Soul Coin

by Laura Rich

  “You are not relevant to their case right now.” He shook his head. “I have not decided what to do about that yet.”

  “Tell me about the others, and my father.” Indira cleared her throat. “What made their lives similar?”

  A knock sounded on the door. “Come!” Rishaan said.

  Officer Singh entered with a cardboard file box under one arm. “The files you asked for, sir.”

  Rishaan gestured to his desk. “There, thank you. Please close the door on your way out.”

  “Yes, sir.” Officer Singh put the box on the desk and left silently.

  “Do you have some time to do a little light reading, Niece?”

  “What’s all that?” she asked.

  “These are the others.”

  Indira’s eyes grew wide. “The other what?”

  “The other cases of mysterious deaths with coins like yours,” he said. “Are you up for looking for clues with me, like old times?”

  Indira’s eyes sparkled. “Yes!” If there was a clue in there about who killed her family, she would find it.

  “That’s my little police woman. I’ll order some take out and call your dad.” Rishaan reached for the phone. “We may be here a while.”

  Four hours later, bleary eyed and exhausted, Indira dragged herself through the front door of her father’s modest home. Low lights illuminated the traditional decor, and her father snored softly in his favorite chair in front of the television, which had lapsed into sitcom reruns. She tucked a blanket around him and went to her room. A note from her father lay on her pillow. It said he was to meet with the potential investor for the kalari and told her to go ahead and work out tomorrow, and that he would meet her at dinner. Indira made a mental note to ask one of the older students to stay and practice sparring with her, then she practiced her forms in the empty space in the center of the room and thought about the files she reviewed with her uncle.

  At first they had focused on the men’s personal lives. All had come from poor or modest beginnings and then, inexplicably and almost overnight, had obtained a lucrative career and were married to a beautiful woman. None of the careers were the same, so that wasn’t the link, and they were from different towns and cities. Some were Hindu and some were Muslim, so religion or cultural identity wasn’t it either.

  Next, they’d looked at their wives and families. While it was interesting that so many unattractive men had married very beautiful women in this day and age when love matches were more common, it didn’t yield any illuminating clues. Finally, they’d looked at the men’s business connections. This was a little bit more to go on there, with multiple intersecting business interests. Cross-referencing all the day planners and appointment books hadn’t been easy, but a pattern finally emerged. Her uncle made her promise not to follow any of the leads by herself and told her she could accompany him tomorrow if she liked, but she’d made a list of locations where the suspect was known to have met his victims when he stepped out of his office briefly to go to the restroom.

  She finished thirty sets of Kalaripayattu forms, wiped her brow, and pulled the paper out of her pocket. Indira looked at the clock. It was almost midnight, but that’s when most of the meetings had occurred. Daytime staff at the local tea houses wouldn’t recognize the suspect’s unique description, so the nighttime staff had to be questioned. She rumpled her bedsheets to give the appearance to her early-rising father that she had beat him to the kalari, shrugged on a raincoat and let herself out of the house without a sound.

  4

  The communal screech of the Myna birds jolted Indira awake. “Beasts,” she muttered and rubbed her eyes. She had visited one tea house after another and had not gained anything but a few fitful hours of sleep on the hard dirt floor of the kalari. She stood, brushed off her clothes and went to the small adjacent office and made herself a cup of tea. She rummaged around in the desk drawers and found an expired energy bar. She consumed her breakfast hungrily and reviewed the schedule for the day.

  After teaching her classes, which would last until afternoon, she would train with another student for several hours before dinner. Then there would be another dinner with another kalari as they made their way into town—all activities that would delay her from finding the suspect before her uncle, which had become an equal priority to beating that stupid Gaurav from Kalari Basu. Even if it looked as if father was going to be able to secure some funding that might keep them going for a while, it was still important to her that she win, especially after her humiliation yesterday.

  Little boy chatter told her the first class had arrived for the day, so Indira drained the rest of her tea and left the office. Her suspect would have to wait.

  She stepped through her schedule mechanically, and with lots of tea, until she got to dinner. The lack of sleep finally caught up with her, so she claimed exhaustion and left the restaurant shortly after nightfall, but not for home. She visited the next five all-night tea shops on her list, places often frequented by employees working Central or Eastern time zones for American call centers and, as a result, woke when everyone else prepared to sleep.

  None of the staff or patrons remembered a large white man in a nice suit having an Indian for tea in the evening. The current tea shop employee gave her a strange look, but Indira pressed on. “It’s important. A large white man in a nice suit. Think hard.” She wished one of the victims had had a picture or a business card for this person in their day planners. All it said was, “Meet LL for tea” or “Meet L” in their calendars, and there were a few descriptions from bystanders of a large white man in a business suit fleeing the scene in a few cases.

  “No!” he said. “Nothing like that. Now go away unless you are buying. I am busy!”

