“Did you find them?” Arnold asked. “Or was our actor-friend with another hyper-model?”
Mother smiled at his mangling of the term supermodel. “Hush, someone could be eavesdropping,” she said. “‘The walls have ears.’”
Mitra whispered a few details about her reunion and impending rendezvous with Kareena.
At the next table, an elderly American man talked about flying a racehorse from India to the U.S. on a chartered plane. “Did the horse jump around and shake the plane?” a boy at the same table asked. “Did it have dinner and movie on the flight?”
Mother chuckled at their exchange. Mitra tried to join in the laughter, in a gesture of being part of the group, but couldn't make a sound. Kareena—was she okay? She looked so different. Would she show up at Chitra's?
“You're not going back to see your friend, are you?” Preet poured chai into Mitra's cup. “I don't think you should. Why don't I take us all out to dinner at the Empress? How would that be?” She said the chef there made sauces that were “diabolically tempting.”
“I wouldn't want to ruin your beautiful sari with some evil sauce,” Mitra replied.
“The sari is now yours.” Preet took Mitra's hand in hers. “It's gorgeous on you.”
“Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you, Mitra,” Mother said. “Your friend, Veen, called from Seattle last night. You'd already gone to bed. It slipped my mind this morning.”
Mitra's jaw tightened as she recalled Veen's last words: Adi has disappeared.
It crushed Mitra, as she rose from her chair, to shatter the buzz of intimacy. “You guys go ahead. I have to call Veen, then meet with Kareena. Sorry, I can't have dinner with you.”
Preet handed her a cellphone, saying, “Take this, since your cellphone doesn't work here. Just in case you need to call us.”
“Shall I go with you and wait outside?” Arnold asked Mitra.
Mitra thought for a moment. “If you show up in about an hour, that'll do. But don't wait in front.”
“Okay,” Preet said. “We'll wait in an alley a block north of the shop. Just take a right when you leave.”
Mitra thanked them and slipped out.
FORTY-SEVEN
IN THE NEXT BLOCK, Mitra located a telephone kiosk. It'd be morning in Seattle. Her fingers numb from anxiousness about Adi's status, she had to dial several times before she got the number right.
Veen answered at the first ring. “My God—I can't believe it. Yesterday, the police found Adi. He's dead.”
Mitra strained to catch Veen's words. “What did you say? I can't hear you too well.” Her voice cracked; hot tea swirled in her stomach.
“He's been murdered,” Veen said, her voice turning hoarse. “Some hit man.”
“Hit man?” Mitra stood there dumbfounded, as though blood had drained from her body, as though someone had erased all her knowledge, memory, and power of comprehension.
“Shit,” Veen said. “I can't eat or sleep. I drink fifteen cups of tea a day and still I'm in a fog.” She took a moment. “Are you okay, Mitra?”
“Can I ring you back?”
“Yes, let's talk in awhile. Meantime, you need to call Detective Yoshihama. He wants to speak with you urgently.”
Mitra limped out of the kiosk, eyes welling with tears, her insides knotted, thoughts scattered. Hard to believe she was in such a state of shock for a person she didn't once care for.
She circled the block. Patches of dark shadows on the street obstructed her vision. Returning to the same kiosk, she dialed Yoshihama's number.
A sleepy voice answered.
“Mitra here. I've just heard about Adi. How could this have happened?”
“I'm so sorry.” Yoshihama said. “Mr. Guha shouldn't have involved himself in the ransom negotiation.”
Holding on to the phone box, Mitra learned some facts. Adi was found in Cowen Park. His throat had been slashed. God, the body had been chopped up. The tongue had been taken out. The cops had cordoned off his house. Yoshihama began providing more details—fingerprints, exact time of murder, the murderer being at large, forensic examiners working—but not all of it registered. Mitra stood in a dazed state.
“Seems to me this was an act of revenge,” Yoshihama said. “The bad guys didn't get their loot quick enough, so they did away with Mr. Guha.”
“But I'd heard from Veen that Adi was selling his business.”
“Correct. We found a huge amount of cash in Mr. Guha's house. He was obviously getting ready to meet the rest of the money demand.” Nobuo paused. “I've been consulting with the Kolkata police. Mr. Guha's murder is similar to a crime that happened over there several years ago. In both cases, the tongue had been taken out.”
