The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star

by Vaseem Khan

  Chopra froze. And then, without warning Yusuf charged into him, bearing him to the ground. What the—?

  He felt the old man’s body convulse. Once, then a second time. Another puff of dust erupted by Chopra’s face, sending a pebble skimming past his nose.

  And suddenly he knew what was happening.

  Tiwari! The marksman was shooting at them.

  Chopra scrabbled out from under Yusuf, grabbed the old man by the arms, and dragged him behind the tree. He cradled the old man’s grizzled head.

  “What did you do?” he whispered.

  Yusuf coughed. Chopra could feel a wet warmth seeping from Yusuf’s back onto his legs. “Don’t fret, Chopra,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve been waiting for this day for more years than I care to remember. Finally, I will be with my daughter again. Now you must make it back to the ones you love.”

  Chopra stared down at the wizened old face, the dying light in those rheumy eyes. “You saved my life,” he said.

  “Not once, but twice!” grinned Yusuf. The grin dissolved into a hacking cough. Droplets of blood fell from his mouth onto his grimy uniform. “Now don’t let… my efforts… go to waste. Go!”

  His eyes closed, and his head lolled back.

  Finally, his ragged breathing rasped to a halt.

  A deep sadness yawned through Chopra, a sense that something sacrilegious had occurred. During his career he had witnessed many men expire. Most of those men had been criminals of one feather or another; some had been colleagues from the force. This was a rare occasion when he felt the loss of a criminal as deeply as if he had been a man in the uniform of the Brihanmumbai Police. Yusuf’s death, murderer though he be, seemed to him a crime against the intrinsic harmony of the world.

  He laid the old man gently down on the ground.

  Then he peered out from behind the tree, squinting up at the ridge from which Tiwari was taking aim. Instantly, wood chips exploded above his head, showering over him.

  He ducked back hurriedly.

  He was trapped.

  Chopra cursed, his mind whirling.

  He had no doubt that should he make a dash for it, Tiwari would cut him down. He knew too that somewhere up there Poppy was waiting for him. He couldn’t let her see him die like this. She didn’t deserve that.

  Sweating hard against the tree, Chopra wondered what the hell he did now.

  Ganesha raced along in the dusk.

  The sun was almost below the horizon, the path ahead illuminated by its dying rays and the fireworks blazing overhead. Ganesha knew that Chopra was in danger. He knew that if he did not act, Chopra would die. Pebbles bounced beneath the little elephant’s feet, ricocheting over the edge of the cliff and down into the quarry.

  He arrived at the top of the ridge.

  A boulder loomed before him. Beside the boulder, he saw a man crouched in the dirt, sighting down a rifle. Ganesha lifted his trunk and smelled the high wind that had struck up across the quarry. He smelled the fine mist of sandstone particles; the sickly sweet odours of blood and sweat; the bitter aroma of human misery. And there, beneath everything, a distant scent, a scent as familiar to the little elephant as his own.

  Chopra.

  Ganesha put his head down and charged.

  He steamed into the sniper’s back just as Tiwari fired again.

  The shot went wild as the guard tumbled forward and over the edge of the cliff. He rolled down the sheer slope, crying out, scrabbling at the rock face to slow his fall. He landed in a heap atop a pile of chipped sandstone, bellowing in agony as an ankle twisted under him.

  The rifle clattered away.

  Ganesha squinted across the yawning crater to where he had scented Chopra.

  An elephant has poor eyesight, but he could just about make out the tree on the shallow slope on the quarry’s far side, behind which Chopra was hidden.

  He flapped his ears, and twirled his trunk.

  Then he turned and raced back along the ridge.

  Chopra knew that he had to move.

  Taking his courage in his hands, he risked another peek… and saw Tiwari tumbling from his perch. And then he saw the elephant-shaped silhouette hovering on the edge of the cliff.

  Ganesha!

  Chopra leapt up from behind the tree and propelled himself up the slope, pebbles scattering under his feet.

