“The roads aren’t the problem. Well, in part, yes, the roads are bad. But it’s the drivers who scare the hell out of me. And there’s no AC.”

Shankar asked if we wanted to hear some music on the tape player. Cassette. Chhotu expressed his enthusiasm for the idea, but I was terrified of Shankar taking his eyes off the road to slip a tape in. Another vision of a fiery crash down the mountainside.

“Please don’t,” I said, but he’d already performed the needful. Hindi film music serenaded us from the speakers behind our heads. Christ, I even recognized Lata Mangeshkar’s and Kishore Kumar’s voices in a duet. The fruits of hours of listening to the radio in my flat.

“What kind of samples am I picking up anyway?” I asked, still shading my eyes and avoiding any accidental glimpses out the window at the storm and the traffic.

“I have no idea what mission Willy’s asked you to undertake.”

I considered him from my curled-up position against the locked door. Hadn’t Willy told me the night before that he and Chhotu had discussed the job? Did that mean this was another test, not an actual pickup of whatever samples Willy was expecting? Or, much worse, was Willy onto my betrayal and this trip to Bombay was nothing but an elaborate assassination plot? Maybe Chhotu had a revolver hidden somewhere on his person. I decided not to doze off—unlikely, given the terrifying descent of the ghats.

I watched my fellow passenger out of the corner of one eye. And I unlocked my door, in case I’d need to make a quick exit.

Though it was early afternoon, the sky had gone dark as we navigated our way down the endless hill. The heaviest rains had waited for us, and pummeled the roof and windshield mercilessly as Shankar steered to the rhythms of his favorite Hindi film songs.

But like all nightmares, eventually this one ended. We reached the bottom of the ghats and my terror lifted. Clearly, I’d adjusted my expectations. The traffic was still hair-raising now that we’d left the plateau far above and behind us, but somehow it seemed quaint compared to the circles of hell we’d just tobogganed down.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it, Dan?” said Chhotu, not expecting an answer.

“Where am I sleeping tonight?” I asked.

“There are boardinghouses and cheap hotels. Or you can catch a train back to Poona. You’ll manage.”

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1975, 5:05 P.M.

The rain stopped. Shankar dropped me at a woodworking stall near Haji Ali, the mosque in the Arabian Sea. Chhotu lowered his window and wished me luck.

“There,” he said, indicating the one right in front of me.