The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

  ‘Finding lost loves?’

  ‘Would you prefer losing found loves?’

  She snapped the words at me, because she thought I hadn’t taken her seriously, but I was stung.

  ‘Is that at me? At us?’

  ‘I’m not the one who’s walking away from this, Shantaram.’

  ‘Karla, I’m yours. But you know I can’t work with the cops.’

  ‘You can stay out of that part.’

  ‘The handing people over to the police part, or the giving evidence in court part? I can stay out of that?’

  ‘Didier will handle police liaison. He said he’s looking forward to an interview with the cops where he isn’t on the floor.’

  ‘It’s not just that. I’ve got too much at stake, Karla. I’m wanted everywhere but here, and that’s because I know who to pay. I stay on my side of the line. The cops leave me alone because I don’t sell drugs or girls, I don’t cheat anyone, I don’t beat anyone who hasn’t got it coming, I keep my mouth shut when they give me a kicking, and I pay them regularly, and well.’

  ‘Paradise,’ Karla said, an eyebrow perched like a mockingbird on a branch.

  ‘They tolerate me. But that could change, and then I’d have to run, and fast. You know that. I can’t get into anything serious, and you shouldn’t, either. I thought we understood that.’

  ‘I told you, I’m a silent partner,’ she said, the queens flashing at me for an instant. ‘But I can always find my voice, if you’re not in this with me.’

  There was a little silence. She was daring me to say the wrong thing, I guess, and maybe I did.

  ‘Have you heard anything new about Ranjit?’

  She looked away. I thought I’d hurt her, and I tried to change the subject.

  ‘How about this?’ I suggested. ‘You check out of the Taj, and move into the rooms next to mine.’

  ‘Next to you?’

  ‘I mean it, Karla. There are three rooms, with a balcony that looks out on a good street, and you said you like security.’

  She thought about it, offering me two queens from the corner of her eye.

  ‘Are you talking sleepovers?’ she asked, knowing I’m no good at that game.

  ‘I’m gonna leave the sleepovers to another conversation. But I bought new locks for your doors, and installed them.’

  ‘My doors?’

  ‘Ah . . . yeah. If you take the rooms.’

  ‘You must’ve been pretty sure I was gonna say yes.’

  ‘Ah . . . ’

  ‘How many locks did you put on?’

  ‘You mean, on the front door?’

  ‘How many doors are we talking about?’

  ‘All of them. Bathroom, bedroom, balcony, all of them.’

  ‘O . . . kay,’ she smiled. ‘Any other surprises?’

  ‘I put a first aid box with a surgical suture kit in the bathroom. You can sew up a sizeable wound, if you have to.’

  ‘And they say romance is dead,’ she laughed.

  ‘And I got some other stuff.’

  ‘Other stuff, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, the neighbourhood has some great shops. I had the manager put a small refrigerator in your room, and stocked it with vodka, soda, lemons and the nastiest cheese I could find.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘And I taped a knife under the desk drawer. If you open it right, someone standing in the room wouldn’t see you slip it out.’

  ‘Won’t see me slipping it out, huh?’

  ‘And your bed has painted iron tubes.’

  ‘My bed has tubes,’ she laughed.

  ‘Yeah. I checked the end caps. They came unscrewed on the head-end of the bed. I put a roll of money in one, and a skinny knife in the other. Just in case.’

  ‘Handy.’

  ‘And I bought you a sitar.’

  ‘A sitar. What’s that for?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It was in the music shop downstairs, and I couldn’t resist it.’

  ‘You know –’

  ‘There’s no room service,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘But there’s a sitar store downstairs, and the manager upstairs is crazier than I am, and all in all I think it’s a good idea for you to move in with us, Karla. Are you game?’

  ‘Honey, for the rest of your life, I am the game.’

  ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Good, let’s get you settled, neighbour.’

  She rode back with me. We followed Randall, as he returned to the hotel. I resisted the impulse to swing the bike out and pass. It wasn’t hard. She had her left arm over my shoulder, her right arm in my lap, and her head resting on my back. I wanted to keep on riding until the bike said enough.

