The Fraternity of the Stone

  Drew’s mouth hung open.

  Tommy laughed, his eyes glinting. “Good gracious me.” He surprised Drew not only by his genteel English but by his British accent. “We mustn’t scare the boy. My heavens, no. He’ll think I’m an awful terror.”

  “Tommy lives in Hong Kong because many Gurkhas are stationed at the British barracks here,” Ray explained. “Off-duty, they like to come here for a meal. And of course, they remember him from when he belonged to the regiment.”

  “You’ll be my teacher?” Drew asked, still skeptical about this eager-to-please, jolly man.

  “My, my, no.” Tommy’s voice was mellifluous, almost as if he were singing. “Dear me, my bones are too old. I’d never have the energy to keep up with a dervish such as yourself. And I have my business to manage.”

  “Then?”

  “Another boy, of course.” With gleeful pride, Tommy turned to a child who, unnoticed by Drew, had silently come up beside him. A miniature image of Tommy, even shorter than Drew, though Drew would later learn that the boy was fourteen.

  “Ah, there you are,” Tommy proclaimed. “My grandson.” He chuckled and turned to Drew. “His father belongs to the local battalion and prefers to have the child stay with me instead of in Nepal. They visit when he’s on leave, though in truth that seldom happens. At the moment, he’s helping to settle an unsavory but no doubt minor altercation in South Africa.”

  As Drew later learned, Tommy Two’s last name was the consequence of the British attempt to deal with the confusing similarity of names among a people who referred to themselves by the tribes they belonged to (hence the elder Tommy’s last name, Limbu). Because the bureaucracy couldn’t distinguish one Tommy Limbu from the other, at least on paper, Two had been chosen instead of Junior.

  But Tommy Two was essentially different from his grandfather. He didn’t smile. He didn’t even say hello. Drew sensed his disinterest and, overcome with misgivings, couldn’t help wondering how they would ever get along—or what this sullen boy could possibly teach him.

  His misgivings waned within half an hour. Left alone by the adults, they went out onto the narrow busy street, where Tommy Two informed him in perfect English that Drew was going to be taught to pick pockets.

  Drew couldn’t restrain his surprise. “But Uncle Ray brought me here because the gang I hung around with was doing that stuff. He doesn’t want me…”

  “No.” Tommy Two held up a finger, like a magician. “Not just any pocket. Mine.”

  Drew’s surprise increased.

  “But first—” Tommy Two moved his finger back and forth “—you have to understand how it feels to have someone do it to you.”

  The sight of this little kid assuming command was startling. “And you’re the one who’s going to do it?” Drew asked, raising his eyebrows in disbelief.

  Tommy Two didn’t answer. Instead, he gestured for Drew to follow him. They turned a corner and went out of sight from the restaurant. Less confident now, Drew found himself facing a still narrower street, cluttered with shoppers, bicyclists, pushcart vendors, and awninged stalls. The babble of voices, the mixture of smells, mostly rancid, were awesome.

  “Count to ten,” Tommy Two announced. “Then walk down this street. By the end of three blocks—” he pointed toward Drew’s back pocket “—I’ll have your wallet.”

  Drew’s confusion changed to fascination. “Three blocks, huh?” He peered down the chaotic street. Inspired, he removed his wallet from his back pocket and shoved it into a tighter pocket in front, then subdued a smirk. “Okay, you’re on. But it doesn’t seem fair. I mean, while I’m counting, don’t you want me to hide my eyes? To give you a chance to hide?”

  “Why bother?” As glum as ever, Tommy Two walked down the street.

  Drew mentally counted. One, two… Watched Tommy pass between a moped and a rickshaw. Three, four, five…

  All at once, he frowned. Tommy Two had vanished. Drew straightened, staring. How had he done that? Like a stone dropped into water, Tommy Two had become absorbed within the swirling mob. By the time Drew adjusted to the trick he’d just witnessed, he realized that the remaining count of five should long ago have been over.

