The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

  ‘Abdullah?’ Karla asked.

  I hadn’t told her. I couldn’t betray the glory that Abdullah was, by speaking the truth of what he’d allowed himself to become that night, with Concannon.

  ‘We killed a few people together,’ Concannon replied casually. ‘No big deal. But he went native on me, and it became a war between us. Your boyfriend here was just collateral damage.’

  ‘Okay, that’s enough for me,’ I said.

  ‘Have you ever tried anger management?’ Concannon asked.

  ‘Go away, Concannon. I just ran out of shut-up.’

  ‘Before you go, if we let you go,’ Karla said. ‘Tell us what you know about Ranjit.’

  I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t care about Ranjit, and I didn’t want Lisa’s name to slither from Concannon’s serpent lips again, ever. Knowing what Concannon was capable of inflicting, knowing that his pedigree was approved by the Tuareg, I wanted him unconscious or gone.

  ‘Don’t play games with us, Concannon,’ I said. ‘If you’ve got something to tell us, spit it out.’

  ‘I ran across Ranjit at a party, in Goa. He was wearing a wig, as a disguise, but I knew it was him right away. Seein’ as how he was a millionaire on the run and all, I thought he must have some money stashed away, so I got him wasted on cocaine and heroin, and persuaded him to take me back to his digs.’

  ‘Ranjit had a house in Goa?’ Karla asked.

  ‘He was rentin’ it, I think. A fine big place it was, though. A grand place. And all the while, I’m edgin’ him toward the safe, wantin’ him to open it for me, when he suddenly opens it himself, and says Would you like to see a movie?’

  Karla put her hand on my arm gently.

  ‘What kind of movie?’

  ‘Sex tapes, it was,’ Concannon laughed. ‘Although it was very one-sided sex. The girls were all drugged senseless, you see. He wore a shower cap, and rubber gloves, leaving no trace of his sinfulness. He cleaned them and dressed them again, when he was done with them, and left them on his couch with a cosy blanket over their knees, so they woke up, and never even knew it happened.’

  ‘Ranjit did that?’

  ‘Yes, that he did,’ Concannon said. ‘You didn’t know?’

  I just got back another shut up, but Karla squeezed my arm.

  ‘Did he tell you why he did it?’

  ‘He said his wife was frigid, if you’ll pardon me for his words, and she never had sex with him, so he used those sleepin’ girls, like, to pretend that he was having sex with her. With you, that is.’

  Karla squeezed my arm.

  ‘You’re saying that’s what happened to Lisa?’

  ‘I think,’ he said, allowing his eyes to drift. ‘I think he drugged her with the Rohypnol, in a drink, but gave her too much. My stuff was pure, you see. I think she died, poor thing, before he used her.’

  ‘Who were the other girls?’

  ‘That, I don’t know.’ Concannon shrugged. ‘I only recognised one of them, and that’s because her face is in the papers, sometimes. But . . . I can tell you one thing. They all looked like you, and he dressed them all in a black wig, when he had his way with them.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be tellin’ me to shut up again, boyo,’ Concannon said to me. ‘I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I’m sick of trouble, though I never thought I’d hear meself say it. I’m retired.’

  ‘This is a good place to make it permanent.’

  ‘You’re a wicked lad,’ Concannon said, smiling. ‘With wicked thoughts, in your wicked mind.’

  ‘What did you do, when Ranjit showed you the movies?’ Karla asked.

  ‘Well, I knocked him about quite a bit, of course, and left him senseless. I couldn’t kill him, though I wanted to, because too many people had seen me with him. Then I took all the money from the safe, and I also took that tape of him with the girl from the papers.’

  ‘What did you do with it?’

  ‘Now, that’s the funny part,’ Concannon said, folding his arms, his feet poised on the bumper.

  ‘Funny?’ I said. ‘You think any of this is funny?’

  ‘Hands where I can see them,’ Karla said, and Concannon lounged backwards on his hands. ‘Funny how?’

