“What?”
“What did he do?”
“What do you think he did?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were in the club together, do you remember that?”
There’s that black hole again.
He shivers.
“Listen . . . Sunny turned up at my door one day. He didn’t have to. He turned up and opened this bottle of whisky and asked me about hotels. Hotels? I’m not a fool. He didn’t need to ask me about that. I know my reputation, I know exactly what people think of me. Frankly I don’t care. Don’t think I didn’t ask why he was there.”
“Why do you think he was there?”
“I don’t know.”
Gautam ashes his cigarette on the table.
“What do you think he wanted from you?”
“I don’t know. But”—he lowers his voice conspiratorially—“he was weak. Lonely.”
“You saw that?”
“I did.”
“And then?”
“Nothing.”
“You exploited him.”
“We exploited one another. He needed a shoulder to cry on. Someone who understood his unique pain. And I needed someone to buy my coke for me. Everyone left satisfied.”
“Sunny used the cocaine too?”
“Bien s?r! Naturellement.”
“How much did he use?”
“Oh, he was a fiend.”
“And what did the two of you talk about, broadly speaking?”
“What all boys talk about. How it would be better for us if our fathers were dead.”
“Would that be better for you?”
“It wasn’t really about me.” He flicks his cigarette over the edge of the terrace. “Is he dead?”
“Your father?”
“Sunny.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I suppose I am . . .”
“You don’t have any loyalty.”
“It would have been quite dramatic. Loyalty? To Sunny? No. I don’t have loyalty to anyone.” He swallows the whisky, then taps his glass. “Drink.”
“No.”
Gautam stares at the empty glass, the soft sun, the terrace, the desert beyond. “I’m tired.”
“We’re all tired.”
“But no one is quite as tired as me.”
“What do you know about Sunny’s father?”
“Now there’s a question.”
The wind blows softly through Chandra’s silken hair. He removes a mobile phone from his jacket pocket. He dials a number, puts the phone to his ear. Waits a moment. “Yes,” he says, “he’s here.”
He places the phone on the table in front of them, puts it on speaker.
Gautam sits staring at it, waiting.
No voice comes.
Instead, Chandra takes hold of the manila envelope by his side, opens it, removes five large photographic prints from inside. Places them facedown on the table. Keeps his finger on them a moment. Then slides them across to Gautam.
“What is this?” Gautam glances uneasily at the phone, listening to the silence on the other end.
“See for yourself.”
“No,” he says childishly, “I don’t want to.”
No one speaks. No one moves.
Until a slow, narcotic voice emerges from the phone.
It says, “Turn them over.”
Gautam’s stomach drops.
“I don’t want to.” He runs both hands through his hair. “Give me a drink.”
“Turn them over.”
“It would really only take a second,” Chandra says amiably, “for Eli to throw you over the edge. I believe he’s already made the offer. And honestly, no one would think twice about your suicide now. Not with your blood alcohol levels the way they are. Not after the life you’ve led. Not after what you did last night.”
“Give me a drink.”
“And once it was done, everything would come out in the press.”
Gautam is shivering. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Turn them over,” the voice says. “And you’ll have all the drink you want.”
Gautam closes his eyes.
Places his hands on the paper.
Holds the edges.
Turns them round.
* * *
—
Bodies. Dead bodies. Dead bodies mangled and strewn over the road. Limbs broken and contorted, eyes wide open, lips curled in horrible smiles, teeth showing, eyeballs white, blood smears in flashbulbs. Police photos. Bodies on the sidewalk, bodies in rags, and a car, his car, his Mercedes, his license plate. Bodies. A teenage girl in rags, blood seeping from the void between her legs. Bodies. Now lined up in a hospital morgue. Five of them. Shattered and torn. Bodies. And finally, Chandra hands him a Polaroid. And there he is, Gautam Rathore, face crumpled up in an airbag at the wheel.