looked at him suspiciously, like a school boy expecting to take six of the best who sees his headmaster inexplicably put the cane away.
“Yeah. Why?”
Jinnah grabbed Saleem’s jacket from off the bed and threw it at him. “Fantastic. Get dressed, son. We’re going to a rave.”
Chapter Three
It was hard to tell that the sprawling building had once been a church. It looked rather like a community hall; a plain, rectangular box with wooden siding and tall, single-pane windows. But a congregation had once worshipped here, filling the long gone pews that had stretched from the entrance alcove to the raised stage where the pulpit had once stood. That congregation had thrived and prospered even as the neighbourhood around them crumbled into decay. Finally, the worshippers made plans for a new church, raised the money, and had left the building over a decade ago, taking the sacredness with them to the new site and retiring this one in a special ceremony. Now it was used by a variety of temporary tenants: film companies, flea markets, and Lionel Simons, who knew that, deconsecrated or not, holding his rave there would drive the Reverend Peter Hobbes insane with fury.
Jinnah didn’t bother to fill Saleem in on that background as they approached the front door. He wanted to keep his son focused on the plan.
“This is gonna be cool!” said Saleem.
“This is gonna be work,” Jinnah reminded him. “Remember: you go in there, you look for Andy Gill. You find him, you point me in his direction, hmm? Failing that, drop the name of Thad Golway and see what you can scare up. Understand?”
“I got it,” said Saleem, with just the right shade of petulance in his voice.
Jinnah choked down his frustration. His heart was pounding faster than the muffled beat that could be felt emanating from within the abandoned church. He was a mass of anxieties and fears. It was getting on to eleven o’clock. The rave officially ended at 1:00 a.m. Manjit would stay behind to help the rest of the health officials pack up. That gave them less than two hours to get in, get the goods, and get home without Manjit being the wiser.
“And if you should see your mother —” Jinnah began for the tenth time.
“I know, I know,” Saleem cut him off. “Lie.”
“I am not telling you to lie to your mother,” said Jinnah, whining only slightly. “It’s called plausible deniability.”
“Why don’t I get plausible deniability?”
“Because I’m the president of this operation. Just avoid her at all costs and if you get caught, you snuck out of the house while I was out, right?”
“Thanks, Mr. President.”
There were a handful of youths at the doors, smoking. They were from a cross-section of ethnic backgrounds and a wide variety of social circumstances, but had one thing in common: they were all about Saleem’s age. Jinnah was easily the oldest person there by two decades. An insolent silence settled over them as Jinnah approached the doorman.
“Two, please.”
The doorman was stocky, with a weightlifter’s torso and legs that were just a little too short for him. His face was broad, his hair was short, and Jinnah was reminded of the drill sergeant he had been forced to listen to for several weeks while doing his compulsory service back in Kenya. The doorman cleared his throat. “Two? You don’t quite fit the demographic, do you, pop?”
His voice was pleasant enough, but Jinnah’s hackles went up anyway. “It’s my right as a taxpayer to be allowed in!” he thundered. “And as a parent!”
The youths were now staring at them curiously. Saleem looked like he wanted to crawl under the floorboards of the porch. The doorman laughed. “You want to go inside and check things out? Make sure it’s safe for your kid?”
“Absolutely,” said Jinnah. “Listen, my friend, don’t try and stop me —”
“Go right ahead,” said the doorman, offering them two tickets. “It’s a clean rave, friend. It’s about peace and openness, not secrecy and suspicion. That’ll be forty bucks.”
“Forty bucks!” squealed Jinnah, at which point Saleem found the courage to elbow him in the ribs, dislodging his wallet and gaining them access to the rave.
Once inside, Jinnah had hoped to give Saleem one last pep talk, but it was useless. The music was so loud, even in the foyer, that he had to shout to hear himself speak. Once they were through the main doors, they were assaulted by a wall of sound. Jinnah felt he was being rocked back and forth by the music. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he was startled by the action on the dance floor. Dozens of teens were dancing and writhing, packed in so tightly it was amazing they could move at all. It looked more like a huge rugby scrum than anything else. Jinnah’s nose quivered with the warm aroma of human sweat and teen hormones. And the stench of his own fear for his son.
“Live in the present moment. Put peace in this moment. Put love in this moment. Put yourself in the centre. The centre is everywhere….”
Jinnah wrenched his eyes from the floor to the stage. Strobe lights flashed in time to the heartbeat rhythm of the music. There was a lone figure, lit up every half second by the pounding lights: tall, slender, dressed in black silk, his head partly covered by a golden scarf. Lionel Simons, in mid rap homily. Jinnah studied the Rave Messiah’s face. He’d never been able to place Simons exactly. He was of mixed race, and could have passed for anything from an Indian yogi to a Tibetan monk. Right now, the former shock-rocker was belting out a gospel rock with a danceable World Beat.
Jinnah felt rather than heard Saleem talking at his side. He turned to see Saleem chatting with a small circle of teens who had surrounded them. Several of them were Indo-Canadians whom Saleem seemed to know. In an instant, they had whisked Saleem onto the dance floor. Jinnah lost sight of them almost immediately. Shit. He moved with difficulty along the wall, pushing past people, trying to catch a glimpse of his son. Just ahead of him, the crowd seemed to thin, promising a vantage point. Jinnah was about to wriggle his way through when he saw a familiar face not ten feet ahead.
Manjit. Handing out water to teenagers.
Jinnah hastily ducked behind a young couple, turned, and headed the other direction. His head was throbbing like the speakers and he was having trouble breathing. He felt claustrophobic, slightly panicked. Head down, he fumbled in his pockets for a couple of tranquilizers, meaning to pop them into his mouth and swallow them without water — definitely without water — and with that he cast a glance back at Manjit. Oh, God, no. She’s staring at the dance floor. That’s not a look of professional concern on her face either. Jinnah followed her gaze. Well, at least he had found Saleem. The little bastard didn’t look like he’d done a lot of talking. Gyrating, yes. He was considering trying to haul Saleem off the dance floor when a new problem presented itself. Manjit was moving in his direction. Keeping one eye on Saleem and another on his wife, Jinnah tried to make good his escape along the wall and ran headlong into a young woman, who doubled over.
“I am sorry!” Jinnah shouted above the din, helping her straighten out.
“S’okay,” the woman gasped.
She stood up and looked at Jinnah. In that moment, a spark of recognition leapt between them. Although she was young, she was definitely a little old for this crowd, being in her mid-twenties. Her hair was a long, jet-black mane
