The Complete Mystery Collection

by Michaela Thompson

  There was no breeze, and the heat and exhaust fumes were almost overpowering. They threaded through traffic and street hawkers. A legless, toothless old man at the temple gate stretched his palm to them, and Vijay gave him a coin. What used to be the sari shop now housed greasy-looking boxes of machine parts and tools, and for an instant, but only an instant, Marina thought about Loopy Doop.

  By the next corner, the thought had vanished completely. Marina walked around the corner and looked down the street. She had come back to Palika Road.

  33

  The past never dies, Marina thought. How could I imagine I could rid myself of this place? To Vijay, she said, “It’s just like before.”

  The night Agit More was killed, she had been in Bombay. She had needed to get away from the ashram, from Nagarajan, to reestablish her equilibrium— or so she had rationalized it.

  After her usual fruitless visit to the consulate, she had dawdled. Telling herself she had seen nothing of Bombay but the airport and the consulate, she had taken a bus tour with a group of other Americans. Most of the people on the bus were Texans on a package tour, and they spent a great deal of time, she remembered, comparing everything they saw to similar things in Texas—the Hanging Gardens to the public parks of Houston; the Jain Temple, with its white-clad priests and statues of bug-eyed gods, to the churches of Dallas; the Parsee Towers of Silence, where bodies of the dead were left for birds to devour, to the crematoriums of Fort Worth.

  By the time the tour ended she had, as she had half planned, missed the bus for Halapur. She stayed the night at a hostel, sharing a room with a Canadian girl who talked about nothing but hashish. The caretaker’s baby was ill and cried for hours.

  As she and Vijay walked along the road, Marina wondered, as she had thousands of times before, if she had sensed that something terrible was going to happen and had stayed away to avoid involvement. Catherine had looked more taut than usual, but Marina guiltily attributed that to jealousy of Marina’s being Nagarajan’s current favorite in bed. Whether or not Catherine really resented it Marina had never known. She said nothing, but she rarely spoke to Marina anyway.

  Nagarajan would taunt her about Catherine. “Why can you not be like your sister? When she hears the truth, she knows it. Such lovely hair she has, yellow as mustard blossoms. I want always women around me with hair the color of yellow flowers.”

  She knew she was slipping, losing ground, but she continued to go to him. “You see, you do like me, Marina,” he said one night as they lay, filmed with perspiration, on his bed mat.

  She turned away, filled with self-loathing. “Yes, I like you.”

  “You see—” Nagarajan leaned over to speak in her ear. His hair tickled her shoulder. “You are so worried, so angry. You are like a bullock who fears the sound of the bell tied around his own neck, and so will not bend his head to eat.”

  “You mean I won’t bend my head so you can slip on the yoke.”

  He laughed. “You are on guard always. Only think. When a bullock submits to the yoke he has a place, he is of use, isn’t it? And a wise bullock knows that the sound of his bell is only a noise he creates himself, and will bend his head to take what is before him.”

  When she turned back to him that night, as she inevitably did turn back to him, he said, “You will see that the bell is making music only.”

  Marina and Vijay had reached the front gate of the ashram. No. The front gate of the house that stood where the ashram used to be. Three children ran chattering through the doorway, stopping short to stare when they saw Marina and Vijay.

  “That’s where it was,” Marina said. She stared at the house that looked very much like the other house, at the earth that showed no trace of past fires. She waited, and felt nothing. There was no reason to stay. She turned and pointed diagonally across the street. “That’s where Agit More lived.”

  The More house was no different from the others, except that a yellow motorbike leaned against the side wall. As they drew nearer, the whine of a radio drifted through the open windows. Marina tapped on the front door, and a barefoot girl of eleven or so, wearing a loose faded blue dress with puffed sleeves, her thin legs and tousled short hair streaked with dust, opened it and peered out at them.

  Vijay questioned and the girl answered shyly. She stood back for them to enter. “Her name is Kamala More. Her mother is at the market, and Kamala is here caring for her nephews. She says we may wait for her mother to return,” Vijay said.

