"Come and have a meal with us, Lin," Sanjay offered, putting real affection in the invitation.

I knew the meal would be fun, after the melancholy observations at the shrine, and that it would include a choice of drugs and a choice of happy, silly, pretty girls. I was grateful for the offer, but I refused.

"Thanks, man, but I'm meeting someone."

"Arrey, bring her along, yaar," Sanjay suggested. "It's a girl, isn't it?"

"Yeah. It's a girl. But... we have to talk. I'll see you guys later."

Abdullah and Nazeer wanted to walk me to my bike. We'd only taken a few steps when Andrew ran up behind us and called me to stop.

"Lin," he said quickly, nervously, "what happened with us in the car park and all. I... I just want to say... I'm sorry, yaar.

I've been wanting to make-well-an apology, you know?"

"It's okay."

"No-it's not okay."

He pulled at my arm, near the elbow, leading me away from Nazeer and just out of his hearing. Leaning in close to me, he spoke softly and quickly.

"I'm not sorry for what I said about Khaderbhai. I know he was the boss and all, and I know you... you kind of loved him..."

"Yeah. I kinda did."

"But still, I'm not sorry for what I said about him. You know, all his holy preaching, it didn't stop him from handing old Madjid over to Ghani and his Sapna guys when he needed someone to take the fuckin' fall, and keep the cops off his back. Madjid was supposed to be his friend, yaar. But he let them cut him up, just to throw the cops off the case."

"Well..."

"And all those rules, about this and that and what-all, you know, they came to nothing-Sanjay has put me in charge of Chuha's girls, and the videos. And Faisal and Amir, they're running the garad. We're gonna make fuckin' crores out of it. I'm getting my place on the council, and so are they. So, Khaderbhai's day is over, just like I said it was."

I looked back into Andrew's camel-brown eyes, and let out a deep breath. Dislike had been simmering since the night in the car park. I hadn't forgotten what he'd said, and how close we'd come to fighting it out. His little speech had made me angrier still.

If we hadn't just been to a funeral service for a friend we'd both liked, I probably would've hit him already.

"You know, Andrew," I muttered, not smiling, "I gotta tell ya, I'm not gettin' much comfort from this little apology of yours."

"That's not the apology, Lin," he explained, frowning in puzzlement. "The apology is for your mother, and for what I said about her. I'm sorry, man. I'm really, really, sorry for what I said. It was a very shitty thing to say-about your mother, or anybody's mother. Nobody should say shitty things like that about a guy's mother. You would've been well within your rights, yaar, to take a fuckin' shot at me. And... I'm damn glad you didn't.

Mothers are sacred, yaar, and I'm sure your mother is a very fine lady. So, please, I'm asking you, like-please accept my apology."

"It's okay," I said, putting out my hand. He seized the hand in both of his, and shook it vigorously.

Abdullah, Nazeer, and I turned away and walked to the bike.

Abdullah was unusually quiet. The silence he carried with him was ominous and unsettling.

"Are you going back to Delhi tonight?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered. "At midnight."

"You want me to go to the airport with you?"

"No. Thank you. It is better not. There should be no police looking at me. If you are there, they will look at us. But maybe I will see you in Delhi. There is a job in Sri Lanka-you should do it with me."

"I don't know, man," I demurred, grinning in surprise at his earnestness. "There's a war on in Sri Lanka."

"There is no man, and no place, without war," he replied, and it struck me that it was the most profound thing he'd ever said to me. "The only thing we can do is choose a side, and fight. That is the only choice we get-who we fight for, who we fight against. That is life."

"I... I hope there's more to it than that, brother. But, shit, maybe you're right."

"I think you can do this with me," he pressed, clearly troubled by what he was asking me to do. "This is the last work for Khaderbhai."

"What do you mean?"

"Khader Khan, he asked me to do this job for him, when the... what is it-the sign, I think, or the message-when it comes from Sri Lanka. Now, the message, it has come."

"I'm sorry, brother, I don't know what you're talking about," I stated softly, not wanting to make it harder for him. "Just take it easy, and explain it to me. What message?"

He spoke to Nazeer quickly, in Urdu. The older man nodded several times and then said something about names, or not mentioning names. Nazeer turned his head to face me, and favoured me with a wide, warm smile.

"In the Sri Lanka war," Abdullah explained, "there is fighting- Tamil Tigers against Sri Lanka army. Tigers are Hindus.

Sinhalese, they are Buddhist. But in the middle of them, there are the others-Tamil Muslims-with no guns and no army.

Everybody kill them, and nobody fight for them. They need passports and money-gold money. We go to help them."

"Khaderbhai," Nazeer added, "he make this plan. Only three men.

Abdullah, and me, and one gora-you. Three men. We go."

I owed him. Nazeer would never mention that fact, I knew, and he wouldn't hold it against me if I didn't go with him. We'd been through too much together. But I did owe him my life. It would be very hard to refuse him. And there was something else-something wise, perhaps, and fervently generous-in that rare, wide smile he'd given me. It seemed that he was offering me more than just the chance to work with him, and work off my debt. He blamed himself for Khader's death, but he knew that I still felt guilty and ashamed that I hadn't been there with him, pretending to be his American, when Khader had died. He's giving me a chance, I thought, as I let my eyes move from his to Abdullah's and back again. He's giving me a way to close the book on it.

"So, when would you be going on this trip? Roughly speaking?"

"Soon," Abdullah laughed. "A few months, no more than that. I am going to Delhi. I will send someone to bring you, when the time is coming. Two, three months, Lin brother."

I heard a voice in my head-or not a voice, really, but just words in whispered echoes like stones hissing across the still surface of a lake-Killer... He's a killer... Don't do it...

Get away... Get away now... And the voice was right, of course.

Dead right. And I wish I could say that it took me more than those few heartbeats to make up my mind to join him.

"Two, three months," I replied, offering my hand. He shook it, putting both of his hands over mine. I looked at Nazeer and smiled as I spoke into his eyes. "We'll do Khader's job. We'll finish it."

Nazeer's jaw locked tight, bunching the muscles of his cheeks and exaggerating the downward curve of his mouth. He frowned at his sandaled feet as if they were disobedient puppies. Then he suddenly hurled himself at me, and locked his hands behind me in a punishing hug. It was the violent, wrestler's hug of a man whose body had never learned to speak the language of his heart-except when he was dancing-and it ended as abruptly and furiously as it had begun. He whipped his thick arms away and shoved me backward with his chest, shaking his head and shuddering as if a shark had passed him in shallow water. He looked up quickly, and the warmth that reddened his eyes vied with a grim warning clamped in the bad-luck horseshoe of his mouth. I knew that if I ever raised that moment of affection with him, or referred to it in any way, I would lose his friendship forever.

I kicked the bike to life and straddled it, pushing away from the kerb with my legs and pointing it in the direction of Nana Chowk and Colaba.