The Mountain Shadow

He’d been using my bike as a prop, while I was away. He was a Zone-Drifter. His bing was to sit on other people’s motorcycles and in other people’s cars to do business. He’d just done a drug deal, sitting on my bike, and he was sharing the take with me. When I was with the Sanjay Company, it wouldn’t have occurred to him to use my bike for business. It was insubordinate, and he knew it. He was wondering if I knew it or not.

I grabbed the collar of his shirt, and pushed the money into his pocket.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Sid, using my bike?’

‘Things are bad on the street, just now, Linbaba! Afghans in Mohammed Ali Road, and Scorpions under the bed. A man doesn’t know where to deal his dope any more.’

‘Apologise.’

‘I’m so sorry, Linbaba.’

‘Not to me, to the motorcycle. You were supposed to look after her. Apologise.’

He leaned in toward the bike, both hands pressed together, while I held his shirt. He was a slippery one, and we both knew I’d have to ride him down rather than run him down, if he escaped.

He put his pressed palms to his forehead.

‘I’m so sorry, motorcycle-ji, for my bad manners,’ he said fervently. ‘I promise to respect you, in future.’

He reached out to stroke her, but I wouldn’t let him.

‘That’s enough. Don’t do it again.’

‘No, sir.’

‘And tell all the other Zone-Drifters to stay away from her.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I rode to the jam on the Back Bay using a route that didn’t pass Arshan’s home. I didn’t want to think about the treasure, or young Farzad, coma-roaming at the hospital. I was blue: blue enough to need jazz.

I parked beside Naveen’s bike, near the crowd of fifty or sixty university students sitting on the shore. Jazz was raising people to the same exalted high. I stood on the edge of the group, my hands in my jacket pockets. I was surfing the sounds with thoughts of Karla, knowing how much she would’ve loved it.

‘Musician pricks,’ Naveen muttered, joining me.

He was looking at Diva, who was sitting in adoration at the feet of a very talented, good-looking guitar player named Raghav. He was a nice kid, and a friend of mine, but Naveen had a point.

‘Indeed.’

Diva was unrecognisable to anyone but her friends, the rich Diva girls, who were with Didier, sitting apart from the main group on the lawns of the Back Bay.

She wore no make-up. The bindi on her forehead was a glass diamond, her earrings were brass, and her bracelets were plastic. Her clothes and sandals came from a slum shop, reflecting the latest fashion for slum girls.

It suited her, as it did all the girls in the slum. But the presence of the Diva girls, from the richer life, worried me.

‘The girls came along?’ I asked.

‘I couldn’t keep them away,’ Naveen sighed. ‘Diva says they’re sworn to secrecy. I had to let her do this. She’s been a prisoner in the slum for nearly two weeks, Lin. She needs this.’

‘I guess you’re right. And the students might not recognise her. She’s got the slum-girl thing down pretty good.’

‘You should hear her swear,’ Naveen said. ‘I wandered into a session the other day. The girls were teaching her what to say when a guy hits on you. It was very instructive. You want to hear some of it?’

‘I lived there,’ I said. ‘I know it starts with lauda lasoon, and ends with saala lukka. Please, God, don’t let Diva unload what she’s learned on me.’

‘Amen.’

‘Have the Diva girls been in the slum?’

He laughed, and I frowned, because I was asking about the security of Johnny Cigar and his family, and it wasn’t funny to me.

‘That’s funny?’

‘Yeah,’ he laughed again.

‘Why?’

‘Because if Diva’s Divas ever visit the slum, I’ve got this running bet with Didier.’

‘Once again, young detective, I why you. Why?’

He sighed, letting out some embarrassment.

‘Didier was trying to get the girls to the slum, and have a ghost story night. They were really up for it, but more scared of the slum than the ghosts. I said to Didier, the day they go to the slum, I’ll race Benicia around the loop.’

It was a significant boast. Naveen had been practising a few stunts and tricks with Colaba biker boys, and he was becoming a good rider, but racing Benicia was another matter.

She was a Spanish girl who’d lived in Bombay for a couple of years. She bought Rajasthani jewellery, and sold it to buyers from Barcelona. She was a single girl who kept to herself, and was a significant mystery because of it. But everyone knew that when she rode her vintage 350cc bike around Bombay, nobody beat Benicia.

‘You know Benicia?’

‘Not . . . yet.’

‘And you’re serious about the bet?’

‘Sure,’ he laughed, but then smartened up. ‘You’re not thinking of bribing the Diva girls into the slum, are you?’

‘No-one should go there,’ I said. ‘Diva’s there as a guest of Johnny and his family. Until the people who killed her father are caught, no-one should go to see her, in case they expose those people to harm.’

‘You’re . . . you’re right, of course,’ he said stiffly. ‘I wasn’t thinking of that. I’ll try to stop the Diva girls, but Didier might’ve already persuaded them. I’m sorry.’