So much for Plan A.
What he needed now was a Plan B.
Jason tapped the plastic cola bottle against the bumper of the Ambassador, burning off the nervous energy that was half caffeine, half that gnawing desire to put things in order. It was the same anxious feeling that came at the end of every month, with files due and forms still missing, knowing that million-dollar deals hinged on everything being right where it was supposed to be. And, with his files, everything always was.
He needed more time to put it all together—Sriram and Vidya, the attacks, that damn sari. But as the Freedom Tours’ bus pulled in from its half-day trip to the spice merchants’ emporium, he was hoping he’d have less.
Dayama “Danny” Satyanarayan was the first off the bus, sucking in a deep breath of air and rubbing the scowl off his face before he turned, beaming, to help each passenger as they stepped down from the coach.
Jason strolled over to the entrance of the hotel, nodding to the worn-out travelers as they shuffled past. A few waved back, trying to place where they had seen that young man before. He waited as Danny climbed back aboard, checking for items left behind and pointing out the cramped space where the driver was expected to squeeze the bus. When he spotted Jason, Danny’s stock smile widened a bit and he held his hand out as he crossed the hotel’s driveway.
“Mr. Talley, what a pleasure it is to see you again,” he said, pumping Jason’s arm. “I trust you had a most excellent time.”
“So far, so good,” Jason said, remembering now how Danny’s clear voice and reassuring, if feigned, smile had made him feel so secure.
“No troubles at all for you and Miss Moore?”
It was Jason’s turn to fake a smile “No trouble at all.”
Danny looked at the six-inch ridge of skin and sutures that ran down Jason’s forearm. “I hope you had that looked at.”
“This?” Jason said, holding up his arm. “Just a scratch.” He rested his hand on Danny’s back. “I know you’re a busy man, but I was wondering if you could help us out arranging the flight back to the U.S.”
Danny’s smile disappeared and his eyes widened. “You have not made arrangements already? Oh, Mr. Talley, this is not good, not good at all. I’m afraid that you will find every flight completely booked for the next few weeks. That at a minimum.”
Jason’s shoulders drooped and a fist-sized knot started forming in his stomach.
“I was quite clear with Miss Moore. You needed to plan ahead if you were looking to fly on the same date as the tour group.”
“We had tickets,” Jason said. “But they were stolen when we were in Goa. Can’t you just get us replacements?”
“No, Mr. Talley. We paid Miss Moore for the tickets when you left the tour in Delhi. Your tickets are invalid. You have no tickets.”
Jason felt himself rocking back on his heels and he squeezed the fabric of Danny’s shirt between his fingers to steady himself.
“Miss Moore assured us that she had your permission to act in your behalf,” Danny said, covering for any breaches in company policy. “If you have any complaints I suggest you bring them up with her first….”
“No, there’s no problem. I’m sure I told her it was okay,” he said, not sure now of anything where Rachel was involved. “Still, any chance you can help us out?”
Danny shook his head slowly, as if Jason was having a hard time understanding. “No, sir. There are scores of reasons. Business, vacations. It does not help matters that both Air France and British Airways are coping with strike-related slowdowns. Travelers have flocked to the other airlines and there are just not enough seats to go around.”
“What about stand-by or taking a flight with more layovers?”
There was no ambiguous ahcha in Danny’s headshake. “There simply are no flights available. However….”
Jason leaned forward as Danny paused for effect.
“A seat did open up on the Freedom Tours flight back to the U.S. One of our patrons was…well, something happened in Calcutta.”
“Was someone hurt? No one died on you, did they?”
“No,” Danny said, dragging the word out as he thought of the best way to explain. “Let us just say that Mr. Froman desired to participate in certain…activities, and did not show the discretion one would hope to find in a man of his years.”
Jason remembered waking up his first night in India to find the old man watching him as he slept and decided he didn’t want to know the details.
“I’m afraid the authorities have severed our connections with this traveler and his seat will go unfilled,” Danny said.
