Exploits (13 page)

We got back to the temple just in time for dinner, and afterward Lisara went off to wherever it was that the Priestesses hung out, and Tard came up and asked me if there was anything he could do for me before I turned in.

“Well, now that you come to mention it, Brother Tard,” I said, “I still got some questions about this whole set-up.”

“Yes?”

I nodded. “Like, for example, nobody ever grows old or gets sick here, right?”

“That is correct.”

“Then what did the last High Lama die of?”

“He tried to cross the bridge and leave Shali-Mar, and so I was forced to kill him,” answered Tard.

“Was he a visitor, like me?” I asked.

He nodded. “So were the three before him.”

“Let me guess: you killed them all for trying to leave?”

“Curious, isn't it?” said Tard. “That so many High Lamas would want to leave our little paradise?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” I said.

“Was that all you wished to know, Doctor Jones?”

“I got a few more questions, if you got the time to answer them.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Just out of curiosity,” I said, “is there anything a High Lama can do that constitutes a firing offense, as opposed to a killing offense?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said. “As long as you obey your vows, you are virtually all-powerful in Shali-Mar.”

Which was like telling me that as long as Exterminator didn't break no legs, he was a fair-to-middling racehorse.

“Is there anything else you wish to know, Doctor Jones?” he asked.

“No, I guess that's about it.”

“If you need anything, just send for me,” he said, bowing. “I am your servant.”

Which was just when the Lord suggested to me that there was more than one way to skin a cat.

“Just a minute,” I said.

“Yes, Doctor Jones?”

“Who appointed you my servant?”

“We are
all
your servants.”

“Okay, then—who made you the chief administrator?”

“I have been chief administrator for more than three hundred years.”

“But if I was to make an official pronouncement that you'd be better fit to clean the royal stables, you'd show up for work there tomorrow morning with a broom and a shovel, right?”

“Have I displeased you in some way, Doctor Jones?”

“Not a bit, Brother Tard,” I said. “But I just did my first serious visualizing of the Cosmic All tonight, and for some reason I keep seeing you sweeping up behind horses.”

“Why am I being demoted?” he asked.

“Don't view it as a demotion at all,” I said. “If I was you, I'd consider it an opportunity to get back in touch with the common people—them what don't hold their noses and run the other way when you approach.”

“Is this change in my status temporary or permanent?” he asked, kind of frowning.

“Well, seeing that no one ever gets old here, I think you can view it as temporary,” I said. “I figure six or seven hundred years ought to do the trick.”

He swallowed hard.

“One more thing,” I said. “As your last official duty, pass the word that I'll be interviewing potential chief administrators tomorrow morning.”

He stared at me and didn't say nothing, and since I'd said everything I had to say, I gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and went up to my room.

Tard showed up maybe half an hour later. “Perhaps I was mistaken,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“The High Lama is incapable of making an unwise decision,” he said. “And since it is patently unwise to send such a qualified person as myself to work in the stables for the next five hundred years, you perforce cannot be the High Lama.”

“I do believe you've hit the nail on the head, Brother Tard,” I said.

“Therefore,” he continued, “the best thing to do is sneak you out of here under cover of night.”

“I was wondering how long it would take you to come around to that conclusion,” I said.

“How soon can you be ready to leave?” he asked.

“I've been all packed for the past twenty minutes,” I told him.

“Where is your luggage?”

“Right there on the bed,” I said, pointing to my backpack.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said, and started rummaging through it. It was after he'd pulled out the fifteenth and last of the statues that he turned to me and said, “Did you plan to leave us
anything
?”

“These are just little keepsakes to remind me of the pleasant hours I spent here as the High Lama,” I said. “I mean, it ain't as if you got any picture postcards I can take with me.”

“The amulet,” he said, holding out his hand.

Well, his other hand was perched on the handle of his sword, so I sighed and took it off from around my neck and tossed it onto the bed.

Then I followed him down to the main level of the temple, out the door, across the fields, and over to the bridge. All the guards took one look at me and immediately knelt down and bowed their heads, and I was across the bridge before anyone looked up. They hooted and hollered a lot, but I knew none of ’em would cross the stream to come after me as long as doing so would qualify ’em for a quick trip to the old age home.

