I.I. have seized over the last few years.”
James gripped a machine gun and caressed it as he would a bottle of fifty-year-old whiskey. “You can’t play fair with the unfair. They’ve crossed too many lines. So, we’ll cross our own.”
Back inside, they tried to figure out where exactly Lalitha was. Hours passed by as they debated furiously, surfed the net and searched through James’ phone, but nothing got them any closer. James sat down on the expensive rug that his father had forked out a small fortune for. Lalitha’s intrusiveness had contaminated whatever fondness he had had for this flat. James stood up. Flat or studio?
When he was young, he came here all the time. Before the murders. His father developed photos here and James would watch his old man go about his work with a passionate streak. Is that why Lalitha wanted this place? To develop her own passion of malice? He remembered a chamber built into this studio, under this very rug.
He moved the rug away in anticipation. The latch to the trap door smiled at him. Carl raised his eyebrow, but James was already opening it and making his way down. It was dark and red, just as he recalled it all those years ago. Photos were scattered everywhere on the built-in tables and on the line hanging above. There were more photos on a board mounted to the wall—much in the same way that x-rays were put up. They were all Lalitha’s creations.
They followed the style that he first saw at the art exhibition in Rosebank. The style she showed him every day after they’d made love or eaten some of her leafy meals, but he’d also seen this style somewhere else before. Of all the memories flowing back to him recently, this was the one he could not recall until he saw a certain photo hanging on the board. It was Jay at that party full of drugs. It was the same photo Vinny had showed Preega at the Tab, the night that he was shot.
It proved Lalitha’s connection to Vinny, but it didn’t help them decipher where she was keeping Jay. It took James and Carl two hours to sift through everything. Every single photo. James was in dire need of a whiskey.
He stayed sober. Just for this evening. Just for Jay.
Carl couldn’t find anything either as they both shook their heads, defeated.
James came across a photo of a girl’s hands, crossed over in what looked to be a random pose. But as he looked closer, he noticed a little scar on the back of her left arm. Jay had told him about that very scar before. These were Amritha’s hands and James knew that they weren’t merely crossed over. They were bound against her own will. The hands only told half of the story. When he saw the chairs in the background of the photo, he had his answer. He recognised those chairs—even in black and white.
Hello, Ice Cream Parlour.
9 October 2013. 6:12 AM
Thanks to Carl’s iPad, James was able to research the Ice Cream Parlour properly.
The building itself had been in existence since the mid-80s. It was originally just a place to get dessert, until an anonymous investor saw an ideal business opportunity to turn it into a bar. Although, hours of surfing the net could not reveal who the anonymous businessman was, there would be no prizes for guessing that a certain Chinese tattooed man or a deranged plant-lady may have had something to do with it.
The building was not the key though. It’s what was underneath it that mattered. Years after the Parlour was originally built, it was revealed that plans had been put into place to develop a substation beneath it. As the Parlour was situated in a fairly central location, it was ideal for bringing high voltage electricity directly into Rosebank, ensuring reliable power at affordable costs.
Recently, the substation had been closed down. This was about the same time as when the Parlour was re-launched into an all-night bar. Coincidence? There was no such thing. Vinny and Lalitha could have been operating from below. According to Google, over 90% of the Parlour’s substation’s installation volume was hidden. The only thing that was above the surface were the cooling ducts, which were passed off as ways to keep everyone’s drinks at the right temperature. No one knew that they were part of a larger infrastructure. No more Milky Mojitos. No more anything from the parlour. This all ended today.
James pondered and pondered in the van as they drew nearer to the Parlour. He gripped his weapons tighter, knowing that he ha
d no real plan. The Parlour was always closed on Monday mornings, which made it the perfect time for them to do what they had to do, without innocent civilians getting in the way.
“You think she’s expecting us?” Carl asked as he pushed down on the accelerator, harder and harder.
“They’re expecting us.”
“You think Vinny will be there too?”
“I can only hope so. Two birds. One grenade.”
