The Clarity of Cold Steel

NIKUNJ SAUNTERS INTO the room four hours later, dressed to the tens in a suit that’s all midnight bling and royal blue sheik and must’ve cost him about ten clicks north of a pretty penny. I’m chained to the desk near fetal positioned, hunched over cause I made an innocent observation concerning my guard’s parentage possibly being part gorilla, on his mother’s side, and he deemed it fit to adjust my chains a bit, snuggly, shall we say?

A cat I don’t recognize edges into the room behind my brother, a Hindu cat neither here nor there, eyes wide as he adjusts his tie, swallows. Looks about as comfortable as a man neck-deep in double divorce.

“How are you getting on, old boy?” Nikunj inquires. He takes a sip from a cup of water, sets it on the table. “Ah…”

“Sorry,” I try to cup a hand to my ear, but fall short, “couldn’t hear you over the sound of that suit.”

Nikunj stifles a grin, fixes his mustache and abruptly turns, fixing a dagger-edged eye on the gorilla at the door. “I believe my client and I have the right to attorney/client privilege if my study of the law is not in arrears?”

I raise an eyebrow.

The gorilla grumbles something that sounds like, “Wog barrister, what next?” Looming like five weeks of Mondays, he spits on the floor then steps back, grunts the door shut, his keys jangling before he locks it with a coffin-nail ka-chung.

“In arrears?” I glance up, appalled. “What have you done with my brother?”

“I was channeling you.”

“Since when am I a colorblind pimp?” I eyeball the nervous cat. “And who’s the square?”

Nikunj holds a hand up for silence as he stalks the walls now, eyeing them hard, running a hand along them, feeling them out, tapping with his palm and fist, listening. In short shrift, he makes a complete circuit of the room then follows with the floors. Next, he’s perched on the table, checking the ceiling. When he’s done that, he grunts eloquently in dubious satisfaction and hops down, landing noiselessly.

I stare at his hard-soled brogans. “How the hell do you do that?”

“No prying eyes.” He ignores me, reaches into this pocket and pulls out a pen and extends two metal legs recessed within its sides. “Can never be sure about the ears, though.” He twists the pen’s base a few times, a whirring stuttering click coming from within as he does, then sets it on the table, standing tripod style. The top quarter of the pen begins to rotate slowly and a voice begins to speak from within. A tiny audio-centripeter. “Now hear me out…” It’s Nikunj’s voice coming from the centripeter, and he’s talking bail hearings and probable cause and whether or not I wish to go to trial or plea bargain and so on and so forth.

I wait as he holds up a finger, reaches inside his mouth, digs around, finally finding what he’s looking for. I try not to gag as he starts drawing a string out, hand over hand like he’s some street magician pulling out diaphanous scarves. At the end of the string, for the prestige of the act, dangles a pair of lock picks. They jingle. Grimacing, he tosses them my way.

I catch them, wipe them on my pant leg, “Gross,” start working.

The nervous cat glances over his shoulder at the door, sweat starting to bead on his brow as he licks his lips.

Nikunj lays a hand on the cat’s shoulder, whispers, “You sure about this?”

Hands trembling, “You’ll take care of them?”

Nikunj nods solemnly. “You know I will.”

The cat closes his eyes, nods once.

Nikunj takes a seat and starts talking my way but using his hands, flashing thieves’ cant. How do you wish to proceed? His fingers flutter and ripple.

You’re a lawyer now? My cant is stunted but legible.

Playacting and jargon, he signs. How are you fixed for pills?

I ain’t. I’m dying. That mustache real?

Grew it this morning. I watch him as I work the cuffs; if I can’t wrangle a set off blind I deserve to stay in them. My hands are free first. We need to get out of here, I sign and bend down, eyes still on my brother, and start working the ankles. You have a plan?

Nikunj’s sardonic smirk is the only sign I need to know that he does. Of course, he does. He doesn’t take a piss outside without accounting for proper windage. He glances at the cat. This is Vihmal. He’s going to take your place. He slides a pill across the desk and fills me in on the rest.

You’re insane, I flash then take the pill.

That mean you’re out?

No. I rub my wrists. Do I want to know how you smuggled the pill in?

Did it taste funny?

As Nikunj’s recorded voice continues droning on, now about the possible sentences I might incur for the capital crime of murder, I stare Vihmal in the eye, see them quivering, tip an imaginary cap his way; then I’m back at my ankles. They’re free in a jiff.

Nikunj undoes the cufflinks on his right wrist and carefully withdraws a short length of string sewn into his sleeve. Careful. Monofilament. He holds it out.

I take the string in hand, twin ceramic cufflinks at either end making it look like a miniature garrote. And…?

You look like shit. He rubs his cheek, flashes, Shave.

