One night Ghulpa had a fever and spoke of the Bengals. She said (and it was eerie to Ray) “the boy killed the tiger in the water with his tooth, as the serpent watched.” She was still talking about The Jungle Book—that was how Mowgli killed Shere Kahn, with his long-knifed “tooth.” “Bapu, I don’t want to be a greedy girl!” she exclaimed, snapping her head toward the old man. He asked what she meant and she said, “They looted the cavern and dressed themselves like kings. They killed the old cobra, who no longer even had any poison left! But they could never leave the forest! They were cursed because they wanted rubies. I do not want rubies!” She lifted up from her bed just like a Bollywood actress. “I only wish to take care of the child, Bapu! Our baby! Raj, I am not a thief—we are not thieves! I do not steal from the City of Industry!” After a moment, she said softly, “The city of Calcutta is my mother. Kali is my mother. Durga is my mother.”
He tried to calm her and the delirium soon passed. At the moment, there were no cousins to help him. He put a wet cloth on her forehead and she smiled.
DURING the day, the Artesians pressed Ghulpa’s feet, which seemed to settle her nerves. One of the cousins taught the art of “Indian milking”—massaging the feet of infants — to rich, “desperate housewives” in Los Feliz, Brentwood, and the Palisades. Westerners paid a hundred-and-50-dollars an hour to be taught the “water wheel,” “rowboat,” and “butterfly.” They even bought special massage mats for their babies, insisting the “doulas” (a chic, catchall term) use organic extra-virgin olive oil for the rubs. The various techniques were supposed to relieve constipation and colic, improve bonding, and enhance weight gain for preemies. The cousins laughed at an American handbook suggesting parents ask their babies’ “permission” before a massage. They turned to one another and began a roundelay—“Would you like a massage, baby?”—and there was something musical about it, lovely for the old man to watch, like a scene from an operetta.
THE City of Industry had nervously preempted the lawyers’ plans to request the agreed upon amount (500,000) with an offer of 750. All’s well that ends well. The money would be available within the week, about half a million after legal fees.
Ray called Detective Staniel Lake. He wanted to tell him personally, and of Ghulpa’s (difficult) pregnancy, and how much that had played a part in his decision. He wanted to invite the men who broke into the house that night to dinner as well, at the Pacific Dining Car. He wanted to tell the detective he had no hard feelings, in fact, it was the opposite, he wanted to say how much he appreciated Staniel’s kindness and attention, and that he was only doing what he had to, and that he hoped he would understand. He wanted the detective to run it past the others, to let everyone know he would be deeply honored to blow them to a round of porterhouses and the finest scotch whiskey. He really felt he owed them. In a way, they’d helped him begin a new life, and allowed an old man to right some old wrongs.
HE ran into Cora at the Center.
She was seriously considering putting Pahrump on a plane to a “resort spa” in Pittsburgh called the Cozy Inn. It had a great reputation and a 2,000,000 dollar building called the Mozart wing which the owner, a lady named Carol (“just like Cora, but with an l. Well, almost!”), had named after her terrier mutt, who died from the same type of cancer that afflicted Pahrump. All she needed was her son Stein’s final word for the go-ahead. She went on to say there were 2 indoor pools, in the shape of a bone and a paw. Apart from “full medical,” the Inn offered facial massages, weight-loss programs, leash-free nature walks, and acupuncture. But what moved Cora most was when she heard about Carol spending $85,000 to fly her Irish wolfhound to Colorado for a bone marrow transplant that extended his life for 10 months.
“Carol said it was the best investment she’d ever made.”
They visited awhile longer while their pets got rehabbed, talking about the rumors of when the Dog Whisperer episode might air. Cora said there’d been so much excitement in the neighborhood since they came to film “our little show.” And oh yes — the conversation drifted this way and that — her next-door neighbor, a sweet, sweet widow, had been attacked, right in her own driveway, and it was a “tremendous thing” because not too long ago, a “very nice Indian man” who owned the liquor store around the corner had been shot and killed. Cora said neither murderer nor attacker (the police said they weren’t connected) had been found, and people were ordering security systems “en masse.” Stein already had one installed and even considered surrounding the house with a tall fence. She was fighting him on that one, though if he agreed to sponsor Pahrump’s trip to Pittsburgh, well, she just might have to cave in.
The old man shook his head at the general misfortune, but didn’t connect the widow with the gal whose errant paper he’d fetched from the bush. Then one of the staffers walked toward them with Nip on a leash. He had a gleam in his eye, a bounce in his step, and his coat had been brushed. Ray remarked he looked “pretty as hell.”
LXVII.Chester
MAURIE Levin was transferred to rehab. His sister went home to Milwaukee. He was in a good place insurance-wise, but hadn’t improved much physically. He couldn’t talk and only his right hand showed spidery signs of life. The doctors didn’t know whether the fingers’ lightly spastic movements were involuntary or not; Chess hoped they were, because of a typically paranoid, free-floating thought that one day Maurie would be able to pick up a pen and “point the finger.” Chess had the persistent feeling he had actually spoken to Maurie about what had happened, or that his friend knew the details of the prank through some sort of osmosis.
No one was sure how much he understood what was said to him either. Maurie occasionally made rubbery movements with his mouth, as if laboring to speak, but no words came. Laxmi stopped visiting because it was “just too sad.” Chess went every day, and she respected him for that, not knowing he was driven by guilt. He continued to vacillate in regard to telling her the truth, or what most of the time he imagined the truth to be; whenever Chester courted confession, he fantasized about the consequences — Laxmi having an unexpected, antagonistic reaction, police becoming involved, etc — though lately he comforted himself with the heretical thought that Maurie’s “TIA” (trans ischemic attack, as the doctors put it) was definitively coincidental to Viagra, and he’d been putting himself through the ringer por nada. Hell, medical journals and blogs reported cases of the Woodpecker actually helping to save kids with pulmonary hypertension. So how the fuck could it have felled an indestructible, able-bodied, cynical Jew like Maurie? Sometimes Chess thought if he told the cops they’d just shrug and put it in a report where it would gather dust. Besides, how could you even prove something like that? If they’d already run toxicology, no one ever told Chester the results. Maybe they told the sister. It’d probably have been negative, except for traces of weed — and weed never stroked anybody out. So if he did tell the cops, they’d either think he was a nut, or be unable to pursue it, because any traces of Viagra would long since have been pissed through a catheter or shat into a bedpan. (And who’s to say the guy wasn’t using it on his own.) Probably the police wouldn’t even bother taking a report, that’s how negligible and surreal the whole thing had become. How viaggravating. When Chess had such epiphanies, it stopped the nonsense in his head and made him feel as if he’d achieved context and clarity; then the moment would pass and he became paranoid again, eating away at himself.