Namaste (14 page)

Amit watched the receptionist. She lost her computer game and picked up a mug, tipping it to her pink lips and leaving a large mark. The mark was too large for so late in the day, as if she had just refreshed her lipstick and glommed it on too heavily.
 

The woman turned to look at Amit. He was motionless in his chair, legs straight, arms in his lap with a single brush in his hand. A gallon of paint sat between his new workman’s shoes.
 

Amit smiled.
 

The woman’s eyes dropped to his lap, then widened. He saw her look and followed it: His entire right hand was covered in dried blood. He marveled at the oversight. He’d changed twice, had driven how many miles, and meditated for hours. He’d gone shopping, even. No wonder the people at Home Depot stared.

He looked back up at the woman. Her face had moved from perplexity to horror.
 

“I had to stir a can of paint with my hand,” Amit explained. He chuckled, searching for an appropriately rube name. “Barney forgot his stirring device.”
 

“There’s … chunks in it.”

Amit looked down. He saw what was probably part of a cornea on the back of his palm. It was the sort of thing that should have flaked off, but the blood held it in place. There seemed to be some iris in it. In a way, it was as if his hand were looking up in suspicion.
 

“Oh, that Barney.” Amit brushed at the back of his hand. The bit of eye flaked away and rolled under a table supporting a fake plant and copies of
People
magazine piled atop a mountain of
Us Weekly.
There were men and women on the cover who were apparently very important but whom Amit didn’t recognize. When the receptionist didn’t stop staring, he pulled an
Us Weekly
from the bottom and began to leaf through it.
 

“I see that Justin Bieber was spotted walking his monkey.”
 

The receptionist stood, then knocked on the door to Mr. Bradley’s inner office. There was nothing, then a barked command that Amit didn’t catch. He watched the woman, thinking that things could end poorly. He wasn’t going to kill her, yet she was doing an excellent impersonation of a star witness. There were also the people in the park the other day, when he’d been milling among parkgoers while wearing too much blood. The red was starting to give him away. It was a good thing Amit was as good at disappearing as he was at fighting, and that no official records existed about him, anywhere.
 

“What?” came an irritated noise from inside the office.

The woman knocked again, shooting glances at Amit.
 

The door opened a sliver. The woman almost knocked on his face.
 

“What the hell is it, Mary?”
 

“Your painters are here.” She looked over, failing to note that there was only one, to explain why the painter had stirred “paint” with his hand, or why he Mr. Bradley had to know about this right now.

“I don’t have any painters coming.”
 

“This man right here.” Mary pointed at Amit with a
j’accuse
finger, elbow rigid like her shoulder.

Bradley was an unassuming man with thinning blond hair and roundish wire-rimmed spectacles. He turned his gaze on Amit. “You’ve got the wrong place, buddy.”
 

Amit smiled pleasantly. “I do not believe so.”
 

Bradley looked at Amit, annoyed, then gave a more reprimanding glance to the receptionist. He closed the door.
 

“He does not remember,” said Amit.
 

“Your last job was a red room?” Mary looked down at his hand.
 

“Yes. It took me a very long time to find it. You would not believe the misadventure.” He chuckled again, trying to tone down his baseline mirth. He’d never quite gotten used to mainstream America. The entire population was skeptical and pessimistic, and no one was terribly comfortable with happy people like Amit. He made his chuckle somewhat condescending, silently apologizing to the mythical Barney for his assigned blame.
 

“It was Barney’s fault. The room was supposed to be orange, as it turned out. After I stirred the paint, he told me this. He looked at my hand and said, ‘That is not the right color. You have made a mistake.’ I left.” Amit paused, then added, “Thank God it’s Friday.”
 

This must have registered with Mary, because some fear left her face. Yes, his hand was an unmistakable shade of chunky crimson. Yes, the spatter, now that he looked at it, ran up his wrist. No, it did not in any way look like something that could happen from stirring. But his smile was pleasant, and his tone was friendly. If Mary was anything like the other mainstream Americans he’d met, she’d have a strong desire to believe that things were more or less okay and could therefore be ignored.
 

Little by little, an uncertain smile crawled onto her face. “I think you’re in the wrong office.”
 

“Perhaps I am.” Amit sighed. “It wouldn’t be the first time, thanks to Barney.” Another unassuming smile. “Would you have something I could drink, before I head out and chastise him?”
 

“Oh, sure.” She turned and walked into a small kitchenette. Amit followed, then closed the door and jammed a screwdriver into the space between the door and the jamb, effectively wedging it shut. She was back a moment later, knocking. She pounded, asking if he could hear her. He replied that he could, because it seemed polite.

He walked back past the reception area and into Bradley’s office. Bradley turned at once. He was wearing a headset and pacing his office, making hand gestures, saying something that Amit couldn’t catch about dollars and yen. He had both sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up, exposing forearms full of fine blond hairs.
 

“What the hell?”
 

“You should hang up.”

Bradley moved the mic from his mouth. “I didn’t call any painters. You have the wrong place.”

Amit sat in a comfortable-looking, black-frame chair opposite Bradley’s desk, facing his empty rolling chair and the back of his computer. The desk had a paperweight — a bronze golf ball atop a tee, with a clear plastic base — a Cross pen set, a desk blotter, a calculator with a spool at the top, and a framed photo with Bradley and someone famous, though Amit couldn’t have said who it was.
 

Bradley was staring, actively agitated. Amit could hear someone blabbering in alternating English and Mandarin — tinny and canned from the headset.
 

