Namaste (18 page)

“Same skin tone. Bald.”
 

“Bald or shaved?”
 

“I don’t know.”

“How old is he?”
 

“Twenties. Thirties. Maybe older. You age well.”
 

“Thank you.”
 

“I meant Asians.”
 

Amit thought about what he should make of this random statement. It might be racist. Amit decided not to be offended by something that seemed complimentary.
 

“Who does Raul talk about? What names does he use?”
 

“He’s very careful. He does not use names. He speaks only about ‘his boss’ and ‘the company.’”
 

“But apparently, he cannot keep his mouth shut entirely about what ‘the company’ actually does. Because you know.”
 

Jones swallowed, then nodded. “He was amazingly blunt the first time we met. We came into this room, and Raul asked how serious we were about confidentiality. I told him what I told you, about how the main thing we offer is protection from private eyes. I assured him that we do not judge, that our clients are in all sorts of borderline businesses.”

Amit waited for Jones to catch his breath and continue. So far, nothing was helpful, though he scrutinized it all. You never knew when meaning might come from nothing, as had happened with Alfero’s mention of “virgins.”
 

“After that, he looked at me and said, ‘My company is involved in extortion and murder. Does that bother you or your bank?’ He said it like he was ripping off a bandage. I got the impression that he wanted it all out in the open from the start so that there would never be any explanation required for anything else that might happen, such as money showing up with blood on it, which it has. He didn’t say it like he was at all bothered, though, and like he expected me to take it in stride. It was a good move, see, because if I agreed, I was complicit.”
 

“And you chose to be complicit.”
 

Jones swallowed, meeting Amit’s eyes with genuine fear.
 

“OK,” said Amit. “Go on.”
 

“We are important to their organization because they need a place to send their money, as you’ve suggested. If that connection is jeopardized, it’s a problem for them. Raul gave me a phone number — I didn’t recognize the exchange, but he assured me it would ring ‘wherever he happened to be’ — and told me to call if I ever needed him.
At all.
He emphasized that last bit, then stared right at me, same way he had when he’d told me about the extortion and murder. He asked if I understood, and I said I did. I’ve only used the number once, and hope I never need it again.”

“Why?”
 

“There used to be local competition on this island. A man named Carlos ran a syndicate. They saw the banks as local business and resented the offshoring of funds from other countries. We are a bank, yet they used to hassle us and many others as if they were biker hoods and we were mom and pop convenience stores. A large cash deposit was stolen. Carlos assured us that local authorities would only laugh; I called Raul. He arrived the next day. Just him. I was shocked, because I’d explained the situation as best I could the day before — hiding details because you never know who is listening — and I thought I’d been clear. I knew whose money we had. I wasn’t fooling myself, and knew what I was doing when I called those people to help protect their money. I had some idea what to expect — but that wasn’t the same man who’d always shown up to make rather civilized bank deposits.
 

“Raul asked for the details I couldn’t give over the phone. I gave them here, in my office. There was a commotion from outside: Carlos’ men being loud; they act like they own the place and do not care that this is a business. Carlos thought he’d bought the town, and that no one would dare to challenge him. When Raul heard them, he looked at me as if asking a question. I nodded. He held up a finger like this
 
… ” Jones held up the index finger on his unbroken hand as if asking Amit to wait a moment, “ …
 
then stood from his chair, right where you are now. I didn’t know how to react. This was all wrong. He had no men with guns, and didn’t seem to be armed himself unless he had a pistol under his jacket. Now he was going to walk into the fray without so much as an introduction. He told me to wait as if heading to the restroom, so I sat and did nothing. Raul walked calmly to the door, opened it, then closed it behind him. He said something — I couldn’t hear exactly what — then Carlos and his men shout something in reply. At some point there were some noises of activity, then a loud crash. I stood, then flinched back halfway toward the door when there was a loud scream and scattered shots. The scream was like nothing I’d ever heard. By the time I found the courage to stand, the screaming had died. I opened the door and saw Raul in the middle of the lobby surrounded by three bodies. Two of the dead men had handguns nearby. One still had a sort of machine gun slung over a shoulder. The men weren’t just dead; they were shredded, with skin hanging loosely, draping into a huge, converging puddle of blood.
 

“There was a fourth man with Raul. He held him around the neck with the man’s back to Raul’s front. It was Carlos. There was a fifth man near the door holding an automatic weapon. He wore his gun like a purse. He seemed frightened to move his hands anywhere near it. The free man looked shocked. He’d peed down the leg of his pants and was backing up, tripping over customers who’d lain flat at the start of whatever had happened. I looked toward Raul and Carlos and saw why. Carlos looked like he was about to faint, and his stomach was protruding in a most unusual way. Raul’s fist, which he’d had up to the wrist through Carlos’s back, popped through his skin and shirt. There was a pile of something in the bloody hand. Intestines, I think. Carlos was still alive, blinking. Raul stared at the man near the door. He said, ‘Tell the others that Carlos does not run this town. No one runs this town.’ The man turned and ran. Raul removed his hand, and Carlos fell like a puppet. He went calmly toward our employee bathroom to wash up. He finished and came into my office. I could barely face him. He asked if I had any other needs. I told him that I did not. He gave a small bow, thanked me, then left. I lost most of my staff the next day, and most of those who didn’t quit wouldn’t discuss what had happened before I’d come out. One man said, ‘It was almost like he could dodge bullets.’ He started shaking, so I left him alone.”
 

Amit waited for Jones to finish, then nodded once. It was hard to blame the manager for holding out on the questioning, but that didn’t stop his being complicit, or make Amit feel bad for setting back the manager’s typing skills for several weeks at least.
 