Mitra gave out a shriek. She couldn't speak for a moment. “Are you talking about the Ray murder case?”
“Yes, that's the one.”
“I can't think straight … let me collect myself.” Mitra paused. “I've found Kareena and made plans to talk with her shortly. Jay is with her. I'd seen him twice in Seattle.”
“He must have been toying with the law enforcement. Criminals often do that, thinking they have the upper hand. Robert believed that.”
Memories of Robert floated back to Mitra, scenes she wished hadn't happened. Weeks ago, seated at his desk, Robert had asserted his knowledge of the Ray murder case. Mitra had told him about Kareena's liaison with Jay Bahadur, and about the film book she'd bought containing details about the Bollywood mafia. Robert connected Jay with the mafia. Without Mitra's knowledge, Robert might have opened his own investigation, and which might have gotten him on the path of the assassin.
“Do you suppose there's a connection between the two murder-deaths, Adi's and Robert's?” Mitra asked.
“Yes, there are similarities in the physical evidences. Robert's killer might have made it seem like a suicide.”
“And I suppose because Robert had bouts of depression, his friends and colleagues believed he'd taken his own life.”
“Correct. Please be careful in Kolkata, Mitra. If Mr. Bahadur is involved with Mr. Guha's death and he suspects you know his past, then he may be a danger to you. I can't have you at risk that way.”
Mitra heaved a sigh. couldn't leave Kolkata immediately. Wheels had been set in motion. “My work's cut out from here. I'll be back after I've gotten what I'm after. There are still missing pieces. I'm going to see Kareena now. I'll have to give her the news.” Her voice faded.
As she bid him goodbye and stepped away from the telephone booth, a feeling of terror sprouted in Mitra's mind. She saw what she'd refused to see before, despite many warnings, like leaves gathering on a sidewalk and obscuring the pathway: Jay Bahadur and his criminal pals appeared to have collaborated in a case of extortion and two murders. They would stop at nothing.
Adi's sad face, his distracted expression, and the pain in his eyes hung before Mitra. He'd loved Kareena. He'd died for her. Justice was called for.
Which meant that Mitra would have to wring out the whole story from Kareena. However much that tore Mitra apart. However nauseated she felt. However much that affected their sisterly ties.
FORTY-EIGHT
UNDER THE NIGHT SKY Mitra walked the three blocks to her destination. Her sari and high heels hampered her movements, as did the unfamiliar sights: a row of electrical shops, a dairy outlet, an astrologer's cave-like den, and lots of alleyways. Most businesses had shuttered for the night. Still, Mitra stayed vigilant. She kept a watch over any pedestrian who happened to pass by, but they were few and far between. A uniformed policeman, a long bamboo baton in his hand, marched past, giving her a curious look.
She located Chitra's, a small upscale second-floor café, situated atop a bookshop. Entering, she saw Kareena, who occupied a large table, her hair glistening in the ceiling light, the purple of her sari contrasting with the white tablecloth.
Kareena looked up from the menu, her eyes sparkling, and acknowledged Mitra with a big “Hi.”
Mitra grabbed
a seat across from her. “Hey, this is just like Soirée.” She considered it good fortune that their table wasn't within hearing distance of other patrons. “Remember how we used to share all that had happened to us during the week?”
“I miss it so much,” Kareena said soulfully. “I've met lots of people here, but so far there's been no one to kick back with, like you.”
A sullen white-jacketed waiter approached their table. Kareena ordered for both of them, which suited Mitra just fine. Glancing down, fiddling with the open purse on her lap, Mitra turned on the voice recorder. She bit her lip. How horrible of her, how devious to pretend to have tea with her sister, but actually try to make her spell out a secret story.
Kareena placed a bejeweled hand on the table. Gazing warmly at Mitra, she appeared more relaxed. “You've gone to a lot of trouble to see me. That means a lot. Had I known you were coming, I'd have arranged a party for you. But we're leaving town in the next couple of days. We'll stay in Jay's village for at least six months.” She paused. “How are our friends in Seattle?”
