Djinn City, page 27
“What can I do? I’m just a widow now.” Her face was a mask.
Rais snorted. “If I believed that, I’d be the biggest fool on earth.”
“It’s true,” Juny said. “Your father was killed because of us, because of what we started.”
“That’s bullshit,” Rais said. “You and I both know he wasn’t innocent. He knew Matteras, he and Uncle Sikkim both.”
“This is the one thing he never confided in me,” Juny said. “I think he felt guilty for whatever he and Sikkim did. There was remorse in him the past few years.”
“If he worked for them, why did they kill him?”
“He didn’t work for them,” Juny said. “I suspect Sikkim did, at one point, and your father got sucked in. They killed him because of you, because you’re getting closer.”
“It’s strange—I never thought they’d do that, even Matteras,” Rais said. He balled his fists into his eyes, abruptly tired. It seemed so far away now, the submarine and the airship. This was real life again, ugly, uncertain. “They’re so lofty… Killing isn’t their way.”
“It’s unlike them,” said Juny. “I think it’s Dargoman, mad with power. He works for Matteras now. He has vast resources—he sits at the head of a cabal of businesses that span the world. I’ve been looking into him.”
“You knew he was here? For how long?”
“He has been here on and off for the past three years.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t want to face him yet,” Juny said. “I was scared of him.”
“Scared? You?”
“Because of you!” Juny said. “We weren’t ready yet, Rais. We still aren’t. They have too much money, too much power. They’ve been setting up their companies for hundreds of years. Dargoman could crush us without his djinn masters even twitching.”
“He’s certainly started the process,” Rais said bitterly. “I have Golgoras, Barabas. But Bahamut won’t move, won’t leave the bay. I met another of the old boys, Beltrex. He basically told us to pack our bags. Maybe we should. We’re all alone now, Mama. Maybe we should just get out.”
“No! No.” Juny’s eyes were two black Dobermans snapping at the leash, and it warmed him. “I think we’ll stay.”
“You’ll fight back?”
“Oh yes.”
“So, what do we do? You said he was invulnerable.”
“This is my city,” Juny said. “He’s strong, not invulnerable. Not now. He’s not safe from me. So far I’ve been waiting, watching. He doesn’t think we can hurt him. Well, if we’re going down, we’ll go down swinging. If it’s war, we will need a war chest.”
“How much do we have? I have claim on a sky tunnel full of gold fittings. Risal’s library’s pretty valuable if we sell it off.”
“We’re not selling off a djinn library. Your father made me cosignatory to all his things: the house, the fixed deposits, and some public shares.”
“I didn’t know he had any money.”
“He left enough for us to live well, not enough to start a war.”
“Then what? Sell the flat?”
“Don’t be silly. There’s one account he didn’t tell me about. A joint account. We’re going to pay your old GU Sikkim a visit. We need the power of the Khan Rahman trust.”
“Oh yeah? I haven’t seen him around. Heard he was in the hospital.”
“He had a heart attack when he heard about your father.”
“Really?”
“Not really. He’s faking. I think it’s time he finally retired. I’ve been preparing for this day for a long time.”
“You’re not going to kill him, are you, Mama?”
“No. I’m going to take his family away.”
GU Sikkim was holed up in a superior room in Apollo Hospital, a bulky attendant adorning the door, an ex-military man with a holstered gun. He moved to block them, recognized Juny, deeply salaamed instead, and ushered them in. GU Sikkim was sitting in bed watching TV, looking perfectly hale despite his advanced years. He had unhooked all the tubes and sensors. On a tray nearby were the remnants of a hearty lunch—home-cooked rice and curry—smuggled in via tiffin carrier.
“Mutton, Uncle?” Juny sniffed. “It’s so bad for your heart.”
“Juny!” He collapsed back into his bed, clutching his chest. “Sorry for your loss. I’m so shocked. I had a heart attack. Is it visiting hours already? Abdul! The doctors said no visitors, you idiot!”
“Oh, leave poor Abdul alone,” Juny said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Abdul and I are old friends. If you don’t recall, the Ambassador found him for you, and I found him for the Ambassador.”
