We worked on them for half an hour, overcoming their initial reluctance to talk. Raheem joined us, speaking in English and their Nigerian dialect. Their passports told us who they were-Nigerian citizens, on tourist visas. Other information in their wallets and luggage told us where they’d stayed in Lagos before they came to Bombay. Little by little, the story emerged. They were muscle: hit men, sent by a gangster in Lagos to punish me for a major heroin and Mandrax tablet deal that had gone wrong. The deal involved some sixty thousand dollars-money that their boss in Lagos had lost in a hustle in Bombay. The hustler, whoever he was, had nominated me as the mastermind of the plan; the man responsible for ripping off the money.
The hired thugs surrendered that much information, but then they balked. They didn’t want to give me the man’s name. They didn’t want to tell me who’d set me up. They didn’t want to betray him without the express permission of their Nigerian boss. We insisted, and they were persuaded. The man’s name was Maurizio Belcane.
I put the big man’s eye back into its socket, but it stared out at a strange angle. From the way that he turned his head to look at me, I guessed that he couldn’t see out of it, yet, and I suspected that it would never sit correctly again. We closed the eye with tape, bandaged his head, and tidied the other men up. Then I spoke to them.
‘These men will take you to the airport. You’re gonna wait in the car park. There’s a plane to Lagos tomorrow morning. You’re gonna be on it. We’re gonna buy the tickets with your money. And get this straight-I had nothing to do with this. That’s not your fault-it’s Maurizio’s-but that doesn’t make me any happier about it. I’m gonna fix Maurizio, for lying about me. That’s my business, now. You can go back to your boss, and tell him that Maurizio will get what’s coming to him. But if you ever come back here, we’ll kill you. Understand? You come back to Bombay, you die.’
‘Yeah, you fuckin’
I left them, and took a cab to Ulla’s new apartment. She would know where Maurizio was, if anyone knew. My throat was aching, and I could hardly talk. The gun in my pocket was all I could think about. It swelled, in my mind, until it was huge: until the pattern of ridges on the handle was as large as the wale of bark on a cork tree. It was a Walther P38, one of the best semi-automatic pistols ever made. It fired a 9mm round from an eight-shot magazine, and in my mind I saw all eight of them punch their way into Maurizio’s body. I mumbled the name,
I knocked hard on the door of the apartment, and when Lisa opened it I brushed past her to find Ulla sitting on a couch in the lounge room. She was crying. She looked up when I entered, and I saw that her left eye was swollen, as if she’d been hit.
‘
‘Lin, I can’t,’ she sobbed. ‘Modena…’
‘I’m not interested in Modena. I want Maurizio. Tell me where he is!’
Lisa tapped me on the arm. I turned, and noticed for the first time that she had a large kitchen knife in her hand. She jerked her head toward the nearest bedroom. I looked at Ulla, and then back to Lisa. She nodded at me, slowly.
He was hiding in a wardrobe. When I dragged him out, into the room, he pleaded with me, begging me not to hurt him. I grabbed the belt at the back of his trousers, and marched him to the door of the apartment. He screamed for help, and I hit him in the face with the pistol. He screamed again, and I hit him again, much harder. His lips parted, and he wanted to cry out, once more, but I beat him to it, crunching the gun into the top of his head as he flinched away. He was quiet.
Lisa snarled at him, brandishing the knife.
‘You’re lucky I didn’t put this in your
‘What did he want here?’ I asked her.
‘It’s all about the money. Modena’s got it. Ulla called Maurizio -’
She stopped, shocked by the fury she saw on my face as I glared at Ulla.
