While the proprietor was arguing with the other strangers who had run in, Jennifer looked for a hiding place of sorts, where she could get her breath and reprogram her mind. She was still overwhelmed by fright. Knowing she could not be choosy, she encountered a soiled curtain. With no hesitation, she pulled it aside and stepped beyond.
As her foot came down, Jennifer realized belatedly she had to direct it onto one of two bricks. The same with the other foot. She had inadvertently stepped into a makeshift toilet. Balancing herself, she pulled the curtain back into place. Next she managed to turn herself around without stepping off the bricks. The facility was just a hole, two bricks, and a faucet.
The argument between the owner and the interlopers was still going on out in the narrow store. Jennifer assumed the language was Hindi. She tried not to breathe through her nose. The smell was repulsive.
Now that she was stationary, Jennifer shivered. She looked at her hands and then tentatively smelled. It didn’t smell good, whatever it was that she’d landed in when she’d pitched out of the tricycle. At least it wasn’t feces. She looked down at the faucet, shrugged, and bent down to rinse off her hands. At that point it sounded as if a new person had gotten into the shop and was arguing with the owner. This time it was in English. But the individual said little. It was mostly the owner carrying on very angrily. Then there was a crash, and the pigs began squealing and the lamb bleating.
Worrying about what was happening, Jennifer stood up, turned, and listened. It sounded like the owner was trying to get up. Just when Jennifer had generated the courage to peek around the curtain, it was rudely whipped to the side, causing her to cry out, as did the person doing the whipping.
It was Neil McCulgan.
“God, you scared me half to death,” Neil complained with a hand pressed to his chest.
“You?” Jennifer complained with equal vehemence. “What about me? And what in God’s name are you doing here?”
“There’ll be time to explain,” Neil said. He extended a hand for Jennifer to step off the bricks. Behind him, the owner was busy trying to extricate himself from a stack of the tiny chicken cages where he’d presumably been pushed. Several of the cages had broken, and the released chickens were nervously pacing around the immediate area.
She shook her head and raised her hands as a warning. “You don’t want to touch me. I was tossed out of a tricycle into some—”
“I know. I saw.”
“You did?” Jennifer stepped off the bricks. She briefly glanced at the half-dozen Indians she’d followed into the shop.
“I most certainly did.”
“I want you Americans out of here,” yelled the owner, after catching the chickens and cramming the poor birds into occupied cages. “I want everyone out of here!”
“Let’s go!” Neil said, keeping himself between the owner and Jennifer. “There’s nothing to be running from.”
Outside, things had pretty much returned to normal. People were no longer in a panic and were beginning to drift back into the street. Shops were reopening, and the two policemen were no longer beating anyone. Best of all, it seemed no one had gotten hurt other than the person who was shot.
“Alright, this is far enough!” Jennifer said, halting in the middle of the alley. She was trembling now that she’d had a moment to think about what she had experienced. It had all transpired so fast. “Do you know what happened?”
“Sort of,” Neil said. “I was behind you trying to catch up when the shooting occurred. I’ve been trying to catch you from the moment you left the hotel. I missed you at the Red Fort.”
“I couldn’t handle visiting it,” Jennifer confessed. “And it turned out that I couldn’t handle the bazaar, either. I was trying to get the cyclist to turn around and take me back to my car when the shots rang out.”
“Anyway, I got to the mosque and I just caught a glimpse of you disappearing on the cycle rickshaw. I had to run through all those people in front of the mosque to try not to lose you in this labyrinth.” Neil made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “I wasn’t even sure which direction you’d gone. But I hurried best I could despite the crowd. Then the moment I did see you, I noticed someone go right up behind you and take out a gun. I yelled bloody murder and started running faster, but a short guy behind the first was faster. He was like a gunslinger. He whipped out his own gun and blam, blam, then yelled ‘Police!’ and held up a badge. That was it. I saw you pitch from the cycle and dash off. It was all I could do to keep you in sight. You really can sprint.”
“You think the guy with the gun was going to shoot me?” Jennifer asked anxiously. She started to raise her hand to her face in consternation but thought better of it.
Neil pressed his lips together and shrugged. “It sure looked like it. I mean, he could have been planning on robbing you, I suppose, but I kinda doubt it. He acted too motivated. Is there anyone that might actually want to kill you?” Neil let the question trail off, suggesting that he couldn’t believe what he was actually asking.
“I’ve kinda frustrated a couple of people, but not enough to want to kill me. At least I don’t think so.”
“Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity?”
Jennifer looked away, shook her head, and laughed humorlessly. “God, what I’ve been doing is certainly not worth getting killed for. No way. If it’s not a mistake then I’m outta here, Granny and all.”
“Are you certain there’s no one really, really angry at you?”
“My granny’s case manager, but it’s her freaking job. It’s not the kind of thing you kill someone over.”
“One way or the other, you are mighty lucky that plainclothes policeman was where he was.”
“You are so right,” Jennifer said. “Come on! Let’s go meet this guy. Maybe he’ll know something. Maybe he was even following the other guy. Now that they have the body, maybe they might know if he was following me or not. It’s worth a try to get some answers.”
Neil reached out and restrained Jennifer. “I don’t advise it.”
“Why not?” Jennifer said, pulling her arm free from Neil’s grasp.
“When I was here last for my medical meeting, I learned a lot about the Indian government and the Indian police from my hosts. It’s best, unless absolutely necessary, to stay clear of both. Corruption is a way of life here. It’s not viewed from the same moral perspective as it is in the West. Whenever you get involved, it costs you money. The CBI, which is the equivalent to our FBI, is supposed to be very different. But in this situation you’ll get yourself caught up with the regular local police. I’m not even certain they wouldn’t put you in jail for inciting someone to pull a gun.”
“Don’t be silly,” Jennifer said, thinking Neil was joking. She started walking back to where the episode occurred. “You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m exaggerating a little,” Neil admitted, catching up to Jennifer. “But the fact that the local police are corrupt to some degree is apparent to everyone in the know, trust me. Also, so are many of the civil servants for the most part. It’s best not to get involved. If you make any specific request about a crime, they have to fill out an FIR, or First Information Report, and, of course, it has to have five million copies. It makes work for them, and they hate it and hate you, too.”
“A man was killed. There needs to be an FIR.”
“Yeah, but that’s his FIR.”
“The more I think about it, he must have been after me in some form or fashion.”