“I should have guessed.” GU Sikkim looked at her with loathing.
“In fact you’ll find that most of the servants in the entire family were placed by me,” Juny said. “And they all keep in touch. Your cook, for example, told me just the other day that you still eat three mangoes a day during the season, even though Pappo has forbidden it.”
“Pappo? That fat oaf! Fine for him to go around forbidding this and that. You don’t see him eating boiled chicken and vegetables all day,” GU Sikkim said. “I tell you, doctors are the worst hypocrites…”
“We heard you were sick,” Rais said. “Naturally we rushed over to visit you as soon as the mourning period was done.”
“Naturally,” said Juny.
“Terrible business, your father,” GU Sikkim said. “Stabbed by muggers in Baridhara of all places. The country is going to the dogs.”
“He was stabbed, yes,” Juny said, “by a very thin blade. He was not robbed. He apparently knew his attacker because someone saw them talking briefly.”
“There was a witness?” GU Sikkim looked terrified.
“A maid on the roof of one of the apartment buildings,” Juny said. “Did you think I was not going to investigate the death of my own husband?”
“Did she see the attacker?”
“No, she was too far away,” Juny said. “All she can say is that the attacker was a man, and he probably walked with a cane.”
“Dargoman!”
“You didn’t know?”
“Dammit, woman, do you think I had my own nephew killed?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Many years ago you and my husband sold Indelbed to that djinn. From that day onward you set this family on a course that will end in the destruction of all of us.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Dargoman works for Matteras now,” Rais said. “He wears his mark. I’ve seen it. In fact he is widely known now as the emissary with two tattoos.”
“You stupid fool! It’s because of your meddling that this has happened! Your father’s death is on your head! And your mother’s! I told you to not mess around with djinns. I begged you to leave everything alone. Why didn’t you trust me?”
“Ever since he died, I’ve been looking back at the day we first met Dargoman,” Juny said. “And something always struck me as strange. At first my husband loathed the man on sight. Yet overnight he changed his mind and insisted we send the boy off with this unknown person. He resisted my most stringent objections.”
“You mean he defied you, the poor henpecked wretch,” GU Sikkim said bitterly.
“It was unlike him to discard my advice,” Juny said.
“You mean you bossed him around.”
“He knew what I was when he married me,” Juny said. “He was perfectly happy letting me manage his meteoric rise in the civil service. You ordered him that day, to let Dargoman have the boy.”
“You have no proof of that!”
“This isn’t a court, Uncle, I don’t need proof. I presume Matteras got to you. The question is how and why?”
“I’m not answering your questions. I’m sick. Please leave me alone.”
“I was going through my husband’s papers. You’d be interested to know that I was his joint signatory on everything.”
“He was a fool.”
“He relied on me heavily.”
“So now you’ve got all his money,” GU Sikkim said bitterly.
“Everything except for an account in Singapore, set up ten years ago. There is no mention of it anywhere, no checkbook, no statements, no deposit slips. There was, however, a letter from the bank sending the first debit card and pin number,” Juny said. “I was in charge of his finances. I do not believe he had an alternate income large enough to be kept in Singapore. As you are no doubt aware, Citibank would not service an overseas investment account without a minimum balance of a few hundred thousand dollars. How much was the payoff? How much did Matteras give you?”
GU Sikkim stared at her with a deflated, helpless rage.
“Tell me, Sikkim, or I will fly there with his death certificate and find out myself.”
“I’m telling you, Juny, you don’t want to get involved in this. I’m on your side. I’ve been protecting all of you.”
“When the family finds out you took blood money for killing a child, you’ll be finished anyway.”
“You’ll ruin your precious husband’s memory doing that too!” GU Sikkim snarled.
“I don’t care,” Juny said. “You ruined everything anyway, when you took away Indelbed.”
“Five million dollars,” GU Sikkim said finally. “Matteras gave us five million dollars in a joint account.”
“How much is there now?”
“A little over six,” GU Sikkim said. “We didn’t touch the money. We were afraid to use it. You think we did it for the money? You don’t know Matteras. When he wants something, there’s no way of refusing.”