  He reached the top and found Poppy beckoning him towards a covered wagon. He could see Lucknowwallah on the wagon’s box seat, the reins gripped in his hands, a sheen of anxious perspiration on his features. Beside the wagon Irfan was hopping from foot to foot.

  At that moment Ganesha came trotting out of the darkness.

  “Let’s go,” said Chopra. He grabbed Poppy by the hand and headed towards the wagon.

  “The only place you are going is hell.”

  Chopra turned.

  Staggering out of the dark behind Ganesha came Buta Singh.

  The brute’s face was twisted in rage; a knife glinted in his massive fist. Behind him Chopra saw three other guards lumbering groggily down the road, one of them clutching a rifle.

  Singh stumbled to a halt before the wagon. “Do you know what the punishment is for trying to escape?” he rasped.

  Chopra felt the crawl of helplessness. His eyes measured up the brute, the muscles that strained Singh’s uniform. Chopra had little doubt that Singh would make short work of him. And if that happened, what would be the fate of those he left behind?

  His mind raced ahead. There had to be something he could do.

  “No?” said Singh. “Me neither. This is because no escaping prisoner has ever got back to the jail alive to be punished.” He stepped forward. “Prepare to meet your maker.”

  A distant buzzing erupted along the road like a swarm of bees.

  As they stood, caught in bewilderment, the noise became a wall of sound, a thunderous rapture… and then, erupting from the darkness, cresting a rise in the road, there came a fury of noise and light.

  Chopra raised his hands to ward off the stupendous onslaught. He squinted through his fingers into the blinding light, and saw… an armada of motorcycles, arriving in wave after pounding wave like the hosts of hell, the beams of their headlights banishing the darkness, the roar of their 500cc engines heralding an ear-splitting apocalypse.

  The Bombay Bullet Club.

  The Bisons were on the move.

  The guards behind Singh looked at each other, then turned and fled.

  A motorcycle skidded to a halt in front of Chopra. The rider pushed back the visor of his helmet. “Need a lift?” said Gerry Fernandes.

  Chopra was dumbfounded. But he had no time to wonder about the presence of the Bullet Club now. He clambered onto the back of the motorbike, even as Poppy, Irfan, and the chef did the same. He glanced at the wagon, unceremoniously abandoned along with its mystified bullock. Nothing to be done about that now, he thought. No doubt the bullock would eventually wend its way home. And then he remembered Ganesha. “Wait!” he said. “Ganesha!”

  “It’s all taken care of,” shouted Fernandes over his shoulder.

  Chopra looked around and saw that Ganesha had clambered into a reinforced sidecar on one of the bikes.

  “He’s in good hands!” yelled Fernandes, and gunned the bike.

  They roared away from the quarry leaving the enraged Buta Singh standing dumbfounded in a cloud of dust and fumes.

  As they vanished around a curve in the road Chopra looked back, and thought once more of Iqbal Yusuf, a convicted murderer who had given his life for him. He remembered Gandhi’s words: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Perhaps, at the last, with his selfless act, Yusuf had rediscovered his true self, the man he had been before the black storms of fate had engulfed him.

  RANGWALLA TRAILS A GHOST

  Rangwalla could not sleep.

  The hem of his sari swished over the floor as he made loops around his bedroom. He glanced at the clock on the wall.

  Midnight
.

  Would the singing girl appear again tonight? In spite of Premchand’s scepticism Rangwalla knew that the girl was real. There was a mystery here that he was certain would shed light on the Master’s interest in the eunuchs of the Red For—

  A bloodcurdling scream shattered the silence.

  Rangwalla’s heart leapt into his mouth.

  In the corridor he found the other eunuchs spilling from their bedrooms in terror and bewilderment.

  “What was that?” asked Mamta. “It sounded like a banshee.”

  “It sounded like someone was being murdered,” shuddered Kavita.

  At that instant the door to Rupa’s bedroom opened and she raced into their midst, clutching her pigtail, from which a trail of smoke arose.

  “Help!” she shrieked. “The ghost tried to kill me!”

  “Calm down,” advised Mamta. “Tell us what happened.”

  “What’s all the racket?” asked Parvati, emerging from her room, wiping sleep from her eyes.

