JOHNNY GONE DOWN (20 page)

‘Will they come after you too?’ I asked.

‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘That would start a full-fledged gang war in which no one wins. You, on the other hand, are an outsider, so no one cares.’

I sighed with relief, glad I hadn’t sucked him into it.

‘That was the bad news,’ he said. ‘Now, I have some good news. I spoke to Pablo, one of her front men. He says that the Black Widow
may
agree to a jail sentence of ten years instead of killing you. She’s got nothing personal against you. All the cartel wants to do is send out the message that an outsider can’t enter the system.’

So, this was the best I could hope for. Stay in jail for ten years and watch Lara lose the best years of our son’s life, waiting and pining, begging and pleading, building hope only to see it crash. Ten years was a long time to be suspended without an anchor. And then? Suppose the Godmother changed her mind once I was out? My family would be destroyed. No, this wasn’t even an option.

‘Can’t we pay them off?’ I asked. ‘As much as they want - twenty, maybe thirty million dollars.’

Marco shook his head. ‘I tried. They don’t even want to talk money. I think you should agree to jail, at least for now. Meanwhile, I will keep working on them and try to get you out sooner.’

‘What are my chances?’

‘Slim,’ he replied honestly. ‘I can’t even hit back at her because she is lodged comfortably in a prison in Chicago. We have no connections there and it’s going to take a while to build some. Besides, her people will come back with a vengeance… and you can’t afford that now.’

He was big enough not to remind me that I had been forewarned about the dangers of having a family. I had wanted to recreate the stability of my childhood so badly that I had forgotten to consider the impact of all the wrong choices I had made in between. How could I have been so selfish?

‘You have to decide quickly if you want to spend ten years here,’ he said evenly. ‘She will start filling this jail with her men soon and make the decision for us if we don’t give her our answer.’

We sat quietly for a while.

‘I have another option in mind,’ I said finally.

I told him what I wanted. ‘Just do this one last thing for me,’ I said.

‘Are you sure?’ He sighed.

I nodded.

I called Lara from the jailer’s office after Marco had left to make the arrangements.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ruing the inability of words to express what I felt.

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘How does he look?’

‘He doesn’t look like much yet. But your worry was unfounded: both his arms are intact.’

‘I’ve ruined everything.’

‘You made my life better than I ever thought it could be,’ she said.

‘I could be in jail for ten years, maybe fifteen,’ I said, willing her to say that she couldn’t wait, that she would have to move on.

‘I was alone for thirty-six years before I met you. What’s another ten?’

‘Listen, please…’ I began and stopped.

Nothing I said would make a difference; we were past the stage of rationality. If I wanted her to go on with her life, I had to get out of it. She was beautiful, she was accomplished, we had taught each other to love; she would live without me, be happier perhaps.

‘I need to go now,’ I said, blinking away the tears.

I returned to my cell as night descended. The lone light bulb outside was switched off and the corridor was plunged in darkness. Occasional sobs and whimpers swept through the prison compound, the policeman on duty clanked his heels against the
concrete floor, rats scurried past. I stared at the wall and waited.

I’d known that it was a house of cards, yet I had tempted fate, scorned it, tried to live a life I wasn’t meant to live. There were so many alternate turns I could have taken. We could have left for the US after marriage; between us, we had enough money to never have to work another day in our lives. We could have chosen to go back to the monastery and worked for a cause greater than ourselves. We could have returned to India, or even done volunteer work in Cambodia. Instead, I had tried rashly to make up for lost time and destroyed more than one life in the process. I claimed that money and fame meant nothing to me, but wasn’t that the real reason I had stuck on in Rio despite the risks? Could I deny that I felt a tiny stab of pleasure when we were written about in the newspapers or when we evaded the flashbulbs of media cameras while returning from a late night movie? Hadn’t I started to take these incidents as proof that my life finally mattered, that it had some significance? Hubris follows pride. I had tried to be bigger than myself and the gods had struck a blow once again. Only, this time, I hadn’t fallen alone.

How could things have unravelled so quickly?

At midnight, the door to my cell opened.

‘Marco?’ I whispered.

‘It’s me, Donos,’ said the jailer. ‘Donos Marco has sent me to fetch you.’

Could I trust him, I wondered, then laughed silently in the darkness. What were my options?

I followed him quietly as we walked through the corridors, barely glancing at the whimpering prisoners in the overcrowded cells. When we reached his office, he went to his desk and took out a revolver from the topmost drawer.

Instinctively, I reached for mine, forgetting it had been checked in.

But he made no move to shoot me. Slowly, deliberately, he fitted a silencer on top of the gun and handed it to me.

‘Shoot me, Donos.’

I had a sudden flash of clarity and silently applauded Marco for his meticulous planning, despite the short notice.

‘Where?’ I asked quietly.

‘One above the calf in my left leg, and graze the other through my right arm. Let me turn the other way so it seems like I was caught unawares. Donos Marco tells me you are the best shot he has ever seen.’

I nodded and walked a few steps back.

My hands were steady as I shot him twice. He crumpled to the floor and I was relieved to see just a light trickle of blood by his side. I had fired accurately.

I went up to him. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

He gave me a thumbs up. ‘I will press the alarm two hours from now. Remember to shoot the padlock on your way out.’

Marco and Alex were waiting for me outside in an unmarked car.

‘He was good,’ I said as Alex began to speed away.

‘A million reals, plus he gets to keep his job and become some kind of a hero - that kind of money brings out a lot of good in people,’ said Marco. He paused. ‘Are you sure about this? We can still turn back.’