“So you felt a little guilt at least.”
“Vulu didn’t want to do it,” GU Sikkim said. “Matteras had me by the balls, though. He would have destroyed me, destroyed the entire family. I had to protect everyone. One little boy in exchange for our entire clan. Who really cared about him? He was nothing to anyone. Vulu agreed in the end.”
“That decision ruined Vulu. He wasn’t the same person after Indelbed disappeared,” Juny said. “How did it start? With Matteras?”
“How does anything start?” GU Sikkim asked. “I made some bad bets around the time Indelbed was born. Industries went under; we had bank loans. I borrowed from the family trust to cover. I was the chairman, I could do it with a couple of fake witness signatures. I invested trust money into the factories, but we couldn’t turn them around. I was ruined, and the trust would have lost over half its value. Then there were the lawsuits. I would have gone to jail. Everyone was laughing at me. Matteras came with an offer. It was too good to refuse. He wanted me to keep an eye on Kaikobad, to report everything. That man was a drunken sot, he rarely left the house, so I agreed. Matteras never seemed interested in the boy. They don’t care for family, you know. Later, of course, I was hardly in a position to refuse.”
“You could have told us.”
“You think you know djinns, but you don’t know Matteras,” GU Sikkim said. He turned to Rais. “I begged you to stay out of this. If you had reported to me like you promised, I would have been able to intervene with Matteras. Instead, you’ve angered him. He’s killed your father and now he’ll come after us. After me.”
“I don’t think so,” Juny said. “I think Matteras is too busy, and you are too minor a detail for him to bother. I doubt Matteras would order the killing of a man. He is far too high in auctoritas. Dargoman runs his human businesses here, and it is Dargoman we have to deal with.”
“Dargoman controls a financial empire that stretches from Brazil to Malaysia,” GU Sikkim sneered. “You’re going to deal with Dargoman? You’re just a housewife.”
Juny smiled. There was something distinctly unpleasant about it.
“Even a housewife could lead this family better than you,” she said. “I think it is time you retired, dear Uncle. The strain is too much for you.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean you will step down as chairman of the trust and appoint me in your place. You will permit me to audit your assets and I will reclaim what I see fit, including the six million in Singapore. Finally, you will handwrite a letter announcing your intention to retire, which I will circulate throughout the family. You may cite health reasons.”
“I will do no such thing,” GU Sikkim scoffed. “Don’t be a fool.”
“It is the easiest way, I assure you.”
GU Sikkim jeered, “Rais, please take your mother out of here. She is overcome with grief and talking like a madwoman.”
“Interesting you should say that,” Juny said. She brought out a thick hospital folder. “Since you are the gentleman suffering from Alzheimer’s.”
“What?”
“Here are reports from neurologists from Apollo, Square, and United,” Juny said. “Oh, and one from America.”
“One of my college buddies teaches at Johns Hopkins,” Rais said apologetically. “He thinks I’m playing a joke on you.”
“What are these lies?”
“Conclusive proof that you suffer from dementia and early-onset Alzheimer’s,” Juny said. “And here is a statement from your very own personal physician.”
“Pappo!”
“Turns out he’s not that fond of you,” Rais said. “Particularly after he found out what really happened to my father.”
“That traitor! I got him this job…”
“Oh, I’ve done far better,” Juny said. “He’s been offered a post as chief cardiologist at Square Hospital. Mostly on merit, I must say—he’s actually a very good doctor. His last task here, in fact, will be to sign the legal documents required to declare you insane. As he is the only doctor you’ve ever consulted for the past twenty years, I think his word will carry the day.”
“This is ridiculous. We are in Dhaka, not some village. You can’t just lock someone up by saying so.”
“Oh, it’s done already. Go on. Read the reports,” Juny said.
“My family will save me. You think I won’t speak out?”
