‘Those fuckin’ cops liked you, man,’ Vikram told me as we sat together in Leopold’s one afternoon, a few months after I’d started work with Khaled as a currency collector.
‘U-huh.’
‘No, really, they did. That’s why they let you go.’
‘I never saw that cop before in my life, Vikram. He didn’t know me at all.’
‘You don’t get it,’ he replied patiently. He poured another glass of cold Kingfisher beer, and sipped it appreciatively. ‘I talked to that guy, the cop, when I got you out of there. He told me the whole story. See, when the first guy in the fingerprint section found out who the fuck you really were-when your fingerprint check came back with the news that you were this wanted guy, from Australia-he freaked out on it. He freaked out on how much money he might get, you know, to keep the shit quiet. A chance like that doesn’t come along every day, na? So, without saying anything to anyone else, he goes to a senior cop he knows, and shows him the file report on your prints. That cop freaks out, too. He goes to another cop-the one we saw at the jail-and shows him the file. That cop tells the others to keep quiet about it, and leave it to him to find out how much money there is in it.’
A waiter brought my cup of coffee, and chatted with me for a while in Marathi. Vikram waited until we were alone again before he spoke.
‘They love it, you know, all these waiters and cab drivers and post office guys-and the cops, too-they love it, all these guys, that you speak Marathi to them. Fuck, man, I’m born here, and you speak Marathi better than I do. I never learned to speak it properly. I never had to. That’s why so many Marathis are so pissed off, man. Most of us don’t give a shit about the Marathi language, or who all comes to live in Bombay, or wherever the fuck they come from, yaar. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so the cop has this file on you, and he’s keeping it quiet. But he wants to know more about this Australian fucker, who escaped from jail, before he does anything, yaar.’
Vikram stopped, and grinned at me until the grin became a playful laugh. He wore a black leather vest over his white silk shirt, despite the thirty-five-degree heat. In his heavy, black jeans and ornate black cowboy boots, he must’ve been very hot, but he seemed cool; almost as cool as he looked.
‘It’s fuckin’ great, man!’ he laughed. ‘You busted out of a maximum-security jail! Fuckin’ deadly! It’s the greatest thing I ever heard, Lin. It’s tearing my heart out that I can’t tell anyone about it.’
‘Do you remember what Karla said about secrets, when we were sitting here one night?’
‘No, man. What was it?’
‘It isn’t a secret, unless keeping it hurts.’
‘That’s pretty fuckin’ good,’ Vikram mused, grinning ‘So where was I? I’m losing it today, man. It’s this Lettie thing. It’s driving me insane, Lin. Oh yeah, the cop in charge, the cop with your file, he wants to do some checking on you. So, he sends two of his guys around, asking questions about you. All the street guys you used to work with, they gave you solid support, man. They said you never cheated anyone, never fucked anybody over, and you put a lot of money around with the poor street guys when you had it.’
‘But the cops didn’t tell anyone I was in Arthur Road?’
‘No, man, they were checking up on you to find out if they wanted to fuck you over, and send you back to the Australian cops, or not-depending on how you checked out. And there’s more to it. One of the moneychangers tells the cops, Hey, if you wanna know about Lin, go ask in the zhopadpatti, because he lives there. Well, the cops are now real intrigued, like-a gora, living in the slum. So they go there, and they take a look. They don’t tell anybody in the slum what happened to you, but they start asking about you, and the people say stuff like, You see that clinic? Lin built it, and he’s been working therefor a long time, helping the people… And they say stuff like, Everybody here has been treated at Lin’s clinic, free of charge, at one time or another, and he did a great job when the cholera came… And they told the cops about that little school you started, You see that little school for English? Lin started it… And the cops get an earful of this Lin, this Linbaba, this foreign guy who does all this good shit, and they go back to their boss, telling him what they heard.’
‘Oh, come on, Vikram! You really think that made a difference? It was about money, that’s all, and I’m just glad you were there to pay it.’