  ‘There’s this young fool who buys cocaine from me now and then. He’s not big, but he’s got a very bad temper. His own family put a restraining order on him. He wants to be a movie star, so he deals a little stuff to the real movie stars, and gets the odd part. The girl in Ranjit’s sick film is an actress, and he’s her bad-tempered boyfriend.’

  ‘Did you give him the film?’ Karla asked, her eyes gleaming.

  ‘I did, when he came to buy stuff,’ Concannon replied, grinning happily. ‘Ranjit used to sneak back into town, from time to time, and he always bought stuff from me. I told the violent lad that Ranjit would be ghostin’ around, in disguise, at a nightclub he liked in Bandra.’

  ‘So you told the kid where Ranjit would be.’

  ‘Not only that. I gave the young savage a present. Gift-wrapped it meself. There was the movie, Ranjit’s appointment at the nightclub, and an untraceable gun, full of untraceable bullets. Human nature took care of the rest.’

  Karla squeezed my arm.

  ‘You came up here, to tell us that you set up my ex-husband?’ Karla asked.

  ‘I came up here to warn your boyfriend,’ Concannon said, straightening up.

  ‘And you’re gonna take a warning home again, Concannon.’

  ‘There you go again,’ he said, happily exasperated. ‘You are the hardest man in this whole city of screechin’ heathens to befriend. I know executioners who are more fun than you. I’m tryin’ to tell you, I’m a changed man.’

  ‘I don’t see a change,’ I said. ‘You’re still breathing.’

  ‘There’s those wicked thoughts again.’

  ‘Listen,’ he said calmly, ‘I’ve done with all that. I’m a businessman now, and legitimately so. The fact that I bear you no grudge for our last encounter should testify to that.’

  ‘You just never learn, do you?’

  ‘But I did learn,’ he insisted. ‘That’s what I’m tryin’ to say. After that fight we had, I thought about everything. I mean, everything. I got hurt, you see. My shoulder hasn’t healed well, and it doesn’t work the way it should. My timing’s off, and I’ll never again fight the way I did. See, I never before let anyone get close enough to best me, and it shook me up. My Road to Damascus experience was in a warehouse in Bombay, and it was an Australian convict who knocked me off my horse. I’ve changed. I’m a businessman, now.’

  ‘What kind of business?’ Karla asked, relaxing her grip on my arm.

  ‘I’ve put all my money into a venture with Dennis.’

  ‘The Sleeping Baba?’

  ‘The same. One fine day, I got to thinkin’ about that proverb, you know, that if you sit quietly by a river for long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.’

  I wanted Concannon to float by, on the Ganges.

  ‘And it occurred to me, in another Road to Damascus moment, that the river isn’t made of water, it’s made of stainless steel. It’s the undertaker’s table, you see? So, Dennis and me, we bought an undertaking business, and now we’re undertakers. Already, since we started, one of my enemies floated by on the preparation table. A fine drunken laugh I had that night, dressin’ him up nicely for the drop.’

  ‘Dennis went for this?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re a natural fit. I know what dead looks like, and he knows what dead feels like. I’ve never seen a man more tender with a body. He calls them sleepers, and he talks to them like they’re just asleep. It’s very kind. Very tender. But I keep a baseball bat handy, in case one of them ever talks back.’

  Concannon stopped, clapped his hands together, then pu
t the swollen knuckles into a knotted pyramid of prayer.

  ‘I know it’s hard to think that a menace to the living and the dead, like me, can give the whole thing up, but it’s the truth. I’ve changed, and the proof of it is that I’ve come up here, riskin’ your temper, to tell you two things. The first, I’ve already told you, which is all that I know about Ranjit, and that sweet girl.’

  ‘And the second thing?’ Karla asked for me.

  ‘The second thing is that the 307 Company have hired some out-of-town goondas to kill that Iranian, Abdullah, tonight. And since Abdullah’s hiding out up here, that puts you two in the firing line.’

  ‘When will they come?’ I asked.

  Concannon checked his watch, and grinned the reply.

  ‘In about three hours,’ he said. ‘You’d have had longer, if you weren’t so bloody obstreperous, and I could’ve cleared me mind without interruption.’