  ‘You know,’ I said, as I walked with her to a quiet corner on the steps of the Taj hotel. ‘We could just keep on riding until we’re far enough away, or the bike says enough.’

  ‘I have things that I have to do, Shantaram,’ she smiled. ‘And anyway, lost love is the trump card, at least for now. Our first official bureau case is Ranjit, and we’re gonna find that rodent, wherever he is.’

  ‘Official case?’

  ‘I registered us with the police, as a bureau. I fast-tracked it, using Ranjit’s man. He’s a corporator, and he was glad to see me. Since Ranjit’s disappearance, the juice has stopped flowing. When I went to see him I had all the right American fruit. He’s a nice guy, except that sometimes his face is greedier than his mind.’

  It was my turn to laugh.

  ‘Let’s talk about it later,’ she said, pulling me to her and holding me close, shell-within-a-shell perfect.

  ‘Get a good night’s sleep,’ she said, beginning to pull away from me.

  ‘Okay . . . what?’

  ‘You’re gonna need all the sleep you can get,’ she said. ‘If you’re turning me down at the bureau, and going out as a freelancer.’

  ‘Wait a minute. I can’t come back and see you, later tonight?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ she said, pushing free and walking the last steps to the door. ‘And anyway, it’ll still be there, in the morning.’

  ‘What’ll still be there in the morning?’

  ‘Lust,’ she said, pausing at the door. ‘You remember Lust, don’t you, Shantaram? Pretty girl, lotta fun, no scruples?’

  The door closed. I was confused again. Then I smiled again. Dammit, Karla.

  I rode back to the Amritsar hotel in a predicament, and found the manager in a quandary: his face was in a large box, labelled Quandary Inc.

  ‘What’s the dilemma, Jaswant?’

  ‘There’s supposed to be a phaser pistol in this box,’ he said, looking up at me absently, his hands still searching through foam packaging. ‘Ah, here it is!’

  He pulled the toy pistol from the box, but his triumph faded quickly.

  ‘This is all wrong! The photon emitter is in the wrong place. And the deflector shield is missing. You can’t trust anyone, these days.’

  ‘It’s a toy, Jaswant,’ I said.

  ‘A replica,’ he corrected. ‘And not an accurate one.’

  ‘It’s a replica of a toy, Jaswant.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I’ve got a Parsi friend who said he could make a real one for me, if I have a perfect replica of the original. He won’t work with this crap. He’s a Parsi.’

  He stared at me, sorrow burning him, as sorrow always does, even when it shouldn’t.

  ‘Please, Jaswant,’ I said sincerely. ‘Don’t make a laser pistol.’

  ‘A phaser pistol,’ he corrected. ‘And you could use one. People walk in and out of your rooms all day and night, like it’s Buckingham Station.’

  ‘Only people with a key.’

  ‘Well, there are two key holders in there now.’

  I found Naveen in the c
hair, near a desk I’d bought from the trophy store downstairs. He was playing my guitar, and better than I played it, but that put him on a list of anybody.

  I looked into my bedroom and saw Didier on the bed, his elegant, Italian shoes on the floor, laces inside. He waved hello.

  ‘Nice playing, Naveen,’ I said, throwing myself into a chair.

  ‘Nice guitar,’ Naveen replied, playing a popular Goan ballad.

  ‘I found her loitering with intent, in a music store downstairs.’

  ‘No place for a guitar like her,’ he said, switching to Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’. ‘She’s a high-maintenance crazy love guitar, like Diva.’

  ‘What’s the Diva situation?’ I asked.

  ‘Not good,’ he said, still playing. ‘That’s why I’m doing guitar therapy.’

  ‘I cleared it with Johnny Cigar, this morning. A Bihari clan moved out, leaving six empty houses. There are two huts reserved, a few steps from Johnny’s house. One for her, and one for you.’

  ‘Can’t come a minute too soon for me,’ Naveen said, putting the guitar aside.

  ‘I think you’re right. I asked around today in the Fort area. Her dad’s in big trouble. The bookies have him at fifty-to-one. People are talking about him like he’s already dead. And people are talking about Diva, and what she might know about her dad’s bad deals, or where the money is.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Didier agreed, springing off the bed with surprising agility and tiptoeing to the small, chest-high refrigerator.