As I headed toward India, I decided that the Land of Eternal Youth wasn't all it was cracked up to be, especially since it seemed to go hand-in-glove with eternal poverty, and I redirected all my more serious contemplating toward rounding up a grubstake and building the Tabernacle of St. Luke.

7. Secret Sex

There are worse things than walking down the streets of Delhi on a hot summer day.

For one thing, you could be walking down the streets of Delhi on a hot summer day with a bunch of knife-wielding gamblers hot on your trail for trying to pay off your losses with a pandaskin coat.

Or you could be walking down the streets of Delhi on a hot summer day with half the British Raj hunting for you because you figured that white men ought to stick together in foreign climes and you borrowed a few thousand rupees from the local church and left an IOU in its place so that you could pay off all them disgruntled gamblers.

Or you could be walking down the streets of Delhi on a hot summer day with the Royal Governor's private guards searching for you after you figured you'd raise a little capital by selling tours to the executive mansion to a group of British clergymen, and when you got a mite confused and turned right instead of left, you came across the Royal Governor and a pair of chambermaids reenacting a solemn Biblical scene what probably took place on a regular basis between Solomon and a couple of his more athletic wives.

Or you could be walking down the streets of Delhi looking out for the father and eight burly brothers of one of the city's fairest flowers, who in their enthusiasm to welcome a little fresh blood into the family seemed totally unable to differentiate between a declaration of eternal love and a bonafide proposal of marriage.

All of which had happened to me through a series of innocent misunderstandings, but which nonetheless imbued me with a pretty strong desire to take my leave of Delhi until everyone calmed down and was willing to listen to reason.

It was when I saw a handful of the Royal Governor's men standing in the middle of the road, comparing notes with a couple of gamblers, that I decided it might be a good idea to duck into a nearby building and wait for nightfall before clearing out, so I walked through the nearest door and found myself in the lobby of the Victoria Hotel, which looked like it had been sadly in need of a spring cleaning for the better part of half a century or so.

“May I help you, Sahib?” asked the desk clerk, who was a skinny little Indian with a dirty turban.

“Yeah,” I said, looking out the window as the governor's men started looking into all the shops and stores. “I need a place to stay, kind of short term.”

“We have a number of empty rooms,” he said.

“I don't need nothing for the whole night,” I said. “Five or ten minutes should do the trick.”

He frowned. “We have never rented a room for less than the night, Sahib,” he said.

“I ain't got no time to haggle,” I said, flashing my last fifty rupees and walking around behind the desk next to him. “I'll just rent this here floor space for half an hour. Payable when I get up and leave.”

I sat down about ten seconds before a couple of soldiers entered the lobby and walked over to the clerk.

“We're looking for an American masquerading as a minister,” said one of them. “Have you seen him?”

I shoved half the rupees into the clerk's hand.

“No, Sahibs,” he answered. “No one has come in here all day.”

“Well, if he should, let us know.”

“Certainly, Sahibs,” he said.

He waited until they walked out and closed the door behind them, then turned and looked down at me.

“You can stand up now,” he said. “They're gone.”

“It's kind of comfortable down here,” I said. “Besides, they were just the first wave of an unending ocean of misfortune.”

“There are more people looking for you?” he asked.

“No more'n eighty or ninety of ’em,” I answered.

“What did you do?”

“Hardly anything at all,” I said. “These English fellers just can't stand the fact that we whipped ’em at Bunker Hill. All I can figure is that they're still carrying a grudge.”

“I hate the English, too,” he said. “Even now we are planning to drive them from our country as you Americans did.”

“You don't say?”

“I do say,” he replied. He paused and stared at me for a minute or two. “Would I be correct in assuming you plan to leave Delhi when night falls?”

“I got to admit that sticking around waiting to get tarred and feathered ain't real high on my list of priorities,” I answered.

“They will be watching all the major roads and train stations,” he said. “If you try to get out by foot or car or train, they will stop you.”

“That's right depressing news,” I said.

