by Ajeet Sharma
‘You have business on your mind, but I’ve stopped endorsing brands. Endorsements piss me off. All brands can go to hell,’ said Kabir and glanced at Shinde, who only felt sorry about that.
‘Pardon my saying so, sir, but haven’t you overreacted to that one unpleasant happening in your life?’
That was a courageous thing to say, thought Baruni.
‘I remember reading about it in the papers,’ said Vidu. ‘Did your fans ever change their opinion about you because of that one incident? They never cared. They love your work, so they love you. Period.’
‘You can’t imagine how I felt,’ said Kabir. ‘You can’t. So shut up.’ He tried to keep the animal in him under control.
Baruni could see a vein pulsating on one side of Kabir’s neck. She warned Vidu, shaking her head slightly as he glanced at her.
Without losing time, Shinde said, ‘Mr Nandi, if you would excuse us now, we have an important meeting.’
‘You haven’t heard my proposal, sir,’ said Vidu to Kabir.
‘I have heard many,’ said Kabir.
‘I guarantee this one won’t piss you off.’
Kabir stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘All right. Finish fast,’ he said impatiently, snapping his fingers.
Shinde, like Baruni, was a mute listener but a confused one too. His master wasn’t quite being himself today. However, he did not intervene. Sensitive topic it was.
Vidu did not lose a second. ‘Freedom markets and sells three carbonated drinks: Yodel Cola, Yodel Orange, and Yodel Lemon, and needs a Bollywood star who can carry all three together to the masses. We fail to think of anyone else but you for this divine job. The reason is, you are most popular,’ said Vidu, with a gentle sweep of his hand. ‘We are directly competing with Festi Beverages and Crown Cola, and there can’t be a more compelling endorser than you to beat them in the advertising game.’ Knowing it was time, he said, ‘My partner, Karan Jaani, was with Festi Beverages as the brand manager of Festi Cola till his boss, Ramesh Choksi, fired him last year.’
Kabir surprised everyone—he did not react. Encouraged, Vidu told him in brief about Karan’s ads against honour killing and the fallout. He then talked about Fotedar’s Home for Women and Freedom’s social initiative. ‘Our vision is to project Yodel as an upright Indian brand and a symbol of people’s power. We certainly don’t want to be the Festis or Crowns of the world.’
‘But aren’t you people being them in a way? Just because they have cricketers and actors as endorsers, you want them too. Think different. It’s an era of differentiation.’
A telephone ring interrupted the meeting. Shinde went to Vikram Shah’s desk and received the call.
‘The contract that we hope to sign with you will be based on differentiation,’ said Vidu. ‘But at this stage, I can’t disclose much on the matter, bound as I am by various non-disclosure agreements with my company, pretty much like when actors can’t talk about their unreleased films.’
Shinde returned. ‘Kabir, Vikram Bhai will be here in a few minutes.’
After checking his watch—a stunning Royal Oak—Kabir slapped his thighs and said tersely, ‘Shinde will get back to you if I’m interested.’ He stood up.
‘I’ll wait, sir … Mr Shinde,’ said Vidu, standing up.
‘So Festi seems to be your foe number one, huh?’ said Kabir, as Vidu straightened his sherwani.
‘Just like it is yours, sir. Thank you for your time,’ said Vidu, as he and Baruni turned to leave.
Kabir gave a one-sided smile. The meeting, which was scheduled for thirty minutes, ended in an hour.
As Vidu and Baruni walked towards the door, the actor sat and watched. Vidu had the gait of a man of honour.
24
Panjim, Goa.
Paresh knew Leena Goswami so well. She was brave, enterprising, and ambitious. He knew she yearned to return to Mayford, but he would take her back only if she executed the task assigned to her well. He was sure she would do anything to give it her best shot. She was his best resource. A go-getter.
An evening before the scheduled meeting between Jaggi Balraj and the four Mayford board directors, Leena reached Panjim and checked into a hotel near Baga Beach. She changed into a pair of shorts and a white tank top, and left her room to execute the first thing on her list: meeting the front office executive.
