The Caretaker Read online

  The missiles swoop straight down, guided by invisible lasers.

  The Captain and his men press their faces into the snow. The first missile misses the target and detonates against the mountain, making it rumble.

  The second missile hits. There is an enormous wallop and the men can’t breathe for a second. When they lift their heads the post below is a charred mess. A giant’s hand has picked up the artillery gun and bent its barrel, and the lavatory tent has plunged into the depths. The Captain wonders what happened to the man inside it.

  The jets circle like hawks, then break free and streak off over the horizon.

  It has taken less than a minute, and when the smoke clears, the mountains gleam serenely.

  The Captain rises, shaking off snow. His men arm their weapons and they climb down cautiously, finding Khandelkar crouched in a hollow, dazed and deafened, but alive.

  “We got those bastards, Captain. Wiped them clean.”

  The Captain nods, but he is taking no chances. One surviving Pakistani could machine-gun them all. He sends the three men around in a flanking maneuver, and Khandelkar joins him. They advance slowly, assault rifles held ready.

  “I’ve never seen a dead Pakistani up close,” the Captain says.

  “They look like us,” the Sergeant replies, “no different.”

  Right by the scorched gun—the Pakis must have been trying to turn it around—are a pile of corpses. They have been killed by the massive impact, twisted and thrown like rag dolls, men lying on top of other men. Some are barefoot, their boots blown off, while others stretch out their arms in grotesque gestures of welcome.

  Khandelkar stops first, the Captain right behind him. They see it at the same time.

  The grizzled face of an old Sikh, turban unfurling, graying beard clotted with blood. His snowsuit has been torn open at the neck, and inside is a khaki uniform. He is a Sergeant in the Second Kumaon Battalion of the Indian Army.

  Khandelkar’s face crumples, like that of a child about to cry.

  The Captain walks forward like a sleepwalker. He turns over the other corpses, finding more Indian Army uniforms.

  “Our own people? How could it be?” Khandelkar demands an answer, but the Captain doesn’t seem to hear him.

  The Sergeant slumps to his knees, throws down his rifle, and shuts his eyes tightly, as if praying. The Captain walks on, mechanically counting the blackened bodies. Sixteen, all dead, no survivors.

  He should have radioed, he should have checked. He’s disobeyed the first rule of combat: always identify your enemy. When he looks back, Khandelkar is still on his knees.

  “Sergeant, I … I … can’t believe…”

  The Sergeant reaches up and shoves the barrel of his assault rifle into his mouth.

  The Captain starts to run.

  One shot. Sergeant Khandelkar’s head jerks backward.

  The white snow is stained with red.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ranjit wakes with a start in his room at the Garibaldi Hotel. Outside an amplified voice booms out, “Snow emergency, snow emergency. All parked cars will be tagged and towed.” He gets out of bed, listening to the scrape scrape of shovels digging out.

  The window shade springs upward with a snap and the room fills with blinding light. The snowstorm is over, and an orange snowplow moves slowly through the street below, pushing high banks of glittering snow to either side.

  Looking up into the clear, cold sky, he remembers that Preetam and Shanti are gone. He takes a deep breath, and then another, fogging the panes of glass, till the world outside is obscured with mist.

  There is no time for this. He must be on time to meet the Senator.

  When he’s dressed he takes a chair into the bathroom and looks up at its dropped ceiling. He lifts one square of ceiling tile from its metal grid and sees the original ceiling high above, the tops of the walls patterned with faded silver-and-blue wallpaper. Stashing the doll and his knife above the ceiling, he carefully replaces the tile. A cursory search of his room will reveal nothing.

  Leaving, he hears the sound of coughing and glances through his neighbor’s open door. A man sits on a metal chair in the corner of a windowless room, peering through steel-framed glasses at a thick book. He starts to say something, then begins to cough, spattering the open pages with spittle.

  Ranjit stops in the doorway. “Are you okay?”

  The man struggles for breath. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I said, I hope I didn’t keep you up last night. With all the coughing.”

  In the hot, stale air of his room, the man wears a white T-shirt that shows off a surprisingly muscular torso, and loose cargo pants. His iron-gray hair is long, brushed straight back, curling around his ears.