  Rangwalla shrank back in fright. “Your face!” he gasped. “It’s hideous!”

  Parvati crossed her arms. “Well, that’s a fine way to greet a friend,” she pouted.

  “It’s her face mask,” explained Mamta.

  “This?” said Parvati. “Just something my grandmother used to swear by. Papaya extract, flour, cement, and a dash of cow dung. Nothing beats the homemade recipes.” She turned to the sobbing Rupa. “Come now, Rupa, get a hold of yourself. What happened?”

  “I don’t know!” wailed Rupa. “One minute I was fast asleep, the next my hair was on fire! The ghost tried to burn me alive!”

  Parvati and Mamta exchanged glances. “Rupa, dear,” said Parvati delicately, “were you by any chance smoking when you fell asleep?”

  Rupa held up the end of her plait. A thin stream of smoke arose from the charred stump. “Do you think a cigarette did this?” she snapped, before adding, “What if it possesses me? My God, what if it makes me talk like a man?”

  “You do talk like a man,” muttered Rangwalla.

  Behind them Mamta slipped off into Rupa’s bedroom, returning in short order. Pincered between her thumb and forefinger was a half-smoked cigarette. She wafted it under Rupa’s nose. “How many times have I told you not to smoke in bed? It’s a wonder you didn’t set the whole place alight!”

  “I suggest we all return to our bedrooms,” said Parvati. “We have another busy day ahead of us. Sonali, dear, may I have a word with you?”

  When the others had left, Parvati fixed Rangwalla with a bird-bright eye. “Forgive Rupa. She acts like a fighter, but, in truth, she is the frailest of us. Her family cast her out as a child. They did not wish to endanger the marital chances of her siblings. Ignorance, I’m afraid, has always been our greatest enemy. Many people don’t even understand how eunuchs come to be, though they are happy to condemn us. Most eunuchs are not born; we willingly undergo the castration ritual—which for us is a defining moment in our lives, one of celebration—because we understand from a young age that we are different, and there is no place in normal society for us. Some day someone will do for us what Ambedkar did for the untouchables, and we will take our rightful place in this world. Until then the men of power think that acknowledging us will tip society into moral ruin. That is why we are loyal to the Queen. She fights for us; she teaches us to stand up for ourselves.” She sighed. “And the Queen thinks there is something amiss here. I must say I agree with her.”

  “Is that why she sent you?”

  Parvati smiled. “You did not think it was because of my looks, did you, sahib?”

  Rangwalla coloured. “Sahib?” he said weakly. “You mean ‘sister,’ don’t you?”

  Parvati continued to smile.

  Rangwalla sighed. “How long have you known?”

  “From the very beginning. You cannot become a eunuch merely by putting on a sari and a bad wig, I am afraid. But let us concentrate on the matter at hand. Let us try and work this out from first principles. The most important questions in life are those men ask of themselves. So… what is the question the Master is seeking to answer with this elaborate charade?”

  Rangwalla realised that he had underestimated Parvati’s keen mind. He supposed it was something that routinely happened to the eunuchs; it was a human failing to think less of those one looked down upon. “I don’t know,” he confessed.

  “Whatever it is, it is rooted here, in this place. I can feel it. Perhaps it even has something to do with this mysterious singing girl of yours.” She grimaced. “I, for one, will be relieved when the Master finally reveals his hand.”

  After Parvati had returned to her bedroom Rangwalla headed back to his own room.

  At the last instant an idea occurred to him.

  He opened the door, shouted, “Goodnight, sisters!” then slammed it shut, without entering. Instead, he tiptoed across the corridor and shrank down beside a large clay vase on the landing.

  Then he settled down to wait.