“You won’t, in fact, speak at all.” She opened her purse and started lining up little vials of intravenous medication like toy soldiers. “Dear Uncle, you have checked yourself in here with the symptoms of ischemic stroke following acute myocardial infarction. A suitably severe diagnosis, no doubt useful in case you had to pretend incapacity. However, it works both ways, of course. These vials contain the medicine for your condition. Sedatives and antidepressants for your insomnia and depression. Alprazolam for anxiety. Neuroleptics and Valproic acid for agitation. Frankly, a cocktail like this will keep you under for most of the day and severely confused for the few hours you do manage to stay awake. Certainly no one will understand a thing you are saying.”
“You think the hospital will just medicate me without my permission?”
“It’s already on your chart. These are standard treatments for your condition. You signed off on it when you checked in,” Juny said. “Pappo secretly told the duty nurse not to administer them. An instruction I will reverse on the way out.”
“Abdul! Abdul!”
Abdul popped his head in, received a frown from Juny, and closed the door hastily, refusing to meet his employer’s eye.
“Don’t blame him,” Juny said. “We’ve told him that you’ve had a stroke and will not make sense a lot of the time.”
“It seems you have thought of everything,” GU Sikkim said heavily. “You would really do this? Poison me with medicine, for what? Some kind of petty revenge?”
“I blame you for my husband’s death,” Juny said. “But he was a grown man, able to make his own decisions. Indelbed is a different story. He was just a boy. He was our family.”
“You hated that whelp as much as the rest of us.”
“You took him from my care.”
“My, my, my! All you care about is yourself. What about me? What about my daughters?”
“I will leave you enough to live on. Your daughters are busy working, with families of their own. They will hardly notice.”
“You just want the money,” GU Sikkim said. “All this, just for cash. I always said you were a gold digger. A vulture, that’s what you are. Poor Vulu’s corpse isn’t even cold yet. You think you can run the trust? The other directors will never accept it!”
“You’ve been using it as your piggy bank for the last twenty years,” Juny said. “I think some spring cleaning is in order. I will, of course, have your express recommendation. Remember to put that in the letter. Oh, they’ll kick up a fuss, but when I go through the real accounts with them, I think you’ll find that everyone will calm down. After all, they are all criminally negligent and accessories to your embezzlement. As executor of my husband’s estate, I could put the lot of them in jail.”
“You’ll drag my name through the mud!”
“Not if you cooperate,” Juny said. “Treat me like your successor, act in good faith, and I promise you, I will deal with the djinns.”
“And Matteras?”
“I’m not going to roll over for him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“We are doomed. No one can save us.”
“Yes, we are on the verge of extinction,” Juny said. “Dargoman will wipe us out for sport. You know that I am the only one with the knowledge and ability to deal with this. Help me, and I swear I will ensure some of your precious Khan Rahman brood survives.”
“I have no choice.”
“Excellent. Now start writing what I say…”
CHAPTER 34
Just a Poor Boy from a Poor Family
Indelbed was weak, crotchety, and easily exhausted. Gone were the days of scampering around hunting wyrms. He could barely keep the light on. The distortion field came and went like a signal in a storm. He spent his time lying in the coils of God’s Eye, letting the rumble of the wyrm’s deep heart lull him to sleep. The creature had come to some conclusion about him, treating him as a sort of runty kin, a useless pack mate who should nonetheless be preserved out of some dimly understood evolutionary precept.
God’s Eye too had morphed in subtle ways, which was more of a sharper delineation of existing features than anything else. The immature wyrms were all maw and teeth: blind, thrashing things, snouts like rock drills, hides battered. God’s Eye was acquiring a lacquer to his carapace, a gleam in his eye, the hint of a jawline, an elongation of the skull, the possibility of a nose, a sort of potential grace. The frills around his neck were growing, scaled in soft patterns, the root of some unknown apparatus. He was a pickier eater, but, in compensation, had developed better hunting skills, the patience of a deep-lying predator. He would wait still as death in front of a tunnel, jaws open, a mantle of calm around him, a deadening of pheromones and whatever else wyrms used for sensory matter. Givaras would light a beacon for the hapless wyrms and the first would blunder unwittingly into those jaws, now powerful enough to easily snap infants in two. God’s Eye was good. He shared his kills. He understood the concept of cooperation.