James lit a Stuyvesant Blue from a fresh pack that he’d just gotten from the garage. He had suspiciously opened his old cigarettes and found that the tobacco was as green as the tea leaves Lalitha had used to poison him. She had thought of everything.
“So, Carl. How many people have you killed?”
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s everything to me. I need to know that you can pull the trigger in there. ’Cos it’ll come down to that and I’d rather go in alone if you’re going to crumble at the decisive moment.”
Carl focused extra hard on the road before speaking:
“What about you, James? How many others did you kill that the police aren’t even aware of?” James pulled on his cigarette hard and thought of all the people that he’d stabbed with a blunt pair of scissors in prison. Was that why he was so good at cutting Jay’s hair? He was tired of analysing everything. He needed to puncture someone’s lungs or break someone’s neck. Vinny’s would be easier to snap than Layla’s.
No… Lalitha. There is no Layla.
“I don’t know how many I’ve killed, Carl. Deal with it.”
“Good. Because I don’t know how many I’ve killed, but that’s when I was on duty for those corrupt policemen. Today, I get to kill for a worthy cause. Don’t worry your pretty little self because no one in this van is crumbling today.”
The fear of death had long left James. He’d deserve if it ended for him today for taking all those other people’s lives. But what truly petrified him was living through Jay’s death.
Their van stopped outside the Parlour. It was eerily quiet—no one on the street and no neon lights.
The windows were closed and the blinds shut tight. James moved to open the van door when the first bullet crashed through their windscreen. It landed right between the two of them, and they scrambled out the vehicle, leaving the doors open to shield them from whatever came next. A few more shots cannoned against the doors before they opened fire themselves.
They hit two of their mysterious shooters, who plummeted from the roof. They were dressed in black ninja-like outfits, and their skulls crashed against the concrete ground after James and Carl had found their aim. There were still another two, scrambling around on the roof and they hoisted see-through packets at the van. The liquid from the packets splashed over the roof, the windows and the windscreen. Carl ran his finger over it and took a sniff. He looked at James desperately.
“Run!”
They started to dart away just as the ninjas launched cloths of fire towards the petrol that had drenched the van. The explosion propelled them towards the Parlour as they crashed against its front walls. James’ back ached and Carl’s left ear began to bleed. The remaining two ninjas jumped down with sais in their hands. Carl was the quickest to react as he jumped up and struck one of the attackers in the jaw. Both ninjas took off their masks. They were barely old enough to wear adult clothes, let alone hold weapons. But they were stronger than anyone James had fought in a while.
He couldn’t lay a hand on them, with or without weapons. They were too quick, too crafty. The ninjas swayed past them as James and Carl punched nothing but empty spaces of air. Another two ninjas lined up outside the front of the Parlour. Carl moved towards the burning van and kicked open the driver’s door.
“What are you doing?” James screamed to him as one of the kids kicked him in the hip. “Your father would be proud, Tait. Just make sure you finish this.”
The flames licked Carl’s skin, but he started the van and pressed down on the accelerator as hard as he could. He knocked both the kids out of the way, who were trying to break James’ bones. Carl hurtled towards the entrance of the Parlour, where the other two were resolutely standing. The van rammed into them and through the sliding glass doors. The whole front was set ablaze; incessant flames leapt about. Carl’s raw courage had given James his opening.
He swirled through the flames inside, unable to view the bar, booths or tables properly. Their rainbow colour had deserted them and had made way for the never-ending orange blanket, roaring out in front of him. He scurried through to the back and into the kitchen. The fire would soon engulf him. What was the plan? He quickly stumbled across a manhole. Bingo.
The fire danced towards the kitchen, and the back of his neck grew warmer.
He placed a grenade on the manhole and jumped into a nearby freezer. The force of the explosion still caused the freezer to capsize and it rolled into the blown off manhole. James fell.
And at the rapid pace in which he was shifted down, it was no surprise that when he hit the ground, he could barely move. He’d lost count of how many bones he’d shattered this morning. With one last effort, he kicked the freezer lid open.
