Pirate Vishnu (A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery) (6 page)

Chapter 7

“You study history, Jaya,” Nadia said, sighing. “Young people are not educated as they once were.”

Sanjay cleared his throat.

“Chinese fishing nets,” Nadia said, shooting a sharp glance at Sanjay. “This drawing is of Chinese fishing nets. The large nets that scoop into the ocean for fish. You are too young to have seen many of them, even on your travels. The technology has been replaced.”

Sanjay and I glanced at each other. Chinese fishing nets. Nadia was right. That’s exactly what they were. Huge contraptions with spider-like arms that controlled the nets below.

The Paravar caste of south India was a fishing and boat builder caste. The Chinese had come to the west coast of India centuries ago, bringing with them their tall fishing nets and interacting with the Indians who worked along the water. For centuries, the easiest way to get around the coastal regions of southwestern India was by boat, giving lots of work to the Paravars.

As a skilled boat builder who once worked in Kochi, Anand would have been familiar with the nets. But why had he drawn these fishing nets in San Francisco?

“This is not right,” Nadia said, the wrinkles surrounding her lips accentuated by her consternation.

Nadia pulled the map off the corkboard. She took it out of its protective plastic, and held it in her hands to peer more closely at the markings. She shook her head before setting it down on the coffee table.

“The map is a hundred years old,” I said. “Wasn’t there a big Chinese population in San Francisco at the time?”

“There have never been fishing nets set up like that at Lands End,” Nadia said. “I hope you did not pay much for the map. The person who drew it was not true to San Francisco history.”

“It looks pretty accurate everywhere else,” Sanjay said.

Nadia’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Sanjay.

He gulped. “Would you like some coffee, Nadia?”

“You made it?”

He nodded.

“No. I should be getting back.” She gave one last look at the mysterious map she’d left resting on the coffee table, then slipped out the door.

“What did I ever to do her?” Sanjay asked. He sighed and absentmindedly set his mug down on the coffee table. “And how the hell does she know what fishing nets were set up in San Francisco a hundred years ago. What is she, a vampire?”

“Before I lose all sense of reality, it’s time for you to head home, too.”

Sanjay hesitated before speaking. “You’re not going to do anything after I’m gone, are you?”

“I’m going to get some sleep.”

“You’re not going to check out these spots on the map?”

Sanjay knew me well.

“It’s the middle of the night,” I said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’m not going to leave the house tonight,” I promised.

“You don’t seem yourself,” Sanjay said. “Are you sure you’re all right? Do you want me to come by in the morning?”

“I’ve got a date in the morning.”

“A date?”

“I’m meeting Tamarind at the library.”

“Oh, not a
date
date.”

“She’s helping me with some archival research. Before I return the map to the police or Steven’s family tomorrow, I thought I’d take it to the library—Sanjay!” I broke off as I stared at the coffee table. I jumped up and lifted Sanjay’s mug from where he’d set it down. “You set your coffee down on the map!”

“It’s Nadia’s fault,” Sanjay grumbled, taking the mug back. “She flusters me. I didn’t realize what I was doing. Why did she take it off the wall anyway?”

I slipped the map back into its plastic covering. It only had a small ring from the mug. No harm done.

“Definitely time to call it a night,” I said.

After I finally got Sanjay out the door, I opened my computer. An email from Tamarind told me she’d found a good contact at the University of Kerala and that she should have more information by morning. With that taken care of, it was time for an internet search. I confirmed that Steven Healy was a lawyer, like he told me. But that’s where the truth ended. He hadn’t retired.

He’d been disbarred.

I clicked on one of the articles, and then another. Last year, prominent San Francisco attorney Steven Healy had been disbarred for falsifying documents against the opposing side in a court case—he even punched the guy at one point—and his law firm, Healy & Healy, went under as a result. Steven was ruined, and his son Connor hadn’t returned to law.

Steven Healy wasn’t merely bored in retirement.
He was a desperate man.