“But?” Jason prompted.
“There is a chance—slight—that I can persuade a cousin at India Airlines to change the name on the reservations. It may be difficult….”
“How difficult?”
“Oh, two, three hundred dollars difficult….”
“But it’s only one ticket.”
“That is most accurate.”
“But I need two.”
“I have one.”
“Damn.”
The doorman watched as the two men stood facing each other in front of the entrance to the Ivory Tower Hotel. Slowly, imperceptibly, a smile moved across Danny’s lips and he swung an arm up across Jason’s shoulders. “Come,” he said. “I have a small office inside. Let us conclude our business there.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Sarosh Mehta, dealer in smuggled machine parts and unofficial Bangalore tour guide, had been right, the gardens at Lal Bagh were indeed gorgeous this time of the year.
Acres of manicured grounds rolled under an impenetrable canopy of palm fronds and tent-sized leaves, the dark green grass butting tight against miles of red brick walkways that meandered through the park. Formal gardens and Victorian fountains provided a sense of order among the bright, tropical flowers and lush vegetation leading the way to the centerpiece of the park, a five-story glass and wrought iron pavilion surrounded by symmetrically arranged benches and reflecting pools.
Although it was mid-afternoon on a weekday, the park was still filled with patrons—sari-clad mothers pushing baby carriages, uniformed kindergartners on a field trip, tied waist-to-waist in a class-long line by a length of bailing twine, old men in thick sweaters, chilly in the ninety-degree sun. Clustered together by a wireless Internet portal, a dozen white-shirted businessmen made desks out of their closed briefcases, racing to out-type the short-life batteries in their laptop computers, while in the shadows of the giant banyan trees, young lovers walked winding paths, hoping they would lead nowhere.
There were no beggars in the park, no sallow-faced toddlers digging through the ornate garbage cans, no squalid shanties thrown up along the high brick wall. The twenty-rupee entry fee and the armed guards made sure of that.
Eyes closed, Jason stretched his arms out along the back of the wooden bench and took a deep breath. The humid air was thick with the soft fragrance of plants he didn’t recognize and school kids’ songs he couldn’t understand. It had been air-conditioned in the offices of the Hindustani First National Bank, but even as he felt the sweat rolling down the side of his face, Jason knew it was far more comfortable here in the park than it had been sitting in Mr. Piyush Ojha’s office.
“What part of my email did you fail to grasp?” Mr. Ojha had shouted, pounding his fist on his metal desk as he spoke.
Jason had tried to explain that all he wanted was some information, a little help finding Sriram’s family, maybe some thoughts about Bangalore World Systems, Mr. Ojha, standing now, damning Sriram, damning them all with a final metallic thump, asking, no demanding, that Jason get out of his bank immediately, assuring him the authorities would be summoned post haste.
It went pretty much the way Ketan had predicted.
“I wouldn’t call Piyush if I were you,” Ketan had warned him as they sat in the Pizza Corner. “He’s not dangerous, just a bit hysterical when it comes to BWS.”
The advice had been good
, he just didn’t listen. As he sat in the park, Jason wondered how accurate the rest of Ketan’s advice would prove to be.
“Everybody at BWS got screwed when Sriram ran off, some more than others. It’s the core group that have the right to be the most pissed,” Ketan had said, running a paper napkin across his black goatee as he finished his pizza.
“Attar Singh you met up in Jaipur. His family invested a lot in BWS. When it failed they blamed him personally. Disowned him. Vowed they’d get even, ruin him like he had ruined them.”
“I don’t know. When I talked to him it sounded like he had made peace with it all, moved on. Some Kirsna-merska religious thing.”
“Krishnamurti. A philosopher. And I don’t believe it. The rest of us just lost money. Attar lost his family.”
“What about Manoj Plakal?” Jason had asked, thinking about the upcoming Happy Hour meeting he had arranged that morning.
“Manny? Nice guy, wants to be everybody’s friend. But he was just a bit player. He’s not your problem.”
