Mousebite

by Ganesh Chaudhari

  Ulhas arrives shortly. He takes a seat at my table in the canteen.

  “Jai-Veeru ki Jodi toot gayi.” He is referring to us not being partners any longer. I give him a smile.

  “So what are you into now?”He asks.

  “Pulkit Jha’s suicide.”

  “He didn’t look like the type.”

  “Nor does the crime scene.” I declare. His eyes twinkle with excitement but he does not ask for more. He wants me to decide what to share.

  “The room where he died had been scrubbed after his death. No evidence. In fact, it is hard to believe that he stayed there. We didn’t find his hair, skin or any forensic evidence.”

  “Who’s we?” He asks with arched eyebrows.

  “DYPSO asked me to take a forensics person along.” He smiles.

  “Say no more my prempujari.” He makes a love priest out of me.

  “What did you find about Sumit Patel?” I change the subject expertly.

  “Well, he has vanished. No trace since yesterday.” Ulhas rests his back against the bench.

  “What?”

  “Yes. I checked with the nearby police station. They sent a havaldar in mufti to check Sumit. But the shop is closed. Then I checked with few others in the Gujarati circle. They say he is a recluse. Especially so after the death of his wife. No kids, no relatives worth anything, all alone. His shop is closed even now.” Ulhas summarizes. The waiter at the canteen gets us tea out of habit.

  “So a cold trail.”

  “No Pandurang. I found something interesting about his past. His father was a Hawala specialist. Till the blasts of 1993, all the underworld gangs used to rely on him for money laundering & transferring. After the blasts, he could have stayed in business but one man ruined him.” Ulhas pauses.

  “Anees Vilayati.” I fill in.

  “Right. Anees Vilayati forced him to give up his ways. He threatened to expose him to the cops. He had no choice but to give up a well laid business. Anees hired him on many legal projects as a consultant later but the power, stature in community & elite clientele was gone. Some say he died because of it.” Ulhas continues.

  This could be a motive. Avenging lost status & the death of his father could make Sumit harm Anees. His vanishing may be temporary but could be linked to the investigation.

  “What if he has gone off for a day or two? What makes you certain that he has vanished on purpose?”

  “You could be right. But for the past 15 years, there has not been a single working day when Sumit Patel has not done a transaction either on the share market or the commodity market. Where ever he was, there were phone instructions, mail instructions or messages for the day’s trade every single day. And he left email instructions yesterday to close all his trading accounts & transfer the money to his bank. So I put a request for his digital trail.” Ulhas explains.

  This leaves little room for doubt. Sumit is definitely up to something. Ulhas sips his tea.

  “I need information about Kedar Marathe & Sadanand Mane.” Ulhas looks up but continues with the tea.

  “Kedar Marathe meaning the Home Minister’s brother?”

  “Yes & Sadanand Mane claims to be his right hand.”

  “Sadanand Mane is no right hand. He is a bootlicker at best.” Ulhas seems to have assessed him right.

  “Kedar Marathe is the new generation politician. By new generation I mean those who have officially made politics their business. As required by their jaat, he has a brother who has spent over 3 decades in the state politics successfully. These people don’t want to do that but are rather into cashing it. That is their business. Whatever can get them money; they use their source’s position to get it done.” He explains Kedar’s jaat or kind after a pause.

  “How so?”

  “It is simple. Suppose there is a government tender for training the tribal youth. The eligibility criteria require the organizations bidding for it to have training experience at the tehsil level. So what do these businessmen do? They line up all the people who are eligible to provide the training. Then they are either offered a percentage in the training cost or are obliquely asked to pay up the front men. In both the cases, the number of students is inflated to get maximum payments. Because the minister sanctioning the payment is close to them everything goes smoothly. Awarding of contracts, regular payments & all the government concessions. Hell, many of the ministers have trusts & institutes that are run with the sole purpose of taking advantage of every welfare scheme that the government launches or is likely to launch. Training & education is just an example, every public expenditure has been taken over by these businessmen. They highlight themselves as corporate or social identities but are just exploiting the achievements & goodwill of the leaders.”

