Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master

by Gregg Taylor

  “No, those men aren’t lying,” Fenwick said, the colour beginning to return to his face. “Each of them is relating the events surrounding the robbery of the Empire Bank just exactly as he remembers it. That’s why they’ve been so resistant to interrogation. They’re trying to co-operate; they’re trying to tell the police everything they know.”

  “But everything they know is a lie!” Kit said, slapping the wheel with grudging respect for their adversary. “Man, that is slick!”

  “Yes and no,” he said. “Yes and no.”

  “I see what you’re sayin’. If somebody could work that kinda trick, all they’d have to do is come up with eight different sets of memories and no one ever would have been the wiser.”

  “Yes.” His fist clenched involuntarily. “I was blinded by that. I thought it was a blunder. I thought perhaps they’d been in a hurry, perhaps they hadn’t expected to encounter more than one guard. It can take time to properly suggest an alternate set of memories, even to cover a short span of time.”

  “What’re we talkin’ about here?” Kit said, her brow furrowed. “Hypnosis?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “And no simple mesmerism either. That was my mistake. I assumed whomever was playing a hypnotic game, that I was better at it than they were. I was wrong, and it almost cost that man his life, or his sanity.”

  “Boss?” she said. “It’s tough to keep the car on the road when I have to make with the Socratic method. What happened in that cell?”

  “It was a trap, Kit. As soon as I pressed the spell to help the guard recover his true memories, his mind started to collapse around me.”

  “Collapse?”

  “Basic life functions shutting down, consciousness splintering… shattering… I could feel his mind slipping away. The information that we needed was there for the taking, had I been content to let him die in the process. It took everything I had to bring him back, to repair the damage. But at the first attempt to reach back into his memory it all began again, and in a completely different way. I don’t quite know how to explain myself…”

  “I think I’m getting’ the picture,” she said. “It was a booby-trap.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes. And I’ll tell you what else. Those false memories weren’t merely created through suggestion, they were implanted if you will. Overwritten, through mind-to-mind contact.”

  “Which means what?” she said with a shake of her head.

  “It means that whoever did this was a true master of the mind.”

  There was a moment of silence while they both digested this. In the end it was Kit who spoke first.

  “Boss, let me ask you this…,” she began.

  He looked up and caught her eye in the rear-view mirror.

  “This booby-trap… is there any chance that it could have hurt you?” Her brow was furrowed slightly and her jaw was set. He could see that she was on to something.

  “No,” he replied, “there was no real danger to my mind.”

  “And you say the real memories were there… you could have got them.”

  “Yes, if I hadn’t bothered trying to save him, I could probably have retrieved them, given time.”

  “And since you had eight guinea pigs there to play with, it’s fair to say that you’d have gotten the skinny sooner or later, if you didn’t mind killing a few of them in the process?”

  “I’m sure,” he said sternly.

  “Then whoever did this must have known that you’d never do that,” she said with certainty.

  He thought for a moment and nodded. “You’re right, Kit. It is the only thing that makes sense. Someone this skilled in mental disciplines could easily have implanted unique memories in each of these men. But in failing to do so, he drew attention to himself–”

  “–and left a trail of breadcrumbs only you could follow,” she smiled.

  “And then took it away in dramatic fashion,” he reminded her.

  “There is that.”

  “He’s taunting me, isn’t he?” Fenwick said, arching an eyebrow.

  “And how does that usually work out for people?” she purred.

  “I can only pray that you’re right, Kit.” His eyes focused on the road ahead with steely resolve. “If this fiend proves to be too much for us, I can’t imagine who else could possibly stand in his way.”

  Eighteen

  Joshua Cain was not a patient man. From deep within his black leather chair he glared across the room at the clock on the mantle, as if daring it to continue to defy him. His stubby fingers drummed on the cool mahogany surface of his desk. He breathed deeply and tried to relax. It wasn’t his fault if he was impatient by nature – so few people ever dared to keep him waiting. After all, his clients might be the most powerful criminals in the city, but they only darkened Cain’s door when they had desperate need of his services, and nowhere else to turn.

