"He's a what?"

"A stand-over man, Sanjay. He beats up on men he knows can't fight back, and takes whatever he wants from them. In my country, we call those guys stand-over men because they really do stand over little guys and steal from them."

Sanjay looked at Farid and Salman with a blank expression of confused innocence.

"I don't see the problem," he said.

"No, I know you don't have a problem with it. And that's okay. I don't expect everyone to think like me. Fact is, most people don't. And I understand that. I get it. I know that's how a lot of guys make their way. But just because I understand it, that doesn't mean I like it. I met some of them in jail. A couple of them tried to stand over me. I stabbed them. None of the others ever tried it again. The word got around. Try to stand over this guy, and he'll put a hole in you. So they left me alone. And that's just the thing. I would've had more respect for them if they'd kept on trying to stand over me. I wouldn't have stopped fighting them-I still would've cut them up, you know, but I would've respected them more while I did it. Ask the waiter here, Santosh, what he thinks of Chuha. They came in here last week, Chuha and his guys, and slapped him around for fifty bucks."

The word bucks was Bombay slang for rupees. Fifty rupees was the same amount, I knew, that Sanjay customarily tipped waiters and better-than-average cab drivers.

"The guy's a fuckin' millionaire, if you believe his bullshit," I said, "and he stands over a decent working guy like Santosh for fifty bucks. I don't respect that. And in your heart of hearts, Sanjay, I don't think you do, either. I'm not going to do anything about it. That's not my job. Chuha makes his graft by slapping people. I understand that. But if he ever tries to stand over me, I'll cut him. And I tell you, man, I'll enjoy doing it."

There was a little silence while Sanjay pursed his lips, twirled his hand palm upward, and looked from Salman to Farid. Then all three of them burst out laughing.

"You asked him!" Farid giggled.

"Okay, okay," Sanjay conceded. "I asked the wrong guy. Lin is a wild guy, yaar. He gets wild notions. He went to Afghanistan with Khader, man! Why did I ask a guy who's crazy enough to do that?

You ran that clinic in the zhopadpatti, and you never made a fuckin' paise out of it. Remind me of that, Lin brother, if I ever ask you for your business opinion again, na?"

"And another thing," I added, keeping a straight face.

"Eh, Baghwan!" Sanjay cried. "He's got another thing, yet!"

"If you think about the slogans, you'll understand where I'm coming from on this."

"The slogans?" Sanjay protested, provoking his friends to bigger laughter. "What fuckin' slogans, yaar?"

"You know what I mean. The slogan, or the motto, of the Walidlalla gang is Pahiley Shahad, Tab julm. I think I'm right in translating it as First Honey, Then Outrage, or even Atrocity.

Isn't that right? And isn't that what they say to each other as their slogan?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's their thing, man."

"And what's our slogan? Khader's slogan?"

They looked at one another, and smiled.

"Saatch aur Himmat." I spoke it aloud for them. "Truth and Courage. I know a lot of guys who'd like Chuha's slogan. They'd think it was clever and funny. And it sounds ruthless, so they'd think it was tough. But I don't like it. I like Khader's."

At the sound of an Enfield engine, I looked up to see Abdullah park his bike outside the chai shop and wave to me. It was time for me to go.

I'd spoken the truth, as I saw it, and I meant every word, but in my own heart of hearts I knew that Sanjay's argument, although not better, would turn out to be stronger than mine. The Walidlalla gang under Chuha was the future of all the mafia councils, in a sense, and we all knew it. Walid was still the head of the council that bore his name, but he was old and he was ill. He'd ceded so much power to Chuha that it was the younger don who ruled. Chuha was aggressive and successful, and he gained new ground by conquest or coercion every few months. Sooner or later, if Salman didn't agree to merge with Chuha, that expansion would come to open conflict, and there would be a war.

I hoped, of course, that Khader's council, under Salman, would win. But I knew that, if we did win, it would be impossible to claim Chuha's territory without also absorbing his trade in heroin, women, and porn. It was the future, and it was inevitable. There was simply too much money in it. And money, if the pile gets high enough, is something like a big political party: it does as much harm as it does good, it puts too much power in too few hands, and the closer you come to it the dirtier you get. In the long run, Salman could walk away from the fight with Chuha, or he could defeat him and become him. Fate always gives you two choices, Scorpio George once said: the one you should take, and the one you do.

"But hey," I said, standing to leave, "it's got nothing to do with me. And frankly, I don't really give a damn one way or the other. My ride is here. I'll see you guys later."

I walked out, with Sanjay's protests and his friends' laughter rattling above the clatter of cups and glasses.

"Bahinchudh! Gandu!" Sanjay shouted. "You can't fuck up my rave like that and then walk out, yaar! Come back here!"

As I approached him, Abdullah kick-started the bike and straightened it from the side stand, ready to ride.

"You're in a hurry for your workout," I said, settling myself onto the saddle of the bike behind him. "Relax. No matter how fast we get there, I'm still going to beat you, brother."

For nine months, we'd trained together at a small, dark, sweaty, and very serious gym near the Elephant Gate section of Ballard Pier. It was a goonda's gym set up by Hussein, the one-armed survivor of Khader's battle with the Sapna assassins. There were weights and benches, a judo mat, and a boxing ring. The smell of man-sweat, both fresh and fouled into the stitching of leather gloves and belts and turnbuckles, was so eye-wateringly rancid that the gym was the only building in the city block that rats and cockroaches spurned. There were bloodstains on the walls and the wooden floor, and the young gangsters who trained there accumulated more wounds and injuries in a workout week than the emergency ward of a city hospital on a hot Saturday night.

"Not today," Abdullah laughed over his shoulder, pulling the bike into a faster lane of traffic. "No fighting today, Lin. I am taking you for a surprise. A good surprise!" "Now I'm worried," I called back. "What kind of surprise?"

"You remember when I took you to see Doctor Hamid? You remember that surprise?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Well, it is better than that. Much better."

"U-huh. Well, I'm still not very relaxed about it. Gimme another hint."

"You remember when I sent you the bear, for hugging?"

"Kano, sure, I remember."

"Well, it is much better than that!"

"A doctor and a bear," I called out above the growl of the engine. "There's a lot of space between them, brother. One more hint."

"Ha!" he laughed, coming to a stop at a set of traffic lights. "I will say to you this-the surprise is so good that you will forgive me for all that you suffered when you thought I was dead."

"I do forgive you, Abdullah."

"No, Lin brother. I know you do not forgive me. I have too many bruises, and I am too much sore from our boxing and karate."

It wasn't true: I never hit him as hard as he hit me. Although he was healing well, and he was very fit, he'd never fully recovered the uncanny strength and charismatic vitality he'd known before the police shooting. And when he removed his shirt to box with me, the sight of his scarred body-it was as if he'd been savaged by the claws of wild animals and burned with hot iron brands- always made me pull my punches. Still, I never admitted that to _him.