Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master (9 page)

Joshua Cain was not a patient man. From deep within his
black leather chair he glared across the room at the clock on the mantle, as if
daring it to continue to defy him. His stubby fingers drummed on the cool
mahogany surface of his desk. He breathed deeply and tried to relax. It wasn’t
his fault if he was impatient by nature – so few people ever dared to
keep him waiting. After all, his clients might be the most powerful criminals
in the city, but they only darkened Cain’s door when they had desperate need of
his services, and nowhere else to turn.

At last the door to his study opened and his manservant
stepped into the room, his nose still heavily bandaged from his first contact
with Cain’s new client. If the man bore any ill-will, or indeed felt anything
at all, his face did not show it. He nodded wordlessly to Cain, as if to
indicate that a long-awaited event had come to pass at last.

“Show him in,” Cain said, smoothing his hair with his hand,
and doing his best to appear unperturbed.

A moment later the door opened wider and Ajay Shah breezed
in with an inky smile on his face. He looked tall and elegant in a dark
day-suit, and he fidgeted slightly with his cuffs like a man who had made a
careful study of the rich and indolent. He nodded to Cain with a smile.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, old man. I was dining with Madam
Dubriel and her… charming daughters.” Shah stepped to the window and gazed out
onto the garden like a man without a care in the world.

“Dubriel? The widow of the brewery magnate?” Cain said, his
brows furrowed.

“You know, I do believe they mentioned something of that,”
Shah sighed. “Every two minutes. Why do those in your country who have stumbled
into great wealth insist on pointing it out?”

“I couldn’t say,” Cain smiled. “I’m an honest businessman.”

The two men held one another’s eyes for a moment, and then
each smiled. Cain offered Shah a cigar from the box on his desk. Shah demurred,
producing a beautiful silver cigarette case from his jacket.

“That’s quite a handsome item,” Cain nodded.

“It is,” Shah smiled, lighting a cigarette. “It was a gift
from Richard Granville. He is convinced that our fathers were acquainted. Which
suggests that he knows even less about his father than I do mine.”

“I know his father made millions in the stock market,” Cain
sneered.

“And converted those millions to long-term bearer’s bonds
shortly before the Crash.” Shah’s expression was hawk-like and inscrutable, but
his eyes danced with amusement. “I intend to help myself to them this very night.”
The smoke that wreathed Shah’s head cast fantastically shaped shadows around
the ceiling. Cain forced himself not to look at them.

“Be careful, Shah,” Cain warned. “The papers are still
frantic over what happened to young Martin Davies. Yes, that appeared to be an
accident, but if you move too quickly, people will put two and two together.”

“What people?” Ajay Shah smiled, his words hanging like ice.

“Like Wallace Blake for one,” Cain said gravely. “I can
control Blake, but you mustn’t wind him up too tightly.”

“Wallace Blake is of no further concern to us,” Ajay Shah
said, gazing out the window into the deepening evening sky.

“What do you mean?” Cain stood. “What did you do, Shah?”

“A most regrettable turn of events,” Shah smiled. “Sometime
before dawn, Wallace Blake will be found to have hung himself. A suicide.”

“Dammit, Shah! If there are witnesses that can tie you to
this–”

“I was far from there,” Shah smiled serenely.

“Then how do you know–,” Cain was cut off by a hiss
from his guest. A sudden, sharp sound from between Shah’s teeth that sent a
chill down Cain’s spine and told him that he didn’t really want an answer to
his question.

Cain changed the subject. Perhaps there was another way to
calm his new client’s ambition. He opened a large drawer in his desk and
produced a handsome leather satchel. He set it down gently on the desktop and
waited until he was certain that he had his guest’s attention. He opened it to
reveal stacks of bills, all sorted neatly and in large denominations. Enough to
let Ajay Shah stop pretending to be a man of privilege and luxury, and truly
become one, if that was his ambition.

Shah raised an eyebrow and sauntered over.

“The rest of the proceeds from poor Mister Davies?” Shah
smiled.

Cain nodded. “It took my contacts awhile to move that much
gold, but they got it done. It’s quite an impressive pile, is it not?”

“Minus your commission, of course.” Shah locked eyes with
Cain.

Cain never blinked. “Of course,” he said.

Shah ran his finger lightly over the stacks of bills, as if
they were of little interest to him. “You know, Joshua, you are in every way
worthy of your reputation. Your instincts have been correct at every turn.”