“Who is?”
Ketan had tossed the crumpled napkin on the table and looked straight into Jason’s eyes. “There’re two people you need to watch out for in India. The first is a guy up in Rajasthan. Ahmadabad, I think. Name’s Amrish Sharma.”
“Taco?” Jason had asked, knowing the answer. If he was surprised, Ketan hadn’t shown it.
“When he lost his investment he bankrupted his family. Unlike Attar, Taco’s family forgave him, but it did something to him, up here,” Ketan had said, tapping the side of his head with a hooked index finger. “But unless you go looking for him, he’s not likely to find you.”
With his eyes closed tight against the bright white sun, Jason’s mind drifted away from his conversation with Ketan, back to the train station at Ahmadabad. He could still see the man’s face, the look of hatred in his eyes as he attacked, the look changing to terror as he hung in the air over the tracks. Between the pauses and the backtracking it had taken Jason ten minutes to explain the events of thirty seconds, Ketan nodding occasionally, Jason still not sure why.
When Jason was finished, Ketan had waited a few moments before continuing his warning.
“What did you think of Narvin Kumar?”
Jason just smiled.
“Listen, I know you stayed with him in Mumbai. He’s a charming guy, but he’s also very dangerous.”
“The man is worth millions, Ketan. If it wasn’t for Sriram he might still be waiting for BWS to take off. And according to him, it was Sriram who got him into Bollywood. If anything he owes Sriram.”
Ketan shook his head. “You don’t understand. When Sriram left he took….”
“I know, I know, I heard all about it,” Jason had said, bored by the same accusations. “He stole their dream. He stole their fortunes. He ruined them. Sorry, Ketan, but it just doesn’t fit with Narvin.”
“I guess it depends on what you value,” Ketan had said, standing, pushing his chair in, ready to leave. “Narvin was engaged at the time. A sweet girl, really beautiful. Her name was Vidya.” An hour later Jason was still in the park, relaxing in the shade, writing the postcards he had promised to send to family and friends in Corning, half of whom he was certain couldn’t find India on a map.
He had bought the postcards—a variety pack of fifteen—from a kiosk near the park entrance, paying the extra hundred rupees for a five-rupee pen. He flipped through the cards, organizing them, stacking them in order from ones he’d send to ones he’d leave on the bench.
The top card was a full-length shot of two barefoot women dressed in bright blue saris, backs to the camera, leading a small, naked toddler down a dusty trail. At first he thought about sending it to the women at the mortgage office, the kind of card that would get tacked up in the break room next to the postcards from Disney World and the typed reminder to keep the microwave clean. There’d be cold comments about the sweat-stained saris, a couple of jokes about future convenience store owners, and the longer he looked at the picture the less he wanted to send it. He’d get one of those peel-off magnetic strips and put it up on his refrigerator instead.
The second postcard showed the entire front façade of the Palace of Winds. Jason held the postcard close to his nose, his eyes squinting as he tried to spy a backpack-stealing monkey on one of the red sandstone balconies. Given the angle, Jason realized the picture could have only been taken on the rooftop near where the monkey had sat snacking on a tube of toothpaste. The pink Hello Kitty strap had served as a daily reminder of the encounter but that had disappeared, along with another thief, out the open door of the speeding train. He decided to keep the card.
Jason had seen hundreds of cows wandering the streets, but something about the cow on the third postcard seemed to capture the solemnity that the flower garlands and gold-painted horns inferred. So far he had done a good job avoiding the pervasive spirituality—he hadn’t seen the inside of a single temple or mosque, nor had he been pulled into any discussions about religion or faith. Just like at home. For years his only connections to religion were restricted to prayers for completed passes and ninth-inning home runs. But he had almost died—twice—on this trip. The cow postcard would be his reminder to stop ignoring the big questions that crept in late at night.
There were trains in the background of the next two postcards.
