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Vinson sold his drug racket to a competitor, and went back to the ashram with Rannveig. He sent a letter to Karla, after a few weeks of penitent floor scrubbing, saying that he didn’t really connect with the holy men at the ashram, but he got on well with the gardeners who grew their marijuana for them. He was happy, and he was working on a new business plan, with Rannveig.

The Khaled Company didn’t fund any movies, and when a cop was killed in the south the truce between the police gang and the mafia gang was broken. Lightning Dilip worked triple shifts, as the prisoner count grew.

A journalist was beaten on her doorstep for telling the truth, and a politician was beaten in his home for not telling a lie. Skirmishes between the police and the Khaled Company at court hearings were commonplace, and sometimes turned into riots. The Company blamed every prosecution on religious bias, and the cops blamed every punch on criminal intent.

Khaled’s crown was slipping, and Abdullah wasn’t there to set it straight. The mystic-turned-mafia-don was losing control: his unnecessary violence was an insult to dishonest lawlessness, and everyone on Back Street wanted him to stop.

We couldn’t stop Khaled, but we did stop Lightning Dilip. Karla said that she had a birthday present for me, and she wanted to give it to me early.

‘I don’t celebrate –’

‘Your birthday, I know. You wanna know what the present is, or not?’

‘Okay.’

‘The cop that we got on the fetish tapes,’ Karla said. ‘It’s Lightning Dilip.’

Karma’s a hammer, not a feather, I remembered Karla saying.

‘Very interesting.’

‘Wanna know what his fetish was?’

‘No.’

‘It involved a lot of sandwich wrap,’ Karla said.

‘Please, stop.’

‘Leaving only his insubordinates and his mouth exposed.’

‘Okay, enough.’

‘And in one part, the girl had to swat his privates with a flyswatter.’

‘Karla.’

‘A plastic one, of course, and then –’

I put my fingers in my ears and said la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la until she stopped. It was childish, and beneath us both, and it worked.

‘Okay. Seeing as how it’s your birthday present, and we can make him do anything that we want,’ Karla asked, a wicked smile shining from insurgency, ‘what do you want to do with the Lightning Dilip film?’

‘I’m guessing you’ve already thought it through.’

‘I was thinking he should retire,’ Karla said. ‘Citing his remorse, for having mistreated prisoners. Demoted, disgraced, and without a pension.’

‘Nice.’

‘Lightning Dilip has been digging his own grave for years, one kick at a time,’ Karla said. ‘I think he’s about ready to fall into it.’

‘When?’

‘I’ll ask No Problem to deliver the message tomorrow, with a deadline for him to resign in twenty-four hours, or we go public. Sound right to you?’

‘No problem,’ I smiled, glad to be rid of him, and wondering who the next Lightning Dilip would be, and how much more we’d have to pay.

‘I was also thinking he should retire to a village somewhere, far away,’ Karla mused. ‘The one he came from might be nice. I’m pretty sure the people who watched him grow up will know what to do with him when he comes back.’

‘They’ll do it in an isolated spot, if they know him well.’

Chapter Eighty-Six

Gemini George was in a specially equipped room on the penthouse floor of the Mahesh hotel, watched over by Scorpio George and a prestige of doctors. The hotel had provided specialists through international contacts, and Scorpio hired medical expertise from the best hospitals in India.

It seemed that it might be too late for Gemini, whose thin body failed and faded day by day, but he always greeted each new expert with a joke, and a smile.

Scorpio made us suffer to see Gemini, because no-one else stayed still long enough to suffer listening to him.

‘I’ve been off my food,’ Scorpio said, as we stood outside the door to Gemini’s room. ‘And I’ve got a blister on my foot from pacing up and down, worrying about Gemini. And I deserve it, because it’s all my fault.’

‘It’s okay,’ Karla said, taking his hand. ‘No-one blames you, Scorpio.’

‘But it is my fault. If I hadn’t been searching for that holy man, Gemini wouldn’t have got dengue fever, and we’d be okay, like before.’

‘No-one loves Gemini more than you do,’ Karla replied, as she opened the door. ‘He knows that.’

Gemini was in a fully adjustable hospital bed, with tubes coming from too many places. A new plastic tent covered his bed. There were two nurses attending to him, checking data on machines arranged around the left side of the bed.

He smiled at us as we approached. He looked bad. His thin body was the colour of a cut persimmon, and his face revealed the skull beneath the smile.

‘Hello, Karla,’ he said cheerily, although the sound of his voice was weak. ‘Hello, Lin, mate. So glad you’ve come.’

‘Damn good to see you again, man,’ I said, waving at him through the plastic tent.

‘How about a game?’ Karla purred. ‘Unless you think those meds you’re on stole your edge.’