There sat Jay, in the middle of the darkness, with a spotlight shining on him. As in the Skype call, he was bound to a chair and had duct tape over his mouth. James crawled towards him, but a heel dug into his hand. There used to be an elegant poise of that heel. Now, it lodged itself deeper into him, twisting and turning to take out what skin it could.
“Uh-uh. Playtime is over, darling.”
Lalitha raised her heel high and smashed it down onto James’ right hand. At least three fingers broke.
“Now, hopefully, you won’t fidget about as we finally bring this all to an end.” She walked away into the darkness. All that was left was her voice.
“So, James, my dear. You wanted to hear it all. You wanted to relive the past through stories that held the key to the truth. Well, here’s how everything came together. Here’s the final story…”
Chapter 35
9 October 2013. 12 yards out
Lalitha stood behind Jay, gun in one hand, her other hand running over his head.
“The human brain. What a true wonder. The capillaries, the blood vessels, the lobes, the neurons. There is no finer assembly of an organ. But something so delicately put together can just as easily be taken apart.”
She forced her nails into Jay’s hair and massaged his head roughly.
“Let’s take a step back because this story begins before my time. Way before this mongrel’s time,” she hit Jay on the back of his head.
"My parents’ love story is an age-old tale of opposites attracting. My mother was a rather spontaneous woman; full of life and driven by a magnificent spark. She was fun to be around—her good-nature was almost contagious. She made grumpy people laugh, she turned old souls, youthful. Yet, for all her passion and her beauty, she had no structure to her life. And as long as this was the case, she would just be a string of frivolity with no real outcome. A worrying sign for someone who wanted to be a successful doctor.
“She had not truly realised her potential until she fell, utterly and hopelessly, in love with my father. She was drawn to the silent and withdrawn power that Preega Chetty would bring to a room. She looked at him and could not picture herself looking into anyone else’s strong and determined eyes. My father was very ambitious and that was his one quality that was fairly contagious. My mother, in turn, gave him a passion to live life without fear. Comfort is not courage. Sound familiar, dear brother?”
Jay sat still, no longer trying to wriggle free from his bounds.
“I do not question their love. It was a beautiful story, and when they had me, the story was complete. I had the perfect upbringing. My mother taught me the joys of childhood—like how to blow bubbles, or how to dance on the bed and swish my hair about to forget my troubles. More than anything, we both loved the Beatles. Something you’re not worthy of, you little twit.”
; She raised her hand to hit Jay’s head again, but thought better of it this time.
"When my father came home from work, he’d instil within me the necessary discipline by ensuring that I did my homework and asking me general knowledge questions for fun. In a strange way I feared him; an attraction I’d later search for, in all the men in my life. Then, everything changed. My mother fell pregnant again, only this time, it was taxing on her body.
“I noticed how she sick she looked. When I asked my father what was wrong with her, he told me that those were the harsh realities woman had to put up with during pregnancies and how bold a woman my mother was for going through all of it again. She kept a brave face on. She smiled and went about her business to keep me at ease. She even played the Beatles every day in her bedroom. But this time it wasn’t for me and her. It was for the upcoming addition to the family growing in her tummy.”
“I always wanted a little brother. Someone I could have tucked into bed and maybe read Roald Dahl to. I think at one stage, it’s all I wanted. I would have loved you with all my heart. But I loved our mother more. No, my mother. You had no right coming into this world like that. She didn’t have to have another child but she knew how my father felt. How he had longed for a son. So, taking a risk for him was an easy choice for her.”
She wiped a tear away from her milky cheek.
“What happened? Lalitha please, what happened?” James asked her.
"Stop calling me that. I hate that name. My father gave me that name. He saw my mother suffering and he could have put an end to it. He could have stopped this monster coming into the world. But instead, my mother, my brave, scared mother did what she thought was right. She wasn’t sure about having another caesarean section, so my father kept encouraging her to have a normal birth this time.
“Research later showed that having a vaginal birth after a C-section places a woman in jeopardy. My father pushed her there. She had the baby and it cost her her life. I wanted him gone. Every time I saw him in our house, I thought about my mother. It was too painful. It was either him or me, and I was here first.”