  Trick? Sure, that was all it had been, Drew decided. A trick. Bracing his shoulders, mustering confidence, he started down the street. But as he himself became immersed in the crowd, he realized that this was more complicated than he’d first anticipated. There were too many choices. For one thing, should he walk slow or fast, be cautious or hurry? For another, should he keep glancing around, on guard against Tommy Two, or should he look straight ahead, so he’d be able to avoid—

  A bicyclist sped by so close that Drew was forced to jump to the right, jarring an elderly Chinese woman carrying a basket of laundry. She barked what must have been unfriendly things at him in Chinese, which he didn’t understand. All the kids in the street gang had been better at his language than he was at theirs. Maybe Uncle Ray was right about school having its advantages. Hearing a shout behind him, Drew turned in reflexive alarm, but never did learn its source. He stumbled on a crack in the cobbled road and banged against a pushcart filled with fruit. The elbow of his shirt came away wet with juice. As the vendor shrilled at him, Drew almost stopped to pay the man, but then he realized that if he took out his wallet…

  Tommy Two. Drew swung around, suspicious, feeling his stomach flutter, rushing forward through the crowd. The vendor kept yelling at him. But soon the yells were swallowed by inviting cries from hucksters in stalls that flanked the street. The smells worsened—stale cooking oil, charred meat, rotten vegetables. Drew began to feel sick.

  Nonetheless, he hurried. He had to keep his mind on his wallet. Pressing his hand against the satisfying bulge in his front pants pocket, he reached the second block. Now he noticed the attention he attracted, a Caucasian among an even denser throng of Orientals. He darted his eyes in every direction before him, searching for a hint of Tommy Two, and entered the final block.

  Walking fast, he felt relieved when he saw the end of the swarming gauntlet before him and a prominent sign, Harry’s hong kong bar and grill. He used the sign as a beacon, dodged a man without legs who pushed himself on a platform equipped with rollers, and swelled in triumph as he noticed Tommy Two lounging against the wall on the corner beneath the sign. With a grin, he crossed the teeming intersection and stopped.

  “So what’s so hard about it?” Drew shrugged with disdain. “I should have made a bet that I could do it.”

  “How would you have paid?”

  Troubled, Drew reached for the wallet in his front pocket. “With this, of course.” But even as he touched the wallet, he knew that something was wrong. Pulling it out, he blushed. The wallet was dirty, made of cloth. His had been brand-new polished leather. And this one, when he looked inside, was empty. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  “Would this be what you’re looking for?” Tommy Two pulled a hand from behind his back and held up the trophy. “I agree with you. We should have made a wager.” But this round-faced boy with gleaming black hair, three inches shorter than Drew though older, showed no satisfaction in his triumph—no grin, no swagger, no ridicule.

  “How did you do it?”

  “Distraction is always the key. I kept pace with you, out of sight in the crowd. When you mashed the vendor man’s fruit, you were too confused to notice that I’d switched wallets with you. All you cared about was that you still felt something in your pocket.”

  Drew scowled, angry that he’d been made a fool of. “So that’s all there is to it? It’s easy. Now that I know what’s up, I’d never get caught that way again.”

  Tommy Two shrugged. “We shall see. You still have thirty minutes remaining in your lesson. Shall we try again?”

  Drew was taken aback. Thirty minutes left in the lesson? Briefly he’d assumed that they were playing together. But now he realized that Tommy Two was teaching him for money.

  “Try again?” Drew asked, his feelings hur
t but responding again to the challenge. “You’re darn right.”

  “And this time, would you care to make a wager?”

  Drew almost said yes, but suspicion muted his determination. “Not just yet.”

  “As you wish.” Tommy Two straightened. “I suggest that we use the same three blocks, but this time in the reverse, moving back to our starting point.”

  Drew’s hands were sweaty. Putting his own wallet back into his pocket, he watched Tommy Two again disappear like magic within the crowd.

  And two blocks later when, just to be sure, Drew reached inside his pocket, he knew right away that the wallet he carried was not his own. He cursed.

  As before, Tommy Two lounged against a wall at the end of the third block, showing Drew his wallet.