Cain said nothing and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Thanks to you, I have insinuated myself seamlessly into
your city’s high society,” Shah continued, rolling the ash of his cigarette
calmly into the ashtray on Cain’s desk. “I walk amongst your petty princes as a
celebrated curiosity and help myself to their treasures, their secrets, their
minds. And for the heavy lifting, I have an efficient if uninspired little gang
of my very own.”

Cain did nothing more than elevate his left eyebrow.

Shah smiled. At times he really did admire this insect.
“Nonetheless, I do find myself wondering if you haven’t outlived your
usefulness,” he said with a cold smile.

“Is that right?” Cain said, lowering himself into his chair
with something like a sigh.

Shah let his smile speak for him.

“My clients include many of the most ruthless criminals in
the country,” Cain said, his fingertips pressed together lightly. “I haven’t
lived this long in their company by trying to force them to maintain a
relationship they were no longer comfortable with, even if we did have a deal.
If you wish to go your own way, Mister Shah, you do so with my blessing and
best wishes.”

Shah tried very hard to hide his surprise and almost
succeeded. Cain smiled.

“You should know, of course, that fencing and laundering the
proceeds of crime isn’t nearly as simple as I make it appear. That uninspired little
gang of yours certainly won’t have much luck, and you risk your position by
involving yourself directly. To say nothing of your freedom.”

Shah smiled. He liked this little man more and more.

“I do take a commission,” Cain continued, “and it is not a modest
one. But as a neophyte, it is unlikely you would get as much as twenty cents on
the dollar. I average eighty. You also do gain the benefit of my connections
– no small service in itself.”

Shah was intrigued, but turned away casually to keep from
showing it. “How do you mean?”

Cain sat back in his chair and drew on his cigar. “While our
current relationship stands, your interests are my interests. And when I hear
that a certain mildly notorious confidence man named Miles Grant is showing a
little too much… discreet interest… in the proceeds of the Empire Bank
job–”

“What?” Shah’s pretence of disinterest was lost in an
instant.

Cain continued, “And when this same Grant starts asking
questions on the sly about a certain mysterious newcomer named Ajay Shah–”

Shah hissed again, and Cain could not escape the notion that
the shadows had bloomed around him for an instant. Shah turned again to face
Cain, something akin to exhilaration in his eyes.

“This man, Grant – describe him!” he ordered.

Cain was unmoved, but curious. “Five eight, five nine.
Perhaps forty-five. Stocky with a van Dyke beard.” The intensity of his guest’s
gaze faded into sullen disappointment, and Shah turned away and paced back to
the window, the light returning to the room as he did so.

“You need not worry about Miles Grant,” Cain said calmly.
“He’s a petty confidence man, likely out to put the touch on you. Were my
connections less complete, I would likely have never learned of both of his
inquiries. Few would have. But it is more coincidence than I allow where my
business is concerned.” Cain paused. “This
is
still my business, is it not, Mister Shah?”

Shah turned and smiled. “My dear Joshua, do you really have
to ask?”

“Excellent. Let us speak no more of this.”

“I would like to speak to this Miles Grant before you kill
him,” Shah nodded.

Cain frowned. “I don’t want you anywhere near Grant, alive
or dead. You must allow me to keep you safe, Ajay. This is what I do.”

Shah thought a moment and gave his assent with a wave of his
hand. He turned and made for the door. “I will send a boy around tonight with
the Granville bonds.”

Cain called after him as he walked away, “Too soon, Shah!
Too soon! There are forces in this town that are beyond my control, and you are
going out of your way to provoke them!”

Ajay Shah opened the door and breezed past Cain’s injured
manservant. He gave Cain no sign that his warning had been heard at all, but
the servant could just hear him say,

“Precisely as I intend, Cain. Precisely as I intend.”

“You learn fast, young
one,” Rashan said with a shake of his head, not entirely displeased. The pupil
whom the Saddhu had named “Two” smiled in spite of himself.

“Thank you, Master,”
he said, bowing his head.

The Saddhu smiled
kindly. “Too fast, I think, to truly be learning that which cannot be taught,”
he said.

August Fenwick’s brow
furrowed deeply. “Master?” he asked.

“You are driven, young
stranger,” the old man said, pouring a cup of a bitter concoction that he
called tea, to Fenwick’s profound disappointment when first offered a cup. The
Master made no such offer today. He looked down at where his charge sat,
awaiting instruction. He smiled and shook his head. “Even now you strain like a
greyhound in the slips, waiting to be taught, to be told. One does not need to
be a master of the mind to see that you have done this before. I see you at the
martial exercises you maintain to keep your skills sharp through these months
of meditation. You learn, you absorb, you adapt and you move on, stronger than
you were before.”

