Sacred Games

by Vikram Chandra

  Iffat-bibi shifted her bulk on the chair, from one haunch to another. ‘Saab, I am just an old woman, I don’t get out much. I just came here today to check some accounts.’ But then she told tales about minor taporis, and shooters from rival organizations, and bar girls. The food arrived, and Sartaj ate a symbolic bite of each dish. His head was throbbing. The cold air streamed across his cheeks and curled across his neck, and he was assaulted by a foreboding that settled in his thighs and made them cramp. He settled himself in the chair, and tried to relax, and made conversation.

  Finally Iffat-bibi was ready to come to the point. She slurped the last of her chai from a saucer, put it down and said, ‘You want these men.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We know where they are.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They have rented a house from one of our associates. Of course they didn’t know that this landlord was one of our friends. They paid cash up front, quite a lot of it, for two months’ rent and the deposit.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Almost two months. The lease is almost ended.’

  Sartaj felt his stomach lurch. ‘What kind of house? A flat? A bungalow?’

  ‘Don’t be smart with me, beta. We’ll just say a house. And no, you won’t find them. Only one of them ever goes in or out. The rest are there, the wheelchair man, the foreigner, but they never show themselves, not to anyone. Only the landlord saw them go in. And nobody thought about it till now, when all you policiyas started chasing all over for them.’ Iffat-bibi extracted a silver box from somewhere inside her voluminous coverings, and began to arrange herself a paan. ‘What have these fellows done?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’ Sartaj was very still, he had his palms resting on the table.

  Iffat-bibi spread a silvery paste over the leaf, and then deftly folded it small. She popped it into her mouth. ‘I know you think you can maybe find them. You think you have some information, a house, a house with a garden and stairs. But believe me you won’t find it. Don’t be a foolish boy, don’t even try that.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sartaj took a sip of his tepid chai. The walls pressed in around him, and he blinked at Iffat-bibi, at her reddened, chewing mouth. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

  This pleased her, this mature understanding he had demonstrated of what was required. She beamed at him. ‘We want Parulkar.’

  ‘Saali, don’t you dare go near him. If you touch him, I’ll…’

  ‘Sit down.’ Iffat-bibi did not flinch from his anger, she sat as immovable as a mountain. ‘Sit.’

  Sartaj let go of his painful grip on the table, and let himself back down into his chair. ‘Don’t go near him.’

  ‘Arre, baba, who said anything about touching him? We’re not fools, we are not going to thoko him, nothing like that. We don’t want the entire police force of Mumbai on our backs.’

  That made sense, Sartaj thought. No policeman of that rank had ever been killed in the city. ‘But why do you want to do anything to him?’ he said. ‘He is close to you, he is close to your superiors. So why?’

  Iffat-bibi spat red into the rubbish bin at the side of the desk. ‘Yes, we thought he was close to us also. And we have been friends with him for a long time, we supported him in his times of trouble. But now he is secure, he has new friends.’

  ‘You mean the new government? But a man has to live. He has to work under them, so he has to accommodate them a little bit.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Of course. We understand that. We’ve never begrudged anyone their work, their livelihood. Arre, Parulkar Saab has kept back money from us that was ours, full khokhas of it. We said, let it go. The relationship is more important than just money.’

  ‘So now, what is it? What happened?’

  ‘Over the last four months, seven of our boys have been killed. These were not some chillar, you understand. All were top shooters and controllers. All were intelligent, good at hiding, good at moving. But the police, this Flying Squad, knew exactly where to find them. So they encountered them. And the government puts it all over the papers, and say they have crushed crime. And we ask, how are the police suddenly so good at tracing our best boys?’ Iffat-bibi leant forward into the lamplight. ‘We did our own investigation. Now we know. Parulkar gave our boys to this government.’

  ‘Iffat-bibi, the intelligence for the encounters could have come from a thousand places. Your boys were killed, that’s bad, but it doesn’t mean…’

  ‘We have our own intelligence. We are sure. He switched sides, and he is killing our boys.’

  Despite the cold, Sartaj’s hands were sweating. He wiped them on his pants, and tried to keep them still. ‘He will come back to you. If you want, I will talk to him myself.’