  “It’s not your fault. The walls are pretty thin in this place.” Ranjit looks down at his watch: six thirty, an hour to go before meeting the Senator. He nods and turns to go.

  “Hey. You’re ex-army, right?”

  Ranjit turns in surprise.

  “How did you know?”

  The man looks up at him, a smile creasing his round face. “Takes one to know one. Whose army? Not ours?” He takes a Snickers bar out of his pocket, unwraps it, and begins to chew.

  Ranjit stalls. He looks around the man’s room. It was once the rear part of his own room, with the same ornate molding high up on the walls. There is a bed in the corner, made with sharp hospital corners, and an open closet with a pull-up bar. On the dresser is a pile of library books, and a small golden Buddha, surrounded by sticks of incense and a single orange in a bowl. The air in here smells like stale incense, and something else, bitter and medicinal.

  Still stalling, he leans against the door frame. “How about you? Were you in the American military?”

  “Me? I was in ’Nam.”

  Ranjit nods. When he worked at the store, half the winos in Central Square claimed to be Vietnam vets, Marines or Special Forces; it was an easy way to get some sympathy.

  “Oh, really, Vietnam? You were in the Marines, I suppose?”

  The man smiles a twisted smile. “Marines? Me? Hell, no. Eighteenth Engineer Brigade. We built ammo dumps, bridges, roads, we built the airfield at Qui Nhon. We weren’t even supposed to see combat, but I got Agent Orange in my lungs. Not that it matters. The VC didn’t take too kindly to me. They got my legs, too.”

  Looking down, Ranjit notices the man’s legs hanging uselessly, and the folded wheelchair leaning against the wall.

  “No big deal.” The man smiles his twisted grin. “At least I got back to the World. Most of my buddies didn’t make it. They’re fertilizing rice fields back there … So where did you serve?”

  Taking a deep breath, Ranjit answers.

  “Captain in the Indian Army. Sixteenth Punjab Rifles, seconded to High Altitude Special Frontier Forces.”

  “Ah, a captain. Real bad boy, eh? So, were you in the shit? Or behind a desk, nice and safe?” The man doubles over, his body shaking with a series of rasping coughs.

  Ranjit smiles. It sounds like something that Khandelkar would have said. “Oh, I was in the thick of things, no doubt about that.” The man is still coughing, his face turning purple with the effort. “Hey, you’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Sure, sure, I’m fine.” The man gasps for breath. “Just out of candy bars. There’s a machine in the basement, but the fucking elevator is out. Shouldn’t complain, though. At least the developers haven’t bought up this place, turned it into condos. Then where would I be?” He laughs a raspy laugh.

  “Nice talking to you. I’m in a bit of a hurry right now…”

  “Go ahead, Captain. Sorry to have kept you waiting.” With a hurt expression, the man picks up his book and starts to turn the pages.

  Ranjit pauses. “Listen, the vending machine is probably expensive. I can stop by a drugstore later. What kind of candy do you like?”

  “Snickers, the super-size ones. A bag would be great. Thanks, man.” The man starts to take money out of his pocket, but Ranji
t waves it away.

  “On me, but I need a favor. Can you keep an eye on my room? I don’t want anything stolen.”

  The man nods slowly, his eyes magnified by the bottle-thick lenses. “I know everybody in this joint. They’re punks. They won’t touch your stuff if I’m around.”

  Ranjit raises a hand in farewell and heads down the stairs. He is halfway through the lobby when he realizes that he didn’t ask the man his name.

  * * *

  Outside, a cold, thin sun is shining down, and the silence is broken only by the whine of cars trying to get out of snowed-in spots. Ranjit moves quickly through the narrow, icy streets, passing old Chinese ladies who have cleared small patches of snow and set up their fruit stalls. With their scarves wrapped around their heads and plastic bags on their feet, they remind him of Indian peasants.