He was a young man with light brown eyes and a small, sallow face. As he looked up, she smiled and showed her impeccable set of snow-white teeth.
‘Hello, ma’am. How can I help you?’
‘My name is Rita Dabral,’ Leena introduced herself, tilting her head in one direction.
‘Yes, ma’am, I know. You checked in half an hour back.’ Leena had submitted a copy of her forged identity card at the front desk when she arrived.
She saw a group of tourists coming towards the desk. ‘I need some help, Tony Alfonso,’ she said, glancing at the rectangular name tag pinned to the breast-pocket of his shirt. Parking her elbows on the desk and leaning forward, she whispered, ‘Can you come to my room? It’s personal … and important.’ She smiled, turned round, and trotted away towards the elevator.
Another one, thought Tony. In his seven-year hospitality career, he had had various encounters. The damsels had been there all the time, reducing him to nothing but a panderer. However, it was easy money along the way.
Leena’s doorbell rang sooner than she expected. She led him into the twenty-thousand-rupees-a-night room, sponsored by Shigeru Yamazaki.
‘Coffee?’ she asked, as Tony sat down on the sofa.
‘No thanks. I can have as many cuppas I want in this hotel. I’d appreciate if we get to the point as I have my duty to attend to,’ he said with an attitude of a very busy man.
‘Of course.’ She sat down on the bed. ‘To start with, this is not about what you have in mind,’ she clarified, her seductive mannerisms gone.
He sneered. All of them start the same way, creating a justifiable background.
‘What I need is a favour,’ she said.
‘What favour?’
‘Your hotel has booked five suites for Jaggi Balraj and others.’
Smart woman. She’s after the loaded ones. ‘How’re you concerned, Miss Dabral?’
‘I am here on a mission. The five men, who’ll be arriving tomorrow morning, are my subjects.’
‘Subjects?’ That’s a new one. ‘Come to the point. I’ve met many like you and brokered many deals.’
‘Tony, Tony. I am not what you think,’ she sang.
He was confused. ‘Why am I here then?’
Leena got up and walked to the other side of the bed. She unzipped her bag, extracted a blue-and-white cardboard box, and returned with it. ‘I have transmitters and receivers in it.’
‘You have what?’
‘Wait.’ She opened the box. Tony Alfonso couldn’t have been more anxious. ‘Here.’ She removed a set.
He gaped at the devices. The transmitter was smaller than a nose ring and its receiver was the size of a matchbox. ‘What are you trying to push me into, miss?’ He showed signs of running out of the room.
When Paresh had directed her to go to Goa, she had no option but to contact one of her friends, whose father owned and operated a detective agency in Bhikaji Cama Place, Delhi. The agency had some noted industrialists, politicians, and professionals as its clients. Its owner, a retired brigadier, advised her to use listening devices for her job—a bit old-fashioned but the safest way.
‘Stay calm. You have to get me the suits they’ll wear for the meeting tomorrow and I’ll bug all of them with these transmitters.’
‘Who’re you talking about?’ Tony stood up in slow motion.
‘Didn’t I just mention Balraj? I’m talking about him and the four others accompanying him.’
‘Are you out of your mind, woman? You … you … Who are you?’
‘That’s none of your business. Now don’t waste my time. If you don’t do it, someone else in the staff will
,’ she said, as if there were ten others desperately waiting to do the job. That was negative motivation—something she learnt from Paresh Menon.
‘Do I care?’ He walked towards the door.
‘You’re only going to miss a chance to earn in a day what you do in a month.’
He stopped, turned his short frame round, and slipped his hands into his pockets. ‘And what’s the offer?’
‘Twenty-five thousand,’ she answered regaining her confidence. Tony looked at her as if he were telling her to go home. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘That’s chicken feed. Is that what you think I earn in a month?’
‘You tell me, Tony boy. What’s your price?’
He carried out a rapid calculation in his mind and replied like a bidder at an auction, ‘One lakh.’
Leena reacted as if she had a better deal coming the next morning. ‘Oh, in that case, you may go. Ha! Do you even earn half as much?’ She got up abruptly, indicating the discussion was over.