There had been a scandal that played out on the television news. Connor’s wife Christine was incredibly photogenic, and the television news had covered the story more than the print media. I might have read about it in passing, but I hadn’t remembered it well enough to recognize Steven when he came to see me. Perhaps that’s why I’d had a sense that he looked vaguely familiar. I could have spent hours reading news stories from the previous year, but it wouldn’t have answered any more of my questions. I turned back to the map.

I looked up the two names on the map I didn’t recognize:
MP Craft Emporium
and the
The Anchored Enchantress
. I couldn’t find any references to either one having existed in San Francisco, so I tried the search from a different angle. I found an old map of San Francisco from 1900 that was detailed enough to show some locations. The map I found online wasn’t comprehensive, but it was a start. The location of the two buildings placed them in San Francisco’s notorious Barbary Coast neighborhood, known for establishments such as saloons, dance halls, and gambling dens that sprang up when the Gold Rush began in 1849. Again, neither name was listed. I made a note to ask Tamarind about them at the library the next day.

I’m a good historian because in addition to knowing a hell of a lot about my subject of British India, I’m good at putting together the puzzle pieces of history. Being good at academic research also means knowing where to go to find out what you need. In spite of what movies might have you believe, an individual can’t be an expert at everything. As a librarian, Tamarind knows how to find things that a Google search would never reveal. And I knew exactly who would be a good person to do a translation. The problem was I wasn’t sure if he’d help.

Naveen Krishnan was a fellow assistant professor of history at my university. Naveen and I were both hired last year as part of an expansion in the South Asian Studies program in the History Department. But with budget cuts looming, it was likely only one of us would get tenure. I really should have been putting the finishing touches on the research paper I needed to get published, not examining a treasure map. But having a brilliant linguist down the hall from me was too good an opportunity to pass up. I hoped he’d be willing to put our academic rivalry aside to help me with this personal matter.

I sent an email to Naveen to see if he was available to translate the Tamil on the map. There had to be more to those words.

It was a strange feeling, having something of Anand’s after he’d been a grand, ghostly figure for all these years.
What were your secrets, Anand Paravar?
Because of Steven’s death, would I ever know? Were both Anand’s and Steven’s deaths due to this map and the treasure it led to? A map that I now had in my possession. I shivered at the thought. I pulled a throw blanket from the back of the couch around me and looked methodically at the map.
Shipyards, Chinese fishing nets, unknown buildings that existed a century ago….

The X on the map must have had a hypnotic effect, because the next thing I knew, I was lying on the couch with light streaming onto my face and a loud knock on the door jolting me awake.

I flailed around for a moment before realizing I was lying on the couch. Standing up, I knocked my shin on the edge of the coffee table. I wasn’t so great at life before coffee.

“Jaya?” a male voice called out from behind the door, followed by another knock.

“Sanjay?”

“Of course it’s me. Who else sounds like me?”

I reached the door and opened it. Sanjay stood in the doorway wearing casual clothes and his bowler hat, holding two paper cups of coffee.

“Why are you here so early?” I asked, accepting a coffee.

“It’s almost nine,” Sanjay said, stepping around me to enter the apartment. “Were you still in bed?”

“No,” I said, running a hand through my messy hair as I shut the door. A benefit of wearing a lot of black clothes is that nobody notices if you’re wearing the same clothes as the day before.

“You weren’t answering your phone,” Sanjay said, frowning.

“I must have slept through it,” I said, yawning. I was a sound sleeper. When I needed to get up, I set multiple alarms.

“Do me a favor,” Sanjay said. “The next time someone you know is murdered, leave your phone on its loudest setting.”

“Why are you so jumpy this morning?”

“Because of what I heard this morning,” Sanjay said. “Whatever is going on, Jaya—be careful. You shouldn’t follow the clues on the map—ever. It’s too dangerous. You need to forget about this whole thing.”