He thought about Rachel’s fictitious one-eyed grandfather and his dying wish that she keep the trains running, a neat, orderly explanation for her obsession. But there was little neat and nothing at all orderly about Rachel. Thanks to her, he’d never be able to look at a train the same way. He put the two postcards with the ones he knew he’d keep.
He had a postcard-sized frame for the shot of the sunrise at a beach near Goa, and the one of the chai vendor’s stall would look good next to his coffee maker, the one of the auto-rickshaw perfect for the sun visor of his car.
He set aside the postcards of the places he hadn’t seen—the Golden Temple at Amritsar, Victoria Monument in Calcutta, the Himalayas, the carved temples of Puri, the Ganges River at Varanasi, a leaping tiger on an unnamed game reserve—and was left with one final image.
The Taj Mahal.
Jason looked at the picture for a full minute. “You’ll see it someday,” he said to himself, putting the postcard on the bottom of the stack.
***
Tossing the stack of postcards on the table in the hotel room, Jason picked up the one-line note Rachel had left propped up by the telephone.
“Narvin made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” the note read, a sloping R filling the bottom half of the page.
His backpack had been dumped onto the center of the bed, the contents scattered. Rachel’s backpack was gone. Along with the red sari.
Chapter Twenty-five
Jason placed the yellow plastic sword between his teeth and drew back, dropping the gin-soaked olive onto his waiting tongue. It was the fifth swordful of olives he’d eaten since he sat down with Manoj “Manny” Plakal and, after only a minute of focused thought, Jason deduced that feat called for another round.
When Jason had phoned him early that morning, Manny had suggested a late afternoon rendezvous at Nineteen Twelve, a former warehouse that had been converted into an upscale bar and restaurant around the corner from Jason’s hotel. “Don’t worry,” Manny had said when Jason asked how they would know each other. “You can’t miss me.”
The tall, broad room was crowded when Jason arrived a half-hour late, the vaulted beams of the open rafters thirty feet up just darker shadows above the hanging lights. The rough-hewn stone block walls were unpainted, Pop Art prints and plasma screen TVs adding bright splashes of color. Burnished metal chairs and light oak tables gave the furnishings a contemporary, Euro feel while young executives in designer suits stood in small circles, laughing confident laughs and joking in Middle-American English, a few words in Hindi sneaking in between shots. Dressed in bright polo shirts and loose-fitting Dockers, the hotshot computer programm
ers drank imported beers and conversed in their own acronym-laced language. There were a handful of women in the bar, none in saris or the two-piece shalwar kamiz, all of them wearing gray-skirted business suits and the same bored expression. Beneath the tables, feet tapped unconsciously to the ambient Indi-techno pop.
But even if there were twice as many people packed in the bar, he couldn’t have missed Manny Plakal. He had seen plenty of pudgy people on this trip and more than a few beer bellies, but Manny was the first truly fat person Jason had seen in India. He wore a light cotton safari shirt, the choice of fashion conscious overweight men around the world, and a bushy mustache that hung over his top lip, giving him the appearance of a dark-skinned walrus with a rapidly receding hairline. When he saw Jason looking his way, he waved his hand over his head, the gesture rippling down his flabby arm.
“I knew it was you the moment I saw you,” Manny said, gripping Jason’s hand in his meaty palm. “You look just like the picture on the Internet.”
Jason winced. “Oh, you saw that.”
Manny laughed as he continued to shake his hand. “I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s obvious that whoever posted that note is up to no good. And who wants to get pulled into something like that?”
“But the reward is up to five hundred.”
“Believe me,” Manny said, releasing his hand, “anyone who would be visiting that site is not impressed with five hundred rupees.”
“I think it was dollars.”
“Really?” Manny said, rolling his eyes like a silent film star. “I’m afraid you’re doomed now.” He laughed again, patting Jason on the back, turning to the bar to order the first round. While they waited for the drinks to arrive, Manny pulled a photograph from the wide pocket of his shirt, setting it on the bar between them. “Which of these happy fellows do you recognize?”
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