  A baby with a fuzz of dark hair sat on the floor. A boy about a year old was making a clatter by banging a string of wooden beads against the side of a new-looking television set. The radio, on a shelf, also looked new. Marina did not remember, from the time of Agit More’s murder, any indication that his family was anything but very poor, but television sets and motorbikes were not within the reach of poor Indian families. It looked as if in the intervening years the fortunes of the Mores, like those of Baburao, had improved.

  The girl motioned to them to sit on a string cot and stood to one side watching. The toddler wavered across the room to them, gnawing his beads, and Vijay offered him a finger. The boy’s small hand closed over it and he stood swaying, regarding Vijay solemnly. Vijay chuckled. “He has a strong grip. A good, strong boy.”

  He’ll be very good with his children. Marina saw Vijay in a year or so, married to Sushila, with a baby of his own. The thought was vaguely disturbing. To distract herself, she said, “I’m not sure the Mores need any help from me. Have you noticed?”

  “Yes, I have.” The little boy let go of Vijay’s finger, lost his balance, and sat down abruptly. He transferred his attention back to his beads. “I cannot understand how this family can afford a motorbike. Or a television set.”

  He turned to Kamala and talked with her. It seemed to Marina that the girl answered proudly. Then he said, “She tells me these things are gifts from Uncle. Uncle gave her older brother the motorbike, so he could go to work at the factory. Uncle gave them the television, and many other things. They are very grateful to him.”

  “So they have a rich relative after all. I always thought the family was poverty-stricken.”

  “Not necessarily a relative. ‘Uncle’ is a term of respect. The children would call any male friend of the family ‘Uncle.’”

  Kamala left the room. When she returned, she held reverently three bangles of twisted gold. She displayed them as she spoke to Vijay. When she left the room again, Vijay said, “Those bangles were a gift to her mother from Uncle.”

  “Is Uncle her mother’s lover, I wonder?”

  “I don’t know.”

  When the girl returned, he spoke to her again, and nodded at her response. “I asked her if she knew Uncle’s name,” he said to Marina. “She does. It’s Baburao.”

  Of course. The shrewd and thrifty Baburao was unexpectedly generous with the family of Agit More. That was because he had let Nagarajan, Agit More’s killer, go free. Did the More family know the reason for their good fortune, or did Baburao invent an excuse for watching over them and providing for them? What would happen to them now? The baby started to fret, and Kamala picked it up. Marina wondered if Baburao’s guilt had extended to including them in his will. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be the one to tell them he’s dead.”

  When they were outside, Marina said, “Agit’s murder benefited his family. How ironic.”

  “Ironic, yes. Still, it is good they had something, after all their suffering.”

  They did not stop again at the site of the ashram. Palika Road would be with her always, Marina knew, but now it was like a place she had seen in a dream, or a photograph in an album she rarely opened.

  34

  When they reached the town square, a rusting bicycle was listing on its kickstand under the peepul tree. Sitting with his back against the tree was a curly-haired boy of about fifteen wearing shorts and a loose shirt, threadbare tennis shoes without laces, and no socks. This had to be the bicycle messenger. His face brightened
when he saw Marina and Vijay approach, and he jumped to his feet.

  “Good day, Madam,” he said to Marina. “You have message to send?” Marina had barely begun to say no when he continued, “I see. You want silks and saris. I take you, no problem. Indian art. Ivory carvings. Brasses. Very artistic, very beautiful.”

  “We want—”

  Still talking, he released the kickstand and rolled his bicycle toward the edge of the square. “Stones, madam. Garnet. Tiger-eye. Good price, too. My cousin. Come.”

  Marina raised her eyebrows at Vijay. If they agreed to inspect his cousin’s wares, the boy might be more willing to talk. In any case, it was impossible to break into his monologue.

  “Paintings. On palm leaf. On cloth. Miniatures, very artistic. Lacquer boxes with flowers, birds. You will like. You are from?”

  Stunned by the barrage of words, Marina could hardly gather her wits to answer. “The United States. California.”

