He’d begun probing her past during the cab ride uptown, learning that she and her brother were from a wealthy family in the Bengal region of India, that Kusum had lost his arm as a boy in a train wreck that had killed both of their parents, after which they’d been raised by the grandmother Jack had met the night before. That explained their devotion to her. Kolabati was currently teaching in Washington at the Georgetown University School of Linguistics and now and again consulting for the School of Foreign Service.
At Finn’s Jack watched her eat the cold shrimp piled before her. She didn’t peel them. Instead she dipped them shell and all into either cocktail sauce or the little plate of Russian dressing she’d ordered, then bit them down to the tail with a solid crunch. She ate with a gusto he found exciting. So rare these days to find a woman who relished a big meal. He was sick to death of talk about calories and pounds and waistlines. Calorie counting was for during the week. When he was out with a woman, he wanted to see her enjoy the food as much as he did. A big meal became a shared vice. It linked them in the sin of enjoying a full belly and reveling in the tasting, chewing, swallowing, and washing down that led to it. They became partners in crime. It was erotic as all hell.
The meal was over.
Kolabati leaned back in her chair and stared at him. Between them lay the empty pot of Jack’s bouillabaisse, an empty pitcher of beer, and the tails of dozens of shrimp.
“We have met the enemy,” Jack said, “and he is in us. That was as good as a big steak.”
“I don’t eat beef. It’s supposed to be bad for your karma.”
As she spoke her hand crept across the table and found his. Her touch was electrifying—a shock ran up his arm. Jack swallowed and tried to keep the conversation going. No point in letting her see how she was getting to him.
“Karma. There’s a word you hear an awful lot. What’s it mean, really? It’s like fate, isn’t it?”
Kolabati’s eyebrows drew together. “Not exactly. It’s not easy to explain. It starts with the idea of the transmigration of the soul—what we call the atman—and how it undergoes many successive incarnations or lives.”
“Reincarnation.”
Kolabati turned his hand over and began lightly running her fingernails over his palm. Gooseflesh sprang up all over his body.
“Correct,” she said. “Karma is the burden of good or evil your atman carries with it from one life to the next. It’s not fate, because you are free to determine how much good or evil you do in each of your lives, but then again, the weight of good or evil on your karma determines the kind of life you will be born into—high born or low born.”
“And that goes on forever?” He wished what she was doing to his hand would go on forever.
“No. Your atman can be liberated from the karmic wheel by achieving a state of perfection in life. This is moksha. It frees the atman from further incarnations. It is the ultimate goal of every atman.”
“And eating beef would hold you back from moksha?” It sounded silly.
Kolabati seemed to read his mind again. “Not so odd, really. Jews and Moslems have a similar sanction against pork. For us, beef pollutes the karma.”
“‘Pollutes.’”
“That’s the word.”
“Do you worry that much about your karma?”
“Not as much as I should. Certainly not as much as Kusum does.” Her eyes clouded. “He’s become obsessed with his karma … his karma and Kali.”
That struck a dissonant chord in Jack. “Kali? Wasn’t she worshipped by a bunch of stranglers?” His unimpeachable source was Gunga Din.
Kolabati’s eyes cleared and flashed as she dug her fingernails into his palm, turning pleasure to pain.
“That wasn’t Kali but a diminished avatar of her called Bhavani who was worshipped by the Thugges—low-caste criminals! Kali is the Supreme Goddess!”
“Whoops! Sorry.”
She smiled. “Where do you live?”
“Not far.”
“Take me there.”
Jack hesitated, knowing it was his firm personal rule never to let people know where he lived unless he’d known them for a good long while. But she was stroking his palm again.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
6
For certain is death for the born
And certain is birth for the dead;
Therefore over the inevitable
Thou shouldst not grieve.
Kusum lifted his head from his study of the Bhagavad Gita. There it was again. That sound from below. It came to him over the dull roar of the city beyond the dock, the city that never slept, over the nocturnal harbor sounds, and the creaks and rattles of the ship as the tide caressed its iron hull and stretched the ropes and cables that moored it.
Kusum closed the Gita and went to his cabin door. It was too soon. The Mother could not have caught the Scent yet.
He went out and stood on the small deck that ran around the aft superstructure. The officers’ and crew’s quarters, galley, wheelhouse, and funnel were all clustered here at the stern. He looked forward along the entire length of the main deck, a flat surface broken only by the two hatches to the main cargo holds and the four cranes leaning out from the kingpost set between them.
His ship. A good ship, but an old one. Small as freighters go—2,500 tons, running 200 feet prow to stern, 30 feet across her main deck. Rusted and dented, but she rode high and true in the water. Her registry was Liberian.
Kusum had had her sailed here six months ago. No cargo at that time, only a sixty-foot enclosed barge towed 300 feet behind the ship as it made its way across the Atlantic from London. The cable securing the barge came loose the night the ship entered New York Harbor. The next morning the barge was found drifting two miles offshore. Empty. Kusum sold it to a garbage-hauling outfit.