Mitra filled her in with a rushed account of their mutual friends and the search party they'd formed. Kareena listened, a wistful light in her eyes.
“Can you tell me why you left Seattle without saying a word to anyone?” Mitra asked. “Your friends miss you. I'm sure your clients wonder about you.”
Kareena appeared to search back to the past, her eyelids weighted. “I was getting ready to quit my job. Such depressing people to be around all the time.”
Mitra seized the opening. “Was it because of Adi that you finally left? Was he mistreating you? Those bruises on your arm—”
The waiter placed a wedge of pound cake before each of them. As a child, Mitra had loved the dense, buttery moist, richly brown slices. Now she barely glanced at it.
“No, whatever else he is, Adi's not a wife-batterer,' Kareena said. “He's too chicken. But he hurt me, with his constant suspicion. You remember how you were concerned when a stranger stalked me on my way home once, creeping me out? You guessed it was the husband of one of my clients. Actually, it was someone Adi had sent. We got into a big argument over it.”
“Was he trying to find out if you were sneaking out? That'd be like Adi, wouldn't it?”
Kareena stabbed her cake with a fork more aggressively than necessary. “Yes, I was seeing Jay.”
“How did you meet him?”
“I met him in India during a trip almost two years ago. I'd gone to a movie premiere with a wealthy aunt who moves in high society. Jay had a starring role in the movie and a dancing role too. Could he dance! At the reception afterwards, we flirted. He called me the charmer, the angelic beauty, the glamorous. When I got back to Seattle, I couldn't get him out of my mind. He wrote to me and I wrote back—we exchanged many love letters. A month later, he came to visit me secretly in Seattle for a week. Three months later, he came again to see me. Our relationship started to grow serious.” She paused. “One day I couldn't take it any longer—living with Adi, living a huge lie.”
“Tell me more about your new love,” Mitra said in a conspiratorial voice. “What's he like?”
“Are you jealous?” Kareena said jokingly, giving a short laugh. “I saw you deliberately bumping into him. He has millions of women fans, so I don't blame you. He has so much charm. He can win over anybody, although I've seen him get angry with the paparazzi, and it can get out of hand.”
“Does he ever get angry with you?”
“He hit me once, missed my face, but my forearm—oh, that hurt. He swore in the name of God Rama, he'd never do it again. And he's kept his word.”
A burst of laughter came from a nearby table, making Mitra realize how tense her face was. “I find it hard to believe you took abuse from a man, you who counseled battered women.”
Kareena touched her diamond necklace. “The next day Jay came home with a dozen yellow roses and this necklace. He knelt before me, kissed my hand and feet, and asked for my forgiveness. He recited a poem he'd written for me. Have you ever seen the moon rising on the Red Fort on a summer evening in Delhi? If so, you'd know the feeling. I forgave him. We became even closer. He's my perfect match and there'll be no other from now on. He calls me his kokil bird, his brightest diamond, his sunrise. Our house is filled with music, dancing, wine, and poetry. We laugh so much. It's paradise.”
Mitra stared bleakly at Kareena. Glamor, glitz, baubles, poetry. How long before her ill-gotten happiness evaporated? How long before the sand burned under her feet? How long before she followed her mother's pattern and left the guy or he dumped her?
“It's been a painful few weeks, trying to figure out what happened to you,” Mitra said. “Now that I've found you, I'd like to fit the puzzle pieces together, put my mind at rest. Did Adi know your going-away was pre-planned?”
Kareena's eyes darted to the window. She launched into an explanation. Adi who knew about the affair from the beginning figured out what was going on. Even so, he contacted the police and reported her missing. As events unfolded, the police could have traced the lovers and arrested them. But Adi didn't want that kind of publicity to circulate the community—his reputation meant much to him. She finished by saying, “Adi figured out the rest, I'm sure, especially when he got the ransom note.”
“Ransom,” Mitra said, hiding her sarcasm, “that's so clever, Kareena, so cool.” That was so terrible, she thought. “Whose idea was it?”
