The Mountain Shadow

A lavish housewarming party warmed the frosty noses of local snobs, Jagat said, and some of the movie star guests remained regular visitors to Vishnu’s excess.

‘Vishnu put up the money for a really big Hindi picture,’ Jagat said. ‘They’re shooting it in Bulgaria, or Australia. One of those foreign places. His photo was in all the papers, at the big shot party, when they announced the new movie.’

‘And nobody moved to arrest him for killing the Afghan guards, killing Nazeer and Tariq, and starting the fire that ate Khaderbhai’s house, and a portion of the city?’

‘No witnesses, baba-dude. Charges dropped. The Assistant Commissioner was at the party to announce the new movie. The hero of the movie is a rough and ready cop, based on the Assistant Commissioner dude himself, and how tough he was on crime and criminals, and how many of them he killed in encounters. And Vishnu is paying for it. I don’t get it, man. It’s like robbing your own bank, somehow.’

‘I hear you,’ I said.

‘Funny guys,’ Karla laughed. ‘How many bodyguards did Vishnu have with him?’

‘Four, I think,’ Jagat said. ‘About the same as the Assistant Commissioner.’

‘Why the bodyguard question?’ I asked her.

‘It’s the Inverse Fair Law. The more bodyguards, the less integrity.’

‘And the Cycle Killers have totally changed their image,’ Jagat replied, shaking his head. ‘They got a complete new look.’

‘Recycled Killers,’ Karla said. ‘How’s the new look?’

‘Well, I guess you can say it’s better than the old look. They wear white slacks, and peppermint-coloured shirts.’

‘All of them?’

‘Yeah. They’re heroes, now.’

‘Heroes?’ I doubted.

‘I’m not kidding. People love those guys. Even my girlfriend bought me a peppermint shirt.’

‘Cycle Killers in Jeeps, huh?’

‘In Jeeps, with chrome bicycles attached on the roll bars.’

‘And they don’t kill people any more?’

‘No. They’re called No Problem now.’

‘No Problem?’ Karla asked, intrigued.

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s like calling yourself Okay,’ I said. ‘Everybody says no problem every three minutes, in India. People say no problem even when there is a problem.’

‘Exactly,’ Jagat replied. ‘It’s brilliant. No problem too big, or too small. No Problem.’

‘You’re kidding me, Jagat.’

‘No way, baba-dude,’ he insisted. ‘I swear. And it’s working. People are asking them to negotiate for the release of kidnap victims, and such. They got a kidnapped millionaire free last week, and the only fingers he had left were on his left hand. Those fingers were on the line, too, until No Problem got on the case. People are asking them to fix building and construction problems that have tied up crores of rupees for years, man. They’re working shit out, for anyone who pays them.’

‘Nice,’ Karla said.

‘Uh-huh,’ I said, not easy with what I’d heard.

Back Street, Main Street and Wall Street are the three big streets in every city, and none of them play well together on the shallower edges of tangled banks.

The streets are apart, and false distinctions keep them apart, because whenever they intersect eyes find love, and minds see injustice, and the truth sets them free. Power, in any street, has a lot to lose from free minds and hearts, because power is the opposite of freedom. As one of the powerless, I prefer the Back Street guys to stay out of Main Street, the cops to fund their own movies, and the Wall Street guys to stay out of everything, until all the streets become One Street.

I had to pull my thoughts away: I knew that every hour Jagat spent with us added traffic to his ride back to the city. Karla, thinking with me perhaps, brought me back.

‘Have you been checking on Didier for us?’ Karla asked the young Ronin.

‘Jarur,’ the young street soldier said, spitting. ‘He still hangs out at Leopold’s, and he’s fine.

‘Hey, those Zodiac guys,’ he said, ‘the millionaires, they’re back in town.’

‘Where?’

‘The Mahesh, man,’ he said. ‘I can’t check on anyone inside that place. Not born with the right barcode to get past that scanner, you know.’

‘If you find anything out, let me know.’

‘Sure. Hey, you know why people looked after those two foreigners so much when they lived on the street?’ he asked thoughtfully.

‘They’re very nice guys?’ I suggested.

‘Apart from that,’ he said, his foot making a pattern of swirls in the dust at our feet.

‘Please, tell us,’ Karla urged, always drawn to the sun inside.

‘They were called the Zodiac Georges,’ he said. ‘That’s why. In India, I mean, it’s like a really big deal, you know? It’s like calling yourself Karma, or something. Everywhere they went, they carried the Zodiac with them, in their names. When you fed them, you fed the Zodiac. When you offered them a safe place, you offered safety