“I have just come from seeing Jason Alfero. If he has not called you, it is because he is dead.” Amit held up his hand. “This is not his blood, but part of one of his bodyguard’s eyes is under your ficus.”
 

“Mary let you in?”
 

“Mary is locked in the kitchen. I do not know if you share the kitchen or if anyone will hear her yelling, but we should move quickly. I grow impatient once other parties become involved.”
 

Very distinctly, Amit heard a tiny, high-pitched voice say,
“Meestah Bradley?”
 

Bradley pushed something on the headset. The voice vanished, and he took it off.
 

“Who are you?”
 

“I am the man who has thinned your client base. Or rather, the man who has shuffled those who may contact you. I am not sure if you know a Telford Hayes, but he will not be contacting you either. He is currently in a refrigerated drawer, in need of a mortician’s cosmetic magic.”
 

“I don’t know those people.”
 

“I think you do. Please.” Amit indicated the rolling office chair. “Have a seat.”
 

Bradley walked, zombielike, toward the chair and sat. Through two locked doors and down a short hallway, Amit heard Mary pounding on the kitchenette door. This was a big building with many floors and offices. The accounting firm of Burkin, Bradley, and Oakes occupied six floors. It was distinctly possible that someone would hear her — possibly even one floor up or down — and come running. It was also possible that she’d be unheard or ignored, given the building’s bustle and noise, and the fact that the partners had sizable office suites with walls that might be soundproofed. Amit had no idea. He figured the chances of interruption were 50/50. He could cross the interruption bridge if and when they reached it.
 

“Are you serious about Alfero?”
 

Amit nodded. “Yes. He took many bullets. He thought he’d been poisoned. It was terrible.”
 

“And you killed him?”
 

“Actually, no. His men did it.”
 

“Why come here? Mr. Alfero’s company was a client, but it’s not like … ”
 

“I need to know about his organization’s holdings,” Amit interrupted. “Specifically, I need to know where their bank accounts are held.”
 

“I can’t tell you that. Obviously. NutriBev’s accounts are a matter of … ”
 

“Not
that
organization’s holdings. I mean the company that isn’t a front. The organization that’s behind the shams you establish to hide their dirty money.”
 

Bradley half stood, anger swallowing paralysis. “Now, wait a goddamned minute. I don’t know who you are, but if you think you can come in here and … ”
 

Bradley’s hand was on his phone, preparing to pick it up. Before he could, Amit’s hand was over his, squeezing. It was his non-bloody, weaker hand. Shadow monks were very strong but looked lithe. Their hands were no exception. Not many people trained their hand muscles, so a little strength went a long way. And a lot of crushing power — say, the sort that came from daily exercises over the course of decades, went much further.
 

“You don’t need to call anyone.”

“We’re just accountants! If they were up to something, we wouldn’t kn … ”
 

Amit squeezed harder, pinching Bradley’s hand between his hand and the phone. Under Bradley’s palm, the handset’s plastic casing cracked loudly.
 

“I entered your office, sat down, and announced that I killed your clients. You asked me if it was true. Most accountants — those unaccustomed to hearing about murder, say — would react differently.”
 

“You’re hurting my hand!”
 

Amit chuckled. “Now you sound like Mr. Hayes. Did you know that his right hand is quite ordinary? I’m sorry.
Was
quite ordinary.” Beneath Bradley’s palm, plastic continued to crack. He let go. Slowly, Bradley let go, too. His hand didn’t seem to be broken (just mildly lacerated). The phone wasn’t so lucky. It bulged wires, and despite being on a hook, Amit heard a dial tone.

“Please, do not call for help. No one has come for your receptionist, and interruption will annoy me.”

Bradley sat heavily.
 

“Now. We must discuss bank accounts.”
 

“Which bank accounts?”
 

“For the company that Mr. Alfero worked for. Not his water company. The other one, that actually made the money.”
 

Bradley shook his head. “I don’t have that information.”
 

Amit chuckled. “Oh, I do not want to hear you say that.” He began to stand. In reality, he had no desire to hurt Bradley. He worked for scumbags, but at root was only an accountant. With the help of some nice college students, Amit had looked into the roster. The firm was immense, and paid accountants worldwide. Amit had no desire to behead the company for the actions of one client paying many bills. They were guilty by association, but not guilty enough, in Amit’s karmically educated estimation, to kill for. But he needed this information, and lucky Bradley was the only one who might have it.
 

The accountant briskly waved, then winced as something in his right hand seemed to twinge. “Wait! You don’t know how this works! It’s not that simple. If it were, anyone could pull our files and unravel it all. If we were working for a company that was doing something untoward — which I’m not at all saying — then it would be like a puzzle. Do you understand? Someone makes a puzzle, breaks the puzzle apart, then burns the box top that shows you the map of how it’s supposed to look together. Nobody has … nobody
would
have it all! Not me, not anybody!”
 

“How can you not know?” Amit tapped a piece of letterhead on Bradley’s blotter. “Your name is on the sign. Your name was on the paperwork I found in the late Mr. Alfero’s office, when I visited earlier.”
 

“We have hundreds of corporate clients! I can’t know the details of every one!” Something like pride or possibly condescension entered his expression. “People think accounting is just a spreadsheet here or there. But what do you do when you have multiple corporate entities, an umbrella — and under those, multiple divisions, all with depreciating assets, many with non-calendar fiscal year-ends, crossing multiple global currencies, most of which … ”
 

“Who would know?”