  “California. Is beautiful. You like Halapur? You come to Halapur, shop at Laxmi Emporium. My cousin. I am Hari.”

  Once he was assured that they were following him, Hari’s patter slowed somewhat. Marina wondered how many souvenirs she would have to buy before she could ask Hari about the customer who had sent him to Baburao’s yesterday. Hari leaned his bicycle against the front of a building which a sign proclaimed to be the Laxmi Emporium and ushered them inside.

  The jumble of merchandise seemed to include most of what Hari had promised. Brass statues of Shiva as king of the dancers gleamed next to embroidered shoulder bags. Saris were strewn on a counter near stacked bolts of bright-colored silk. A glass case held jewelry and loose semiprecious stones. Several men sat in the back of the shop, drinking tea and having what appeared to be a serious discussion. Hari waved, and one of them waved back. “My cousin,” said Hari. “I will show you.”

  As they approached the counter, Marina said, “Actually, we were looking for you because we wanted to ask you a question.”

  “Yes? I will answer of course. But first—” He waved his hand delicately to indicate the contents of the store.

  She picked up trinkets, too distracted even to think of wanting to buy. Jewelry? Paintings on palm leaves? Carved boxes? Brass statues of Hindu gods? She rubbed her forehead. “Silks and saris, Madam?” Hari suggested.

  Fine. Silks and saris would be portable, at least. At the table laden with bright-colored fabrics she selected a blue-and-silver shawl for Clara. Would one shawl be enough to get Hari to talk? He approved of the purchase, at least. “Beautiful, Madam! Finest quality. You will remember us when you wear it.”

  “Actually, it’s a gift for a friend,” Marina said.

  “But you must choose something for yourself, Madam! Why not a sari? Something to remind you of your journey to India?”

  A sari. So the shawl wasn’t sufficient. A picture of Catherine in her sari flashed through Marina’s head. Marina did not want a sari, but more than anything else she wanted to get Hari’s information and get out of Halapur. “Fine. A sari,” she said. “Let’s pick one out.”

  She bought not only a sari, patterned in green and gold, but also the matching blouse and petticoat. And this, it seemed, was enough. As her package was being wrapped in brown paper, Hari said. “Beautiful choices, Madam. Shall we take some refreshment?

  They ate oozing sweets and drank tea at a cafe next door. When Marina asked Hari again about the message he had taken to Baburao he dropped his head back and gazed at the ceiling. “Yes, yes, I remember,” he said. “Yesterday morning. I did not know the man. I have not seen him before. He paid me to take a message to Baburao.” His tone indicated finality.

  After a moment’s silence, Vijay said, “What did he look like, this man?”

  Hari shrugged. “A man. He spoke well.” Apparently dissatisfaction with the description showed in their faces, because after a moment he continued, “He was small, also. His body was twisted.”

  Marina and Vijay exchanged glances. Raki himself had come to Halapur.

  Hari smiled uncertainly. “This is what you wanted to know?”

  “I don’t suppose you know what the message said?” Marina asked.

  Hari looked scandalized. “It was private message. Also, the envelope was sealed.”

  “I see.”

  As she was thinking they had probably found out all he knew, he spoke again. “The twisted man told me something to say to Baburao when I gave message.”

  He looked from Marina to Vijay, in obvious enjoyment of keeping them in suspense. At last he said, “I was to say to Baburao that he must not forget that a rope can have teeth.” He grinned. “When I have said this Baburao’s eyes were very large.”

  The rope with teeth. Marina pushed her mouth into what she hoped was a smile and said, “Thank you, Hari. Thanks for everything.”

  Hari was standing, bowing over his palms. “I must go. Maybe someone wants to send messages.” They said goodbye, and he left the café. A moment or two later, he rode past on his bicycle.

  As her eyes followed Hari, Marina noticed two men standing across the street. One was smoking a cigarette and watching Hari ride away; the other was inspecting the gearbox of a black motorcycle. When Hari was out of sight the watcher spoke to his companion, and the two started across the street.

  Marina touched Vijay’s arm. “Those men have been following us,” she said. “They were at Baburao’s, and they were at the square before we went to the More house.”