  ‘No, he won’t talk to us now, even. He doesn’t take my phone calls. He won’t take Bhai’s phone calls. Can you imagine?’

  Sartaj couldn’t imagine. To refuse phone calls from Suleiman Isa himself meant that Parulkar had really made the switch, that he had taken years of his life, packed them up and walked across a very dangerous border. Sartaj didn’t want to believe it, but it all made sense: Parulkar’s rehabilitation with the current Rakshak government, this government’s sudden success in hunting down members of the S-Company. Parulkar had done it, he had made the move. ‘Let it go,’ Sartaj said. ‘Forgive him. Like you forgave the money.’

  ‘It’s too late. He has caused too much damage.’ She pointed straight up, towards the ceiling and beyond, and shook her head. ‘The order has come from upstairs. Bhai is very angry, Bhai feels insulted. Bhai said so. Parulkar has to be removed from his job, from the police. Bas.’

  So that was it, Parulkar was to go. He had emerged the triumphant survivor once again, in this last battle, and he had done it by turning against old friends. Now they would finish him. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘You are very close to him.’

  ‘Yes. So?’ Sartaj knew the answer, and all this talking was just a play for time, a slight and foolish manoeuvre against the unyielding levers that were moving against him, that were squeezing him into a very small and dark place.

  ‘You can help us.’

  Sartaj shut his eyes. Here, within the thunderous churning of his blood, he was a child again, waiting in the dark for monsters to retreat from his skin, for someone to come and save him from grief, for sleep to take him from terror. He tried to calm himself, but a confusion of memories flung itself through him, here was Papa-ji flying a kite against a clouded sky, Parulkar hunched over a dead body during Sartaj’s first murder case, a motorcycle ride through monsoon rain with Megha, Ma striding through a market in Delhi. Sartaj rubbed his face, opened his eyes. What should I do, what should I do? ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You don’t understand that we could all be dead tomorrow. Everything could be finished. Believe me.’

  ‘I may believe you,’ Iffat-bibi shrugged, ‘but they won’t, Bhai and them. They will think it’s a trick. They want Parulkar.’

  ‘Then forget them, forget your Bhai. Forget all of them. You tell me where that house is.’

  ‘I cannot.’

  Sartaj fumbled at his holster. ‘Tell me,’ he barked. ‘Tell me.’

  Iffat-bibi clapped her hands, and chortled. ‘What are you going to do with that thing, you madman? Shoot me?’

  Sartaj had the pistol in his hand now. His thumb slipped on the safety catch, and then he steadied himself and aimed at her face. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Do you think I am afraid of dying?’

  ‘I’ll shoot. Tell me.’

  ‘I can’t tell you because I don’t know. They gave me only that much. Shoot then. My boys will come from outside, and you will also be dead in a second, and khattam shud.’

  I can shoot, Sartaj thought. It would be an action. He would blow a hole in this floating white visage, above the gaping mouth, and then he would be dead himself. Whatever happened afterwards, he wouldn’t know, it would be somebody else’s business. Whatever happened, whatever
happened to Parulkar and Anjali Mathur and Ma and Kamble and everyone else and Mary, it would happen.

  He put the pistol down on the table, and unclamped his fingers from it.

  ‘Wipe your face,’ Iffat-bibi said curtly. She slid a box of tissues across the table.

  Sartaj blew his nose. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  The train had just pulled out of Dadar station when Kamala Pandey called. ‘Umesh has called three times in the last two days and left messages on my mobile,’ she said. ‘He wanted to know how the case was progressing. You have not talked to him?’

  ‘Actually, madam, I have not. I got very busy suddenly. There is a very big matter that needs to be taken care of.’

  ‘I see.’

  She understandably believed that Sartaj had taken the money and shirked his responsibilities, and she was not pleased. ‘Don’t worry, madam,’ Sartaj said. ‘We will take care of it tonight.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘No, really. I’m very sorry. But we will fix him tonight.’ He meant it: Umesh would be a welcome distraction. He had read every advertisement he could see on the walls of the compartment, and then he had taken out his notebook and read scribbles from two months ago, trying to avoid thinking about what he had to do for Iffat-bibi. Yes, he would consider the pilot, and deal with him. ‘There was an unavoidable delay, madam,’ he said, ‘but now we will get him.’ And he watched the buildings skim by, and the abrupt gaps that exposed a yellowing sky.

