The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday Read online

  He knew the chef, she called out to him, made him cut the line with good humor that negated any offense to the rest of the diners. “My old lover,” she called him, making him blush and raising a cheer from the accumulated regulars, who had clearly seen this act before.

  In this place, due to limited seating, there was a charming tradition of guests sharing the little circular tables, and also the first plate had to be eaten fresh off the oil or the steamer; takeaways were allowed, but discouraged, momos didn’t keep well, after all, and as the place ran on the whims of the chef, her patrons always followed her little cues. Hamilcar, as it happened, had the only extra seat at the best table, the one that looked out into the whole room, while also giving a perfect view of the chef.

  The bodyguard eyed him up and down, but Doje was a regular and shouldered his way through the crowd and took the empty seat, giving Hamilcar a friendly nod, barely waiting for his permission. Hamilcar let the man enjoy his first half dozen of the little steamed ones before breaking the silence.

  “Doje. Number five, is it?”

  The bodyguard, standing nearby, stiffened.

  “Six,” the man said after a second. “Although house rules are, no discussion of karma here. Everyone gets a momo, zero to one.”

  “Of course,” Hamilcar said. “Forgive me. I was overcome with meeting such a man as yourself, at my humble table.”

  “Hmm. Karma is service, not rank. It is not a matter of pride to me, that I am six or sixty thousand or zero.”

  “An answer befitting your status, honored one,” Hamilcar said. “Speaking of zeroes, I have recently met an interesting one. A man such as yourself, who has everything, will perhaps appreciate a good story more than anything else.”

  “You tire me with your obsequity,” Doje said, bored. “Let me eat in peace.”

  “Of course,” Hamilcar said coldly, with all the haughtiness of a man with generations of aristocrats lined up behind him. He had seen his grandfather adopt this very same posture countless times, and invariably resistance to his whims had crumbled in the face of sheer entitlement. Those days were long gone, of course, but humans still seemed to respond the same way.

  “Oh, tell your damn story,” Doje said.

  “It’s a story of a zero who miraculously escaped death years and years ago. No one knows why he was sentenced, why he was forgiven, or why he has returned here, but his name . . . his name is the stuff of legend: Bhan Gurung.”

  “Gurung!” Doje dropped his plate. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Not Gurung, if you’re worried,” Hamilcar said.

  “Gurung . . . He’s dead in the mountains. He’s a ghost. What do you know?”

  “He’s not dead, because I saw him last week,” Hamilcar said.

  “Impossible! I saw his PMD blink out on the machine. I saw his Echo fade away. You’re fucking with me. He’s dead.”

  “The man I saw does not have either PMD or Echo. He does not show up on surveillance. Karma cannot read him. It is possible to surgically remove your PMD and your Echo, given the will, the courage. Tell me, is the Gurung you know capable of such a thing?”

  Doje shuddered. “Yes. Yes, it is possible, that psychotic man is capable of anything.”

  “Are you in fact the man he tried to kill, all those years ago?”

  Doje stared at him. “You know I am, obviously. Now, Mr. Pande, what exactly are you after?”

  “I work for Karma, Central Admin. I am an investigator,” Hamilcar said. “Sheriff, she calls me sometimes. I understand this is some kind of ancient police rank, a joke of hers, I suppose.”

  “And what are you investigating, Sheriff?”

  “Not you, sir,” Hamilcar said. “Some weeks ago, Gurung and another man came into town. Neither have Echos or PMDs. We thought they were primitives who had somehow survived in the mountains. There are pockets of recidivists, even around here. I ordered surveillance drones. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that these men do not show up on any visual spectrum. Not clearly, sometimes not at all. I mention this detail only to impress upon you the difficulty Karma is in, her sudden uncertainty regarding the matter. If these men are here to harm you, sir, then I must be permitted to protect you.”

  “You?”

  “I.”

  “I have guards. Drones.”

  “Your guards are hardly combat trained. And I have informed you that in our calculations, drones will not be effective. I speak for Karma. In this regard, I am given special emissary privileges. You may check.”

  Doje did just that, his eyes going blank for a second as his Echo went through the protocols. Then he grunted and looked at Hamilcar with renewed respect.

