The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [61]
They were trailed by two other big Jeeps from the Pinecrest fleet, bristling with weapons and crammed with Sanjay’s male drinking buddies from the film crew. Being from Bollywood, Sanjay never went anywhere in life without a posse of backup dancers.
The Jeep lurched over a boulder in the uphill trail, and Anjali brushed against him. “Tony,” she fluted.
Tony brushed a wrinkle from his nylon jacket. “What, sajaana?”
“Tony, you’re too quiet. What are you thinking, Tony?”
“Why, I’m thinking of you, maahiyaa.”
Anjali’s eyelids fluttered. She was twenty-three years old and had the eyes of a Mughal concubine. Her eyes inspired in men an uncontrollable urge to shower her with jewels. “So, what, my dear, thinking what? That you miss me when I don’t see you? Because I miss you so much, Tony. Morning, noon, and night.” In a gesture of limpid sincerity, she placed a slender hand against her brassiere.
Tony coughed in the dry mountain air. “Baby, sweetie, honey-pie, terii puuja karuun main to har dam.”
Anjali broke into a musical peal of laughter. She loved it when he quoted her song lyrics. “Oh, you, you lover boy! Just shut up, yaar!”
The Jeep lumbered into a chilly patch of open air and twilight. The long drought had been unkind to Colorado. A local mountain, federal park territory, had snowy slopes measled all over with big seared patches of black ash.
“Your little mountains look so sad,” said Sanjay. “They’re not the Himalayas, dear boy.”
“You’re absolutely right about that,” said Tony.
“And your fancy telescope is too low. Lower than India’s big mountain telescope.”
“Yeah, you mean that Indian Astronomical Observatory up in Hanle?”
“It’s four hundred meters higher than yours.”
“Two hundred meters,” said Tony. “I measured it.”
Sanjay turned in his seat, throwing back a leather-jacketed elbow. His gazellelike eyes were reddened with altitude and drink. “Is that a joke?”
“If you like.”
“I don’t like jokes.”
“I don’t like you,” said Tony. Two heartbeats passed. “Ruup aisa suhaana tera chaand bhii hai diiwaana tera.”
The Jeep erupted in laughter. Even stony Chet the driver chuckled, relieved to see that Sanjay was guffawing at Tony’s wit instead of putting a bullet through somebody.
Sanjay was all chuckles now. “Bindaas,” he told his cousin.
Anjali lifted one dainty thumb and wiggled it enthusiastically. It was a gesture completely without any Western equivalent. “Yehi hai right choice!” she purred.
The Jeep’s engine labored as Chet fought the slope. Anjali put her pink-nailed hand around Tony’s forearm. “You’re so good with him,” she whispered.
“Am I good for you, precious?”
Anjali glanced toward the front seat. Sanjay was sinking into boozy indifference. Anjali drew her tapered finger down Tony’s cheek and gently caught and pinched his lower lip. This was her favorite caress. Incredibly, as always, it worked on Tony. It blew every circuit in him. It plunged him instantly, wildly, uncontrollably, into the head-spinning saffron depths of the Kama Sutra.
Tony had never believed that such things were possible. When he was away from Anjali—and he spent a lot of time away from Anjali, for the sake of his sanity—he found himself incredulous that such things could ever happen between man and woman. But then she’d be back in his arm’s reach, and oh, my God. It wasn’t her beauty that had trapped him, or the fantastic sex, or even the looming, steadily growing danger that some angry man in her family would shoot him dead. It was the sheer sense of wonder, really. Anjali Devgan had been Miss Universe 1999. She was quite likely the most beautiful woman in the entire world.
Chet pulled the Jeep into a sloping meadow.
Sanjay drained his silver hip flask, zipped his leather jacket, shoulder-slung his heavy rifle, and bounded right out the Jeep’s door. The other two vehicles pulled up and stopped, crunching through some low-hanging pine branches. Nobody looked eager to follow the great man and his gun. There had, apparently, been some unlucky incidents in the past.
These