The Mountain Shadow

‘I know,’ he said quickly. ‘I know what you’re thinkin’ and I know what you’re gonna say. And it’s true. I can’t deny it. I like hurtin’ people who deserve it. I’m a twisted cunt. Lucky for me, there’s a lot of twisted girls out there, so I’m happy bein’ twisted. But you’re not like that. You have your principles. Don’t you get it? You’re the talk softly, and I’m the big stick. You look ’em in the eyes, do business with ’em, and shake their hands. I chop their hands off, if they disobey.’

‘Chopping people’s hands off. There’s a leap forward.’

‘I’ve given it a lotta thought,’ he said alarmingly. ‘That’s why I’ve been tryin’ to pull you away from that French mincer.’

‘You just don’t know when to quit, do you?’

‘No, wait, hear me out. It’s . . . it’s like . . . if you strip a religion down to its most basic parts, the parts that make it work so well and last for hundreds and hundreds of years, it boils down to this – nice words and the fear of horrible punishments that never end. You and me. You can’t beat a combination like that. Popes and heathen mullahs have got fat on it for centuries.’

I let out a long sigh, and put my palms on my knees, preparing to stand. He reached out to put a hand on my wrist. The grip of his hard fingers was fierce, and there was enormous strength in it.

‘That’s not advised,’ I said.

He released his grip on my arm.

‘Sorry, I . . . just . . . think about it,’ he said, the grin leaning in through the doorway of his eyes again. ‘I’ll talk to you in a few days. We won’t be alone in this, if you throw in with me. I’m already talkin’ with others, and there’s plenty of them that’s interested, make no mistake. Think about it. That’s not too much to ask for savin’ your talk softly arse today, is it? I’d like to have you in this with me. I’ll need someone to talk to. Someone I trust. Just think about it, that’s all I ask.’

I rode away, leaving him standing there under the blue plastic awning. I didn’t think about his offer, but I did think about him, that afternoon, as I made the rounds of cafés and bars we used as passport drops.

I talked with my contacts. I listened to gangster street music: gossip, slander, lies and denunciation. Always funny. But in every idle moment my thoughts returned to Concannon, and to those tears he resented so bitterly, but failed to stop.

What dream, what hope, what despair drives us to the things we do, just to desert us when the deed is done? What hollow things are they, motive and reason, born at night to fade so quickly in the sunlight of consequence? What we do in life lives on inside us, long after ambition and fear lie frosted and opaqued on forgotten shores. What we do in life, more than what we think or say, is what we are.

Concannon was running into crime, and I was already running away from it. For too long I’d done things because the fear of capture became a mirror, a face in the water, not really me, and I absolved myself of my own sins. But the waters were stirred, and the face I’d always put on the things that I did was blurred, and vanishing.

Chapter Seventeen

I waited for Lisa outside the Mahesh hotel, enjoying the city. It had rained intermittently but heavily through the afternoon, yet the early evening air was hot and dry beneath the brooding sky.

Occasional waves struck at the low sea wall, crashing up and over to splash across half the wide street. Children courted the waves, running from spray to spray, while couples skipped away.

Hopeful carriage drivers slowed beside the strollers, trying to entice them into their rickety, high-wheeled carts. Peanut sellers wandered among the walkers, fanning the glowing coals they carried in baskets around their necks. Smoke from the little fires, filled with the flavour of roasted peanuts, drifted among the strollers, temptation turning their heads.

The whole city, washed clean by the heavy rains, was more fragrant than usual. The cloud-soaked sky locked in scents of food cooking on hundreds of small street stalls, bhel puri, pav bhaji, pakodas, and sweet pungencies from paan sellers, incense traders, and the frangipani garlands being sold at every traffic signal.

I counted thoughts on perfumed strands, and then I heard her voice.

‘A penny,’ Lisa said.

I turned.

‘They don’t make pennies any more,’ I said, pulling her close to me and kissing her.

‘Are you forgetting this is Bombay?’ she asked, not resisting me. ‘People get arrested for kissing in public.’

‘Maybe they’ll put us in the same prison cell,’ I suggested, holding her close.

‘I . . . don’t think so,’ she laughed.

‘Then I’ll escape, and come bust you out.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then I’ll bring you back here, on an evening just like this, and kiss you again, just like this.’

‘Wait a minute,’ she said, studying my face. ‘You’ve been fighting again.’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Come off it. You’re trying to distract me! That’s a dirty trick, buster.’

‘What?’

‘Jesus, Lin! Fighting again? What the fuck?’