  At last the door to his study opened and his manservant stepped into the room, his nose still heavily bandaged from his first contact with Cain’s new client. If the man bore any ill-will, or indeed felt anything at all, his face did not show it. He nodded wordlessly to Cain, as if to indicate that a long-awaited event had come to pass at last.

  “Show him in,” Cain said, smoothing his hair with his hand, and doing his best to appear unperturbed.

  A moment later the door opened wider and Ajay Shah breezed in with an inky smile on his face. He looked tall and elegant in a dark day-suit, and he fidgeted slightly with his cuffs like a man who had made a careful study of the rich and indolent. He nodded to Cain with a smile.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, old man. I was dining with Madam Dubriel and her… charming daughters.” Shah stepped to the window and gazed out onto the garden like a man without a care in the world.

  “Dubriel? The widow of the brewery magnate?” Cain said, his brows furrowed.

  “You know, I do believe they mentioned something of that,” Shah sighed. “Every two minutes. Why do those in your country who have stumbled into great wealth insist on pointing it out?”

  “I couldn’t say,” Cain smiled. “I’m an honest businessman.”

  The two men held one another’s eyes for a moment, and then each smiled. Cain offered Shah a cigar from the box on his desk. Shah demurred, producing a beautiful silver cigarette case from his jacket.

  “That’s quite a handsome item,” Cain nodded.

  “It is,” Shah smiled, lighting a cigarette. “It was a gift from Richard Granville. He is convinced that our fathers were acquainted. Which suggests that he knows even less about his father than I do mine.”

  “I know his father made millions in the stock market,” Cain sneered.

  “And converted those millions to long-term bearer’s bonds shortly before the Crash.” Shah’s expression was hawk-like and inscrutable, but his eyes danced with amusement. “I intend to help myself to them this very night.” The smoke that wreathed Shah’s head cast fantastically shaped shadows around the ceiling. Cain forced himself not to look at them.

  “Be careful, Shah,” Cain warned. “The papers are still frantic over what happened to young Martin Davies. Yes, that appeared to be an accident, but if you move too quickly, people will put two and two together.”

  “What people?” Ajay Shah smiled, his words hanging like ice.

  “Like Wallace Blake for one,” Cain said gravely. “I can control Blake, but you mustn’t wind him up too tightly.”

  “Wallace Blake is of no further concern to us,” Ajay Shah said, gazing out the window into the deepening evening sky.

  “What do you mean?” Cain stood. “What did you do, Shah?”

  “A most regrettable turn of events,” Shah smiled. “Sometime before dawn, Wallace Blake will be found to have hung himself. A suicide.”

  “Dammit, Shah! If there are witnesses that can tie you to this–”

  “I was far from there,” Shah smiled serenely.

  “Then how do you know–,” Cain was cut off by a hiss from his gu
est. A sudden, sharp sound from between Shah’s teeth that sent a chill down Cain’s spine and told him that he didn’t really want an answer to his question.

  Cain changed the subject. Perhaps there was another way to calm his new client’s ambition. He opened a large drawer in his desk and produced a handsome leather satchel. He set it down gently on the desktop and waited until he was certain that he had his guest’s attention. He opened it to reveal stacks of bills, all sorted neatly and in large denominations. Enough to let Ajay Shah stop pretending to be a man of privilege and luxury, and truly become one, if that was his ambition.

  Shah raised an eyebrow and sauntered over.

  “The rest of the proceeds from poor Mister Davies?” Shah smiled.

  Cain nodded. “It took my contacts awhile to move that much gold, but they got it done. It’s quite an impressive pile, is it not?”

  “Minus your commission, of course.” Shah locked eyes with Cain.

  Cain never blinked. “Of course,” he said.