US Customs inspected the two empty cargo holds and allowed the ship to dock. Kusum had secured a slip for it in the barren area above Pier 97 on the West Side where there was little dock activity. It was moored nose first into the bulkhead. A rotting pier ran along its starboard flank. The crew had been paid and discharged. Kusum had been the only human aboard since.
The rasping sound came again. More insistent.
Kusum went below. The sound grew in volume as he neared the lower decks. Opposite the engine room, he came to a watertight hatch and stopped.
The Mother wanted to get out. She had begun scraping her talons along the inner surface of the hatch and would keep it up until she was released. Kusum stood and listened for a while, puzzled. He knew the sound well: long, grinding, irregular rasps in a steady, insistent rhythm. She showed all the signs of having caught the Scent. She was ready to hunt.
That puzzled him. It was too soon. The chocolates couldn’t have arrived yet. He knew precisely when they had been posted from London—a telegram had confirmed it—and knew they’d be delivered tomorrow at the very earliest.
Could it possibly be one of those specially treated bottles of cheap wine he had been handing out to the homeless downtown for the past six months? The derelicts had served as a food supply and good training fodder for the nest as it matured. He doubted there could be any of the treated wine left—those untouchables usually finished off the bottle within hours of receiving it.
But there was no fooling the Mother. She had caught the Scent and wanted to follow it.
Although he had planned to continue training the brighter ones as crew for the ship in the six months since their arrival in New York—they had learned to handle the ropes and follow commands in the engine room—the hunt took priority.
Kusum spun the wheel that retracted the lugs, then stood behind the hatch as it swung open. The Mother stepped out, an eight-foot, humanoid shadow, lithe and massive in the dimness. One of the younglings, a foot shorter but almost as massive, followed on her heels. And then another.
Without warning she spun and hissed and raked her talons through the air a bare inch f
rom the second youngling’s eyes. It retreated into the hold.
Kusum closed the hatch and spun the wheel. Kusum felt the Mother’s faintly glowing yellow eyes pass over him without seeing him as she turned and swiftly, silently led her adolescent offspring up the steps and into the night.
This was as it should be. The rakoshi had to be taught how to follow the Scent, how to find the intended victim and return with it to the nest so that all might share. The Mother taught them one by one. This was as it always had been. This was as it would be.
The Scent must be coming from the chocolates. He could think of no other explanation. The thought sent a thrill through him. Tonight would bring him one step closer to completing the vow. Then he could return to India.
On his way back to the upper deck, Kusum once again looked along the length of his ship, but this time his gaze lifted above and beyond to the vista spread out before him. Night was a splendid cosmetician for this city at the edge of this rich, vulgar, noisome, fulsome land. It hid the unseemliness of the dock area, the filth collecting under the crumbling West Side Highway, the garbage swirling in the Hudson, the blank-faced warehouses and the human refuse that crept in and out and around them. The upper levels of Manhattan rose above all that, ignoring it, displaying a magnificent array of lights like sequins on black velvet.
It never failed to make him pause. So unlike his home. Mother India could well use the riches in this land. Her people would put them to good use. They would certainly appreciate them more than these pitiful Americans, so rich in material things and so poor in spirit, so lacking in inner resources. Their chrome, their dazzle, their dim-witted pursuit of “fun” and “experience” and “self.” Only a culture such as theirs could construct such an architectural marvel as this city and refer to it as a large piece of fruit. They didn’t deserve this land. They were like a horde of children given free run of the bazaar in Calcutta.
The thought of Calcutta made him ache to go home.
Tonight, and then one more.
Two more deaths and he would be released from his vow.
Kusum returned to his cabin to read his Gita.
7
“I believe I’ve been Kama Sutra-ed.”
“I don’t think that’s a verb.”
“It just became one.”
Jack lay on his back, feeling divorced from his body. He felt numb from his hair down. Every fiber of nerve and muscle was being taxed simply to support his vital functions.
“I think I’m going to die.”
Kolabati stirred beside him, nude but for her iron necklace. “You did. But I resuscitated you.”
“Is that what you call it in India?”
They’d arrived at his apartment after an uneventful walk from the restaurant. Kolabati’s eyes had widened and she’d staggered a bit as she entered Jack’s apartment. A common reaction. Some blamed the bric-a-brac and movie posters on the walls, others the Victorian furniture with all the gingerbread carving and the wavy grain of the golden oak.
“Your decor,” she said, leaning against him. “It’s so … interesting.”
“I collect things. As for the furniture, hideous is what most people call it, and they’re right. All that carving and such is out of style. But I like furniture that looks like human beings touched it at one time or another during its construction, even human beings of dubious taste.”
Jack became acutely aware of the pressure of Kolabati’s body against his flank. Her scent … perfume? He couldn’t be sure. More like scented oil. She looked up at him and he wanted her. And in her eyes he could see she wanted him.
Kolabati stepped away and began to remove her dress.
In the past, Jack had always felt himself in control during lovemaking. Not a conscious thing, but he’d always set the pace and guided the positions. Not tonight. With Kolabati it was different. All very subtle, but before long they were each cast in their roles. She was by far the hungrier of the two of them, the more insistent. And although younger, she seemed to be the more experienced. She became the director, he became an actor in her play.
