Authors: Gay Hendricks
Tags: #ebook, #book
We shared a smile.
“I am Dok,” she said.
“Ten,” I answered.
“Traveling to Bangkok, Mr. Ten?”
“Delhi.”
“Business or pleasure?”
Good question.
“Neither one, or maybe both.”
“Ahh,” she said. “A mystery.”
Indeed.
Moments after take-off, I fell into a deep and much-needed sleep. I didn’t move a muscle as we headed west, a small speck in the sky, pursuing the sun. I awoke several hours past Fiji. I was ravenous. Dok had kindly set aside an Asian-vegetarian dinner. I devoured skewered fresh fruit and Pad Thai, washed down with a cold Singha and numerous glasses of water.
The plane was dark, most of the passengers asleep.
Time to get to work. I set up my laptop, and opened the email function. Thai Air had no onboard Wi-Fi yet, but I began to compose a fuzzy explanation of my current status. “It’s important that I do this,” I concluded. “I will call as soon as I can to let you know where I am, and why.”
I wasn’t deliberately vague; I was vague because I only had a partially formed, mostly spiritual sense of what I hoped to accomplish. Hard to explain. I copied and pasted the message to Bill, Martha, and, of course, Heather. I would send off the e-mails during the brief layover in Bangkok.
Next, I pulled out Charlie’s final, zip-locked bequest to me. I unzipped it and removed the smudged sheets of paper, along with the discolored piece of material, Saran-wrapped in plastic, the length of a business card and leathery, like a scrap of rawhide. I examined it first, and discovered pale blue numbers: 481632. My stomach heaved. I was holding a shred of Marv’s skin, tattoo and all. It smelled slightly of embalming fluid, as if dipped in preservative. Some present. I swallowed bile as I hot-dropped it back in the baggie. I checked the woman to my left and man to my right. Asleep, thank goodness.
I clambered past the man and went to the lavatory to scrub my hands.
On to the papers. I was looking at some sort of inventory, scrawled in Spanish. With the help of the Spanish-English dictionary on my desktop, I started to hack my way through the handwriting. I sat back. I was reading code for a laundry list of activities, some checked off, some not, followed by sets of initials. A tidy little criminal’s to-do list. I didn’t know what “spice the salsa,” or “teach Juan the tango” meant, but I could make educated guesses, and none of them were legal, or about eating and dancing. Nor did they necessarily concern me. But one checked-off item did:
Abrazo para el monje:
R. M.
An “abrazo” is a type of embrace; a man-hug, clap-on-the-back greeting between friends. Apparently in this case it was also someone’s—probably Chaco’s—ironic term for Raul Martinez’s first meeting with yours truly. They’d sent him to “embrace” the monk, in other words, me, in their own special way, by trying to scare me off.
Okay, so the initials belonged to designated flunkies, assigned to do the dirty work.
Down at the bottom of the list was another chilling entry:
Abrazo largo para R. M.:
B. P. solo
Poor Charlie. No wonder he was so despairing. He’d stolen the hit list only to discover he was the next hit. I sat back again to think. Now I also knew the initials of the hit man who’d been given the assignment of administering a “long embrace” to Raul/Charlie. B.P., whoever he was, must have followed Charlie to the bluffs to give him his long embrace, only to be pleasantly surprised when I showed up as well. He probably envisioned a nice bonus for the double hit—two for the price of two, were it not for a dumpster. He’d accomplished his main priority, though, and must have decided to split after missing with a couple of potshots.
I refrained from putting a tic next to that item.
Now that I had a loose understanding of the code, I tried to piece together a few other tasks. Charlie, or R.M., had one more assignment—
Pista la mula:
R. M.
Watch the mule.
I found another reference to this “mule,”
Descarga la mula: los primos.
Not too hard to translate. Raul had been ordered to watch for some carrier of goods, at which point “the cousins” would unload them.
I circled both items, as well as another interesting tidbit on page one:
Distribuir los golosinas:
A. A. Hand out the candy? Subtle, boys.
I scanned the list for any other errands for “B.P. solo” and sucked in my breath.
Dar la vuelta - ¡Vindicacion!:
B.P. solo.
The first part of the translation was weird—something to do with turning ones back, maybe? But I didn’t need a dictionary to translate
¡Vindicacion!