  For all I knew, Concannon was setting us up. I didn’t like it.

  ‘Why are you telling us this?’ Karla asked.

  ‘I’m tyin’ up loose ends, miss,’ Concannon smiled. ‘I never had nothin’ against your man. I tried to recruit the stubborn fool, and I wouldn’t have done that, if I hadn’t taken a shine to ’im. I treated him poorly, when it was Abdullah that I hated, because he turned on me, and threatened my life.’

  ‘Stop talking about Abdullah,’ I said.

  ‘But I don’t hate him any more,’ he persisted. ‘He did nothin’ wrong, even if he is an Iranian . . . person. It was me that did wrong, and I admit it freely. Anyway, the Iranian will likely meet his end, tonight. And now I found a place where I feel at home, and in one way or another, I know I’ll find peace, as other people kill my enemies and send them to me. I’ll be with my own kind, so to speak. I don’t know if you understand.’

  ‘We understand,’ Karla said, although I didn’t.

  ‘Do you believe me, when I say that I have no quarrel with either of you, and that I wish you no harm?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Concannon.’

  ‘They say he’s a writer,’ Concannon winked at Karla. ‘They must be teenie weenie little books that he writes.’

  ‘He’s the big book,’ Karla gave back. ‘I’m the big character. Thank you, Concannon, for the heads-up. What’s your first name, by the way?’

  ‘Fergus,’ I said before he did, and he laughed, jumping from the car with his arms wide.

  ‘You do like me! I knew it! Will you stab me, if I give you a hug?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t come back.’

  He let his arms fall slowly, smiled at Karla, and walked a few steps backwards to his car.

  ‘There’s no use in callin’ the police,’ he said at the car. ‘There’s a lot of money been paid to keep this mountain dark tonight, until the Iranian is dead, once and for all.’

  He started the car, locked the wheel, hit the gas and spun around beside us, his arm resting on the open window.

  ‘Would you like some dynamite?’ he asked. ‘I’ve a box full in the back, and no purpose for it at all, now.’

  ‘Maybe next time,’ Karla smiled, waving him away.

  The twinned tail-lights on either side of the car were bats, swooping into the first curve. She turned to me quickly, waking the queens.

  ‘We haven’t seen Abdullah up here, so he must be at Khaled’s. We’ve gotta warn him.’

  ‘Agreed, and then Silvano and the students. This might spill up the hill to Idriss.’

  She braced herself for the run to Khaled’s mansion, but I held her back.

  ‘Can we talk about something, before we talk to Khaled?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, relaxing from a run almost started. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘You know how we said we’ll always be together?’

  She looked at me, hands on hips.

  ‘I’m not hiding in a hollow tree, Shantaram,’ she said, the squint in her smile scanning me.

  ‘I don’t mean that. I’m trying to explain something.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘If things get rough tonight, don’t separate from me. Stick to my side, or my back. Lock your elbow in mine, if you have to. If we’re back to back, you shoot, and I’ll cut. But let’s be one thing, because if we’re not, I’ll go nuts worrying about you.’

  She laughed, and hugged me, so I guess some part of it must’ve been right.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said, getting ready for the run to Khaled’s.

  ‘Wait,’ I said.

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Maybe next time?’ I said, repeating her final words to Concannon.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said Maybe next time to Concannon, when he offered us dynamite.’

  ‘Now? You’re bringing this up now?’

  ‘Concannon isn’t a next-time guy. He’s a one-time guy, and half a planet is almost far enough away.’

  ‘You don’t believe in redemption?’

  She was adorable, when she teased, but we were talking about Concannon, and there were killers coming to the mountain to kill our friend.

  ‘I don’t believe Concannon,’ I replied. ‘The overtaking version, or the undertaking version. I don’t believe anything he says. This could be a trap.’

  ‘Good,’ she shouted, sprinting up the path. ‘Coming?’

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  We heard music and chanting, hundreds of voices in harmony, as we turned the last bend on the tree-lined path to Khaled’s mansion. It was lit like a prison, with spotlights fixed to trees.