And it was quite a play. Passion and laughter. She was skilled, yet there was nothing mechanical about her. She reveled in sensations, giggled, even laughed at times. She was a delight. She knew where to touch him, how to touch him in ways he’d never known, lifting him to heights of sensation he’d never dreamed possible. And though he knew he’d brought her to thrashing peaks of pleasure numerous times, she was insatiable.
He watched her now as the light from the tiny leaded glass lamp in the corner of the bedroom cast a soft chiaroscuro effect over the rich color of her skin. Her breasts were perfect, their nipples the darkest brown he’d ever seen. With her eyes still closed, she smiled and stretched, a slow, languorous movement that brought her dark and downy pubic mons against his thigh. Her hand crept across his chest, then trailed down over his abdomen toward his groin. He felt his abdominal muscles tighten.
“That’s not fair to do to a dying man.”
“Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
“Is this your way of thanking me for finding the necklace?” He hoped not. He’d already been paid for the necklace.
She opened her eyes. “Yes … and no. You are a unique man in this world, Repairman Jack. I’ve traveled a lot, met many people. You stand out from all of them. Once, my brother was like you, but he has changed. You are alone.”
“Not at the moment.”
She shook her head. “All men of honor are alone.”
Honor. This was the second time she’d spoken of honor this evening. Once at Peacock Alley, and now here in his bed. Strange for a woman to think in terms of honor. That was traditionally men’s territory, although nowadays the word rarely passed the lips of members of either sex.
“Can a man who lies, cheats, steals, and sometimes does violence to other people be a man of honor?”
Kolabati looked into his eyes. “He can if he lies to liars, cheats cheaters, steals from thieves, and limits his violence to those who are violent.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
An honorable man. He liked the sound of that. He liked the meaning that went with it. As Repairman Jack he’d taken an honorable course without consciously setting out to do so. Autonomy had been his driving motive—to reduce to the barest minimum all external restraints upon his life. But honor … honor was an internal restraint. He hadn’t recognized the role it had played all along in guiding him.
Kolabati’s hand started moving again and thoughts of honor sank in the waves of pleasure washing over him. It was good to be aroused again.
He’d led a monkish life since Gia had left him. Not that he’d consciously avoided sex—he’d simply stopped thinking about it. A number of weeks had gone by before he even realized what had happened to him. He’d read that that was a sign of depression. Maybe. Whatever the cause, tonight made up for any period of abstention, no matter how long.
Her hand was gently working at him now, drawing responses from what he had thought was an empty well. He was rolling toward her when he caught the first whiff of the odor.
What the hell is that?
It smelled like a pigeon had gotten into the air conditioner and laid a rotten egg. Or died.
Kolabati stiffened beside him. He didn’t know whether she’d smelled it, too, or whether something had frightened her. He thought he heard her say something in a tense whisper that sounded like “My gosh!”
She rolled on top of him and clung like a drowning sailor to a floating spar.
An aura of nameless fear enveloped Jack. He sensed something was terribly wrong, but could not say what. He listened for a foreign sound but all that came to him were the low hums, each in a different key, of the air conditioners in each of the three rooms. He reached for the 9mm Glock he kept under the mattress, but Kolabati hugged him tighter.
“Don’t move,” she whispered in a voice he could barely hear. “Just lie here under me and don’
t say a word.”
Jack opened his mouth to speak but she covered his lips with her own. The pressure of her bare breasts against his chest, her hips on his, the tingle of her necklace as it dangled from her neck against his throat, the caresses of her hands—all worked toward blotting out the odor.
Yet he sensed a desperation about her that prevented him from releasing himself to the sensations. His eyes kept opening and straying to the window, to the door, to the hall that led past the TV room to the darkened front room, then back to the window. Without reason, a small part of him expected someone or something—a person, an animal—to come through the door. He knew it was impossible—the front door was locked, the windows were three stories up. Crazy. Yet the feeling persisted.
And persisted.
He did not know how long he lay there, tense and tight under Kolabati, itching for the comfortable feel of a pistol grip in his palm. It felt like half the night.
Nothing happened. Eventually, the odor began to fade. And with it the sensation of the presence of another. Jack felt himself begin to relax and, finally, begin to respond to Kolabati.
But Kolabati suddenly had different ideas. She jumped up from the bed and padded into the front room for her clothes.
Jack followed and watched her slip into her underwear with brisk, almost frantic movements.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have to get home.”
“Back to DC?” His heart sank. Not yet. She intrigued him so.
“No. To my brother’s. I’m staying with him.”
“I don’t understand. Is it something I—”
Kolabati leaned over and kissed him. “Nothing you did. Something he did.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“I must speak to him immediately.”
She let the dress fall over her head and stepped into her shoes. She turned to go but the apartment door stopped her.
“How does this work?”
Jack turned the central knob that retracted the four bars, then pulled it open for her.
“Wait till I get some clothes on and I’ll find you a cab.”
“I haven’t time to wait. And I can wave my arm in the air as well as anyone.”