  Sartaj and Kamble thumped and banged on the pilot’s door at nine-thirty, and found him eating dinner with his parents and his three sisters. There were children running about, and the smell of rice and dal in the air. The pilot’s father was a portly old gent dressed in a banian and blue-striped pyjamas. He came up behind the servant who opened the door and asked angrily, ‘What’s the matter? Who are you? Why are you creating this hungama?’

  ‘Police,’ Kamble growled, and shoved past the father and the servant.

  Sartaj followed, at a more leisurely pace, taking in the happy tableau. Two sisters were older than Umesh, and they wore elegant salwar-kameezes and looked very respectable and married. One sister was younger, maybe college age. The looks in the family definitely came from Umesh’s mother, but had been unevenly distributed in the next generation. One sister, the oldest, was passably pretty, despite the extra weight she carried in her arms and hips. The other two were quite ordinary. Definitely, the pilot was the star in this plot, the shining hero of his mother’s affections, and she herself was quite beautiful. The mother had a long, narrow face, and smooth white hair she had wisely left uncoloured, and now she was frantic. ‘What police?’ she said. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Ma,’ the pilot said, reaching out and stroking her wrist. ‘They’re friends of mine.’

  Kamble laughed a laugh so theatrically evil that the youngest sister started and crossed her arms across her chest. ‘Yes,’ Kamble said, ‘we’re very-very good friends of Umesh’s. We’re his langotiya yaars. We know all about him.’

  Umesh was up now, trying to herd them away from the dining table, away from his family. He clapped Sartaj’s shoulder and smiled. ‘Good to see you, Sartaj Saab. In here.’ He didn’t give away the slightest whiff of nervousness, he was relaxed and confident.

  Inside his film theatre, he shut the white door and latched it. The room was large enough to hold a white bed and half a dozen black leather armchairs in a semicircle. And of course there was a screen which stretched across one entire wall. ‘What do you want?’ Umesh said. He was too smart to be rude, but he was curt.

  Kamble had his hands on his hips, his head forward. ‘Is that door sound-proof?’ he said, very softly. The agitated talk from the table had been cut off cleanly, and now it was completely quiet, not even any noise from the cars moving their headlights over the curve below the window.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ The pilot was confused, and very curious. ‘I like to listen to films very loud. I have a top sound system. If a plane crashes on the screen, you can feel it.’ He tried one of his little smiles now, one of the sweet boyish ones.

  Kamble slapped him. ‘Did you hear that?’ Kamble said. ‘Han? Did you hear it?’

  The pilot had a hand on his cheek, and the other balled into a fist, close to his chest. He was very offended. He had probably never been slapped, never even by his mother. Kamble was waiting, ready and eager, wanting an aggressive move, a curse, anything. But Umesh was too smart, he was too much in control. ‘What do you mean by this?’ he said. He lowered his hands, puffed out his chest in righteous indignation. He asked Sartaj, ‘What has happened to him?’

  Sartaj had been looking up at the tiny white speakers mounted high up near the ceiling, many of them no doubt positioned to give full surround sound. He grinned. ‘I think he’s very angry with you. Because you were trying to fool him.’

  ‘Fool him? I never did anything to him.’

  Kamble took hold of the pilot’s white T-shirt, and pulled him close. ‘But you did everything to Kamala, bastard.’

  Umesh plucked at Kamble’s hand. Now Sartaj could see the first beginnings of fear, the schemes spinning behind his beautiful eyes.

  ‘We know everything,’ Sartaj said. ‘We have your Anand Kavade. We have his mobile phone. He has told us everything. He told us how you had him calling Kamala, how he collected the money from her. We know you were blackmailing your girlfriend.’

  ‘No,’ Umesh said. ‘No. I don’t know…’ His fair skin was flushed, his voice was whispery.