  “Unlimited privilege, it says.”

  “I may pursue this case to the ends of the Earth,” Hamilcar said. “Karma’s estimations are that I am a frugal, conservative man, unlikely to abuse her power. In this, she is correct. I live for the job. I have determined that Bhan Gurung and this mysterious goatskin man want to kill you.”

  “You’re a very blunt man for a government official.”

  “I am not a bureaucrat. I am the sheriff. Karma employs me for special cases only.”

  “And you want to save my life?”

  “Assuredly. Allow me to join your entourage. Give me unfettered access, and I will try to capture these men.”

  “By using me as bait?”

  “You are the target, I believe. I can spend all day trying to find these assassins, who are somehow avoiding karmic surveillance, or I can wait for them to come to me.”

  “And you are sure that these men are so very dangerous?”

  “You have seen the license Karma has given me. Karma herself cannot predict what they will do . . . Do you understand the gravity of that? Her predictive algorithms do not work on these men.”

  Doje shuddered. He had a distant look in his eyes, lost in the past, no doubt reliving the horror of that bloody day. “Yes,” he said. “That is Bhan Gurung.”

  Chapter Eight: Old School

  “We’re in. He bought it. Gurung must have been one bad motherfucker. He’s still scared of him.”

  “And me?”

  “You’re the muscle. Think you can handle it? There’ll only be two of us.”

  “I can.” There was absolutely no doubt in her.

  The Doje Tower was self-named and rather ostentatious inside. Works of art, gilt ceilings, golden statues, looted temple doors, and priceless quantities of rare wood adorned every floor, getting progressively grander as they ascended toward the master’s personal quarters at the very top. It was testimony to the sheer karmic balance of Doje, and to what extent Karma indulged her citizens. Curbing personal consumption had actually never been the point of her system, a thing misunderstood by many outsiders. In fact, with Karma and her ancillary automated systems doing all the heavy lifting, consumption was perhaps the main thing really left for ordinary humans to do. “Well, now you know what you get for that much karma,” the colonel said.

  Hamilcar ran his hand over a life-size golden Buddha. It might have been solid gold, for all he could tell. “The question is how he earned it in the first place.”

  “Do you think Gurung and the goat man will come here?”

  “Without doubt,” Hamilcar said.

  “And how do we plan on dealing with them?”

  Hamilcar pulled out a brace of weapons, old mechanical revolvers with long barrels. Karma had fabricated them at his request.

  “One for you and one for me. The rustics can affect drones in some untested way, some kind of interference field, Karma says. Technological weapons might fail. They do not have PMDs, however.”

  “Which means gunshot wounds won’t heal as fast as you make them,” the colonel said. She was a weapons buff, knew her way around the revolver far better than Hamilcar. She had it loaded and cocked within seconds. “Clever.” She took out a kukri, a well-serviced blade. “I’ve got a backup just in case. Mononuclear edge on this.”

  “Bha
n Gurung was a knife fighter.”

  “Yes, that’s why he probably won’t be able to resist.” The colonel re-sheathed her blade carefully. “It’s coated with nerve toxins. Paralysis. And hallucinations. Apparently you see spiders burrowing into your skin for about six hours. Then you die.”

  Hamilcar stared at her.

  “What? I got it from the archive of outmoded weapons. Sometimes old school is best school.”

  “After I’m done with Gurung, I might have to investigate you.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  They found Doje eventually, at the very spire of his tower, meditating in an austere room, in stark contrast to the opulence below. It was windowed on all sides, stone floors and walls, and nothing much else, other than the thin mat the old man sat upon. The ceiling actually domed to a point on top, and was painted with religious symbols. Doje looked the colonel up and down, appreciative, acquisitive. Hamilcar saw her nostrils flare, and wondered if she would stab him with her poisoned kukri right then and there. He doubted he could stop her if she tried.

  “So, this is the famed Kanelia Shakia.”

  “I am a colonel of the officers reserve. I prefer you call me by rank.”

  “Certainly, Colonel Shakia,” Doje said with a bow. “I recognize you. Permit me to say that I greatly enjoyed your martial arts demonstrations. I particularly remember your MMA debut. A splendid rear naked choke.”