  “And the leaders are not aware of this?”

  “Come on Pandurang! Most political parties have financial advisors now. They are aware, may not be to the full extent but certainly aware. When Kedar Marathe graduated from college 10 years back, all the family had in terms of real estate was an ancestral home in Pune. Today he is amongst the leading real estate developers in Mumbai with operations in Pune, Nasik & Nagpur. Not just that, his group of companies are involved in activities ranging from construction to software development & from education to large scale farming. People say that he is an arabpati & good for more.” Arabpati means billionaire. I don’t bother asking if Ulhas means a Rupee billionaire or a Dollar billionaire.

  “He owns the hotel where Pulkit was found dead.” I inform Ulhas.

  “That is interesting. Pulkit could have found things about Kedar too.” Ulhas thinks aloud. That sure gets me going.

  “But tell you what Pandurang, you be careful. Don’t go after him unless you have proof. Even if you have it, plan everything very carefully. Chya maaila, his brother is the one who takes the final call on police transfers. ” Ulhas bangs his fist on the table as he involves Kedar Marathe’a mother, making the tea glasses roll. The waiter hurries to clear everything from the table.

  ***

  Hormaz loved the Taj. For him, any catalog or montage of Mumbai could not be complete without the Taj Mahal hotel near Gateway of India. His father took him there for dinners frequently when he was a kid. Being a Parsee, many of his relatives booked it for marriages & celebrations as a family tradition. The splendor of the building & its location near the sea was an ideal combination for reminiscing those days. But the renovation done to the hotel & the memories from the Mumbai terrorist attacks were the prime reason presently. It was here that foreign citizens were picked for slaughter. It was here that an entire floor of a national heritage building had been set on fire.

  But the first signs of resilience were shown by the general Indian public here too. Be it in giving jobs to the people whose near ones were killed, to taking financial responsibility of education for their children, the outright denial by Tata motors of selling Tata Sumos to Pakistan because of the terrorist activities, this was the place where things had started looking up. So when Kumar said that Anees wanted to meet at the Taj hotel, Hormaz was happy. He wondered why someone like Anees who is supposedly avoiding public appearances chose the Taj but he was not complaining. Kumar had brought him to the reserved table in the China restaurant half an hour ago. It was a table for three. The restaurant had large windows & its location on the third floor meant a great view of the sunny day. The chairs were painfully comfortable for Hormaz. But he could not help it. It would not have looked appropriate for him to be standing by the reserved table or walking about it. So he endured the pain from his back over a hot coffee. Kumar sat beside him. There was a steady crowd in the restaurant already. But the table they occupied was away from the buzz.

  “What do we have on him?” Hormaz asked. This was a negotiation & Hormaz wanted all the leverage. Knowing the other man’s weakness usually helped.

  “Nothing so far. All his present businesses are legitimate. The past has been buried as if it didn’t exist. We can always dig though.” Kumar replie
d. Hormaz’s sources in the NIA had confirmed this.

  “Nothing? Women, drugs, black money, a family member gone astray, properties & assets not reported, nothing?” Hormaz threw the usual options at Kumar.

  “No Sir. His wife died long ago. There are no children. And he seems to be away from the usual vice.” Kumar admitted.

  “Do we have a crook that turned for real?” Hormaz said to himself.

  Kumar’s phone rang at the exact time of the appointment. It was a short call. As if clear orders were issued.

  “He is waiting by the lift. Wants to meet in a room on the fourth floor.” Kumar announced in a pensive tone. Hormaz jumped off his chair & started towards the lift. There were three men standing by the lift. Two of them were heavily built & in casual clothing. But the tallest of them was dressed impeccably. In the Taj, anybody could have taken him as a regular. The custom tailored suit, a well parted mane of dense hair & an upright gait helped the man stand out. Hormaz had seen the profile picture just yesterday so he recognized Anees.