I nodded. ‘I’d rather have stayed in jail but I know Lara. She won’t let go and ten years is too long to waste on someone. And who can guarantee their safety when I’m out after ten years?’

‘Just lie low for a while. I will find a way out of this,’ he said.

‘What does she know?’ I asked.

‘Lara will know what the papers report tomorrow - that you made a violent escape from prison and deserted her like a coward.’

I grimaced.

‘This is your passport,’ he said.

I flipped through the American passport with my smiling face on the first page.

‘I found a guy with the name Nick. Thought you’d appreciate the touch.’

Nick Bolton. A registered plumber from Minnesota. I practised saying the name a few times, trying to get the American twang right.

‘Is he dead?’ I asked.

Marco nodded. ‘Not dead in the US, though. He had come to fuck in the carnival, but got fucked instead. A sad story you don’t want to hear.’

‘How did you put in my photograph?’

‘A simple lamination job. Five-year-olds at the favela could do it. Getting the passport was the tricky part. I couldn’t get you an Indian one, no matter how much I tried. Indians seem to be careful people who don’t travel much, at least not to this part of the world. How did you turn out like this?’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, I thought America would do since you’ve lived there before.’

‘Will they recognize me at the airport?’ I asked, still examining the passport.

He laughed. ‘Not unless you do something foolish. You have an inflated sense of your fame. Every day, there is a new celebrity in Rio - no one remembers anyone.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t even know how to
begin
to thank you,’ I said.

He waved his hand. ‘I’ve done nothing, men,’ he said. ‘All of us partied for the last five years while you worked. Yet, you took the fall alone. But we will get back at them, you wait and see.’

‘Don’t do anything foolish,’ I said.

‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve learnt from you. Silence and business will be my weapons now.’

I grimaced. ‘Get out of this business. No good comes of it.’

‘Cocaine is my life, my karma yoga, you might say.’ He smiled at me. ‘You know me. I have no concept of right or wrong, good or bad; there are some things I do and some things I don’t, that’s all.’

The car drew up at the airport.

‘Here is your bag,’ said Marco. ‘It contains five hundred dollars, toiletries, a few clothes and shoes. This is the maximum cash you are allowed to carry, and I didn’t want to take a chance.’

‘That’s more than enough,’ I said. ‘I’ve lived on less.’

‘Now here’s the tough part. No matter what happens, don’t call me and don’t call Lara; not for a couple of years at least, until I have sorted out this mess. The Godmother won’t forget and the police will be under a lot of pressure from the media to do something. You will have both on your back. Every phone call, every message, every movement that Lara and I make could be traced.’ He paused.

‘You are on your own from now on,’ he said. ‘I have no contacts there. Just keep this one number, but don’t call him unless it’s a matter of life and death. I mean it. Don’t call him unless you have to. He is an important man and will know how to help
you - but he’ll extract a price you will find hard to pay. Just trust me on this.’

‘I trust you,’ I said quietly as we stood outside the terminal.

He looked me in the eye and hugged me with all his strength.

‘Stop being a faggot now, will you?’ I said, tearing up as I walked off.

Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth.

Niccolo Machiavelli

25 January 1995, Shelter for the homeless, Minnesota, USA

‘Where are you from?’

I looked up from my bowl of watery soup to see a middle-aged African-American man with long, knotted hair and needle marks all over his eyelids. His hand trembled as he tried to guide a spoonful of soup into his mouth. Despite his best efforts, he kept spilling it over his tattered overcoat which looked like it hadn’t been washed in years. There were scars all over his wrist and white foam dribbled out of his mouth. A far gone crack addict, I noted, someone who had to stick needles into his eyeballs to get the drug to flow into his bloodstream faster: the veins in the arms and wrists took too much time. The seed money for the business I ran in Rio came from feeding junkies like him, I thought shamefully I had no right to complain. I deserved to be where I was.

‘Where are you from, brother?’ he asked again.

‘Very far,’ I said.

A gust of Arctic wind blew in through the broken windows of the large dining hall and I shivered. Three months in Minnesota and I still wasn’t used to the weather. The first thing I would do once I got a job was buy an overcoat. Just after I bought
a shaving razor. Just after I bought a toothbrush. Just after I bought a second pair of underwear. Just after…

‘Why are you here, brother?’ he asked, his hands still shaking violently. His teeth chattered - or what was left of them anyway. Half were broken, the rest chipped at the edges. His lips were sore and chapped and his gums showed remnants of dried blood. I had an eerie feeling that I would end up like him soon. Another week in this cold and I would probably need to shoot up something to give myself an illusion of warmth - crack was cheaper than overcoats after all.

Everyone around me had already capitulated. Unshaven faces, unkempt hair, rotting, decaying flesh, men and women freezing in the cold, every item of clothing except the bare essentials sold for crack. They appeared stunned into stoned silence, like zombies silently awaiting a passage into the afterworld.

‘Why are you here?’ the man demanded again, his rough voice breaking the silence in the icy dining room.

No one paid any attention except the two kind-hearted volunteers who had brought food for the homeless today. They looked at him warningly, but I don’t think he noticed - or cared.

Why indeed, I wondered. Because Nick Bolton, the wayward plumber whose identity I had now
taken, had made Minneapolis, Minnesota his home. Because five hundred dollars ran out in three months in this city even if you stayed in cheap motels and scrounged for leftovers outside budget diners. Because I had no means to get more money since I’d already bartered my only asset, my prosthetic arm, for a sweater at the midnight black market on Hennepin Avenue.

‘I’m here to look for a job,’ I said.

He thrust some soup into his mouth excitedly.

‘There are no jobs here,’ he said, shivering. ‘No chances for the poor. No chances for the yellow, brown or black.’