  Indira bought a cup of chai and grabbed a corner stool to consider her next steps. If she continued at this pace, she would be through her list of tea houses by morning and probably have a lead, but she would also run the risk of crossing paths with her uncle. She also had to go home soon and pretend to go to sleep, then sneak out again, unless she called her father now and told him she would be with her uncle, late at the precinct. She checked her list again and felt a twinge of guilt but opted for the latter to save time. It was a small lie, and one she could confess later, when she found the owner of the coins. She made the phone call, and it rang three times before her father picked up. The heavy background noise told her that he was still at the restaurant.

  “Hello?” her father shouted.

  “Papa, it’s me. I was feeling better, so I went to visit uncle again. He needs help on a case. I’m going to stay here and get a ride home later.”

  “You’re going to be with uncle then get a ride home?” her father repeated loudly.

  “Yes!”

  There was a brief pause filled with loud conversation and music from the restaurant. Her pulse quickened at the lie and the possibility of being found out. “Ok, Indira,” he said. “Don’t be too late, and be careful. Oh, and good news! The investor is on board, and we seal the deal tomorrow!”

  “That’s great, Papa!” she said, with a sigh of relief. “Goodnight.” Indira knew the debt had weighed on him, more than he claimed. This would give them both peace of mind, and she was happy for that. She drained her chai and tossed the plastic cup in the overfilled garbage can by the door.

  “You, girl!” a man shouted from behind her.

  Indira looked over her shoulder. It was the same grumpy clerk who had told her to go away, and he had another employee next to him.

  She paused at the door, but decided it was worth the harassment to go back.

  “Hey, this guy saw your big white man,” the rude one said. He cracked a smile and jerked his thumb towards his coworker. “What do you need with him when you could have someone like me?” He drew himself up to his full height, which might have been a little more than her own.

  Indira snorted, and walked towards the counter and addressed the other employee, who had a soft face and a shy smile. “Y
ou saw him?” Indira said. “Tall, white, wore a business suit?”

  Nice guy nodded. “Yes, I think he was talking to one of those dead guys.”

  Indira gave him a sideways look.

  “No, I mean, he wasn’t dead at the time,” he said. “It’s just that he looked like the guy who was murdered—the one on the news yesterday. That’s what I told the police officer who came here last night.”

  “A police officer,” she said. Her Uncle Rishaan had beaten her to the first sighting. “What else happened? Did they tell you where they were going?”

  “No,” he said and narrowed his eyes. “What do you want with him? Not going around thinking a little thing like you can find a murderer, are you?”

  Indira drew herself up and gave him a withering look. “Yes, that’s exactly what I intend to do.” She turned on her heel, stalked to the door, and flung it so hard the bells rang madly.

  The rain had progressed to a steady downpour, so Indira flipped up her hood and took a shortcut through a residential alley, where the rain would be lighter. They were tenements, really, housing the working poor in subsidized rooms. Some of her students came from these buildings, on a scholarship her grandfather set up years ago to help bring Kalaripayattu back to the people after the eighty-nine-year occupation of India by the British. The Brits hadn’t cared so much for natives who could defend themselves, so strict laws were put into place to punish and imprison practitioners. Kalaripayattu went underground and was practiced mostly in the countryside, far away from imperialist eyes, until people like her grandfather brought it back to the cities.

  Indira picked her way through the alley. The mixed scents of human sweat and filth and cheap cooking oil and curry filled her nose. The rain came down harder, and drying laundry was quickly pulled inside with series of snaps on the clothesline above her. A stack of boxes against the wall ahead signaled the possible presence of someone who was not so lucky to have an apartment. She skirted around the boxes. Indira’s heart leapt out of her chest when a hand clamped around her ankle. She jerked her foot away and whipped into fighting stance.

  “Won’t you stay and visit with an old lady?” a wizened female voice said.

  5

  “That is not a good way to get my attention,” Indira snapped at the stranger. “I could have hurt you!”

  “I apologize,” said the crackly voice from within the box. “There are so few people I wish to talk with, I can’t afford to let those pass by.”

  Indira relaxed her stance a bit. “Y-you want to talk with me?”

  “Why of course I want to talk with you!” the old woman said. “I saw the way the streetlight hit your coin, and I thought to myself, I did, that this is a special young woman.”

  At the mention of her coin, Indira put a protective hand over her necklace. “Why don’t you come out a bit where I can see you? The rain has let up some.” To prove her words were true, she pushed back her hood.

  Paper crinkled from within the box, and a dark form leaned forward into the dim light. Indira found herself looking at a heavily lined face. The old woman wore a thick white braid that trailed over her shoulder and coiled at her feet, which were twisted and deformed. Indira shuddered. The woman looked just like Indira imagined from stories of the daayani, the witch woman her mother told her about to scare her into good behavior. The daayani had long braids and backwards feet used magic to suck the life from the living and steal bad little children.

  Indira shook her head. Those were child’s stories and nothing more. What she needed now was information about the coin.

  “You see?” the old woman said. “I am a harmless old woman, trying to make my way in the world.”

  Indira narrowed her eyes. “What do you know about my coin?”

  “I know who gives it, and I know who gets it,” the old woman said. “And you are neither of those people. He does not make deals with children. Nevertheless” –she sucked her teeth– “it is dangerous for you. I could take it off your hands if you like…”

  “Wait, who?” Indira demanded. “Who doesn’t make deals with children? How do you know this?” She bristled. “And I’m not giving it to you!”

