Then I spoke to them.

"These men will take you to the airport. You're gonna wait in the car park. There's a plane to Lagos tomorrow morning. You're gonna be on it. We're gonna buy the tickets with your money. And get this straight-I had nothing to do with this. That's not your fault- it's Maurizio's-but that doesn't make me any happier about it.

I'm gonna fix Maurizio, for lying about me. That's my business, now. You can go back to your boss, and tell him that Maurizio will get what's coming to him. But if you ever come back here, we'll kill you. Understand? You come back to Bombay, you die."

"Yeah, you fuckin' understand?" Vikram shouted at them, lashing out with a kick. "You come here and fuck with Indians, you fuckin' fuck-heads! India is finished for you! You come back here and I will personally cut off your fuckin' balls! Do you see my hat? You see the mark on my fuckin' hat, you fuckin' bahinchhud?

You put a mark on my fuckin' hat! You don't fuck with an Indian guy's hat! You don't fuck with Indian guys for any reason, hat or no hat! Not ever! And especially not, if they do wear a hat!"

I left them, and took a cab to Ulla's new apartment. She would know where Maurizio was, if anyone knew. My throat was aching, and I could hardly talk. The gun in my pocket was all I could think about. It swelled, in my mind, until it was huge: until the pattern of ridges on the handle was as large as the wale of bark on a cork tree. It was a Walther P38, one of the best semi automatic pistols ever made. It fired a 9mm round from an eight shot magazine, and in my mind I saw all eight of them punch their way into Maurizio's body. I mumbled the name, Maurizio, Maurizio, and a voice in my head, a voice that I knew very well, said, Get rid of the gun before you see him...

I knocked hard on the door of the apartment, and when Lisa opened it I brushed past her to find Ulla sitting on a couch in the lounge room. She was crying. She looked up when I entered, and I saw that her left eye was swollen, as if she'd been hit.

"Maurizio!" I said. "Where is he?"

"Lin, I can't," she sobbed. "Modena..."

"I'm not interested in Modena. I want Maurizio. Tell me where he is!"

Lisa tapped me on the arm. I turned, and noticed for the first time that she had a large kitchen knife in her hand. She jerked her head toward the nearest bedroom. I looked at Ulla, and then back to Lisa. She nodded at me, slowly.

He was hiding in a wardrobe. When I dragged him out, into the room, he pleaded with me, begging me not to hurt him. I grabbed the belt at the back of his trousers, and marched him to the door of the apartment. He screamed for help, and I hit him in the face with the pistol. He screamed again, and I hit him again, much harder.

His lips parted, and he wanted to cry out, once more, but I beat him to it, crunching the gun into the top of his head as he flinched away. He was quiet.

Lisa snarled at him, brandishing the knife.

"You're lucky I didn't put this in your guts, you son of a bitch!

If you ever hit her again, I'll kill you!"

"What did he want here?" I asked her.

"It's all about the money. Modena's got it. Ulla called Maurizio - "

She stopped, shocked by the fury she saw on my face as I glared at Ulla.

"I know, I know, she wasn't supposed to call anyone. But she did, and she told him about this place. She was supposed to meet them both, here, tonight. But Modena didn't show. It's not her fault, Lin. She didn't know Maurizio put you in it. He just told us about it, then, a minute ago. He told us he gave your name to a couple of Nigerian thugs. He put you in it, to save himself. He said he had to have the money, to get away, because they'd be after him when they were finished with you. The hero was trying to beat it out of her, where Modena is, when you got here."

"Where's the money?" I asked Ulla.

"I don't know, Lin," she cried. "Fuck the money! I didn't want it in the first place. Modena was ashamed that I was working. He doesn't understand. I rather would work on the street, and keep him safe, than have this crazy thing happen. He loves me. He loves me. He didn't have anything to do with you and the Nigerians, Lin, I swear it. That was Maurizio's idea. It's been going on for weeks now. That's what I've been so scared about.

And then tonight, Modena got hold of the money Maurizio stole- the money he stole from the Africans-and he hid it. He did it for me. He loves me, Lin. Modena loves me."

She trailed off in stuttering sobs. I turned to Lisa.

"I'm taking him with me."

"Good!" she snapped.

"Will you be okay?"

"Yeah. We're fine."

"Have you got any money?"

"Yeah. Don't worry." "I'll send Abdullah as soon as I can. Keep the doors locked, and don't let anyone in but us, okay?"

"You got it," she smiled. "Thanks, Gilbert. That's the second time you came riding to the rescue."

"Forget it."

"No. I won't forget it," she said, closing and locking the door behind us.

I wish I could say that I didn't hit him. He was big enough and strong enough to defend himself, but he had no heart for fighting, and there wasn't any victory in hitting him. He didn't fight or even struggle. He whimpered and cried and begged. I wish I could say that a stern justice and a righteous revenge for the wrong that he'd done to me had curled my hands into fists, and punched him. But I can't be sure. Even now, long years later, I can't be sure that the violence I did to him didn't come from something darker, deeper, and far less justifiable than angry retribution. The fact was that I'd been jealous of Maurizio for a long time. And in some part, some small but terrible part, I may have struck at his beauty, and not just his treachery.

On the other hand, of course, I should've killed him. When I left him, bloody and broken, near the St. George Hospital, a warning voice told me it wasn't the end of the matter. And I did hesitate, looming over his body with murder in my eyes, but I couldn't take his life. Something he'd said, when he was begging me to stop beating him, stayed my hand. He said that he'd named me, that he'd thrown me to the Nigerian thugs when he had to invent someone else who was responsible for his theft, because he was jealous of me. He was jealous of my confidence, my strength, and my friendships. He was jealous of me. And in his jealousy, he hated me. And in that, we weren't so different, Maurizio and I.

It was still with me, all of it, the next day, when the Nigerians were gone and I went to Leopold's, looking for Didier to return his unused gun. It was still with me, clotting my mind with anger, confused in regret, when I found Johnny Cigar waiting for me outside. It was still there, as I struggled to focus, and understand his words.

"It's a very bad thing," he said. "Anand Rao has killed Rasheed this morning. He cut his throat. It's the first time, Lin."

I knew what he meant. It was the first murder in our slum. It was the first time that one slum-dweller had ever killed another in the Cuffe Parade slum. There were twenty-five thousand people in those little acres, and they fought and argued and bickered all the time, but none, not one of them, had ever killed another. And in the shocked moment, I suddenly remembered Madjid. He, too, had been murdered. I'd managed, somehow, to push the thought of his death away from my waking, working mind, but it had been gnawing through the screen of my composure slowly, steadily, all the while. And it broke through then, with the news of Rasheed's death. And that other murder-the slaughter, Ghani had said-of the old gold smuggler, the mafia don, became confused with the blood that was on Anand's hands. Anand, whose name meant happy.

Anand, who'd tried to talk to me and tell me about it, who'd come to me that day in the slum for help, and found none.