Unaffected, he raised his chin and shot back, ‘That’s fine, Miss Rita Dabral. Bye.’
The receptionist was slithering out of her noose. Then she surprised herself, much less him, and reasoned, ‘But it’ll take you just a few minutes to do the job.’
Experience told Tony that when, despite a boorish show of disinterest by a party, the other side kept the dialogue open, the latter was either in dire need or new in business. Rita Dabral, he was sure, fell in both the categories. Maintaining his coldness, he said, ‘Can’t risk my career for nothing.’
‘Okay, fifty thousand. Done deal?’ She felt sickened by the way she negotiated.
‘You serious? You want me to help you bug those mighty industrialists for fifty thousand? What if they learn about this cheap operation of yours? It wouldn’t take them long to have both of us bumped off this planet. Nice meeting you, Miss Dabral, but I think I have a better price attached to my life.’ He paused. ‘However, I assure you, no one will ever learn about your operation.’
Leena took only a few seconds to interpret his words. What if he were to expose her to Balraj and his men? That possibility never occurred to her. She couldn’t afford to let him go. ‘All right!’ she shouted, seeing him touch the door knob. ‘Eighty thousand and that’s final, for heaven’s sake. I’m not carrying more cash. Peep into this bag and see for yourself.’
Tony strolled back to the sofa and sat down. Like a polished professional, he tapped his shoe on the floor. ‘Why do you want all five of them bugged? I think they are coming to Panjim for a business meeting and will sit together in a room. If you bug one, your purpose is solved. Am I wrong?’
‘Theoretically, you are right, but that’ll be risky. What if there is a technical snag in the device or the bugged man takes his jacket off? So we’ll bug all of them.’
He visualised his job. ‘How sure are you they’ll wear suits?’
‘These men always wear suits at work. Once you get them to me,’ she picked up the transmitter, ‘I’ll pin these under the lapels of their jackets.’ She showed him a small pin attached to the device.
‘Where’s the meeting? They haven’t booked a meeting room here.’
‘That’s something I am worried about. If their meeting place is up to two kilometres from here, the receivers with me will catch their voices without any clarity problem. If they meet farther away, I’ll have to follow them to maintain the listening range.’
‘I have a feeling they’ll go to Marina Houseboat.’
‘How do you know? How far is it?’
‘Most businessmen do it this way. They stay in this hotel and go to Marina for their meetings. The boat is permanently moored on Baga Beach, only a kilometre away from here.’
‘I hope they don’t go elsewhere. Then I can sit here and do my job peacefully, without any risk.’
‘When do I get my money, Miss Dabral?’ Tony rubbed his hands, the greed showing in his eyes.
‘Forty now and the balance after you finish the job.’ That, too, would be reimbursed by Shigeru.
‘Standard terms everywhere, huh?’
Leena handed him eighty five-hundred-rupee notes amounting to 50 per cent of the payout.
No one took special notice when Tony came to the hotel three hours early the next morning and took the elevator to Leena’s floor. He used her bathroom to change into a white silver-buttoned jacket and a pair of white trousers. He was now a laundry valet of the hotel. Then he strode out of the room on his mission and reached the second floor. Leena’s subjects were in suite 203 to 207. The floor was unlike others, its corridor broader and red-carpeted.
At 7.07 a.m., Tony pressed the bell to suite 203. Surendra Pal Singh opened the door. ‘Yes?’ he asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes.
‘Laundry, sir.’
Singh ambled back and returned with a suit for ironing.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Want it back in an hour.’
‘Sure, sir,’ said Tony courteously, and the old man shut the door.
The valet then headed to the next suite.
In less than twenty minutes, he returned to Leena’s room.
‘All done?’
‘Here.’ He threw a canvass bag onto the bed. ‘Rooms 204 and 207 haven’t given anything.’
‘Who are they?’
He took out a crumpled piece of paper from one of his pockets and read, ‘Manoj Sarraf and T.C. Virani.’ Touching the bag, he said, ‘Aren’t these three suits enough? It’s highly unlikely all three would take their jackets off.’
‘I have paid you for all five of them. Let’s renegotiate the price.’