  “Anees Vilayati?”Hormaz queried in a tone devoid of emotion. Anees nodded. The other two men, who were surely Anees’s bodyguards, had opened the lift by now as they sensed the rendezvous.

  “Can we take the stairs?” Hormaz took his turn to surprise Anees. Anees offered a smile as they took the stairs. Kumar was relegated behind the bodyguards as Anees & Hormaz lead them. One of the bodyguards sneaked ahead of them just before the first landing to be a lookout on the stairs. The staircase was deserted.

  “Had to call you urgently for this meeting. Could not be helped. ” Hormaz began cautiously. Anees didn’t reply.

  “We have always valued your information & we need it again.” Hormaz probed. Anees halted in his tracks.

  “You mean to say I could have or get some information for you? You with all the high tech equipment & international colleagues need an old fashioned human like me?” Anees asked.

  “Yes.” Hormaz kept it short.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t deal with people of your interest anymore. I am a spent bullet. An old man with a past.”Anees said evenly. Hormaz could not help but feel that Anees was looking at Kumar as he spoke.

  “The information that we need, the information that India needs can come only from the old networks. You may be the only one with that resource.” Hormaz sounded sincere.

  “Really? But why should I rouse my past? It is only now that I have put it to rest. Digging it back could only mean trouble.” Anees started up the stairs again.

  “I need information about Tabrez Memon’s family. Someone close to him is planning to repeat his performance in Mumbai.” Hormaz shot back. Anees stopped again. This time his eyes were boring into Hormaz as if verifying the claim.

  “We have examined everybody from his immediate family to known associates. They are either under a tab or covered. You can tell us if we missed someone.” Hormaz kept up the flow. Anees’s face was hardening at the jaws, the brows were arched & the eyes were narrowed. Then he relaxed.

  “What if I refuse to cooperate?” A cold question for Hormaz. But he didn’t take the bait.

  “I can be a persuasive man. We can always barter.” Hormaz toned down a bit.

  “It may take some doing. But I need a favor in return.” Anees bargained after pausing for a long moment.

  “Anything as long as it is legal.” Hormaz didn’t hesitate.

  “Oh it is perfectly legal. In fact, it is what the law should be allowed to do.” Anees shot back. Hormaz saw Kumar wince behind the large frame of Anees’s bodyguard.

  “Tell me about it.” Hormaz continued up the stairs.

  22

  Visitor

  He woke up at 1 p.m. It was late than usual, but the Sumit episode had caused it. He had liked what both his recruits had displayed. They had not been forewarned & disposing Sumit had helped him affirm their readiness. He had summoned them again in the evening. They would start for Mumbai in the dark today itself. The strike had reschduled itself after Sumit’s exit. Also, executing the strike immediately after Kasab’s execution would have lot of happy faces around Tabrezmamu. There was time for him to sterilize his staying place.

  He went about it methodically. He cleaned the home with a vacuum cleaner. The dirt pouch of the vacuum cleaner was emptied in a large paper bag. That was meant to be a container for all his biological trails like hair, skin or finger nails. He readied another bag for his clothing to be disposed. He was not worried too much about fingerprints as he used Styrofoam plates & glasses for food. Other surfaces like the dining table or the door handles had been covered with cotton tops the day he had arrived. He had packed his digital gear except the laptop in a large duffle bag before sleeping. The extra pair of shoes also went into a thick paper bag. After ensuring that all his personal belongings had been accounted for, he went for a dip in the river.

  He returned in half an hour. He called up his contact at the village & explained that he will be leaving today as an emergency had cropped up. He didn’t specify where or how he will be leaving. The contact had been paid sufficiently & was more than happy to see him go. He then sent out his plan of action via a coded email from his laptop. The process was simple. He would send jpeg images as attachments from his mail account to an innocuous looking email id. The images would actually be text messages coded within the image data. The data would be scrambled into the multiple images & the email heading would be the key to combine the data into a coherent message again. Of course, the one reading his mail would have to have the same encoding program that he used at this end. The laptop went to the duffle bag too.He then broke the set top box of the TV into as many pieces as he could.