  Hamilcar raised an eyebrow. Martial arts? MMA? He hadn’t ever searched her on the system, respecting her privacy. He was old-fashioned that way. She had never mentioned any professional fights.

  “That was more than fifteen years ago,” the colonel said.

  Doje leered at her once again. “Yet I feel you haven’t aged a day. I wonder how you would do against a professional.”

  “You have a professional handy?” the colonel asked idly. Her fingers were caressing the hilt of her knife in a way that boded ill for everyone involved.

  “Look, Doje—” Hamilcar stepped up.

  The colonel silenced him with a hand. She stood flexed on her toes, legs slightly apart, hands loose by her sides.

  Doje snapped his fingers and a door slid open noiselessly. A giant neckless Mongolian gentleman came in with the serene gait of a mountain. His eyes swiveled between Hamilcar and Colonel Shakia, and he correctly identified her as the threat.

  “A demonstration, please, Mr. Khunbish,” Doje said.

  Mr. Khunbish did not wait. He had a wrestler’s stride, low and fast, bulling forward for a double leg takedown, knowing that once on top his weight would make him impossible to dislodge. The colonel met him with a knee to the face, which hardly slowed the Mongolian. She then sprawled forward around his neck, keeping her legs away from his grasping hands, and did some kind of swivel that had her on top of his back. Her right arm snaked under his chin and locked into her left bicep, her legs curled around his torso, and she hung on like a limpet mine as he struggled up with a roar. It seemed impossible, but Hamilcar watched in astonishment as the enormous Mongolian arced and shook and staggered, clawing back with his arms, trying everything to dislodge her. Frantic as the air began to leave his lungs, he started smashing his back against the wall using all his weight, trying to scrape or batter her off. Colonel Shakia just cranked her arm, her tendons jumping like cables, a bloody grin on her face.

  Finally the Mongolian stopped his futile struggle. He gathered himself in, gritted his teeth, and clasped his hands together. Suddenly there was a muted crackle of electricity, popping noises, and the stench of charred flesh and smoke enveloped the fighters. Colonel Shakia let go with a startled yell, rolling back into a crouch, eyes narrowed and watering. Mr. Khunbish huddled where he stood, a shy smile on his face despite his obvious pain, his clothes hanging off in burnt strips, his spine smoking.

  “An electric discharge, much like an eel,” Doje said. “To be used in desperation, of course. Still, I would call this a draw, no? Well done, Colonel Shakia. I feel impregnable in the protective circle of your arms . . .”

  Kanelia Shakia was twitching from adrenaline and the electric shock. Hamilcar saw her hand moving almost involuntarily toward her gun, and he could picture a gaping large-caliber hole where Doje’s forehead was, so he strode in front of her, lifted her up, and hugged her until her rage-filled shaking subsided, an infinitesimally brief second, before her eyes refocused into their customary coolness. Mr. Khunbish seemed to understand, cut from the same cloth perhaps, for he bowed slightly in apology, a traditional bao quan salute behind Doje’s back, fist wrapped around his open palm, a gesture of respect between martial artists hidden from his employer.

  “Thank you for the demonstration, Mr. Khunbish,” Colonel Shakia said, returning his bow with a pranam, the Indian response. In this melting pot of Kathmandu, this city where the two great ancient cultures of the world collided, there were myriad gestures of respect, all understood in the minutiae of subtext. The pranam was also slight apology, for letting things get too far.

  “Are you now convinced that between us we can protect you?” Hamilcar asked Doje.

  The old man stared at him. “Protect me? Certainly. I have calculated Karma, Mr. Hamilcar Pande. What do you think the life of one Bhan Gurung is worth?”

  “What?”

  “What if Mr. Khunbish here were to rip his head from his body, a feat I am assured he is capable of with his bare hands? On my account, hmm? What karmic penalty would our beloved ruler levy on me?”

  “You are proposing murder.”

  “You see, I think my account would be able to bear the cost. I have been saving up good deeds my whole life, eh? I think Karma would allow me to kill your Bhan Gurung in broad daylight without batting an eyelid. I think I could order his execution the minute he walks in this door and my credit would hardly suffer. In fact, I think I have such a head start that I could order your death, and that of the delectable colonel, and your boss would let me. Oh, I might feel the pinch, but you, with your precious carte blanche, you’d be dead. What do you think of that, mighty sheriff?” Doje’s eyes flared out with madness.