‘Sorry. A done deal is a done deal. I went to all five and took the risk.’
Leena realised Tony Alfonso was not the sort of man who would agree to renegotiate. She took out an electric iron from her bag and ordered, ‘Iron them!’
Grumbling, Tony did the job on the three suits.
Leena then pinned a transmitter to the back of the lapel of each jacket. Tony carried them back to their respective suites, delivered them, and returned to Leena’s room for the balance payment.
Pocketing the notes, he asked, ‘Can I … er … Miss Dabral, keep one set of the listening devices?’
‘What for?’
‘Oh, I … uh … have a feeling my wife is … cheating on me. So …’
25
Leena was relieved, as the venue for the meeting was Marina Houseboat, a pontoon-type, double-decker boat moored on Baga Beach. The fifty-four-feet-long boat had four bedrooms with attached toilets and baths. A kitchen, a bar, and a dining area covered most of the lower deck. The upper deck was airy, with a meeting room at the centre. Jaggi Balraj had booked Marina for the whole day.
He was not so worried about the other directors on the Mayford board. He had found out that most of them waited for the buyout. It was the powerful group of four that was hard to handle. They were Surendra Pal Singh, a sixty-five-year-old man who owned one of the largest networks of television channels in the south-east Asian region; Manoj Sarraf, a fifty four-year-old owner of a flourishing liquor company; Rustom Patel, a fifty-year-old promoter of a textile company; and T.C. Virani, a private equity investor in his early seventies. Principally, the four directors were not against Shigeru Yamazaki, though they often complained about the hotel’s sad state of affairs. It was their trust Balraj had to win, so that they could approve his takeover bid. However, Balraj did not take long to learn that he was up against some of the most astute negotiators he had ever met in his life.
They sat around a long table in the room. In their expensive suits and ties, they looked out of place for the venue and the one person who was anguished about it was Virani—the oldest yet the most fashionable among them.
The meeting began at sharp ten in the morning. Balraj, in a cyber yellow suit, addressed the directors of the Mayford Ritz Hotel, ‘Friends, Mayford is bleeding and so are its shareholders. It’s my good luck that you stand by me in saving them from going naked on Dalal Str
eet. I’ve been following the stock price.’ He clutched his phone and flashed it at them. ‘It has dropped by sixty-two rupees in the past few weeks.’
‘Balraj, you have to be careful about the other directors. What if they don’t approve the buyout?’ cautioned Rustom Patel in his deep voice. He had a spotty face and hair woven to his bald scalp.
Manoj Sarraf, the owner of a distillery in Ambala, was a meticulous man. He spoke, ‘To add to what Rustom mentioned, the two Japanese on the board are Yamazaki’s old friends. They will never vote in your favour. Would they, Mr Singh?’ Sarraf turned to Surendra Pal Singh, the media man.
Singh, who had the vantage point of the whole thing, was silent. With his silver-white hair and beard, the man looked like a Greek sage. He commanded immense respect in business circles.
‘Mr Singh, anything you want to say?’ asked Balraj, scratching his aquiline nose.
‘Only one thing, Jaggi.’ He was angry. ‘Are we here to discuss others? Don’t we have more important concerns?’
‘For example?’ asked Balraj, offended by the old man’s tone.
‘All four of us are going to approve your takeover. Right?’
‘Right, at a price,’ added Balraj.
‘And the price you want to pay is much less than what we have lost in the share market over the years. Right?’ Singh addressed everyone this time.
All nodded except Balraj, who said, ‘That’s not how—’
‘You promised us you’d cover our losses,’ reminded Singh. ‘It’s time you honoured your words and paid us the right amount.’ Singh was the most influential among the Mayford directors present and the first one to agree to Balraj’s plan. What worried Balraj was the man’s ability to change others’ minds if he had his way.
‘Money sedates like nobody’s business,’ said Virani. Realising he was a bit overdressed for the venue in his Ermenegildo Zegna summer suit, he had taken off his perfumed jacket and loosened his tie to produce a casual look. With his tousled hair and slim, lined face, he looked more like an ageing rock star.