“What are you talking about?” My sleep-weariness was gone, replaced by the alertness that comes with anxiety. “What’s happened?”

“Your lawyer friend. He was lying to you.”

“Oh, that,” I said, sitting back down and taking a sip of sugary caffeine. “I know.”

“You do? I thought you were still asleep just now.”

“I Googled him last night.”

“Wait,” Sanjay said slowly. “What are you talking about? It was only the morning news that had interviewed his friends.”

“Why would the media need friends of his to report that he was disbarred?” I asked.

“He was disbarred?”

“That’s not what you’re talking about?”

Sanjay shook his head, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “I’m talking about the treasure.”

“Someone told the press what the treasure is?”

“Unfortunately not,” Sanjay said. “But Steven was bragging about having made a discovery of
great historical significance
. He wouldn’t tell anyone what it was, but it sure as hell wasn’t some little family treasure.”

“None of this makes sense,” I said. “How did an Indian boat builder end up with a treasure of historic significance?”

“That,” Sanjay said, “is a much tougher riddle than the one you brought me last night.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Sanjay said, “but it’s not good.”

“No,” I said. “It certainly isn’t.”

Chapter 8

The middle of the Atlantic Ocean, 1902

For close to two years, Anand wandered through Arabia and Europe, stopping in coastal cities where there was work building or fixing ships. Traveling westward, he wrote Vishwan a letter every week.

But there were some things he couldn’t tell his little brother.

The English he had learned in school from the British served him well. He had taken to the subject, which had helped him much more than rudimentary Hindi in Kochi. Anand knew he was lucky that languages came easily to him. In Constantinople, he used his Arabic. In Calais, he became better at French. In Frankfurt, German.

He left Morocco for the north after a team of pirates wrecked a frigate he was repairing and the company employing him went bankrupt.

He left Frankfurt after an incident with the wife of a duke. She had not told Anand who she was; he never would have betrayed the hospitality of the man for whom he was working.

English came most easily to him but England was far from his favorite country. The men he worked with in Portsmouth did not know the meaning of being civilized. Unlike their ship-building brethren in India, these men on the docks of England had no education, often speaking English with less facility than Anand himself. Most of them thought nothing of going days without washing, and subsisted on potatoes and ale. Yet in spite of all this, they considered themselves superior to Anand.

Anand had heard of America. The further west he traveled, and the more coastal cities he visited, the more he heard about the wonders of this young country of America.

Though he missed his home of Travancore, he knew it was safest for him to stay away for a short time longer. Besides, there was still much more of the world to see. Ever since that day years ago when he had died of typhoid and been given another chance at life, he knew he was meant to see the world. Maybe even change it. There would be time for him to return to Travancore. When he did, it would be interesting to see how the land and people had changed.

When Anand stayed in a city for a long enough time to receive mail, his brother was able to write to him to tell him what was happening at home. Vishwan read the Tamil newspaper
Swadesamitran
and the English newspaper
Madras Standard
, and wrote to Anand of the growing movement toward independence. Such movements to break away from British rule and elect their own leaders had existed for years, but this time was different. The British were wary and the local kings were afraid.

Anand thought of the Heart of India, the giant elephant statue crafted in a Kochi workshop years before by a Muslim friend. It was brought to the water’s edge of the coastal town of Thoothukudi, in southeastern India, where it was safe from interference from maharajas who opposed its message. There in the symbolic city of Thoothukudi, which had replaced Korkai as the Pearl Emporium from ancient times, the Heart of India was free to be seen by all. Men from many religions and castes had contributed their labor in creating the statue. Anand’s Paravar caste had given the Paravar pearl held in the elephant’s trunk. Yes, there would be time to return home and to see the statue again.

Anand booked passage on a large passenger ship which would take many days to sail from England to New York. The passengers from over a dozen countries told stories of boundless opportunities about which they could not possibly know, yet their faces were filled with such hope that it was impossible not to believe them.

Anand could tell America would be different.