It All Began in Monte Carlo (39 page)

“So, my onetime friend, what do you think now of the ‘chances life might offer'?”

“I wish I'd never heard of you,” Sunny said.

Maha nodded. “I wish that also. But it's too late and we must move on.” She clapped her hands and the three women servants from the house pattered in.

“Look at them,” Maha said sadly. “I offered them safety, a new life, secure in my household. You will notice their scars, Sunny?”

They lifted their faces so Sunny might see.

“I knew the men who did this to them when they were little girls living in the slums like me, eating from the festering garbage dumps, running from men when we could, running, running, always running.

“You know they are mute?” Maha added. “Their tongues were cut out so they might make more pitiable beggars, cry for a few pennies more, with only pathetic choked sounds coming from their vacant mouths. Years later, after I had escaped, I went back and searched for my little friends. I took them with me, made them whole again, as far as any woman who had undergone such horror could be made whole, of course. Now, they will never leave me. Whatever course my life takes, they are with me.”

Sunny struggled to take in the horror. She could not look at the women. She wanted to cry. Instead she glared at Maha. “And am I condemned to be with you forever too, Maha? Wherever you might go?”

Maha laughed. “I think I must explain something. What I asked you to do, bring my jewelry back to Mumbai, was
not
legal. Those beautiful big round cabochon stones were fakes, mere covers for the diamonds stolen from La Fontaine that night in Monte Carlo. Remember, Sunny? We were in the hotel bar and there was the sound of police sirens? It was at that moment I knew we had been successful, and then Sharon came hurrying in, and Ferdie and Giorgio. My accomplices in crime. And Rahm Singh, who betrayed me too, and would have killed you.”

She moved closer to Sunny, put her hand on her arm. “You see, years ago I found how to beat my way out of the slums. Small-time
at first of course, then I grew bolder and more clever. I was making my jewelry, selling well, but I wanted more. I wanted big. I wanted . . .
everything
. And that's how I became one of the best thieves the world has ever known.”

Maha laughed, remembering, as she summoned the servants again. “Dress her,” she said in their language. “Darken her skin, put kohl on her eyes, henna her hair. She must look like us.”

To Sunny she said, “They will disguise you. You must allow them to do it if you wish to get out of here alive. When you are done they will escort you through the bazaar. They will take you to a man I know. A friend.” She smiled ruefully. “I should probably say now, a once-upon-a-time friend, for after this he will no longer want to know me, maybe even deny ever knowing me.” She shrugged. “It no longer matters. He has already received my message. He will take care of you. But you must not call the police, do not attempt to call Mac, not until my friend has time to work things out. Not until he is sure you are safe.”

“And give you time to get away,” Sunny said.

Maha smiled.

“You saved me,” Sunny said.

Maha smiled again. “Corruption is everywhere, my dear Sunny. You can trust only this man. Your life is in this good man's hands.”

“I won't say anything until he gives me permission,” Sunny promised. Maha had saved her life; she knew that now. This was the least she could do.

The women were already rubbing a brown oil into Sunny's legs and her arms, putting henna in her hair. Sunny suddenly couldn't bear it.

“Maha,” she cried. “This can't be true, this can't be happening. You only meant well, you only stole the diamonds . . .”

“I was wrong,” Maha said, in a quiet voice. “I should have known that whenever money is involved, big money, anything might happen, and usually does. Men kill for money, it's as simple as that.
People you have trusted. But then, trust is often a misplaced emotion. Like love.”

She stepped back, watching the women wrap a blue cotton sari around Sunny, tucking it in expertly, and because she would not understand how to wear it and manipulate its folds as she walked, they fastened it with a giant safety pin.

“My aquamarine would have been better,” Maha said, with a little laugh. “And now my dear Sunny, with your dark eyes and the folds of blue cotton hiding your face, you look like my sister.”

Maha clapped her hands again and the women went and stood beside her. She spoke to them, telling them what to do, handing them a piece of paper with an address written on it to give to the rickshaw boy. And another with the number of the killer's car to give to the man. Then she walked over to Sunny.