“Jay's. He has a lot of debt. He could no longer get any financing from his usual channels. With another movie in mind, he needed funds badly. I didn't have much of a savings, so I couldn't help him out. He said, ‘We'll get money from your rich husband. How would that be?’ At first I didn't approve of his plan. But eventually, I went along with it. Adi's loaded. And I'm sure he didn't want to get on the wrong side of Jay, knowing how powerful he was. We hid in Tacoma for several weeks, waiting to collect the money.” She paused. “I'm so in love with Jay. I'll do anything—anything—for him. I've never felt this way about any man.”
Mitra's eyes stung. She saw it now: Jay needed funds to finance his films and pay off his debt and so he and Kareena staged a kidnapping, demanding a huge ransom from Adi. Kareena had lied and cheated, all for a money-hungry gangster, however charming he was. This was not the same Kareena she thought she knew. Her obsession for Jay had changed Kareena's character. She was criminally liable as an accomplice to an extortion campaign. But Mitra had to keep her rage to herself. If her intentions were known, Kareena wouldn't continue to talk so freely. Mitra would lose a chance to record her statement in the voice recorder. And she wouldn't be safe in this restaurant or in this town. Jay would make sure of that.
“You're not eating?” Kareena asked. “This cake is delicious.”
Mitra picked up her fork and shoveled a bite of cake into her mouth, but couldn't taste it. “How did it sit with Jay when Adi paid only half the amount?”
“He was furious. I don't know why Adi didn't pay the money. Did he not want me to come back? Was he just being cheap? Jay was on the phone with his buddies in Mumbai for hours, working on Plan B.”
Kareena seemed to be justifying her declaration of guilt to herself as much as to Mitra. She had participated in a crime of extortion, even though she hadn't received the full benefit. How did a woman once cherished by all get knotted up in this mess?
The waiter refreshed their tea. “Adi went broke, I think,” Mitra said. “I'm sure he meant to pay the rest.”
“Adi, Adi, Adi. What's gotten into you, Mitra? Why are you so concerned about him? You didn't much care for him, as I remember. There's no Adi anymore. I've put the past totally behind me—I'm getting a divorce.” She patted the proud round of her belly. “We'll raise our child in Jay's village in bliss. She'll grow up speaking Bengali.”
Mitra glanced at the streetlight outside the window. “I worry about you, Kareena. How many lasting Bollywood marriages do you know of?”
Kareena tucked a lock of hair behind an ear. Her neckl
ace glittered. “You're a sweet person, Mitra, but you seem to get tangled up in other people's affairs. You don't have a love life—that's why. You don't know how to give yourself to a man.”
She'd hit Mitra at a tender spot. Mitra acknowledged the truth quietly and sat in a dreadful silence.
Kareena broke the silence. “Why are you acting like an amateur detective all evening?”
“Detective?” Mitra shrugged. “No. I'm still the gardener you knew. Hey, did you ever meet a German guy in Seattle by the name of Ulrich Schultheiss?”
Kareena startled. “Oh, he was just a play thing—you know what I mean?” She smirked. “You look so shocked. Why would I find an uneducated carpenter interesting for very long?”
Mitra saw the two faces of her sister: a kinder side that helped battered women; a dark secretive side that stepped out on her husband.
Mitra leaned back. “Never mind. Let me mention a number of worrisome incidents that happened to me in Seattle. I was frequently followed by a white Datsun pickup truck.”
Again Kareena startled and paled. “Oh, Jay told me he was having a pest followed. I didn't know that—”
Leaving her sentence unfinished, Kareena turned her face toward the window. An uneasy silence dominated, as though a big hammer had just finished hitting a nail. The ceiling light washed the table's glass surface. It reminded Mitra where she was and the urgency of getting to the bottom of this.
She collected herself and caught Kareena's eye. “Oh, by the way, Adi wanted me to tell you he loved you.”
Kareena frowned at the table. Despite her bright rouge and even brighter lipstick, she didn't look well. “You've seen him recently?”
“Yes, for the last time.” Mitra's voice faltered. “I called Seattle just before coming here and got the news. Something bad has happened. Adi's dead.”
Kareena raised her head. “What?”
“He was kidnapped,” Mitra said in a teary, bitter voice. “An assassin killed him, just like that, and dumped his body in a park.” It sickened her to continue. “The police don't know the motive. Like a movie script, don't you think?”
Tulip Season Page 22
