First I went to my room to change. Then, taking a deep breath, I knocked on Elame's door.
A policeman answered.
"Hi," I said stupidly.
"Come in," he motioned, smiling.
"Can I come in?"
"Come in."
"I want to visit my friend."
Elame greeted me with a strained frown. "Friend. Friend," she told them.
The police moved to the other side of the room to give us privacy.
"How are you?" I asked her.
"I haven't had dope since this morning. They're waiting for Jimmy."
"What happened? Did they find anything?"
"Only a little hash. I threw everything down the toilet and out the window. Did you hear me scream? When they walked in I screamed: I'm naked. GET OUT! GET OUT! So when they saw I was alone and undressed, they waited by the door. That's when I got rid of what I could."
"What about the smack?"
"They haven't found it yet."
"Did they look?"
"They looked through everything, but they didn't bother with the can of smack. They must have thought it was powdered milk."
"Where is it?"
"In the wooden cabinet, right in front. They searched there, I saw them."
"You need dope? I brought you a stash just in case."
Around midnight, I walked back to Narayan, and Richard's.
"We found him," said Narayan. "I found him. Stopped him on the road. He was about to drive into the lodge."
Jimmy was hiding behind an armour. He looked scared. "Yo, man, that was close. They almost got me."
"They haven't found the smack yet."
"I've gotta split this scene," Jimmy said. "The sheriffs having a bummer here."
"I'm taking him to the airport tonight," Narayan told me. "Richard lent him money for the airfare."
I followed Narayan as he went to his room, but I didn't enter. I stood in the doorway and watched him uncertainly. As usual he wore a bright flowery kimono. Red was a great colour for him. He turned to face me and sneered.
"See what happens with heroin?" he said mockingly. "Bad karma." I made an impatient noise and looked at the ceiling. Narayan came closer. "Bad karma!" he said again, loudly, with slitted eyes. I pushed him away. "I'm glad this happened," he continued. "Glad! Now you'll have to scrounge for your dope. Serves you right!"
"Fuck you," I said and spun away from him.
He took hold of my hand and said gently, "Don't go."
I pulled away forcefully and stormed out.
By the next morning, Jimmy was out of Indonesia. Meanwhile, the police were frustrated from waiting all night for nothing. When they finally left, they took Elame as consolation. They put her in a hotel and had her guarded so she couldn't leave. They stationed a sentry in Elame and Jimmy's bungalow.
Late in the afternoon I went to the hotel to bring Elame dope. When I arrived back at the lodge, Steve and Laura were holding another town meeting, this time over the tin of smack.
"We have to get it out of there," said Laura. "If they haven't found it yet, they still may at any moment."
"Like, what do we do?"
"Wait for an opportunity."
That night, at different intervals, we prowled outside Jimmy's bungalow and peered through the windows, seeking a chance to run in and grab the can. At one point, the policeman heard Monica and I giggling and came out to investigate. Leaving the door open, Monica squatted and pretended to pee. I then quickly closed the door and went back inside. I laughed out loud.
"But Monica, there's a perfectly good toilet only four Feet away. This isn't Goa, you know."
"It worked, didn't it?"
"They're going to think we're all a little strange."
The next day, Steve announced, "We've got to, like, move out of this lodge. It's too hot here with those cops and that tin of smack they might find, like, any second."
"Yeah, what if they need powered milk for their coffee?"
"I found us a place called Kaiya Waiya," Steve continued. "It's a gorgeous, like, resort further down the road. It was built two years ago, but after it was finished, it turned out the site was, like, haunted. Nobody wanted to go near it. It's been deserted ever since, so we can stay there for practically nothing. Wait till you see it, like, you won't believe it."
That afternoon I climbed behind Monica on her motorbike and we went to check it out.
Stupendous. An absolute dream. Kaiya Waiya consisted of castle-like houses with walls surrounding inner courtyards. We toured the place in awe. Wooden statues hid amid tropical greenery. Here a dragon, there a garuda, a bird from Hindo mythology. Carved, multicoloured snakes peeped from bushes. One house had its own swimming pool, and Steve thought Monica and I should take that one.
We were thunderstruck when we saw it. It had a moat. A moat! Obese goldfish swam in the moat, and a Balinese man fished there. We entered double wooden doors to find a six-foot stone Ganesh—the Indian half-man, half-elephant god—shooting a stream of water into the pool. Off the side, a fountain spouted from the mouth of a gargoyle. Chaise lounges surrounded the pool, and steps led to a patio overlooking acres of paths. Gigantic flowers climbed the inner walls. Behind sliding glass-doors was the bedroom. The other side of the room opened onto a patio facing the sea. We were speechless. The bathroom was down a few steps and half outdoors. Among plants and carved figures lay a sunken tub of mosaic tiles.
"We'll take it," I declared.
"Like, dynamite, huh?" said Steve. "I spoke to the caretakers and talked them into letting us stay here. We're the only ones who ever wanted to. I told them we'd take ten to fifteen houses, so they agreed. The thought of the money must have made them brave enough to, like, tackle the ghosts."
We moved.
The house I shared with Monica became the party place. Ours was the biggest and had the Pool. It became the hangout for all Goa, and friends of Goa, Freaks. No ghost ever made an appearance, though. We called to them, invited them for a swim, and offered them hits of dope. No ghost.
Meanwhile, Elame was still being "detained." I went twice to bring her dope, but it was difficult to find transportation back. No himos cruised so far from town, and hitchhiking was impossible—whenever a driver heard the name Kaiya Waiya, the car door would slam in my face.
I developed a phobia about motorbikes. They terrified me, and it seemed that, as soon as a guy realized that I was afraid, he'd drive faster and more recklessly. Only males did this, so I felt safer with female drivers. Monica had a bike, but I didn't want to abuse our friendship by asking her to chauffeur me around. There was only one solution—I had to learn to drive one of the damn things myself.
I'd gone with Narayan once to the motorcycle rental place outside Denpasar.
A Chinese woman ran the profitable business, which also invested in scams, money lending, and other illicit activities. A huge. Oriental-looking man was her second in command. When I accompanied Monica to the Shop to pay her monthly fee, I told Huge Oriental I too wanted to ride.
"I teach you," he assured me. "You five near beach, good place to practice."
The next day Huge Oriental turned up at Kaiya Waiya with a Yamaha, and I soon putt-putted on my own. A bike was less terrifying when I drove it myself. Slowly I crept along, very pleased with my valour, despite my senior-citizen speed.
Suddenly, the police turned their attention to me. They'd found out from the manager of our old bungalow lodge that I was the one who'd given Jimmy five thousand dollars before he'd left for Malaysia. The manager also told them the total amount I'd left in deposit with the lodge. The very large amount, all in cash.
Unlike my friends. I'd never been antipolice. I liked police officers. I found them reassuring to have around. I admired their work and had always been friendly with any I'd met. In the same way, I now became chummy with the inspector who came to see me. I invited him and his subordinates to make themselves comfortable by the pool.