They looked at each other for a long moment. Maha put out her hand, touched Sunny's face. “I'm so sorry for the pain I have caused you,” she said. And with that, she walked out of the room.

Sunny heard her footsteps on the wooden stairs, then she too was bustled down those stairs, and out through an alley, into a noisy bazaar thronged with men selling everything from CDs to old furniture; men chanting their wares; offering
chai
in tiny metal cups from the steaming hot water tanks slung around their necks; children selling mango juice and hot-pink sugar sweets; bicycle-rickshaws slamming their way through the stalls; a brown cow peacefully grazing off the green vegetables at another stall; the aroma of curries and fenugreek, coriander and cumin and the piles of yellow and red spices.

Two of the women servants walked in front, hurrying, heads down. Sunny trotted in back of them, sari held over her face, with the third woman tight behind her. She did not even notice the two men running past, dressed in the baggy Indian cotton pants and cheap shirts, dark glasses and Yankees baseball caps. Ferdie and Giorgio, wolves in sheep's clothing, on Maha's trail, the woman they needed dead so they would be safe.

The servants elbowed their way expertly through the crowd. They came to the end of the street and stood, searching until two bicycle-rickshaw boys squeaked to a stop. Sunny climbed in with one of the women, the other two followed. One of the boys was given the paper with the address and they both pedaled off, pulling their human loads as if they were nothing.

Soon they were leaving the crowds behind, entering a calmer, more residential area. Children in uniforms with backpacks full of books were heading for school; dogs were being walked by white-uniformed maids; cooks hurried to the bazaar to find what was fresh today; pastel-colored houses were set back behind hedges of bougainvillea, and shaded by tamarisk trees, pleasant, normal homes where real people lived.

The rickshaws stopped at a pale blue house, the color of Sunny's sari. The guard at the gate eyed them suspiciously until one of the women handed him a note for his employer. He picked up a phone and called the house. After a moment, he indicated that they were to go in, but the women shook their heads and backed away. They pointed at Sunny: only she was to go. They waited until the gate opened, then clanged behind her, before they left.

Sunny turned her head to watch them go. She hoped with all her heart they would find the kind of peace again that Maha had given them.

A man was waiting for her at the top of the short flight of marble steps that led into the house, both hands outstretched in welcome. He was shorter than Sunny, round with a pleasant face and a bristling mustache, and an air of quiet authority.

“Come in, my dear,” he said. “I am Jai Lal and I will help you.”

With Ron at the controls, the Citation hovered over Mumbai's aqua-green shore, leveling out, ready for landing. Garbage mountains lurked on the skyline amid the modern towers and streets choked with traffic, seething with humanity, cows and rickshaws, dogs and cats and roving bands of wild cockatiels escaped from the cages of smart households to find freedom nesting among the palms. Cricket was being played on green fields by boys in “cricket whites,” and baseball was played in dusty alleys by different kinds of boys, using broken broom handles and a stolen ball. The racecourse was in full swing; glistening chestnut horses sweated in the paddock and hatted women drank champagne, while street-smart little kids stole anything they could get their scrawny hands on. Daily life in Mumbai went on as Ron landed the plane and taxied to the private hangars.

Two uniformed men lounged against a police car, waiting, and Mac was already on the phone to their chief. The news about the abduction of a young American woman had been held back while the chief's men searched the bazaars and all known hangouts. But now he had news.

Two bodies had been found in Maha Mondragon's house. A gatekeeper and Rahm Singh, Maha's assistant, the man who oversaw her life and her house on Malabar Hill. He told Mac that Singh
had been stabbed in the neck. It looked as though the killer was unable to remove the weapon, which was still sticking out of the victim's throat when they found him, amid a torrent of blood. The weapon was a diamond cutter's tool.

No other people had been found in the house, though it was known Mondragon had ten servants.

“When trouble happens here everyone disappears,” the chief said. “They go back to the streets, the bazaars, the countryside, to wherever it was they came from. Anywhere but where the trouble is.” He paused, then added, “Miss Alvarez was not there, though there is evidence she was staying at the house, clothes still hanging in the guest-room closet, and the bed slept in. Unfortunately, Mr. Reilly, the room is in disarray, there may have been a fight.”