  He’d bought the refrigerator as a housewarming present, stocked it with beer, and put a bottle of brandy on my night table for himself. He threw a beer to me, and one to Naveen, and settled himself again comfortably on my bed.

  ‘I have made some enquiries of my own,’ he said. ‘There are at least two dangerous and merciless groups after Diva’s father, and both of them have deep ties to the police.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Naveen said.

  ‘One of them, in fact, is the police,’ Didier continued. ‘Something about the police pension fund, I think. This business mogul has amassed a Mongol horde of enemies. He should evaporate from Bombay, and relocate to an anonymous island. Certainly, he can afford to buy one.’

  ‘He’s the most stubborn man I’ve ever met,’ Naveen growled. ‘He wants to ride it out. He thinks his security is rock solid. And, okay, it’s true enough that he’s surrounded by guns, day and night, but . . . ’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But there are two separate security outfits working in that mansion, cops and private. Neither of them, far as I can tell, is willing to take a bullet for the richest and crookedest man in Bombay. Some of those guys live in slums, hoping that they can move their family into a one-room apartment the size of his toilet. If the cops are ordered away, I think the private army will run away. I’ve tried to warn him, but he won’t listen.’

  ‘He did listen to you,’ Didier said. ‘He left his daughter in your care.’

  ‘He called me son, yesterday,’ Naveen said. ‘It was the weirdest thing. I hardly know him.’

  He walked to the shuttered windows. When he opened a shutter, the neon lights of the Metro theatre blushed his face.

  ‘He said, Keep my daughter close to your heart, and safe with you, away from me, my son.’

  ‘That is a significant responsibility,’ Didier mused.

  ‘And a significant job,’ I added. ‘Diva’s a handful. She should leave the city, man.’

  ‘I agree,’ Didier said. ‘And soon.’

  ‘She won’t go. And I know her. If I try to take her to the airport, she’ll scream the place down.’

  ‘If you can’t get her to leave Bombay,’ I said, ‘and if the people who want to kill her father might kidnap her, then you’ll have to hide her until it blows over. And the slum is the only place I can think of, where no-one will look for the richest girl in town. But I hope you have a better idea.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Didier said.

  ‘Where is she now?’ I asked.

  ‘At her weekly meeting. She gets together with some friends every week at the President.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Didier asked.

  ‘It’s called the Diva Girl Gossip Club,’ Naveen explained.

  ‘Fascinating!’ Didier said.

  ‘Once a week they swarm like piranhas, and rip to pieces any girl they know who isn’t in their clique.’

  ‘Will you get me an invitation?’ Didier pleaded, joining us. ‘I would love to go.’

  ‘She should be finished by ten,’ Naveen said. ‘You guys wanna go with me, and pick her up?’

  ‘I will certainly come,’ Didier said, slipping on his shoes and tying them.

  ‘I’m going to need both of you,’ Naveen said, ‘if I’m going to convince Diva to dump her suite at the Mahesh, and come live in a slum for a week. I might need the two of you to restrain her while I just explain the idea.’

  ‘You sure you wanna do this now?’ I asked.

  ‘No present like the time,’ the young detective smiled, but his eyes were serious. ‘It’s late enough to get her to the slum and settle her in before too many people know about it. What do you think?’

  ‘Didier is ready. To the gossip club, at once!’

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  We found Diva in a shriek of Divas, in the lobby of the President hotel. The three of them stopped, staring at us with well-practised aghast.

  Didier was in a rumpled, white linen jacket and faded blue corduroys. I was in boots, black jeans, T-shirt and sleeveless vest. Naveen was in grey fatigues and a thin, brown-suede shirt. He carried a heavy backpack.

  The pretty girls made it clear that we didn’t present a pretty picture.

  ‘Is that him?’ one of the Diva girls asked, pointing an accusing false nail at Naveen.

  ‘In the flesh,’ Diva sneered, making no introductions.

