The Mountain Shadow

‘If you want, I’ll look into it,’ Naveen said softly.

Gemini and Scorpio looked at me. I shrugged.

‘Yeah,’ Scorpio agreed quickly. ‘Hell, yeah. Please try to find out who this guy is, if you can.’

‘We’ve gotta get to the bottom of this,’ Gemini added fervently. ‘Scorpio’s got me so aggravated, I woke up with me hands around me own neck, this mornin’. It’s come to a pretty pass, when a man strangles himself in his own sleep.’

‘What should we do now?’ Scorpio asked.

‘Stay out of sight, as much as possible,’ Naveen said. ‘Let Lin know, if you find out where the guy’s staying. Or leave a message for me at the Natraj building, on Merewether. Naveen Adair.’

There was a little silence while the Zodiac Georges looked at one another, then at Naveen, then back at me.

‘Sounds like a plan,’ I said, shaking hands with Gemini.

The money I’d given him was enough for at least two of their favourite drugs, a few soft days in a rough hotel, clean clothes from their frequently unpaid laundry man, and a diet of the Bengali desserts they loved.

They wriggled into the camouflage of the crowded street, Scorpio stooping to put his head beside the Londoner’s as they walked.

‘What do you make of it?’ I asked Naveen.

‘I’m smelling lawyer,’ he replied carefully. ‘I’ll see what pops up from the toaster. I can’t guarantee a result. I’m an amateur, remember.’

‘An amateur is anyone who hasn’t learned how not to do it,’ I said.

‘Not bad. Is that a quote?’

‘It is.’

‘Who said it?’

‘A woman I know. What’s it to you?’

‘Can I meet her?’

‘No.’

‘Please.’

‘What is it with you and meeting hard-to-meet people?’

‘It was Karla, wasn’t it? An amateur is anyone who hasn’t learned how not to do it. Nice.’

I stopped, standing close to him.

‘Let’s make a deal,’ I said. ‘You don’t mention Karla again, to me.’

‘That’s not a deal,’ he said, smiling easily.

‘Glad you understand. We were not minding if we do have a drink, remember?’

We walked into Leopold’s beer-and-curry-scented cave. It was late afternoon, the lull before the storm of tourists, drug dealers, black marketers, racketeers, actors, students, gangsters, and good girls with an eye for bad boys squalled in through the wide arches to shout, eat, drink and chance their souls on the wet roulette of Leopold’s thirty restaurant tables.

It was Didier’s favourite time in the bar, nudging out second place, which was every other hour that the bar was open, and I found him sitting alone at his regular table, set against the back wall, with a clear view of all three entrances.

He was reading a newspaper, holding the pages at arm’s length.

‘Holy shit, Didier! A newspaper! You should warn people about a shock like that.’

I turned to the waiter, uneponymously named Sweetie, who was loitering with intent, his pink nametag loitering sideways on his jacket.

‘What’s the matter with you, Sweetie? You should’ve put a sign outside, or something.’

‘Fuck you very much,’ Sweetie replied, shifting a match from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue.

Didier tossed the newspaper aside, and hugged me.

‘You wear the sun well,’ he said.

He held me for a moment, examining me with forensic thoroughness.

‘You look like the stand-out. That is the expression? Not the star actor, but the one who takes all the punishment.’

‘The expression is stand-in, but I’ll take stand-out. Say hello to another stand-out, Naveen Adair.’

‘Ah, the detective!’ Didier said, shaking hands warmly, and running a professional eye over Naveen’s tall, athletic frame. ‘I’ve heard all about you, from my journalist friend, Kavita Singh.’

‘She covered you, too,’ Naveen replied with a smile. ‘And may I say, it’s an honour to meet the man behind all the stories.’

‘I did not expect a young man of such impeccable manners,’ Didier responded quickly, gesturing toward the chairs, and signalling to Sweetie. ‘What will you have? Beers? Sweetie! Three very chilled beers, please!’

‘Fuck you very much,’ Sweetie mumbled, his end-of-shift slippers dragging to the kitchen.

‘He’s a repellent brute,’ Didier said, watching Sweetie leave. ‘But I feel myself strangely drawn to the effortlessness of his misery.’

We were three men at the table, but we all sat in a line with our backs to the wall, facing across the scatter of tables to the wide arches, open to the street. Didier let his eyes rove around the restaurant: a castaway, scanning the horizon.

‘Well,’ he said, inclining his head toward me. ‘The adventure in Goa?’

I took a small package of letters wrapped in blue ribbons from my pocket, and handed it across. Didier took the bundle and cradled it in his palms for a moment, as if it were an injured bird.

‘Did you . . . did you have to beat him for them?’ he asked me, still staring at the letters.

‘No.’

‘Oh,’ he sighed, looking up quickly.

‘Should I have?’

‘No, of course, not,’ Didier explained, sniffing back a tear. ‘Didier could not pay for such a thing.’

‘You didn’t pay me at all.’

‘Technically, in paying nothing, I am still paying. Am I right, Naveen?’