  It is freezing today, at least ten below zero. His blue mechanic’s jacket isn’t insulated, and as he nears the Park Street subway station, he craves a cup of steaming hot chai. Ducking into a Dunkin’ Donuts, he waits in line with Bostonians who order coffee and jelly-filled donuts. When he reaches the counter they are out of teabags, so he gets coffee and a cruller instead. He hungrily eats the sweet dough, but the acidic coffee disgusts him, and after a few sips, he throws it away.

  Tremont Street turns into Cambridge Street, which leads to City Hall Plaza. He knows that old Bostonians still call this area Scollay Square, but the old neighborhood was demolished in the 1950s and replaced by a vast, windswept brick plaza circled by government buildings. He walks across the empty plaza, passes the concrete city hall, and heads for the JFK tower. The Senator’s office is up there, on the tenth floor of the squat, weathered high-rise.

  Waiting to cross the street, Ranjit watches traffic creep around a telephone pole that has fallen into the street. A Verizon van pulls up and three men in fluorescent safety vests arrange orange cones around the tangle of wood and wire.

  The light changes and he crosses to the JFK tower. It was built in the sixties, back when wide-open glass lobbies were modern and daring, but the threat of terrorism has now surrounded it with a maze of concrete blast barriers. Weaving through them, he enters a large echoing lobby and steps through the portal of a metal detector, thanking the Guru that he’d left his knife behind.

  The guard manning the metal detector is an African, his cheeks marked with parallel tribal scars. He examines Ranjit’s backpack thoroughly, then stares at him, taking in the greasy blue jacket and baseball cap.

  “What’s your business here? Which floor you going to? Homeland Security?”

  Following the guard’s pointing finger, Ranjit looks at the board across the lobby and realizes, with a shock, that the offices of Homeland Security are indeed on the sixth floor.

  “No, sir. I have an appointment with Senator Neals.”

  “Senator Neals? You on the list?”

  Ranjit spells out his name, and the guard tells him to wait. He stands to one side, watching bureaucrats swarm through the turnstiles, identical in cheap gray suits, their polished black shoes squeaking on the granite floor.

  “Singh, you’re on the list,” the guard says grudgingly, motioning Ranjit through. “Take that elevator, in the corner.”

  Ranjit walks over to an elevator marked PRIVATE and punches the button for the tenth floor. As the cab lurches into motion he rehearses what he’ll say to the Senator. Sir, something strange happened. You have to believe me when I say …

  The elevator slows at the third floor and two men in badly cut gray suits get on. They have the pink, over-barbered look of career government officials. Glancing at Ranjit, they move into a corner and continue their conversation.

  “… so how are the numbers looking?”

  “This year? Tough, always tough. You know how it is.”

  The floor numbers above the door ding as the elevator speeds upward. Five, six, seven.

  Ranjit thinks of the Senator’s face darkening with anger when he learns that there is nothing wrong with his house. Eight, nine.

  The elevator starts to slow when the bureaucrats in the corner move toward Ranjit. He steps back politely, glancing downward, and notices that the two men are wearing thick-soled brown work shoes, encrusted with mud.

  He looks up and discounts the suits. He sees that both men are powerfully built, that they are still talking to each other, but their eyes are trained on him. Is he imagining things?

  Ten. A slight jerk as the elevator stops.

  The elevator doors open, and a man blocks his path, a tall man with blond-white hair curling over his collar.

  Ranjit stares in shock. The two men in the gray suits grab his arms and jerk him back into the elevator. The blond man steps into the elevator and jabs a gun hard into his side.

  “Nobody will hear the shot, Mr. Singh. Your body will muffle it. To be precise, your kidneys.” His voice is arrogant and slightly muffled, the same voice Ranjit heard on the phone last night, the same voice he heard at the Senator’s house. What the hell is this man doing here?

  “Do you hear me?” The barrel of the gun pushes into Ranjit’s kidneys, and he gasps as his arms are twisted behind him.

  “Yes. I hear you.” The blond man presses a button for the basement and the elevator falls like a stone.

  Ranjit stares at the man: he has the Nordic cheekbones and icy blue eyes of a ski model, but his white-blond hair and translucent eyebrows give him a strange, ill-defined air. Today he wears a black double-breasted blazer and a pink silk tie.