. And whatever B.P. was supposed to vindicate, he’d done so successfully. Two big tics next to that one. I was half expecting a smiley face, as well. I jotted down my thoughts, and tucked the contents away for future reference.
We had a short layover in Bangkok—just enough time for me to enter the terminal, send off my e-mails, and stretch my stiff muscles before returning to the plane for the second leg of the trip.
There was a new flight crew. I was sorry to see Dok go, but another stunning flight attendant soon came down the aisle with a drinks cart
.
I asked for two minibottles of Merlot, hoping they’d knock me out for a few more hours of sleep. The wine, plus residual fatigue, worked like a charm. Next thing I knew, my new Thai guardian was lightly shaking my shoulder. I just had time to brush my teeth and drink two cups of fresh-brewed, hot Thai tea before we began our descent into the dusty madness of Delhi.
New Delhi’s multibillion-dollar airport may look like a modernistic sprawl of glass and steel, but its true identity is
naraka,
the hell realm. The customs area was a milling swarm of sweaty humanity. My first inhale captured a breath-holding mixture of curry, diesel fuel, urine, and hair pomade, accompanied by a mind-searing din of screaming children, angry tourists, bellowing baggage handlers, and, oddly, a small brass band blaring out welcome music, no doubt for some incoming, corrupt Indian politician.
I had added International/Asian service to my iPhone before I left LAX. I called Heather’s number, got her voicemail, and held up the phone to give her the latest soundtrack of my life. I told her I’d give her another call when I could.
My plane had landed in Delhi a half hour late, making for a very tight connection to the Kingfisher puddle-jumper to Dharamshala. This was going to take some maneuvering. I studied the seething crowd as they awaited permission to enter. As a boy, I had waited in these endless lines numerous times, shuttled as I was between parents and countries. But rather than using the interminable waits to practice equanimity, I had instead honed my resentment, as I observed over and over again that a privileged few always seemed to jump the lines. Soon, a pattern emerged.
As anyone who lives in India will tell you, where there is a want, there is always a “fixer,” whether he be in charge of train schedules, chapatis, or even ganja at a hippie temple. All I had to do now was ascertain where the fixer was. I already knew how to speak his language—it was universal.
The restless masses funneled into the narrow customs booths, where officials inspected passports and other paperwork with glacial precision. I waited and watched from the back of the room until I noticed a dark-complexioned man dressed in a three-piece suit and wielding expensive luggage, visually scouring the long row of officials. Watched as he caught the eye of one thin, balding man with a long face and precise moustache, also wearing a dark business suit, standing behind the row. Three-piece suit gave a small nod, and moustache-man hurried past the crowd, to his side.
Gotcha.
Their business concluded, I moved into the fixer’s line of sight. I bowed. In a moment, he was in front of me, his long face giving nothing away.
“We haven’t met,” I said. “Inspector Tenzing Norbu. From Los Angeles.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Jay Gupta, at your service.”
“Mr. Gupta, I am traveling on a mission of great importance to Dharamshala, the seat of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.” First rule of working with the fixer? Drop a name. Strictly speaking, I was telling the truth, as well, because I
was
going to Dharamshala on an important mission and it
is
the seat of His Holiness. Mr. Gupta didn’t need to know the undertaking was important only to me, and that Dorje Yidam was three monasteries up the road from His Holiness’ headquarters.
He bowed back. “It would be my pleasure to assist you in any way possible.” Only a trace of Indian singsong spiced his precise Oxford English.
“I wonder if I could engage you to help me move through customs quickly,” I said. “My flight leaves in half an hour.”
“Of course,” he said. “It would be my great, great pleasure.”
Two greats. That meant it would cost more than I’d estimated.
This was confirmed when Gupta waved at the line of officers. “These men see their brothers and sisters making fortunes in high-tech jobs. But do not they, too, have a value in this world?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “And who would not choose to honor those who serve, so that when they go home at night, it is with a deep sense that their worth has been appreciated?”
He leaned close. “Three hundred U.S. gets you out the door and to your connection in ten minutes or less. I will, of course, make the appropriate distributions.” I was guessing that meant two-thirds for him and the remaining third spread among the other worthies.