  Shah ran his finger lightly over the stacks of bills, as if they were of little interest to him. “You know, Joshua, you are in every way worthy of your reputation. Your instincts have been correct at every turn.”

  Cain said nothing and waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “Thanks to you, I have insinuated myself seamlessly into your city’s high society,” Shah continued, rolling the ash of his cigarette calmly into the ashtray on Cain’s desk. “I walk amongst your petty princes as a celebrated curiosity and help myself to their treasures, their secrets, their minds. And for the heavy lifting, I have an efficient if uninspired little gang of my very own.”

  Cain did nothing more than elevate his left eyebrow.

  Shah smiled. At times he really did admire this insect. “Nonetheless, I do find myself wondering if you haven’t outlived your usefulness,” he said with a cold smile.

  “Is that right?” Cain said, lowering himself into his chair with something like a sigh.

  Shah let his smile speak for him.

  “My clients include many of the most ruthless criminals in the country,” Cain said, his fingertips pressed together lightly. “I haven’t lived this long in their company by trying to force them to maintain a relationship they were no longer comfortable with, even if we did have a deal. If you wish to go your own way, Mister Shah, you do so with my blessing and best wishes.”

  Shah tried very hard to hide his surprise and almost succeeded. Cain smiled.

  “You should know, of course, that fencing and laundering the proceeds of crime isn’t nearly as simple as I make it appear. That uninspired little gang of yours certainly won’t have much luck, and you risk your position by involving yourself directly. To say nothing of your freedom.”

  Shah smiled. He liked this little man more and more.

  “I do take a commission,” Cain continued, “and it is not a modest one. But as a neophyte, it is unlikely you would get as much as twenty cents on the dollar. I average eighty. You also do gain the benefit of my connections – no small service in itself.”

  Shah was intrigued, but turned away casually to keep from showing it. “How do you mean?”

  Cain sat back in his chair and drew on his cigar. “While our current relationship stands, your interests are my interests. And when I hear that a certain mildly notorious confidence man named Miles Grant is showing a little too much… discreet interest… in the proceeds of the Empire Bank job–”

  “What?” Shah’s pretence of disinterest was lost in an instant.

  Cain continued, “And when this same Grant starts asking questions on the sly about a certain mysterious newcomer named Ajay Shah–”

  Shah hissed again, and Cain could not escape the notion that the shadows had bloomed around him for an instant. Shah turned again to face Cain, something akin to exhilaration in his eyes.

  “This man, Grant – describe him!” he ordered.

  Cain was unmoved, but curious. “Five eight, five nine. Perhaps forty-five. Stocky with a van Dyke beard.” The intensity of his guest’s gaze faded into sullen disappointment, and Shah turned away and paced back to the window, the light returning to the room as he did so.

  “You need not worry about Miles Grant,” Cain said calmly. “He’s a petty confidence man, likely out to put the touch on you. Were my connections less complete, I would likely have never learned of both of his inquiries. Few would have. But it is more coincidence than I allow where my business is concerned.” Cain paused. “This is still my business, is it not, Mister Shah?”

  Shah turned and smiled. “My dear Joshua, do you really have to ask?”

  “Excellent. Let us speak no more of this.”

  “I would like to speak to this Miles Grant before you kill him,” Shah nodded.

  Cain frowned. “I don’t want you anywhere near Grant, alive or dead. You must allow me to keep you safe, Ajay. This is what I do.”

  Shah thought a moment and gave his assent with a wave of his hand. He turned and made for the door. “I will send a boy around tonight with the Granville bonds.”

  Cain called after him as he walked away, “Too soon, Shah! Too soon! There are forces in this town that are beyond my control, and you are going out of your way to provoke them!”

  Ajay Shah opened the door and breezed past Cain’s injured manservant. He gave Cain no sign that his warning had been heard at all, but the servant could just hear him say,

  “Precisely as I intend, Cain. Precisely as I intend.”

  Nineteen

  “You learn fast, young one,” Rashan said with a shake of his head, not entirely displeased. The pupil whom the Saddhu had named “Two” smiled in spite of himself.