I nod. Grin. Draw the filament taut and commence shaving. Carefully. And I emphasize ‘carefully’ cause if I twitch or sneeze or cough I’m liable to scrape half my face off.

Vihmal glances with trepidation at Nikunj, who nods. Vihmal swallows, stands, starts to strip his dull grey suit off his shoulders.

Once I finish shaving, I do likewise, tearing my prison coveralls off and tossing them on the table.

Measured footsteps stroll past the door. We both freeze.

Nikunj is at the door, relaxed, ready. The footsteps fade, and we switch clothes then places. Vihmal’s drab grey suit fits well, not perfectly, his glasses and fedora, too. Kneeling, I fix the cuffs around Vihmal’s wrists then his ankles. He’s bent over double now, glancing up. He doesn’t really look like me at all. “That too tight?” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “It’s okay.”

“Thank you.”

He nods, swallows, sweats.

I take a seat, fingers tapping on the table. Can this plan possibly work? Nikunj’s suit does blow a ton of noise. And though Vihmal’s looking even paler now, threatening to puke, maybe that’s to our benefit. And shit, we all look the same to them, now don’t we? That gorilla didn’t seem too sharp with regards to differentiating darker ethnicities. I swallow, glance up at Nikunj, hope racism remains strong. Ready.

Nikunj snatches the centripeter off the table and gives it a twist. As his recorded voice dies, Nikunj takes up the same speech, “and so it’s most likely to be a death sentence.” His eyes are on Vihmal as he says it.

Vihmal closes his eyes.

“We’re done here for now, Mister Shakteel. Is there anything I can do for you in the interim?”

Vihmal’s lips move but his voice fails him; he shakes his head.

Nikunj stares for a moment, nods. “Guard!” He pounds on the door. “Our meeting is adjourned.” Stepping aside, he folds his hands behind his back.

I’m at his side, eyes on the prize, that prize being my new shoes.

A moment or two, then the jangling of keys, the ka-chung as the lock’s turned, followed by the door squealing open in protest. The gorilla doesn’t say anything; he just stares, absorbing the empty door space, looming in our path like a specter of doom. Then he steps back and out of the way.

Nikunj leads the way and I follow, sliding past the gorilla, his dull eyes on us as we go.

A last backward glance and all I see are Vihmal’s haunted eyes.

Then we’re down the hall and at another locked gate. The guard on the other side glances at us, then past to the gorilla. The gorilla nods and the door opens along with the sound of squealing steel rollers. We stroll neat as you please past him, and Nikunj retrieves his briefcase from a desk sergeant on the other side.

“Thanks.” Nikunj pops it open, palms something into his pocket, then snaps it shut. On the way down the hallway, he hands me a vial of cologne. “Put it on.”

I don’t argue. Haven’t smelled myself lately.

We step aside as a pair of constables march past.

Nikunj nods; I tip my cap.

It’s all hustle and bustle as we enter the main stage. Constable Ruben’s across the crowded room, holding up a piece of paper and jawing on to Detective Vortex and some uniformed copper. A riot of constables and barristers and perps are a sea between us, a mishmash of biz and buzz and vocal escalation. Not a few eyes set on us and turn to glares. Hindus aren’t exactly well-liked in the Seep, or anywhere else for that matter.

Nikunj sets a beeline straight for the front doors. We’re halfway there when Detective Vortex notices us and calls, “Mister Patel!” through the conflagration of conversation. I nearly shit my pants as she waves him over. “A word?”

Nikunj is on it, though, and he pivots smoothly toward her, strides forward fearless as a jungle cat through the morass, his hand extended. I follow in his wake, eyes down, looking the other way as the two shake hands and exchange banal pleasantries. Constables and coppers meander past us as the two discuss. Sweat slides down my spine.

Constable Ruben’s at my side, grumbling as he scribbles on a piece of paper. I can’t read what out of the corner of my eye and leave it at that. Gazing around, I don’t hear what Nikunj or Detective Vortex are jawing about. The pounding in my ears is too loud. The best I can manage is a touch to the brim of my fedora followed by a nod to anyone that gets within boot-licking distance, pulling the brim down further each time. As I stand and wait, I turn slowly away from Detective Vortex. She doesn’t seem the type to not notice the obvious, and if she or Constable Ruben cops a direct look in my eyes, I know I’m a goner.

“Very good, Mister Patel,” Detective Vortex says finally, extending a hand. Nikunj takes it, shakes it, offers a slight bow, and marches off, me in tow.

“You two dating?” I hiss, but we’re out the door in a flash and onto the soot-stained cobble streets and claustrophobic red brick vistas, the choking factory fumes pumping waste air into the corridors of the vast labyrinth that is the Seep.

I can finally breathe again.