  They stood up, and Vijay dropped money on the table. “They were near Palika Road, too,” he said. “I saw them not far from the corner.”

  A curtain hung over a doorway at the back of the cafe. Marina and Vijay slipped behind it as the men reached the shop’s entrance. A man in a pink turban looked up, startled, when she and Vijay pushed past the curtain into a little kitchen cubbyhole, but before he could speak they were out the open back door. They were in a cobblestoned alley. One end was a cul-de-sac, the other led to a sharp turn. Marina thought she heard voices behind them. She and Vijay began to run.

  35

  Marina’s sandals slipped on the stones and she fell against the wall, recovered her balance, and ran on. Chickens squawked and fluttered in front of them. They needed to get back to the major streets, where there were people around, but doing that was bizarrely difficult. The spaces between buildings were so small that to squeeze into them would have meant immobilization, and each narrow pathway seemed to lead only to another just like it. She looked back to see one of the men, bony and shaggy-haired, rounding the corner.

  Running in this heat was like pushing through viscous liquid, every step in excruciating slow motion. Sweat dripped off her hair, flowed into her eyes and her ears, ran down her arms and the backs of her legs. Vijay’s shirt, she saw, was clinging to his back, wet through.

  They were in a passage where the backs of rickety buildings seemed almost to touch overhead. When they were halfway along it, a man leading a donkey turned a corner and started toward them. The donkey carried a load of wood that barely cleared the walls. The man and the donkey plodded forward. There was no way to get by them. Vijay halted and, unable to stop herself, Marina careened into him. They would have to turn back. Yet to turn back would be to run into the arms of their pursuers. The man and donkey continued, oblivious. They were so close that Marina could see how frayed the rope was around the donkey’s neck.

  She looked around wildly. There was a tiny entry alcove a few steps behind them. She pulled Vijay back into it. The door into the building, she immediately discovered, was locked. The donkey lumbered along, neither he nor his owner looking at them. Now, she realized, the donkey was between them and their pursuers. The men would not be able to get down the passage until the donkey left it.

  “As soon as he passes,” she hissed, and when the donkey’s tail cleared the doorway they darted forward. As they reached the end of the passage she heard angry voices, and in a brief glimpse back saw the two men shouting at the donkey’s owner. S
he and Vijay turned the corner and the sound faded.

  Now they found larger streets easily. They were not, after all, far from the central square. All they had to do was get back to the car and driver.

  They threaded their way through the late-afternoon crowds. The heat of the sidewalk baked through the soles of Marina’s sandals and traveled up her aching legs. Ahead was the peepul tree. They had reached the edge of the square. Hari and his bicycle were gone, but men still squatted in the shade and women were gathered at the fountain. The car— the car wasn’t where they had left it.

  The driver must have moved it. Her eyes darted toward the side streets. It had to be pulled up close by. Vijay, she saw, was also looking around. “Where is it?” she asked, nudged by panic.

  “I told him—”

  Marina felt breath on the back of her neck. “You are to come with us,” a voice said. “I have a gun in my pocket.”

  The man who had spoken was the taller of the two who had pursued them, the one with longish shaggy hair. The other, shorter and stockier, stood close to Vijay.

  Not knowing what else to do, she moved in the direction he indicated. I could yell. Surely they wouldn’t shoot in front of so many witnesses. Maybe they wouldn’t, but maybe they would. She tried to catch someone’s eye— the beedi-seller on the pavement, the men who jogged by carrying a high-backed red velvet sofa— but life around the pump and the peepul tree continued in oblivious tranquility.

  The men led Marina and Vijay into the building where they had been standing with their motorcycle earlier. The steps were stained with red splashes of betel juice, and a sign announced that inside could be found the “Everywhere Travel Bureau, Ltd.” Marina glimpsed an uninhabited desk and a few brochures scattered in a wall rack before she was hurried up creaking wooden stairs to an airless corridor. The shaggy-haired man nodded at a door and the stocky man unlocked it. They pushed Marina and Vijay inside.