Out of Order (18 page)

But that would be messy. And loud. Too many people had seen him in the hotel, too many people who would have no trouble identifying him to the police. No. There were easier ways. And now that he knew where Jason Talley was, the man thought as he slid his foot back and let the door ease shut, he could take his time and do it right.

Chapter Twenty-three

Jason stared past his reflection in the plate glass window of the second story Pizza Corner restaurant and watched the one-way traffic as it flowed down the slight slope of Brigade Road. On the sidewalks, people moved in every direction, darting across the street when they spotted a break in the traffic, while deliverymen, boxes piled four-high on their heads, worked their way through the crowds. He could see a few gray-haired women in color-muted saris and a handful of grandfather types in white shirts and ties, but overall the street was filled with fast-walking twenty-somethings and hyperactive teens, everyone on a cell phone or plugged into an iPod, free hands swinging plastic shopping bags or holding frosty frozen cappuccinos.

The Pizza Corner was as shiny and clean as any turn-key franchise in the States, the girl behind the counter displaying a mix of phony cheerleader enthusiasm and robotic efficiency that reminded him of home, the pepperoni pizza and Pepsi identical to countless Corning lunches. An hour ahead of the lunchtime crowd, he nibbled at the slice, not wanting to finish too quickly, unsure if his first contact in Bangalore would show.

He was awake before sunrise, taking his pile of emails down to the hotel’s all-night café, letting Rachel get back the hours of sleep she had lost proving she could be just as passionate without making a sound. On the back of a paper placemat he had jotted down the email addresses and phone numbers of the strangers who had volunteered to help. He had started by writing the phone number from the web page Narvin had shown him back in Mumbai, the pre-paid mobile of his stalker, but halfway through he crossed it out. The number, and what it meant, was burned into his memory.

The offers of help from people outside of Bangalore he had written at the bottom of the sheet. Some were responding to the original email he had sent out from his cubicle back in Corning, the email that Ravi had told him he should have never sent. Some of the emails were responding to updates sent by Attar Singh, the information on Jason’s travels hacked from India Rail and bus company computers, sent to everyone Attar knew. By things written in a few of these notes, Jason realized that news of Sriram’s and Vidya’s deaths had not reached everyone in their circle, news that they wouldn’t be learning from him.

At the top of the page Jason had written the contact information for the three people in Bangalore.

Manoj “call me Manny” Plakal said that he was thrilled and delighted to meet any of Sriram’s American friends and that he would be thrilled and delighted to help Jason out in any way, insisting that Jason call as soon as he arrived in Bangalore, promising that he would have a thrilling and delightful time in the Garden City.

“I made the mistake of associating with Sriram Sundaram once before,” the “reply all” email from Mr. Piyush Ojha began. “Live or dead, I have no desire whatsoever to renew that association. Please do not contact me again.” Whether by habit or a preset computer command, the address of a Bangalore bank appeared under his typed name, along with his office and mobile phone number. Despite the man’s directions, Jason wrote down the information.

The email from Ketan Jani started like most of the others.

“You did not respond to my first email but my offer to help you in Bangalore remains. Please call me upon your arrival.” The note went on to list phone and fax numbers and possible places they could meet. It was the final line that prompted Jason to move Ketan to the top of the list.

“I have spoken to a few others and I must warn you that there are a couple people you would be wise to avoid while here in India. To this point I suggest you stop sending out emails announcing your location as this may prove dangerous.”

Ketan did not sound surprised when Jason called his office at eight a.m., suggesting that they meet at eleven at the Pizza Corner. “It is a good place to meet, but for your own safety,” he had said, slowing his words as he spoke, “don’t let them put hot peppers on your slice.”

Jason had the plastic top off his empty cup, crunching a mouthful of ice when Ketan Jani arrived.

“You are a brave man, Jason Talley,” Ketan said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. “Most tourists avoid the ice in India.”

“I like living on the edge,” Jason said, extending his arm across the table to shake the man’s hand. Ketan was tall and lean, his pointed chin capped with a close-cropped goatee. There was a natural curl to his hair that he had gelled into submission, his kohl-black eyes intense even when he smiled, an expression that didn’t seem to match the rest of his face.