  “The Senator,” the man says slowly, “asked me to tell you how disappointed he is. He is a big-hearted man, but when you move into his house and take his possessions, well, he doesn’t like that at all.”

  With his free hand the man tugs a strand of hair over his ear, and Ranjit glimpses the curled pink plastic of a hearing aid. Suddenly the man’s garbled, deliberate diction makes sense: it is the voice of a person who can barely hear himself.

  Ranjit’s voice is ragged. “You work for the Senator? I don’t believe you.”

  “Is that so. The Senator told me about that smart little daughter of yours. He said she was going to be a lawyer one day…”

  Ranjit feels a sudden sickness in his stomach.

  “… and we did a little research on you, too. A former Indian Army captain shows up in the Vineyard, makes his way to the Senator’s house. I told him he shouldn’t have hired you without a background check. But he was tired, he made a mistake.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about—”

  “Look, Mr. Singh, I don’t give a rat’s ass who you are working for. We just want the contents of that doll back, okay?”

  Ranjit suppresses a flicker of excitement. There is something hidden inside it.

  The elevator slows, and the doors open onto a dark underground car park. The men push Ranjit out, still gripping his arms, and sensors click, turning on blue fluorescent lights.

  “Search him. Thoroughly. I’m sure he brought it.”

  One of the gray-suited men holds Ranjit’s arms while the other rifles through his backpack and his pockets.

  “He doesn’t have it.”

  “You’re smarter than I thought. Where the hell is it?”

  Ranjit knows he needs to get out of the garage. “At my hotel. Ten minutes from here.”

  “We’ll go now and get it. Which hotel?”

  “The Marriott, in Copley Square.” Ranjit chooses the biggest hotel he can recall, and makes his voice soft with defeat.

  The blond man turns to his men. “Where’s the van?”

  One of the gray suits answers, “There was too much snow. It’s parked on the street.”

  The blond man turns to Ranjit. “You can walk up this ramp, or we’ll just break both your legs and carry you up. Your choice.”

  “I’ll walk.”

  The blond man is ahead of Ranjit as they walk up the spiraling ramp and the other two flank him. Their footsteps reverberate against the raw concrete walls, and mot
ion-activated lights flare on ahead, then blink out behind them.

  In a few minutes they emerge out into a loading bay, cut off from the road by a high bank of snow. Across the road, a white van pulls up behind the Verizon truck and puts on its hazard lights. The same van that chased him on the Vineyard. Once he gets into it, he’s dead.

  “Ah, there it is. We’re crossing the road. All of us, together.” The blond man’s gun hand disappears into his pocket.

  When the streetlight turns red, they all clamber over the bank of snow and start to cross the icy road.

  There is a sudden whirring sound and the telephone pole lying in the road begins to rise, hoisted up by the long arm of a mechanical winch. It is soon upright and wavers in the sky, casting its long, purple shadow across the white snow. Three workers pull on thick ropes attached to the pole, stabilizing it, while a fourth bolts it into the sidewalk with long metal angles.

  And right by the pole there is a sudden shimmer of light. Sergeant Khandelkar appears and raises one thin hand, pointing three fingers downward, making a tripod. His image quivers for an instant, then disappears.

  What the hell? Ranjit blinks, but then he understands what to do. There will be a few seconds when the winch disengages, and the pole will be held in place by the three men with their ropes. The force of each man will counterbalance the others, making a perfect tripod.

  They reach the other side of the road and walk alongside a high snowbank. The blond man is walking behind now, so close that his breath is warm on the back of Ranjit’s neck. One gray suit walks ahead of Ranjit, and the other is alongside him, pushing him against the snowbank.

  The piled snow gives way to a shoveled-out patch where the Verizon crew is at work. Just as they draw alongside, the winch holding the pole upright disengages with a whine and the three workers grunt as the strain is transferred to the ropes they hold.

  Ranjit lunges sideways, slamming into a burly worker in a safety-orange vest. The worker falls, the rope slipping from his hands.

  “What the … fuck, watch out!”

  The telephone pole leans sideways and the other two workers are jerked forward. All stability gone, the pole begins to fall, its dark shadow hurtling down.