LITMIR.BIZ

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Rescuing Nirmala was almost certainly going to be very tricky. So he would need to be at his most alert when he arrived at the ashram. And alert he was not. His head ached and his limbs felt as if they belonged to someone else altogether.

      He groped round for the handle to lower the car window beside him, thinking that once they were moving the air, smog-tainted though it was, might blow away his muzziness.

      “I am going to ask you a candid question, Gan,” Fred Hoskins said suddenly.

      “Yes? Yes? What is it?”

      “Just what the hell are you doing there?”

      Ghote turned away from the padded door beside him.

      “I am attempting to lower the glass only,” he said. “I am thinking that in this heat that would be better.”

      Fred Hoskins heaved a long sigh.

      “Never try to open any window in this car,” he said. “For one thing, they open automatically at the touch of a switch. And for another, you are now in an air-conditioned automobile. If any passenger opens a window, the cool air from the air-conditioner right in front of you escapes outside. Now, watch this.”

      A thick beef-red finger jabbed at one of the rows of buttons on the long, gleaming dashboard and at once through a small vent at about midriff level there came a blast of ice-cold air.

      “Very good, very good,” Ghote gasped.

      He wondered whether on top of all his other troubles he was now going to catch a chill.

      Fred Hoskins eased the battleship car out of its place and took it along the interminable row of other huge vehicles towards the park exit.

      “Please,” Ghote asked, “how far is it to the ashram?”

      They might be there in half an hour or less. Would he possibly be fit enough to tackle the swami who ruled the place? And whatever tribe of enormous Americans he had gathered round him?

      The big private eye gave him no answer. His eyes were fixed on another car approaching the exit from a different direction and a foot or two in advance.

      “See those plates?” he muttered. “Ohio plates. I’m not gonna let a hick like that get outa here in front of me.”

      The lurid green battleship lurched suddenly forward. Through the firmly closed window beside him Ghote heard a squeal of brakes. He twisted round to see what had happened. The hick from Ohio had brought his vehicle to a stop and was shaking his fist. Fred Hoskins gunned his motor and they shot out of the park.

      “When you get to drive in California, Gan boy, you gotta be aggressive.”

      “Yes.”

      Ghote decided not to ask again how far the ashram was for at least a few minutes.

      He watched the streets outside. They were very different from those at home, but he found it hard to say exactly why. There were big buildings in the Fort area of Bombay much as there were here, and indeed many of those he could see did not look much newer or smarter than some there. But there was a difference, a strong difference.

      And then it came to him. It was the people, the way they were moving. No one was just standing, much less sitting or lying asleep on the pavement as they would be in Bombay. Everyone he saw seemed to be going somewhere in a determined manner. Yes, that was it. This was a place full of purpose. A place where time was money.

      And the cars all around them. Fred Hoskins’ butting driving style was only a shade more forceful than every other driver’s. Bombay wallahs in charge of a car could do things that were hair-raising enough, especially say a Sikh behind the wheel of a taxi. But here people were not just taking occasional mad risks. They were pushing and pressing ceaselessly with steady, confident determination one against the other.

      If he had not had Fred Hoskins to take him to his destination, how would he have managed in conditions like this? Could he have produced that aggressiveness the private eye had said was so necessary here?

      Despite the beating in his head and that faraway feeling in his legs, he made up his mind that if he ever did have to drive in California, dammit, he would push with the best of them.

      “Mr. Hosk—Fred,” he said, “how far is it, please, to the ashram?”

      “Not far. It’s just about on the county boundary. About sixty or seventy, I guess.”

      All that way. Nirmala Shahani must be hidden in the deepest countryside somewhere.

      “That is sixty-seventy kilometres?” he asked.

      “Miles. Seventy good honest American miles, boy.”

      Seventy miles.

      “But, please, how long will it take to get there then?”

      Ghote looked at his watch. But the time it showed seemed to bear no relation to anything. Had he altered the hands when the plane was coming into Los Angeles? He could not remember.

      He tried to look up through the car’s lightly greyed windows to see the sun. But with the smog haze thick above, he could not make out at all where in the sky it might be.

      “In this bus,” Fred Hoskins said, giving the wide moulded wheel in front of him an emphatic smack with a great red beefy hand, “no time at all. But I’m gonna give you a tour of the real L.A. before we hit the freeway.”

      “Oh? Yes. Thank you.”

      Ghote sat wondering what on earth was happening. A few minutes ago Fred Hoskins had been furiously impatient to be on their way. Now he was talking about making a sightseeing detour.

      But he was in the fellow’s hands altogether. Nirmala Shahani was held in the ashram, seventy miles away in what direction he did not know. If he was to get to her without interminable delays he had to rely on this clamorous giant of a man, however many times the fellow seemed to change his mind.

      Sending the big green car weaving forcefully through the lanes of traffic, Fred Hoskins began to talk.

      “Gan, boy, you’re gonna thank me for what I’m about to do for you. You’re gonna see for yourself the classiest community in all Southern California. I am gonna take you through Beverly Hills, home of many world-famous stars of the motion-picture industry. Beverly Hills is a city. And you’ve got to get this right: it’s separate from L.A., although it’s a suburb. And in Beverly Hills you’ll find some of the most luxurious homes in the world.”

      A driver almost as aggressive as the big private eye attempted at this moment to cut in ahead of them and the thump-thumping flow of words temporarily came to a halt. Ghote decided that perhaps he ought to offer something of his own.

      “In Bombay also,” he said, “our film stars are having most posh homes.”

      “As I was saying, Gan, the most luxurious homes in the world, owned by the world’s most powerful people. We’re now driving along La Cienga Boulevard—when incompetent drivers let us—but soon we’ll make a left on to Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Boulevard is a name you’ll certainly recall. It was the title of a famous movie featuring Gloria Swanson. In case you didn’t see it in a movie theatre, you’ll have seen it on your local television station many, many times.”

      The voice hammered on and on, each syllable setting up a new thud in Ghote’s head. He thought for a brief moment of trying to explain that American films were not shown on Bombay Doordarshan, and that in any case he himself had no set. But by now he had realised that even if he succeeded in getting in a few words about Indian television this giant at the wheel of his giant car would not hear him.

      He turned instead to thinking about his coming encounter with the swami holding Nirmala Shahani and the bodyguard of enormous Americans that he would in all likelihood have round him. What could he himself do, particularly with the swimmy fatigue that had invaded his every limb, to prepare for the encounter?

      Precious little, he recognised soon enough. All he knew about

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