LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Inspector Goat?”

      “Well, actually my name is pronounced like Go and Tay. Ghote.”

      The big head nodded slowly up and down two or three times. Then the two great beef hands tore the white placard in half and in half again with two massive ripping sounds.

      Fred Hoskins tossed the jagged pieces in the direction of a trash basket.

      What a waste only, Ghote thought briefly.

      “Welcome to the greatest state of the greatest nation on earth, Inspector,” the giant suddenly boomed.

      “Yes,” said Ghote. “Yes. Thank you.”

      The private eye’s great red face was still looking down at him. It was plain that he was adjusting himself to a new situation.

      “Okay,” the fellow said at last, with abrupt twanging certainty. “Now this is what I think you should do. You should place that bag of yours in the trunk of my car, and we’ll proceed directly to the ashram. I was going to introduce you around, to have you meet some of my ex-colleagues and good friends in the L.A.P.D. But I guess not.”

      L.A.P.D.? Ghote thought. Yes. Los Angeles Police Department.

      He felt a little jet of pleasure at having got that right. But it hardly compensated for the certainty that he had fallen far below the private eye’s expectations of any representative of the wealthy Mr. Ranjee Shahani, of Bombay, India.

      Oh, why had he not insisted at least on getting a new suitcase for the trip? Shahani Enterprises would have paid, even.

      “Yes, yes, that is a very good idea,” he said. “The sooner I am seeing this ashram, the sooner I can be arranging for Miss Nirmala Shahani to leave.”

      “You should be so lucky,” Fred Hoskins banged back. “I tell you, Inspect— Hell, I can’t call you that. What’s your name?”

      Ghote wanted to say that his name was Ghote, and that it was spelt with the H as the second letter. But he knew at least something about Americans. They believed in informality.

      “I am Ganesh,” he said. “Ganesh.”

      “Well, this is how it is, Gan,” Hoskins said. “I’m the guy who picked up the trail of the Shahaneye kid, and I’m the guy who found the ashram. So I’m in a position to inform you that I know as much about that little piece of ass as anyone. And you can take my word for it, she’s not going to leave that place any time soon. She’s gone off on a religion kick, and that’s the way she’s gonna stay.”

      Ghote, his head still thickly muzzy from his long flight, felt as if a hammer was being repeatedly banged down on the top of his skull. But he had to make some sort of a reply.

      “Yes, Mr. Hoskins,” he began. “I very well understand what is the position, but—”

      “Listen, if we’re gonna work together on this case, we’re gonna have to work as a team. So you’re gonna have to call me Fred. In these United States we don’t stand on ceremony. You’re just gonna have to learn that.”

      “Yes,” Ghote said.

      He wished with all his might that this yammering giant could simply vanish into thin air. But he was dependent on the fellow. Without him he would have the greatest difficulty getting to the ashram at all. He did not even know its address, just that it was not in Los Angeles but somewhere outside. He could make inquiries if he had to, and in the end he would find it. But if he was to act at all, quickly Fred Hoskins stood, giant-like, squarely in his path.

      “Fred,” he said. “Yes, I will call you Fred.”

      The big private eye led him rapidly out of the airport building to a vast car-park. Row upon row of vehicles confronted his bemused gaze, almost all huge in size, as big as any of the imported monsters belonging to Bombay film stars and a few magnates like Ranjee Shahani, which swam like rare whales among the shoals of little Fiats and Ambassadors familiar to him.

      Fred Hoskins directed his grain-sack of a belly down one of the dozens of alleyways between the rows of wide, grinning monsters, and Ghote followed half a pace behind, leaning over to one side the better to lug his wretched-looking suitcase.

      Out of the corner of his eye he registered the innumerable shiny chrome names of the cars—Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Ford, Dodge, Pontiac, Peugeot, Datsun, Audi, Ferrari, BMW, Ford, Ford, Ford, Chrysler, Plymouth, Alfa-Romeo, Aston-Martin, Ford, Ford, Jaguar—a smaller vehicle this, but gleamingly expensive-looking—Toyota, Volvo, Porsche—a racing model with its name on a smart red translucent panel—another Ford, another, another Chevrolet, another Cadillac, Triumph, Ford, Ford, Lotus, Saab, Ford, Ford, Ford.

      So many makes, and from all over the world. So many shapes. So many colours, gold in plenty, silver, pink, scarlet, orange, the palest blue, the darkest most lustrous blue, white, black. What a fearful obstacle this very richness, number and variety seemed. So much to learn about, so much to have to deal with. What sort of a person would drive each particular make? Were there really so many people of such wealth in California? How would he ever begin to learn which car told you what about its driver? Who owned what? Who bought what? Who wanted what?

      Fred Hoskins came to an abrupt halt.

      “This is the bus,” he said.

      It was as big as any of the monsters in the row, a huge, shiny, lurid green affair. Fred Hoskins gave its immaculate paintwork a hearty slap and then produced a bunch of keys and advanced on the driver’s door. Ghote, with a cloudy notion of showing himself to be thoroughly democratic, staggered with his case round to the back and tried to lift open the hugely wide trunk.

      “No! No! Wait! Wait!” Fred Hoskins yelled.

      He jerked wide the door in front of him and thrust his great square jackal-fur-topped head inside. From the car’s interior his voice sounded just a little quieter.

      “Everything automatic in this baby. Just wait right where you are.”

      Ghote stood and waited, heaving in a deep breath of air—immediately finding lungs and throat filled with sickly, mechanical-tasting fumes so strong that his very eyes stung and watered.

      He began to shake with coughing, and was only dimly aware that just in front of him the top of the big car’s wide trunk was slowly rising, impressive as the portal of some massy temple.

      Fred Hoskins stepped back out of the car’s front door.

      “Put the bag in,” he yelled. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

      Coughing and spluttering, Ghote picked up his wretched case and heaved it into the trunk’s vast interior.

      Fred Hoskins watched him.

      “You are now experiencing Los Angeles smog,” he said. “It’s the product mostly of the vast number of vehicles on our roads. The city of Los Angeles has more cars per family than any other city in the U.S.A. And that, I guess, goes for the world too. Coupled with the fact that the sun shines all the time in Southern California, this produces a mixture of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide—smog. D’you get it?”

      “I think I have got it,” Ghote said, as yet another fit of coughing shook him to the backbone.

      If he was going to be like this all the time he was in California, he thought, he would never be able to summon up enough strength even to speak to Nirmala Shahani, let alone to snatch her from the grasp of her captors.

      Fred Hoskins had gotten into the car. Ghote saw him lean forward and jab at a button somewhere.

      “The door on your side is unlocked,” came that thunderous voice. “Get the hell in here.”

      Ghote hurried round, pulled open the car’s immensely thick door and slid down on to the wide leather seat beside the huge private eye.

      Why such a hurry, he wondered. He had agreed that it would be a good thing to get out to the ashram as soon

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