  ‘Don’t try it, Umesh,’ Sartaj said. ‘You want us to put you in handcuffs and take you out there, in front of your family? We’ll search the whole house, we’ll turn it all upside down, and we’ll find the mobile phone you were using to call Arvind Kavade. Then we’ll take you to the lock-up. So don’t try it. Otherwise we’ll have to tell your mother everything.’

  The pilot sagged. His mouth contorted, and a little wet sob came out of it. He gasped rapidly, in and out, and spittle flecked out on to Kamble’s wrist. ‘Bastard,’ Kamble said, and let go of him.

  ‘Can I sit down?’ Umesh said. Kamble stepped aside, and the pilot walked unsteadily to one of the big black chairs and sat on its edge, his head hanging down and his arms on his thighs.

  Kamble pulled another chair up close and leaned back in it. He nudged Umesh’s knee with the toe of his shoe, and said, ‘What, you think you watch a few American movies and learn everything? You think you’re some maharathi? Arre, cheap bastards like you, we catch them every day. And we bamboo their gaands. But you are worse than any maderchod, blackmailing your own girlfriend. Taking money from her.’ Kamble leaned to the side, and spat on the ground. ‘Bhenchod, I’ve seen many chutiyas who sold their own sisters for money, but they’re better than you.’ He spat again.

  ‘Sorry,’ the pilot said. ‘Sorry.’ He was crying now, and wiping at his eyes with his hands and his tight-biceped T-shirt.

  Sartaj noted that Kamble had been careful to miss the white carpet with his expectorations, which meant that he had marked it for himself. Which was fine with Sartaj. A white carpet was a foolish bit of showiness in this city. You’d have to keep the windows closed, and run the air-conditioner day and night to keep the dust out, the grime from settling. ‘Umesh,’ Sartaj said. ‘Here. Look at me. Look at me. Now tell me. Why did you do it?’

  The pilot shook his head, stroked at his reddened eyes again. ‘Daddy had an angioplasty,’ he said. ‘So much money. And Chotti, she’s got to get married.’

  Kamble cracked his knuckles. His sneer was ferocious. ‘You’re very poor, no? And your girlfriend, she just has too much money, no?’

  Umesh was too emotionally wrought to catch the sarcasm. ‘Arre, what expenses does she have? She lives with her husband, and he even pays for her petrol. Every month she puts away her’ – and now he stretched his arms wide – ‘this big pay cheque, and her parents give her money. And still she had me spending money on her. I bet she didn’t tell
you that. She wants gifts, she wants the best hotels. I tell you, that woman is expensive.’

  Sartaj inhaled and said very softly, ‘Yes, and besides you have to buy all this expensive equipment, so you need money. Good carpets cost a lot of money. How much a set of seven foreign speakers must cost, I don’t even know.’

  Umesh retreated into the chair, and when he came back up he had decided to be charming. He shrugged insouciantly, gave Sartaj a bit of roguish twinkle, one man of the world talking to another. ‘Everyone has necessities, boss. Everyone. I am sure we can come to some understanding.’

  ‘What?’

  The pilot pushed himself up, rising out of the chair. The smooth rims of his teeth made perfectly resonant arcs with his curving lips. ‘Kamala really has too much money, yaar. We could all share…’

  Something like a sob came out of Sartaj’s throat, and he smashed his fist into Umesh’s mouth. A jolt of pain arced up into Sartaj’s shoulder, and the hard crack of bone on bone was immensely satisfying. Sartaj swung again, and Umesh was falling off the chair, the chair was tipping over, Sartaj stepped around it and followed Umesh. He carefully aimed his kicks, and the third one flipped Umesh on to his back, and the pleasure of it throbbed in Sartaj’s head. There was a screaming in his ears. A white-haired woman was huddling over Umesh, there was red smeared and speckled across the carpet, and Kamble had his arms tight around Sartaj’s arms and chest, he was dragging him back. Sartaj tore himself loose, turned and shoved his way through a knot of shrieking women, through the door and then he was out. He was out on the road in the front of the building and his chest hurt and his hand, he held it up to the light, a gash oozed black across his knuckles. He wanted somebody else to hit, something, but the cars swept by, out of reach, and he could only hold the edge of a crumbling boundary wall, and curse and curse.