  “My poor children, you think anything has changed? You think your god of algorithms means you’re safe from me? You think I do not have twenty Khunbishes? You think I cannot castrate you in front of your bitch and watch you bleed out without Karma twitching? So yes, certainly I feel protected. And Gurung will come to me, yes, and you will be duty bound to step in front of him, even if you loathe me. And if he gets past the good colonel, no doubt you will heroically sacrifice yourself. And when both of you are dead, Khunbish will fight. And when Khunbish dies, two more of his soul brothers will step up and then two more. And when the dead are piled high enough, finally I will be rid of this curse.”

  Chapter Nine: Papa Tuesday

  “Pops. Pops. Papa Tuesday. Yo.”

  Papa Tuesday? Really? “What? What do you want?”

  “Just sayin’, Pops. What’s the plan here? Gurung’s spilling pistachio shells all over the garden, man. Can you tell him to stop?”

  “Not Pops. No Pops. No Papa. Melek Ahmar. Melek Ahmar. The . . .”

  “Yeah yeah yeah, the King of Mars, the Lord of War, I gotcha, Papa Tuesday.”

  Is there anything worse than a snarky djinn-girl teen? Is there? I don’t think so.

  “So Pops, word is, you’re past it.”

  “What?”

  “Past it. Heard you’re washed up. Has been.”

  “Fuck off! I’m busy.”

  “Hey hey hey, don’t shoot the messenger. What I heard. I didn’t say it.” Her outrage was over the top and absolutely real. Which meant, of course, she had totally said it. “They’re saying all your buddies are gone and no one remembers you or gives a shit. About you.”

  “If, as you have repeatedly mentioned, Horus and Memmion and Kuriken and Davala and all the others are gone, then it merely reconfirms the fact that I am the most powerful djinn left in this world! There’s no one alive who can
match me. You are lucky you have—”

  “Yeah yeah, I understand that, it’s just that Hazard rules around here, and they’re saying if we make too many waves he might come over and squash us.” ReGi was relishing her role as chief tormentor and had taken to literally stalking Melek Ahmar around the off-kilter garden.

  “Hazard?” This was a name new to him. “Who the fuck is that?”

  “You know, deadly duelist, undefeated . . . ?”

  “Duelist? I don’t duel. I use my mace to flatten mountains.”

  “Yeah, and rivers and lakes and stuff.”

  “No . . . what? How can you flatten a lake?”

  “Never mind. Hazard. You know, Hazard. Dark, sexy, and handsome? Mysterious air? Kind of brooding all the time?”

  “I don’t have a fucking clue who this Hazard is, but he’s beginning to piss me off just for being a dickhead . . .”

  “Come on, everyone’s heard of Hazard . . . he’s like a rockstar,” ReGi said. “All jackally and shit . . .”

  “Wait. Jackally?”

  “Yeah. Jackal head, duh.”

  “Jackal head. You couldn’t have led with that?”

  “So you do know him, huh?”

  “If you’re talking about Anubis, then yes, I know the kid. Can’t be two assholes wearing jackal heads. I once stuffed his ass in an inverted underground pyramid. Took him twenty years to get loose. If that’s the best you’ve got . . .”

  “Your funeral,” ReGi said sotto voice. “So Pops, like I’m totally stoked to join your three-man army and shit, but what the fuck are we actually doing?”

  “Gurung is making a plan,” Melek Ahmar said loftily.

  “Gurung? Uncle Gurung?”

  “Yes.”

  “The old dude who’s not a djinn?”

  “Right.”

  “Whose special power is eating pistachios?”

  “Hrrrm, yes.”

  “So like he’s the man with the plan?”

  “Well, he’s the native informant, right? Our inside man, isn’t he? And you have to admit, he hates these bastards,” Melek Ahmar said. “I mean, I just wanted to rule this place, but he’s pushing for total destruction. Tear out every brick and sow salt in the earth type of thing. Wants to rip out Karma.”