  It was already afternoon & his recruits would be joining him soon. He was not bothered about having to take them away from their families, forever. And then there was Inspector Jagtap. Sumit had not admitted much but he knew that Jagtap’s pursuit of Achhu’s death had made Sumit flee. It would be interesting to engage with a cop who could make a multi generation businessman tentative, he thought. Meeting him could also offer a chance to inflict another blow to Anees Vilayati because if Jagtap was visiting the Wheely frequently, Anees might actually be supporting him. That could bring a smile to Tabrezmamu’s face for sure.

  But most important for him was the strike at India. India was a slow learner but this strike could slow it further. If successful, it could put a threat in every Indian mind. The threat would mean not knowing where the next strike is coming from. If he could achieve that, Tabrezmamu would be proud.

  ***

  I caught up with Khan a short while ago. I gave him a verbal account of my findings at the Byculla residency. My suspicion of the crime scene having been scrubbed didn’t seem to surprise him. I left out Sadanand Mane, Kedar Marathe & the US consulate car as I have nothing on them. He asked me to continue the investigation as post mortem report for Pulkit is expected tomorrow. Ulhas has already left because he had another case to look into. So I left for home.

  On my way home, I picked up groceries. It has been some days since I cooked at home. Gawar or cluster bean is one of my favorite. To cook it with a sprinkle of crushed groundnuts & garam masala is a short cut to a happy meal for me. I get it from the regular vegetable shop near the Fort Square. I also grab a half litre bag of milk. It is a cold evening & you never know when you may feel like a cup of tea.

  The colony that I stay in is slightly cut off from the main road. The new internal roads are wide enough for the SUVs to go across easily. But I like using an old road. Blocked by the walls of the colony’s apartments on either side, it is wide enough for single way car traffic. It opens up right behind my parking place in the apartment. As it is an old road, people rarely use it making it even more convenient for me. It is not well lit but that is not a problem given the bright headlight of my Bullet. It is not a straight road though. There are small turns & junctions that lead to other apartments. I guide the Bullet confidently through this maze. As I near my home I rea
lize that there is a Tata Safari blocking my way. I sound my horn multiple times but the Safari does not budge. As I get down from my Bullet to check, I realize that another car has come up from the rear boxing me in the road. Three men come and stand behind me. My eyes are fixed on the Safari in front of me. Two men get down and start walking towards me. The darkness does not allow me to recognize any of them. The third man that gets down is recognizable. The paunch, the short height & the tentative wobble of pain at every step confirms the man to be Sadadnand Mane.

  The three men on the rear are very close. Though they are still, I am sure that if I try to reach for my gun, they will go for me. So I wait. Sadanand Mane finally comes by. The two men accompanying him stand on his either side.

  “Inspector Jagtap. I am sure you were not expecting me to reach here.” Sadanand says with a smirk.

  “Right. I thought your reach was surely numbed in the afternoon. But I am sure you depend on these men’s reach often.” I rub it in. His eyebrows twitch in anger.

  “Shipurdya, chaddit raha!” He calls me a lowly watchman & asks me not grow out of my underwear.

  I look at his stiffening goons in the eye before setting my gaze on him.

  “Mane, what you experienced in the afternoon was child’s play compared to what I can do to you if you don’t get out of here right now.” I say evenly.

  He smiles.

  “Do you think that scares me? You are an inspector with the police. Even your senior officers have to queue up to meet & salute my boss. I can have dozens like you for my own security if I want.” That is right. He might need people like me if he continues shooting his mouth.

  “ Don’t poke your nose into Jha’s death. It is none of your business. If you do, I will personally have you transferred as a parcel to Chandrapur.” Why is everybody after sending me out of Mumbai? I am not bothered though. A cop in India is used to being threatened by politicians & his cronies. It sometimes makes more sense to hear them out before doing what a good cop should do. He pauses for effect.