  “Thank you, Master,” he said, bowing his head.

  The Saddhu smiled kindly. “Too fast, I think, to truly be learning that which cannot be taught,” he said.

  August Fenwick’s brow furrowed deeply. “Master?” he asked.

  “You are driven, young stranger,” the old man said, pouring a cup of a bitter concoction that he called tea, to Fenwick’s profound disappointment when first offered a cup. The Master made no such offer today. He looked down at where his charge sat, awaiting instruction. He smiled and shook his head. “Even now you strain like a greyhound in the slips, waiting to be taught, to be told. One does not need to be a master of the mind to see that you have done this before. I see you at the martial exercises you maintain to keep your skills sharp through these months of meditation. You learn, you absorb, you adapt and you move on, stronger than you were before.”

  “Is that wrong?” the young man asked.

  “If you wish merely to be a Jack of all Trades, no,” the Saddhu said, cradling the cup in his hands. “You are skilled, dedicated and driven by unseen demons at which I can only guess. If you left here today, you would be a giant among lesser men. But you would always be vulnerable.”

  “To what?” There was fire in the young man’s eyes.

  “To the true Master of the Mind,” the Saddhu hissed softly. “Every technique which I can teach, you attack with ferocity until it becomes yours. You study and fight your way through your lessons. But the true journey is not one that can be quantified. There is no… final exam. No right or wrong. That which is greater than mere flesh and matter can only be revealed to you through a true knowledge of self. It must be effortless.”

  Two shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said glumly.

  The Saddhu nodded over his cup. “You have hidden much from me. From your fellow student. From many others, I fear. The life that you choose for yourself is full of masks. But you cannot hide from yourself.” The old man looked up. At the mention of the word “mask” his pupil’s body language had changed, he had stiffened, become protective.

  The Saddhu narrowed his eyes. “Even now, you do not trust me.”

  The young man bowed his head. “Forgive me, Master. I did not intend offense.”

  Rashan smiled in spite of himself. “It is the peril of my tr
ade. People assume that you are reading their innermost secrets, even when they are being blazingly obvious.”

  His pupil thought a moment, then rose from his mat and crossed to a small pile of his belongings in the corner of the kuti. He opened his pack and drew forth a length of bright red silk. It was a sash of sorts, perhaps three feet long, with carefully prepared holes that seemed to match where a man’s eyes might be, were he wearing the sash to obscure his face. He turned back to Rashan.

  “You are not the first Master to speak of masks,” he said. “This was a gift when I took my leave of Japan.”

  The Saddhu looked at the mask, and then at his young pupil. “You wish to fight?” he said, his voice a challenge.

  “Yes.”

  “What do you fight for?”

  “Justice,” came the certain reply.

  Rashan nodded. “For whom?”

  The young man seemed surprised. “For the innocent,” he said at last.

  “Few are truly worthy of that name,” the Saddhu challenged.

  “Justice for the people. Those who have nothing and fear everything.”

  “That sounds more like it,” the Master said. “From whom would you protect them?”

  “From the Darkness,” Two replied.

  “Too vague. Try again.”

  “From creatures of the darkness. Men made beasts by desperation. And from those that made those wolves what they are.”

  “Who are they?”

  There was another moment’s hesitation. “Men of great wealth and power who perpetuate misery and cruelty in the name of greed. I fight to protect the innocent from those to whom human life means nothing.”

  The Saddhu seemed to look right through August Fenwick. “Go on,” he said.

  The young man blinked, hard. “From men like my father,” he choked.

  “No.” The Saddhu’s voice was firm. “You have told yourself that, but it is not true. That is not what you fear; it is not what drives you. This was a game to you when you began your quest. It is no longer. That gives you credit. But when the day comes that you leave this mountain your fight will begin in earnest, and if you do not know who you fight and why, you will never survive. Now, from whom do you fight to protect the innocent?”