  The next afternoon after school, Drew tried it again. The results were the same.

  The next afternoon. And the next.

  But each time, Tommy Two gave Drew an added piece of advice. “To avoid an attack, you must not invite one. You have to become invisible.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re Oriental. You fit in.”

  “Not true. To you, an American, no doubt all Orientals seem alike. But to a Chinese, a Nepalese such as myself attracts as much attention as you. Or should.”

  Drew was bewildered. “Or should? You mean you don’t?”

  “I move with the rhythm of the street. I don’t look at anyone’s eyes. I’m never in any spot long enough to be noticed. And I draw myself in.”

  “Like this?” Drew tried to squeeze his body tighter, assuming such a grotesque position that Tommy Two permitted himself a rare laugh.

  “No. Good gracious me, of course not. What strange ideas you have. I mean that I draw my thoughts in. Mentally I make myself—” he grasped for the words “—not here.”

  Drew shook his head.

  “In time, you will learn. But something else. You must never—never—become distracted. Allow nothing to confuse you or to disturb your concentration. Not just here while we practice. Any time. Everywhere.”

  This kid’s supposed to be fourteen, Drew thought. No way. Just because he’s short, he thinks he can lie about his age. He has to be twenty at least. Become invisible. Move with the crowd. Don’t let anything distract you. Drew tried again.

  And again. Until one afternoon after school, as Drew came through another gauntlet, approaching Tommy Two, who lounged as usual against a wall, he reached in his pocket, disgusted at another failure, only to blink at the wallet he pulled out. His own. “You let me win.”

  Tommy Two soberly shook his head. “I never let anyone win. You did what I taught you. You didn’t react to the beggar who wanted money. You never glanced at the parrots on sale at that stall. Above all, you showed no interest in the cart of vegetables that overturned, but merely stepped around it, not even glancing at the peppers beneath your feet. You made it impossible for me to trick you.”

  Drew’s heart beat faster with pride. “Then, I—”

  “Did it once. Once is not a pattern. Are you ready to try again?”

  The next time, Drew again produced his own wallet.

  But Tommy Two did not congratulate him. The young yet ancient Nepalese seemed to take for granted that success was its own reward. “Now we begin the hard part.”

  “Hard?” Drew’s spirits sank.

  “You’ve proven that I can’t steal your wallet. Is it possible for you to steal mine?”

  Drew shifted his feet. “Let’s give it a try.”

  Drew snuck through the crowd, coming from behind, seeing his chance, darting forward, reaching. Tommy grabbed his hand. “I knew where you were every second. You didn’t become invisible. Try it again.”

  And, “Let the crowd absorb you.”

  And, “Anticipate what might distract me.”

  “Nothing distracts you.”

  “Then that’s a problem for you to solve.”

  Three days later, Drew lounged against the wall at the end of the gauntlet. When Tommy Two saw the posture, his eyes flashed with understanding. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the wrong wallet.

  “When the orange struck my shoulder?” Tommy Two asked.

  “I paid a kid to throw it at you.”

  “Foolishly, I turned in that direction. Because I was sure you’d thrown it.”

  “But I was behind you.”

  “Excellent!” Tommy Two laughed. “Good gracious me, what a joke!”

  “But aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Tommy Two looked puzzled. At once, he understood and shrugged. “Of course.” Without a hint of disappointment, he gave Drew an American dollar.

  Because this time Drew had decided to bet.

  3

  Proceeding down 12th Street, beginning his surveillance of the brownstone from three blocks away, Drew realized he’d begun to think of Tommy Two. He had never seen him after the lessons were over, but Tommy and his lessons had remained vivid in his memory. He knew that Tommy would look glummer than usual—and be more sternly rebuking—if he were somehow here and knew that Drew had allowed himself to be distracted, even for an instant.

  Blend with the pattern of the street. Compact your spirit. Make yourself invisible. Concentrate. Drew obeyed the silent genteel British voice and knew that everything would be okay. Composed, he stepped from the first block, crossing the noisy intersection, approaching the other two blocks.