Jones seemed to be waiting for Amit’s response, but the former monk had nothing to say. Jones didn’t know about the courier’s connections, or even where the courier lived or worked. The number would be a dead end; there were probably ways to use computers to investigate those who used various phone services, but Amit didn’t know them.
 

He stood, then spontaneously removed his parrot tie, hanging between the lapels of his new white suit. He’d liked the tie, but it was ruined. If there was no longer a cosmetic or joyful reason to wear it, he did not wish to. Amit tossed the tie into Jones’s wastebasket. Above the trash was a tiny basketball hoop with the Cleveland Cavaliers logo. Amit wondered at the story that had brought a Cavs souvenir to this humid Caribbean office, but didn’t ask.

“Thank you for your help.” Amit looked at the manager’s shattered hand and chuckled. “I am afraid you will need to write with your other hand if that is the one you use. Regardless, I would suggest immediate medical attention.”
 

Jones looked up at Amit with a helpless expression. His anger had gone; his indignation had gone; his pomposity had gone; even his reticence to divulge everything he knew about his client’s private affairs seemed to be gone. For the moment — perhaps due to shock — the man didn’t even appear to be in pain. He looked only tired and confused. Amit had mentioned his hand issues as if Jones himself might not have noticed, delivering instructions in the tone of someone mildly suggesting ice for a slight blow to the head.
 

Amit smiled and waited for Jones to respond, but he didn’t. Nor did he stand from his desk. He did nothing but hold his wrist and watch Amit’s eyes.
 

He walked to the office door, turned back to look at Jones, gave the man a small bow, thanked him again, then left.

Chapter 18

A
NOTHER
JET
. A
NOTHER
LONG
JOURNEY
spent in the belly of a plane, with the landing gear, meditating through the engines screams, which seemed to reverberate through the jet’s aluminum skeleton.
 

Some distant part of Amit was hungry. But he had his small bag, and because he’d changed back into his robes and tossed his suit, he’d been free to stock a few snacks and bottles of water. He didn’t think to bring a book. Amit realized — while clinging to the landing gear — that he was bad at air travel. Frequent fliers probably brought all sorts of ways to entertain themselves. They probably didn’t feel like their heads might explode from internal pressure as the plane gained altitude, and probably had heat. He promised himself that someday he’d take a trip the normal way, to see what it was like.
 

Amit still had his mind for company, and in the end that was all he needed. He made himself relatively comfortable, then closed his eyes and gave his spirit permission to stretch the cosmic tether binding him to his body. Soon, the noise of the engines and the uncomfortable sensation of metal pressing into soft parts of his body began to fade into a different part of his awareness. He knew they were there — not too far from his cold or lingering sense of boredom — but they had ceased to matter. He was only mind, and mind was in want for thought alone. For now, it required his body and brain, seeing as they were the vessels he was currently poured into, but some day he’d die, and then he’d be free. Free to reincarnate into something else or free to float, he did not know. The order had its thoughts on what happened after a person died, but Woo had taught Amit to question even the things that were taught by his teachers.
 

Question even me,
Woo had said.
Question my instructions to question what you are taught
.
 

It was a paradox that Amit had spent many meditation sessions puzzling over in his youth. If he listened to Woo, he’d question Sri teachings as much as he’d question workings of the modern world, laws, morality, concepts like ownership, the fact that he himself existed, and so on. But if he listened to Woo, he must also question every word from his sensei, including the instruction to question everything. Did that mean that he should, as a matter of course, sometimes accept things blindly,
without
question? How could you question everything if you never questioned the questioning? Without that final step, were you not conforming to a system of nonconformity?
 

It had the simple, repetitive nature of a koan. Which, Amit realized after enough time pondering koans and simple riddles, really must mean it was confusing for the sake of confusion. Meditation riddles were circular, questions without answers. It was almost stupid. Most mantras meant nothing. That was mostly the point. If you were to repeat something over and over while meditating, you didn’t really want it to have meaning. You wanted your mind and breath occupied by a blank slate, so they would be unencumbered.
 

Was there reincarnation after death? Amit thought so, but was open to all answers, conforming to none.

Was it proper to kill for peace? He could see each side, and was constantly riddling both arguments.
 

Could good be bad?

Could black be white?

Could his enemy be his friend?

That last seemed a stretch, but whenever Amit met resistance in his meditation, he knew it was a sign to consider things further. If an exercise was difficult, the difficulty rendered the exercise worthwhile. A devoted trainee knew to work on his weaknesses more than his strengths, and an enlightened fighter knew to wonder if he should be fighting.
 

Amit didn’t want to consider that Nisha’s murderers might not be evil personified. As Amit opened himself to the possibility that they’d had their own motivations, which surely made sense to them, he decided that they
were
wrong, that he
was
right, and that he’d entered his enemy’s mind to find it as polluted as he had believed. Perhaps the world held no true right, wrong, good, or evil, and maybe the mortal sphere was merely a performance where nothing truly mattered. Nisha was good, and had been his. She was an innocent, but snuffed like a candle. For now, Amit’s enemies were as “evil” as evil could be.
 

But what about the other side? Could his friend be an enemy?

Curled in the plane’s belly, his muscles screaming across the sea, Amit thought of Suni, the abbot.
 

“The official doctrine of Sri is that we never engage and use what we have been taught,” Woo had told him. “But why would we train to be deadly rather than disciplined if we were never meant to use our skills? And why is there a back door in our training? The abbot tells us at Gathering that we must never harm another living being, then he says we cannot be harmed — not because we are Sri, but because we are humans. We are spirit first and body second, and spirit is eternal. Only the body can be harmed, and the body is merely our vehicle. Does it not follow that we, as warriors, could never truly harm anyone even if we’d been allowed to fight?”