“I suppose I should start with some pleasantries. The how-do-you-like-India sort of thing,” Ketan said, waving a uniformed counter girl over to the table. Jason listened as he ordered his lunch in English, his voice reminding Jason of Sriram, Attar, and every other Indian male he had met.

“I have to admit,” Jason said after the girl skipped back to the counter, “I didn’t expect India to be so modern. I mean, just look down this street.” He turned sideways, his hand sweeping to take in the second-story view of European boutique stores, glass and neon computer shops, and western restaurant chains. “It’s better than anything in my hometown. And everyplace is hooked up to the Internet—even my auto-rickshaw driver had a cell phone.”

Ketan shook his head and smiled his happy, demonic smile. “Don’t confuse the parts with the whole. You’ve seen a handful of big cities in one section of India. It would be like spending a day or two in New York, D.C., Daytona Beach, and Orlando and saying you
know
America. Half of everyone who lives in India lives in a small village, none of which I’m sure you saw.”

“I saw a lot of farm land from the train.”

“A sliver, what, mile-wide? All right, you saw India—a hell of a lot more than most people will ever see, including Indians. But you saw a special, tourist-friendly version.” He paused and looked up at the ceiling. “Listen to me,” Ketan said. “You come all the way to India and I sit here telling you it’s not enough. Forgive me, I’m a boorish ass.” He brought his hands together in front of his chest, giving his head a quick nod. “So, is this where I say, how about them Red Sox?”

Jason laughed. “I’m a Yankees man myself.”

“Ah, just like Sriram. I don’t know what he saw in the game. He was such a cricket fanatic in university. I guess he made do with baseball when he left the civilized world behind.”

“What was he like back then?” Jason said.

Ketan shrugged. “Funny. Obsessive when it came to computers. Good with the complex stuff, the minutia. And he loved learning new things. He was always after Ravi to teach him more.”

“Did he get upset easily, throw things around?”

“No, he was more apt to sit and stew. He’d get frustrated, sure, we all did. Some of the guys would wing keyboards out the back door or punch the wall—only once, it was concrete—but Sriram wasn’t like that. He’d shout a while but that was it. But let me tell you, the guy could hold a grudge.”

“Against you?” Jason asked.

“Not that I know of, but then if he did he would have never let on. There was this guy in one of our first-year classes, this is before Sriram became the quote-unquote security expert, well this guy, he hacks into Sriram’s computer and copies a paper Sriram was writing, some elective course. Anyway, Sriram turns in his paper and a week later the professor calls them in.”

“And fails them both.”

“No, that’s the funny thing,” Ketan said. “He congratulated them for their collaborative spirit, gave them both As. Of course the guy tells Sriram all about how he hacked in and they had a good laugh. Two years later, the guy’s applying for a fellowship. He walks into a faculty committee review of some project he’s working on—his data’s all wrong, the references are made up, huge plagiarized sections. The guy swears that it’s not his real paper, somebody’s fucking with him. The poor guy spent a semester trying to clear his name. In the end he just washed out.”

“You think Sriram was behind it?”

“I didn’t at first. A couple years later we’re at this party, everybody pretty smashed. This guy’s name comes up. Well, you know what it’s like, those things are funny when you’re drunk. So we’re all laughing. But not Sriram. So I said something like, what, you got no sense of humor, I mean he’s the one always cracking us up. But he just looks at me and says that bastard’s lucky I let him off so easy.”

“Hot stuff, coming through,” the uniformed waitress said, resting her tray on the top of the napkin dispenser, naming each item as she set them on the table just like the training manual prescribed. Jason transferred his straw to a fresh Pepsi and waited as Ketan cradled his slice of vegetarian pizza with three fingers.

“I’m doing it again,” Ketan said, biting the tip off the drooping slice. “I’m focusing on the negative. My apologies. Sriram was a good man. Better than the rest of us.”

“You mean the guys involved with Bangalore World Systems?”

Ketan nodded as he chewed, wiping his lips with a transparently thin paper napkin. “We were arrogant, greedy little shits and to this day I make it a habit to avoid them all. We thought we had all the answers, that everyone else was wrong. People tried to warn us, the failure rate for computer companies was running close to a hundred percent back then, but no, not us, we were different. The world
owed
us something.”