  But he didn’t intend to pass the midpoint of this second block. The tactic he employed required patience, circumnavigating the neighborhood, using several approaches from different directions, always narrowing the area. Confident that he attracted no attention, he crossed the street halfway down the second block and returned the way he’d come. At the intersection he headed south, walked down to 10th Street, proceeded along it in a direction parallel to the brownstone, and eventually headed north, coming back to 12th. Now he was three blocks away from the brownstone again, but this time coming from the opposite direction. As before, blending with the rhythms of the street, studying every detail before him, he began his reconnaissance. When he reached the middle of the second block, he crossed the street again, returning.

  All right, he thought, I’ve narrowed the perimeter, and so far everything looks fine. By definition—because I haven’t been attacked. If the house is being watched, the spotters are within a block and a half on either side.

  He knew exactly what to look for. First, a car. You had to assume that if your target left the surveillance area, he or she would get in a taxi. And that meant you needed a car to keep up. But the city’s parking problem was so severe that once you found a spot, you didn’t dare give it up. What’s more, you had to stay near the car in case your target left quickly. Two men in a parked car would attract attention, so one man usually stayed in the car while the other man found a vantage point in a nearby building.

  There were variations on these tactics, and Drew had been watching for all of them: the car whose hood was up while someone made repairs, the van with too many antennas, the man setting up an umbrella stand on the corner.

  But already he’d seen what he wanted to know. At the west end of the brownstone’s block, a man sat in a dark blue (the rule was never to use a bright-colored) car, more interested in the brownstone than in a platinum blonde in a tight leather suit who passed him, walking a malamute.

  Blend with the rhythm of the street, pal, Drew thought. If the occasion demands, look distracted even though you’re not.

  Drew wasn’t sure where the other spotter was. In fact, he assumed there’d be two more in the area, one to remain near the brownstone, the third to get in the car with the driver and be let out wherever the target decided to go.

  But their primary purpose, Drew reminded himself, was not to watch the Hardestys’. The brownstone was just the bait. I’m the reason the spotters are here, and they’ll follow Arlene and Jake only on the chance that I might try making contact somewhere other than the brownstone.

  F
ine, he thought. No problem. Having determined the closest safe distance from the brownstone, he hurried back to where he’d left the motorcycle near Washington Square. He unlocked the chain with which he’d secured it to a metal fence and kicked down on the starter lever, heading back to 12th Street. He parked between two cars three-quarters of a block behind the spotter in the car, pushed down the kickstand, leaned against the padded seat, and, shielded by the vehicle in front of him, began to wait.

  4

  Three hours.

  Shortly after 4 P.M., as it began to drizzle, he saw a woman step out of the brownstone two blocks down. Even at this distance, her outline so small that Drew felt he was watching her through the reverse end of a telescope, he recognized her.

  Arlene. His throat swelled tight till he had trouble breathing. He’d thought he’d prepared himself for the shock of seeing her again, but his pent-up emotions, denied for six years, assaulted him. His love for her rushed back with a jolt. Her training as an athlete, specifically as a mountain climber, had given her a distinctive sensuous walk, energetic but with no movement wasted, her footsteps springy yet firmly placed. Disciplined gracefulness. He remembered the feel of her body and the sound of her voice, and he longed to touch her and to hear that voice again.

  Her clothes revealed her background. She almost never dressed formally; instead, she preferred jogging shoes or hiking boots, jeans, a heavy sweater, a denim jacket. In place of a purse, she carried a small nylon pack slung over a shoulder, walking in the opposite direction down the street, oblivious to the drizzle that fell on her auburn hair.

  His throat still swollen, tears suddenly in his eyes, he started the motorcycle but didn’t move from between the cars that shielded him. When Arlene had almost reached the far corner of her block, a wino moved from the steps down to a basement door across the street from the brownstone. Skirting an iron railing, he veered toward Drew, crossing the street toward the surveillance car on the corner. The wino scrambled into the back of the car and hadn’t closed his door before the driver pulled out onto the street and sped toward the corner where Arlene now turned right.