Inland from the slum there were a large number of tall apartment buildings, the expensive homes of the middle-rich. From my perch, I looked down at the fabulous gardens of palms and creepers on the tops of some, and the miniature slums that servants of the rich had built for themselves on the tops of others. Mould and mildew scarred every building, even the newest. I'd come to think of it as beautiful, that decline and decay, creeping across the face of the grandest designs: that stain of the end, spreading across every bright beginning in Bombay.

"You're right, it is a good view," Karla said quietly as she joined me.

"I come up here at night, sometimes, when everyone's asleep," I said, just as quietly. "It's one of my favourite places to be alone."

We were silent, for a while, watching the crows hover and dip over the slum.

"So, where's your favourite place to be alone?"

"I don't like to be alone," she said flatly, and then turned in time to see my expression. "What's the matter?"

"I guess I'm surprised. I just, well, I thought of you as someone who's good at being alone. I don't mean that in a bad way. I just think of you as... sort of aloof, sort of above it all."

"Your aim is off," she smiled. "Below it all, would be more like it."

"Wow, twice in one day."

"What?"

"That's twice in one day that I've seen a big smile. You were smiling with the girls before, and I was thinking that it's the first time I've ever seen you really smile."

"Well, of course I smile."

"Don't get me wrong. I like it. Not-smiling can be very attractive. Gimme an honest frown over a false smile, any day. It looks right on you. You look, I don't know, sort of satisfied, not smiling, or maybe honest is the right word. It looks right on you, somehow. Or I thought it did, until I saw you smiling today."

"Of course I smile," she repeated, her brow creasing in a frown, while her tightly pressed lips wrestled with the smile.

We were silent again, staring at each other instead of the view.

Her eyes were reef-green, flecked with gold, and they shone with the luminous intensity that's usually a sign of suffering or intelligence, or both. A clean wind stirred her shoulder-length hair-very dark hair, the same black-brown as her eyebrows and long lashes. Her lips were a fine, unpainted pink, parted to reveal the tip of her tongue between even, white teeth. She leaned against the windowless frame with her arms folded. The tides of the breeze rippled through the loose silk of her blouse, revealing and concealing her figure.

"What were you and the girls laughing about?"

She raised one eyebrow in the familiar, sardonic half-smile.

"Are you making small talk with me?"

"Maybe I am," I laughed. "I think you're making me nervous.

Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I take it as a compliment-to both of us.

If you really want to know, it was mostly about you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, they were talking about you hugging a bear."

"Oh, that. Well, it was pretty funny, I guess."

"One of the women was imitating the look you had on your face, just before you did it, and they cracked up over that. But the really funny thing to them was figuring out why you did it.

Everyone took turns at guessing why. Radha-she said she's your neighbour, right?"

"Yeah, she's Satish's mother."

"Well, Radha said you hugged the bear because you felt sorry for it. That got a big laugh."

"I'll bet," I mumbled dryly. "What did you say?"

"I said you probably did it because you're a guy who's interested in everything, and wants to know everything."

"It's funny you say that. A girlfriend of mine once told me, a long time ago, that she was attracted to me because I was interested in everything. She said she left me for the same reason."

What I didn't tell Karla was that the girlfriend had described me as interested in everything, and committed to nothing. It still rankled. It still hurt. It was still true.

"Are you... are you interested in helping me with something?"

Karla asked. Her tone was suddenly serious, portentous.

So that's it, I thought. That's why she came to see me. She wants something. The spiteful cat of wounded pride arched behind my eyes. She didn't miss me-she wanted something from me. But she had come, she was asking me, not someone else, and there was salvage in that. Looking into those serious green eyes, I sensed that it was rare for her to ask anyone for help. I also had the feeling that a great deal, maybe too much, was balanced in it.

"Sure," I said, careful not to hesitate for too long. "What do you want me to do?"

She swallowed hard, pushing past an obvious reluctance, and spoke in a rush of words.

"There's this girl, a friend of mine. Her name's Lisa. She's got herself in a very bad situation. She started working at this place-a place for foreign call girls. Anyway, Lisa messed up.

Now she owes money, a lot of it, and the Madame who runs the place where she works won't let her go. I want to get her out of there."

"I don't have much, but I think..."

"It's not the money. I've got the money. But the woman who runs the place has taken a liking to Lisa. Even if we pay, she won't let her go. I know what she's like. It's personal now. The money's just an excuse. What she really wants is to break Lisa, a little at a time, until there's nothing left. She hates her, because Lisa's beautiful and bright and she's got guts. She won't let her leave."

"You want us to break her out of there?"

"Not exactly."

"I know some people," I said, thinking of Abdullah Taheri and his mafia friends. "They're not afraid of a fight. We could ask them to help."

"No, I've got friends here, too. They could get her out of there easy enough, but that wouldn't stop the heavies from finding her, and taking it out on her later. They don't mess around. They use acid. Lisa wouldn't be the first girl to get acid thrown in her face because she got on the wrong side of Madame Zhou. We can't risk it. Whatever we do, it has to be in a way that convinces her to leave Lisa alone, forever."

I was uneasy about it. I sensed that there was more to it than Karla was telling me.

"Did you say Madame Zhou?"

"Yes-have you heard of her?"

"A bit," I nodded. "I don't know how much of it to believe.

People say some pretty wild and dirty things about her."

"The wild things... I don't know... but the dirty things are all true, take it from me."

I didn't feel any better about it.

"Why doesn't she just run away, this friend of yours? Why doesn't she get on a plane, and get the hell back to-where did you say she came from?"

"She's American. Look, if I could make her go back to the States, there wouldn't be a problem. But she won't go back. She won't leave Bombay. She'll never leave Bombay. She's a junkie. That's a big part of it. But there's more than that-stuff from her past, stuff she can't face back there. So she won't go. I've tried to talk her into it, but it's no good. She... she just won't. And I can't say that I blame her. I've got issues of my own-things in my past I'd rather not go back to. Things I won't go back to."

"And you've got a plan-to get this girl out, I mean?"

"Yes. I want you to pretend that you're someone from the American embassy, some kind of consulate officer. I've already set it up.

You won't have to do much. I'll do most of the talking. We'll tell them that Lisa's father is some big honcho in America with ties to the government, and that you've had orders to get her out of there and keep an eye on her. I'll have all that straight before you even walk in the door." "It sounds pretty fuzzy to me, Karla. You think that'll be enough?"

She took a bundle of beedies from her pocket and lit two of them with a cigarette lighter, holding the small cigarettes in one hand and playing the flame over them with the other. She passed one to me, and puffed deeply on her own before answering me.