“So you don’t see any of them? Get together to reminisce about the old days?”

“No thank you,” Ketan said. “Someday we will. Maybe one of us will get the crazy idea to start it all up again. BW freakin’ S.” He laughed. “Knowing us we’d all be stupid enough to come back. But right now? No. Probably for the best.”

Jason poked at the ice in the drink with his straw. “Do you still blame him?”

Ketan took a second bite and washed it down with a long swig before answering. “At this point, I don’t know who to blame.”

***

Jason was leaning against a parked Ambassador outside the Ivory Tower Hotel, twisting open his second bottle of Thumbs Up cola when he remembered her name. Mary Bacca. She sat in front of him every year, from fourth grade through middle school. She had neat handwriting and was fast with her multiplication tables, but it was her taste buds that made her a schoolyard legend.

Eyes closed, Mary could identify the brand of gum in just ten chews, could name the color marker with one tap on her tongue, and with a single sip she could tell the Cokes from the Pepsis, the R.C.s, and the grocery store pretenders.

Jason had been there the day Ronnie Wolf, known paste-eater, challenged her to an old Coke, New Coke, and Coke Classic taste-off.

It was over in three sips.

“They changed it, you know,” Mary said later as they took their seats in science class. “The Coca-cola we grew up with? You’ll never taste it again.” First sex-ed, then that bombshell. It was the year Jason knew his childhood was over.

Mary had moved on, too. Cigarettes, beers, fortified wines, nickel bags of weed—with a puff or a chug, she could name them all, brand, mix or country. In high school there were rumors of wild parties, picking out boys in dark rooms from other things she put in her mouth. “I can’t help it,” she had told Jason once as they sat sipping beers at an outlaw senior class party. “It’s how I make sense of the world.”

She got married and moved away, a pastry chef somewhere upstate. He’d found his niche in Corning, dotting i’s, crossing t’s, buttoning up the details of other people’s lives with a manila folder and a rubber stamp. Making sense of the world.

He took a long pull on the Thumbs Up, with its heavy syrup flavor and teeth-rattling sugar content, and thought about his next move.

The concierge at the Karnataka Hotel didn’t laugh when Jason had asked for a Bangalore telephone directory—he was far too professional for that—but by the way the others behind the desk reacted to his early morning request, Jason realized finding Sriram’s family wasn’t going to be as easy as it looked back in Corning. He had told them that he knew the family name and was planning on spending an hour calling the Sundarams listed, betting that he’d either find his friend’s family or find someone who knew of them. Here the concierge did allow the corners of his mouth to twitch, explaining, as he would to a small, slow child, that Sundaram was a common family name, that in a city of over six million there would be thousands of Sundarams, and if such a fantastic book did exist, it would not list those who only used mobile phones, something which, he assured Jason, was quite very common in this day and age.

So much for Plan A.

What he needed now was a Plan B.

Jason tapped the plastic cola bottle against the bumper of the Ambassador, burning off the nervous energy that was half caffeine, half that gnawing desire to put things in order. It was the same anxious feeling that came at the end of every month, with files due and forms still missing, knowing that million-dollar deals hinged on everything being right where it was supposed to be. And, with his files, everything always was.

He needed more time to put it all together—Sriram and Vidya, the attacks, that damn sari. But as the Freedom Tours’ bus pulled in from its half-day trip to the spice merchants’ emporium, he was hoping he’d have less.

Dayama “Danny” Satyanarayan was the first off the bus, sucking in a deep breath of air and rubbing the scowl off his face before he turned, beaming, to help each passenger as they stepped down from the coach.

Jason strolled over to the entrance of the hotel, nodding to the worn-out travelers as they shuffled past. A few waved back, trying to place where they had seen that young man before. He waited as Danny climbed back aboard, checking for items left behind and pointing out the cramped space where the driver was expected to squeeze the bus. When he spotted Jason, Danny’s stock smile widened a bit and he held his hand out as he crossed the hotel’s driveway.

“Mr. Talley, what a pleasure it is to see you again,” he said, pumping Jason’s arm. “I trust you had a most excellent time.”

“So far, so good,” Jason said, remembering now how Danny’s clear voice and reassuring, if feigned, smile had made him feel so secure.