  “Oh, no, I could not take it without giving you something in return. A trade, perhaps?”

  “No deal. I just need information, and I need it now.”

  The old woman shook her head slowly. “Tsk tsk tsk. Children today have so little patience.”

  Indira had enough of the old crone and her cryptic statements. She crouched down and met the woman’s rheumy brown eyes. “Tell me what you know about this coin, old woman, or I will call the police and say you tried to attack me.”

  “Oh, ho ho!” the old crone retorted. “Threats! A girl after my own heart.” She leaned forward and inhaled deeply.

  “Freak,” Indira muttered and hopped back. “I’m out of here.” She rose to leave, but the crone’s hand shot out and clamped onto hers. Indira tried to shake it off, but the strength in that bony hand was shocking.

  The crone jerked Indira to her knees and pulled her face close. Her gaze sharpened, and suddenly Indira wasn’t sure the old crone wasn’t a daayani after all. “If you want to find the man who gives the coins, go to the river tonight and watch for him. Just don’t let him see you.” She released Indira and withdrew into her box. The rustling of the paper stopped with an eerie finality.

  Indira scrambled backward until she hit the alley wall, then turned and fled until she reached the street. When she looked back, the darkness had completely swallowed the crone and her box.

  It took her several minutes of walking to calm her nerves and find her bearings. Her body must have decided to go to the river on its own, because soon she found herself on the road running parallel to the river wall that held the powerful water back from this part of the city.

  Indira took the next set of steps and descended to the wide sidewalk. Here, the light rain didn’t deter people from gathering, and music played into the night. She took one look around and decided the man would not be here. He had to be farther on, where the jungle foliage grew thick, and its tendrils insinuated into the cement of the river wall, trying to chip away at the barrier. That’s where she would go if she were a secretive murderer.

  She pushed on through the revelers towards the lush dark-green thicket ahead and was immediately rewarded with the sound of voices as she stepped off the sidewalk. Quickly, she crouched behind an enormous pandanus shrub. It’s thick palm-like fronds easily hid her small frame, and she was able to catch glimpses of the two men who spoke, not ten meters from her. A chill ran up her spine as she realized that one of them was a tall white man in a business suit. He had long dark hair pulled back into a severe ponytail. The other was an average-looking young Indian man, who wore a clean-but-worn kurta and pyjamas, meaning he was more traditional. Young men and women Indira’s age mostly wore western clothing.

  “Dasras Pawar, do you agree to my terms?” the white man said—and in. “You understand there is no going back. No reneging on our deal. When I come to collect, I will have payment.”

  The Indian man nodded. “I understand.”

  “The terms are fifteen years with a successful business, a beautiful wife and healthy, intelligent children,” the white man stated.

  “Yes.” The Indian rubbed his hands together. “Oh, yes!”

  “For your soul,” the white man continued. “To be given freely at the end of the term for the price of one soul coin.”

  Indira gasped.

  The Indian looked around, but did not see her.

  The white man hadn’t moved. “Dasras Pawar! Do we have a deal?” He extended his hand to the other man.

  Dasras nodded and put his small brown hand in the white man’s huge grasp. They shook, and a red glow emanated from their clasp until it enveloped them both, then faded just as quickly.

  Indira’s eyes grew wide, and she swallowed.

  “Go now,” the white man said to Dasras, then turned his eyes towards
Indira. They seemed to pierce the foliage and see right into her own soul. “Tell no one about this.”

  Dasras turned and ran right past Indira’s hiding spot. She waited a minute, then followed him, but felt the white man’s eyes on her back.

  6

  Indira burst through the brush, bolted up to the street level and ran to the nearest tea shop for a strong chai.

  She gulped down the warm brew while she tried to digest what she’d seen in the last ten minutes. “For sure, that was an evil spirt. A white demon,” she muttered into her cup.

  A couple at the next table glanced at her warily, so she turned towards the window, looked out into the dark night, and realized her hands shook.

  “Coward,” she said. She should have stayed and confronted the white man about the deal he made with her father, not run away like a little girl. Now how was she going to find him again? The white demon obviously had magic on his side. If only she knew of someone who could help her level the playing field… She froze. “The daayani.”

  She rushed out the door and hurried to the alley where she had met the crone. Deep shadows played tricks with her mind, as it looked like dancing figures gathered around the crone’s box. Out of a mixture of impatience and fear, Indira stopped ten yards away and shouted, “Daayani, show yourself!”

  The shadows stopped, and Indira felt a damp breeze rush past her. She shivered.

  The box rustled, and the old crone emerged with a grin. “You may call me Lakshmi.”

  Indira nodded. “Uh, hi.” She wasn’t about to give out her name. “You said something about a trade? My coin for what? What can you give me that will make me powerful enough to stand up to the white demon?”

  Lakshmi cackled and stood. She walked quickly towards Indira on those twisted feet as if they were whole.

  Indira cringed—she wasn’t one hundred percent sure until that moment the old woman was really a witch. Only a daayani could walk on feet like that.