  ‘Motorcycle maniac,’ the other Diva girl said, crossing me off the list.

  ‘Debauched womaniser,’ the first said, crossing Didier off.

  ‘Pardon me, mademoiselle,’ Didier said. ‘But, I am a maniser.’

  ‘Debauched maniser,’ the girl said.

  ‘And the horse,’ Diva said, crossing Naveen off, ‘without Prince Charming.’

  The Diva girls giggled.

  ‘What’s with the backpack?’ Diva demanded. ‘Setting off for the Himalayas, I hope?’

  ‘I’m not a climber,’ Naveen said, staring at her.

  ‘Ooooooh!’ the Diva girls said. ‘The tomcat has claws.’

  ‘We have to go, Diva,’ Naveen said.

  ‘How about you climb a tree,’ Diva said defiantly. ‘And don’t come down.’

  The girls giggled.

  Naveen was angry, because he was genuinely afraid. Given the threat to her, he thought they were foolishly exposed in the well-lit lobby. He expected a carload of thugs to burst in at any moment and kidnap her.

  And strong, confident young Naveen knew he’d be powerless to stop it. I knew him well enough to know that he was unaccustomed to the feeling, and that he didn’t like it.

  Didier stepped into the awkward silence, bowing elegantly to the girls.

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself, dear ladies,’ he said, handing out business cards. ‘My name is Didier Levy. I am a native of France, but a guest in your great city for some years. With my associate, the well-known detective Mr Naveen Adair, we are the Lost Love Bureau, and we are at your service, if there is a mystery to be solved.’

  ‘Wow!’ one of the girls said, reading the card he’d given her.

  ‘No matter is too trivial,’ Didier pitched, ‘and no piece of gossip too insignificant for the Lost Love Bureau.’

  ‘We’ve gotta go,’ Naveen repeated, gesturing toward the door.

&n
bsp; Diva cheeked goodbye to her friends, and went with us to the doors. We walked out past the entry portico to the beginning of the main street.

  Naveen stopped, and looked at me. I glanced around, and realised that Didier wasn’t with us. I trotted back into the hotel to snatch him from the girls.

  ‘See you next Tuesday!’ he called out, as I dragged him away. ‘I assure you, I have gossip about well-known people that you will enjoy more than orgasm!’

  The Diva girls shrieked.

  We rejoined Naveen and Diva.

  ‘Business cards?’ I said.

  ‘I . . . thought it best to be prepared,’ Didier replied.

  ‘Show me one.’

  ‘I’d like to see one of those, too,’ Naveen said.

  ‘Me, too,’ Diva agreed. ‘Hand ’em over, Frenchy.’

  Reluctantly, he passed out the business cards, and we studied them by the light of a streetlamp.

  LOST LOVE BUREAU

  Didier Levy, Master of Love

  Naveen Adair, Master of the Lost

  The back of the card showed a picture of what I assumed to be a listening ear, with the words:

  Loose Lips Make The World Go Round

  Suite 7, The Amritsar Hotel, Metro, Bombay

  ‘Do you think it too . . . subdued?’ Didier asked earnestly.

  ‘Master of the Lost?’ Naveen said. ‘It’s a bit Tolkien, man.’

  ‘And what’s with the ear?’ I asked innocently, and should’ve kept my mouth shut.

  ‘But, Lin! You only object, because you ripped a man’s ear off a few months ago,’ Didier protested.

  ‘Not all the way off,’ I protested back. ‘And anyway, Didier, so now it’s Suite 7, and not Room 7?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Diva said, planting a hand like a tiny garden fork on my chest. ‘You ripped some guy’s ear off?’

  ‘Naveen,’ I said, ‘you can take over any time now.’

  ‘Diva –’ Naveen began.

  ‘Nothing doing from either of you,’ Diva said. ‘Not until I sit down. Where’s the limo?’

  We stared at her.

  ‘You don’t have a limo,’ Naveen said. ‘Not any more. I sent the car and driver back to be reassigned at the estate.’

  She laughed, but we weren’t laughing, so she grabbed Naveen’s shirt, yanking it up and down in her fists until she tore it.