The full force of Mac's energy got him across the tarmac and into the police car. Ron hobbled behind, as fast as he could on the crutches, and they were driven to Maha's house.

It was guarded by police but they were expected. They walked through its cool spaces with the rich furnishings in the bright colors of India that mimicked the blossoms outside in the garden.

Ron said admiringly, “Some place. Better than Bel Air . . . wonderful colors . . .”

“Shut up, Ron,” Mac said through gritted teeth.

“Sorry.” Ron shut up.

They were shown to the guest room. With a feeling of foreboding, Ron watched as Mac walked to the bed, touched the shallow imprint where Sunny's body had lain, looked at the little flight of wooden steps, fallen to one side, the torn muslin curtains and the blood staining the side of the bed, tracking across the silk rug to the open French windows.

Mac knew the police had already searched the room thoroughly, but he did it again now. He was looking for Sunny's cell phone. He did not find it. On an impulse he called her number, and, astonished, heard it ring. There was no reply.

He called the chief, asked him to try to locate the mobile phone reception area.

They walked back through the house to the kitchen.

“Wait.” Ron had stopped and was looking at a fretted wooden screen, off to one side up a narrow stairway. “A good place to spy,” he said.

Mac walked up the steps and stood behind the screen. He was looking down into a kitchen large enough to cater parties of at least a hundred. Banks of ovens, microwaves, walls of gas burners . . . Maha would have needed a dozen chefs, not merely a cook and a couple of assistants. The big doors were open to catch the breeze and also, Mac knew, to remove the odor of death. A slab of white marble was used as a table. Six chairs stood round it, one tumbled to the floor, two others pushed hastily back.

Young men in green scrubs were still working on the crime scene, examining the floor inch by inch, tweezering hairs, cloth fragments, fluff, dried blood, into small plastic bags.

Rahm Singh's body had been removed but pools of blood had congealed into blackish heaps, around which the everlasting flies buzzed. A half-unraveled turban lay where it had fallen when he tumbled backward off that chair, almost dead but not quite because his blood had still been gushing. And not, Mac suspected, before he saw his killers make off with what they had come for.

Standing behind the fretted wooden screen, he wondered who had been standing here last night? Who had witnessed the killing? Who knew the identity of the killers?

His phone vibrated; it was the chief telling him they had located the area where Sunny's phone had rung. It was in one of the bazaars, well-known for its criminal element.

When Mac and Ron arrived at the bazaar the police were already in full force, charging through the crowd that scattered before them; inspecting stalls, and behind stalls; searching alleys and old buildings because nothing here was too old or broken-down for
the poorest who inhabited them. Only one house was ominously empty. They went inside and up the splintered wooden stairs to a room on the second floor.

They found the torn muslin bed curtains, the discarded duct tape, traces of blood. But no Sunny. The police photographers were already documenting the scene when Mac's phone rang.

“It's me,” Sunny said. “Mac,
oooh Mac,
you have to come and get me . . .”

“Tell me where.”
He was already running down the stairs and out the door.

She gave him the address. “I'm okay, I'm safe now, a lovely man helped me . . . he's on the phone talking to the chief of police, I couldn't call you before, I'll tell you why when you get here, I'll tell the police, I know they'll want to question me . . .”

He pushed through the crowd to the police car where Ron was waiting, gave the driver the address, thought about calling the chief and decided to wait till he got to Sunny.

Soon they were driving through a respectable neighborhood; respectable houses; respectable children kicking respectable soccer balls. Life was normal here.

The guard at the pale blue house was expecting them and opened the gates. Mac saw Sunny on the steps. She was wearing a white cotton Nehru shirt that came just above her knees, and plastic flip-flops. Her legs were bandaged. With her silken newly hennaed hair streaming down her back and tears in her eyes, Mac thought she looked like an angel from heaven. An Indian angel. An Indian heaven.