“But I can get you out,” he added.

“Well, as one revolutionary to another, let me say that that's mighty neighborly of you.”

“I will be happy to help you thwart the British,” he said. “And once you are safely away from Delhi, I hope you will do me a favor in return.”

“Doing favors for ignorant brown heathen is part of my calling,” I assured him. “No offense intended.”

“None taken.”

“Exactly what kind of favor did you have in mind?”

“I will tell you when the time comes,” he said, handing me a room key. “In the meantime, I have arrangements to make. Wait for me in this room. I will knock three times at midnight.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, getting up onto my feet. “By the way, I never did catch your name.”

“Gunga, and no bad jokes, please.”

“Why would I make a joke, Brother Gunga?” I asked.

“The British seem to find it hilarious,” he said bitterly.

“It don't bother me none,” I said.

“I take it you don't like Kipling?”

“It ain't never been one of my favorite sports,” I replied. “And by the bye, I'm the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, at your service.”

“You'd better get to your room now, before anyone else comes looking for you,” suggested Gunga.

Well, I did like he said, and spent a few minutes finding solace for my present situation in the Good Book before I drifted off to sleep. I must have been tireder than I thought, because the next thing I knew Gunga was knocking at the door.

“Are you ready, Sahib?” he whispered.

“Ready and rarin',” I said, opening the door.

“Everything has been prepared,” he said, walking into the room.

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “How am I getting out—by car or by train?”

“Neither,” he answered. “Take off your clothes.”

“I can hardly blame you for being smitten by my manly good looks,” I said sternly, “but us men of the cloth don't go in for no degenerate activity.”

“Get into this,” he said, tossing me a white loincloth. “It's part of your disguise.”

Now that I knew he wasn't gonna attempt no unnatural perversions, I got undressed right quick and clambered into the loincloth. Then he walked over and tied a turban around my head.

“How do I look?” I asked.

He studied me thoughtfully for a moment. “Like an American in a loincloth and turban,” he said. “Still, it will have to do. Follow me, please.”

He walked out the door and down the stairs, with me right behind him, and then we went through the kitchen and out the back door, where I bumped smack-dab into an elephant.

“Say hello to Akbar,” said Gunga. “He will take you out of Delhi.”

“I don't know how to tell you this, Brother Gunga,” I said, staring at Akbar, of whom there was an awful lot to stare at, “but I ain't never rode no elephants before.”

“The British will never be looking for a coolie atop an elephant,” said Gunga. “You should pass by unnoticed.”

“That's a powerful lot of elephant to pass by anything unnoticed,” I said.

“Trust me, Reverend Jones,” said Gunga. “It is your only chance.”

“You I trust,” I said. “Akbar I got my doubts about.”

“He is trained to respond to whoever is his mahout.”

“His what?”

“His rider,” said Gunga. He handed me a stick with a metal hook at one end. “To make him go, just say ‘Kush'. Use the stick to turn him.” He looked up and down the alleyway. “I must leave shortly.”

“How do I get on top of him?”

“Just stand in front of him and tell him to lift you up.”

“That's all there is to it?” I asked dubiously.

“Trust me, Reverend Jones.”

“Well, I suppose I ought to thank you for going to all this trouble, Brother Gunga,” I said.

“You can repay a favor with a favor,” he replied.

“Just name it,” I said, keeping my fingers cross behind my back in case it involved giving money to one of his pet charities.

“Take Akbar to the town of Khajuraho, which is south and east of here. Once you arrive there you will be contacted by our leader, Rashid Jahan.” He looked around nervously. “Now I must leave before my absence is noticed.”

He darted back into the hotel, and I was left alone with Akbar, who looked like he didn't trust me a whole lot more than I trusted him, which was not at all. Still, I couldn't just stand there in the alley forever, so I finally walked around to his front end and said “Lift". His trunk snaked out and wrapped itself around me, and before I could scream for help or ask my Silent Partner to intervene I was sitting on top of his head. I tucked a leg behind each ear, said “Kush!", and off old Akbar went. When we came to a corner I jabbed him with the stick, and sure enough, he turned just the way he was supposed to.