“Is that wrong?” the
young man asked.

“If you wish merely to
be a Jack of all Trades, no,” the Saddhu said, cradling the cup in his hands.
“You are skilled, dedicated and driven by unseen demons at which I can only
guess. If you left here today, you would be a giant among lesser men. But you
would always be vulnerable.”

“To what?” There was
fire in the young man’s eyes.

“To the true Master of
the Mind,” the Saddhu hissed softly. “Every technique which I can teach, you
attack with ferocity until it becomes yours. You study and fight your way
through your lessons. But the true journey is not one that can be quantified.
There is no… final exam. No right or wrong. That which is greater than mere
flesh and matter can only be revealed to you through a true knowledge of self.
It must be effortless.”

Two shook his head. “I
don’t understand,” he said glumly.

The Saddhu nodded over
his cup. “You have hidden much from me. From your fellow student. From many
others, I fear. The life that you choose for yourself is full of masks. But you
cannot hide from yourself.” The old man looked up. At the mention of the word
“mask” his pupil’s body language had changed, he had stiffened, become
protective.

The Saddhu narrowed
his eyes. “Even now, you do not trust me.”

The young man bowed
his head. “Forgive me, Master. I did not intend offense.”

Rashan smiled in spite
of himself. “It is the peril of my trade. People assume that you are reading
their innermost secrets, even when they are being blazingly obvious.”

His pupil thought a moment,
then rose from his mat and crossed to a small pile of his belongings in the
corner of the kuti. He opened his pack and drew forth a length of bright red
silk. It was a sash of sorts, perhaps three feet long, with carefully prepared
holes that seemed to match where a man’s eyes might be, were he wearing the
sash to obscure his face. He turned back to Rashan.

“You are not the first
Master to speak of masks,” he said. “This was a gift when I took my leave of
Japan.”

The Saddhu looked at
the mask, and then at his young pupil. “You wish to fight?” he said, his voice
a challenge.

“Yes.”

“What do you fight
for?”

“Justice,” came the
certain reply.

Rashan nodded. “For
whom?”

The young man seemed
surprised. “For the innocent,” he said at last.

“Few are truly worthy
of that name,” the Saddhu challenged.

“Justice for the
people. Those who have nothing and fear everything.”

“That sounds more like
it,” the Master said. “From whom would you protect them?”

“From the Darkness,”
Two replied.

“Too vague. Try
again.”

“From creatures of the
darkness. Men made beasts by desperation. And from those that made those wolves
what they are.”

“Who are they?”

There was another
moment’s hesitation. “Men of great wealth and power who perpetuate misery and
cruelty in the name of greed. I fight to protect the innocent from those to
whom human life means nothing.”

The Saddhu seemed to
look right through August Fenwick. “Go on,” he said.

The young man blinked,
hard. “From men like my father,” he choked.

“No.” The Saddhu’s
voice was firm. “You have told yourself that, but it is not true. That is not
what you fear; it is not what drives you. This was a game to you when you began
your quest. It is no longer. That gives you credit. But when the day comes that
you leave this mountain your fight will begin in earnest, and if you do not
know who you fight and why, you will never survive. Now, from whom do you fight
to protect the innocent?”

There was silence.

“From men like me,”
August Fenwick replied.

Rashan nodded and
sipped his tea. “Fear is a great motivator,” he said. “And the first fear, like
the first love, is the fear of one’s own self.”

The young man said
nothing.

“Now our work can
truly begin,” the Master said. “You may take your exercise if you wish.”

The young man bowed
and left the kuti. For an hour or more, the high rocks of the mountain top
would bear witness to a display of a unique amalgam of a dozen of the East’s
most deadly fighting styles.

From the shadows
within the kuti, the voice of Rashan’s other student could be heard. “You could
not resist prying, could you, my Master?”

Rashan looked up
angrily to see the man he called “One” emerge from the flowing darkness. “What
are you doing there?” he barked.

The hawk-like face
seemed startled. “I imagined that you were allowing me the privilege of
eavesdropping,” he said. “Is it possible that I can now conceal myself, even
from your eyes?” The young man seemed delighted by the prospect.

“Any fool can hide,”
Rashan growled, concerned by this turn of events. “And any coward too.”

His student’s smile
vanished at this.

“Look at you,” the
Saddhu chastised. “The most gifted student I could have ever wished for, and
still you play these ridiculous child’s games. Get out of my sight!” he barked.

“As you wish,” One
said, pulling the shadows before himself like an inky cloak, until no trace of
him could be seen by mortal eyes.