2

Kusum Bahkti did not like this place called Julio’s, stinking as it did of grilled beef and liquor, and peopled with the lower castes. Certainly one of the foulest locations he had had the misfortune to visit in this foul city. He was probably polluting his karma merely by standing here.

And surely this very average-looking mid-thirtyish man sitting before him was not the one he was looking for. He looked like any American’s brother, anyone’s son, someone you would pass anywhere in this city and never notice. He looked too normal, too ordinary, too everyday to supply the services Kusum had been told about.

Yes. If he were home in Bengal, in Calcutta, he would have everything under control. A thousand men would be combing the city for the transgressor. He would be found, and he would wail and curse the hour of his birth before being sent on to another life. But here in America Kusum was reduced to an impotent supplicant standing before this stranger, asking for help. It made him sick.

“Are you the one?” he asked.

“Depends on who you’re looking for,” the man said.

Kusum noted the difficulty the American was having trying to keep his eyes off his truncated left shoulder.

“He calls himself Repairman Jack.”

The man spread his hands. “Here I am.”

This couldn’t be him. “Perhaps I have made a mistake.”

“Perhaps so,” said the American. He seemed preoccupied, not the least bit interested in Kusum or what problem he might have.

Kusum turned to go, deciding he was constitutionally incapable of asking the help of a stranger, especially this stranger, then changed his mind. By Kali, he had no choice!

He sat down across the table from Repairman Jack. “I am Kusum Bahkti.”

“Jack Nelson.” The American proffered his right hand.

Kusum could not bring himself to grasp it, yet he did not want to insult this man. He needed him.

“Mr. Nelson—”

“Jack, please.”

“Very well… Jack.” He was uncomfortable with such informality upon meeting. “Your pardon. I dislike to be touched. An Eastern prejudice.”

Jack glanced at his hand, as if inspecting it for dirt.

“I do not wish to offend—”

“Forget it. Who gave you my number?”

“Time is short… Jack”—it took conscious effort to use that first name—”and I must insist—”

“I always insist on knowing where the customer came from. Who?”

“Very well: Mr. Burkes at the U.K. Mission to the United Nations.” Burkes had answered Kusum’s frantic call this morning and had told him how well this Jack fellow had handled a very dangerous and delicate problem for the U.K. Mission during the Falklands crisis.

Jack nodded. “I know Burkes. You with the U.N.?”

Kusum knotted his fist and managed to tolerate the interrogation.

“Yes.”

“And I suppose you Pakistani delegates are pretty tight with the British.”

Kusum felt as if he had been slapped in the face. He half-started from his seat. “Do you insult me? I am not one of those Moslem—!” He caught himself. Probably an innocent error. Americans were ignorant of the most basic information. “I am from Bengal, a member of the Indian Delegation. I am a Hindu. Pakistan, which used to be the Punjab region of India, is a Moslem country.”

The distinction appeared to be completely lost on Jack.

“Whatever. Most of what I know about India I learned from watching Gunga Din about a hundred times. So tell me about your grandmother.”

Kusum was momentarily baffled. Wasn’t “Gunga Din” a poem? How did one watch a poem? He set his confusion aside.

“Understand,” he said, absently brushing at a fly that had taken a liking to his face, “that if this were my own country I would resolve the matter in my own fashion.”

“Where is she now?”

“In St. Clare’s hospital on West Fif—”

“I know where it is. What happened to her?”

“Her car broke down in the early hours of this morning. While her driver went to find a taxicab for her, she foolishly got out of the car. She was assaulted and beaten. If a police car hadn’t come by, she would have been killed.”

“Happens all the time, I’m afraid.”

A callous remark, ostensibly that of a city-dweller saving his pity for personal friends who became victims. But in the eyes Kusum detected a flash of emotion that told him perhaps this man could be reached.

“Yes, much to the shame of your city.”

“No one ever gets mugged on the streets of Bombay or Calcutta?”

Kusum shrugged and brushed again at the fly. “What takes place between members of the lower castes is of no importance. In my homeland even the most desperate street hoodlum would think many times before daring to lay a finger on one of my grandmother’s caste.”

Something in this remark seemed to annoy Jack. “Ain’t democracy wonderful,” the American said with a sour expression.

Kusum frowned, concealing his desperation. This was not going to work. There seemed to be instinctive antagonism between him and this Repairman Jack.

“I believe I have made a mistake. Mr. Burkes recommended you very highly, but I do not think you are capable of handling this particular task. Your attitude is most disrespectful—”

“What can you expect from a guy who grew up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons?”

“—and you do not appear to have the physical resources to accomplish what I have in mind.”

Jack smiled, as if used to this reaction. His elbows were on the table, his hands folded in front of him. Without the slightest hint of warning, his right hand blurred across the table towards Kusum’s face. Kusum steeled himself for the blow and prepared to lash out with his feet.

The blow never landed. Jack’s hand passed within a millimeter of Kusum’s face and snatched the fly out of the air in front of his nose. Jack went to a nearby door and released the insect into the fetid air of a back alley.

Fast, Kusum thought. Extremely fast. And what was even more important: He didn’t kill the fly. Perhaps this was the man after all.