  Rangwalla was a veteran of countless stakeouts and had learned to vacate his mind, so that he might pass hours in a state of suspended animation before leaping into action at the opportune moment. He found his mind drifting back to his home, his wife, who’d stood by him through thick and thin—and there had been plenty of thin over the years. He’d had to tell her that Chopra had sent him out of town on a case: that was as close to the truth as he dared admit. And then there were his children, beloved and infuriating. Wasn’t he supposed to meet his son’s tutors this week? The boy was bright but refused to knuckle down and study. Unlike his sister, who was warning her father that she intended to go to university to study law. He tried to imagine his temperamental daughter as a lawyer. Heaven help the opposing counsel. Heaven help the judge! But how was Rangwalla going to afford the fees? And what university did she intend to go to, anyway? He would certainly have to put his foot down if she insisted on studying outside Mumbai. How would he keep an eye on her if she left the city?

  He thought of Chopra, and wondered how he was getting on with the kidnapping case. What would he make of Rangwalla’s present situation? Twenty years he’d followed Chopra’s instruction, and never once found himself questioning the man. Honesty, of the incorruptible type, was so rare in the service that when they’d first met Rangwalla had been given pause. He would never admit it out loud but over time Chopra had become his hero. This is what we must all aspire to, he had said, without actually saying it. Rangwalla had thought he’d spend the rest of his days following where his senior officer led. But life has a way of springing nasty surprises, like a lizard down the back of the neck. Chopra’s heart attack, for instance, and then Rangwalla’s dismissal from the force on trumped-up charges—an act of petty revenge by ACP Rao—placing his home, his family, his very existence in jeopardy. And into this murk had come Chopra, riding to the rescue with his offer of employment at the agency.

  In truth, Rangwalla knew that he was blessed. He had a loving family, a job he enjoyed, and people around him he liked and respected. All of this stood in stark contrast to the eunuchs, who had only each other.

  He realised that he could hear singing. It was the same voice he had heard the previous night.

  He waited, breathlessly, as the voice approached.

  Peeking from behind the vase he saw a woman. She was dressed in a plain white sari, like a widow, the loose end of the sari pulled over her head so that it formed a cowl.

  The woman stopped for a moment in the corridor, just yards from Rangwalla’s room. He was certain the other eunuchs would hear her, but their doors remained closed.

  Then the woman turned and glided away back down the corridor.

  Rangwalla did not hesitate.

  Ghost or no ghost, he had to get to the bottom of the mystery. Besides, he had always been too much of a cynic to place an excess of belief in the supernatural. India may have been a place of mystery and mysticism, but the truth was that behind most seemingly occult occurrences lay perfectly mund
ane explanations, impressive only to the gullible. And Abbas Rangwalla was nobody’s fool.

  Rangwalla followed the singing woman along the same circuitous path as the previous night. He watched as she turned into the alcove where the painting of the Master’s mother hung.

  The singing abruptly stopped.

  He raced around the corner… but the woman had vanished.

  This time Rangwalla was not content to leave without an explanation. He knew what he had seen. The woman could not have disappeared into thin air.

  He began to examine every inch of the space, using the skills he had honed from countless crime scenes. He scrutinised the floor, then the walls. He looked under the carved wooden seat.

  Nothing.

  He inspected the twin marble leopards, prodding and poking them.

  Nothing.

  He turned finally to the portrait of the Master’s mother, pulling aside the drapes.

  The old woman looked down upon him once more, her expression of inherent malevolence unchanged.

  Rangwalla shuddered, then began to examine the heavy gilt frame. He ran his fingers along the grooves. It was then that he noticed something. A line in the dust a centimetre from the edge of the painting. The line told him that the painting had been moved and had not been put back in exactly the same place. He dug his fingers under the frame and lifted the lower part of the portrait from the wall, before peering underneath.

  There!

  A small catch, like a lever, embedded in the wall.

  Rangwalla reached up and pulled the lever.

  Below the painting a section of the wainscoting swung back to reveal a gaping hole. A musty draught blew in from the opening.

  Rangwalla set the painting back down, then, taking a deep breath, plunged into the darkness. Behind him the secret trapdoor swung back into place.

  He waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  The darkness was illuminated by tiny beams of light falling in through a succession of cut-out eyes dotted among the peacocks’ tails that adorned the mansion’s walls.

  Crouching low he followed the cobwebbed corridor, shortly coming to an iron staircase that spiralled down to the ground floor, before abruptly ending at a doorway.