“I haven’t the faintest, Jack. Did you know the guy? I could find out his name for you.”

“Thanks, Marta, but that won’t help. Never mind.”

After saying goodbye, he cradled the receiver and sat staring at the floor. In his mind’s eye he was watching Kusum steal into a hospital room, grab a young man with a gauze patch over his left eye and casts on both arms, and hurl him through a window. But Jack couldn’t buy it. He knew Kusum would have liked to do just that, but he couldn’t see a one-armed man being capable of it. Especially not while he was busy spiriting his grandmother out of the hospital.

Irritably, he shook off the images and concentrated on his other problem: the disappearance of Grace Westphalen. He had nothing to go on but the unlabeled bottle of herbal fluid, and had only a vague gut suspicion that it was somehow involved. He didn’t trust hunches, but he decided to follow this one up for lack of anything better.

He picked up the bottle from where he had left it on the oak hutch last night and unscrewed the cap. The odor was unfamiliar, but definitely herbal. He placed a drop on a fingertip and tasted it. Not bad. Only thing to do was to have it analyzed and see where it came from. Maybe by some far out chance there was a connection to whatever happened to Grace.

He picked up the phone again, intending to call Gia, then put it down. He couldn’t bear to hear the ice in her voice. Not yet. There was something else he should do first: Call that crazy one-armed Indian and find out what he had done with the old lady. He dialed the number Kusum had left on the office answerphone yesterday.

A woman answered. Her voice was soft, unaccented, almost liquid. She told him Kusum was out.

“When will he be back?”

“This evening. Is… is this Jack?”

“Uh, yes.” He was startled and puzzled. “How did you know?”

Her laugh was musical. “Kusum said you’d probably be calling. I’m Kolabati, his sister. I was just going to call your office. I want to meet you, Repairman Jack.”

“And I want to know where your grandmother is!”

“On her way to India,” she said lightly, “where she will be cared for by our own doctors.”

Jack was relieved but still annoyed. “That could have been arranged without sneaking her out the back door or whatever it was you did.”

“Of course. But you do not know my brother. He always does things his way. Just like you, from what he tells me. I like that in a man. When can we meet?”

Something in her voice caused his concern for the grandmother to fade into the background. She was, after all, under medical care…

“Are you staying in the States long?” he asked, temporizing. He had a rule that once he was through with a job, he was through. But he had an urge to see what sort of face went with that incredible voice. And come to think of it, this woman wasn’t actually a customer—her brother was.