Chapter 1

2 years ago

Mg13

@Mg13

CHAPTER ONE

'LOOK, Maan,' his forty-year-old lawyer and boyhood friend cautioned him as they idled along the pavement across from the pyramid-shaped building which housed the magazine. 'Things aren't the way they were in your uncle's day.'

Maan Singh Khurana looked across the street and chuckled. 'You didn't have to say that, Sam. Who's responsible for the Egyptian rococo monstrosity over there? The city was never like this, was it?'

Sam winced, and looked around cautiously to make sure nobody was listening. 'She's responsible,' he murmured. 'You wouldn't believe! Way out here in the boondocks, Geet Handa is publisher and editor of one of the nation's wildest scandal sheets.

Of course, Libertyville is only a few miles from Topeka, which is the print capital of the Middle West.' Said with a sense of pride that Maan acknowledged by a tip of his hat. 'Her father was a tough cookie, if you might remember. His daughter makes him look like a Franciscan friar!'

'I'd believe almost anything after spending a year in the Near East. It hardly matters, does it? Don't they make up all their news out of whole cloth? And didn't the old man have a son to inherit?' 'A boy,' Sam told him. 'Little Adi. Learned to drink the hard stuff at fifteen, and wrapped his motorcycle around a lamppost when he was twenty-one. And that left-'

'Yes, I know.' Maan chuckled again. 'Just Her.' He could almost hear the capital letters in Her. 'His daughter?  Little Geet? I can't believe that. She was just a kid when my uncle wrote about her. Sent a picture, too. Too bad Uncle Rajveer died before I could come and find out what he wanted. What is she—twenty—twenty- five?'

'You forget a lot of years,' Sam said. 'And don't call her Geet. She prefers to be called Handa. I would guess she might be all of twenty-nine or thirty by now.'

'I'd like to see this harridan. Why don't we walk over there and drop in on her?'

'Not me.' Sam stepped a pace or two away almost as if he were trying to put real distance between himself and Maan Singh Khurana. 'You must be crazy or something.'

'Or something,' Maan agreed as he came to a halt and surveyed the yellow-brick monstrosity across the street. His lawyer stared at him as intently as he stared at the building.

Maan Singh Khurana had spent five years after college in the stock market. Then he had put all his money in trusts, turned its management over to his lawyer, and dropped out of sight. Now here he was, back but two days from—wherever.

Maan Singh Khurana, having height of five feet eleven, built like some barbarian conqueror, his hair down to his neck in unruly disarray.

In the warmth of the Kansas springtime he was wearing a loose, well- worn sports shirt, from which his arm muscles bulged, and a sloppy pair of trousers. From a distance he appeared to be an ordinary but solid man; not until one came closer did his actual size meet the eye. Everything not covered by hair or clothing was a deep sun-brown. Except for those commanding deep brown eyes.

'And you won't just walk across with me,' Maan teased again. 'After all, the Handas and the Khurana were once great neighbors.'

'Sure. About a century ago,' Sam said. 'Yes, you did inherit from your uncle Rajveer, and included was forty per cent of the shares in the Handa-Malhotra Corporation, which includes the Bar Nine ranch, and that damn magazine. The National Gossiper, would you believe? And no, you don't get me into that—that bitch's lair!'

'She must be something,' Maan laughed. 'Bitch? And you a staunch Methodist!'

'Listen to me, Maan. You've got more money than I can count. Even the bank president tips his hat when you walk by. You don't need to know the Handas. Leave the sleeping dogs alone. You might get yourself cut off somewhere south of your hip pockets. And that's my last word on the subject!'

'Amen. Well, you go on back to your office, Sam. You've done a good job managing my money. I think I'll just leave it in your hands while I sniff around the town and edge my way back into civilisation.'

'That makes a lot of sense, old buddy. And I think I'll—run along.'

'Yeah, why don't you?' Maan encouraged. 'I do believe somebody important is coming out over there.' He turned around to offer some other comment, but by that time his lawyer, laden with forty years of worry and a heavy briefcase, had already disappeared.

That's what I need, Maan told himself. Something intriguing to do. Something with a lot of—gentle ad-venture. Something where I can have some fun without being shot at! I don't intend to set foot in an F-15 cockpit for the rest of my natural life.

Women, that's the proper subject for a middle-aged man these days. Isn't thirty four middle-aged? Women. But then I suppose the lady's as ugly as they come. Isn't that what sours a woman? Ugliness? Or lack of love?

A grey stretch limousine pulled up at the opposite kerb. The double doors of the building swung open and two very large men came out cautiously on to the pavement. One looked like a misplaced basketball player; the other like King Kong in a business suit.

The pair of them turned in a semicircle, searching opposite ends of the street. Unconsciously Maan Khurana did the same. There was not another soul in sight—except for himself.

The men held a very short conversation, and then made a bee-line for Maan. You've been a long time away, Maan thought, as he watched the pair move in his direction. Things really have changed.

'Hey, you,' the Kong-type said. 'Doin' somethin' special here, are you?'

'Nope.  Just hanging around.' Maan Khurana had long been noted as a violent man, but this pair certainly wouldn't know his reputation. Sometimes his patience lasted for as long as ninety seconds. On his good days, of course.

'Something I can do for you?'

'Yeah. How about moving down the block a ways?' The beanpole spoke politely, but he kept pounding one big fist into the palm of the other with monotonous precision.

'Why is that?'

'Because Handa's coming out, and she don't like gawkers. Move along.'

'Well, I'll be damned.' Maan shook his head and smiled. 'Just what I need. I've been aching to see this Handa. And she's coming out right now?'

'Achin' you'll get,' the gorilla said. 'Seein' you won't.'

'She's been shot at a time or two,' the taller man said. He sounded conciliatory, but his fist was still pounding into the palm of his hand, and making heavy popping noises as it did.

'Just move,' the other growled, and reached one big hand out for Maan's shoulder. A genial smile flashed across Maan's face.

'Why, you two aren't being friendly at all,' he crowed. In one friendly little swoop he lifted the hand off his shoulder and the gorilla off his feet and threw him about six feet, where he cannoned into his partner and left both of them sprawling in the gutter.

Hey guys.. here is first chappy for you...I have not changed anything apart from lead's eye color...and off course names of the characters.  

again it's completely adaption of the book. so enjoy reading in mg version.