“Deal,” I said. He spun on his heel and walked briskly toward a senior inspector, overseeing the 20 or so others dealing with the throng. They had a short whispered conversation, and he beckoned me over.
I was at the Kingfisher gate with enough spare time to down a cup of vendor chai. Soon we were bucking severe up-and-down drafts of the Himalayan foothills for a white-knuckling hour before landing with a bump.
I stepped outside and took several deep breaths. I may have landed safely, but my stomach continued to lurch and my chest to tighten. The real danger still lay ahead.
I climbed into a taxi for what I hoped was the final leg of my journey. The airport is about ten miles from the town. I stared out the window at the lush forests and jagged peaks. The route is simple, basically two turns and you’re there, and soon we had reached the suburbs. We buzzed through lower Dharamshala, past local government buildings and schools, and headed uphill for the other government seat, the exiled one. We slowed to a crawl, weaving between scooters, buses, monks, and tourists, all jostling for space in the sprawling but narrow hill village of McLeod Ganj, home to His Holiness for more than 60 years. Tibetan snow lion flags snapped from every hotel roof and shop window, announcing beds and spiritual trinkets. I felt for the wide-eyed backpackers who had trekked here from all over the world, no doubt looking for tranquility. Their stunned expressions reminded me of the early-rising tourists standing in the heart of Hollywood, looking for stars and finding hookers. My own eyes widened as we passed café after café boasting Internet connections.
Everything changes.
We rounded a bend. There it was, nestled in the hills, backed by mountains. Butter yellow walls, curved turrets, flapping flags. Half a mile, and light years, away.
“Let me off here, please.”
I set my shoulder bag down and leaned against a pine tree, breathing in pure mountain air still scrubbed clean by September’s late monsoons.
I remember this smell.
I shivered. I pulled out my fleece and zipped it on. A small blue-gray cat hair clung to one sleeve. I left it there.
I walked up the hill to find my friends and face my demons.
I pushed open heavy wooden double doors, the same brick red as the steps leading up to them. I entered a dim, deserted foyer—afternoon classes were in session. I almost buckled under the sensory assault—the musty scent of yak-butter candles, the thick mantle of dread—and I reached for one wall to steady myself. I’d spent half my life here, and I still felt lost and alone, and anything but at home. A shimmering veil of darkness dropped over my eyes. I ducked my head below my knees and breathed deeply, waiting for it to dissipate.
I heard him before I saw him—the familiar, ponderous footsteps, perhaps a little slower, but no less relentless.
Father.
I raised my head to look. I was wrong. This man was shrunken and stooped and, like Julius, propelled himself with the help of a cane. He was thin to the point of emaciation, and a grayish pallor clung to his skin like mold.
No
.
A sharp, dark jab, somewhere between pain and anger, bit into my heart.
Father.
The last time I saw him walk this hallway, he was a giant, trailing a wake of threat and judgment. Now I towered over him. But his eyes glowed with the same ferocious fire, and as he rested both hands on his cane to observe me, his face seemed to shift into the same expression of suspicious irritation, as if once again I had interrupted him from something more important. The pain inside intensified. The wound may have had years to heal over, but it felt fresh—I was a 13-year-old boy, who had just lost his mother and knew his father didn’t want him.
“Father.” My touch to the forehead was so slight as to be imperceptible. Even so, I regretted it.
“Tenzing.” He returned my gesture with an even slighter dip of his chin.
So. It begins again.
He smiled. “I woke up today feeling I might be receiving a visitor. I had assumed it would be Rinpoche. Now I see it is you who has showed up.”
A grenade of rage exploded in my belly.
You never bothered to show up for me. You didn’t show up when she died. You never even acknowledged her passing, or my pain. I was just a child!
Intense heat rippled throughout my body. My armpits flooded with sweat and the back of my eyeballs burned.
“Will you take tea?” he asked.
I nodded, unable to speak. He pulled a cord by the wall. Somewhere down below, a bell rang. He gestured for me to follow him. I did.
Entering his office was like stepping into a time warp: nothing had changed since the day I’d left. Even the dust motes’ dance was the same. My father, wincing, lowered himself onto a wooden chair next to the window. I sat opposite, on a square meditation cushion on the floor. I looked up at him. Years of mindfulness practice evaporated. I was caught in a churn of feelings.