  ‘His flock must’ve grown,’ Karla said quietly, as we stopped together on the path before the steps, looking at the floodlit veranda. ‘That’s quite a chorus.’

  The trees around us, bleached of leaves by spotlights, were startled skeletons with their hands in the air. The chanting was intense, the singers drunk on devotion.

  Khaled walked out through the wide doorway and onto the veranda, his hands on his hips.

  He was a shadow figure, black against the lights that were slow-burning our eyes. He had two shadow figures with him.

  He raised his hand, and the devoted chanting stopped. Insects sang the silence again.

  ‘Salaam aleikum,’ he said.

  ‘Wa aleikum salaam,’ Karla and I both said.

  Very loud, very big dogs started barking somewhere. It was a sound that makes you think of sharp teeth, and running away. Karla slipped her elbow through mine. The barking was ferocious. Khaled raised his hand again, and the barking stopped.

  ‘Sorry, wrong tape,’ he said, handing a remote control to a shadow figure. ‘What are you doing here, Lin?’

  ‘We came to see Abdullah,’ Karla said.

  ‘What are you doing here, Lin?’

  ‘Like she said,’ I replied. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Abdullah has cleansed himself for death, and is at prayer,’ Khaled replied. ‘No-one can disturb him. Not even me. He is alone with Allah.’

  ‘They’re coming for him,’ I said.

  ‘We know,’ Khaled said. ‘There are no students here. The ashram has been closed for some time. We are –’

  The chanting started again. After a few frenzies it stopped, mid-mantra.

  ‘Stop playing with the remote, Jabalah!’ Khaled shouted over his shoulder.

  Insects and frogs welcomed the silence again.

  ‘We are ready for war,’ Khaled said.

  ‘Now, where have I read that before?’ Karla said.

  Khaled held up his hand imperially.

  ‘I am the one who spread the rumour that Abdullah is here. I am the one who provoked this attack, out of the city. This is a trap, Lin, and you are standing in it.’

  Dogs barked again.

  ‘Jabalah!’ Khaled shouted, and tape stopped.

  Khaled walked down the silen
ce, to join us on the path. He’d lost half the weight he’d gained, and had been training again. He looked fit, strong, confident and dangerous. It seemed that he’d learned to love himself.

  He took my hands in his, leaning close between us, but he spoke to Karla in whispers.

  ‘Hello, Karla,’ he said, embracing me. ‘I cannot greet you, directly, in front of my men, because you are a woman, in the company of a man who is not your family.’

  He hugged me close to him, whispering into my ear for the sake of his men, but speaking to her.

  ‘My commiserations, on the loss of your husband. You must leave this place, now. There will be war tonight.’

  He pulled away, but I held his arm.

  ‘You knew about this, and you didn’t warn us?’

  ‘You are warned now, Lin, and you should take that as a blessing. You must leave. My men are nervous. Let’s not have any accidents.’

  ‘Allah hafiz, Khaled,’ Karla said, dragging me away.

  ‘Tell Abdullah . . . tell him we’re here, on the mountain, if he needs us,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll tell him, but I can only speak to him when the fighting begins,’ Khaled answered sadly. ‘Peace be with you both tonight.’

  He waved, because we were at the end of the path, and it was too far away for him to speak his mind. We waved back, and we jogged to the start of the long climb up the mountain.

  I stopped her. It was dark, but reflections glittered in her eyes.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’

  ‘Again?’ She laughed.

  ‘It might get bad tonight,’ I said. ‘If you want to get far away, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.’

  ‘Let’s go warn Idriss first,’ she smiled, starting on the path.

  I chased her all the way up the slope, and we were puffing hard when we rushed onto the mesa, bright with students, talking late by the fire.

  We found Silvano, and pushed him to a meeting with Idriss, in the big cave.

  ‘Killers,’ Idriss said, when the story told itself.

  ‘And pretty good at it,’ I said. ‘We’ve gotta get away from here, Idriss. At least for tonight.’

  ‘Of course. We must take the students to safety. I’ll give the instruction at once.’